Canada’s Caribbean Farm Workers Fear For Their Families and Homes

WILMOT TOWNSHIP, ON—Migrant farm workers in Canada could do nothing but watch, wait, and worry about their loved ones and the lives they’ve built back home as the record-breaking Hurricane Beryl tore through their home countries. The National Farmers Union (NFU) is highlighting the unequal impacts of climate change on the migrants who leave their home countries to work in Canada’s agricultural sector because of extreme weather. 

Countries participating in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) have seen their agricultural sectors, infrastructure, and economies upended by increasingly severe weather. These conditions are increasing interest in migratory labour programs like the SAWP. Many are making the devastating choice to leave their families and homes for Canada’s fields in search of survival and advancement. 

Every year, Jenn Pfenning, National Farmers Union President and operator of Pfenning’s Organic Farms, hires roughly 50 workers from Jamaica to work on her farm. Jamaica sent 10,000 workers in 2023 to Canadian farms through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Beryl hit Jamaica as a category 4 Hurricane, wreaking havoc on Jamaican farmland and flattening many of the island’s homes. 

“Most of the people facing this storm (many of whom have family members working on Canadian farms) are again the ones who have least contributed to the warming climate, and are being most directly impacted,” says Jenn Pfenning, President of the National Farmers Union (NFU) and operator of Pfenning’s Organic Farms. Pfenning’s hires around 50 workers from Jamaica to work on their farm, many of whom have family members directly impacted by the storm. “My guys are just devastated. We all are,” she adds.  

The NFU joins the Ontario Federation of Labour in advocating for heat stress legislation badly needed by workers in the agricultural sector. The NFU also calls for enhanced workers’ rights for all farm workers, and decisive climate action to address the escalating impacts of the climate crisis on agriculture and reduce fatality and injury rates in the sector. 

“Facing climate change in their home countries, and on Canadian farms, migrant workers are at the frontlines of the global climate crisis,” says Pfenning. “Canada, whose emissions contribute to global warming, directly benefits from the increased competition for these programs. We must ensure that the jobs these workers undertake in Canada’s agricultural sector are both safe and fair.” 

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