‘Our House to Yours’

The past 12 months has introduced a lifestyle many Canadians could not have predicted. The closing of businesses, remote learning, and heavily impacted industries; none more so than Hospitality and Foodservice, became the new normal.

A sector that has continued to show up since the beginning for Ontarians and all of Canada is that of Agriculture. Locally, our Greenhouse Operators ensured they implemented all Government standards to mitigate biosecurity risks on their farms.

By doing so, operations could continue, vegetables could be harvested, and Canadians could rely on our food supply.

By March of last year, as the initial shut-downs began, it meant that the greenhouse produce sector would be one of the first agricultural groups that would have to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

Immediately, the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers began guiding the fast-evolving regulatory requirements, best practices, planning tools, and support programming. The OGVG and our membership were early adopters for testing our workforce, to ensure we were keeping our farm workers safe, and from the very beginning we have worked with Public Health to develop protocols that would mitigate on-farm transmission risks.

However, outbreaks did occur. Even through many farms inspected were shown to have implemented the appropriate control and prevention measures, we recognize there is more to do. Our farmers are continuously striving for improvements. Our growers and OGVG leads have collaborated with municipal and provincial leaders to develop regional safety plans that would assist in creating action plans to protect the well-being of our workers and our community.

We continue to hold weekly COVID-19 information webinars to our growers to keep them up to date on the most current information, and have developed and delivered learning materials in various languages to ensure that everyone understands the importance of mask-wearing, social distancing and the importance of vaccinations.

OGVG and our farms have been working with the municipality and Public Health officials to ensure that our workers are able to get vaccinated and be further protected from falling ill.

Our farmers take to heart the responsibility to grow and supply food, and appreciate the work of all essential workers who have worked so hard alongside us to work through this pandemic, and will continue to grow through this challenge and any others that come our way.

We are proud members of our community, and take great pride in providing fresh vegetables for people near and far.