JULY 2018
CELEBRATING 139 YEARS AS CANADA’S PREMIER HORTICULTURAL PUBLICATION
THEGROWER.ORG
LABOUR WOES
Growers caught short-handed for hand harvesting
Canada’s sweet cherry harvest is about to start in British Colombia and Ontario. However, there’s a worry that not enough workers will be available for hand harvesting the highly perishable crop. Delays by Service Canada in processing seasonal agricultural workers from Mexico and the Caribbean are fraying the nerves of growers. Fortunately, Adolphus Joseph, a Trinidadian, is one of 45 offshore workers who has arrived safely at Lakelee Orchards, Jordan Station, Ontario. He’s been coming for six years. Photos by Glenn Lowson. KAREN DAVIDSON Cherish the cherry pickers because their numbers are heartbreakingly limited in Canada. Tree planters for the forestry service, Canadian-born, do well transitioning to picking cherries. Otherwise, seasonal agricultural workers from Mexico and the Caribbean have the back for this work.
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Nowhere is the crisis more pronounced than in British Columbia’s Okanagan, Similkameen and Creston Valleys where sweet cherry production is expanding to about 4,500 acres. But in Ontario’s Niagara peninsula, where cherry production is shrinking and about four per cent of B.C.’s industry, it’s the cost of workers that is the competitive issue. Two growers, on either sides of
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the country, share their stories. Lakelee Orchards, owned by Ron Troup, is one of the largest growers of sweet cherries in Ontario with 16 acres. But he’s quit renting one property and is now marketing two-thirds of historical volumes from home base at Jordan Station. “Last year was a tough year,” says Troup. “We had a great crop but ended
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up juicing some cherries. That’s kinda sad.” The Ontario chain stores pre-order American product whose volumes pressure prices of local product. With rising minimum wages, there is no incentive to increase acreage for the high-input crop. Continued on page 3
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