March 26, 2020

Canada’s Agriculture Sector Needs Temporary Foreign Workers

The Western Canadian Wheat Growers call for an adjustment in the newly invoked travel restrictions that were put in place this week. The new rules put in place to combat COVID-19 are necessarily far-reaching but have also put our food value chain at risk.

March 24, 2020

Jobs still available on farms, industry groups say

Western Canadian Wheat Growers executive director Dave Quist said food security is of the “upmost importance” in the current COVID-19-induced shutdown. “The Western Canadian Wheat Growers are supportive of hiring Canadians whenever and wherever possible,” he said in an email to iPolitics, though added that grain farmers require many trained skills for technical equipment, horticulture expertise [...]

March 20, 2020

Farmers say time running out for foreign workers in limbo as confusion reigns over coronavirus travel

Kenton Possberg, a grain farmer in Saskatchewan and director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, said wheat and oilseed growers rely on thousands of workers on visas who arrive in the spring for seeding season.

March 18, 2020

Temporary foreign workers exempt from Canada’s travel ban

Farms’ TFW needs include over 1,400 “specifically for oilseed and grain farming,” the Western Canadian Wheat Growers said in a separate statement Wednesday. “All the same self-isolation measures should continue to be in place for any TFW coming into the country, similar to any Canadian that is returning to Canada,” WCWG Saskatchewan director Kenton Possberg [...]

March 18, 2020

Migrant workers help grow our food. Coronavirus is leaving them in limbo.

Kenton Possberg, a grain farmer in Saskatchewan and director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, said wheat and oilseeds growers in the Prairie provinces are also worried about the impact the travel ban will have on their labour force.

March 18, 2020

Canada’s Agriculture Sector Needs Temporary Foreign Workers

Calgary, AB: The Western Canadian Wheat Growers call for an adjustment in the newly invoked travel restrictions that were put in place this week. The new rules put in place to combat COVID-19 are necessarily far reaching, but have also put our food value chain at risk. It is estimated that Canada needs approximately 60,000 […]