this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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Oof! Hello, fellow Ontarian here. I had no idea this was the case for Ontario farm workers! Is it common for people to be paid less than minimum wage and not get breaks? Is it just for specific times of year (ie harvesting) or for the entire growing season?
This may sound weird, but: thanks for the work you do in agriculture and feeding us! ๐ I'm in / from Toronto, and try to buy local when I can.
I work on a small farm and am treated well but my understanding is that the big farms that supply the grocery stores employ almost exclusively underpaid temporary foreign workers (TFW). A lot of the farms that sell at farmers markers also employ underpaid TFWs or idealistic young people who will work for food, a room to sleep in, and a $50 a week allowance.
Ah, TFWs. If you go by the news, neither big farms nor Tim Horton's can survive without them. I'm glad you're treated well. It pains me to think about how much exploitation is in the industry.
It's a dream of mine (and a handful of friends) to start a commune / cooperative farming thing (closer to the hobby side of things) east of Toronto once we pool enough money, so insights into the industry are fascinating to me. And yeah, we know it's going to be more work and recurring failures than we can possibly imagine (especially to start) but we're determined and going to be diligent in research and preparation before we jump into it.
I don't really know how to feed everyone without TFWs either, to be honest. They really are so much better at this work than any local Canadians I've met, myself included. And people are only willing/able to spend so much on their food. I'm paid better than most farm workers because my boss is idealistic and willing to pay himself very little in order to pay us more and sell at a price regular people can afford, not just wealthy people. He can only get away with paying himself so little because he lives in an off-grid cabin and I'm pretty sure his parents are rich. It's a nice job for me and we do feed quality produce to people who normally couldn't afford it, but it's only about 200 people. Places like this aren't going to feed all of Canada.
I hope you get your farm one day, though. It feels good feeding people.
Editing just to clarify that I don't think it's okay to treat TFWs like we do. People need to be paid and treated properly regardless of where they come from.
We should absolutely normalise thanking those who work to produce our food.