The Food we Eat--Why White People are Complicit in the Migrant Worker COVID-19 Crisis

BIPOC protests of late, if they have taught the dominant white, ruling culture anything, should have taught us that everyday our privilege blinds us to all that goes on behind the scenes in order for us to live our privileged lives with the comparatively relative ease with which we live them.

This, and that racism kills.

The migrant worker COVID-19 crisis in Ontario is a perfect example of how we have collectively, as a culture, turned a blind eye to the means of production of the agricultural products we consume leaving the workers (overworked and under-supported already) to fend for themselves while the privileged reap the benefits of their hard labour. (Easily accessible --relative to the labour-- cheap foods/goods.) All of these problems are rooted in the industrialization of agriculture and are not easy to untangle from the capitalistic economic system which overlords our entire civilization. The migrant worker crisis is but one symptom of a very tired and unsustainable system.

I like to eat. So too does everyone I know. I also think a lot about the food I purchase, who grows it and how it was grown.

Concerns about pesticide usage in much of mainstream agriculture brought me many years ago to reconsider where the food I purchase comes from, who grows it and how.

Rising worries about climate change with its inherent changing weather patterns disrupting growing conditions as well as its ever increasing storms which can damage crops and interrupt supply chains keep me thinking about these questions. So too does the knowledge that we live on an Island whose dominant agriculture sector is very dependent on exporting mono-culture crops to a global market place rather than looking to feeding our own population first (of whom 25 % of children live in food insecure households). Any wonder we suddenly had lots of potatoes, cabbage and milk to hand out to some of those in need when the pandemic shut the borders and decimated demand to our export markets. Were vulnerable Islanders, and Canadians in general, any less hungry knowing there was food likely going to rot/being dumped?

It doesn't take a lot of thought to then wonder about the feasibility of growing food for a growing population. Who does the work of this, under what conditions, and who benefits the most from this work?

The knowledge that there are real labour issues in the agriculture sector soon brings about the realization that our food system is very dependent upon the labour of migrant/temporary foreign workers. These persons travel far from their homes and families in order to find work doing hard labour jobs which the local population are largely unwilling to do and for low pay. Oftentimes their living and working conditions do not meet acceptable standards. These persons, by their very existence as labourers here in Canada, oftentimes undocumented, are vulnerable persons.

I read recently about the devastating COVID-19 outbreak among migrant workers in the Windsor-Essex agricultural region in Ontario. Three deaths of migrant workers in recent weeks have brought the issue to the media's attention. Every time I read another story about the escalating humanitarian (farm worker) crisis there my heart breaks for the workers living out this nightmare in real time. Far from family and home, often facing language barriers and fears of losing employment if they admit to being ill or test positive for COVID-19 all conspire to create a horrible scenario for those migrant workers involved. It also makes me wonder how far away the Atlantic region and our own province might be from a similar scenario unfolding here in the future.

Thankfully there are good, honest people working hard both here and in Ontario to awaken us all to the seriousness of these concerns.

COVID-19 has certainly exposed the cracks in all the systems which many too willingly cast a blind eye to in the past. Unfortunately, sickeningly, those most vulnerable to slipping unnoticed between these system cracks are falling prey to the novel coronavirus at at rate which far outstrips those living more food and income secure lives (Read- those in white privileged ruling middle class).

Perhaps if supply chains struggle to fill grocery store shelves this coming fall (if enough workers get sick and unethical legislation such as that which Doug Ford has implemented in Ontario allowing those farm workers who have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus but are asymptomatic to continue working continues) those of us still too caught in our own privilege will begin to wonder--who grows the food I eat and under what conditions? Why should my perceived right to food supersede an others right to good living and working conditions for fair pay and access to proper PPE as well as health care in their first language?

Can't we ensure that everyone's needs are well and fairly met? Wouldn't this be a greater indicator of an advanced civilization than ownership of large flat screen tv's and handheld cellular devices?

And so my family and I grow a small vegetable patch which helps support our household and we choose to support local agriculture when and where we can despite not having a large disposable income to do so. We choose to spend our money supporting growers here and thereby improving local food security and do so instead of spending this money on other things. But we also still buy imported foods most likely grown and harvested in unethical unsustainable ways. We must therefore admit our privilege in order for any reconciliation and positive change to occur.

Addendum: Huge thanks to Aaron Koleszar for his outstanding efforts at securing access to local organic foods for Islanders during the pandemic and adding an option for food aid donations to his site. Similar thanks to Maple Bloom Farms for similar efforts and to many other wonderful local producers. And to all Island growers I wish you a well and good growing season.

Humbly and in hope,

Jill