Canada’s agriculture sector, which suffers from a chronic labor shortage, warns that increased absenteeism linked to the highly contagious Omicron variant could put strain on the country’s food production systems.
Signs of fatigue are already visible. A Quebec slaughterhouse chose to euthanize thousands of chickens that could not be processed this week due to a prolonged staff shortage, which it attributed to the increase in COVID-19 infections in the among its employees and federal delays in processing temporary foreign worker applications.
Mushroom farms across the country are facing ‘unprecedented’ levels of absenteeism, which threaten the very survival of some operators, says Janet Krayden, labor specialist at the Canadian Mushroom Association .
And the western Canadian beef industry is closely monitoring the condition of Alberta’s large meat processing facilities, which so far remain operational during this latest wave of viruses, but which have been the site of some of the largest outbreaks in the country in 2020.
According to the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Mary Robinson, very few aspects of food production are not vulnerable to labor shortages and disruptions associated with COVID.
“Dairy farms are a concern. Cows need to be fed, they need to be treated, they need to be cared for, she noted. The hog industry is a concern – you can’t stop a sow from farrowing. We are going to give birth to thousands and thousands of animals, we cannot slow this down. “
The rural and isolated nature of agricultural jobs and the physical nature of the work are two of the reasons for a chronic and long-standing labor shortage in Canadian agriculture. In 2014, primary agricultural producers lost $ 1.4 billion in potential sales due to the inability to find workers, Robinson said.
That figure rose to 2.9 billion in 2020, largely due to the impact of COVID-19 on the challenges of the industry’s workforce, she added.
“We have lost almost 4% of total sales in the sector,” said Mr.me Robinson. These are lost opportunities for the whole country. “
Due to difficulties in attracting local workers, the agriculture industry has long relied on temporary foreign workers and immigrants to fill positions in feedlots, greenhouses and processing plants.
Butme Krayden clarified that federal processing of work permits had almost come to a standstill during COVID-19, with some farms forced to wait up to seven months for approvals. She added that the proportion of unfilled positions in some mushroom farms was now approaching 40%.
“This makes it very difficult for any business to survive, and especially our food system,” said M.me Krayden. Unless governments put in place long-term strategies so that we can continue to function and produce food, we will start to see less and less Canadian-grown food on the shelves. “
Fewer outbreaks in meat plants
In 2020, COVID-19 outbreaks at meat processing facilities in Alberta sickened hundreds of workers and killed four. The outbreaks also caused temporary plant closures that left western Canadian beef slaughter capacity at about 25% of normal.
Cargill and JBS Canada said Thursday that their production capacity was not affected during the Omicron wave. JBS spokesman Cameron Bruett said the Brooks, Alta. Plant has not seen a significant increase in the number of cases, while Cargill spokesman Daniel Sullivan said that the number of cases at the company’s facilities in High River, Alta., “tended to fluctuate with community data.”
According to the president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Bob Lowe, factories have put in place numerous safety precautions since that first deadly wave, and the two companies have organized vaccination campaigns for their workers, which have been successful.
He added that the decision by some provinces, including Alberta, to reduce mandatory isolation periods to five days for vaccinated workers with COVID, should help reduce pressure on factories.
Still, Lowe said the industry is monitoring the situation very closely. Plant closures in the spring of 2020 resulted in a large backlog of ready-to-market cattle, which suddenly had nowhere to go. According to industry estimates, at the height of the crisis, Canadian feedlot operators were losing $ 500,000 a day by paying to feed and keep cattle that would normally be ready for slaughter.
“You get a bottleneck if something happens, as we found out,” Lowe said. So we’re watching this very closely and we’re just keeping our fingers crossed. “
Quebec-based Olymel, which operates about 40 pork and chicken processing plants in Canada, is seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases among its employees, its spokesperson Richard Vigneault said.
In some cases, he said, the increase in the number of cases leads to reduced production speeds.
“If the contamination with Omicron continues to intensify, it is not impossible that there will be disruptions in our activities, but we are not there yet,” Vigneault said in an email.
He added that Olymel was working with Quebec public health authorities to put in place a safe return to work protocol for asymptomatic contact cases among employees.