Fruit and vegetable growers recognize seasonal workers' management service

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

The organization that manages the seasonal agricultural worker program has won the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association Award of Merit this year for its contribution to the horticulture sector.

Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Service (FARMS) was given the award at the association’s banquet Monday night, part of its annual general meeting under way this week in Niagara Falls.

FARMS president Ken Forth says he didn’t have any idea “this was coming. None.”

He considers it a great honour that FARMS was selected. “The Award of Merit from the Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, in my mind, is one of the highest awards that anybody can ever win.”

Association CEO Art Smith says in a press release the service FARMS provides to the horticultural industry is invaluable and “the organization is a very deserving winner of this award.”

Without the work of FARMS, the seasonal agricultural worker program wouldn’t be in place and Ontarians wouldn’t be able to enjoy many of the province’s great locally grown fruits and vegetables, he says.

The seasonal agricultural worker program was launched in the 1960s when a group of Jamaican workers arrived in Ontario to work on horticultural farms. About 20,000 workers currently come to Canada each year from Mexico and the Caribbean through the seasonal agricultural worker program and many have been working on the same farm for 20 or 30 years, according to the association’s press release.

FARMS was formed in 1987 to manage the program’s administration, including looking after the transportation of workers to and from Canada and negotiating the terms and conditions of employment with both the Canadian and host governments.

Forth says the association’s award shows recognition for what people do “and I guess they recognize FARMS has done a lot in 25 years and they gave us their appreciation and the recognition.” He has been on the FARMS board since 1992 and has been president for eight years.

The association’s Award of Merit is presented annually to an individual or organization that has made outstanding contributions to the fruit and vegetable industry. BF