Giving Compass' Take:

• Kate Hooper and Camille Le Coz describe how countries are tackling seasonal labor and agriculture after borders close to contain COVID-19.

• What might be the implications if we can't solve this issue soon? How can you help support those without sufficient resources?

• Learn more about how you can help communities in need.

As the world faces a pandemic of historic proportions, governments face an array of time-sensitive policy questions. One of the more pressing ones: who is going to produce the food that their populations need? In many highly developed countries, the agriculture and horticulture sectors have long relied on foreign workers amid difficulties recruiting locally for seasonal roles such as planting and harvesting crops. But as countries close their borders or introduce travel restrictions, seasonal workers are unable to enter and agricultural producers in countries such as Canada, the United States, Belgium, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand are projecting dire labor shortages, with serious implications for food security.

To avoid critical crop losses, governments are exploring a combination of three measures, two of which touch on immigration policymaking:

  • redeploying residents to take on these roles
  • expanding the stay of foreign seasonal workers already present, and
  • issuing exemptions to continue admitting foreign seasonal labor.

Each scenario requires governments to put public health considerations front and center: for example, how to screen arriving and returning workers to avoid community transmission of the virus, how to implement social distancing in a context of labor-intensive farming, how to provide adequate access to paid sick leave and health care for such workers, and how to support those stranded in destination countries by new travel restrictions.

Read the full article about border shutdowns and seasonal labor by Kate Hooper and Camille Le Coz at Migration Policy Institute.