Covid-19: Mexico keeps migrant workers home

Bloomberg

Mexico plans to keep migrant workers from travelling to Canada amid a wave of coronavirus outbreaks on farms, threatening a labour squeeze in the northern nation’s fruit and vegetable industry as harvests start to ramp up.
There will be a “temporary pause” on migrant workers travelling to Canada while protocols and sanitary situations are reviewed, Daniel Millan, a spokesman for Mexico’s Foreign Ministry, said in an email. The move comes amid concerns there are inadequate protections to keep workers safe from Covid-19 after two workers died and hundreds fell ill on farms in Ontario.
“It’ll be a huge problem,” said Joelle Faulkner, chief executive officer of Area One Farms, an alternative asset management firm in Toronto. “Even places that do have enough labour for spring may not have enough labour for fall.”
Outbreaks among farm workers have been reported in Canada and the US, a risk for harvests just as the countries head into the peak of summer produce season.