Valid student and work visas to come into Canada will be respected during the COVID-19 crisis, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Friday, as she cut through some of the confusion that has gripped the nation’s agricultural sector this week.

Canadian farms employ tens of thousands of migrant workers, many from Mexico and Central America, whose labour is critical to producing Canadian-grown crops.

When the federal government announced it was closing Canadian border to international visitors as a measure to limit the spread of the virus, farmers and the agricultural associations that represented them panicked.

March is when crops are planted and vines are pruned. Within weeks, farms usually welcome a legion of foreign farmhands who stay until harvest is complete.

For several decades, farmers have become increasingly reliant on foreign workers, according to Debra Hauer, manager of labour market information for the Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council (CAHRC). As farms get bigger, the skills needed for farming change with technology, and the Canadian labour demographic also changes.

Hauer said farms will be faced with difficult decisions if their usual labour force doesn’t arrive. For some, it could mean working more, or changing their crops, or planting less.

Canadian food production and supply will be affected for more than a year, especially fruits and vegetables. Farmers will have to delay or cancel upgrades and businesses will face job losses.

The federal government has announced it will provide augmented credit through Farm Credit Canada. However, farmers say the issue at hand is not about funding, but getting crops into the ground. Without foreign labour, Canada’s food security would be at risk, they said.

The matter became confused earlier this week when Ernie Hardeman, Ontario’s minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs, sent out a Wednesday email to stakeholders saying the workers will not face the same restrictions placed on other travellers to Canada.

Citing federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair, Hardeman said the workers would be allowed into Canada, but would need to be isolated for 14 days.

Later Wednesday, however, industry leaders in British Columbia found their elation turn to ash when they were told Ottawa would only permit American workers into Canada.

If true, that would still leave farms drastically short-handed because most of the workforce, which is nearly 60,000 people strong according to a recent report from the Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council, hails from south of the United States.

At a Friday news briefing, however, Freeland said valid work and student visas, including those arriving as temporary foreign workers, would be respected by Canada, at the Canadian-U.S. border and international borders.

The workers will have to self-isolate for 14 days, Freeland said, “just like anyone returning to Canada.”

However, exactly how that isolation will work was not made clear Friday.

Most of the farm labourers live in workers’ camps, often in trailers or other cramped accommodations that do not permit the kind of social-distancing health experts say is necessary to limit the spread of the virus.

Where these workers will be isolated, or how large farms will handle COVID-19 cases after the workers arrive, has not been determined.

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Some 8,000 migrant farm workers are already in Ontario, with another 13,000 expected in the coming weeks.

—With files from the Toronto Star