Community
Food and labour justice for all: a public invitation
Buying locally? Thank migrant farmworkers. At a time of international precarity brought on by tariffs and geopolitical instability, supporting local economies is top of mind, but the workers behind those goods are not.
Thousands of migrant farm workers, whose hands and bodies are at the frontline of protecting Canadian food security and uplifting Canada’s agricultural sector, face disproportionate food insecurity, are denied access to permanent residency, and are frequently injured or ill due to the back‑breaking and hazardous work. Closed work permits tie them to a single employer, preventing them from changing jobs and leaving them vulnerable to deportation for speaking up about abuses or poor conditions.
These structural conditions led the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery to describe Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Programs as “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.”
Global conversations around migrant farmworkers’ rights have led to the creation of Migrant Farmworker Awareness Week, which aims to inform the public, raise awareness, and propel change and collective action. The event which has a long history in the United States but is not widely observed in Canada.
In 2026, this changes. Thanks to two SFU faculty members and their community collaborators, Migrant Farmworker Awareness Week will be observed for the first time in B.C. from March 23-31.
Leading this progress are Dr. Evelyn Encalada Grez (Assistant Professor, SFU Labour Studies) and Dr. Tammara Soma (Associate Professor, SFU School of Resource & Environmental Management). Soma co-founded the Food Systems Lab, Canada’s first social innovation lab tackling food loss and food waste. Encalada Grez is co-founder of Justice for Migrant Workers in Ontario, which was the first organization in Canada to observe Migrant Farmworker Awareness Week.
Together, Grez and Soma are committed to bringing this important movement to SFU and to B.C. Working in collaboration with community organizations such as Migrant Workers Centre, Justicia BC, the BC Federation of Labour, the International Migrants Alliance, and Bici Libre, there will be a series of events and in‑class lectures from March 23 to 31 at SFU, UBC, and KPU, as well as activities with migrant farmworkers in rural townships.
SFU’s key event, Food and Labour Justice for All, on March 26, 2026, will be in-person, free, and open to the public. This very special event will feature Gabriel Allahdua, a former migrant farmworker from St. Lucia and author of Harvesting Freedom: The Life of a Migrant Worker in Canada, and Aaraón Díaz Mendiburo, an anthropologist and filmmaker from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
