Migrant Farmworkers Awareness Week (MFAW) is an education and advocacy campaign led by grassroots community organizations, activists, and migrant justice scholars across so-called Vancouver. We aim to highlight the exploitative living and working conditions that many racialized migrant farmworkers face under Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Programs (TFWPs).
The week is designed to build public understanding, strengthen solidarity, create space for conversation, and lay the foundation for addressing structural barriers to the well-being and dignity of agricultural workers.
What’s Happening?
Throughout the week, community organizations and migrant justice scholars will co-host a diverse series of events including film screenings, lectures, community events, and workshops from experienced organizers. Our aim is to lead a diversity of events across various themes, content formats, and times of day/days of the week to improve inclusivity and accessibility.
In addition to local leadership in Vancouver, at SFU and UBC, we will host special guests working across Canada, the US, and Mexico. By bringing together community groups, allies, and guests with deep experience in organizing, MFAW aims to spark broad engagement and support for migrant farmworker justice as the new agricultural season starts in 2026.
Key Issues Farmworkers Face
Systematic Racial Discrimination
Migrant farmworkers are all racialized peoples from the Global South. Despite decades of research, advocacy, lobbying and organizing among diverse facets of the migrant worker movement, injustices continue to occur and even worsen. Workers from the Global South are treated as disposable and as subsidies by the Canadian government and the multi-billion-dollar agri-food industry.
Precarious Employment
Migrant farmworkers are tied to a single employer who can terminate their contracts without cause and deport them back to their home countries without any compensation, limiting their ability to speak out about issues on the farm. As a result, migrant workers have no labour mobility, cannot work for another employer nor sector and rely on their designated employer for work and housing no matter the quality (or lack thereof) provided.
A Lack of Basic Rights and Status
Migrant farmworkers pay into, but are excluded from accessing programs like Employment Insurance and Overtime Pay. They also face barriers to accessing health care and have few avenues to achieving permanent status in Canada. Thier lives in Canada are mired by a lack of basic rights, status, and exclusions.
Exposure to Climate Change
As the pressures of climate change worsen (more severe rainfall, longer and hotter droughts, wildfire smoke), workers are more exposed to their effects. With limited healthcare access and high job demands, workers are unable to attend to early warning signs of health issues, resulting in more severe health issues.
Poor Housing
Workers live on the farms where they work in employer-provided housing. Standards are lacking, and enforcement is weak, resulting in sub-standard and crowded housing. Workers lack a safe place for recovery and privacy, even off the clock. On-farm housing extends employers’ policing, surveillance, and control over workers’ intimate and social lives.
Coordinating Committee
