MONTREAL -- Every day that goes by brings Quebec strawberry producers closer to a looming problem: the ripening of their own crops.

They’re worried they may lose a lot of strawberries this year—because, with only half the number of migrant workers as usual on the ground, they don’t have enough people to pick them.

“Usually, to have our strawberies at the Jean-Talon Market at seven, eight in the morning, we need to start picking at 5:30 a.m., says farmer Philippe Beauregard. 

“It’s not a [schedule] that Quebecers are used to anymore.” 

Beauregard has tried to diversify the crops on his Rougemont farm to manage the lack of experienced staff. The farm now has varied produce in order to stagger its harvests, so that its labour needs are spread over many months.

But that still won’t be quite enough, he says. It’s going to be a u-pick bonanza.

“In a few weeks from now, the fields will be gorgeous,” Beauregard says. “We just need you onsite to pick your own fruits and vegetables.”

He may speak lightly, but the matter is a serious one. For agricultural producers, pick-your-own operations usually represent a small percentage of the overall business. Le Potager Mont-Rouge is only going the agro-tourism route, encouraging customers to come onto the farm, because it risks losing some of its crop.

One of the country’s biggest strawberry producers is located in Ste-Anne-des-Plains. The company, called Fraisebec, says it’s very worried abou the season, with 45 per cent of its normal workforce missing.

Fraisebec says that as much as a quarter of this season’s crop could be lost.

Migrant workers have been coming to Canada in smaller numbers this season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which involves a new host of health risks, and for employers, the need to take new safety measures for the workers.

In southern Ontario, an asparagus farm recently saw at least 164 of its migrant workers become infected with COVID-19. The farm said it risked losing much of the harvest.

Near Windsor, also in southern Ontario, two migrant workers recently died from the virus—a 31-year-old man and a 24-year-old.

Beauregard, however, sees one upside to his temporary solution of expanding the u-pick option. P

“There's five times more customers at the farm shop, and there's a lot of new faces,” says Beauregard. That also means the farm has a chance to educate customers on how their produce is grown.

The other issue worrying him right now, he says, is not one that any public health officials can fix. “We need some rain!”