Harvesting Labour

In recent decades an increasing share of Canada’s agricultural workforce has been made up of temporary foreign workers from the Global South. These labourers work difficult and dangerous jobs with limited legal protections and are effectively barred from permanent settlement in Canada.In Harvesting Labour Edward Dunsworth examines the history of farm work in one of Canada’s underrecognized but most important crop sectors – Ontario tobacco. Dunsworth takes aim at the idea that temporary foreign worker programs emerged in response to labour shortages or the unwillingness of Canadians to work in agriculture. To the contrary, Ontario’s tobacco sector was extremely popular with workers for much of the twentieth century, with high wages attracting a diverse workforce and enabling thousands to establish themselves as small farm owners. By the end of the century, however, the sector had become something entirely different: a handful of mega-farms relying on foreign guest workers to produce their crops. Taking readers from the leafy fields of Ontario’s tobacco belt to rural Jamaica, Barbados, and North Carolina and on to the halls of government, Dunsworth demonstrates how the ultimate transformation of tobacco – and Canadian agriculture writ large – was fundamentally a function of the capitalist restructuring of farming.Harvesting Labour brings together the fields of labour, migration, and business history to reinterpret the historical origins of contemporary Canadian agriculture and its workforce.

“This book provides an impressive and detailed historical examination of labour developments in the tobacco sector in Norfolk County, Ontario, from the early 1900s to the present. Clearly argued and written with flair, Harvesting Labour is an outstanding example of how to set Canadian history within transnational contexts. Salient among its many strengths is the way this study sheds light on current debates about the situations faced by those in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program.” Ruth Frager, McMaster University, “Harvesting Labour is a significant and timely contribution to the historiography of modern North American and transnational labor. Future Canadian, European, American, and Caribbean labor historians will use this work as a key piece of their own studies, and the work will also be enjoyed by a general audience as it is captivating and exceptionally readable. It is highly recommended for anyone interested in agricultural and labor history, as well as Canadian history in general.” H-Environment

Edward Dunsworth is assistant professor of history at McGill University