Migrant agricultural workers' deaths in Ontario from January 2020 to June 2021: a qualitative descriptive study.

BACKGROUND: Nine migrant agricultural workers died in Ontario, Canada, between January 2020 and June 2021. METHODS: To better understand the factors that contributed to the deaths of these migrant agricultural workers, we used a modified qualitative descriptive approach. A research team of clinical and academic experts reviewed coroner files of the nine deceased workers and undertook an accompanying media scan. A minimum of two reviewers read each file using a standardized data extraction tool. RESULTS: We identified four domains of risk, each of which encompassed various factors that likely exacerbated the risk of poor health outcomes: (1) recruitment and travel risks; (2) missed steps and substandard conditions of healthcare monitoring, quarantine, and isolation; (3) barriers to accessing healthcare; and (4) missing information and broader issues of concern. CONCLUSION: Migrant agricultural workers have been disproportionately harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Greater attention to the unique needs of this population is required to avoid further preventable deaths.

Is a vegetable garden essential? Toronto gardens as culinary infrastructure

A recurring debate in cities and in the literature is whether gardening food to eat is essential or recreational. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, some political jurisdictions closed gardens, deeming them non-essential to life – including the province of Ontario where fieldwork for this study was conducted. This paper analyzes mixed methods data generated pre-pandemic to understand the role of urban agriculture in the lives of gardeners in Toronto, Canada. When people produce food for the home, is their activity recreational or an essential source of food? We employ a social-ecological lens and find that gardening supported health and wellbeing and provided participants with an important food source, oftentimes culturally significant. Qualitative and quantitative data describes the rich experiences of gardener participants in the diverse city. We argue that gardens are essential and seeing them as part of culinary infrastructure makes space for nonmarket food production in food systems analyses. Viewing gardens as essential should prompt policy decisions, particularly during crises, which support social-ecological, nonmarket food sources as important parts of culinary infrastructure. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Food, Culture & Society is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)