Drop in farm workers

FEWER?THAN?200 Barbadians found jobs last year with the Canadian Farm?Labour Programme – down from a peak of more than 1000 in the 1980s – mainly because of the global economic crisis.
Consul General in Toronto, Dr Leroy McClean, said efforts to create opportunities for unemployed Barbadianson the programme had been thwarted by the closure, sale or downsizing of several farms.
Speaking during the annual review at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (LESC) McClean said the programme, which expanded from 218 people in 1967 to more than 1 000 in the late 1980s, fell to 169 last year.
He was, however, heartened that five of those workers had found places in British Colombia for the first time last year, and people were being requested again this season.
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