Just over 1,000 applications will be accepted this year
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is making changes to the Agri-Food Pilot program for 2025.
On Jan. 3, the ministry announced it is capping the number of accepted applications at 1,010.
Of that number, IRCC will accept up to 1,000 online applications and 10 submitted through other methods.
The program, announced as a three-year-pilot in May 2020, helps employees in multiple ag sectors fill ongoing labour needs while also providing a pathway to permanent residency for many temporary foreign workers already in Canada.
Since the program’s inception, it has accepted up to 2,750 applications per year.
But IRCC made the change due to high demand and interest, saying it exceeds the spaces available under the 2025-2027 Immigration Levels Plan.
The program will accept applications until May 14, or until 1,010 applications have been received – whichever comes first.
And this is the last year of the program’s existence.
“The Agri-Food Pilot is an economic pilot established under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,” IRCC says. “According to the pilot regulations, it can only run for a maximum of 5 years, and this time period will be reached on May 14, 2025. The pilot cannot be extended beyond this date.”
The number of temporary foreign workers employed on Canadian farms has increased each year between 2020 and 2023.
That year, Canadian operations hired 55,171 workers. By 2023 that number had grown to 70,267.
Farms.com contacted Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services, which helps farms bring in seasonal workers, for comment on the cap and if it could be concerning for farmers.