WESTERN BUREAU -- Canadian High Commissioner to Jamaica, Claudio Valle, yesterday warned that the island's farm work programme was being threatened by Jamaicans who try to smuggle drugs into that North American country, and others who fail to return home.

"For the first time..., in 2003, we had drugs found with some farm workers... this is unacceptable and is undermining the viability of the programme," Valle cautioned.

He was speaking at yesterday's opening ceremony of the Caribbean/Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers' Programme's yearly review meeting at the Half Moon Hotel in Montego Bay.

Two Jamaican farm workers, the High Commissioner said, were caught smuggling drugs into Canada this year and he made it clear that his country would not tolerate this.

Valle also said it was "unacceptable" that 1,100 Jamaicans who had participated in the Caribbean/Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers' Programme in the last six years had absconded.

"...This has to stop," Valle warned. "Otherwise, we will have to focus on those providers that have a better record."

The farm workers' programme has long been plagued by participants who fail to return home, with some opting to "run off" as soon as they arrive in the foreign country, and there have long been concerns that countries like the US and Canada would stop using Jamaicans. Some participants go to extreme lengths to get selected for these programmes, with the sole intention of absconding.

Based of the number of persons who do not comply with the conditions of their contract, the High Commissioner said yesterday, the selection process appeared to be faulty and he urged the government to be more careful in how it chooses participants.

"The number of persons who do not comply is a reflection that criteria other than agricultural competency are creeping into the system," Valle maintained.

Last year, 147 Jamaican workers absconded from the 37 year-old programme. That amount represented an almost fifty per cent increase over the previous year.

Those who have deserted the programme have created financial losses to both the Canadian and Jamaican governments, he told the Observer, and have deprived other genuine workers of benefiting from the programme.

"Some of those who arrive and do not stay on the farms.... we have to trace, catch and repatriate them and this costs a significant amount of money," Valle contended.

Others, he said, are not caught and "we don't know what they are doing".

Gary Cooper, the president of Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Service, which represents the employers who participate in the programme, also expressed concern about the high level of Jamaicans who have absconded.

He told the Observer that Jamaica has the highest number of persons in the Caribbean who desert the programme, and expressed fear that if the trend continues the Canadians might impose some restrictions that could be detrimental to workers and employers.

But Alvin McIntosh, the permanent secretary in the ministry of labour and social security, told the Observer that the government has already acknowledged the problems and is moving swiftly to implement corrective measures.

"We have taken note of the concerns and we are taking a number of initiatives to combat the problem," he said.

These, he said, include:

* a more meticulous system of selection;

* better orientation programme for the selected workers; and

* the enforcement of sanctions.

Last year 5,500 Jamaicans gained contracts to work on Canadian farms during the seasonal programme which lasted from February to November.

During that period the workers sent home J$787 million in remittances.

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