Berry pickers arrive in Finland, but will they be safe from Covid? | Yle Uutiset

It’s a little after 4.30 a.m. when the first charter flight from Kiev lands at Kuopio Airport.

The plane is full of Ukrainian seasonal workers who have to start working on Finnish farms. They take their first coronavirus test immediately after passport control. They also pass a test three days later, otherwise the workers would have to be quarantined for two weeks before starting their work as farm workers.

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14 more charter flights like this are expected to arrive in Kuopio in the coming weeks. In addition to Kuopio, workers will also be airlifted to Helsinki and Turku in June and July. In total, more than 30 charter flights will be operated from Kiev to Helsinki.

More than 10,000 berry pickers on the way

Many Suonenjoki strawberry farms have Ukrainian workers at work since spring, including the Metsäpello berry farm. A team of thirteen Ukrainians work on the farm, installing the tunnels under which the berries grow.

The number of workers in Metsäpello will soon multiply, with the arrival of more than 10,000 foreign berry pickers in Finland. About one in five will come to the Suonenjoki region.

“In total, we will have 60 to 70 seasonal workers on hand”, it is estimated Pauliina Kovanen, owner of Metsäpello.

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Quarantine plans

Berry operations must establish a special health and safety plan for seasonal workers coming to work in Finland. The farm must submit the contact details of the foreign workers to the municipal doctor responsible for communicable diseases, and at the same time, they must think in advance about what to do if one of the workers on the farm becomes ill with the coronavirus.

“It has to do with how accommodation and working arrangements will be organized,” Kovanen explains.

Kovanen has already reserved a building for people with symptoms of coronavirus to self-isolate. The building has bedrooms, as well as separate showers and toilets

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“Nobody is watching”

Although an infection control plan is a requirement for any farm using foreign labor, the quality of the plans can vary widely.

“You see all kinds. There are detailed plans, plans longer than ten pages, but also handwritten one-page plans,” explains Irja Vehniäinen, nurse specializing in infectious diseases at the Sisä-Savo Healthcare Association.

It is mandatory for a farm to have a plan, but it is not mandatory to submit the plan to the health authority. There is no mechanism in place to monitor whether or not a farm has developed a coronavirus case management plan.

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What happens then?

“Well, that’s the problem. I can’t answer that,” says Vehniäinen.

The question gives pause to Pauliina Kovanen, owner of a berry farm.

“Unfortunately, there are all kinds of people in business, so anything is possible.”

According to Kovanen, there has been a lot of publicity and there are also detailed instructions on how to come up with a plan.

“The bar has been set very low,” she said.

The responsibility lies with the farmers

Sirpa Lintunen also considers the risks of not having a plan. She represents Töitä Suomesta, a company that facilitates the use of foreign agricultural workers in Finland.

“No one wants a chain of infection to spread across a farm. It would be a very bad publicity for the area,” she says.

“I trust the farmers’ sense of responsibility in this matter.”

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The Metsäpello berry farm, for its part, is assuming that it may not be possible to completely avoid cases of the coronavirus.

“It is very likely that such cases will occur. We have to prepare for it, ”says farm owner Kovanen.