Agriculture Category Draws Versus the Agri-Food Pilot: Two Different, Both Gone
On 28 September 2023, Express Entry drew invitations from a brand-new agriculture and agri-food occupations category for the first time — 600 of them, at a CRS cut-off of 354. On 14 May 2025, an entirely separate programme called the Agri-Food Pilot closed its doors for good. Both had “agriculture” in the name. Both are now routes you cannot currently use. They were never the same programme, and setting the agriculture category draws versus the Agri-Food Pilot side by side matters if you’re researching either one from South Africa.
The Express Entry category: three draws, then gone
The agriculture and agri-food occupations category was one of six categories introduced when category-based selection launched in May 2023. It ran three rounds in total: 600 invitations at CRS 354 in September 2023, 400 at CRS 386 in December 2023, and a final, smaller round of 150 at CRS 437 in February 2024. That was it. When IRCC announced its 2025 categories that February, agriculture wasn’t among them — only French-language proficiency, health care and social services, trades and a newly added education category continued. By the time IRCC published its ten current categories for 2026, agriculture and agri-food had been formally dropped from the list altogether. If you’re reading advice that treats this as a live route into Express Entry, it’s describing something that stopped existing in early 2024.
The Agri-Food Pilot: a separate programme, and a hard end date
Confusingly, a completely different immigration pathway also used “agri-food” in its name: the Agri-Food Pilot, a stand-alone permanent-residence programme (not an Express Entry category) that ran from 2020 to 2025, capped at 2,750 applications a year. Its own programme page now states plainly that it ended on 14 May 2025 after reaching its five-year maximum duration, and that it was not renewed. Applications submitted before that date are still being processed; nothing new goes in.
What’s left once both are closed
With both the category and the pilot closed, there isn’t currently a dedicated federal agriculture or agri-food immigration route to point to. That doesn’t mean every door is shut — provinces run their own employer-driven nomination streams across various sectors, agriculture sometimes among them, and Canada does maintain a separate Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program for temporary farm labour, which is a work-permit stream rather than a permanent-residence one. Whether you’re weighing seasonal versus permanent agricultural work for immigration changes the answer completely — temporary seasonal work doesn’t lead anywhere on its own, while a provincial nomination can.
What this means for South African farming experience
Right now, South African farming experience and Canadian categories don’t intersect through Express Entry at all — the door that briefly existed for it closed roughly two years ago. That’s a harder answer than most sites will give you, but it’s the accurate one as of the most recent published category list. If your background is in agriculture and you’re set on Canada, the realistic next step is looking at individual provincial nominee streams for your specific sub-sector and province, rather than waiting for the federal category to reopen — there’s no indication it will.
The honest summary
Two programmes, one word in common, both currently closed to new applicants, for two unrelated reasons: one was dropped from an annual category list, the other reached the end of its five-year mandate. Neither closure is a rumour or a pause — both are stated plainly on IRCC’s own pages. Our Express Entry Explained guide covers how the category system works overall, including which categories are actually live right now, which is worth checking before you build a plan around any specific occupation list.