Agricultural industry facing labour shortage, lack of HR knowledge
Faced with an urgent demand for agricultural workers, Canadian farmers are looking to several alternatives to replenish a depleting crop. By 2013, the country will require an additional 50,000 non-seasonal and 38,000 seasonal workers, according to the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC).
In launching a leadership assessment project, the government-funded industry council hopes to improve the situation by working with stakeholders to define and assess the skills and knowledge necessary for farmers to develop effective HR practices.
“Building Canada’s agriculture workforce requires leadership that is receptive to new ideas and diverse viewpoints,” said Terry Murray, chair of CAHRC’s board of directors and a member of the Wild Rose Agricultural Producers.
To scope out the issues and gain recommendations on how to move forward, the council will conduct surveys, contact key players in every province and work with some of the learning institutions.
This project is pretty specific in that it’s going to look at what’s defined as leadership across industry and across Canada and ensure the same competencies are involved, said Jean Sullivan, a project manager at CAHRC.
The agriculture industry is adopting new technologies that make it easier to manage large operations and many farms are competing in a global marketplace, which necessitates some scale, said Ron Bonnett, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
Many farmers are also becoming more specialized and getting more involved in the marketing side of the products or expanding beyond food production into areas such as energy, with wind power and solar power, which also leads to different labour requirements.
“Labour is a critical element in any business moving forward and agriculture is no different from any other sector that way,” he said.
“A lot of farms are getting larger and the labour requirements have changed. While there’s still the need for some low-skilled workers on some farms, there’s also the need for more high-skilled workers when you get into new technology.”
The farming industry has shifted to larger operations and many lack an HR department to identify who the managers are going to be, their skill sets and to put the necessary training in place. And none of Canada’s agricultural programs focuses on developing HR leadership on the farm, according to the CAHRC.
Educational institutions are involved at the board level and while components of leadership are embedded in certain courses, there’s not enough, said Sullivan.
“What we’re hearing from farmers is that once you’re beyond that target cohort of those formal programs, it’s not as easy to find those kinds of opportunities that are targeted to agriculture,” she said.
“Agriculture in Canada tends to be in some cases a lot of owner-operator farms and those individuals don’t have the access to human resources departments.”
In any sector where there are major changes, such as technology, ongoing leadership training is essential, said Colleen Smith, executive director at Ontario Agri-Food Education.
The challenge is to create a career-document pathway that will pinpoint not only where people can study but help students “relate to the potential of the sector and break through those myths,” she said. “Being able to till a field is important but it’s not the only job in agriculture — many are very high-tech and scientifically oriented.”
The perception of farming can be quite different from the reality, said Bonnett, and the industry has to work to improve that, particularly in attracting younger people. That means putting together videos to highlight career opportunities and working with educational groups to raise awareness.
“What we maybe have not done is as good a job as other industries in creating a bit of a buzz and excitement around some of the opportunities that might be there,” he said.
While off-shore worker programs have helped with recruitment challenges, particularly for seasonal work, the agriculture industry is keen to raise its profile, said Bonnett, who also owns a beef and cow farm in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
“Computerized equipment, fairly sophisticated systems — from irrigation to farm machinery on GPS systems — require a way different skill set than handling a fork and a shovel,” he said. “So what we want to do is identify some of those careers as well and maybe raise the profile of what some of the careers in agriculture are.”
Once the key players involved in agricultural leadership programs have come to an agreement about the competencies, an assessment tool will be developed for farmers, said Sullivan. This online tool will gather up information at an aggregate level to reveal the strong and weak areas and those that could benefit from extra training or development of resources.
