Among food manufacturers, job vacancies fell nearly 32 per cent in 2024, while the number of payroll employees fell almost five per cent, wrote FCC senior economist Amanda Norris in a Dec. 18 report. This led to a job vacancy rate of 2.6 per cent.

Despite less competition for workers, wages offered for food manufacturing jobs rose 9.2 per cent year over year.

Beverage manufacturers saw a drop in vacancies of about 21 per cent, while the number of payroll employees rebounded after two years of declines, Norris wrote. This led to an increased labour demand of nearly seven per cent. However, wages offered for these jobs fell 0.2 per cent year-over-year.

Labourers, process control operators and industrial butchers were the most common job vacancies, but the number of openings has reached or fallen below 2019 levels.

Norris said softening demand for workers doesn’t necessarily predict positive tidings. The sector is ending the year with flat sales, and wages are rising to catch up with inflation. FCC predicted stronger sales growth in 2025, but also rising wages.

“Coupled with the uncertainty around both domestic demand and exports, businesses may be more hesitant to expand their workforce,” Norris wrote. “Uncertain times have led to paused investment plans, which does not bode well for the sector’s productivity.”

The food and beverage sector may also face additional labour challenges, as the percentage of its workforce over the age of 55 reached 28 per cent this year.

The federal government has also clamped down on levels of temporary foreign worker employment. Though food and beverage manufacturers are exempt from current program tweaks, FCC said further changes can’t be ruled out.

“We’re expecting a tight labour supply to keep wage growth strong, resulting in tight margins for the food and beverage manufacturing industry in 2025,” Norris said.

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“While we understand the federal government is seized with a housing shortage, temporary foreign workers are not the problem, representing only nine per cent of the temporary resident population,” the groups said in a statement today.

In March, the federal government announced that, effective May 1, some sectors would be allowed no more than 20 per cent of their workforces to be made up of temporary foreign workers (TWFs) brought in via the low wage stream—down from the 30 per cent limit introduced via the Workforce Solution Roadmap in 2022.

The sectors affected were wood product manufacturing, furniture manufacturing, accommodation and food service, and food manufacturing—defined as industries involved in turning agricultural products into ingredients or food items, whether for wholesale or retail, according to the North American Industry Classification System. Construction and healthcare were exempted.

The validity limit of labour market impact assessments (LMIAs) were also reduced. A LMIA is a document employers must obtain before hiring foreign workers. It assesses the impact of hiring foreign workers on the domestic job market and ensures that the employer and job offer are legitimate. In 2022, the maximum validity of LMIAs were extended to 18 months from nine.

The federal government cited reduced job vacancies and a need to reduce Canada’s reliance on foreign workers.

The organizations said the changes are already having an impact on productivity.

“Now with a reduction in the amount of time this assessment is valid as well as the length of time assessors take to review applications, there is concern that the industry will not be able to bring in needed foreign workers,” said Will Lowe, chair of the National Cattle Feeders’ Association.

“If there’s a shortage of workers in the processing sector, it runs the risk that producers can’t ship their product to market, causing uncertainty for producers and consumers alike,” said Rene Roy, chair of the Canadian Pork Council. “We need to help recruit more new Canadians to rural areas, and creating uncertainty defeats our efforts to convince people to come join our industry.”

Meat processors have struggled for years to fill jobs and have come to rely on foreign workers and immigration to maintain their workforces.

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“While some agriculture employers offered these benefits, many participating organizations do not offer any flexible work arrangements or basic benefits like sick days,” CAHRC wrote in a report on its 2024 survey of compensation practices in Canadian agriculture.

The survey encompassed 140 organizations representing 609 employees across major farming sectors (horticulture, beef and poultry are not reported).

It found that on average of 44 per cent of farms offer their employees sick time. Hog farms are most likely to give sick leave (56 per cent) but give the fewest days (3.75 days average) while apiculture (beekeeping) was least likely to offer sick time (21 per cent), but those who did on average allowed employees six sick days per year.

The majority of grain and oilseed (between 60 and 70 per cent), dairy (about 60 per cent) and swine farms (nearly 90 per cent) offered employees vacation time. Those that gave workers between 11 and 13 days off.

Finfish (aquaculture) farms were most likely to offer employees health insurance (a bit more than 80 per cent of farms). Swine farms came next, with nearly 70 per cent reporting health insurance. Around 30 per cent of dairy farms offered health insurance, while about 60 per cent of grain and oilseed farms did so.

The survey also examined employee wages by role.

Grain and oilseed farms consistently paid employees the most. The weighted average wage for farm managers was nearly $38 with a median wage of$39.90. Farm workers were on average paid a bit more than $27 per hour, with a median wage of $28.

Farm managers on dairy farms on average made nearly $26/hr with a median wage of $26, and workers made $21/hr and a median wage of $20/hr.

Hog farms paid managers on average a bit less than $32/hr and workers about $21/hr.

By comparison, employees in the construction sector in 2023 were paid nearly $36/hr on average, across all roles, Statistics Canada data shows. Manufacturing paid an average of $33.50/hr. Transportation and warehousing paid nearly $33/hr. Accommodation and food services paid on average a bit less than $22/hr across all positions.

StatCan data puts the average agriculture sector wage at $24.77 per hour in 2023.

The Canadian job market is expected to slow in 2024 with increasing unemployment rates from labour availability, CAHRC said in the report. However, agriculture is experiencing persistent labour shortages as producers struggle to hire workers.

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The federal government announced Thursday that, effective May 1, some sectors would be allowed no more than 20 per cent of their workforces to be made up of temporary foreign workers (TWFs) brought in via the low wage stream—down from 30 per cent since 2022.

Those sectors are wood product manufacturing, furniture manufacturing, accommodation and food service, and food manufacturing—defined as industries involved in turning agricultural products into ingredients or food items, whether for wholesale or retail, according to the North American Industry Classification System.

These sectors saw the percentage of allowable TFWs increased in 2022 in a bid to address labour shortages.

Construction and healthcare were included in the 2022 increases but are exempted from this week’s changes.

The federal government said the changes are to encourage employers to hire domestically.

“Today, we announced our intention to reduce Canada’s reliance on temporary foreign workers and encourage employers to find the talent they need right here, at home,” said Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages Minister Randy Boissonnault in a news release yesterday.

Canada’s unemployment rate has hovered around 5.8 per cent for three of the last four months, the news release said. Job vacancies were at a record high in the second quarter of 2022 with nearly 984,000 open positions. In the fourth quarter of 2023, that number fell to 678,500.

Other changes announced include decreasing the time new labour market impact assessments (LMIAs) are valid to six months from 12; and that “employers will need to explore every option before applying for an LMIA — including recruiting asylum seekers with valid work permits here in Canada,” the release said.

Starting at the beginning of the year, employers are required to annually review TFWs’ wages to ensure they’re keeping up with the market rate for that occupation and region. Wages can’t be lowered upon review.

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“Canada needs a veterinary workforce enhancement program that supports expansion and innovation of clinical teaching, training, and research,” said Canadian Veterinary Medical Association president Trevor Lawson in a news release today.

The CVMA said it visited Parliament Hill today to call for more investments in programs to shore up the industry and for mental health support for veterinary workers.

The profession is facing a worker shortage that “poses a significant threat,” the CVMA said.

Between 2022 and 2031, 5,000 veterinary jobs will open due to expansion and replacement needs while only 4,300 job seekers will be available to fill them, the CVMA website says.

The shortage of vets and veterinary workers has been an ongoing topic of concern.

A 2020 survey of Western Canadian vet clinics showed that of 526 practices, 44 per cent of them were looking to fill 281 positions. Practices that had recently hired new workers reported it could take anywhere from three to 12 months to hire someone.

The data suggested that mixed animal practices, which likely are representative of rural and small-town clinics, struggled most to fill openings.

The shortage makes it difficult for vets to provide care, the CVMA said. It also threatens veterinary workers’ well-being, with a survey of Canadian vets showing that more than 89 per cent were suffering from burnout.

The CVMA said the shortage could be addressed by recruiting internationally trained veterinarians, by setting up a national testing centre for vets trained outside of Canada, and by dedicating cash to veterinary infrastructure.

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“There are things like making sure that you have access to clothing that is for women, work boots that are for women and gloves that fit women’s hands,” says Jennifer Wright, acting executive director on the Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council. “These things are not always accessible or in stock … that’s an area that still continues to need improvement.”

In the bigger picture, too, access to rural daycare hampers many women from entering the farm workforce, especially since many jobs on the farm aren’t nine-to-five and may need more flexible daycare arrangements than many daycares provide.

“Not everybody has family to lean on in those cases,” Wright says.

Also on the topic of children, while parental leave is increasingly being taken by both women and men, there are still inequities in the workplace around maternity leave for women and even hiring decisions based on potential family responsibilities.
Will a female applicant think it’s smart to take a job with you?

“There may still be a bit of a bias when they are looking at hiring a woman about the potential for them to take time off for pregnancy, or having family responsibilities,” Wright says. “When hiring, they might not always be looking at the candidates equally.”

Opening the door to women

Ana Maria Ayala Arboleda knows what it’s like to be a female farm employee. She has worked in the swine industry in her native Colombia (where she trained as a veterinarian) and in Canada, and says that in the early days of her career she experienced skepticism in both countries about her ability to work in a traditionally male-dominated sector.

“When you went to a barn or to see a producer, they thought that you wouldn’t know how to handle a pig because you weren’t a man, and they assumed that you didn’t have any background (in the industry),” she says.

Ayala works for Hypor Inc. in Ituna, Sask. She had wanted to learn more about the production end of the pork sector when she heard about the job opportunity with the company and moved to Canada two years ago.

“They were looking for people to work in their nucleus barn, the largest pork barn, and I applied because I wanted to get in touch with the production and the animals … how do you handle them, their behaviour,” she says. “This is definitely an opportunity for me to get that extra knowledge and apply it in the future.”

With labour shortages in ag already well documented and getting worse, the assumption is that more farmers will want to hire more women like Ayala. But will they actually follow through?

With agriculture coming late to the party, it won’t always be easy. “We’ve got to a crisis point, but so have other industries, which has only increased the competition for a smaller labour pool,” Wright warns.

Even so, she’s optimistic. “We’ve seen more women entering the industry and now there’s even more opportunity.”

It’s also meant that employers are starting to be more open to trying new things and maybe even giving things they have tried in the past another chance.

“An employer might have an unconscious bias, or a conscious bias, about what a female employee might be able to do from a physical labour point of view,” Wright says. “But, when they are looking for an employee today, and have a female candidate that demonstrates that they can do the work, if they had that bias, they may think about ignoring it.”

Women more likely to apply

A lot has changed in terms of women’s roles in agriculture over the last 10 years, and a big shift has been that women see themselves as suited for all kinds of jobs that have always been thought of as the preserve of their male counterparts. As a result, they are more likely to apply for those jobs today than a few years ago, when they believed their application would get passed over for a male candidate.

“Whereas women may have thought they could do the work before, but they didn’t apply because they didn’t think they’d be looked at, now women, more and more, are applying for the jobs that they know they can do,” Wright says.

That doesn’t mean that women see themselves as necessarily doing a job in the same way as men, but they are more confident today that they can find solutions to ensure that they can do the job as well.

After starting out in the farrowing area, Ayala progressed to the nursery and now works in finishing with the largest animals and has never doubted her ability to master each role.

“I felt challenged at the beginning but now I feel that it’s just another experience,” she says. “You just need to be able to assess yourself, be resilient about the environment that you’re working in, and find your way to do things to achieve the outcome that is required.”

Gender gap still exists but is getting addressed

Ayala is fully aware of the gender gap that still exists in agriculture, but she feels it’s getting better and employment opportunities for women are going to continue to increase as women continue to demonstrate their value to the industry.

“Although women may be in lower positions, or their wages are not as good as men who are in higher positions sometimes, I feel that women push themselves harder to do the best job that they can,” says Ayala. “I don’t let (being a woman) be a limitation to try to get a higher position, because we, as women, will work to show that we have a lot of value. Women have to evaluate themselves, and believe that they do not have limitations. We are smart and good at troubleshooting, and this is where we can find good opportunities.”

Generational differences are also creating a shift in attitudes around gender and equity. Younger men and women coming into the ag workforce have far different attitudes and expectations than their parents or grandparents.

“We’ve seen a real shift, especially since the pandemic, where many people regardless of gender are looking at work in a different way, and they’re starting to look for better work/life balance,” Wright says. “Certainly, we’re seeing the younger generation of fathers, for example, wanting to take their parental leave and be part of the child care process. That’s had an impact because it’s not just about women; it’s more generational, and with a labour crisis hitting across many industries, it’s becoming harder for employers to ignore that.”

Job seekers in the driver’s seat

Job seekers are definitely in a strong negotiating position. “If there is a situation with an employer that isn’t going to meet what an employee is looking for, they know that they can move on,” Wright says. “Employers have to be more flexible and they are starting to work that way in all sorts of areas.”

That includes things like allowing employees (of any gender) to leave earlier or arrive later so they can pick up or drop off children at daycare, or making work shifts accommodate family situations.

“The employers that are looking at ways to make some accommodations are going to be the ones that will attract more people to come and work for them, and will have better retention in the future,” Wright says.

Valeska Ferl understands that dynamic well. Originally from Germany, for the past 10 years Ferl has worked at Halarda Farms Ltd. at Elm Creek, Man., one of Manitoba’s largest dairies that milks more than 1,200 cows a day. She does milking shifts but also helps in other areas, such as cow management and health. She believes that it doesn’t matter what gender you are; today you can get a job in agriculture if you are prepared to work hard.

“It depends what you are looking for,” she says. “But you have to be a flexible person. When I worked at the other farm, I did hiring interviews and from the employer’s side, it’s very hard to get reliable people.”

Women taking more training

Today, two-thirds of the people working in the barns at Halarda Farms Ltd. are female, a big change from 10 years ago.

It’s one more indication that more women are looking for and finding jobs in the industry and that they are taking the training they need to do the work.

“I know from my friends, even if they are operators on a grain farm, there are more and more women that are focused on education to be able to do those jobs as well,” Ferl says. “Everything is more open today. Nobody is looking at you and saying you can’t drive a tractor if you didn’t start doing that when you were 10 years old. If an employer says ‘can you handle the work we are asking you to do,’ and you say ‘yes’, it doesn’t matter what gender you are, you will get a chance to prove it because there is a need for people who are willing and able to work.”

That commitment to extra training is something Ferl believes in strongly. She has a Canadian class one driver’s licence, which she took initially to help out a friend working on a grain farm, but she also did it because sees it as a good job skill.

“I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it,” Ferl adds. “I like the idea of having an extra qualification … it opens up quite a few more job options.”

The post Women get the job appeared first on Country Guide.

But that doesn’t mean HR has to be an impossibly complex headache. In fact, if you keep your focus on retaining workers, managing cost, and driving your business growth, the pieces can all begin to fit together.

It will also help you become the employer of choice in the community, says Jennifer Wright, acting executive director for the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC).

A strategy to retain workers

“Investment in retention leads to more productive and efficient staff and to employees who are champions of their work and communicate positively through their networks about your farm being a great place to work,” Wright says. “That’s going to help you attract good talent and potential new hires.”

Kristine Ranger, an agricultural HR consultant from Michigan who helps farmers and farm businesses develop and implement HR systems, agrees, saying the key to keeping employees is to have an HR system in place that exemplifies team building and communication from top to bottom.

“Teamwork isn’t just the responsibility of the employees, it’s the responsibility of the employer as well,” she says. “The upper-level management team has to understand how to perform as a team and model appropriate behaviours.”

Only then can they be successful communicators and engage other family members, employees and the whole farm team, which is arguably the most vital component for retaining good people.

“You can’t motivate people, they have to be self-motivated,” Ranger says.

“You can reward them but money is a satisfier, not a motivator. If you give them a raise it will satisfy them for a little while, and then something happens and they’ll either ask for more money or they’ll leave,” she says. “A motivator has to be intrinsic behaviour. People want to be known, recognized and valued.”

Employees want to own the process for how they improve the operation or their job, adds Ranger, who has suggested various ways to achieve this on farms where she has worked.

“One of the things I have clients do is use graphs and charts. For instance, on a dairy farm someone can chart somatic cell counts so people have a visual job aid and anybody can see the numbers, especially if there’s a spike. Only then they can take responsibility for it. Otherwise, the only person who sees it is the person who reads the report when it comes in.”

Ranger also believes that bonuses tied to productivity can be counter productive, especially if they reward some at the expense of others.”

“Employees want to be known and recognized, and understand how their job contributes to the whole,” Ranger says. “That empowers them and builds loyalty.”

Become an employer of choice

Wright offers these key themes for creating a work environment that makes people want to stay:

Training and development
“When your employer is investing in training, you feel you are valued,” Wright says. “It keeps you engaged because you are going to learn new things.”

There are many types of training such as orientation or on-boarding, which helps set the right tone for employees as they join the organization. Then there is on-the-job training, job shadowing and apprenticeship. External training includes webinars, conferences, short courses, or more formal professional designations, post-secondary certificates, diplomas and degrees.

Training can be job-specific or required such as WHMIS, biosecurity or health and safety. It can also be more skill-specific depending on the role. Plus, there is personal development training that helps support the employee’s own mental health and well-being, perhaps something like financial management skills that they can use in their day-to-day life outside of work.

Whatever kind of training is appropriate for the farm business to offer, training should be done in an organized, planned way, Wright says.

“Make sure you take time to prepare so you know what training is needed, how you will approach it and what the content is going to be,” she says. “Make sure the employee is aware that you are going to be training them and this is part of their development. Take time to record the training that has been done and follow up to assess if it was effective. 

The value of orientation and on-boarding

“The first three days are where the employees are the most impressionable,” says Ranger. “They are the most important three days for any employee … it’s critical that they get a proper orientation.”

Orientation should give new employees the basic tools they need to operate within the organization. Make introductions. Who is the best person to ask when there are questions? And make sure they know who does what. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that even if they have worked in a similar operation, don’t assume anything about their knowledge. Go through everything, especially health and safety procedures, and explain how things are done in your specific operation.

CAHRC’s online Agri-Skills resources offer commodity-specific production training information, sample job descriptions, and occupational standards that can be used to develop and measure training provided. As part of its online HR Toolkit, it also offers downloadable, customizable templates to deliver and track training.

Effective HR policies
Human resource policies communicate the values and expectations of your farm business. They can act as an employee handbook and should include things like standards of acceptable behaviour.

“It gives employees a good indication that you operate your farm as a business,” Wright says.

Written HR policies also make it easier for employers to comply with regulations and employment standards that help reduce liability and risk but also ensure the farm operates in a way that meets legislation. These things always contribute to retention of staff as well.

Creating a positive work environment
A healthy, positive work environment can have a huge impact on the physical and mental health of everyone on the farm. 

“It saves money because when employees are happy,” says Wright. “There are fewer accidents and errors.”

Trying to accommodate work-life balance isn’t always easy in a busy farm environment, especially during peak times, but it is essential that you support good physical and mental health.

Otherwise, you can expect higher absenteeism, turnover and worker stress.

Leaves of absence and vacation

Pushing employees or yourself to work all the time without taking time off will have a negative impact on the business. There are also legal obligations around leave and vacation time, but it’s wise to consider them as minimums.

“If you go beyond legal obligations and look at where you can provide paid leave, or support workers volunteering in the community, or support education or bereavement leave, self-funded sabbaticals, top-up programs for maternity or parental leave, or continued benefits for a leave of absence, these things help your employees feel valued and also help with retention,” Wright says.

Flexible benefits

There are many ways to provide benefits to workers besides formal dental, drug and optical plans commonly offered by larger businesses.

These can range from assistance with child care, to extended bereavement or education leave, so find out what the employees who work on your farm really value.

“Talking to your employees and finding out what is important to them will help you think about what you can offer that will benefit them,” Wright says.

A wellness program is a good example of a benefit that can contribute to a happy, healthy work environment and doesn’t need to be complicated or costly. It can include opportunities for stress management or health programming as well as some simple activities like a spirit barbecue or picnic.

Creating an inclusive workplace, where everyone feels comfortable and welcomed is increasingly important as workers come from diverse backgrounds and cultures. 

How to support good mental health

Without a positive work environment, workers and employers can experience anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion and burnout.

“Farmers are among the most vulnerable when it comes to mental health issues and certainly dealing with COVID has made mental health more important than it has ever has been for workers and for farm owners as well,” Wright says. “Make sure your environment will support positive mental health and has supports for people who need to address any mental health issues that may come up.”

Open communication and talking about mental health in the workplace is a good way to provide support and openness so employees know what to do if they are having challenges with their mental health. This should include discussions about how to recognize symptoms that someone is struggling with their mental health.

Making sure that you have created an environment where workers feel comfortable to be able to come and discuss personal issues if they arise will go a long way to preventing unnecessary stress on employees and the business. 

Be flexible

As people go through life it is inevitable their circumstances will change. Being able to accommodate health issues that may pop up, or changing home situations could mean the difference between retaining or losing a valued employee. Options might include job restructuring, adjusting work schedules, flexible leave, specialized equipment, modified work sites or adjusting training or supervision.

“Conflict between work and life demands can have an impact upon your own, and workers’ mental health and having conversations, being flexible and offering supports takes one less stress away from them because they know as they manage their stress or mental health challenges come up, their employer is there for them as well,” Wright says.

Wright suggests creating a list of places people can go to for support when they are having medical or mental health emergencies, such as listings of emergency services with phone numbers, crisis lines, addictions counselling services, etc. Employers could also look at providing mental health first aid training available through the Mental Health Commission of Canada, and can also access great resources at CAHRC and Do More Ag Foundation.

Address poor working conditions

Farm owners need to provide safe and comfortable physical work environments, and address any noise, air quality or physical hazards, and assign reasonable workloads and goals. 

“Provide reasonable, not over-demanding tasks, give variety tasks to reduce repetition, and let workers make their own decisions sometimes,” Wright says. “Allow them to make their own decisions when possible, and have as much control over their tasks and performance as you can.” 

This can obviously be challenging during busy times when jobs just need to get done, but doing what you can to balance the workload and pressure is beneficial to everyone especially during the more hectic seasons. That begins with making sure everyone understands their role and responsibilities, which provides the stability and structure to help them meet expectations. “It goes back to orientation, training and making sure employees have the right information and skills to do the work they are being asked to do,” Wright says.

Employees also need support in unusual or emergency situations, and should know where to look for information and turn to for help. 

“Emergency information and procedures can be provided in your employee handbook but it’s a good idea to have it posted around — maybe in the lunch room or other work areas,” Wright says.

Get better at communication

Positive, open communication improves team building, growth, innovation, productivity, efficiency, employee loyalty and engagement, and skill development. 

“All those things are going to happen if your employees feel like they can talk to each other, they can talk to you, they can bring new ideas forward, and that they can contribute to decision making when that’s possible,” Wright says. “We can all learn from each other, and creating an environment where employees feel they can contribute is going to go reduce turnover, conflict, errors, accidents and problems.”

Ways to ensure good communications don’t have to cost money, rather it’s about how people approach the workplace and their relationships with each other. “Practice authentic communication,” Wright says, “Say what you mean and follow through with what you say.”

Create a communications-friendly culture by keeping workplace communications constant. 

“Workers can feel a lot of uncertainty if they don’t know what is going to happen next, so try to keep them in the loop, maybe with a weekly team meeting or a wrap-up at the end of the week,” Wright says. “Don’t put those things on hold because you are too busy.”

Employees should always know that they are being heard and that their feedback is valued, so watch the body language and be approachable and attentive. “Standing with arms crossed during a conversation could send the wrong message to a worker, who might feel you are standoffish or not paying attention. Communication is not just what we say but non-verbal through facial expressions, body language and even our tone as well,” Wright says.

Good HR management starts and ends with thinking about what it takes to make sure employees want to keep working on your farm and it comes down to being kind.

Says Wright: “If you are open, sympathetic and willing to listen and create an environment where people feel welcomed and comfortable, you are not only going to keep the workers that you have, they are going to be happier and tell people how great it is to work for you.” 

The post Keeping workers on the farm appeared first on Country Guide.

Agricorp, the province’s farm program delivery agency, announced in late December the feature first introduced in 2020 will be included again in 2022, at the same coverage level provided in the 2021 program year.

Agricorp said it will automatically add the coverage to customer policies for 2022 and farmers won’t need to sign up to get it. Insured farms will be covered for the COVID-19 labour disruption peril whether they chose multi-peril or a single peril of hail, frost, or hail and frost.

Specifically, the coverage is for production losses that are due to a producer’s illness or quarantine due to COVID-19; an inability to fulfill contracted on-farm labour due to COVID-19; and/or illness or quarantine of on-farm labour due to COVID-19.

In those cases, the policy will include production loss coverage for yield-based commodities; abandonment threshold coverage for fresh vegetables, on an acreage loss basis; mortality loss coverage for fruit trees and grape vines; and colony loss coverage for bee health.

Such losses will be covered for the “full duration” of a farm’s 2022 policy, from when the crop is planted until harvest or until the end of the farm’s policy term, Agricorp said.

That means it covers on-farm labour disruption losses through the growing season for the insured commodity — such as labour required to care for a crop after planting — as well as on-farm labour disruptions at harvest.

A farmer covered for such losses will need to contact Agricorp “without delay” if yield losses or mortalities in trees, vines or bees take place due to on-farm labour disruption.

The coverage applies to all commodities except forage, Agricorp said, and does not apply to coverages not listed above — that is, coverages such as unseeded acreage, replanting, salvage or bypassed acreage. It also doesn’t cover crops intended to be harvested in 2023 — for example, winter wheat seeded this fall.

The added coverage also doesn’t extend to “post-harvest” labour disruption losses such as in an on-farm or off-farm packing house or processing facility, nor to transportation of crops.

It also won’t cover loss of market for any reason, including COVID-19 — for example, a lack of customers at a U-pick farm. Losses that “cannot be verified” or aren’t directly related to the insured farm’s operations also won’t be covered.

Also, Agricorp noted, “it is important to understand that this added peril will not increase the existing limits of your coverage, but will be assessed within them.”

The coverage also requires farmers to make a “good faith effort to secure sufficient labour” for the 2022 program year, Agricorp said, meaning the agency may ask for information about steps taken to secure labour. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Producers already enrolled in an eligible production insurance plan and hit by crop losses due to labour disruptions during the 2020 growing season will be able to get further insurance coverage, the Ontario and federal governments said Thursday.

Specifics weren’t immediately available Thursday, but the governments said the coverage will insure those enrolled against “inability to attract sufficient on-farm labour due to COVID-19” and “illness or quarantine of on-farm labour and the producer due to COVID-19.”

Farms growing fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, melons and peaches are “labour-intensive and highly dependent on seasonal agricultural workers,” the governments said.

The COVID-19 pandemic “has interrupted regular flows of worker travel and has resulted in some gaps in labour availability,” including COVID-19 outbreaks among several farms’ seasonal workers.

Farmers whose COVID-19 related labour disruptions are having an impact on crops are expected to notify Agricorp, the provincial farm program delivery agency, “as soon as possible.”

The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association on Thursday hailed the new coverage as “the first of its kind in Canada,” noting it was “developed and rolled out at a speed and urgency that is highly unusual for new safety net measures.”

Doing so, the OFVGA said, “was only possible by using an existing program like crop insurance with its yield data and underwriting/adjustment processes.”

The association said it “recognizes the importance of applying the lessons learned from this unprecedented new coverage, to extend it to the rest of the edible horticulture sector.”

OFVGA is “committed to working towards the goal of extending these important assurances to all growers, including those not presently covered under crop insurance,” OFVGA chair Bill George said in a separate release.

“By enhancing AgriInsurance coverage to include labour shortages due to COVID-19 for eligible farmers, we are directly responding to their requests for support and protecting Ontario’s agri-food sector so it can continue producing the food our province needs,” provincial Ag Minister Ernie Hardeman said in the governments’ release.

The federal government noted it had pledged in May to work with provinces to “explore possibilities” for AgriInsurance expansion to include labour shortages as an eligible risk for the horticulture sector.

“I congratulate Ontario for being the first province to take this important step that recognizes the hardships Ontario farmers and food producers have faced because of worker shortages, and gives them the added support they need,” federal Ag Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in Thursday’s release. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Those telling it speak Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Arabic and other languages. They are among the thousands of newcomers in Canada as Temporary Foreign Workers on contracts, or they are immigrants or refugees, working what are often their first jobs in this country on Canada’s farms or in its processing sector.

Their stories include how they are treated in their workplaces, on the farm and in the food plant.

How do you suppose that story goes?

What they say matters to their employers. Or, at least, it should, based on a look at future hiring trends in the sector. Thousands of our farms desperately need employees, and thousands more — large and small — will join them soon.

Meanwhile, at least many immigrants in Canada are chronically underemployed, with skills and capabilities they’re yearning to put to work.

Yet as an industry, agriculture must be among the least culturally diverse in the country, especially on the farm.

Does it matter? In an increasingly multicultural, urban Canada, is it okay that agriculture is so far outside the loop?

The easy response has always been that immigrants don’t know how to farm. Now, though, it’s clear that farming is exactly what large numbers of immigrants do have a taste of, having grown up on farms and in agriculture in their home countries. It may not be Canadian agriculture, but then, the ancestors of today’s Canadian farmers didn’t exactly know how to farm here either.

If it’s important to look at hiring international workers, however, it’s important too to create the right conditions where they would work. But that’s another question. How do you create a respectful and inclusive work environment on the farm?

As always, one way may be to look at success stories in the sector.

Near the tiny town of Keeler, Sask., Josue (pronounced “hoe-sway”) Salgado and Sandy Purdy are an employee-employer duo who tell a story of creating just such a workplace.

Salgado has worked at Prairie Berries Inc., a saskatoon berry orchard and processing plant outside Moose Jaw since 2008. He came to Canada from Nicaragua that year, then just 24 years old, to work as a Temporary Foreign Worker in the orchard as a labourer.

It was all new to him — the job, the language, the climate, the culture. Not only was he young, but what he’d arrived to do, which was to work as an outdoor field harvester, was very different from his life back home, where he’d worked as a graphic designer in his family’s clothing manufacturing company.

He also barely spoke English, except for the phrase “thank you.”

Sandy Purdy, co-owner of Prairie Berries Inc., didn’t just hire Salgado and put him to work. She took him under her wing. “He was eager to learn and I was eager to provide opportunity to grow him as an individual.”

Purdy is the company’s chief operating officer. She founded the company with her husband Ken in 1993 when the couple decided to start producing something besides grain to keep their farm viable.

Purdy had worked off-farm for several years at Sasktel in various departments, so she knew a thing or two about business, including managing human resources. And she also knew that great businesses get built by great teams. Good people aren’t just nice to have, they’re essential.

Salgado was among her first international hires. She spotted that he was a hard worker and fast learner, so she began sitting down with him daily to coach him through one-on-one English lessons. And once he had a good grasp of the language, she began training him for the assistant office manager job he holds today. More recently, he’s been promoted to food safety manager.

“Since I came to this company I always had the big gate open for me,” says Salgado.

“The main thing that I needed was the language. My managers, Sandy and Ken, they opened the door for me. I moved to the office in 2012 to help Sandy with accounting. She was teaching me how to do all of those things so she’d have help in the office.”

Today, Salgado is one of 14 foreign full-time and seasonal workers at Prairie Berries. Several have been here at least a decade, with five gaining landed immigrant status since arriving, and all being promoted within the company. Prairie Berries also has five Canadian workers who make up the complement of their 19 staff in total. The company’s staff is highly culturally diverse, with other countries of origin including Turkey, Sudan and Nigeria.

Labour shortage

Hiring from outside the country wasn’t initially in the plan when they were starting this company, says Purdy. In the early years they’d hire local youth living on the farms and in the surrounding towns looking for summer jobs to help them with the saskatoon harvest. Family members did the rest of the processing work the remainder of the year.

But times were changing in rural Saskatchewan and the local population around Keeler steadily diminished through the 1990s and 2000s.Those young people moved away. Schools closed. At one point, there were just two schools within a 100 km radius of the community, which also meant fewer kids were looking for summer jobs. They were down to just two being available to work one summer, compared to only a few years earlier when there’d been over a dozen, says Purdy.

“That’s when I started to ask, ‘How do we run this operation in rural Saskatchewan with no summer help to get us through our season?’ If we did not have labour to work in the orchards the business would have failed.”

Having no experience with hiring from outside Canada, they turned to their provincial and federal governments for assistance navigating the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which allows Canadian employers to hire foreign nationals to fill temporary labour and skill shortages when no Canadian citizens nor permanent residents are available. Their first employees began to arrive in 2008.

Fast-forward to today, and Prairie Berries Inc. is now the country’s leading saskatoon berry grower and processor, an enterprise that includes a 160-acre orchard and a processing plant manufacturing several value-added product ingredients including frozen berries, purees, concentrates, freeze- dried powders, pie fillings and sweetened dried berries, plus an array of retail products such as syrups and spreads.

There’s a very popular ready-to-eat Prairie Berries pie made here, too. It’s the handiwork of their Nicaraguan-born baker Reyna Garcia. She started work here in 2012 as a Temporary Foreign Worker, too, after coming to Canada to joining her husband Melvin Sequeira who was already working there. When Reyna and her daughters first arrived in Canada, they lived on the family farm with the Purdys. Today, the family live in Moose Jaw. Melvin and his three daughters are now Canadian citizens while Reyna works on improving her English skills to the level required to apply for citizenship. Melvin has been promoted to operations manager at Prairie Berries.

The buddy system

Prairie Berries’ executive assistant Josiah Faji, soon to be a permanent resident himself, spends a lot of his time to integrate a work team that speaks different languages and comes from a variety of cultural backgrounds.

He arrived in Canada from Nigeria in 2017 to study for his master’s degree in human resources management at the University of Regina. He was matched with the company as part of the co-operative education program at the university, and after his contract was complete, the Purdys offered him full-time employment.

“Which I gladly took,” says Faji, whose role encompasses managing human resources plus overseeing inventory, logistics and customer relations.

When it comes to creating an inclusive workplace, they do a lot of things at Prairie Berries right, says Faji. One is the buddy system they’ve established, whereby a new staff member is paired with someone who has been there a while. It’s essential for those who don’t speak English well when they first arrive, he says.

Prairie Berries also emphasizes face-to-face communication, and has clearly written workplace policies that are also translated into Spanish. They have a reporting procedure if employees have issues they need addressed. And they hold frequent get-togethers allowing staff to interact with each other, where, as Faji puts it “we have those good moments together.’’

“It gives us this privilege to understand each other more, our cultural values and how we can address each others needs,” he says.

Faji describes the work environment as one where everyone is assured they matter and their ideas and input are welcomed, and he describes the company’s work environment as “like a family.” There is strong emphasis on the importance of the entire team, he says.

“We have an open-door environment,” he says. “We have positions and a management team but we see ourselves as equals. We kind of fit in each other’s shoes.”

Faji credits his employers for the special effort they’ve made to ensure their work team feels they don’t just work here, but are part of that “family.” The company provides the means for permanent resident workers to travel back to their home country every Christmas to see their own families. Throughout the year, international staff are also asked to list things they’d like to see and do while in Canada, and the Purdys work out ways to give them a good experience of their time here.

“Sandy has laid down the template for people like me to work in,” says Faji. “She has a focus and a leadership design and a culture design so anyone from any country can come in and settle. I’m sure everyone from Prairie Berries would have a story to share about how they’ve been accommodated.”

Prairie Berries’ story is an example of a farm and agri-business workplace made both diverse and inclusive, not just by hiring newcomers, but by deliberate effort to respect different perspectives and to ensure all workers are included in social and work-related activities.

It’s an act to follow for other agricultural employers who are also beginning to hire more international workers.

More are doing so than ever before. The number of jobs filled by persons recruited from outside Canada jumped to 60,000 in 2017 from 45,600 in 2014, according to the most recent labour market statistics released by the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC).

One in every six positions in the Canadian agri-workforce is now an offshore recruit, underscoring how critically important these so-called “non-traditional sources” of labour are to ease labour market pressures, and bring new perspectives to the workforce.

There are, of course, bigger challenges hiring immigrants that can’t be addressed by agricultural employers themselves; more supports and services such as English language training and public transportation are needed, and more effort made to promote jobs and careers in agriculture and food-producing industries.

But what these employers can do is to start to recognize the inherent value of supporting workplace diversity beyond merely observing legal and policy requirements.

Managing a diverse workplace requires a set of skills that you develop like any others, says Jennifer Wright, CAHRC’s human resource educator and stakeholder engagement specialist.

“There’s been lots of focus on having a diverse workforce, not necessarily as much on what happens when you actually attract one,” she says.

As Wright points out, and as is highlighted in CAHRC’s online Agri-HR Tool kit, supporting workplace diversity involves much more than just meeting legal or policy requirements.

A diverse workplace, says Wright, is one where people not just of different languages, but different genders, religions, sexual orientations and abilities can feel respected, and valued, and inclusion is intentional on the part of employers. Of utmost importance is being aware of how you yourself behave and communicate with your workers as well as with the wider community where the company’s reputation is at stake.

“You walk the talk,” she says. “Focusing on being aware of the need to increase inclusivity in your workplace is the first step.”

Developing inclusive policies and procedures to promote workplace diversity is important because they give everyone working there a clear set of rules and expectations about what behaviours are, and are not, acceptable.

One of the common strategies is the presence of a “champion” in the business or supporting employment agency who is highly committed to the successful placement of international workers.

There’s been significant research looking at the benefits of hiring a diverse workforce, and it turns out there’s a proven link to diversity in the business and the business’s success. Deloitte, for example, has shown there is an 80 per cent improvement in business performance when levels of diversity and inclusion are high.

“You just have more innovative ways of doing things by having a diverse group of people figuring out and bringing their ideas to the table to get things done,” says Wright, adding the more often you attract and retain workers from a wider labour pool, the more attractive your enterprise becomes to an increasing pool of applicants.

CAHRC did extensive research into diversity and inclusion in the agricultural workplace for its 2016 report New Opportunities for Expanding the Agricultural Workforce — Pilot Projects with Under-Represented Groups, including 14 case studies from Canadian workplaces with innovative approaches to increasing agricultural employment not only among immigrants, but other under-represented groups in agriculture, such as Canada’s Indigenous populations, or persons with physical limitations.

CAHRC also has created a series of resources within its Agri-HR Tool Kit devoted to help farmers and other agricultural employers become diversity leaders. A helpful resource for agricultural employers to learn skills for leading and managing a diverse and inclusive workforce is at hrtoolkit.cahrc-ccrha.ca/diversity-and-inclusion/diverse-workforce/.

Back in Keeler, Sask., meanwhile, Sandy Purdy hasn’t read any manual or report on the topic. Hers was more of an instinctive approach and one founded in basic human empathy.

“I look at it from the angle of what if one of my sons were dropped into a foreign country where they didn’t know a single person, the language or the culture. How would they survive? ”

“My approach is treat them as you would want someone else treating your own sons and daughters.”

And the only real difference between a Canadian and a foreign worker is birthplace, she adds.

“We are lucky to live in Canada, the land of opportunity,” she says.

“So why not create opportunities for our foreign workers, who are ambitious and willing to learn, so they grow and have those same opportunities?”

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