Reading Time: 7 minutes We keep hearing the numbers. The farm employment crisis is real, and it is getting worse with over 100,000 farm workers expected to retire in the 2020s, and a dwindling number of candidates from traditional sources to replace them. So, why not go to non-traditional sources? Or maybe there are better ways to let potential […] Read more
In search of new employees for the farm
If it seems you’ve looked everywhere for new employees, maybe it’s time to try a new way of hiring
Equal, and equitable too
In a new column, CAHRC’s Jennifer Wright offers strategies that can boost the opportunity for female family members and employees to contribute on-farm
Reading Time: 6 minutes In 2017, 16,500 jobs could not be filled in Canadian agriculture, resulting in a loss of $2.9 billion in sales. When asked, 47 per cent of agricultural producers said they could not find enough workers, causing stress, production delays, lost sales, and delays or cancellations for farm expansions or upgrades. In the same survey, 34 […] Read more
The overseas employee
If we look to 2030, where will we find our farm employees?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Agriculture is already looking outside the agricultural community — and in some cases outside the country — to recruit workers. That’s only going to intensify if, as expected, rural populations stagnate or decline, and if farms consolidate and rely more on hired employees. It’s also worth noting that 112,000 of today’s employees (37 per cent […] Read more
Teeter totter
Farming parents need accessible, high-quality child care for their children. Can they get it?
Reading Time: 10 minutes When Donalee Jones and Scott Mowbray returned to their home town and began farming near Cartwright, Man., in 2008, the couple assumed that when things got busy, the family that they planned to have one day could easily be looked after by Scott’s parents, who lived on the yard of the Mowbray’s 2,000-acre grain farm. […] Read more
Struggling on the farm
You’re already trained for first aid on the farm. But what about mental illness?
Reading Time: 8 minutes By now, most people involved in agriculture have heard something about depression and anxiety disorders. Whether it’s been through the survey of farmer mental health, started in 2015 and highlighted in 2018, or through the efforts of groups like Do More Ag, word has spread. Now, it’s important that this awareness gets translated into action, […] Read more
‘Redirection’
Is it better to keep farming into your 70s, or to retire off the farm in your early 60s? New research suggests that what you may really need is a rewarding change of direction
Reading Time: 8 minutes It’s easy to see the two pincers coming together, at least when you look at farming from a national perspective. The average Canadian farmer is 55, on the one hand, and the average Canadian retires at 62 on the other. But let’s put a best-case face on it. For self-employment Canadians — the category that […] Read more
The job ahead
Canada faces its own farm labour gap, and it’s going to get much worse
Reading Time: 15 minutes A black binder sits on the table next to the job board at Aylmer Community Services. Glued to its cover is a stock photo of two hands holding a tiny seedling. Red letters proclaim its title: Agricultural and Farming Jobs. In the steady stream of job seekers, however, few visitors to the jailhouse-turned-community service centre […] Read more
Cellulosic sugars co-op offer improves, hosting baling demos
First demonstration takes place on Nov. 14 in Watford, Ont.
Reading Time: 2 minutes Farmers continue to sign up for an Ontario co-operative that will pay them for their corn stover and wheat straw. Brian Cofell, general manager of the Cellulosic Sugar Producers Co-operative (CSPC) says that the co-op has about 40 per cent of the acres committed that it needs by next fall, when it plans to harvest […] Read more
U.S. women own it
When we think ‘farmer,’ we often also think ‘male.’ Because it’s men who own the farmland, right?
Reading Time: 5 minutes The truth of farmland ownership is changing, especially the picture of who owns farmland in the United States, where the numbers are a bit clearer than here in Canada, and where the shift has been underway for decades. The questions are simple enough: How many women own farmland in the U.S.? What are the parameters […] Read more
Get your nature fix
And make sure the rest of the family does too. Just 15 minutes in nature can cut stress levels
Reading Time: 4 minutes Being surrounded by wide open spaces and nature is undoubtedly one of the benefits of a farming lifestyle. Unfortunately, as farms get bigger, busier and more high-tech, farmers may find they are spending less time enjoying nature. Even worse, as our children spend more time indoors or on screens, they are losing out on the […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
