The General Manager of Manitoba Pork warns the labor shortage facing agriculture is limiting the sector’s growth potential and causing some operations to question whether they can continue to operate.
Cam Dahl, the General Manager of Manitoba Pork notes a Canadian Agricultural Resources Council survey last year showed 40 percent of agricultural business had not met their staffing requirements and it’s projected agriculture will have over 135 thousand open positions by the end of the decade.
We’re seeing rural populations diminish over time so there’s fewer people that grew up on the farm that are available to continue on with that work and it’s also getting harder and harder to convince urban Canadians to come out and work on the farm because it’s not seen as skilled work, it’s not seen as a career and that’s something we need to change.
We really do need to showcase agriculture and what an interesting career it can be, whether it’s on the cutting edge of genetics or animal care or nutrition or marketing, agriculture is a really interesting place to be and that’s not necessarily understood.
It is starting to get attention. We’ve seen the federal, provincial and territorial ministers, their most recent meeting in Guelph have included labor and labor related issues as one of the priorities to deal with. We’re seeing groups in Manitoba come together.
The commodity groups have formed a labor task force under the Keystone Agricultural Producers umbrella to start to tackle this issue. The recognition of how serious the problem is is there. The industry as a whole is coming together to try to look for solutions, it is on our political leaders’ radar screens. We just don’t have the solutions to put in the window quite yet.
~ Cam Dahl, Manitoba Pork
Dahl stresses the labor shortage is inhibiting our growth potential and even causing some to question whether they can continue to operate.
