As farms continue to increase in size, certain equipment manufacturers race to provide high-horsepower machinery that can stretch a farmer’s reach when they seed, spray and harvest. Farmers also require these increasingly efficient options to contend with a shrinking agricultural labour pool.

The country’s agriculture sector owes much to innovative ag entrepreneurs, many of them farmers, who have invented first-of-its-kind products that solve pressing problems. Collectively, their independent companies are known as short line manufacturers. A term they’ve grown into, it delineates how they create tailored solutions for localized problems.

Despite above-average wages and rewarding work environments, the trades sector has long suffered the undeserved reputation as a last chance career choice. This inaccurate perception has hindered intake within the uniquely niche designation of agricultural mechanic. As a result, the ag sector is reckoning with scarcity of these skilled workers.