Grainswest - Fall 2023

Fall 2023 grainswest.com 43 Crash course fills agribusiness employment gap AN INNOVATIVE NEW PRAIRIE program gives skilled, mid-career professionals the opportunity to refresh their occupational journey and injects much-needed talent into the agri-busi- ness field. “That is a major gap right now across Canada, and specifically in the Prairies,” said Ednali Fertuck-Zehavi, Palette Skills national program manager in charge of the Automation and Digital Agriculture Specialist Program. “What’s needed [in agriculture are] those mid-level special- ists and managers to take the industry to the next level.” The initiative hosts studentss in Alberta and Saskatchewan three times a year. “Most of our candidates are in the middle of their career,” she said. “They are successful and have an average of 15 years’ experience. Most have advanced degrees—a master’s or a PhD, but some- thing happened in their career, and they were not able to find their place.” Take Ruhid Mirazayev, for example, who left Saskatchewan to pursue an ed- ucation in economics. Upon completion of his studies, he settled in Toronto and secured a job in banking. Yet, he felt un- dervalued in the often impersonal thrum of Canada’s financial capital. Fertuck-Zehavi, an old friend, suggest- ed he consider Palette Skills. Although he was raised on a small family farm, Mirazayev considered his ag knowledge to be quite limited. But, disillusioned with his existing career path, he enrolled in the first Palette Skills cohort in the spring of 2022. He dived headfirst into a crash course focused on implementation and management of advanced technology in agribusiness. This included everything from the employment of drone technolo- gy for farm applications and management skills of a much different sort than are practiced on Bay Street. “My focus was to learn about Prairie crops, and we also learned about soil, pest and fertilizer management,” said Mirazayev. His financial background and economic statistics knowledge were transferable to agriculture. “When I work with machine learning—with data sets— the machine doesn’t understand if it is agricultural or financial data. That’s why you need an expert who can show you, say, whether 20 millilitres of precipitation is good or bad. I needed the mentors from Palette Skills to help me make meaningful insights for agricultural data sets.” Palette Skills participants also receive access to prospective employers through career events such as Ag in Motion and Canada’s Farm Show. It was at the latter, that Mirazayev met his current employ- er. Impressed with Mirazayev’s drone Transferableskills HEAD OF THE CLASS project demonstration, a representative of Global Ag Risk Solutions arranged a formal interview, and he secured a posi- tion as an agriculture data scientist with the company. He’s thrilled with the opportunity. “I’m doing something meaningful, and I’m very excited by the projects I get to work on. I am very proud I came back to the Prairies and that I can contribute to agri- culture in Canada. This was a really good decision for me. It changed my career and my entire life.” Mirazayev’s sentiments echo Fer- tuck-Zehavi’s promise to future par- ticipants: they will become part of the agriculture community. “It’s not just an upskilling program or training program or a job matching program,” she said. “It’s two months of life-changing experience.” For more information, visit paletteskills.org . “My focus was to learn about Prairie crops, and we also learned about soil, pest and fertilizer management.” —RuhidMirazayev BY ZOLTAN VARADI • PHOTO COURTESY OF PALETTE SKILLS