GrainsWest Spring 2020

Spring 2020 grainswest.com 41 and they are looking for people with a higher level of skills and knowledge to run larger machinery.” She points to families having less children and parents encouraging those same kids to strike out on their own and live a life off the farm. “Young people growing up on a farm are encouraged by their parents to go to post-secondary education, pursuing their own careers. This is a worldwide trend.” The federal government has tried multiple times to rectify the issue over the years with varying degrees of success, depending who is polled. Its most recent solution is the new Agri-Food Immigration Pilot, a three-year, fast-track program allowing foreign workers to earn permanent residency. The program is open and will annually accept 2,750 workers. This focuses on perennially understaffed professions such as meat processing, mushroom production and greenhouse labourers. Hauer hopes the program will receive a positive response and signal government that additional programs are needed to close the gap. If not, the pinch points will get progressively more painful. “[The labour shortage] might mean that people will change what they produce,” she said. “It may mean Canada can’t take advantage of opportunities that are there for agricultural production.” And despite agriculture proudly beating its automation drum, Hauer believes increased mechanization is fraught with its own issues. Skilled people are required to build, maintain and repair the increasingly complex hardware and software. FIELD FINDINGS Elaine Bellamy operates a 10,000-acre grain and oilseed farm near Strathmore. Unlike others, she has a modestly sized local talent pool to draw from. However, her situation is far from perfect. Were she to lose just one of her solid, but aging, crew of retired farmers or truckers, Bellamy would be in a bind. For trucking, paying a person to be trained on a class 1 licence isn’t her primary issue, but rather the time the process takes, which is about six weeks. Simply put, it’s worrisome. “It is an absolute necessity to have people who have their class 1s as part of my operation,” she said. “I could not operate in seeding or harvest without my class 1 operators.” A couple of her operators have now cracked 80 years of age and, despite their love of the work, their age cannot be overlooked. “We have a great crew we can rely on, but some of those retired farmers are getting older … and older farmers are more apt to have accidents,” she said. “When you have a lot of combines operating and two grain carts whizzing around, you need to have people that are alert. We don’t want any accidents or crashes.” When these skilled and experienced workers do retire, they’re not easy to replace. “Where are we going to find the skilled people?” said Bellamy. She also deals with the wage issue. There’s only so much a person can be paid, skilled or not, in a price-taking profession. FARM LABOUR BY THE NUMBERS Domestic and international labour is in high demand in Canadian agriculture. The cold reality, though, is that the country is lagging behind. Alberta is not shielded from this labour gap, either. A dive into the numbers illustrates where the province finds itself. In 2017, Alberta had: • 54,455 domestic agricultural workers • Four per cent foreign workforce • 2,800 unfilled jobs due to labour shortages, even when accounting for foreign workers • $821 million in lost sales due to lack of labour By 2029, Alberta will wake up to the following reality: • 63,000 total workers needed, a rise of 7,500 • 42 per cent of the 2020 workforce will have retired • 19,600 jobs will be at risk of going unfilled Alberta’s workforce is slated to grow 0.7 per cent per year over the next 10 years, outpacing the national average of 0.5 per cent annually. This will equal a jump to 63,000 workers from 57,300 by 2029. However, the domestic labour pool is expected to shrink by 10,400 by the end of the decade, largely driven by retirements. One in three agricultural jobs in Alberta will remain vacant unless the labour issue is addressed. Forty- eight per cent of Alberta farmers were not able to find all the workers they needed in 2018, compared to 47 per cent across Canada. As well, 48 per cent of Alberta farmers expect employment at their farm to rise over the next five years, while only 21 per cent expect to see a decline. Of 147 Alberta farmers surveyed, the top impediments cited in drawing workers included rural location and manual labour requirements as well as lack of qualifications and relevant experience among workers. According to the same respondents, retaining workers is hampered primarily by work conditions, the physical nature of the work, lack of advancement opportunity and remoteness. Notably, wages and benefits were also cited, but at a lower rate than the national average. Problems inevitably arise when farm owners cannot fill vacant positions. CAHRC surveyed 61 Alberta farmers who did not have all the workers they needed. Ninety per cent experienced excessive stress, 56 per cent experienced lost sales, 53 per cent had production delays, 44 per cent delayed expansion and 26 per cent incurred overtime costs. Note: All facts and figures are from the 2019 CAHRC report.