By Ethan Braund | Woolwich Observer
The agriculture industry is currently facing a major labour shortage problem, and temporary foreign workers (TFW) are essential to the solution, says the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA).
The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council reported that 28,200 agricultural jobs remained unfilled, resulting in approximately $3.5 billion in lost sales.
Agriculture, along with the entire food system, depends on one thing – people.
The OFA’s Cathy Lennon told The Observer that there are not enough workers to fill all the available jobs, noting that current suggestions about downsizing or even scrapping the TFW program would make the situation worse.
“There’s been sort of a significant number of media out there about unemployment rates for youth in Canada and maybe Canadians in general, and some discussions about how to address that,” she said, pointing to talk about the TFW program.
“I think there’s quite a bit of attention and knowledge, really, about the role migrant workers and seasonal agriculture workers play on horticultural farms.
“I just thought it was important to share that temporary foreign workers and seasonal Ag workers are critically important throughout the whole system, and it’s often people that you don’t see.”
Many of these unfilled jobs rely on temporary foreign workers because they are not attractive to young people or domestic labour for a variety of reasons.
One of the factors they consider is that many of these jobs are located in rural communities, which creates transportation issues. It is also true that many jobs in the industry are demanding, with long hours, such as those in trucking and logistics.
These jobs sometimes do not have ideal conditions, such as working in the heat of a field or the cold of a meat-packing plant. Likewise, some of them being only seasonal, which may lead to a lack of interest from domestic workers, as many are looking for employment year-round, said Lennon.
The agri-food sector would suffer in the absence of TFWs, she stressed.
“There are a whole lot of farms out there that would indicate they simply could not continue to operate without the seasonal ag workers. They would be forced to transition to a different kind of farming, or transition out of farming because there aren’t a lot of other options.”
You would also see changes in products at the grocery store, similar to what happened during the pandemic due to supply chain troubles.
“I think it’s important that we make sure that we understand what the impacts could be without all of the people needed to run them,” added Lennon.
This does not mean that we should stop trying to attract Canadians to work in the agri-food industry, she added, noting that regardless of one’s interests, numerous job opportunities are available in the industry, including roles in HR, media and nutrition.
“We want people to know that there are exciting careers, because when people think about agriculture in school, if you didn’t grow up in the industry, you think an agriculture job is on the farm and it’s milking cows or it’s picking strawberries,” she said.
Lennon went on to say that there will always be a need for TFWs in the agri-food industry, but we still need to continue to try to build the Canadian workforce.
“I definitely think we will remain focused on developing and building a workforce for the future of Canadians. But there’s always going to be either those jobs that are seasonal, that are tough to fill, and there’s always going to be those jobs that are less attractive for Canadians.
“I do think there’s always going to be a need for immigration for some of those jobs. And there’s always going to be temporary labour needs.”
