National Workforce Strategic Plan for Agriculture and Food and Beverage Manufacturing - Interim Report

Jun 06, 2023

The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC) and its partners the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) and Food and Beverage Canada (FBC-ABC) are pleased to share the interim report on the development of an industry-led National Workforce Strategic Framework for Agriculture and Food & Beverage Manufacturing.

Started in 2021 with funding from the Government of Canada’s Future Skills Centre, the National Workforce Strategic Framework will set out a comprehensive plan for Canada’s agriculture and food and beverage manufacturing sectors to achieve workforce stability by 2030. The Strategic Framework will identify the root causes of industry’s labour shortages and skills gaps, identify concrete actions to address these shortfalls, and set meaningful goals and timelines to measure our progress and success.

The Strategic Framework seeks to complement the efforts of the Government of Canada, including the development of a National Agricultural Labour Strategy by the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food.

To date, over 100 stakeholders have actively participated in this critical initiative, including primary producers, food and beverage manufacturers, educational institutions, producer groups, industry associations, and government officials. Together, they are undertaking work around five key themes:

Perception and Awareness of Industry and Careers
People and Workplace Culture
Immigration and Foreign Workers
Skill Development
Automation and Technology

Source : Cahrc.ccrha

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators