CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. – After 29 years in the vegetable business, Eddie Dykerman and his brother were ready to throw in the towel in 2008.
His 280-acre vegetable farm at Brookfield, P.E.I., needs a core staff of nine through the year and up to 15 seasonal workers at busy times.
By 2008, attempts to find local workers were largely futile. They would come, be trained and leave after a few hours or a few days.
His farm was falling behind because permanent staff were spending much of their time training people who did not stay.
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“I felt like we ran a train station and I’d see a stranger and ask if they were coming or going.”
It was a turning point.
“In 2008, we hit the wall,” he told the annual forum of the Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council July 6.
“I was frustrated. I just wanted to pack it in.”
But a responsibility to many of his permanent employees who would lose their jobs after 20 years led him to consider another option – bringing in Mexican labour under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
He brought in six in 2009, eight in 2010 and 10 this year. It has turned the farm around.
Instead of decline, Dykerman is adding a 15-acre organic operation and his nephew and son have been attracted back to the operation.
“My longtime permanent staff are happier and what I’ve noticed is a tremendous growth in our company,” he said. “Labour is no longer an issue that stresses us out.”
Mervin Wiseman, a former Newfoundland farm leader and chair of the CAHRC board, saw it as a cautionary tale about the issue of farm labour in Canada.
“I think the skilled labour shortage is the greatest crisis facing Canadian agriculture,” he said in an interview.
“We talk a lot about profitability in agriculture, but if the workers are not there, production will suffer and profitability will suffer.”
Wiseman said it is impossible for many farmers to find domestic workers. The only solution is to import foreign workers and make the bureaucratic process less cumbersome.
He has had to import Polish work- ers on his own farm, one of the largest silver fox operations in the world.
“The bureaucracy is painful to get them here and jump through all the hoops, but I have to do it. I know farmers who have just given up because they could not find workers.”
A study conducted for the CAHRC estimates that 40,000 farm workers will soon be needed in Canada, most of which will not be filled domestically.
Federal bureaucrats used the forum to explain the process for bringing in foreign workers under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, but farmers say it is a complicated, time consuming and uncertain process.
Earlene Murray, a hog and crop producer from Borden, P.E.I., described the frustration of trying to bring in a Philippine veterinarian to work on the farm.
It has worked out but getting new documentation for him every time he visits his family at home remains a hassle.
“It has been great but I wouldn’t do it again,” said Murray.
“Is there going to be a language barrier? If they come, will they stay? If they come and don’t work out but want to stay, what do you do?”
Wiseman said those all are legitimate issues, but the future of Canadian agriculture depends on an experienced and reliable workforce that typically is not available from local people who look down on farm work as a profession.
“Foreign workers have to be a major part of the solution,” he said.
Dykerman said language and cultural barriers have been problems on his farm, but his Mexican workers have saved the day.
They have trouble with the weather, though.
“They were out picking lettuce this morning with toques on,” he said.
It was a sunny 25 C day.
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