Agricultural labour is a frequent topic in this season of annual general meetings.
Farmers, farm workers and others in the agricultural industry can also use those meetings to provide input into a labour market research survey undertaken by the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council.
Debra Hauer, project manager with the council, has been making the rounds at annual meetings to encourage survey participation.
Results from those will be supplemented with other data.
“We’re doing surveys. We’re hoping to have 800 of those,” said Hauer.
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“We’re also planning to do 80 interviews with industry people who are knowledgeable about the agriculture industry across commodities and across provinces. And then we’re having a series of six focus groups in February and March, so all of this information together will be fed into the development of our agricultural labour supply and demand model.”
Participants choose one of three surveys: employer, worker or agriculture industry stakeholder.
Deadline for responses is Jan. 22.
Initial results will be tabulated in March and April, but complete results from all the input are expected in the winter of 2016. The federal employment and social development department is funding the project.
Hauer said people might have more to say about the labour situation than the survey will accommodate.
“We would be very happy to hear from them. We’d be happy to interview them or invite them to a focus group.”
Producers have been telling Hauer about their difficulties in finding workers for their operations.
“People are increasing their wages for their workers in order to compete and they’re also looking at other ways to retain workers, such as providing benefits,” said Hauer.
“They’re looking at their conditions on their farms and how they can retain people.”
Demand is one side of the equation, but the council is also exploring supply and trying to determine where the agricultural workforce might come from over the next 10 years.
Supply and demand data will be used to develop a model to allow the council to forecast agricultural labour demand as economics and demographics change.
“That’s why it’s important to hear from everybody, producers as well as agricultural workers, family members, paid or unpaid, just everybody who’s involved with the world of work in agriculture.”
At least 62 surveys from Manitoba, 110 from Saskatchewan and 165 from Alberta will be needed to develop reliable provincial snapshots and a national picture, said Hauer.
The survey page can be found at http://bit.ly/13gHIko
