A shortage of nearly 60,000 farm workers is costing Canadian producers big bucks, a new survey has found.
The survey by the Conference Board of Canada for the Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council determined the ongoing labour crunch cost producers $1.5 billion in lost farm cash receipts in 2014.
Seventeen percent of the 1,037 people surveyed said they had put off expansions because of a lack of labour. The labour shortage is expected to balloon to 114,000 jobs by 2025.
The survey’s findings do not in-clude job openings on the processing side.
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The survey did not distinguish between full-time and part-time jobs, but the Conference Board noted two-thirds of the labour gap occurs in the horticulture industry, with the remainder largely on beef and dairy farms.
Full breakdowns by commodity are expected to be released in the next couple of weeks.
For those in agriculture, the pervasive lack of labour on Canadian farms and in rural processing plants is a staple conversation topic on coffee row and at farm meetings.
It’s also one of the few challenges the sector faces where everyone seems to agree on a proposed solution, a rarity in an industry as complex and diverse .
Yet, after more than a year of lobbying, the ongoing labour crunch on Canadian farms hardly registers a blip on Ottawa’s radar.
Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuck says she’s met with agriculture stakeholders on the issue. But sources close to the file say a meeting between the minister and CAHRC Labour Taskforce, the lead industry group of the file, has yet to be arranged.
This, despite her being one of the keynote speakers at a conference in Winnipeg organized by CAHRC March 16, which members of the task force attended.
The minister did take a tour of the Maple Leaf processing plant in Winnipeg on March 18 with members of the Canadian Meat Council, where sources say the ongoing shortages at rural slaughter plants were discussed.
The Liberals have granted seasonal processing plants an exemption from the Conservative-im-posed 10 percent cap on the number of foreign workers a company can hire at one time. The 10 per cent cap takes effect July 1.
That exemption is welcomed by seafood processors, where labour shortages had led to lobster being thrown away because it couldn’t be processed fast enough.
The seasonal exemption, though, is useless for year-long industries like meat processors, mushroom farms, and apiaries, where significant labour shortages continue and are creeping their way along the supply chain.
Last year, the Canadian mushroom industry identified 574 workers who were affected by the Conservative imposed four-year-in, four-year-out rule — a rule that dealt a $300 million blow to the sector.
In its pre-budget report, the House of Commons Finance Committee said the beleaguered Temporary Foreign Worker Program needs reform.
The federal government, the committee said, should immediately address the negative impacts of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program on certain sectors, in-cluding livestock and fish processing.
The Liberals have promised a review of the TFWP program but haven’t given a start date.
With international security threats, a global refugee crisis, slumping oil prices and the country’s economic future all grappling for the Liberal’s attention, the agriculture labour shortage is likely a problem many feel can be put aside.
But when an inconspicuous economic engine like Canada’s $8 billion agriculture sector is losing more than a billion dollars a year because it can’t find people to work on the farm, that’s a problem.
It is a problem the federal government, in partnership with industry, would be wise to try and fix sooner rather than later.
