Solving the seasonal agricultural worker crisis

Despite the federal government's new reforms in the use of temporary foreign workers following revelations in the media of abuse and misuse of the program, the agricultural stream of the temporary foreign worker program has remained practically untouched. In fact the program has been flourishing, having gone from 13,590 approved positions in 2005 to 39,700 in 2012 - with nearly 3/4 of total approved positions being through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP).

Many Canadians are starting to feel cheated by the temporary foreign worker program with the number of temporary immigrants admitted now being higher than the number of permanent immigrants. They feel cheated out of jobs that, in a weakened Canadian economy, could potentially be going to Canadians or be used to bring permanent new arrivals.

But to this, Canadian farmers can only shrug. After all the federal government seems to agree with them, there is enough a demonstrated lack of available seasonal agricultural workers to merit the protection of the SWAP. Just listen to Mr. Edwin Klassen, manager of a potato farm in Manitoba, as he tells of the human resource difficulties being faced by farms,

“If I got three skilled applicants today I’d hire them on the spot... Right now the labour market is very tight. I’m getting very few quality applicants for hire,” says Klassen. “I’ve been in this position for five years and in the past I would very often have had a list of anywhere from 10 to 20 applicants who would want to be grading potatoes, and since last summer that list is down to two or three.”


“I know that other potato growers and cereal farms are drawing labour from Winkler, Morden and other areas as well,” says Klassen. “Quite a few grain farms are operating 10,000 to 20,000 acres, so they have a workforce of a dozen or more. They’re all looking for the same skills — guys who can operate equipment or repair a piece of equipment.”

The catch of course is that the positions this company is having great difficulty filling are seasonal jobs, guaranteeing employment for a few months at best, and they are requesting workers with a fairly wide breadth of specific skills already under their belt.

It may be a hard pill for farmers to swallow, but seasonal jobs are not a liveable income for workers. The reason you can't find help is that no skilled, experienced worker is going to take a job with zero job security that will only provide for them and their family for a few months. A worker with marketable skills will only take work that, at the very least, provides a liveable income and a significant degree of job security.

So what are the alternatives? Let's break down a few.

1) Student summer jobs

With most seasonal positions needing to be filled over the summer season, an obvious choice is the one segment of the population who are available for hire during the summer only - students. And there's certainly no shortage of summer student labour. This summer alone 460,581 Canadian post-secondary students were looking for but unable to find a summer job, with the post-secondary student unemployment rate sitting at 16.5% percent this summer. Over twice the rate of the general population.

Around the end of the school year farmers should be trying to advertise a summer job in places where students can see it. Colleges and universities typically have summer placement centres of some sort that will be glad to take your job posting. It's also possible to hire students who enrolled in college programs with cooperative education components, especially in the many horticultural programs in Ontario colleges.

2) Apprenticeships and cooperative education

Most farmers are seeking out workers who already have the fairly wide breadth of skills required in agriculture under their belts instead of training workers themselves. This is a missed opportunity since training itself is a form of payment which costs little to the farmer but is invaluable to many, especially so young workers trying to get a start on their career.

A common route that many youth are happy to go is apprenticeships - with more provinces rolling out agricultural apprenticeship programs such as the dairy, swine and fruit farm apprenticeships in Ontario, the farm technician program in PEI or the "green certificate" programs in Alberta. Taking on apprentices is also rewarded with tax breaks and wage subsidies that offset the cost of taking on full-time workers.

3) Coopératives d’utilisation de main-d’œuvre

A popular system in Québec translating to "cooperative for the use of labour", it involves several local farms coming together to form an association which employs full-time, salaried workers collectively. The workers are shared between the farms, which are quite often involved in completely different facets of production than one another, allowing the workers to be engaged throughout the year working with many different crops.

The primary advantage to the farmer is that they have the benefit of multiple skilled workers available throughout the year at a fraction of a cost of engaging full-time workers; the primary advantage to the worker is that the employment is full-time rather than seasonal with high job security. This solution requires quite a bit of cooperation with your fellow farmers, but if you're on good terms with your neighbours this can save you a mint in labour costs.

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Agriculture is the basis of the rural economy. When agricultural producers are unable to provide an employment model which is viable for workers and are forced to rely on temporary foreign labour - who contribute nothing to the economy, and instead export their wages back to their home country - there is a crisis at hand.

Farmers have a responsibility to ensure the vitality of rural communities. Rather than depending upon a broken program extended by a government which is more than happy to introduce anything which dilutes the local labour market and thus the conditions of working class Canadians, farmers should be finding innovative and cooperative solutions to create viable employment opportunities, especially for the youth, who are the future of our rural communities.