Maple Leaf Foods says all its plants — including the one in Brandon — are still in operation despite pandemic pressures.

VIDEO: Manitoba ag sector wrestles with pandemic-driven staff shortages

The animals need to be fed and grocery shelves must stay stocked, but rising numbers of employees out sick mean have left those critical ag sectors with fewer staff

The province’s agriculture and agri-food sector is feeling the crunch as more and more workers call out sick with COVID-19. The fourth wave of the pandemic, and the highly transmissible Omicron variant, continue to roll over Manitoba, with public health officials now suggesting that most Manitobans will likely be exposed to the virus in the

File photo of an Ontario cherry orchard. (UpdogDesigns/iStock/Getty Images)

Ontario to extend labour-related crop loss coverage

Losses due to COVID-19-related labour disruptions covered

A temporary crop insurance expansion that covers Ontario farms against crop losses due to “on-farm labour disruptions” caused by COVID-19 will be held over for yet another year. Agricorp, the province’s farm program delivery agency, announced in late December the feature first introduced in 2020 will be included again in 2022, at the same coverage


A Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council report indicated that over 40 per cent of farms were understaffed in 2020.

Comment: Solving the ag-labour crunch

The agriculture sector will need a united effort to address this issue

The availability of labour is a critical factor in determining the long-term growth and profitability of Canadian agriculture. The ongoing viability of many farm businesses will be determined by labour. Farms, rural communities, value-added processing, and key support sectors like transportation, are all struggling to find and keep staff. This is not a new story,

Resource-rich Canada grapples with key commodity shortage: workers

From agriculture to the oilpatch, lack of labour is driving up wages

Reuters – Canada’s economic recovery from the pandemic is being hampered by labour shortages across industries ranging from energy to aviation to agriculture, forcing companies to consider multiple salary hikes and offer other perks. Statistics Canada data Nov. 5 showed the national unemployment rate hit a 20-month low in October. The shortage of skilled and unskilled workers

Editor’s Take: A closer mirror

A few years back I stumbled across the work of the late Barbara Tuchman, a historian who wrote bestselling books about everything from the events leading to the First World War to the folly of governments pursuing policies that were actually contrary to their own interests. The book that initially captured my interest was A


(Scott Bauer photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Ontario to insure for crop loss due to lack of labour

AgriInsurance offering hailed as a first in Canada

Ontario’s federal/provincial AgriInsurance program has been temporarily expanded to include coronavirus-related labour shortages as a covered cause for crop loss. Producers already enrolled in an eligible production insurance plan and hit by crop losses due to labour disruptions during the 2020 growing season will be able to get further insurance coverage, the Ontario and federal

The emerging sector, farm groups say, is posing a new challenge for traditional greenhouse growers.  Photo: iStock/Getty Images

Canadian greenhouse labor shortages worsened by growing cannabis producers

Ottawa | Reuters – Canada’s labor-strapped greenhouse vegetable and flower growers are ramping up efforts to keep and recruit more workers in the face of pressure from the country’s budding cannabis industry, farm groups say. “Many of the cannabis producers are very cash rich. They’ve got the resources to pay a very good wage,” said

(HortCouncil.ca)

Farm labour shortage seen costing billions, expected to rise

Ottawa | Reuters — Canada’s farm labour deficit is expected to double by 2029 to 123,000 workers, or one in three jobs, as shortages continue to hit the sector’s bottom line, the Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council said on Tuesday. Farmers in Canada have long reported challenges in recruiting farm workers because the rural-based work


As older workers are set to retire, few replacements are to be found. One factor contributing to that is the lack of growth in rural population in Canada.

Agricultural labour shortage will worsen, new report says

Cash receipt losses to Canadian farmers from job vacancies pegged at $1.5 billion, 
or three per cent of the industry’s total value in sales and production

Canadian agriculture’s already acute labour shortage will worsen over the next decade, as high numbers of employees retire and the domestic labour pool continues to dry up. The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council released labour market information (LMI) research last week, showing a gap of 59,000 employees between primary agriculture’s need for workers and those

(Photo courtesy Canada Beef Inc.)

Foreign worker break for seafood sector a ‘one-time’ deal

Winnipeg | Reuters –– Canada’s move to loosen restrictions on hiring foreign workers for East Coast seafood plants was a one-time decision, and the government is not convinced other sectors need similar measures, the country’s employment minister said Thursday. The Liberal government eased restrictions under its foreign worker program recently for Atlantic seafood processors, allowing