NS Federation of Agriculture encourages unemployed Canadians fill vacant farm jobs

With the pandemic making it more difficult for temporary foreign workers to arrive in Canada this growing season, the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture is encouraging out-of-work Canadians fill the labour gap.

The federation's president Victor Oulton, says help is needed to ensure food gets from farm to fork.

“Typically there would be about 1,500 foreign workers coming in to work through the summer,” he says. “To date there are only about 500.”

In an article published in The Chronicle Herald on Friday, Acadia Students’ Union president Brendan MacNeil made comments suggesting university students without summer jobs shouldn’t be expected to take available work on farms.

However, Oulton says jobs in agriculture shouldn't be viewed as undesirable, adding farming is the backbone of society.

“Nobody should feel agriculture is beneath them to work because we all need to eat,” Outlon says. 

He says working on a farm offers many opportunities to develop diverse skills like plant and soil health management, animal care, mechanical work, and marketing and accounting.

“Farm work these days isn't just shoveling manure or pulling weeds,” he says. “I think people have it stuck in their minds that farm work is just doing certain things, and there is a bit of a stigma to it.”

Oulton says returning foreign workers would be more efficient than local labourers new to the farm, but he is confident training an eager worker would bring them up to speed.

Working on a farm also gives people a greater appreciation for food according to Oulton, which he says society has distanced itself from in recent years.

“I'm not trying to put words in their mouth, but it almost seems like they think that food automatically happens, it just comes in the grocery store,” he says.

Oulton says a few hundred more foreign workers are expected to arrive in Nova Scotia this week, but they will have to isolate for 14 days before heading to the fields.

He says there will still be a number of positions farmers will be looking to fill. The Federation has created a job board on its website to help connect farmers with workers.

“We put it up in March when we realized we wouldn't get the foreign workers who usually come,” he says. “I think it's something we are going to continue with because, for the most part, farmers are always looking for more help.”