While several sectors of the economy struggle to recruit and retain talent, agriculture faces an additional challenge: the ability to pay.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
On farms that practice diversified agriculture and short-circuit marketing, the appeal of outdoor work, varied tasks that have meaning and proximity to living things can no longer compensate for the low wages offered. Thus, several farms that would like to offer energizing jobs for their community resign themselves to “importing” captive foreign labor1 and to find solutions, often less than ideal, to house them in the countryside.
How do you explain that people working in agriculture earn, in the upper part of the wage bracket, $21 per hour (median of $16) while the wage offered for a laborer in construction is rather $34.13 per hour? hour (median $23.50)?
The hardship and skills associated with these jobs are however comparable and the needs they meet, food and housing, are just as essential. The fundamental difference between these two trades is the mobility of resources: while it is easy to import our fruits and vegetables, importing a house is another matter. Unionism in the construction industry has so far prevented this industry from being able to call on temporary foreign workers, which would inevitably level down working conditions and wages in the sector.
Agricultural production under supply management (poultry, milk, eggs) is spared this financial impasse since the domestic market is theirs; prohibitive tariffs prevent the importation of these commodities into Canada. However, international trade agreements do not make it possible to propose new protectionist measures that would make it possible to ask for a fair price for the other foods that would be produced here with respect for workers and the environment. To ensure the pursuit and development of sustainable agriculture, at the service of regional development, our governments will have to support farms which, for the time being, are fighting against the globalized precariousness of agricultural working conditions.