History
The Creation of a New Sector Council for Agriculture
In November 2003, representatives from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and the Canadian Young Farmers’ Forum participated in a forum with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada to explore the creation of a national sector council. As a result of this forum, a group of volunteers representing a wide range of agriculture sectors from across the country formed a Steering Committee in February 2004 to lead this project.
The Steering Committee decided first that they needed to get the facts about human resource, labour, and employment challenges facing the sector. This was essential to have tangible data and information with which to substantiate or refute the need for an agriculture sector council. To do this, the Committee commissioned three pieces of research:
BROAD LITERATURE SEARCH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN
The George Morris Centre conducted a broad literature search and environmental scan on existing and emerging human resource, labour, and employment issues at the international, national, and provincial levels. An agricultural think-tank located in Guelph, the Centre’s research presented concrete information on the persistent human resource challenges faced by the industry. It also provided an assessment of available documentation that offered best practices used to address these challenges.
PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH SURVEYS
GPC Research designed, hosted, and analyzed two separate online/mail-back surveys for employers and employees in the agriculture sector to seek their views on skills training, and recruitment and retention challenges. The research indicated that although employers and employees valued training and skills development, there were many factors affecting their ability and willingness to participate in it. Survey results also indicated that employers and employees may have different perceptions about the factors that influence recruitment and retention of agriculture workers.
PUBLIC OPINION FOCUS GROUPS
Malatest & Associates held focus groups in each province with producers from different agriculture sectors to explore their opinions on a wide variety of human resource-related topics. The issues discussed ranged from industry career awareness and public image to labour retention and occupational standards to employment and immigration policy. The focus groups also explored the value of a possible agriculture human resource sector council.
Based on these studies, and subsequent meetings of the Steering Committee, agriculture stakeholders decided in November 2005 to initiate the creation of a sector council. They also created an Interim Board of Directors to provide leadership to the Council.
On September 16, 2006, then Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, Diane Finley, announced the creation of the Canadian Human Resource Council.
Once the Council was up and running, the interim board went to work to identify the priorities on which the Council should focus for the first 18 months (October 2006 to March 2008). To do this, Board members formed two working groups to look more closely at Recruitment and Retention issues and Skills and Training programs for agriculture workers and producers. The literature review and environmental scan, as well as the results of the surveys and focus groups, were central to this work.
The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council used the results of the working groups to develop several key activities to start addressing the most immediate challenges.