Ag and tech leaders encouraged employers to think outside the agricultural box when looking to hire workers in order to expand the labour pool.
“I’m one of the lucky ones,” said Brenna Mahoney, general manager of Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP).
Mahoney entered the industry with no agriculture experience. She had training in human resources and got a term job at Cereals Canada. “I just happened to have a boss who saw potential and connected dots for me.”
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Mahoney spoke during a panel discussion on agriculture technology, education and labour during the Agriculture Enlightened conference in Winnipeg, Oct. 26.
“When you write your next job description, are you putting agriculture as the number one requirement?” Mahoney asked. “Or are we looking at some of the soft skills?”
“When we put out a job ad, you know, five to six years working in agriculture is usually the prerequisite so, you know, we automatically have to cancel people out,” she added.
“We’re really trying to change that conversation around our table,” Mahoney said.
The panelists discussed how Agriculture in the Classroom plants the idea of agriculture careers in the minds of young people.
Mahoney told a story about how, at the diner in her small town, the young waitress told her she wanted to become a plant geneticist. When asked where she got that idea, the young woman said that Agriculture in the Classroom had come to her school.
“And I saw whoo!” Mahoney said. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”
Panel host Jennifer Flanagan, the CEO of Actua — a firm that connects students with the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields — said her organization recently partnered with EMILI and Agriculture in the Classroom Manitoba (AITC-M) to bring agriculture technology to young people, particularly Indigenous youth in the Prairie provinces.
The project added agriculture technology jobs to a career exploration package Ag in the Classroom provides to teachers AITC-M executive director Katherine Cherewyk said in an interview after the panel.
Technology is changing quickly, Cherewyk acknowledged. However, she said in her experience, when kids know what they want to do, they begin connecting how they can use new technology to reach their goals.
For more coverage of Agriculture Enlightened, see future editions of the Manitoba Co-operator, the Western Producer and Grainews.
