Students get crash course on agriculture as job crunch worsens

Hundreds of students got a taste of the numerous jobs available in Ontario’s agriculture industry earlier this month in Listowel.

“They're not the original jobs you might think of, but they're so important,” said Madison Lammer, from AgScape, a non-profit organization promoting agriculture amongst Ontario students.

One in nine jobs in Canada are in the agriculture and food industry, but with 40 per cent of Canada’s farmers retiring in the next decade, and another 24,000 agriculture workers needed, the sector needs people, and not just those tilling the soil.

“We need our welders. We need our food scientists. We need everyone pretty much across the spectrum, soil scientists, everyone. We need them. And yeah, everyone needs food. Everyone wears clothes. Everyone needs things from the agriculture industry,” said Lammers.

At Listowel District Secondary School, students can enroll in a Specialist High Skills Major in Agriculture course. Students like Avery Mueller, who wants to be a veterinarian.

“This is a way that I can kind of [to] get more experience and kind of dig deeper into getting to see people who are actually in that field doing it and kind of getting a taste of what it's like,” said the Grade 11 Ag Major.

Local agriculture businesses see the value in inspiring youth to join them out in the field too.

Bryan Long from Equipment Ontario, along with CASE IH, are donating a brand new combine engine for Listowel students to work on. It’s worth thousands of dollars, but if it means future ag employees, it may well be worth it.

“People think that if they didn't grow up on a farm or they don't know agriculture, then they can't fix something like this. Well, we've proven that wrong many times. All we need is somebody that's smart and hardworking and we can really teach them the rest,” said Long.

Ben Robinson doesn’t need much convincing. He hopes to take over his family’s dairy farm near Listowel at some point, but in the meantime, he’s learning how to fix the equipment he may one day own.

“You don't always have to be out on the farm. You could be making feed sheets, doing tests, and stuff like that,” said the Grade 12 student.

“People think it's not for them, but really it is. One in nine jobs right now is in agriculture and food, which is just an insane amount across Canada,” said Lammers.