Paperwork overtakes farming, studies find

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

Paperwork to obtain government licenses and permissions is taking up the majority of time in farmers’ days, say participants of farming industry studies in five southwestern Ontario counties.

Jill Halyk, executive director of the Workforce Planning Board of Grand Erie, says red tape was the main issue they heard from everyone they talked to with participants saying “the administration side of farming was overtaking the actual job of farming.”

Participants didn’t expressly say they found the amount of required paperwork overwhelming, but Halyk says that was the general sense they got. The studies were based on surveys with farmers, agriculture-related companies and others along with detailed research.

The Workforce Planning Board of Grand Erie and the Elgin Middlesex Oxford Workforce Planning and Development Board published a separate Agriculture and Labour Force Analysis Study for each of Brant, Norfolk, Elgin, Oxford, and Middlesex counties. The Sand Plains Community Development Fund provided funding.

Halyk says they also did a study for Haldimand but there was a different source of funding for that one.

Among the studies’ recommendations are:

•    develop strategies that make it easier for more people to enter farming;
•    promote farming as a career for young people and newcomers;
•    provide training opportunities for farmers to learn new skills;
•    build on opportunities for new commodities; and
•    help farmers produce energy on their farms to reduce costs.

The two workforce planning boards had flagged agriculture as a major source of employment and business within their communities.  But they’ve been watching changes happening in the industry, particularly in tobacco. “We’re seeing changes in the number of businesses, particularly on the crop side of farming and changes in the number of people employed,” she explains.

One of the things the boards are concerned about is many farmers are nearing retirement age and reaching the point where they have to think about who will replace them. The average age of farmers in the study areas is 55 years old.

The other thing that’s happened in the study areas is there has been a lot of interest from young people thinking of farming as a career.

Halyk says the boards’ main concern is to protect and sustain the industry sector that’s so important to their communities and that’s what prompted them to do the studies. BF