1006 - Environmental Scan of Existing Post-Secondary Agriculture and Food and Beverage

The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC), in partnership with the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) and Food and Beverage Canada (FBC) are leading the development of a National Workforce Strategic Plan for Agriculture and Food and Beverage Manufacturing (NWSP). The NWSP will support the future sustainability and growth of the industry through the collaborative development of a national agriculture and food workforce strategy. It is informed by existing research as well as leveraging outcomes from new research. There are working groups for each pillar of the plan, including foundational themes which underpins every aspect of the pillars. Attraction and retention of workers is a key theme discussed in this work, including ways to better build career awareness with those not already connected with the industry. One area of interest is learning more about the value of connecting post-secondary students with industry while in school and how this translates into which industry they go into after graduation.