Photo: Laura Watilo Blake
Canada’s labor-strapped greenhouse vegetable and flower growers are ramping up efforts to keep and recruit more workers in the face of pressure from the country’s budding cannabis industry, farm groups say.
“Many of the cannabis producers are very cash rich. They’ve got the resources to pay a very good wage,” said Andrew Morse, head of the Flowers Canada industry group.
Canada’s greenhouse, nursery and floriculture sectors employ 16% of all workers in Canadian agriculture. The industry has been grappling with a tight labor supply for years, and the current record low national unemployment rate is compounding the problem.
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