Over the past five years in particular it has become increasingly difficult to find people domestically who have either the skills or the interest in developing the sills to work in modern day farming.

"Manitoba: Foreign Worker Destination" will be one of the topics examined this week as part of the 2007 Manitoba Swine Seminar.

Roy Hildrbrand, with Landmark Feeds and Elite Swine part of the Maple leaf Foods Group, says in order to continue to fully staff farms his companies have relied on efforts to bring in either temporary foreign workers or workers in Manitoba through the provincial nominee program.

Roy Hildrbrand-Landmark Feeds and Elite Swine

I would say from our experience the program has been very effective.

I would say in the last two years where we were running short staffed in a number of our farms, maybe particularly in Alberta, but parts of Manitoba as well, at the present time we've been able to fully staff all of our farms.

I would say it's been very effective and the other bonus for us is that, through the foreign worker program, we've been able to find people who really do have a strong interest in working in this area and therefore our turn over has been less than with domestic workers.

Hildrbrand notes there were quite a few skilled workers coming in from the United Kingdom back 10 to 15 years ago and more recently people have been coming in from South America, Mexico and the Philippines.

He says Manitoba has been a destination of choice for many years in other professions, such as health care, so that's nothing new but its been a little bit more recent in agriculture.

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