The agricultural sector is grappling with significant labor challenges, impacting every part of the food supply chain. From producers to processors, retailers and consumers, no stakeholder is immune to the repercussions of a strained labor force.
Addressing these challenges requires a multifaceted approach, including investing in rural communities and fostering a supportive company culture. It also includes a shift in marketing strategies to ensure that all stakeholders from farm to consumer benefit from a reliable and sustainable supply chain.
It Takes a Village
The food supply chain is inherently fragile. Underperformance anywhere within the chain can disrupt stakeholders upstream and downstream. What we often forget is that food is produced by people, in far-flung rural places not connected to the urban settings that many take for granted. The difference between rural and urban communities is more than gravel roads—it’s often marked by inequity and access that places challenges on the people who produce our food.
Many know Land O’Lakes as a butter company, however, the cooperative has interests in multiple industries, including agriculture, dairy, animal nutrition and sustainability. Each enterprise within the cooperative provides a critical product or service for the others, and when a shortage occurs in any area of the supply chain, it creates a ripple effect.
Comprehensive support beyond the farm is desperately needed to improve and stabilize the workforce, but it cannot be left exclusively to growers to solve.
This interconnectedness encompasses many stakeholders including growers, farmworkers, processors, wholesalers, grocery retailers, community leaders and consumers.
Marketing efforts need to include messaging to those beyond the grocery buyers and consumers within the supply chain. It often needs to extend to communities, government officials, education and healthcare professionals and prospective farmworkers, to reverse the shrinking workforce.
Each stakeholder should recognize the importance of supporting agriculture holistically as a piece of the fabric of community. Farms operate on thin margins and cannot shoulder the burden of growing, marketing, recruitment and community development on their own. Investing in and supporting rural workers and their families requires a collective effort to ensure a stable and thriving agricultural sector, and in turn a reliable food supply chain available to the very large consumer base that agricultural goods and services support.
The Labor Crisis in Agriculture
According to the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA), the average farmer is unable to fill 21% of their necessary workforce, a gap that continues to widen as the average age of farmworkers increases.
This demographic shift underscores the urgency of attracting new faces and generations to the industry. Traditional marketing strategies to sell more produce won’t help bridge the gap of the 21% missing workforce and consequently reduced outputs. This requires us to think about our marketing message and our audience.
So, what can be done to help mitigate these challenges? While marketing to consumers is important, to build the workforce we first need to understand the challenges facing the industry, create an environment that benefits all stakeholders — including new generations of farmworkers — and develop strategies to reach them.
Company Culture Bridges the Gap
With roughly 2.9 million people working in agriculture in the United States, according to the National Center for Farmworker Health, 70% of those workers are reported to be foreign-born.
This makes a supportive company culture pivotal in recruiting and retaining labor in the agricultural sector and part of that includes supporting the rural communities in which they live and making them welcoming and inclusive.
No Man’s Land
But welcoming and inclusive communities are just part of the equation. Some rural communities struggle with access to basic amenities such as high-speed internet and digital infrastructure, a diverse local economy, good schools, daycare, adequate healthcare facilities and even local grocery stores that aren’t more than 30 minutes away.
For young families choosing agriculture as a career, all of these factors can be limiting barriers. For farmworkers, many foreign-born, add to that a language barrier, questions and concerns about immigration, grueling days in the fields, and too often, poor living conditions or unaffordable housing, and the field of dreams isn’t one that harkens prosperity.
Setting an Example
But challenges are never insurmountable. In fact, as Land O’Lakes engages in active conversations with its stakeholders — including growers and cooperative members in rural communities — they find kitchen table issues are the biggest challenges. The biggest questions aren’t, “How can I increase yields or be more sustainable”?, they’re, “How can we expand broadband to our rural communities or improve our access to healthcare or create more jobs to support our community.”
In the produce industry, we also have everyday examples of companies doing good work to support their company talent. A great example of creating a better path forward for farmworkers and their families is the NatureSweet Transforms Ag initiative.
The initiative includes a host of programs to assist farmworkers with assimilation and success in their new position and home. Programs include: strong, collaborative work environments between laborers and managers; schooling programs for elementary, middle, and high school education completion; mental health assistance for any of life’s challenges with on-site psychologists; school improvement programs; local nursing home programs; and volunteer programs.
Perhaps the most important thing is not to focus on the product output, but to focus on the benefits created by companies with a vision rooted in community culture. Anyone can grow tomatoes, or make butter, but not everyone can build culture and reap the long-term benefits of community investments that support vibrant ag economies that include:
Enhanced Loyalty and Lower Turnover: Workers are more likely to stay with a company that invests in their well-being and that of their community, reducing the impact of labor shortages.
Healthier Workforce: Access to healthcare and educational opportunities improves the overall well-being and skill sets of workers.
Stronger Local Economy: More jobs and increased consumer spending contribute to a better community and bustling economy.
Benefits Across the Supply Chain: A stronger workforce, more opportunities to advance and thrive, reliable partners, consistent, high-quality products, and meeting consumers’ demands for products and brands exercising social responsibility and sustainable practices.
Produce Marketing, Reimagined
Marketing in agriculture involves much more than flashy point-of-sale (POS) and sales goals. Failing to meet orders due to labor challenges will take a toll on business relationships and can stunt company growth and reputation. Just the same, organizations lacking in social responsibility and company culture discourage potential employees from applying for positions and consumers from supporting them via their purchase decisions.
This interconnectedness among agriculture and food stakeholders calls for unified efforts to improve work and living conditions for workers, their families and their communities. A comprehensive marketing strategy needs to be considered for every stakeholder from labor and vendors to community members, partners, buyers and the consumer. Your marketing will not look the same for every audience, but your purpose for being should.
Building a More Sustainable Food Supply Chain
Ignoring the shrinking workforce in agriculture is not an option. The time has come to create a more resilient and reliable food supply chain with more opportunities, not just jobs. Sustainability in agriculture reaches beyond green initiatives and includes working to build sustainable workforces and communities and telling their stories so every stakeholder is invested in rural success.
Company culture and community investment play critical roles in achieving this goal. Today and every day in the future collaborative efforts among stakeholders will be crucial to helping rural agriculture communities adapt to changing circumstances and create resilient food supply chains. By working together, we can ensure a stable and prosperous future for agriculture, its stakeholders and our food supply chain.
- Melinda Goodman is the president of Full Tilt Marketing.