The leafy Windsor region has a problem: a shortage of skilled workers willing to work on farms.

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From left, Cesar Humberto Susite de Paz and Juan Alberto Toto Sapo pack cucumbers at Mucci Farms in Kingsville, Ontario, on June 24. Jeff Robbins/The Globe and Mail

At Mucci Farms, based in the Windsor area on Lake Erie, growing vegetables is a surprisingly high-tech operation.

In a greenhouse larger than 200 football fields, teams of harvesters work the harvest while robots sort and pack the red, yellow and orange peppers, ripening them with irrigation and temperature systems controlled by artificial intelligence.

The growing industry has struggled with a shortage of low-skilled agricultural labour for years, but as more Canadian food producers move to high-tech methods, the sector is also experiencing a severe shortage of skilled workers.

There's a persistent perception that agriculture is outdated, says Bert Mucci, CEO of Mucci Farms and the son of one of the Italian brothers who moved to Kingsville, southeast of Windsor, Ontario, in the 1960s and founded the company.

“When we were kids, everything was done by hand,” Mucci said, “These days, most of what we do can be controlled by an app on our phone.”

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Workers harvest tomatoes in the greenhouses at Mucci Farms. Jeff Robbins/The Globe and Mail

Blessed with abundant sunshine, fertile soil and mild temperatures, Essex County, located around Windsor in southwestern Ontario, is the most concentrated greenhouse agriculture region in North America, with approximately 130 growers producing more than 500,000 tons of produce annually.

Precision agriculture in greenhouses allows farmers to increase yields, producing approximately 8.5 times as many vegetables per area of ​​land compared to field production.

And Canada is one of the most efficient producers in the world: Southern Ontario's greenhouse growers produce more per square meter of land than any other major greenhouse country in the world, including the Netherlands, Spain and Mexico.

Throughout Mucci's 150-acre greenhouses, hundreds of hidden sensors constantly measure temperature, humidity, and sunlight, and that data is fed back into AI software that helps growers adjust conditions by changing irrigation, blinds, and lighting.

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Above: Crates of tomatoes on an automated trolley in the greenhouse at Mucci Farm. Below: Tomatoes on the vine at Mucci Farm.

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Jeff Robbins/The Globe and Mail

Finding skilled labor remains a challenge, Mucci said. Growers need experts in information technology, finance, marketing, logistics and sales. But above all, they need growers who can run large-scale operations. A typical grower manages 100 acres of vegetable fields. Wages, before incentives and production bonuses, are in the six figures, Mucci said.

A recent report from the Royal Bank of Canada found that Canada has one of the most severe skills crises compared to other major food exporting countries. According to RBC, Canada has the land, water and access to markets to lead the race and potentially add $11 billion a year to the economy, which would make agriculture's contribution to gross domestic product greater than that of automobiles and aviation combined.

Canada is at the forefront of what the RBC report calls the Fourth Agricultural Revolution, a next transformation driven not by diesel or genetically modified seeds but by high-tech innovation and data. And Canada has the physical resources to surpass its rivals, as well as a well-funded and well-established education system.

But Canada's share of global agricultural exports is falling as countries like China, India, Indonesia and Brazil increase production and sales. Canada's productivity is also stagnating, with RBC predicting the sector will grow just 1.8 percent per year, down from an average of 3 percent per year over the past decade. The number of people under the age of 55 working in agriculture has also fallen by 54 percent since 2001, according to RBC.

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Minoru Andres Diaz Garcia packs cucumbers. Jeff Robbins/The Globe and Mail

Hazel Farms Group, which operates a roughly 200-acre greenhouse farm in Leamington, Essex County, southeast of Windsor, also faces a shortage of growers, engineers, robotics and other highly skilled workers.

“It's one of the most difficult areas to grow,” said Jamie Lefave, general manager of Hazel Farms Group, adding that working in a greenhouse requires agricultural knowledge and technical know-how. Most of the best people start early in life: They grow their own crops.

Lisa Ashton, head of agriculture policy at RBC, said agricultural schools need to step up to stay ahead in the global food production race.

Programs must evolve to meet the demands of agriculture today: Full-time MBA programs at Canada’s top 10 business schools don’t offer agribusiness electives, and agricultural schools don’t typically offer coursework that integrates agriculture with engineering or social sciences.

But Ashton said changes are coming on that front: This year, the University of Guelph launched an AI and food program, an initiative launched by the school's faculties of engineering and physical sciences.

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A worker inspects cucumber plants at Mucci Farms. Jeff Robbins/The Globe and Mail

Ashton said the labour shortage also reflects a more fundamental shift in Canada's demographics: The urban-rural divide is widening, with rural areas growing 15 times slower than urban areas, according to Statistics Canada, he added.

Mucci hopes that higher salaries, a lower cost of living and innovative, expanding industries will attract talent that will accelerate the pace of innovation.

He recognises that geography is a major obstacle: not only is farming out of sight (and therefore out of mind) as a career option, but the lifestyle on offer to young graduates is different.

Young people want to be in places where there's activity, he said, and in smaller communities, relocation can be hard to stomach.

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