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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
During the past year, agricultural man-power in Canada has assumed a new importance. With a growing recognition that food is a vital weapon of war and the realization that the farm working force has been seriously depleted during the past three and a half years, the problems of farm labour have been forced into the foreground.
It was natural perhaps, during the first years of war, when munitions, aeroplanes, army vehicles, and ships were in such great demand; when men were needed in large numbers for the armed forces; and when surpluses of many essential farm products existed, that farm production should be considered of secondary importance. Today, the situation has changed. The relative importance of food has sharply increased. Not only have the surpluses of bacon, dairy, and poultry products disappeared, but the requirements of the Allied Nations for these and other provisions have greatly expanded. To contribute her share in supplying essential foods and fibres to the Allied Nations and to meet home requirements, Canada must have adequate farm man-power.
It is proposed in this paper to deal with the subject of agricutural man-power largely from an economic point of view. In making this limitation, it is realized that the economic considerations cannot be divorced arbitrarily from other ever-present social factors. These latter factors cannot be ignored, and will have to be considered, at least indirectly, in several parts of the discussion. The main economic aspects of agricultural man-power covered here might be briefly indicated. In the first place, the nature of the present farm man-power problem will be outlined. The extent and character of the existing farm working force will be analysed and the sources of additional labour discussed. The mobilization of this man-power through measures introduced by the federal and provincial governments will be reviewed. Finally, some problems for the immediate and long-run future will be raised and discussed.
1 These goals, which were approved at a joint Dominion-provincial conference held in Ottawa on December 7-9, 1942, are outlined in Objectives for Canadian Agriculture in 1943 (Agricultural Supplies Board, Dominion Department of Agriculture, 1943).Google Scholar
2 This estimate of the additional farm man-power needed was made by multiplying the extra quantities of farm products required during 1943 by the average number of man-days per year needed to produce each. This total, with allowances made for decreases wherever they occurred, was then divided by 250, the number of man-days worked on a farm of average efficiency (see below p. 376).
3 This man-power pool, which grew up during the depression years, had its origin partly in the flow of unemployed persons from urban industries and partly in the economic restrictions placed on the usual exodus of workers from the farms.
4 In Nova Scotia the provincial government introduced a plan this spring of bonusing the operations of tractors when they are used on neighbouring farms.
5 In Ontario, for example, the farmers' intentions to plant as reported to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, indicate a reduction of 7 per cent in oats, 5 per cent in barley, and 13 per cent in potatoes this year as compared with last. In some areas these lower estimates are no doubt due more to the late seeding than to the lack of labour. See Farmers' Intentions to Plant (Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Crop Report, May 10, 1943).
6 The average age of farm operators in Canada in 1941 was 48 years or two years higher than in 1931. The average age of the unpaid family workers remained the same at 21 years, while that of the wage-earners advanced from 28 to 32. This later increase reflects in part the movement of the younger farm workers to the armed forces and to other industries.
7 Campbell, B. A. and Coke, J., Farm Labour in Wartime (Economics Division, Dominion Department of Agriculture, Ottawa, 1942).Google Scholar
8 Dominion Order-in-Council P.C. 2251, March 25, 1942.
9 Ibid., 1822, March 18, 1941.
10 Ibid., 2252, March 25, 1942.
11 Ibid., 2251, March 25, 1942.
12 Ibid., 7595, Aug. 28, 1942.
13 Ibid., 246, Jan. 9, 1943.
14 These figures worked out from similar data compiled in the United States have been adapted to suit Canadian conditions by the Economics Division of the Dominion Department of Agriculture.
15 The war work units in the United States are expressed in terms of dairy-cow equivalents. Twenty feed lot cattle, 75 hens, and 5 acres of dry beans are equivalent to one dairy cow. Sixteen such units are set as the objective for each farm worker, although only eight have been required for postponement of military service.
16 Dominion Order-in-Council P.C. 2821, April 7, 1943.
17 Dominion Order-in-Council P.C. 3620, May 4, 1943.
18 There were orders on hand in provincial offices for over 4,000 workers early in May and over 1,000 placements were made during March, April, and the first half of May by these same offices. In Ontario, estimates made by the County Agricultural Representatives early in May indicate that around 3,000 regular workers and 25,000 seasonal workers, exclusive of students and townspeople, are needed on farms.
19 See Canada, House of Commons Debates, vol. LXXXI, no. 95, 06 23, 1943, p. 4035.Google Scholar
20 Fifty years ago there were on the average 395 acres of improved farm land per gainfully employed person on Canadian farms; in 1941 there were 79. Meanwhile the number of productive livestock units per man increased from 9.6 to 10.3. Cf. G. V. Haythorne in collaboration with Marsh, L. C., Land and Labour (Toronto, 1941), p. 268.Google Scholar