What will happen if truckers don’t want to drive and people don’t want to work  
 As I write this column on Sunday afternoon January 23, 2022, it is hard to believe what is happening. I’m watching video after video appear on social media from truckers and friends of truckers, on a nationwide truck and vehicle convoy converging from all directions. Why, for various reasons, vaccines mandate by governments on both sides of the border, keeping trucks and freight from crossing that border. So on one side, it’s pigs waiting for feed and on the other side, it’s feed waiting for pigs. Not to mention the supply chain causing more and more consumers to wait for goods that usually would appear on shelves as the last one was dropping in the cart.  
Even a GoFund account is growing by leaps [last read $2.2 million] and bounds to supply convoy participants with fuel, food, and lodging.  
While those on the convoy and alongside it at various destinations wants governments on both sides of the border to remove the vaccine mandates, Rick Bergmann of Steinbach, MB chair of the Canadian Pork Council intends to have feed meet beast so farming can continue.  
Ok, so who or what or where or when will this resolve itself? I think no one knows. Fewer and fewer people want to drive a truck for a living and with the restrictions and mandates, the trucking system will go begging.  
There is a bigger problem looming in the agricultural sector that over half of the potential jobs are also begging, meaning no production because no one wants to work those jobs on both sides of the border. Cam Dahl, the general manager of Manitoba Pork warns the global pandemic has worsened the labour shortage that’s limiting the agriculture sector’s growth potential. 
According to Dahl, the labour crunch faced by Canadian agriculture is partly because rural populations are diminishing, so fewer people are available to work on farms. 
Last year the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council surveyed agriculture businesses and found that 40 percent had not met their staffing requirements. That was even higher for the hog industry at over 50 percent. By the end of this decade, it’s projected that agriculture will have almost 125 thousand open positions so it’s a real serious problem. 
It’s something that’s inhibiting our growth potential and, in some cases, even causing some operations to question whether they can continue to go forward. The COVID pandemic brought this to a head with labour shortages on the farm, in the barn and support industries like feed mills. 
“We’re short veterinarians, short people to work in our processing plants; it goes throughout the entire sector.” 
If agriculture producers or value-added processors can’t get the people they need to run their plants and farms, they will not take advantage of some of those growth opportunities. 
That’s a real problem for Manitoba’s economy, for the Canadian economy as a whole. 
Dahl said someone needs to showcase agriculture and what an exciting career it can be. Whether it’s on the cutting edge of genetics, animal care nutrition or marketing, agriculture is an interesting place to be, and many don’t see it that way lack the understanding.  
The industry is coming together to look for solutions, and it is on the radar screens of our political leaders, but we don’t yet have the answers.  
That brings me full circle to what is happening in the trucking sector and the convoy heading to Ottawa.  
Everything moves by truck at some point, and farmers grow the food, company’s process it, and stores sell it. •