Justin Girard is the Manitoba Program Manager for Young Agrarians, a peer to peer educational resource network for new, young and aspiring farmers. He is also the team lead for the Young Agrarians Apprenticeship Program, a program that sets up aspiring farmers with their first farm job and provides support to both the apprentices and the seasoned farmer mentors. Justin grew up on a farm, worked on farms, and farmed himself and is excited to help carve out opportunities for the next generation of land stewards.

In this episode, Justin tells us what Young Agrarians is and the missions and goals of this very farmer education focused organization.  He also shares about his role and some tasks within the Manitoba section of YA.

One of these roles has to do with the Apprenticeship Program through YA, and Justin shares how this program works, the number of farms included in the program for 2025 and how farms can be involved. 

Young Agrarians offers an array of courses and conferences.  Today, we are focusing specifically on the “How to Hire Farm Workers Course.”  This program discusses human resources on the farm from creating job ads, to the hiring process, retaining great employees and working together on the farm.  The course also discusses onboarding, skills training, communication and farm culture.

To contact Justin email: [email protected]

Visit Young Agrarians on their social media platforms: @youngagrarians 

Links mentioned in this episode:

To find out more about the course or to sign up, visit: https://youngagrarians.org/shop/e-learning/self-paced/how-to-hire-farm-workers/

Young Agrarians Home Page: https://youngagrarians.org/

The research programs and daily operations at MBFI would not be possible without the funding from the Province of Manitoba, Government of Canada, and Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, as well as the partnership with Manitoba Agriculture, Manitoba Beef Producers (MBP) and Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC).

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