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Extension, state looking to train for ag careers

Finding workers on the farm and in agribusiness has become more challenging, and some employers are looking at a different labor pool for solutions.

Trisha Wagner with the University of Wisconsin Extension’s Farm Management Program says finding and keeping workers is tough.  She tells Brownfield teaching things like milking parlor operations robotics, or getting mill employees their quality and safety certification can be expensive, but ag employers can use some state programs to help pay for that training. “There was a dollar-to-dollar match and then for small businesses, there were some programs that were for every fifty cents invested in the training, there was a dollar match.”

Wagner says she’s also looking at how the ag sector can use training available through the Department of Corrections to help roughly 9,000 prisoners re-enter the workforce in agriculture. “The Wisconsin Windows to Work program could be an area where we could be looking.”

Wagner encourages ag employers to contact the extension to find out how state worker training grants might help their businesses.

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development and the Wisconsin Department of Corrections gave presentations about the Windows to Work and the Fast Forward job training and grant programs to potential employers at the Wisconsin Agribusiness Association’s Agribusiness Classic in Madison Tuesday.