Spotlight on WA labour shortages

The Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation's WA Rural Woman of the Year is helping lead a new initiative to tackle labour and skills shortages.

A new two-year project aimed at boosting industry efforts to ease shortages affecting the agrifood sector was announced by Agriculture and Food Minister Ken Baston on Tuesday.

Mr Baston said the department and the CCIWA would work together on the issue, targeting the livestock, horticulture, dairy, grains and food manufacturing industries.

Experience shows that businesses in these sectors rely heavily on a transient workforce.

Ms Jarvis is working on the project, having recently joined CCIWA to lead the new initiative as its labour and skills consultant.

"There are opportunities for WA's agriculture and food sector to harness growth in demand from export markets, and better access to skilled and semi-skilled labour will be critical in taking advantage of these opportunities," Mr Baston said.

"The agrifood labour initiative will co-ordinate actions to improve access to suitable labour for the agriculture and food sector through workforce development, training and migration strategies."

Mr Baston said access to skilled and semi-skilled labour was a priority issue raised by industry through the Agrifood Alliance WA, and the project would seek input from the group in documenting across-sector labour supply needs and concerns.

WA's agrifood sector is valued at $6 billion with the majority of produce exported, however labour is hard to come by.

Earlier this year, Ms Jarvis received a $10,000 Rural Woman of the Year bursary which she put towards a project creating a series of video postcards addressing the issue.

The postcards will detail the work resettled migrants did in their first six months of an agricultural placement.

In her role previous as State manager of a not-for-profit employment, training and development agency, Ms Jarvis helped new migrants and refugees find work in horticulture.