Agricultural Worker Recruitment and Training Program

Commodities

• Animals: bovine
• Animal Products: dairy

Practices

• Education and Training: technical assistance
• Farm Business Management: labor/employment
• Sustainable Communities: employment opportunities

Eastern Maine Development Corporation's Agricultural Worker Recruitment and Training Program will engage Maine dairy farmers and the agricultural service providers who support them, including workforce development practitioners and training partners working in close collaboration with the Maine Dairy Industry Association. Service providers play a critical role in helping farms recruit, train, and retain workers, while farmers contribute practical insight into daily operations, labor demands, and training realities. This project advances a coordinated workforce strategy that builds on EMDC's Agricultural Workforce Training, Placement and Support (AWTPS) program to strengthen recruitment, onboarding, and retention across Maine's dairy sector. The approach integrates outreach, training, and operational tools that align with how dairy farms already function and improve how service providers support farmers.

Dairy farmers consistently report workforce shortages that limit their ability to complete daily tasks, maintain animal welfare, and sustain their operations. Hiring is constrained by limited exposure to dairy careers among job seekers, rural location, housing availability, nontraditional schedules, and difficulty competing with non-agricultural wages and benefits. These pressures increase workload and stress for owners and existing employees and contribute to turnover, safety risks, and reduced productivity.

Service providers are frequently asked to assist with recruitment, onboarding, and training but lack coordinated, dairy-specific tools that reflect farm realities. Fragmented job posting options, inconsistent training practices, and limited access to standardized resources reduce the effectiveness of support and lead to repeated, short-term interventions rather than lasting solutions.

Key components include:

• Attracting new entrants to dairy careers by developing outreach and awareness materials that feature producer and employee perspectives. These materials will be used by service providers at career fairs, with high school counselors, and in community outreach to expand the pool of potential full- and part-time workers.
• Streamlining recruitment through an agriculture-specific job platform designed to centralize dairy job postings and improve visibility to interested candidates. While dairy is the initial focus, the platform will be adaptable for other agricultural sectors, reducing fragmentation and improving efficiency for both farmers and service providers.
• Delivering hands-on training for dairy workers that builds on successful AWTPS-supported models. Trainings will focus on technical skills, safety, and understanding farm protocols, helping new and existing employees reach competency more quickly while improving animal welfare and farm productivity.
• Supporting the development of standard operating procedures (SOPs) by providing technical assistance and user-friendly templates that farmers can adapt to their operations. Clear SOPs will promote consistency across tasks and shifts, support employee success, and improve retention.

Service Providers:

By the end of the project, 4 agricultural service providers (including workforce development practitioners and training partners serving the dairy sector) will have changed how they work with dairy farmers as a result of this project in the following ways:

• Shift from reactive workforce assistance to a structured, dairy-specific approach to recruitment, onboarding, and retention.
• Regularly use an agriculture-specific job posting platform when assisting farmers with hiring.
• Incorporate standardized onboarding tools and SOP templates into their technical assistance with dairy farms.
• Coordinate or refer farmers to consistent, task-based dairy trainings rather than relying solely on informal, farm-by-farm instruction.

These changes in practice will directly impact at least 30 dairy farms through each provider's existing service territory. Service providers will document use of new tools and approaches and identify the farmers with whom these practices were applied.

Farmers:

By the end of the project, 30 dairy farmers will adopt at least one new workforce practice (Use of agriculture-specific recruitment platform, implementation of SOPs for core farm tasks, use of standardized onboarding materials) supported through service provider engagement. 30 dairy employees will participate in task-based, on-farm training. 10 new employees will be successfully onboarded.