“We grow plants, but it’s all about the people”: Eagle Lake in GrainsWest
On: January 9, 2025
By: Eagle Lake Nurseries
GrainsWest, the magazine of Alberta’s grain commissions, has featured Eagle Lake Nurseries in “People Power,” a story about how Alberta farm businesses build and keep their teams.
The piece looks at a side of the nursery most customers never see. Eagle Lake employs up to 70 people a year across full-time and seasonal roles, and alongside trees, shrubs and perennials the farm grows barley, corn and forages in rotation to keep its fields healthy.
Owner and CEO Anita Heuver told the magazine the business runs on a simple idea: “We grow plants, but it’s all about the people.” It is the thinking behind the nursery’s mission, Growing People that Grow Plants, and behind a few years of deliberate work on how the team is recruited, trained and kept safe.
The article describes the comprehensive human-resources plan the nursery developed with safety professional Danielle Howard, the move to digital HR and safety records, and the Certificate of Recognition (COR) the nursery holds through the Alberta Association for Safety Partnerships and the Workers’ Compensation Board of Alberta.
It also notes a shift many Alberta farms will recognize: as local, word-of-mouth hiring became harder, Eagle Lake has come to rely more on workers from outside the region to fill seasonal roles.
You can read the full article at grainswest.com
