Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Teagasc Director Gerry Boyle said that the report requires immediate action, so that some measures could be in place by next spring to address the shortage.
“As far as I’m concerned, we were near crisis situation this spring based on the anecdotal evidence we were getting back from farmers all over the country. There was massive stress.”
One solution to the issue would be farmers in other farm enterprises working on dairy farms, Boyle said.
“There is a big pool of labour on other farm enterprises, people with huge knowledge of livestock management and so on.
“Now, there is a reluctance for them it would seem to work on dairy farms, but I think that can be broken down.
“I think that maybe one initiative we could take is to organise a course that would show non-dairy farmers the opportunities that could exist for supplementing their income by doing some work on dairy farms.”
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Beef farmers are reliant almost 100% on direct payments from Europe as a source of income, while figures from the 2016 Teagasc National Farm Survey show that 49% of all farmers have an off-farm income.
Short-term response
Boyle said that in the short term obviously we need more bodies, somehow.
“Clearly the likes of FRS and others will be looking to try and attract labour in from abroad and so on.
“They’re going to need to be trained and most of them won’t be trained for work on dairy farms.
“We’re prepared in Teagasc to mount intensive, short-term skills courses to train up those people who might come through that route.”
Apprenticeships
The Teagasc Director also thinks enhancing dairy as a career needs to be looked at.
“We have a four-year programme where a student would attend Levels 5 and 6 at agricultural college and then do a two-year programme in Moorepark – we call it the Professional Diploma in Dairy Farm Management.
“That could be easily converted into an apprenticeship which would elevate the status of the qualification. It would actually be at degree level if that was done.
“That would require a change in legislation because agricultural employment is not recognised within the current apprenticeship legislation, but that could be easily changed.
“There’s medium-term issues that are going to be needed because we can’t have a repeat of the stressful situations that were evident on dairy farms in the spring.”
Careers officer
Teagasc is also appointing a dairy education and careers officer to promote dairying as a career, Boyle said.
“[The officer] will be responsive to the needs of families and to put in place the education needs that would be specific to dairying, but also to promote it as a career that people can earn a reasonable living from.”
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