Farmer Writes: dairy farming isn't all dirty elbows and 12-hour days

I took a few well-earned days off with the family this week after the intense calving and breeding seasons. Most of the silage was done early this year as well so it was a nice time to take a break before the second cut is ready.

We have a good team in place at home with family and good staff so everything should run smoothly when we’re away.

We put in plenty of hours on farm as usual this spring but after the herd test in early July the autumn should go easy enough this year.

The Teagasc and Department of Agriculture initiative announced last week is vital for our industry to bring new life and new energy to the table. The biggest threat to the existing number of cows in the country, let alone any expansion in numbers, is a lack of good staff or, maybe more accurately, good team members.

We need some solution to make dairy farming a more attractive career choice for young people and the families that ultimately influence those career choices. Money is part of it, but some sort of career progression and a job that starts and finishes at defined intervals is vital to the industry.

We can take something from the New Zealand share-farming model, but without real scale most of that is a pipe dream.

Giving a young person a 100-cow herd to share-farm would unfortunately be more akin to a life sentence than a business opportunity.

Share-farming in New Zealand is no picnic either, with plenty of men old before their time out there having suffered intense physical, mental and financial pressure for most of their 30s and 40s.

Staff is a huge issue on dairy farms already here though. I know of five farms in this area looking for good staff. On the flip side, none of them are in a position to offer much progression in the job. They will pay a decent wage with good working conditions but with little chance to move up a ladder or progress in the sector.

This is typical of the Irish dairy industry at the moment. We will pay a decent wage, give enough time off and in most cases keep the working day manageable, but the move to an industry that somebody could build a career around is a long way off.

Nobody has the solution yet but as we see dairy expansion really take hold, we may see bigger farms come on stream with more opportunities for managers with full autonomy on decision-making and the possibility of taking a stake in the business.

Can we dangle a realistic and achievable carrot in front of a potential farm manager? Can we create a few opportunities for people to progress to stock ownership at least and with real job security and progression?

We need something to compete with the opportunities for top candidates in the public and private sectors.

It’s a huge challenge for a sector that is already finding it difficult to attract its traditional core base of farm kids into full-time employment.

Dairy farming isn’t all dirty elbows and 12-hour days 365 days a year anymore, but it’s still hard work and a hard sell, especially for someone without the pot of gold of a farm to inherit at the end of the rainbow.

A tough job of work lies ahead for the Minister for Agriculture to find the carrot that attracts in the next generation of Irish farm managers. Either that or we import the next generation of Irish farm workers.

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