It’s no secret that farm development has eased in the last 12 months. Difficulties with planning permission, tighter margins inside the farm gate and the seemingly ever increasing cost of developments have all put a squeeze on investing in the farm.Speaking at the Lisbeg Dairies open day last week, Teagasc adviser Martina Gormley made a very valid point; when surveyed, the majority of workers who had left a job on a dairy farm had done so due to the facilities in place. It wasn't due to the unsociable hours associated, or the wages farmers can afford to pay.
It’s no secret that farm development has eased in the last 12 months. Difficulties with planning permission, tighter margins inside the farm gate and the seemingly ever increasing cost of developments have all put a squeeze on investing in the farm.
Speaking at the Lisbeg Dairies open day last week, Teagasc adviser Martina Gormley made a very valid point; when surveyed, the majority of workers who had left a job on a dairy farm had done so due to the facilities in place. It wasn't due to the unsociable hours associated, or the wages farmers can afford to pay.
Facilities are key
Good facilities are key to enjoyable farming. Nobody wants to be in a milking pit for any more than an hour and a half per milking, and neither do they want to spend another two hours carting milk around a yard in a cold, wet spring. Good facilities will do two things; firstly, they will cut down on the labour required on farm, and secondly, they will make the current labour on the farm (be it you, family members or paid staff) happier to work there.
On this Focus, I detail some of the development done on Lisbeg Dairies in Eyrecourt. The farm has undergone a huge transformation with its conversion to dairying, and to the Bourns family’s credit the facilities that are now in place are top quality for both cow and operator. On pages 48-49, I look at an innovative new service provided by Tank Environmental that looks to cut the labour and associated dangers with cleaning out slatted tanks for extensions or retrofits of aeration systems. I personally think that aeration systems are excellent investments from a safety and grassland management point of view, and this innovative slurry vacuum appears to remove the difficulties and risks with retrofitting them to tanks.
I look at the recommendations released in a new booklet by Teagasc’s Tom Curran and Francis Quigley. In years gone by, nearly all herds were uniform in size, but now with crossbred herds in one corner and high yielding black and whites in another, cubicles are not a one size fits all, which the booklet has highlighted well.
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