How much time is involved in farming?

Figures used by DAERA to categorise the size of farm businesses in NI can offer an insight into the typical labour requirement for different types of farms.

In its recent publication, ‘The Statistical Review of NI Agriculture 2022’, the department set out estimates for the standard labour requirement for various livestock and crops.

This is effectively the number of hours of work needed each year to keep a single type of animal or to grow one hectare of a certain crop. For example, the standard labour requirement for a dairy cow is 39 hours and for a suckler cow it is 12 hours.

The publication states that one standard labour unit for a full year is 1,900 hours of work, which equates to 38 hours worked over 50 weeks of the year.

If we divide the standard labour requirement for each type of livestock or crop into 1,900 hours, then it gives a rough indication of how many head of livestock or hectares of crop are required to keep one person in work for a full year.

For example, if 39 hours are needed for one dairy cow, then 49 cows should keep a person in full-time work. Likewise, 12 hours for each suckler suggests 158 cows are needed for a full-time labour unit.

However, another consideration for dairy and suckler farms is what DAERA deem “other cattle”, which bring an additional labour requirement of nine hours each per year.

Presumably, this would include rearing replacements and looking after beef cattle. If so, then a suckler beef farm with 100 cows and 80 stores requires 1,920 hours of work annually.

Most farms in NI are made up of a mix of enterprises.

An example of a full-time mixed farm could be 50 sucklers, 40 store cattle, 100 ewes and 15 hectares of cereal, as it equates to 1,930 hours of work annually.

Different farm types

Tables 1 and 2 give a breakdown of DAERA’s standard labour requirement for different types of farming, along with Irish Farmers Journal analysis on the amount of livestock or crops needed for a full-time labour unit.

The outlined figures are purely theoretical, although they do give an insight into the amount of work involved in farming, especially given that farmers seldom count the hours they work or allocate a cost for their own labour.

Unfortunately, full-time work on a farm doesn’t automatically translate into a full-time wage.

For that reason, many farmers have off-farm employment too, so the hours outlined in the tables below regularly happen early in the morning, in the evenings and during weekends.

The actual labour requirement for each type of livestock and crop will vary widely between different farms. There is a long list of factors that influence labour efficiency on local farms, from farm layout to the use of contractors.

In reality, the hours that many farmers work each year far exceed 1,900 hours.

Some of this comes down to lifestyle choice, although it is often due to the farmer not being able to afford enough paid labour, which would allow them to have a more sociable working week.

The seasonality of agriculture is a major factor influencing labour demand across almost all types of farms in NI.

For example, managing 450 hill ewes may equate to a full-time labour unit over the course of a full year, but there is likely to be too much work for one person alone in the spring, and not enough work to justify a 38-hour week at other times of the year.

Estimates

Detailed estimates of monthly farm labour requirements across the year are set out in the John Nix Pocketbook, which is published by The Andersons Centre.

On the example of hill ewes, it is estimated that a labour requirement of one hour per ewe is needed in the month of March, with this sitting at 0.4 hours per ewe during both April and June.

However, from July to December, it sits at either 0.2 or 0.25 hours per ewe per month, before rising to 0.3 hours in January and February, and it sits at 0.3 hours again in May.

Crops

Similarly, growing spring cereals requires 2.4 hours of work per hectare in March, with no labour demand in the winter or mid-summer. The work peaks at harvest, sitting at 2.4 hours per hectare in August, although this rises to five hours per hectare if straw is baled.

Overall, it is pretty much impossible to match the variation in monthly labour demand on farms to the work that can be carried out by a single person.

It is little wonder that most NI farmers rely on agricultural contractors and casual help from family.

Dairying

There is slightly less fluctuation in the monthly labour demand on dairy farms.

However, the John Nix Pocketbook breaks this down across various types of dairying systems and differences in labour inputs are evident, as Figure 1 shows.

For example, a low yielding spring calving system (5,250 litres per cow) has a peak monthly labour demand of 2.2 hours per cow in the spring, with this gradually falling throughout the year to reach 0.5 hours in January.

By contrast, a high yielding all year-round calving system (9,500 litres per cow) needs 3.8 hours of labour per cow per month from October to April, with this falling slightly in the summer to reach 3.2 hours from June to August.

When the monthly labour demands for dairying systems are tallied up, the spring system has an annual labour requirement of 19.8 hours per cow, which equates to 588,000 litres of milk per worker.

The all-year round calving system stands at 43.2 hours per cow annually and 487,000 litres per worker.