People in Dairy Programme

Why is this research important?

Dairy farm careers have been traditionally associated with long and physically exhaustive working hours; issues that have been compounded by:

herd size expansion
a reduction in the number of people available to work on farms
the seasonality of workload within the Irish dairy system.

This intense workload has caused increased levels of stress, mental health issues and difficulties for farmers in maintaining an adequate quality of life. Meanwhile, the same farmers are placing greater emphasis on rewards such as a good work-life balance and increased family time, and creating a more sustainable workload will be essential to attract young people to farm. Accordingly, the human capital needs of dairy farms must be addressed to ensure the long-term sustainability of the industry. Teagasc, in collaboration with dairy industry stakeholders, developed the People in Dairy Action Plan with the aim of addressing these challenges focusing on six key action areas:

Ensure adequate availability of skilled people to meet seasonal and year-round demand
Improve labour efficiency on dairy farms to reduce labour demand and create desirable farm workplaces with a good work- life balance
Enhance farmers reputations as employers to support the attraction and retention of people
Develop and deliver excellent formal and informal training
Highlight multiple progression pathways to becoming a dairy farmer
Promote dairy farming as an attractive career

What the research tells us

Labour efficiency

Increased herd sizes combined with problems attracting and retaining people to work on farms have led to workload challenges, that are exacerbated in pasture-based milk production systems due to the unbalanced workload over the seasons.

A recently completed research project aimed to address the above challenges by identifying pathways for farms to achieve a balance between maximising their farm labour productivity and minimising their labour demand.

Results highlighted many examples of highly labour efficient farms of all herd sizes but also indicated scope for further improvement.

Key labour saving strategies

Among the key labour saving strategies were work organisation concepts such as reducing the number of tasks completed during the day and early finish times, practices including using one milking operator where possible, and technologies such as automatic cluster removers and automatic calf feeders.

Future research

Research work is continuing in this area to better quantify the labour contribution of unpaid family members and to understand the lifestyle preferences of farmers. Additionally new environmental policy objectives will result in a change of many farming practices and the potential impact of these practices on labour demand will be examined.

This project will focus work organisation and how the nature and quantity of work changes throughout the farming year providing a new way of analysing and thinking about farm work that could complement existing data and include new metrics, such as farm liveability.

Data will be collected from commercial dairy farms, selected on a broad spectrum of variables and will include a number of farmers in the Signpost programme. Measurements will include labour efficiency and work organisation as well as establish the relationships of the causative factors regarding work organisation and identify the key support tools and technologies. This collection of data will allow for the key performance indicators of labour productivity to be defined for the Irish dairy industry, identify the key technologies and management practices required to maximize labour productivity.

Benefits to farmers

The direct benefits to farmers will include a more comprehensive analysis of labour efficiency on farms and provide information on the distribution of labour across tasks, people and season to aid farmer decision making regarding labour demand.

Farmers’ reputations as employers

Becoming an employer and working with short- and long-term hired workers is one of the immediate challenges facing many farmers. This will require dairy farmers to develop additional skills. It requires a set of skills beyond traditional knowledge of animal care to achieve the best outcomes for the farm business.

A recently completed research project found a low level of adoption of employment practices on dairy farms. Across all farm sizes there is significant scope for improvement in all aspects of employment but particularly in the area of compliance with employment law. Research highlighted that Irish dairy farm employers have a need for specific people management advice and work is on-going in providing this training through the People Management course delivered by Teagasc and industry specialists.

The People Management course is a 2-day course covering topics such as employment law, health and safety for employees, developing self-awareness, managing others and becoming an employer of choice. Research work is continuing in this area to identify optimal practices for managing people on dairy farms through a systematic review of the literature focusing on employment practices in the industry. Systematically reviewing the literature will allow for the identification of research gaps and limitations and opportunities.

Future Farm Workplaces

A new project has recently begun to design the future requirements of dairy farm workplaces in coordination with farmers and other stakeholders. Key workplace targets and strategies to achieve those targets will be developed and tested. In addition, an understanding of the factors affecting uptake and engagement with socially sustainable practices will allow learning interventions to be developed to build and improve capacity among farmers to improve farm social sustainability.

Outputs

Links to papers

More information

Contacts

Conor Hogan (conor.hogan@teagasc.ie)
Marion Beecher (marion.beecher@teagasc.ie)