Why dairy farming must be made more attractive

How attractive is a career in dairy farming?

This question will be considered in the Moorepark open day forum at next Tuesday’s big open day. The forum will be chaired by Sharon Ní Bheoláin from RTÉ, and will include two separate panel discussions on key dairy industry issues.

For the careers in dairy farming discussion, the panel has dairy farmer and former IFA president Padraig Walshe, and farmers Billy Curtin, Ann Moore, Gillian O’Sullivan and David Kerr.

According to an forum backgrounder in Teagasc’s Today’s Farm magazine, anecdotal evidence suggests that many dairy farmers lack the people management skills for career development on farms to build management capacity, and for attracting, retaining and developing more people in the industry.

An estimated 6,000 people are needed to enter the Irish dairy industry on farms over the next eight years to replace retiring farmers and meet the additional workload arising from expansion of the national herd.

National cow numbers have already increased by over 300,000 cows since 2010, and are expected to grow by a further 250,000, to 1.6m, by 2025. Almost 50% of Ireland’s cows are milked in herds of at least 100 cows, and hired help will be needed along with family labour.

Dairy expansion and the requirement for people add up to exciting career opportunities in Irish dairying. But with improving national economic conditions, the dairy industry will have to work particularly hard to attract the next generation of young people into dairying.

Young people today have different work expectations, compared to previous generations. To attract people, dairying careers must be rewarding and enjoyable, and must remunerate those employed to levels consistent with other trades within a recovering economy.

Ensuring that dairy farms are enjoyable places to work (with rosters, efficient work practices, labour-efficient facilities, etc) must become just as important as technical efficiency.

The panel will discuss the challenges of achieving a satisfactory work-life balance for dairy farmers, and what steps they have taken to streamline workload.

The panel will also discuss the steps farmers can take to make dairy farming a more attractive career for young people.