Brexit labour crisis effect warning for dairy farms
Massive labour shortages in sectors such as agriculture may be exacerbated if and when the UK withdraws from the EU, warned Cork North Central Fianna Fail TD Billy Kelleher last week.
In the Dáil, he said the UK will not have access to the EU labour market pool after withdrawal from the EU, but will continue to have access to the Irish labour market pool.
He said Ireland’s common travel area with the UK will remain and this means, in effect, that both will be in the same labour market.
His warning came as Irish dairy farmers in a survey estimated farm work loads of 86 hours per week last March, and said they took less than one day off in the month.
Deputy Kelleher said: “We already have massive labour shortages across whole swathes of the economy in various sectors, including agriculture and high-end finance.
“The labour market in the UK is facing the same challenges.
“Until recently, the UK was able to fill vacancies because it was part of the EU labour market. As that changes, the UK could very well look at the labour pool in the Republic of Ireland. We could be in direct competition with the UK as we try to retain workers in our economy.
He warned that a shortage of labour will undermine Irish competitiveness. “In such circumstances, difficulties associated with the cost of exporting into a weaker sterling zone will arise immediately.”
Even without a Brexit factor, about one third of the 349 farmers surveyed by Teagasc in 37 dairy discussion groups in 12 counties, found it impossible, difficult, or very difficult to hire help last spring. When asked to identify the best thing they did last spring to cope with the increased workload and weather challenges, taking on extra help was mentioned by 20% of farmers in the survey.
The survey was carried out in May by Teagasc dairy advisors putting 20 questions to members of their dairy discussion groups.
Ifs findings compare with a labour study on 38 large dairy farms in 2015-16, where the average working week was close to 65 hours.
But the spring of 2018 created extra challenges for farmers due to poor grass growth, excessive rainfall, snow, and inadequate feed availability. Inadequate facilities, animal health issues, and under-utilisation of labour-saving techniques, also resulted in increased workload on dairy farms.
The 2018 dairy discussion group survey farms averaged 160 cows calved in the spring (it ranged from eight to 740). The average area of land on the milking platform was 54ha (it ranged from five to 260ha).
These are larger herd sizes than the national average, but Teagasc says the results can provide valuable insights.
On average, in addition to the farmer, there were two people working on each farm, comprising one family member, 0.4 full-time employees, 0.5 part-time employees, and 0.2 students.
Family members averaged seven hours work per day for six days per week, while full-time employees worked 9.6 hours per day for six days.
The 2018 survey farmers had on average 17 units in the milking parlour, and were milking nine rows of cows.
There were 154 cubicle spaces for cows (0.97 cubicles/cow, on average) but one third of the farmers had fewer than 0.8 cubicles/cow. Only eight farmers did not implement any labour-saving practices.
Using a contractor to spread slurry was the most commonly used practice (74%), while contract feeding was the least (6%).
One-third of farmers were using once-a-day milking.
Night-time feeding of cows near calving, once-a-day feeding of calves, or contract fertiliser spreading were adopted by 30-40%.
Nearly 15% had a dedicated night-time calver. As a result of their experiences this spring, one third of the farmers planned to invest in facilities and infrastructure.
The survey results are reported in the current edition of the TResearch official science publication of Teagasc, in an article by Marion Beecher and Paidi Kelly of the Teagasc Moorepark staff.
They noted that Irish dairy cow numbers have increased by 33% since 2010, to over 1.4 million.
As a result, the workload on Irish dairy farms has markedly increased, and is compounded by inadequate facilities on some farms, limited experience of large-scale dairy farming, and recent extreme weather.
