Teagasc to pilot new advisory programme structure in two regions
Head of the Teagasc advisory programme Tom Curran said the changes will be rolled out in two pilot regons initially. Picture: John Ohle Photo
Teagasc has made the first moves towards separating specialised tasks to do with schemes from technical on-farm advice, in advisor workloads.
This approach is now being rolled out on a pilot basis in two Teagasc regions, Wicklow-Carlow-Wexford, and Donegal-Sligo-Leitrim.
The Head of the Teagasc advisory programme Tom Curran said: “The amount and complexity of schemes has greatly increased demands on both farmers and advisors in recent years. Our staff have worked very hard to keep up with this workload, and this has reduced the time they have for technical on-farm advice.Â
"We are keen to address the strong feedback from clients highlighting the need and the benefits of being able to retain and strengthen a high-quality technical and farm business advisory support service to clients and to the wider farming sectors.”Â
As part of the new approach, Teagasc has established a new national Schemes Support Unit, headed by Aidan Murray. The function of this unit it is to improve the supports to advisors around scheme service delivery, and to support frontline advisers to continue to provide this service to clients.
Teagasc will assign some advisors to focus and specialise in supporting scheme services with clients, thus allowing a cohort of advisors to be more focused on technical and farm business development.
This will provide opportunities for advisors to become more specialised around the ever-expanding complexity and volume of scheme work, whilst also protecting the time of other advisors to specialise and focus on technical advice to farmers.
Letters are being posted to Teagasc clients outlining the changes in the new strategy and their designated advisor in the two pilot areas.
The impact on farmer clients is expected to be minimal because they will continue to retain a main point of contact with Teagasc through a designated advisor.
Changes for clients may arise where, in some cases, the client is referred to another advisor for specialised tasks around schemes. From a client perspective, this is similar to how some of the work with schemes and nitrates derogations work has been provided previously.
Enterprise advisors will be allocated to clients who want to keep improving their technical performance, efficiency, productivity, and growing their farm business. From now on in the two pilot regions, these clients will have an enterprise advisor as a main point of contact, who will focus primarily on technical advice, farm production and management needs. Discussion groups will also be mainly facilitated by these Enterprise Advisors.
Specialised scheme advisors will work closely alongside these enterprise advisors, to provide schemes and regulation support to farmer clients.
A third category, farm advisors, will continue to support farmers who rely on schemes for a significant portion of their farm income, in addition to the technical service they require. Farm advisors will continue to be the main point of contact for these clients, and will continue to service clients directly around schemes and associated technical advice, similar to how many advisors and clients already work together.Â
Maintaining a cohort of farm advisors aims to ensure that scheme benefits are maximised while supporting continuous improvements in efficiency and productivity on farms.
Tom Curran said: “Rolling it out initially in two pilot regions is an important part of the management of this change across the advisory programme, in order to ensure these changes are implemented in a way that maximises the benefits for clients”.
