Help! ...a look at your options when labour is tight on the farm
The most obvious choice is to look to employ farm staff, but the reality is that there isn’t a cohort of people lying idly by waiting for a chance to go work on a dairy farm, writes rural accountant Kieran Coughlan.
Help! Help, I need somebody! Help, not just anybody! These words were immortalised by The Beetles but are as relevant today as when first penned when it comes to farm workloads.
This week and the next three weeks will see a huge number of calves born on dairy farms. The workload goes from a steady pace to outright mayhem in the space of a few days.
It’s not unusual for dairy farmers to be clocking in 12-hour days and 80-hour weeks this time of year. It’s ironic that a farmer looking to get help to reduce or at least manage their own working hours must make sure that those that are employed by them work no more than 48 hours per week on average.
If the same metric were applied to dairy farmers, or indeed dry-stock or tillage farmers, at critical times of the year the food production system that we know would fall apart.
Over recent years I’ve come to accept that I can’t expect to get up and check cows during the middle of the night and expect to function the following day, sometimes one must prioritise one’s own health and welfare even if that means that the animals must come second. As the saying goes, a farm without a farmer is called ‘rented’.
When looking at managing the workload, there are a couple of options available. The most obvious choice is to look to employ farm staff, but the reality is that there isn’t a cohort of people lying idly by waiting for a chance to go work on a dairy farm and finding someone to work on your farm as this stage is wishful thinking.
Relying on services such as Farm Relief is another option, but again, their staffing levels can only cope with so much and expecting them to fill the gap is also wishful thinking but still worth a try.
Some farmers also get the local agricultural contractor to feed out silage, chop beet and clean out sheds. It’s a time of year when contractors are not overly busy, and they might actually be open to undertaking such tasks even if they haven’t considered doing so previously.
Yet another option available to farmers is to reduce their workload by altering their system, even on a temporary basis.
Some farmers milk three times every two days or even just once a day in order to free up time; another option is to batch cows, such as keeping milking cows in one batch and those not destined for the milk tank in another batch in order to speed up milking time and also free up head space where a farmer doesn’t need to continually concentrate on remembering which cows need to be kept out of the tank.
A few gates and round feeders can change the purposes of shed. Reverting back to the employment option, farmers need to be careful when taking on temporary staff.
As a starting point, it is recommended that you ensure you have employers’ liability. Some insurers split such a policy into named employees and casual labour. A health and safety statement, reviewed by the prospective worker, is another basic recommendation.
The recent Supreme Court decision covering Domino’s pizza franchisee delivery drivers means the bar to be met in meeting the self-employed status is now higher than ever.
If you do happen to source an employee, it's worth remembering that a would-be employer is obliged to register the employee and operate payroll taxes with no de minimus, and as such, there is no level of casual labour that is acceptable outside of operating the rules.
The same rules apply to foreign workers, including those who may be coming to Ireland for work experience.
On that subject, the minimum wage of €12.70 per hour applies generally to almost all employments, including internships, work placements, or work experience roles.
It’s already a busy time of year in farm yards, but staying on the right side of the tracks is important to prevent yourself from becoming exposed to unwanted legal headaches.
