The latest results from a farmer survey, conducted by the National Farm Research Unit (NFRU), reveal that labour use and availability is declining and that farmers who did not have the best labour:output ratio are moving to optimise this. Labour changes appeared to be strongly linked to changes in management structures.
The National Farm Research Unit asked over seven thousand farmers whether their labour profile on the farm had changed over the past 14 months. The survey found that only 5% of all farms now have more than 5 staff (including the owner himself), compared to 7% of farms since the previous interview. The dairy sector had 6% and the arable sector only 1% of farms with more than 5 workers. The majority of farms had between 0.5 and 2 staff but there was a trend towards fewer units with this labour profile, with 61% of farms now having between 0.5 and 2 staff, compared to 64% of farms previously. For tillage farms this size of labour unit was by far the majority (93% of arable units) but for dairy farms only 37% had less than 2 staff. The only labour unit size that was increasing was those between 2.5 and 5 staff, particularly so in the dairy sector. Currently 34% of farms had this labour profile, compared to 30% of farms previously.
“Labour efficiencies are crucial to the success of farming’s future. With the consolidation of labour, farms are restructuring so that they have the most productive ratio of labour per cow or labour per area of tillage. This survey shows that in the dairy sector the larger labour units are more efficient, managing 13% more cows per man. For tillage farms, there has already been a significant change to the labour units, although the larger units are still striving for greater efficiencies.” explains Graham Croucher of the National Farm Research Unit. MORE……..
“The NFRU survey also reveals that with the decline in labour comes an increase in the use of contractors across the board. This was less so in the dairy sector as there are fewer opportunities for contracting, but the larger growing dairy units were tending to use more contracting together with the smaller and middle banding tillage units. Labour has been replaced by contract services, with some but not all costs being saved,” reports Graham Croucher.
“The lower labour farms were less likely to have TMR systems and tended to change from using a Technician for AI to using DIY methods. This practise could be bringing labour into line through reducing overheads.”
“What was perhaps surprising was that the change in the size of the labour unit did not bring about any change in buying group membership levels, although there did appear to be an 8% increase in throughput via these buying groups from the 0.5 to 2.5 sized labour units. Nor was there any significant difference in the rate at which farmers were converting to computer usage on the farm. The lower labour units tended to use computers less and for fewer activities, with this possibly as a result of time constraint.” comments Graham.
In terms of investment plans, it was the larger labour units who had more defined plans for future investment and more intentions to increase their production. For the smaller labour units there was less investment planning and a higher percentage of farms that were more likely to be sold.