28 Oct 2019

Taking farming forward

Vet Sotirios Karvountzis takes a look at the farming industry and the problems it faces in recruiting new farmers, and offers practical advice, highlighting government initiatives and schemes in place, as well as his own training offering, to ensure the industry continues to thrive.

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Sotirios Karvountzis

Job Title



Taking farming forward

Image: Michael Evans / Adobe Stock

As I carry out my work among farmers in south Wales and the south-west of England, it’s evident the average age is increasing.

Farmers are so often in their 60s or well beyond. Some are still enthused and enriched by their way of life, and relish the challenge each new day brings. Others are often all too visibly struggling physically, and under the weight of an ever-more complex and fast-changing administrative burden.

Challenges and risks

Sometimes the farm is a very lonely place, with the partner working off the farm, and farming neighbours few and far between. Less frequently, it’s a vibrant hub, with several generations working together – they may be family members or paid employees.

A mind-boggling range of statistics can be interpreted in many different ways, but, clearly, loneliness is an issue among the over 60s – whether farming or not. And each situation brings its own challenges and risks.

So how do we address this and how to define a farmer? Is it the active farmer named on the Basic Payment Scheme form who is taking the lead? Certainly, he or she will have, if not full responsibility, a measure of financial control.

But who is making the day-to-day decisions? It’s likely to be the much younger person I see on my training courses; the keen, young individual who can access everything he or she needs to know from the smartphone. And here is the frustration. I’m so often told youngsters are not interested in taking on a farm holding or that younger candidates are willing, but not encouraged, to do so.

I’m not sure it is the case that a lack of interest exists. Farming remains an attractive proposition for ambitious young people. Such individuals need incentive, a career path and a measure of authority.

So how can capital be more easily transferred, not just from one generation to the next, but sometimes from one business partner to another? How can trust and an undeniable degree of emotional attachment be addressed?

Help

Help exists, and an abundance of routes: partnerships, share farming and tenancies. The farming unions offer wise and experienced counsel. Accountancy advice exists, but at a price.

One groundbreaking example is that offered by Wales’ Farming Connect. The Welsh Government-backed organisation provides a mentor venture scheme that acts as a “dating agency” to match new entrants with farmers and landowners looking to step back.

The scheme offers an integrated package of training, mentoring, and legal and other advice. The fact Farming Connect offers this alongside so many other skill-based schemes means it should be more easily accessed.

It helps to address a situation where so many farmers no longer know the accountant by name, let alone that of his or her father before that. How many farmers have a trusted bank manager or enjoy the comfort of a direct line to his or her desk? And how many have a family vet they know by name?

Tackling the problem where each party is quietly becoming more and more dissatisfied is so important. It’s uniquely difficult, as well as rewarding, to live and work with adult members of your own family, yet planning regulations, as well as economic pressure, means this is so often the case. Divorce and the nature of modern relationships can further complicate.

The author visiting a family run dairy farm.
The author visiting a family run dairy farm.

It’s also challenging to live and work with a host of employees from different countries and, as “the boss”, to enjoy the camaraderie, while retaining authority. In Wales, not only is life enriched with two official languages, but in our “People’s Signals” meetings, four or five different languages are often present. These include English, Welsh, Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian and, sometimes, German to fill the gaps.

The skills sessions, facilitated by the Welsh Government’s Farming Connect skills development programme, through the training provider Simply the Best, aims to get everyone involved and enthused, resulting in happier cows and profitable farms.

We offer tailor made and competitively priced training, and believe labour shortages can be overcome with a highly skilled workforce. We focus on cattle hoofcare, responsible and safe use of veterinary medicines, MilkSure, CowSignals and PeopleSignals training and, shortly, cattle AI.

Pathway

I have been visiting a family run 700-cow dairy, split over two units, that employs 10 farm workers. Most of them come with different languages and customs. The owners would like to maintain their very good lameness and mobility performance in the two units. Mobility score stands at 6% approximately, which is way better than the national average.

We meet the whole team every four months and set out targets for the following four months, as well as review performance. Little things, such as what time, and in how many groups cattle are moved out of the cubicle houses and into the parlour for milking, how often the feed is pushed up in the feed barriers per day and, finally, who is responsible for what, where, when and how with regard to the foot bath.

It makes for a more efficient business, but, just as importantly this approach can distance “the boss” from constantly making up rules and it brings people together in an informal, third-party environment, sometimes alongside a pie and chips, offering a pathway to resolving broader issues.

So often, they are each silently facing similar problems not as easily resolved as trimming a cow’s hoof, but that can lead to the breakdown of the business just as surely as lameness will cause the cow to suffer and become unproductive.

How easy is it to persuade an elderly parent to ease his or her burden, after a lifetime that only seemed to begin yesterday, building up a farm? Why not chat to a contemporary facing similar issues?

Bring dad along to one of our sessions, perhaps mum also. You might all learn something.