Farmer Focus: Nine-to-five job offer tempts apprentice away

Well, it’s that time of year again. We’ve been trying to fit eight weeks’ worth of jobs into four before harvest starts.

There’s a shed to finish off, a decent-sized open yard to concrete and a wall to build, plus all the sundry fabrication work that goes with this.

We’re about to start whole-cropping barley as the clamps are nearly empty of maize.

See also: 7 focus areas for efficient beef finishing rations

About the author

Doug Dear

Opinion Columnist

Doug Dear farms 566ha (1,400 acres) of arable crops and runs a custom feedyard, contract-finishing about 4,000 cattle a year near Selby, North Yorkshire. Most cattle are finished over 90-120 days for nine deadweight outlets, as well as Selby and Thirsk markets.

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The combine has been serviced, but not the drier and baler yet. We’ll probably have to use the “suck it and see” approach to that problem, and “bush-fix” on the go as any issues arise.

Feedlotting hasn’t slowed at all and if it doesn’t rain soon, I can see our feeding services may be in demand.

Our system has been made far more efficient with the installation of the 4^th Generation Controller and InTouch feed management software.

It means that changes of diet, ingredients, quantity fed, entries, exits and pen movements can all be done on the app, which all of us in the group have access to.

This allows us to make alterations to the feed management in real time. Don’t get me wrong, we haven’t taken the farmer out of farming, but it has made us more flexible and adaptive in feed management.

After putting in a lot of blood, sweat and beers into our apprentice, it seems a great shame that he may be leaving us for pastures new.

He’s told me it’s not about the level of remuneration, as we are paying more than the job he may be moving to, it’s the fact that agriculture isn’t nine to five.

This is a difficult one to get round, as Mother Nature dictates workflow. Anyway, he is going to see us through harvest, which I appreciate, and maybe we can talk him into staying.

When a recent Defra steering group wanted an oversight from me into the current labour situation in agriculture, I was asked whether I had thought about employing an over-55.

“Absolutely, yes,” I said, but it’s not all about sitting on a tractor on an A-B line on a mixed farm. It’s the rough and tumble of dealing with 650kg beasts daily. All I know is I’m bloody tired on a night.