Part-time farmers say it’s tough going but worth it

Part-time farming carried something of a stigma in the 1980s, when it was seen as a tacit admission that a holding was incapable of sustaining the farmer and their family.

But as earnings continued to decline, many farmers found themselves with little choice than to seek supplementary income.

By 2006, 42 per cent of farmers had off-farm jobs. Since the economic crash, and the resultant scarcity of jobs, the figure has fallen back somewhat.

By 2011, about 32 per cent of farmers had other jobs – now some 35,000 farmers work part-time.

There are advantages to the approach. Part-time farming allows farmers to remain on holdings which would otherwise be unsustainable.

Writing in these pages earlier this year, Joe O'Brien, former RTÉ agriculture correspondent, said part-time farming has "slowed down the infamous flight from the land".

But there are also frustrations. "It's hard work at times," says Frances Doyle, a part-time farmer who lives with her husband Michael in New Ross, Co Wexford. She complains that part-time farmers are always trying to catch up on lost time.

The freezing winters, miserable springs and wet summers (this year’s glorious sunshine excepted) have tormented farmers over the past few years, but Doyle says part-timers in particular struggle with harsh conditions.

“The grass is not there this year, so it’s more difficult for Michael to keep the grass coming ahead,” she says.

“If you were here the whole time you could be on the ball, spreading the manure, but when you’re trying to watch that and when you’re trying to work that around being off the farm, it’s very, very difficult.”

When she and her husband got married 25 years ago, they decided their 80-acre suckler farm wouldn’t bring in enough money to justify them working it full time. So Michael took up part-time work as a lorry driver and Frances took care of the holding while he was away.

“We kind of felt that we had to do it in such a way that one of us was here all the time in case something cropped up in the daytime, but I wouldn’t be a full-time farmer at the same time because I was minding the children,” she says.

“I’d be up in the morning early,” she explains, outlining a typical day. “If Michael was going off in the morning he’d be gone at half-six, so I’d be up at half-six.

“I’d go out and I’d check all the cows . . . whatever needs to be done, and I’ve all that done before I get the children out to school. The first of them I’d be calling for quarter-past seven, they’d be going off at 8am.

“Once they were gone, then I’d be doing just the tidying up inside and then I’d go outside again.

“Maybe in the winter time I’d be bedding sheds, checking cows for calving, cleaning out pens, all that kind of thing during the day, and then I’d be back in again trying to get dinners ready.

“Then you’d be giving a last check around in the evening and if there was a cow about to calf you’d be watching for her, or you could be running to a match or you could be bringing a child someplace else and collecting them in an hour’s time.

“In the winter time and in the spring time if there was cows calving you could be up through the night as well, keeping an eye on everything – and that’s day in day out.”

These days she also works a couple of days a week at the tourist office in Fethard-on-Sea.

“If it was a case that Michael was away when I was away, I would check everything on the farm before I went to work.” She says she would also nip home at lunch time “just to run my eye over everything”.

Some of her children are in third-level now and while she’d like to see farming stay in the family, she says she wouldn’t encourage any young person to go into it without also having another qualification as a safety net.

“There wouldn’t be enough of an income from the farm alone and the farm would be a hobby for them,” she explains.

But for all that, she still loves to farm. "It's tough but sure it's a good way of life at the same time. If any other business wasn't making a profit it would be gone, but farming is in the blood,so you go with it."


'It's impossible to survive solely on the farm in this part of the world'
Like many farmers in the northwest, Joe Murray knows how to juggle farming and an off-farm job. He and his wife Edel perfected a daily balancing act for years, running a suckler farm and a transport business in Elphin, Co Roscommon.

Their haulage firm meant that he frequently travelled overseas, so Edel did most of the farm work, while rearing their children. “I was gone most of the time, I suppose,” he says. “We wouldn’t have been as deeply involved in farming then as we are now, but there was always a bit of a balancing act all along.”

Their children have grown up now and their son John plays a key role in the transport business. This has allowed Joe to take the foot off the pedal, so to speak. He doesn’t do the long-distance journeys any more, focusing instead on the local deliveries when it suits him.

And there’s no rest for Edel, who is working in the Percy French Hotel in Strokestown. “So it’s all go,” he says.

Having more time to farm encouraged him to join the Better Farm programme, which was set up by Teagasc and the Farmers Journal to share research knowledge among like-minded farmers.

“I wouldn’t have been able to take that on if I was on the road, at the haulage full time. I wouldn’t have been able to give the commitment to it. I’ve got into more cows now because I can do it. Back then we had 20 or 25 cows. Now we have over 70 cows.”

Top priority
Not many farmers around him are fully dependent on farming. "It's impossible to survive solely on the farm in this part of the world. Very few are living off the farm. They all have something else. You farm according to your job. If you know you'll only be at home in the morning and the evening, that's the amount of farm work you put in front of you. You can't take on more work than that. It's a balancing act."

Not surprisingly, the farm was his top priority this month as he concentrated on the silage and hay. “The weather is a gift. It’s enjoyable to work in that weather.”

He says the quality of fodder is definitely up on last year but the quantity has fallen. He still has a second cut of silage to do at the end of the month, “so I’ll definitely be back up to where I was when that’s done. I should have enough silage for the winter”.

It was a particularly tough winter and spring for farmers in the northwest and he has seen a lot of people getting out of suckling. The demise of the suckler cow premium encouraged the exodus and he says this will have repercussions for the national herd if the cows aren’t there to produce the calves.

But that's in the future. Right now he's enjoying the feeling of sun on his back as the weaning of calves gets under way. – Alison Healy