Teagasc faces challenges in fast-changing sector

In the fast-changing world of agriculture, Teagasc has to be as adaptable as the sector it serves, according to Jim Flanagan, the man who runs it.

The director since May 2002 of what is also known as the Agriculture and Food Development Authority, believes that for Irish agriculture to survive and prosper, Teagasc has to be at the cutting edge of innovation and technology.

The quiet spoken Roscommon-born academic now heads an organisation which employs more than 1,500 people, including 757 professional and 255 technical staff in various locations across the State.

He took over at a very difficult time in the history of the service. The Government had demanded a 10 per cent cut in staff in a belt-tightening operation which shook the organisation from top to bottom.

He lives most of the week in Carlow where Teagasc's headquarters is now located, more than 60 miles from the Sandymount headquarters in Dublin which served the organisation for so long.

"I think it has worked well and people are settling into the new environment and getting on with their lives," he said.

Those lives involve providing myriad services across food production and processing, animal and crop production, advising on the environment and rural development, and teaching the farmers of the future.

The information gleaned by its scientists is passed through a network of 550 advisors and regional specialists. It is also used to inform young farmers in eight colleges and local training research centres around the State.

The dramatic changes in how agriculture is being managed, with farmers operating without subsidies being linked to their operations will, he believes, bring about fundamental changes in farming and farm practices. "We do see much fewer but more commercial farmers requiring quite specialist advice - the general advisor of the past not being relevant to this core of commercial farmers.

In future, Flanagan sees specialist farmers operating in the five areas on which the Irish industry focuses: tillage, dairying, dry stock, pigs and horticulture.

"The number of farmers who will be full time will be quite small, largely in dairying where there will be around 5,000 and perhaps 2,000 in tillage and 300 in pigs," he said.

The Teagasc chief expects there will also be a core of part time farmers, some of whom will be quite commercial with both a farm income and earnings from other activities. This group, he anticipates, will require more general type of advice.

Mr Flanagan, who studied at UCD from where he has a Masters degree in agricultural science, was an academic staff member at Michigan State University and at the University of West Virginia in the areas of statistics, computer science and population genetics before joining Teagasc.

He expects that a significant amount of research is likely to be undertaken in the area of labour efficiency because of the problems labour will present in the future.

Robotics, especially where it relates to dairying, will also attract more research, he believes.

Areas currently being researched include growth of crops for energy, and Teagasc is looking at elephant grass and many other crops to ascertain their potential.

"In addition to research and education, we also have to be facilitators of family business planning, a new role, while giving farmers technologies to help them farm better," he said.

"We have to facilitate them to look at all available sources of income in rural areas and this includes succession planning, which families do not do well until they have to do it."

He said the new conditions in agriculture were turning up new issues such as succession.

"The big change in succession is that the value of land is much greater than its agricultural value and this means a lot of family members expect to share in this capital value. Most families are no longer happy to have the oldest son, or a son, inherit this capital."

He said the main demand for this change has come from daughters of farmers, often supported by their mothers.

"Daughters and the other sons want their share and this can put the inheritor in a very difficult position if he or she has to provide capital to other family members. This can become quite a difficult situation to resolve," he said.

The former chief inspector of the Department of Agriculture and Food says the service will have to look at rural Ireland in general, assessing its potential to support the people who want to live there.