Farms that are more labour efficient, where the farmers are working shorter hours, are also more profitable, attendees heard at the Teagasc National Dairy Event in Moorepark, Fermoy, Co. Cork.
At the event today (Tuesday, July 4), Teagasc researcher Conor Hogan discussed research outlining the possibility of the ’50-hour farmer’ – a dairy farmer who can work 50 hours a week in spring.
Hogan told the event: “What our research has shown is that [for] the best farmers out there, there is potential there to work 50 hours a week in spring.
“We believe that the 50-hour week in spring should be a KPI [key performance indicator] of our dairy systems.”
Hogan said the key to achieving this was earlier finishing times each day, with the most labour efficient farmers able to reduce their working hours and finish closer to 6:00p.m.
This research is based on a survey that was carried out between February 1 and June 30, 2019, involving 76 spring calving Irish dairy herds.
The studied farmers worked on average 60 hours per week during the 150-day study period, and 63.5 hours per week during February and March.
Although the top and bottom 25% of studied farms had a similar herd size (112) cows, the more labour efficient group worked 51.2 hours per week compared with 70 hours per week for the least efficient 25%.
For both groups, the working day had a similar start time (6:47a.m versus 7:00a.m), but the labour efficient group finished the working day earlier (6:25p.m versus 7:58p.m).
Hogan said that the main dairy KPIs – for example stocking rate and Economic Breeding Index (EBI) – are all important factors in terms of having an efficient farm system from a labour perspective.
As well as those aspects, he also highlighted the importance of work organisation, saying it is a “huge element”.
“We’re talking about this in two senses. Firstly, in terms of the farmers’ own mindset and their own values around time, and people, and labour and managing it; and secondly, we’re talking about outsourcing our labour, particularly in terms of contractors, especially in terms of the fertiliser [and] in terms of the slurry.”
The Teagasc researcher also drew attention to the role played by facilities and technology on farm.
“Focussing here specifically on milking and calf care, they’re consuming roughly 50% if all labour input in spring, so the facilities, the technologies that can be implemented for these tasks are especially important,” Hogan told the Moorepark event.
He went on the highlight that there is a difference in profitability between labour efficient and non-labour efficient farms.
“What the data is telling us is that the labour efficient farms are also more profitable, and that’s before we’re even incorporating labour costs.
“So what that is telling us is that the extra work that is going on in non-labour efficient farms is not resulting in a higher profitability, so what it’s really saying is that there is no reason for us to be putting in that time input, and it pays to be more labour efficient,” Hogan commented.
He told attendees at Moorepark: “We’re focussing on that ’50-hour farmer’ in spring. That is a key benchmark going forward in terms of our grazing system from a social prospective and the data is telling us that it can be done.”