Like many other farmers at the moment, farmers Pat and Catherine Murray from Gorey, Co. Wexford are experiencing late nights and early starts as they continue through the lambing and calving season.
Pat said that with an average of five or six hours sleep a night it’s “difficult to be able to continue”, and that lack of sleep affects farmers “big time”.
Pat’s daughter, Catherine has been farming alongside him full-time for about a year now, after completing college and spending some time working in academia research.
Growing up, Catherine said that she would have worked on the farm every now and then, but is now starting to “really appreciate the amount of labour involved”.
“You never really appreciate the amount of planning and the amount of thought that has to go into every task,” Catherine said.
Catherine added that she is always looking ahead and trying to plan labour around what is happening, and said that she has to put a lot more effort into organising social events.
She said the job is “not for everyone” and that it’s difficult to understand what it actually entails unless somebody is involved in the mental and physical labour.
Lambing pressure
Pat said that in particular for lambing this year, input prices have risen “sharply”.
He said that while lamb prices are “not bad at the moment”, that those prices need to continue.
“We are seeing a huge amount of ewes being culled at the moment.
“People are reducing numbers and unless something is done shortly for the sheep industry, we are going to have a serious problem in a couple of years time,” Pat said.
“The factory end of it is completely dependent on the raw material coming from the farmer. If that doesn’t happen, we are going to see job losses in the industry,” he added.
With consistent rainfall so far this year and late last year, Pat added that farmers have been unable to turn out stock because of the difficult field conditions.
He said that targeted payments need to be increased to relieve pressure.