Farms facing costs struggle for new blood

With the combine washed and oiled it can only mean harvest over. As a 16- year- old loon, because I was fine and small, I was always sent to crawl in to clean the straw walkers by our tractor man, the late Bill Lyon, who was meticulous about caring for his machinery and gave me a very good grounding.

Some 40 years later and, not so fine and small, I’m still crawling down the prickly blooming walkers.

It’ s during these moments I try to remind myself that growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

Bill was a very good mentor to me and I knew if I didn’t do it right I would get a size 10 boot up my backside so hard I’d be wearing it as a hat, as well as a good swearing. All that for a pittance of a wage.

Part of the problem with getting young people into farming is having time to spend mentoring them and pay the minimum wage of £8.21 an hour and £12.32 an hour overtime rate.

For someone with no experience who has to be mentored, that’s a huge expense. I think the wages board needs to have a long hard look at this.

The internship Ringlink set up is very good and has grown over the years, but some way must be found to incentivise more mentors for young people on to mixed farms so they get a grounding on all aspects of farming. If they got that for a year they could then decide which route to take, move on to specialist units and earn a reasonable wage with less supervision.

Speaking to some of the young guys and girls, there isn’ t enough prac tical experience in the courses that are being offered.

There needs to be some kind of incentive for employers to find time to mentor these young people because they are out there, it’s just finding a way of accommodating them.

Machinery firms say they are up to their eyes with inquiries. I’m sure dealers are finding it as hard as us to make a decent return, but it’s ridiculous what it costs to replace the simplest piece of equipment.

For a small family farm it is almost impossible. That’s probably why there are no young folk coming through – machinery is too expensive and wages are too high for the return we get.

THE FUTURE: Farming is struggling to attract youngsters into the industry.