i see in the fw , two managers complaining about workers unwillingness to work long hours, and the difficuilty of motivating youngsters.

The huge farms which dominate british farming  have something to do with this i feel. for the following reasons reasons;

1. youngsters in my day had a chance, a slim one , to get a place of their own, therefore knocking your pan in at harvest was seen as acceptable both in cash and experience  for the future. Now, all available arable land is farmed by vast contractors , so no smaller farms are available to rent to beginners.

2. These vast farms with one or two men, have endless workloads, probably no accomodation on the farm  and spread over a wide area. Under these conditions, workers dont get home for lunch or tea , which is important when feasible if they are working late constantly. Husbands will rarely see their wives or children, which is not conducive to matrimonial harmony.

3. Without farm accomodation, (not caravans), wives and children of workers are isolated from agriculture, and fail to see how it is different from their neighbours who are builders/plumbers etc and get home at 5pm daily.

4. thse vast farms lead to much monotonous work, which leads to boredom and frustration. a change is as good as a rest , they say.

5.when workers worked for a family farm, they knew the farmer and his family,and vice versa, and were willing to put themseves out to gather the harvest for everyones sake. Nowadays, when working for a faceless corporation, or foreign playboy, you have to ask; why am i doing this?

 

Glasshouse - i quite agree!

I wanted to work in farming because i loved the outdoors etc. I never wanted or expected to start work, get given a tractor and get 'the good jobs'. I started out, in effect, shovelling s*&t. Mucking out lambing pens and filling water buckets was my first ever jobs aswell as bedding down. However, once i proved to my boss i could do that i was allowed to carry out more tasks which lead on to me being allowed to drive the tractor, the quad, landrover etc etc.

After i worked with pigs and sheep i went onto arable, beef dairy and poultry. I remember the worst job i ever done was down the drier pit, taking two foot of year old rotten water, grain and general c*ap! That has been my most hated job so far! Anyway, although the jobs i got were basic and boring and normally horrible, it makes you appreciate when you get a tractor or a less physical job.

However, i think what managers have to understand that alot of students who work on the farm study full time then work there holidays. Also, like you say, when we work for large companies who are money orientated you do wonder why you are doing it.....grafting away to make money for someone sitting behind a desk who you never have, nor probably will ever, meet! On the family farm i work at, i wouldnt mind doing them a favour or putting myself out,but i wouldnt for a large farming company i worked for.

Also, when your working for a large business or estate, you normally will have your combine driver, your sprayer driver, your drill driver etc etc and everyone has a specific job (as above)! Then when you come along, you normally get a job which you do continously for the whole summer - monotonous and boring. The company i did work for, they were good with this respect and gave me variety as to what i did which mean you learn alot more and develop your knowledge and skills!

Finally, although we understand its important to work long hours at busy periods such as harvest, there is a line where it does become a mick take as to the hours. Dont get me wrong, i dont expect to do a 12 hour shift and go home, working into the night is normal on farms however working to 1am, travel home to come back to the yard at 7 can get a bit rediculous!

if you worked for me till 1 am, which is highly unlikely, i wouldnt expect you back till about 11 o clock. the next day. you could fall asleep at the wheel.

we dont start till 8 am , as there is no point starting at 7 when there is dew till ten most days.

matty, do you aspire to farm yourself?

ps, were you at the sale at alnwick today?

I've just noticed this thread - which is quite timely... I'm still trying to post up stories from Agritechnica (it's the eve of the show tonight and it starts for proper tomorrow).

I think that being in agriculture all my life has conditioned us to work long hours - and personally I wouldn't have it any other way. As long as there's flexibility too - which it's important to have.

Keep up to date with all the latest Agritechnica news at www.fwi.co.uk/agritechnica2009

Em

 

I remember 45 mile drives and 20 our days for weeks on end were expected..and why not we were payed well for it ..it will rain eventually...I found the bigger the outfit the better i was treated with fuel mileage  accommadation and  food when we did all-nighters not to mention the standard of machinery we got to use and certainly better money than i could make locally or on stock farms and was a foot in the door when i bought my own equipment and needed high houred contracts...which many of the big outfits gave me..!

bp, you have underlined my point, that you did the long hours because you had the incentive ,besides the money ,of setting up on your own eventually, and buying a farm, am i right?

this avenue is all but closed in the uk.

I could be wrong,but I seem to remember in the 60s and 70s spring work and harvest involved long days for a few weeks.Tattie lifting was little more than an eight hour day or so because thats all the pickers could do in the light available.So long hours were confined more to two or three week stints.Now,these stints go on for months on end,especially on farms which grow potatoes.If such operations cant find staff to fit in with their business model,they will have to change that model.

A huge problem facing the industry is working wives.For weeks on end,even on units where vast hours arent required,a worker cant commit to looking after the kids on Tuesday night because he doesnt know if he'll be working or not,due to the weather.The only way round that would be to make overtime voluntary rather than obligatory.And I dont see how that can happen in a weather-dictated industry.

Glasshouse has got to the root of a major problem facing the UK and other developed nations. His explanation of the need for an individual to be able to fully express hime/herself through innovation, effort, time and to be able to accumulate sufficient surplus to allow them eventually to 'own' (stewardship really) a patch of the earth over which he has temporary dominion.

Very similar constraints exist in the area of manufacturing, distribution and retailing where the Costs of Entry (including regulatory costs and hurdles) to a market prohibit most people who do not have access to inherited capital.

The answer does not lie, as some would believe in preventing one generation passing capital on to another, but in the prevention of the growth of oligopolies and monopolies and access to loan capital.

 

professor john ikerd of missouri university made a lot of good points in his speech to the saos last week, some more extreme than others, but his fundamental point that the west is not paying the full price for food is a good one.

he said mexicans living in shacks in the usa and picking crops is not sustainable in the long term.

a lot of the problems described above could be alleviated if every farm house/cottage had a section 75 slapped on  it, so it couldnt be rented/sold to commuters. Farmers and farmworkers would then have a better chance of remaining in the countryside, keeping the shop/pub/school open.

It is ferquently the imputed rent avalable ffrom commuters for houses  that breaks the back of a farm tenancy or workers position.

I have a friend who always complains about the poor performance of his staff, who live in caravans or off farm , while his 2 cottages are rented out. i rest my case.

Being 15 I myself have no problem with motivation. I see what you are saying about big farms these days. Luckily for me my we are already tennants on a farm and my dad will hopefully be handing me the riegns in years to come. I would have no problem with morking 18-20 hours a day. that could be possibly because I like night work. :)

From a tractor drivers point of view , long hours at peak times are not a problem for most and anyway if we don`t do them we would not be able to afford the basics in life let alone a mortgage , The biggest problem is the farm wages system is so far out of date it beggars belief , I am fairly certain that it is assumed that we all get a nice little cottage on or close to the farm so we don`t have rent, mortgage or travel costs . So next time some of you that moan and groan about people not wanting to work 120 hours a week are climbing up the steps of a sunshine bound airbus , spare a thought for your tractor driver who might just be able to feed himself this month . Farmers don`t want Monkeys so try paying us in something other than peanuts then you never know young people might start coming in . Well somebody had to say it .

glasshouse:

if you worked for me till 1 am, which is highly unlikely, i wouldnt expect you back till about 11 o clock. the next day. you could fall asleep at the wheel.

we dont start till 8 am , as there is no point starting at 7 when there is dew till ten most days.

matty, do you aspire to farm yourself?

Well i once finished at 11.30, by time back in yard and tractors locked away, and got home it was 12 (got tea and a wash, bed at about 1). I had to be back in at 8 (on a bank holiday) to get stock fed then get hitched up or whatever, then get cracking. But you do seem to wait around in the morning even when you have to fuel up and grease, you still cant get cracking till about 10?

Yes, i do aspire to farm, id love to farm for myself (ideally mixed) but i work for other people at the moment but chances of me ever buying a farm are slim so il probably end up managing or working within a land agency as i dont really want to work so hard for someone else to reap the benefit and for me to come out with a mere percentage of there own revenue. Share farming would also be a option and i am quite willing to put the time effort and hours in if it was for myself but i dont want to be governed by someone else and have all the pressure to work for someone else as a manager.

I didnt go to the alnwick sale, been really busy recently and recovering from a bit of flu

glasshouse:

i see in the fw , two managers complaining about workers unwillingness to work long hours, and the difficuilty of motivating youngsters.

The huge farms which dominate british farming  have something to do with this i feel. for the following reasons reasons;

1. youngsters in my day had a chance, a slim one , to get a place of their own, therefore knocking your pan in at harvest was seen as acceptable both in cash and experience  for the future. Now, all available arable land is farmed by vast contractors , so no smaller farms are available to rent to beginners.

2. These vast farms with one or two men, have endless workloads, probably no accomodation on the farm  and spread over a wide area. Under these conditions, workers dont get home for lunch or tea , which is important when feasible if they are working late constantly. Husbands will rarely see their wives or children, which is not conducive to matrimonial harmony.

3. Without farm accomodation, (not caravans), wives and children of workers are isolated from agriculture, and fail to see how it is different from their neighbours who are builders/plumbers etc and get home at 5pm daily.

4. thse vast farms lead to much monotonous work, which leads to boredom and frustration. a change is as good as a rest , they say.

5.when workers worked for a family farm, they knew the farmer and his family,and vice versa, and were willing to put themseves out to gather the harvest for everyones sake. Nowadays, when working for a faceless corporation, or foreign playboy, you have to ask; why am i doing this?

Cracking thread and one that interests me immensly. And one that I feel I can add too.

I'm 26 and done alot in the ten yrs I've been in farming, worked all round the UK, on various types of farms and for all sorts of people. Worst people i've delt with....Sentry/Co-Op/Velcourt by far, the best......the family farm i work for most of the time now.

Times have changed and things like farm cottages for workers are becoming more rare as greedy landowners/managing companies see more profit in renting them out, and even when I got one I had to pay every thing connected with the house even a % of the rent each month. Hardly a motivating factor. My old man gets a nice house, all bills paid for, free firewood, fiesta van and clothing with his farm job, doubt many young guns would get offered that now.

Where I am now, If we are needed to work after 5pm we get tea and cakes bought out to the field. Every hr we work after 9pm we can come in an hr later in the morning if we chose. If its a quite week then it ends at midday on a friday etc etc etc. Now all these factors hardly put the farmer out but in return he gets a motivated work force who will bend over backwards to make sure what needs to get done gets done. A few big farming companies could learn alot from this familys values and morals.

When I worked for a "big" farming company I can honestly say that they're overal feelings towards staff motivation was, well the tractor drivers are getting paid, what more do they want...........I saw it as such an insult and safe to safe I didn't hang around with them long. It was a sure fire way of me running a farm in double quick time but I could not work for people that treat staff like that.

Everyone connected with farming knows it can be long hrs and a lonely old job at times but there 100s of ways that young people, just like me, can be drawn and kept into this wonderful industry. I worked with Ag students for 2yrs and they were all as keen as mustard to make a go with farming, sad to say I bet in ten yrs time hardly any of them will still be doing it due to beig treated like s@it and not have enough incentives to stay in farming.

Couple of years back I got a call from N.Yorkshire from a friend who was desperate for me to come up for a few weeks to help with silage, so I raced up there one sunday afternoon. In doing so I got a speeding ticket (my own fault before you start!!), I text my friend after finishing with the copper to say why I'd be late etc. When I got there I had dinner on the table, along with a new socket set for coming up from Suffolk and 60 quid to cover the fine. Fair to say I did some stupid hrs in that fortnight but I did them cause I knew my friend appreciated it. Some tight miserable farmers could take alot from that example when dealing with their next young keen lad who works for them.

 As a younger member of the forum, i find these discussions intresting, because it shows the different values that diferent people have in modern farming.

I feel quite lucky to be in my position. I am 16 and spent this last summer helping properly with the harvest (as opposed to riding copilot in the combine when i was younger). Before i was allowed to work, the farm owner insisted that i had proper training for all the stuff i was going to do. To this end i spent 2 days doing a telehandler course with the other guy we had working with us. This is one of the places that ther seems to be a division of opinion. I dont want to make an outright generalisation, but mostly it is the large uberefficient contracting companies at one end of the scale who wil train their employees for every piece of equipment, wether its a legal responsibility or not, because they have the money and need to make sure that they are working everyhting as hard as possible and to maximum potential, because that is the only way they can afford to run such expensive kit. Our farm isnt quite like this, but still i was pleased that i was given the chance to learn how to use the kit properly and safely.

As for the hours, the weather didnt really allow us to work any really long hours till we got into the wheat. because of this, my dad, the manager, made sure we wernt wasting our effort by working unnecessarily long hours if we didnt need to. On the other hand, once we hit the wheat, we didnt stop till we finished it, which amounted to about 7 consecutive 16 hour days. But we were ready for it, because we had saved ourselves. i think its important to use the time effectively, therefore using less time to do the job.

apologies if you got lost reading that, i think i got lost writing it :)

mildred:

I'm 26 and done alot in the ten yrs I've been in farming, worked all round the UK, on various types of farms and for all sorts of people. Worst people i've delt with....Sentry/Co-Op/Velcourt by far, the best......the family farm i work for most of the time now.

I completely agree with this (well i agree with your whole post but too much to pick out!!) I wouldnt want to single anyone out but i think the family farms understand the importance of looking after there staff well whereas larger companies dont appreciate it. But i am in exactly the same boat as you on this one and have worked with one of your worst and i agree but now work with a family farm...far better! After nights on lambing, get bacon sarnies brought to me, tea, coffee biscuits etc.

This was about long hours but a thread has been injected into it that needs to be discussed.  A week or so ago there was a poll asking if the next generation was going to take over the farm, about half said no.  Then, you have the guys like Matty(and some gals I reckon) who want to farm, but haven't a clear path to do so.  If farming wants to talk about stewardship, they ought to start with the next generation of farmers, we need to be better stewards of the next generation.  The public doesn't seem to want agriculture industrialized more than it already is, one clear way to avoid that is for farmers with no heirs or heirs that don't want to take over the farm to take steps early on for their farms to transfer to young folks like Matty.  I have bought half of my land "on contract" as we call it, what that means more or less is the owner is the banker, and holds the deed until it is paid for.  The way our land contracts are set up the worst that can happen to the owner is they get paid a few years then the buyer defaults, and they get the land back.  What I always considered fair was to pay interest half way between what the bank would pay the seller on savings, and charge me.  It can be done gradually, with my grandparents I bought the cows first on a 5 year note and the equipment(hardly fair to mention since grandpa mostly gave dad and I his equipment).  Then we bought the land on a 20 year loan binding on the heirs.  Now that the grandparents are gone my dad his brother and sister get the payments. I have made it clear to all involved with my family that should something happen to me, I want a young person found to take over if no one in the family wants to farm, and I want the farm to stay intact.  I have also made it clear to Mrs. KF that that means she won't necessarily get the highest $$ out of everything, but that is OK because a number of people cut me a little slack over the years to get me started.  Of course, farmers with heirs that want to farm need to take steps to make that happen as well.  I think if we really think about it nearly all of us had help of some sort from  the previous couple of generations, even if it was only in the form of our dads or granddads helping us with labor, we owe the next generation our help as well.

This a great thread to read and the tip of the iceberg of problems for workers in farming today.

I've got many friends who i started off working with when i first got into farming 11 years ago who have left farming because of the stupid hours and poor pay. Many of them have gone to drive lorrys and now work 39 hour weeks and earn 25kplus a year and never work weekends. where as i'm working nearly a 1000hours over time a year and take home about 22k ok i get a house with my job but pay doesn't represent what we have to do today, many of us are in charge of machinery worth many 1000's of pounds being paid peanuts while some brain dead peanut is being paid 12pounds an hour to sit a dumper on a building site.

Money is a big part of the problem today if it wasn't for the o/t we would earn as much as a cleaner, so pay needs to be up not just for workers but managers also, with the hours we work 30-35k a year is what my friends think is sensable figure and thats before a free house and managers 40k plus is fair.

Working conditions such as tractor cabs need to be comfortable and like home as for many including me spend more hours at work than home!! if it's comfortable, you'll enjoy it you won't mind working the hours. Along with some appriciation for your hard work at busy time, a word goes along way and costs you nothing. As for some manager they need to stop reading the big management book and ask the staff there opinion and use there experience and know how instead of thinking there the gratest thing in farming and know everything. If steering wheel attendants is what they want go find a polski!!!!

As for the posting from the young lad who said' he'd work 18-20 hour days you'll soon change your tune once you get older!!!

the fundamental problem here is money.

when i left college in 1984, wheat was £120/ ton, malt barley £130+

one ton of wheat paid a mans weekly wage easily.

today, wheat is about £105 and will pay a man for about 1 11 hr day.

that is a five fold increase. we got 4 ton/acre even then.

until thje public pays the real cost of food, us tenant farmers and workers are on a hiding to nothing.

Ive had 20 od years farming and contracting all i can say is there is not to much in the job foods to cheep half the time the workers are better of i wouldent mind your 22k and house wouldent mind half of it some years never mind a retern on investment

not that i think farm workers are paid enough

Glasshouse....As a teenager my family were already looking at emigrating and i was not sure if i wanted to follow as they looked at european countries first so yes incentive and i did well out of it....I bought a 7810 and a grimme tornado de-stoner and a 4 furrow kv plough at 17 years old in "93" and it just built from there....But it spurred off in all sorts of directions like highways contracts and forestry and a little arborist business which i think i would still be doing now had we not moved to canada eventually.

 

 

I've been meaning to post for a few days now, but always forget!

A few years ago I worked for JCB on their farm in Staffordshire (I think they qualify as a big-ish firm!). I was given a house, essential bills paid (council tax, water, phoneline rental), use of a Landy for work purposes, access to all the facilities at the factory and an opportunity to join the company pension fund. I was paid a salary, based on a 40 hour week at craftsman's (woman's?) wages. So large companies can be fair in their dealings with employees and I enjoyed working for them and will always regret having to leave. Yes, everyone ended up working more than their specified hours, especially at busy times like calving or silaging, I always took the view that you owe it to the animals in your care to do your very best for them no matter how long it takes. It's not like it's news that farming is damn hard work in all weathers. I realise there are some horrible employers out there (I've never met one....), but in the years I have been involved with farming, be they big or small farms run by one person or by the accountants, if you engage with your employers you can nearly always negotiate a good deal, and think of all the negotiating experience you'll get for when you have to renew your supermarket contract!

One of the companies that hired me for years gave shares in the company when i started valued at about 150 quid if i remember rightly..I forgot all about them and 2 years after emigrating i had a cheque through the post for 2000 pound when the company changed hands....I would never have chased it up otherwise...

I had an opportunity to catch up with this thread yesterday and thought how interesting it was.

If there is a theme running through it it is you reap what you sow! Treat peopel right and they will treat you right.

When I was a student I had summer jobs on farms and the overtime was brilliant. I routinely worked 80 to 100-hour weeks and at the end of the summer, every year, paid off my debts so went back to Ag college with a clear conscience!

That said, I wouldn't want to work long long hours as I got older...