Darying needs the enthusiasm and dynamism of youth
One thing that strikes me is the optimism about the future of the dairy sector that is shared by our industry leaders. It’s a sentiment that is primarily influenced by the fast-growing global population.
Hardly a conference goes by when we’re not reminded of the world population forecast to increase to nine billion by 2050. That trend brings increasing demands – not only for staple goods, but also for added value by the emerging nations as the shift towards global power heads eastwards. China’s increasing wealth and the desire for a western diet is resulting in increased demand for whey protein products, baby foods and other new products.
The long-term signals remain undeniably positive for the dairy sector. As we head towards 2020, milk and beef are forecast to experience the largest hike in price globally, according to a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation report for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Sadly, as soon as I walk out of the conference room and begin talking to my peers – grassroots dairy farmers – I find they fail to share those positive feelings. Our businesses are affected by such a plethora of factors that are completely beyond our control. We tend to lurch from one crisis to the next. We’re left with little time or energy to see the bigger picture, to sit down and formulate a long-term strategy.
Farm productivity must improve considerably over the next decade and beyond. However, since the average age of a UK dairy farmer is 57 years, it begs the question, who is actually going to produce the food? The situation is not unique to the UK, nor indeed the dairy sector. It is similar the world over, but we compare poorly with other EU-27 countries, where a recent age structure survey of agriculture found 6% of farmers were younger than 35 years and 57% of farmers older than 55 years. In the EU, only Cyprus and Portugal have an older farming population than the UK, where 2.6% are younger than 35 and 62% older than 55 years. That means for every 25 farmers over 55 there is only one under 35 in the UK.
With that in mind, I’ve come to the conclusion that much needed optimism needs an injection of youth.
A new report compiled by AGCO concludes the prospects have never been more golden for those taking the first steps in their farming careers, and the need for a new generation of farmers has never been greater.
Why? Quite simply because our next generation have that huge enthusiasm and dynamism to drive the industry forward. They are more likely to be formally educated than their predecessors and are more savvy than older farmers when it comes to using technology, all of which is designed to improve efficiency.
Consequently, it comes as no great surprise that younger farmers are also more productive in terms of output a worker according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency. Younger farmers – those younger than 35 years – are 12% more economically productive for every agricultural worker than the average, and 51% more productive than those over 55 years.
Overall, the economic output of farms managed by those under 35 years old, measured in so-called economic size units, is 40% more than the average and 125% greater than that of farmers over 55 years.
So where does this leave us? An industry cannot survive on optimism alone; we need to address the current poor profitability and provide a realistic return – a continual task and work in progress. We also need to take a formal look at the barriers preventing the youth from entering dairying – capital requirements, land value and availability – and investigate other business arrangements such as joint ventures to give these younger people the opportunity to maintain this industry’s future.
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