It's a busy time of year at Higher Fingle, but then it is pretty busy all the time. Nevil is feeling his age and as I keep going off on jolly Nuffield jaunts, we took the decision back in August to employ a more permanent farm worker. Already we have a few workers that are in the butchery and employing people is not a skill that we have found easy. The paperwork and regulations are cumbersome and the responsibility for these workers and their needs takes a lot of time and energy. I think we are fair employers and treat them with more respect than many jobs that I have had, but employing is a serious step that doesn't just have consequences for one life but maybe a whole family.
Previously we have had self employed farm workers that although are more flexible they have been poorly skilled and unreliable, but had the advantage that you only paid for when you needed them and We have had French agricultural students which have been great at times but now come with very little agricultural knowledge and require a great deal of supervision.The problem is that on a small farm you don't really need and can't really afford a full time worker but there are times that you really do need some help. Of course in the old days the children where kept off school at peak times to help out and it is very tempting as Elsa at twelve is a lot more useful then recent students. Fortunately there are now rules to prevent child labour so I meet up with Sandra who runs a project called Moor Skills. This project was set up as it was recognised that Dartmoor needs farmers and farm workers with unique traditional skills that were being lost. How it works is a group of farmers employ apprentices, these apprentices follow a training that is moorland based. the interesting thing is the apprentices moved farms each week, this increases the experience of the trainee and the farmer. The farmers work together and have the support of Sandra to sort any personality clashes out, she organises training and the wages are paid by an accountant. The Farmer pays by direct debit each week the minimum wage (AWB) required for an apprentice in to a central pot and can request extra help at busy times. This all sounded great and Sandra was keen to include our farm to give the students a chance to see some diversification, however as most students didn't have transport (some are only 16) and were based the other side of the moor the logistics just didn't work out. But it set me thinking that it could be an easy solution in areas where like minded farmers could share out an apprentice giving then a good broad experience, but without one farmer being burdened with all the responsibility. If a group of maybe three farmers took on a trainee and had them at their farm for one week in three, would everyone get a better deal?
Next step I approached Duchy college who have been really helpful, guiding me through the advertising process. But after leaving it until the end of August all the apprentices have already been snapped up.
So back to the job centre and although not allowed to say I wanted a fit strong 17 year old I did specify it was a job that would suit a trainee. Within 1/2 hour the phone started ringing as farm workers from around Britain and Ireland wanted to move to Devon. Some were poorly qualified, quite a few where redundant council workers, but mainly were well skilled and capable workers. This has made me think about the whole new entrants thing. Does farming as an industry really need any new entrants? There seems to be plenty of people out there that want to farm for themselves and plenty that would love a job on a farm, maybe instead of talking about where the new workforce is coming from, farmers have got to work out what they want. Anybody fancy doing a Nuffield Scholarship ?
So what have we done, well we have employed Andy who is not 17, he has a family, lives about 25 minutes away, has his chainsaw ticket and worked for the council cleaning the beaches. He is reliable and clean and polite, he uses his initiative and most importantly gets on with the work unsupervised. Hopefully having him will improve efficiencies and make savings which will allow the business to continue to expand to keep him on as a full time worker and maybe Elsa will be allowed to finish her schooling in peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment