HOW MUCH ??

How much… ?

Why farming REALLY struggles to recruit bright young things.

My son is 17. He has four jobs and has a place at Harper Adams University this September to study agriculture. He currently wants to be an agronomist.

The only condition on his entry is ten weeks work experience. Which is easy for him to do. He lives with us on the farm and he has a full driving licence. The problem for the industry is that in all of his other jobs, he earns as much per hour as he does working overtime for me. And that’s not because I’m mean. We take both sandwich and harvest students alongside apprentices and could pay them the minimum wage. We choose to pay them more because they are worth it and we value them. Sadly, a high street fashion chain and a national gym also value young people, and they are not asking their trainees to work outside doing menial and often dirty work in adverse weather, often with older staff. They are offering staff discounts, a great team ethos, prospects and career progression. In fact, the only thing that farming has going for it when you put it like that is that you CAN earn more money, but only if you work LONG hours.

What a selling point !

Now this post is not about my son. He will enjoy working for us this summer and is committed to farming as an industry. I do wonder whether someone from outside this industry would find it quite so easy to overlook those other factors.