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An insight into the issues facing young farmers in NI is given in a recently published study conducted by researchers from the Agri Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) and Queen’s University Belfast (QUB).
The study was based on a survey of 420 young farmers who completed a level II course in agriculture – the qualification required for the young farmers’ payment and regional reserve scheme.
The research, published in the International Journal of Agricultural Management, asked respondents who were interested in establishing a new enterprise on their farm what the main difficulties were.
The most popular answer was access to finance, with 38% of respondents ranking this as the number one issue and 22% ranking it as number two.
A total of 30% of respondents ranked a lack of profitability in existing enterprises on their farm as the main barrier to starting a new enterprise, and 24% ranked this as their number two issue.
For 18% of respondents, access to land was the number one barrier and it was the second-biggest issue for 22% of respondents.
However, since the survey was conducted, environmental regulations around planning have also come to the fore, especially in the intensive livestock sectors.
Landowners
All survey participants (not just those starting a new enterprise) were asked about barriers facing new entrants in farming. The most popular response was that “too much farmland is owned by people who don’t want to farm”, with 53% of respondents strongly agreeing with this statement.
Respondents to the survey also raised concerns about the difficulty in buying land at current prices, and that landowners are more inclined to let land to an established farmer, rather than a new entrant.
The survey found that 47% of respondents strongly agreed that “it has become much harder in recent years for young farmers to get started in farming”. However, a similar proportion strongly agreed that “it has always been hard for young farmers to break into farming in their own right”.
When asked about support and policy measures to assist new entrants, over 85% said financial support for young farmers would be very helpful.
Other measures supported by respondents included incentives to encourage more land letting and greater flexibility in lease length, as well as payments for older farmers to retire.
Questions in the survey about the respondents’ own farming backgrounds give us some understanding about the people who are taking over farms in NI.
The average age of the 420 respondents was 35 years old, with 88% of survey participants being male and 12% female.
The study found that 98% of level II course participants were from a family farm, and 55% of these farms had been in their family for more than 60 years. The average farm size was 41ha of owned land, with 60% of respondents also renting some land.
Breaking down the level II participants’ business by enterprise, 50% of farms were mainly suckler farms, 22% were sheep, 12% were beef, with 11% in dairy.
The survey found that 68% of the young farmers have off-farm income, and 78% of these respondents work off the farm full-time.
Under both the young farmers’ payment and regional reserve scheme, applicants must have decision-making powers on their farm. Three-quarters of respondents to the survey said that they have been making day-to-day decisions on the farm for five years or less, and 46% have been making decisions for less than two years.
Just under half (48%) of respondents said that they were the joint decision maker on their farm and around a quarter (26%) described themselves as the sole decision maker. A fifth of respondents legally owned the farm.
The survey by researchers from AFBI and QUB asked a series of open-ended questions to young farmers about the transfer of family farms from one generation to the next.
A key issue raised was the future financial viability of the farm business, particularly if the farm is split between siblings, or if the farm has to support the young farmer’s family as well as their parents.
Concerns were also raised that young people have to work off-farm until their parent is ready to retire, then by the time that happens they have other commitments, such as a successful off-farm career or a family of their own.
Some respondents noted that farms which are either run by an older farmer or let out in conacre for a prolonged period, tend to need more investment once they are transferred to a young person who is keen to farm.
Despite being commonly described as an “awkward conversation”, most survey participants acknowledged that there needs to be more openness in communication about farm succession between all parties involved.
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