When it comes to agricultural recruitment, there is no doubt the Department of Agriculture was the employer that received the most attention in 2016. This may be attributable to the moratorium on recruitment that existed in the public sector during the recession – it seems people were waiting in the wings for many years for the Department to advertise vacancies.

In a statement on the matter, the Department of Agriculture said: “In 2015, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform lifted the moratorium on recruitment and delegated the responsibility for managing human resources directly to this Department. The Department’s management board continuously critically assesses DAFM’s business needs and work with our recruitment partners, Public Appointments Service, to fill those needs.

“To date in 2016, we have recruited 103 new staff across a range of skills sets. We recently completed interviews for both technical agricultural officers and assistant agricultural inspectors and we will be recruiting significant numbers from those panels over the coming months. In addition, we have just advertised for more veterinary inspectors and hope to begin a new phase of recruitment for that grade early in the new year. The aim is to build this Department’s staff levels to 3,200 by the end of 2017 with the right mix of skills, experience and competencies to ensure we continue to deliver a high-quality service.”

At present, the Department has approximately 3,000 staff, six large centralised locations across the country, 16 regional offices, fishery harbours, meat plants, border inspection posts and laboratories.

FRS Network

FRS Network will have created 116 new positions by the end of 2016. These include 65 positions for milking and farm workers that are currently being recruited for, while other roles were in the areas of IT, finance, marketing, digital marketing, business development and administration.

FRS Network also hired recruitment consultants, trainers, managers and candidates in the areas of customer service and sales. FRS Network envisions it will take on 50 people in 2017. Most of these will be newly created positions for milking and farmer workers, and in the areas of finance, business development and administration. FRS Network will also be looking for trainers in 2017 and for people in customer service and sales.

Teagasc

By the end of 2016, Teagasc expects to have recruited a total of 140 people. These hires are across the areas of advisory, education, research and administration and break down into 39 permanent posts, 79 posts that are fully funded from external income, 16 temporary posts (short-term contracts to cover maternity/sick leave absences) and nine are part of the post-doctoral programme.

The Teagasc post-doctoral programme provides training and development opportunities for early career scientists and helps prepare them for a career in research. Teagasc currently has 1,229.4 full-time equivalents working in the organisation and it projects it will recruit for 113 people in 2017.

Bord Bia

In 2016, 50 graduates were hired as part of the Ibec Global Graduate Programme which is run in conjunction with Bord Bia and DIT and was formerly known as the Export Orientation Programme. This programme was designed to assist companies to strengthen marketing capability while also attracting new talent to the food industry. Bord Bia expects nearly 20 will be taken on in this programme in 2017.

Bord Bia works with 20 new people every year in its marketing fellowship, which is a year-long career-enhancement programme in association with the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. Candidates in the programme represent Ireland in key global markets. Applications will open again in January 2017 to fill 20 places.

In partnership with the Irish food and drink industry, Bord Bia will place 10 experienced executives as Origin Green ambassadors to build trade awareness globally of Ireland’s Origin Green programme (Bord Bia’s sustainability programme for the agri-food industry). Applications for the next intake of the programme will open in January/February 2017, while candidates will start working in their roles next September.

There were 15 new hires in Bord Bia otherwise this year. These positions were mainly filled in the development of both the Quality Assurance Scheme and Origin Green, and in overseas offices as Bord Bia opened up two new offices this year in Warsaw and Singapore.

Irish Farmers Journal

In 2016 the Irish Farmers Journal took on eight people in newly created roles that have been aligned to the company’s strategy to ensure our readers can access our content across all platforms. This was in addition to filling replacement positions, while 11 interns were hired in 2016.

In 2017, the business will continue to resource in line with the growth of our audience and the Irish Farmers Journal’s range of services.

Macra na Feirme

Macra filled five positions in 2016 – two training officer roles were replaced, as were the roles of PR manager and CEO. An agriculture policy officer was hired as part of Macra’s graduate programme. Macra employs 17 people altogether.

Food Safety Authority of Ireland

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland filled five new roles in 2016 – those of technical executive in public health nutrition, technical executive in biological safety, enforcements executive, training executive and advice line assistant. The FSAI employed 73.1 whole-time equivalents as of 30 September 2016.

Irish Farmers Association

The IFA filled one replacement position this year – that of development officer. It also last week announced that it had filled the post of director general with Damian McDonald, head of Horse Sport Ireland. IFA employs 67 people altogether.

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Special focus: agri careers