Suitable Career For the part time farmer

JohnBoy

Suckler wrote: »

Time keeping and billing is the main driver now - every six minute block in the day has to be registered and billed accordingly to know exactly where time and money is being spent. You can't just log blocks of the same thing to account for a whole hour either.

Christ.

6 minutes??????


I refuse to acknowledge the half hour option in our timesheet system.



in relation to the original post, the ideal is something 9-5 with some sort of flexi-time type options.

if going self employed then the accountancy one is not a bad choice, I've no idea how much it costs to qualify (assuming you're not already) but combine it with some further education in the ag sector and you could have a nice part time job.

Three men I know of with probably 3/4 time jobs that suit the farming very well are reps or agents for companies. one sells feed, one inputs and one buys cattle for a factory.

None are jobs that "have" to be full weeks or office hours as a lot of the time the people they need to call to are farmers who dont want to see them during the day.

BrianBoru00

First post in F&F. Stands out that you should apply for one of those Public Service jobs now that they are rehiring. You could afford to be choosy regarding the "where" if you have 5 years to get out. clock in clock out, flexi time, permanent and pensionable. . .
I know umpteen people who to realistically are farmers who go to the office for 8 hours monday to friday.
Low enough stress - ideal for farming I would have thought.

No major money starting prob low 30s given your experience and I assume degree.

tabby aspreme

You could live the dream to the max, buy a few shiny John Deeres and do some hire work , the six minute time sheets would work a treat

_Brian

BrianBoru00 wrote: »

First post in F&F. Stands out that you should apply for one of those Public Service jobs now that they are rehiring. You could afford to be choosy regarding the "where" if you have 5 years to get out. clock in clock out, flexi time, permanent and pensionable. . .
I know umpteen people who to realistically are farmers who go to the office for 8 hours monday to friday.
Low enough stress - ideal for farming I would have thought.

No major money starting prob low 30s given your experience and I assume degree.

Hi, do you have a link to these public service jobs ??

BrianBoru00

Advertised on publicjobs.ie. at the time - there had been none for a few years but a new recruitment process started towards the end of last year so it will prob be repeated in the next year or so.
There are also more specialised roles advertised there (i.e. for higher officers etc,.) - it basically covers the majority of publicly funded jobs

imitation

To me it sounds like a part time job in a mnc would be ideal. They are really rare beasts though, and the only people I know were in the company for a good while and managed to wrangle a deal when it was clear they were good. Hard to setup but worth it.

You could try the internet, but to be frank unless your lucky and good you wont make much money, and it could wind up being more hours than the farm !

_Brian

I worked in MNC for long time. They're good ok, but not so flexible for the likes of cows calving etc.

queueeye

Toplink wrote: »

Bit of an off the wall topic for ye.

I am in my mid 30s with a wife and a few kids. I have a good job in the financial services industry but it consumes 50 hours plus a week. My parents are still young and healthy thankfully so I wont be taking over the farm for anther 5 years or so. My wife has a steady civil servant role albeit a low paying one.

I will be operating as a low percentage partner over the next few years and availing of top ups etc. Looking down the line when I do take over I know financially that full time suckler farming wont pay all the bills so I will have to back it up from somewhere. I also realize that if I want to continue calving down 40 cows plus a year it isnt feasible in my current career. A career which I am not overly excited about anyway and it I get the next 5 years out of it I reckon i'll be happy.

So I have 5 years to plan ahead. I want to farm and ideally stick to sucklers. What sort of a job or business would suit a partime suckler farmer?

A mate of mine does a few BER assessments whilst farming away but the wifes people have plenty of cash so there is no mortgage on that house

Teaching is the obvious one I suppose but not sure i'll go that route at this stage.

One year on, have you made any decisions?

tractorporn

queueeye wrote:

One year on, have you made any decisions?

+1 very interested to hear what way you've decided go. I'm in a partnership with Dad from last year and would be in a similar senario.

I work with a farming organisation in a split role between office and out on the road and unlike the op I love my job. However I can't see how we will be able to stay calving and lambing whilst I'm working 40-50 hrs/week. I'm veering towards drystock with possibly dairy beef calves and store lambs.

You will need a seriously flexible job to be able to calve cows. If something happens when your at work you'll be seriously pissed off. And the difference in margin between drystock and sucklers will be very very small if you loose 2 or calves.

mahoney_j

Id recommend a wife with a teachers job,civil servant or govt job ,what's known around here as a laying hen!!!!!!

Timmaay

mahoney_j wrote: »

Id recommend a wife with a teachers job,civil servant or govt job ,what's known around here as a laying hen!!!!!!

If she's a recently qualified teacher then she unfortunately certainly won't be a laying hen for a good few years, any friends of mine in their 20s and teaching have found it very hard, jumping between voluntary and substitute work for months on end, very poor pay and not really going anywhere yet.

Grueller

Timmaay wrote: »

If she's a recently qualified teacher then she unfortunately certainly won't be a laying hen for a good few years, any friends of mine in their 20s and teaching have found it very hard, jumping between voluntary and substitute work for months on end, very poor pay and not really going anywhere yet.

Jaysus Timmaay, do you not know that all public servants and especially the teachers have it handy and are way overpaid? Any other suggestions and you could be hunted out of here with a pitchfork.

20silkcut

Dry stock with a 40 hour week job is difficult enough especially during the winter months you need good lights in the yard and on your tractor and I have neither. I have a 50 minute commute as well so for three months I farm in the dark. Help wise I'm on my own my father passed away 5 years ago. No brothers or family help. Can get minimal help from neighbours but they are all dairy men who are flat out themselves.
The co-op is closed when your off work a serious pain in the ass.
Slurry, topping, rolling, or any intensive non routine work you can forget about it. All contracted in. Fertiliser spreading can be squeezed in the evenings. Have to book holidays for silage.
Sick animals can really throw things.
Nothing worse than having to drive off to work and leave a sick animal behind hoping the vet can sort it in your absence.
Without serious help I can't see how a suckler or dairy farmer could have an off farm job.

J.O. Farmer

Grueller wrote: »

Jaysus Timmaay, do you not know that all public servants and especially the teachers have it handy and are way overpaid? Any other suggestions and you could be hunted out of here with a pitchfork.

Some teachers are. I'm thinking particularly those who spend decades in Leinster house while still having a teaching job to go back to if they get sacked at election time.
You want to marry one of those.

Miname

20silkcut wrote: »

Dry stock with a 40 hour week job is difficult enough especially during the winter months you need good lights in the yard and on your tractor and I have neither. I have a 50 minute commute as well so for three months I farm in the dark. Help wise I'm on my own my father passed away 5 years ago. No brothers or family help. Can get minimal help from neighbours but they are all dairy men who are flat out themselves.
The co-op is closed when your off work a serious pain in the ass.
Slurry, topping, rolling, or any intensive non routine work you can forget about it. All contracted in. Fertiliser spreading can be squeezed in the evenings. Have to book holidays for silage.
Sick animals can really throw things.
Nothing worse than having to drive off to work and leave a sick animal behind hoping the vet can sort it in your absence.
Without serious help I can't see how a suckler or dairy farmer could have an off farm job.

I'm managing it. I've the old man that throws an eye on them and am self employed so do have the advantage of being able to farm the odd day but I will admit it is fairly taxing. I've no work life balance at the moment but another week or two and i will be back to an hour a day farming and some Saturday's. I think organisation is key and an extremely tight calving period is essential. But for now I can only piddle with the Mickey I've got.

Username John

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

Some teachers are. I'm thinking particularly those who spend decades in Leinster house while still having a teaching job to go back to if they get sacked at election time.
You want to marry one of those.

Jaysus, that's some advice...

Which one would you chose to be married to yourself J.O?

And don't mind this laying hen muck - if you want to do fcuk all and get paid to do it, go on the dole. You don't need to get married at all...

ganmo

20silkcut wrote: »

Dry stock with a 40 hour week job is difficult enough especially during the winter months you need good lights in the yard and on your tractor and I have neither. I have a 50 minute commute as well so for three months I farm in the dark. Help wise I'm on my own my father passed away 5 years ago. No brothers or family help. Can get minimal help from neighbours but they are all dairy men who are flat out themselves.
The co-op is closed when your off work a serious pain in the ass.
Slurry, topping, rolling, or any intensive non routine work you can forget about it. All contracted in. Fertiliser spreading can be squeezed in the evenings. Have to book holidays for silage.
Sick animals can really throw things.
Nothing worse than having to drive off to work and leave a sick animal behind hoping the vet can sort it in your absence.
Without serious help I can't see how a suckler or dairy farmer could have an off farm job.

I was thinking about that yday while digging in trees for glas.
When getting the trees mam had to drive to get the trees, need penicillin for lambing so dad will have to go get that midweek. There will be no way that I'd be able to do that workin. But our supplier will deliver at the weekends or early morn.

patsy_mccabe

I'm in the unusual position that I can work from home anytime I like. I prefer to go into the office though as the internet connection is much faster. That flexibility is great and I don't abuse it. I know a good few people that can work from home so it does make part time farming that bit easier. It can be draining at this time of year with cows calving at all hours.

Toplink

OK... 1 year later.

So I figured the only way to keep suckler farming is to have a job that requires max 20 hours a week. So I was humming and hawing for a while but in the end I went with an online retail venture... Very small to start. Initial product offering only became available this month, delayed as baby 3 arrived recently so i was time poor.

I've sank a small investment into this and we'll see where it goes but it's definitely a business that can scale easily without excessive hours.

Oh, I have a laying hen which helps too :-)

Lady lou

Toplink wrote: »

OK... 1 year later.

So I figured the only way to keep suckler farming is to have a job that requires max 20 hours a week. So I was humming and hawing for a while but in the end I went with an online retail venture... Very small to start. Initial product offering only became available this month, delayed as baby 3 arrived recently so i was time poor.

I've sank a small investment into this and we'll see where it goes but it's definitely a business that can scale easily without excessive hours.

Oh, I have a laying hen which helps too :-)

Want to share what product/products you are offering

Toplink

Sports industry related, nothing too complex.

Lady lou

A few years ago I said to myself that a website selling farming products would work great. At that time there was one maybe two other websites related to farming products. Regretfully I never acted on it. Now there's about 6-7 websites selling all the same stuff.

Best of luck with it. Hope it works out for you.

Mac Taylor

Pt farming here. Job not flexible. Only for the auld man not sure how I would manage. Have a neighbour who is not as fortunate as me and he is ran ragged. Would seriously have to consider scaling right back maybe even take up armchair farming.:eek:

J.O. Farmer

Username John wrote: »

Jaysus, that's some advice...

Which one would you chose to be married to yourself J.O?

And don't mind this laying hen muck - if you want to do fcuk all and get paid to do it, go on the dole. You don't need to get married at all...

I don't know off hand. Is there any young good looking teachers that got in on the gender quotas or if you were just after the money some auld lad might do its all legal.
If you want to go on the dole were you not better marry some woman with about 20 kids in Eastern Europe somewhere that you can claim you need to support. You know just to ensure a really good wage off the dole.

Dickie10

im a newly qualified secondary teacher, very few jobs out there but i kind of knew that. history and geography are great subjects to teach but not in huge demand. in saying that it looks like i am going to get maternity leave until next may this year. i have a mortgage free house, no farm debt and 120 good dry acres so i wont really need to much in the way of permanent work. just took over the farm from my father who is 82. really enjoying it and beginning to make decent money now as well under my own steam. no bank debt helps too. probarbly could get by without any job and farm full time, especially if i went dairying. but havent a clue on dairy cows, so just becoming more efficient at what i do. weanling-beef and sheep and store lambs.

the teaching was something i had my eye on during college, i got a good degree and could have done a phd but that would have only led to lecturing or something boring. teaching is absolutely brilliant though, great buzz. i like being around teenagers, but farming is great in evening too when you get home. all in all its a lovely life. i was in college with 4 other guys doing farming part time also. i also know two ladies who teach in the same school and are fairly substantial farmers part time, both would have over 100 acres.

Dickie10

please no spelling or grammer police, its only boards! usually get this once teacher is mentioned.

sea12

Just going back to work tomo after 2.5 weeks tomo. Fecking hate going back. Loved the last couple of weeks doing the farming.
I changed position in work during the year and lost allot of flexibility unfortunately but more in the monthly salary.
Don't mind the work it's the commuting that would kill you. Anyway got a good few jobs done over the past few weeks so can concentrate on the proper job again

The part time boy

Part time farming along with running my own bussince.

Can be a advanages . Can take time when needed to do any work .

The disadvantage though is when things get crazy in bussincess farming can suffer . Things been crazy last few week and I never spread any fertlizer for 2 weeks .

Over all though I think it's better than if i had a 9 to 5 job

Icelandicseige

The part time boy wrote: »

Part time farming along with running my own bussince.

Can be a advanages . Can take time when needed to do any work .

The disadvantage though is when things get crazy in bussincess farming can suffer . Things been crazy last few week and I never spread any fertlizer for 2 weeks .

Over all though I think it's better than if i had a 9 to 5 job

Being nosey now but what's the business?

carrollsno1

The part time boy wrote: »

Part time farming along with running my own bussince.

Can be a advanages . Can take time when needed to do any work .

The disadvantage though is when things get crazy in bussincess farming can suffer . Things been crazy last few week and I never spread any fertlizer for 2 weeks .

Over all though I think it's better than if i had a 9 to 5 job

Would you not consider getting a contractor in to spread your fertiliser by any chance? Im not telling you what to do just asking