Working from home = changes to part time farming??

k mac

With more people now working from home due to the pandemic and it looking likely that it will be a lot more prevalent in the future will this have any effect on part time farmers. Am thinking the likes of suckler farmers have a lot of issues with being at work around calving time. If people are at home more will it lead to people changing systems in some way. The use of AI could increase, choosing of different bulls etc. What do people think, or will it have any effect??!!

Cavanjack

k mac wrote: »

With more people now working from home due to the pandemic and it looking likely that it will be a lot more prevalent in the future will this have any effect on part time farmers. Am thinking the likes of suckler farmers have a lot of issues with being at work around calving time. If people are at home more will it lead to people changing systems in some way. The use of AI could increase, choosing of different bulls etc. What do people think, or will it have any effect??!!

Well I’d get the sack from my job if they let me work from home any longer. If I wasn’t staring out the window the whole day from “the office” I was away from my desk doing a quick 10 minute job outside that would last 4 hours. It was worse than being in school. Not for me I’m afraid. I’d end up getting sacked.

Anto_Meath

CavanJack I was in the same boat, back in work today, but for the last six weeks productivity for the job was well down. Did manage to take a monster of a calf from a heifer 1 Tuesday that I wouldn't have in normal circumstances so that was good. But don't think it would look good on my performance review when looking for a pay rise...

jfh

I'd take a pay cut to continue, when you factor in the cost of going to work, it's a no brainer, now saying that, I won't be allowed

Kevhog1988

We lambed in the first 2 weeks of wfh and then when it went into lockdown dad went mad on improvements. New handling area, fencing, tractor restoration progress. Everything painted all completed. Dad back to work today but I am still working from home. Possibly until August they reckon.

ruwithme

Op when the dust gets some time to settle on this, there will be alot more calling themselves full time farmers as i expect alot of jobs will be lost in the next 6 months and onwards for a period of time.

_Brian

Taking calls with cattle roaring or tractor running in the background is a dead give away.
I checked, to date apple have no app to filter these out 😎

hopeso

I'd imagine a lot of part time farmers wouldn't have the kind of jobs that could be done from home anyway....Maybe that's changing, with the better educated younger generation...

Kevhog1988

the rollout of fibre broadband will enable more of us to work from home easily. I can only see it as being a massive positive for small rural economies. The local deli counter was doing twice its usual business for the last few weeks.

k mac

Think myself it would benefit small scale suckler farmers. People always say you can,t be away working while having cows for calving in case they get into difficulty. However if you were 5 minutes away working in the house if you could to some agreement with the boss to be able pop out for a hour and make up the time again. Its like people on about having calving cameras but them not being much use if you see the cow in difficulty and you are an hour away.