Young fella looking for some advice.

crhoidu

Hi all, would love some input from some farmers about my future if that's okay.

I'm 18 and doing my Leaving Certificate. I love farming, have loved it all my life but never was from a family farm. Have been working on and off farms getting the most amount of experience I can get. Despite my best efforts, genuine long term work is impossible to find. I intend on going to the local technological university to do a degree in Agriculture, have no doubts I will get the course.

What advice would you give me starting out? I honestly haven't a clue about buying or renting land, where to learn outside of university, how to get work on farms, how to build good relationships locally with other farmers. I hope that after my LC I will be able to develop but would love to hear your input. Any organizations I could join, what would you do if you were me?

Lime Tree Farm

Join Macra,

https://macra.ie/pages/member-benefits

mikewest

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123333165#Comment_123333165

That is properly good advice. FRS and the likes are always looking for workers, part time and full time. Get your driving license ASAP. Then get a BE and a C license. No panic yet in buying or renting land, the TU will help with that advice and training.

Oh and as above join Macra, the craic is deadly and the competitions and courses are fantastic for any walk of life.

anthony500_1

Id say 100% go to college, if you like school/study go do your agri degree. If it's totally not for you,you can always change coarse or drop out. A piece of paper is no weight to carry and can open many doors in life for you.

Get your licence and get a run around for yourself, if you need to be in a yard at 5am no point expecting others to drop and collect you, it will get old very quick for the ppl driving you.

On the work side of things, frs will be a good starting point. If it's milking your interneted in, they should be able to get you going, then There is the likes of milk recording, artificial insemination, calf dehorning etc

Look up. A guy called rough and reliable on tictok, he is a young lad who seems to be flat out, is very honest and gives the highs and lows, he does all sorts of farm work from milking, to dehorning, anything to turn a few pound.

Hope this helps

Castlekeeper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123333434#Comment_123333434

Thats great advice.

Just on the transport, licences are slow and cars expensive to run. As a young lad a bike will get you anywhere within 20k easily for work.

yosemitesam1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058405294/young-fella-looking-for-some-advice

Your most likely options after doing a degree in ag are either a salesman or else a sh1t job working on a farm for someone else with limited opportunities to advance and a very difficult road ahead to build up the capital from scratch to ever go farming in your own right.

893bet

Agri mechanic are in a severe shortage. You would never be without work.

Lime Tree Farm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123333523#Comment_123333523

Getting paid for it might be a different story.

tabby aspreme

There's any amount of farm's with no successor interested in farming, so share farming could be an option in the future

G-Man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123333523#Comment_123333523

All branches or anything in particular. I have a young neighbour wanting to get a start and I was hoping to point him one way. I was encouraging him to specialize say milking machines, or tillage machines or tractors, but I dont know.. He has access to a lot of unused workshops ( old farm) and I was thking of encouraging him to renovate old machinery, but I think maybe its better to do something modern and keep that as a pastime.. He did a summer of welding fabrication and didnt like it - very good to work on a machine mind.

farawaygrass

if you could do your degree and try get a job in an Agri advisory office, you would be dealing with local farmers day in day out, a lot of the time you would be the first to hear of lads thinking of renting or share farming or whatever might be. You’d be clued in with all the schemes and how they could benefit you and it would be a great environment for networking

Lime Tree Farm

Must have a picture of Dorian Gray in the attic

Screenshot_20250408_100153_Adblock Browser.jpg

farawaygrass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336905#Comment_123336905

younger he’s getting 😂

Carodh

No real advice but my daughter is in MTU Tralee doing AG Science and its a great course. She is really enjoying the course. 2nd semester of 2nd year is done in Teagasc college Clonakilty and she learned so much- way more than she could ever learn on our handy size farm. You are put on Lambing duty, Milking duty and calf rearing as part of the course.

Best of luck with your Leaving cert and your future in farming.

Bass Reeves

As my mother used to say love flies out the window when poverty comes in the back door. Another one is not to keep all your eggs in one basket.

I love farming. However I treat it as a business. I am not into tractors or machinery.

OP I was where you were 45+ years ago now. My love of it was from a business side. Ya I love working with stock and doing farm work generally. Got a 8 acre field reseeded today. However back then farming was not an option for me as I was not going to inherit a farm. Back then I went away did an apprenticeship of a type and managed to buy a LITTLE bit of land

Forget about an agriculture degree if you want to go farming. You need capital and a business understanding to farm. Because my job was totally different to farming, tge farming became a pass time, admittedly a profitable one.

What type of farming are you interested in. Beef, dairying, sheep, tillage etc. Is it a technical/ efficiency interest, or are you just interested in tractors.

If you ate interested in actual garminmake your money elsewhere and then return with a vengeance

_Brian

Brother of a friend is relief milking full time. Slowly built up clients and now has as much work as he wants to take on. It mightn’t be everyone’s gig but like OP has no family land and loves farming.

enricoh

As bass said above get a job elsewhere. If it was me at 18 I'd go plumbing apprenticeship, any amount of nixers during it, strike out on your own after it, try buy a few acres a few years later. Rent a few in-between to keep your toe in.

Running around the countryside working for FRS all you'll be left with is a clapped out car!

Sheep breeder

Get a qualification into your back pocket first, the day of running as a slave milking cows or FRS is gone, people need money to live and have a life, into the future farming is going to be all about environment and this is where the money will be, buying land and starting from scratch is going to be very hard with the the price of land is going. A friend son is training in welding etc and has set up a little business at home and is flat out and making as much as his wages weekly, to get up in farming it’s about sacrificing to get a head, here we part time farm and built from a green field site of a house and two slatted sheds and four sheep sheds over 20 years and for a number of years day job and night/ weekend jobs and wife working it’s not simple, but now have no repayments and easy life and the next generation can drive on. But be prepared to work very hard.

crhoidu

Honestly, i don't think there is anything out there I'd like to do that isn't farming. Apprenticeships, working regular jobs, it seems like torture to me. I did look into Ag Mechanic Apprenticeships, was offered a few days work but it seemed like i was going to be slaving away for at least a month or two before I even registered as an Apprenticeship. Working on building sites strikes me as torture too, nothing beats the country I think

crhoidu

The waiting times for a driving test are killing me! Been waiting nearly 8 months at this point for a test

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123359324#Comment_123359324

Ask for a cancellation appointment

yosemitesam1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123359321#Comment_123359321

You'll end up slaving for a lad if you go down the route of farming most likely, at least in other professions there's greater opportunities for progression or for doing a few well paying nixers on the side. Unless you were going to do a big stint in the middle east, it's near impossible for you to ever hope to farm in your own right without a combination of a heap of debt and very long hours.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123359828#Comment_123359828

And even with long hours the most you will get paid as a farm manager 50k/ year. If paid by the hour 15/ hour will be tops with most farms

FintanMcluskey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123359321#Comment_123359321

I can assure you working on farm that's not yours will be more torture than any of those jobs once you actually spend a while doing it. Trust me

lmk123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123359321#Comment_123359321

there’s plenty jobs you could work in the country, any of the building trades you could be working out in the country you don’t necessarily have to work in cities in huge housing estate jobs, you could get a job shuttering with a gang going tanks and you’ll be on farms, mechanic you could just be working on farms if you wanted to, get a qualification in something anyway and have something to fall back on, you’re young now, in 10 or 15 years the novelty might wear off pretty quickly and you might not be able to go back and do a qualification, I’m speaking as someone who now hates their job, I’d love to do something else but it’s too late now with a family, mortgage etc.

V6400

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123359321#Comment_123359321

At your age you'll be slaving away for the next 50 years at least so I wouldnt worry about a month or twos wait to get registered as an apprentice.

pureza

The relief milking is a great idea

Pick your farmer(s) well and get experience with them

I’ve trained several to milk from scratch and some got very good at it

One is even relief milking at weekends now at the far end of the country despite having a masters in engineering and a good management job in that profession

Set yourself up as a contractor,cut out the middleman/FRS

Once you have a reputation and experience and references,farmers will go mad looking for you

With passion like you have,you’ll soon get a kick out of making a success of multiple farms without any of the headaches financially

Forget about renting land or buying it,that’s a fools game at this stage,if you don’t already have a block of your own which you don’t

Lastly but not least,Macra might introduce you to someone with land you might end up marrying 😂

Best of luck

crhoidu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123366271#Comment_123366271

I basically had done the same, met a farmer who was nice enough to show my milking. I usually milk a few times a week with him but its simply not enough work, he has a family around him able to help. Have approached plenty of farmers months on asking if they ever would need help milking, give them my phone number but dont get much back from them.

crhoidu

near impossible to get at this point, everyone wants one. there are thousands waiting for a test

rje66

What part of the country are you in?

I know z local farmer that is bringing in foreign labour to help milk as no one wants to do it these days.

Apart from yourself most youth want a job, but don't want to work.....

yosemitesam1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123371287#Comment_123371287

Study for your leaving cert and don't waste your time milking until after that's finished at least