young farming full time

If you want to enjoy it, keep it as a hobby! Even at that it can be challenging sometimes!

1. Lease/rent land to somebody.
2. Get an education/trade.
3. Travel and see a bit of the world.
4. Make some money.
5. See what cards, life deals you.
6 .When you are fed up making money, ask yourself, are you still interested in being a farmer.
7. Hope the money you made in step 4, will see you out while enjoying your new hobby.

Speaking from experience. Go to school then to college then head off traveling. If that’s not for you then get a 9-5 job. If that doesn’t suit you, go work for a farmer and then go farming yourself. I did most of the above and I still want to go farming full time at home.

carrollsno1 wrote: »

Go travel see the world when you can, dont be the lad in 40 years time talking to a young lad heading off travelling and saying to him "i would have to have went when i could"

Dead right, father died when I was 20 so stayed at home, didn’t mean I had to but chose to and happy with my choice but if circumstances were different I prob would of went to NZ/oz

Dickie10 wrote: »

get educated lad if your that way inclined, it dosent matter what your passion is if you achieve in your area you will be able to get plenty of work. get a trade if your not too interested in study. at least you can work at the trade when your not busy farming. its only the last few years its coming together for me and im 35. so happy i went and got m qualifications im now in a position where i can nearly farm full time. im fully qualified teacher and can also plaster as i did the trade for 5 years after school, farm was signed over when i was 30. I am now subbing teaching so can pick or choose the schools , if i get the right school i may even take on a full time job if its a nice school, im farming and in summer i go plastering with the brother. lovely to be able to do the plastering in summer its great craic that time of year!

I am much the same as you. However I had a choice years back to not follow through with my education and farm full time. I often woundered how I would have faired. Yes back then 30 years ago the doom and gloom merchants were out as they are today and farming hasn't completely fallen away
Its hearting to read recently about ye man in the West of Ireland that started off with a few sheep and built up to hundreds.
What I am saying it can be achieved without education too and don't mind the knockers. I chose my route because I did not want to look back at lost opportunities. If it was over again I couldn't honestly say I would do it the same.
Have a good deep conversation with yourself and decide. Best of luck.

If you wanted to gather up money quickly either a mine in Australia or saudi would be the place to go, but theres a reason these fly in fly out jobs pay so well. You can make good money in the citys in Australia too but saving can be hard i knowa good few lads pulling in $2-3K a week labouring here but they are still living week to week id imagine it would be easy enough save on that kind of money as i wasnt getting a smell of that type of money in Sydney i was the go to man for a sub every so often. If you do end up travelling out here avoid Sydney at the start its a very hard place to leave Melbourne is supposed to be place to be at the minute as theres a lot of new infrastructure going in down there and the cost of living is cheaper than sydney but still they cant get lads to move down from there to meet the demand.

After spending years working off the farm I decided like yourself to go farming full time. Noting ventured noting gained but im certainly not staying.
I went farming for the wrong reasons and although I enjoy Milking and have an great interest in it, I don't plan on doing it when the old man retires even do we don't get along alot of the time it is isolating and I have no intention of going at it on my own. But it is also a great way of earning of few pound either working for yourself(if dairying) or working for someone else and upskill at the same time by going to college or even a trade. Don't restrict yourself by only giving yourself one way of making an income is my advice. God knows there's lots of people ready and willing to kick you while your down and out about your decisions. I have met them. But just always leave yourselves options to work with.

Zimmerframe wrote: »

There is no obsession with travelling. If you have an aversion to travelling, then stay at home. Plus if you do go, you are not committing to anything, you can come home the next day.
The point is, if you are going to be a full time farmer, then its likely you won't be able to go apart from, a holiday.
Going on holidays and having the freedom, to live where you like, do what you like for a couple of years are totally different things.

I just find it sad that we've a young lad on here displaying ambition and drive to carry on a farm looking for some advice and he's getting back 'you should really travel and see the world instead'.

Ruraldweller56 wrote: »

I just find it sad that we've a young lad on here displaying ambition and drive to carry on a farm looking for some advice and he's getting back 'you should really travel and see the world instead'.

I would say the majority of people that have traveled, have enjoyed it. And as another poster said, not travel with work - but go to Oz / NZ, and look for work, stay in a place for a while, move on... This is different to going to a spot, with one job, staying in a hotel while you're there and back home again after a certain period... I have done this, and I wouldn't class it as travelling...
Plus - if you go, and don't like it, come home. I know people you tried it, decided it wasn't for them and came home after a few weeks, after a bit of a holiday and a look around - but they were glad they tried it...

Travelling for the most part, is a young persons game. A farm can be very tying, and once you start farming, its harder to plug yourself out for a year to go off...

If the OP is into farming, then I would still recommend going away from home for a while - even if its work on farms away. Be that Oz or Tipp or anywhere. Its good to stand on your own two feet for a while...

From an economic perspective - 150acres of not great ground prob wont do much for you on its own. Some kinda off-farm job to fit in with it would be the best solution.
Have a think of what else you might like doing, it could well be agri related. A trade can often be a good mix with farming, as others have suggested...

Personally, I would say whatever you do, dont just give up school and go home to farm... Do something else for a while after school - be that a course, maybe an agri-course, a trade, travel, work experience in something you think you might like to try it out... Anything...

Best of luck with it all...

Timmaay wrote: »

The main reason we are suggesting he goes traveling now is it becomes extremely difficult to when you have the farm hanging around your neck. I'll agreed that traveling isn't the absolutely be all and end, however in general the vast vast majority of people absolutely do not regret spending time traveling in their early adult years. It really is the best opportunity to find yourself, and push yourself out of your comfort zone and into being a more independent adult with a more open view of the world.

Meanwhile always keep good communication with your parents about what will happen in the future, don't leave them in the dark either way, if you want to come home, if you decide you dont, or if simply your not sure yet and want to keep your options open.

Yeah. You need to try and understand that not everyone needs to 'find themselves'. Or have a 'more open view of the world'. The thought of stoating around Cambodia with a backpack and listening to someone talking about finding themselves would be enough to put me off.

The only people I know who go on with that stuff usually spend their days pontificating to the rest of us about why everything we do every day is wrong because I spent time in Italy and over there blah blah blah.

All jokes aside young man. A trade as a mechanic or metal fabricator or something would be invaluable to your farming career. I wish you all the best in your endeavours.

Ruraldweller56 wrote: »

I just find it sad that we've a young lad on here displaying ambition and drive to carry on a farm looking for some advice and he's getting back 'you should really travel and see the world instead'.

Speaking from experience. I did a small bit of traveling and enjoyed it. Came back for silage here and I’m happy out and don’t have any wish to go traveling again. I’ll go on holidays.

On the other hand a friend of mine got into a partnership with his father when he was 20. He was mad for cows. Now his in Oz and has to come home for calving in the spring but has no interest in coming back and regrets getting the cows now.

My point is everyone is different, and just go off even for 3 or 4 months. Doesn’t have to be 2 years. A fella could come back with a totally different point of view.

I think you made a very wise decision!

Not really farming related but I left school into an apprenticeship in a trade that allowed me to build my own career alongside it. Finished that and pushed myself to build my round of work from there to a full time round.

And I regret pushing so hard.

I had no interest in traveling that time. No interest in holidays either. But now I feel like I missed out.
I love my job and wouldn’t change that for the world.

But the holidays I take now will never really allow to experience life in a different country, or different culture.

I’m every bit as tied to my job as a farmer is.

And I regret not going away while I had the chance.

popa smurf wrote: »

I left the land 30 years ago spent 5 years at home milking cows from 15 to 20 and just by chance had a brother in Manchester and went over there for a weekend and never lived at home again after that. I thought that this was the life for me. i was built for concrete work and 100 quid a day was 5 times as much as i was getting at home, we had great years but things change you get married you have kids that have different accents you have mortgages, your a blow in where you live, your a blow in when you go back to the ould place and there is many a day i say tomyself why the fuuck didn't i stay milking those few cows.

If id stayed at home myself id be sharefarming by some sorts by now (just turning 24 and would have a nice bit of capital built up if i kept going the way i was going) but im far from milking cows at the minute i gave up nearly a year ago and i do miss the farming and cows at the same time its hard to beat the craic of steak and schooners every night in county bondi and not having to worry about the weather because if it rains and you turn up for work you get paid for 4hrs. But that cant last for ever so im cobsidering leaving Sydney to Melbourne where things are quieter and youre not living pay check to pay check the whole time. Plan is to get sponsored ive been told it can be done easy on the pipelaying jobs in Melbourne if not ill hit vancouver after sending some money back to the start up account hopefully. I am also getting my rigid licence in the new year (costs $1200/€760 and only takes a morning) which will transfer home which would cost thousands of euros to do as well as time doing lessons in Ireland. Before i left the cows i was absolutely clueless outside if farming as with tbe set up at home the head man was too miserable to put down a bit of concrete around the yard. All i done on tbe farm in New Zealand on a farm was swing cups since ive left that i got started in demo work and some groundworks since then i was sowing corn on a 40ft bar with a 500hp tractor (biggest driven before that was 120hp and a bale trailer, doing dig and repair work on sewers which was a c#nt of a job but i learned a lot from it, then i did a bit of formwork and concreting and now im doing gaslines (direct lay and insertions) for a farmers son who got a notion to head to sydney for the year 20 odd years ago. Its been tbe best education i ever got in the last year since leaving the cows in terms of managing money, finding accomadation and finding work along the way and just turning youre hand to whatever you can along the way.
So op take my advice and head out here for a stint if you want to farm away grand do that still theres plenty of work here throughout the year with the seasons you could travel the whole of Australia on a machine if you wanted between grain, cotton, sugarcane and livestock farming and you would save serious coin at that game aswell to invest in youre farm back home