By Matt Donald, pig & poultry farmer, north Yorkshire
In a time when help is needed in the agricultural industry, Farmers can be their own worst enemy. You read headlines and articles across all forms of social media, magazines, online press etc and there is so much negativity out there. I know I’m not one to talk, those who read my pieces monthly will know I can have a grumble.
However, I generally have a very positive outlook when it comes to farming, food and particularly poultry. As an industry we want people to join us, fresh inspiration can come in from other agricultural sectors and even different industries, we also need to attract young people to join the poultry sector. The first step is getting people on farm who maybe haven’t had an agricultural background, to do so we need to be up beat. Nobody will join a sector when those in it are repeatedly negative.
This may not be the case for chicken and eggs at the moment, yet it doesn’t aid farming to see repeated headlines on poor prices, lack of support, the weather and so on. With increasing pressure of minimum wage across every business, there could be an increased available workforce out there, this is shown in recent unemployment stats. Now is agricultures time to attract new entrants into this industry and give people a chance to see how rewarding a job farming truly is.
So let us reduce the negativity, farmers are resilient, things have changed in the past, they’re changing now and they’ll change in the future, many people decades older than myself will tell you that. Ultimately we are human, we need food to survive, so it may be in different production methods, a change of standards or in a changing climate but Farmers of today have one choice that has been made for centuries, adapt to change or get left behind.