As labour pressures intensify, a new white paper suggests the sector’s biggest challenge isn’t a shortage of people, but how they’re supported, developed and retained. CPM explores what this could mean for farm businesses.
“We don’t really have a labour gap – we have a people gap.” PAUL HARRIS
By Charlotte Cunningham
For many farm businesses, the list of pressures facing the industry is already long. Market volatility, policy uncertainty, environmental regulation and rising costs all feature heavily in day-to-day conversations. But ask many farmers what causes the biggest operational headache and a different answer often emerges – people.
Whether it’s finding, keeping, or managing them effectively, labour is increasingly being recognised as one of the defining challenges facing UK agriculture. Yet according to Paul Harris, founder and managing director of REAL Success, the sector may have been looking at the issue the wrong way for years.
In his new white paper, Facing the Future: Why UK Farming Must Put People First, he argues the problem isn’t simply a shortage of labour – it’s a deeper issue around how farming develops, leads and supports the people who already work within it.
“If you ask any farmer, ‘What is your biggest challenge?’, while they may highlight the government or discuss policy changes or prices, the industry will talk most of all about people,” he suggests.
“Either they can’t find them, there’s not enough staff working for them, or people keep leaving. But we don’t really have a labour gap – we have a people gap.”
During the past decade, UK farming has invested heavily in technology and systems designed to improve efficiency and sustainability – precision agriculture, automation, genetics and environmental management have all progressed rapidly.
But Paul believes one crucial area has been left behind. “Farming has focused on huge global issues – sustainability, climate impact, soil health, carbon, genetics, automation and science,” he says. “These areas have advanced dramatically and farmers have adapted and innovated at an astonishing rate.
“But while the industry upgraded its machinery, systems and technology, it didn’t upgrade its approach to its people.”
He argues that this imbalance is now creating significant pressure within farm businesses, with investment in leadership, communication, working conditions, working hours and staff development often lagging behind.
Subsequently, many farm managers have been promoted because of their technical expertise rather than their ability to lead people, believes Paul. “The best herdsperson often becomes the herd manager; the best tractor driver often becomes the working farm manager.
“But suddenly those individuals have shifted from being responsible for tasks on the farm to being responsible for the people who carry out those activities. Many have never been taught how to manage people, resolve conflict or communicate expectations.”
The result is a familiar pattern across the industry. Farms recruit someone to fill a gap, the individual works long hours in a demanding environment, eventually becomes exhausted or disengaged, and leaves – forcing the farm back into recruitment mode again, he outlines.
“We can’t continue to rely on the same tired cycle – recruit, exhaust, replace, repeat,” stresses Paul.
For one, high staff turnover carries both financial and operational costs. Training new employees takes time, mistakes are more likely to occur, and the pressure of managing people often falls back onto the farm owner. “Staff turnover costs the industry millions each year – the cost of replacing one member of staff is widely estimated to be a year’s salary,” he highlights.
That impact becomes even more significant as margins tighten and labour becomes harder to secure.
A striking conclusion of the white paper is that the sector may not actually be suffering from a simple labour shortage. Instead, Paul believes farming has struggled to position itself as an attractive career for people outside the industry.
“The issue isn’t that people don’t want to work in farming,” he says. “The issue is that we haven’t created farms, roles and places to work where they can see themselves having a future.”
Many farms still recruit from the same relatively small pool of experienced agricultural workers, but that pool is shrinking as the workforce ages and fewer new entrants choose to work directly on farms.
Meanwhile, large swathes of the wider workforce have never considered farming as a career. “There are millions of people currently working in other sectors who have skills that could transfer into farming,” raises Paul. “Hospitality, retail, engineering and the armed forces all demand similar skills to farming, yet farmers rarely look to those industries for workers.”
The challenge is making farming a workplace people want to join, he believes. Equally, expectations around employment have changed significantly in recent years too, particularly among younger workers.
According to the white paper, many people entering the workforce today demand a number of core elements from their careers, including work-life balance, clear progression opportunities, safe working environments, modern facilities and effective leadership. “These aren’t unreasonable expectations and are achievable,” says Paul. “It’s not just young people either. Those from outside our industry expect sensible hours and good working conditions to be the norm – not the exception.”
Failing to meet those expectations can quickly damage recruitment and retention, he suggests. “Tired people make mistakes, stressed people cut corners, and disconnected people stop caring.”
Paul also believes the issue of ‘people’ should become part of the broader sustainability conversation within agriculture. He explains that while environmental sustainability is widely recognised as essential to the future of farming, without people to run farm businesses, that progress risks becoming irrelevant.
“If nobody wants to work on our farms, our farms can’t be truly sustainable. Our future doesn’t depend solely on government schemes or environmental policies, it depends on the mindset, leadership and culture on our farms.”
To address this challenge, the white paper proposes two sets of actions – one aimed at the industry as a whole, and another focused on individual farm businesses.
This article was taken from the latest issue of CPM. Read the article in full here.
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