With a family farm going back at least five generations, agriculture is in David Hodges’ blood.

But the County Antrim man’s passion for farm work can only be exercised part-time – not when he also has his other job, as a teacher in Ballymoney.

Teaching, David said, was the “only thing that would give me some time to farm”.

That is why he has supported a call for a Farm Welfare Bill to be introduced in Northern Ireland.

“There’s not enough income really for my dad and myself to both be at home and full-time, with the way things are in the current climate,” he told BBC News NI.

It comes as campaign group Farmers For Action (FFA) published a report, titled On Life Support, which it commissioned from the economist Paul Gosling.

Like its 2016 predecessor, On the Eve of Destruction, it calls for legislative intervention to protect farmers and the fair pricing of agricultural produce.

Getting young people into farming

David Hodges said having that protection would enable him to go back into farming full-time.

“Farming is probably the only industry in the whole world where you have no idea what your products are worth.

“You buy a calf with meat prices at a certain place, and by the time that animal’s ready for selling it could be worth a whole lot less or it could be worth more, it just depends,” he said.

“And I suppose if you had some sort of guarantee, or some sort of base price so you could do a cost analysis, that would massively change your income for the year.”

He believes new laws could change the profile of an industry where the average age of farmers is in the late-50s.

“Suddenly you create a new environment where we have loads of young people maybe involved in farming again, whereas the current trend is if you’re over 50, you’re a full-time farmer,” he said.

“There’s not many my age are full-time – I’m a big member of Moycraig Young Farmers and I could safely say maybe 80% of people are part-time farmers.”

The Farmers For Action report found there is a serious problem with poverty in farming families, and that putting supermarkets and food processors in control of prices paid to farmers exacerbates the issue.

The campaign group is urging politicians to introduce a Farm Welfare Bill to support the sector and legislate for price protection.

‘Part-time farmers could go full time’

William Taylor, from Farmers For Action, said its consultation with full-time farmers had shown that, with increased profitability as a result of farmgate price protection, additional workers would be employed.

He added it could also lead to part-time farmers considering returning to agriculture full-time, which would free up other roles they had taken up as a main income.

The report also called for Stormont to protect prices by “requiring wholesalers, retailers and food processors to pay at least the cost of production plus an inflation-linked margin”.

It described this as “both a practical and effective way of supporting farmers and the rural economy”.

“The report is a hard-hitting delivery of just how bad things are for many family farmers in Northern Ireland,” Mr Taylor said.

He added the report shows there is precedent in other European countries of action taken “to curb the out-of-control financial pressure coming down the line” to farmers.

For now, David Hodges continues to fit his farming career around his full-time job.

“My dad always says, you’re trying to leave it a little bit better for the person coming after you.

“We need to find a way of keeping these people involved in agriculture because if we take all the farming out of the rural community, then what are we left with?”

Source: yahoo.com