Staff embargo creating ‘huge problems’ for Teagasc

The public sector embargo on recruitment and promotion is having a severe impact on Teagasc's ability to deliver education and advisory services at a time when demand was never greater, Teagasc's director Gerry Boyle has warned.

Prof Boyle said staff levels had fallen from just under 1,600 in 2009 to about 1,100 now. This was happening as numbers enrolling in agricultural courses continued to increase and the need for innovation in the agri-food sector was increasing.

He said the organisation had lost half a dozen key researchers because they were offered more lucrative jobs elsewhere, and Teagasc was unable to offer them promotions to encourage them to stay. The embargo was causing "huge problems" for State organisations like Teagasc which were dependent on highly-skilled staff.

He said the posts of head of food research and head of animal bioscience were vacant, and Teagasc had also lost its fertiliser specialist. The lack of a fertiliser specialist was of national significance because of climate change and a nitrates directive.

A measure which offers young farmers a 25 per cent top-up on the EU single-farm payment if they have agricultural qualifications has resulted in significant interest in further education, Prof Boyle said. Applicants for the Teagasc distance education green cert and the regional part-time green cert increased threefold to 1,500 applicants.

He said Teagasc was “at the limit” where class sizes were concerned, and it could not continue to increase class size numbers because of health and safety issues around machinery and animals.

Prof Boyle said the recruitment embargo had hit its advisory services particularly hard as staff were older and Teagasc could not replace them when they retired.

He said this meant that if an adviser retired on a Friday afternoon, his workload of some 160 farmer clients would be transferred to other overworked advisers on Monday morning.

Prof Boyle said advisory numbers had fallen from more than 400 to 250. This was coming at a time when the new Glas agri-environmental scheme was expected to attract some 15,000 of Teagasc’s 40,000 clients.

Prof Boyle was speaking at the launch of Teagasc’s annual report.

Teagasc chairman Dr Noel Cawley said last year had been a mixed year for farmers. Dairying continued to offer the best returns for producers but it had been a challenging year for cattle-rearing.

“The average income on Irish farms increased slightly in 2013 to €25,639,” he said, but there were huge variations in income between sectors.