The dairy industry must get better at marketing jobs on farm and make the workplace more appealing in order to prevent labour shortages next year, according to a dedicated labour expert.

Speaking on The Milk Digest podcast George Gordon from specialist dairy recruiters LKL said with restrictions coming in on recruiting foreign labour from next year, the industry has got to look at ways of getting more people in the UK to consider working on farms.

Dairy farm owners and managers are being encouraged to complete a survey to highlight the issues they have when recruiting labour following an announcement by Government last month (29 Sept) that access to foreign labour would be limited.

Dairy farmers will get the opportunity to hear about future farming policy and quiz Government Minsters and experts in a free series of webinars organised by the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF).

The Business and Policy Conference, sponsored by Lely, Barclays and ForFarmers, traditionally takes the form of a one-day event, but will this year consist of three bite-sized webinars taking place on 2, 4 and 6 November.

Farmers were told there was no ‘silver bullet’ when it came to reducing emissions on farm and that planning needs to start now.

Tom Gill, Head of Sustainability at Promar International, said farmers needed to start measuring and monitoring their emissions and called on producers to start having conversations with companies about emissions

Calf rearing is the beginning and the end of a dairy business, get it right and heifers will go on to make money for a business, but get it wrong it will cost a business, delegates at this year’s Women in Dairy Conference were told.

Profitability and business success are determined by how well dairy businesses are structured, delegates were told at the recent Women in Dairy Conference.

Grace O’ Dwyer from HSBC UK, the event’s principal sponsor, speaking at the virtual event on Wednesday (30 September), which attracted almost 100 delegates, outlined four factors that are the foundations of a strong business.

Dairy farmer Karen Halton from Cheshire has scooped this year’s prestigious Dairy Industry Woman of the Year award at the virtual Women in Dairy (WID) conference held on 30th September.

Karen is the fourth woman to win the award, sponsored by HSBC UK, beating off stiff competition from two other finalists: Abi Reader from Glamorganshire, and Hannah Lawrence from Haverfordwest.

A last-ditch attempt to get dairy workers included on the Migration Advisory Committee’s (MAC) Shortage Occupation List (SOL) has been rejected following a four-month consultation.

The news released today (29 September) revealed occupations should as butchers, bricklayers and welders would be added to the list, but that farmers would not.