Farmer Focus: Controlling costs in services and labour
© Tim Scrivener UK pig producers are, sadly, accustomed to being hit by a crisis.
Often these are unique to our sector and make us feel isolated from the wider farming industry. But that is not the case with the current troubles being caused by spiralling costs.
Every household and farming business – in fact, pretty much all businesses – are feeling the effects of rising prices.
Large LED monoliths sit at the side of the road displaying fuel prices. Their only purpose seems to be a visual reminder that costs are rising every day.
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The problem is not going to go away anytime soon, so to preserve our businesses financials, we are looking harder at where our cost of production can be trimmed. As my Yorkshire-born and -raised mother would have said: “You need to tighten your belt for a little while.”
See also: No price lift certainty with 100,000 pig drop
As an agister for BQP, we are thankfully spared the eye-watering feed bill, and BQP also picks up the tab for veterinary consumables and breeding stock/genetics. So our big three are labour, land rent and straw. Fuel is number four.
Looking at labour, I can assure you none of the team is going to take a pay cut kindly right now. With skilled workers in short supply, I can only see stockpersons commanding higher salaries in the coming years.
However, it is important when recruiting, as we have been recently, to ensure the team is not top-heavy in expensive senior staff. The value of young, enthusiastic, but less experienced employees should be recognised. If you pick them wisely and treat them well, the younger generation can be outstanding team players and great fun to work with into the bargain.
We’ve also trimmed some costs by reducing external services. Tractor servicing and repair is increasingly being brought in house and this has quickly shown to be both manageable and convenient.
We have also phased out our use of a professional pregnancy tester and started doing our own scanning. Obviously, in this case, to make the long-term saving, there’s firstly some expenditure needed to buy the equipment. But, looking at the bigger picture, it should be money well spent.