A publication to assist farmers in the process of setting up partnership agreements on dairy farms was introduced by the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh yesterday.
Farm partnerships are becoming very important in the dairy sector because of a shortage of trained labour and the need for farmers to merge farms or make working arrangements with others in order to achieve higher productivity, he said.
"We know that due to improvements in the economy generally, paid, on-farm labour has become increasingly scarce, we know that family assistance on the farm is less available. Therefore, for many producers who have reached a certain stage of development, the partnership option is clearly one to be considered," Mr Walsh said.
He said partnerships also had the potential to improve the lifestyle of farmers by giving them the opportunity to put in place working arrangements to suit their own situations.
He said one area in which the partnership arrangements had been particularly encouraging was the "new entrant/parent" model. This had allowed young people to remain in dairying and had helped improve the viability of the combined family enterprise.
"It has given young trained farmers a practical and legal status and it has allowed them to make a tangible contribution to their family holding. This is an important injection of new blood into the industry at a time when competition from other careers is intense," he said.
While the numbers of partnerships are still relatively small, the Minister said there had been significant growth in the new entrant/parent partnerships.
He said that considering the degree of commitment required from those entering partnerships it was hardly surprising that farmers were not hastening slowly along that path.
"I think that part of that hesitancy arises from the newness of the format and the reality that solicitors and other advisers have had to draw up the legal documents from a blank page. The widespread availability of the two specimen agreements within this publication, one of which is the formal partnership agreement and the other the on-farm agreement dealing with operational matters, will be of great benefit to producers and advisers alike," said Mr Walsh.
He said the industry generally, and the milk sector in particular, was in a period of considerable change.
"We know that producers must grow their businesses and reduce costs to maintain their income levels in this new, more competitive environment," he said.
The book is published by Teagasc and was drawn up by a panel drawn from across the agriculture industry, the legal profession and the civil service.