The strains being placed on part-time farmers who have to work long hours has been highlighted in a survey of farming practices in Co Galway.
Conducted by the Galway Farm Relief Services Co-op, the survey found that part-time farmers worked an average of 77 hours a week, 41.7 hours on farm and 35.7 off farm.
This meant that 6,000 part-time farmers in Galway are working an average of 11 hours a day, seven days a week and less than half take three to four days holiday annually, the survey found.
While those farmers with off-farm employment worked less time on the farm than their full-time counterparts, they worked significantly more hours overall.
The survey also found a major input by other family members into farming activities, with 56 per cent of those surveyed saying they took part in farming activities.
It found that spouses work an average of nine hours a week and children an average of 15.4 hours a week in summer. Some 72 per cent of respondents believed that family members would continue to provide labour into the future.
"The long hours worked by full and part-time farmers and the active involvement of children on farms explains, to some degree, the alarmingly high rate of farm fatalities on Irish farms and is an issue that farmers need to address immediately," according to Mr Tomas Finn, manager of the Farm Relief Services Co-Op in Galway.
He said he believed that part-time farmers working 77 hours a week was putting huge strain on their families and was unsustainable. The belief that families would continue to be a major source of labour on farms was doubtful, he added.
"This survey shows that part-time farmers urgently need to look at new systems and sources of labour, such as the Farm Relief Services, if part-time farming is to survive beyond this generation," he added.
The survey, complied by Dr Pat Bogue for the Farm Relief Services Co-op, found that only 16.5 per cent of Galway's 13,484 farmers intend to expand their enterprises in the future.
The Fischler reforms were listed by 67.8 per cent as the main factors limiting expansion, followed by market returns (49.5 per cent) and age (33.3 per cent).
However, more than one-quarter of farmers (27 per cent) had ceased an enterprise in the past five years. Of these 41 per cent ceased sheep; 26 per cent beef; 15 per cent sucklers and 15 per cent dairying.
The survey also found a dramatic decline in the number of farmers involved in dairying in Galway, with only 770 farmers involved in the business compared with 2,500 in the mid 1980s.
The average farm size in Galway is 25 hectares and Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority, estimates that there are less than 1,000 viable full-time farmers in the county.
Farmers in Galway received €113,929,000 under the headage and premia schemes in 2001.