Teagasc is piloting a new advisory strategy that is aimed at delivering a “better service to farmers” in two regions.
Head of the Teagasc advisory programme, Tom Curran said: “Our staff have worked very hard to keep up with this workload and this has reduced the time they have for technical on-farm advice.
“We are keen to address the strong feedback from clients highlighting the need, and the benefits to being able to retain and strengthen a high quality, technical, farm business advisory support service to clients, and to the wider farming sectors,” he added.
To address the challenge of meeting both the schemes and technical needs of its clients, Teagasc has established a new national schemes support unit. This new unit is being headed by Aidan Murray.
The function of the unit it is to improve supports to advisors around schemes service delivery, and to support frontline advisers to continue to provide this service to clients.
Teagasc is assigning advisors to focus and specialise in supporting scheme services with clients, and allowing a cohort of advisors to be more focused on technical and farm business development.
The new Advisory Strategy is being piloted in the Wicklow, Carlow, and Wexford Teagasc advisory region and in the Donegal, Sligo, and Leitrim advisory region.
Teagasc
In the pilot regions, an enterprise advisor will be allocated to clients who want to keep improving their technical performance, efficiency, and productivity.
These clients can now use the enterprise advisor as their main point of contact.
Discussion groups will also be mainly facilitated by the enterprise advisors. Specialised scheme advisors will work closely alongside enterprise advisors to provide schemes and regulation support to these clients.
Farm advisors will continue to support farmers who rely on schemes for a significant portion of their farm income in addition to the technical service they require.
These advisors will continue to serve clients directly around schemes and associated technical advice.
Maintaining a cohort of farm advisors puts a strong emphasis on ensuring that scheme benefits are maximised, while supporting continuous improvements in efficiency and productivity.
“This is an exciting new direction for our clients and staff and I’m confident that this new service will be really positive for our clients,” Curran concluded.