How can we define “work” for farmers?
Approaching farmer's work is multidimensional and multifaceted
Find here some definition to understand and formalise farmer's work.
Definition : Dimensions of farmer's work
The various dimensions of farmer's work must be approached from different perspectives, through diverse scientific disciplines belonging to social sciences (sociology, management sciences, economy and ergonomics) and technical sciences such as animal production sciences, agronomy and crop sciences, engineering...
Farmer's work embraces several and very diverse aspects: it can cover dimensions such as workload, work organization and how flexible farmers can be concerning their time schedule and the different tasks they have to perform, how the work is distributed among the workers. Additionally and in parallel to the changes in livestock farming systems, the farmer has to use and develop new knowledge and skills to carry out those tasks (PLF, technical, human resource management, economical management...).
In addition to the workload and the organisation of the different tasks the farmer has to achieve, the physical dimension and the mental dimension of work must also be considered. The physical dimension of workload includes the strenuousness of the different tasks, potential health risks with common musculoskeletal disorders, injuries and incidents, chemical expositions. The mental dimensions of workload is linked to the fact that farmers have to cope with uncertainties affecting the operation of the farming system such as health problems affecting the herd, volatility of agricultural commodities, climatic hazards and unpredicted weather, ..., or affecting their social position among society with major crisis.
The theme “farmer's work” also cover :
their quality of life, in work and outside : whether they have a sufficient income, some time-off, vacations, proper separated time and space dedicated to work and to private time, isolation, ...
their social integration among the society with the perception of their job by the society and their own perception concerning their job and their position among the society.
Note :
Livestock farming systems can be seen as a yearly sequence of events and practices made up of different tasks:
Daily routine tasks : Have to be done almost every day or at a defined time of production cycle.
Basically daily animal cares (milking, weaning, feeding, animal monitoring with reproduction, health care, surveillance of facility ambience...)
Daily routine tasks can be estimated by describing a typical day with all the different tasks for ruminant systems. For pig productions, the estimation is based on the description of the production cycle with periodic task events.
Seasonal tasks : Have to be done at a certain time of the year. Can be aggregated and/or postponed over a given time.
Basically agricultural activities (crops and forage management, land upkeep, ...) and non-agricultural activities (commercialization, diversification or services, ...)
Administrative and economic tasks
Tasks are defined according to their kind, rhythm and postponability (Madelrieux et al., 2009 ; Hostiou and Dedieu 2011).
The distribution between daily routine, seasonal and administrative tasks depends on the nature and the purpose of livestock production, the motivations and the strategies of the farmers
Definition : Work organization
Work organization as a component of the production process and can be considered as the interactions between livestock management, workforce and equipment facilities.The workforce can be defined by several different groups of person working on the farming system.
