WG13 – Assessing and Interpreting Farm Workload: Pathways, Practices and Perspectives

WG13 – Assessing and Interpreting Farm Workload: Pathways, Practices and Perspectives

This Working Group explores diverse methods for assessing and interpreting farm workload, while also addressing questions of decent work, social sustainability and the future of farming. It aims to i) map methods for assessing farm workload and evaluate their pros/cons, ii) investigate how workload is experienced in different contexts (e.g. farm type, gender, mechanisation/digitalisation, sustainability issues), iii) to discuss pathways for assessing workload as a farm-level social sustainability indicator in different farm contexts (e.g., farm types and labour arrangements, mechanization and digitalisation, etc.). We invite contributions from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to discuss conceptual, methodological and applied perspectives across different farming contexts.

Convenors: Rita Saleh (Agroscope, Switzerland), Sarina Altermatt (Agroscope, Switzerland), Emile Spahr (Agroscope, Switzerland)

Complementarity of the Work Assessment Method and Aptimiz app to tackle the labour organisation issues in dairy cattle farms  
Jocelyn FAGON, Emmanuel BEGUIN, Laure BRUN-LAFLEUR 
 

A farmer-focused survey instrument for exploring workload on farms  
Conor Hogan, John McCabe  
 

Modelling the future human capital requirements of Irish dairy farms 
Bridget Craig, Marion Beecher, Conor Hogan  
 

A pilot study on the Work Assessment Method (WAM) applied on Irish dairy farms    
Bernadette O'Brien, Patrick O'Dwyer, James Kinsella, Marion Beecher    
 

How Working Time and Perceived Workload Relate to Farmers’ Perceived Burden  
Rita Saleh, Katja Heitkämper, Sarina Altermatt, Nadja El Benni, Sabine Liebenehm   
 

Modelling agricultural labour time – experiences from Switzerland   
Katja Heitkämper, Stefan Mann   
 

Work, productivity and structural transformation in world agricultures (1960-2023). Using statistics as tools of evidence and government  
Bruno Dorin   
 

Workload assessment of dairy farmers and dairy farmers-cheesemakers in France    
Lynda Allouche, Mohamed Hamadouche, Jean François Tourrand