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LAST UPDATE | 22 Mar 2022
AS IRELAND LOOKS to stave off potential food shortages, the government has approved a €12 million package to help tillage farmers in the planting of new crops.
Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue brought the package to cabinet today, to support tillage farmers to increase the volume of crops grown in Ireland.
The move is being taken due to the fact the crisis in Ukraine has had an impact on Irish agriculture and supply chains, with hyper-inflation in the price of energy, animal feeds, fertiliser, fuel, silage plastics and other farm input prices.
“We are living in unprecedented times. The illegal invasion in Ukraine has put our supply chains under enormous pressure,” said the Minister.
“I quickly put in place the National Food and Security Committee to examine how best to advise the sector to manage the disruptions.
“There is a need to focus our supports on the tillage sector given the narrow window we have to plant crops. I committed to standing by our farm families during this crisis and I will continue to do so in the time ahead.”
There are three initial measures being brought by Minister McConalogue to support farmers and the planting of crops.
The tillage incentive scheme will incentivise farmers to grow additional tillage crops (eg barley, oats, wheat) in 2022, and a payment of €400 per hectare is proposed.
The rate may be higher for certain crops – for example, maize and fodder beet – as the cost of production is under review but considered to be higher.
It’s anticipated that a possible 25,000 additional hectares of these crops could be grown in 2022, leading to a total budget of €10 million.
There will also be protein crops supports, to encourage farmers to grow protein crops (peas, beans and lupins). With this, a payment of €300 per hectare is proposed.
It’s also proposed that combi-crops (cereal/protein mix) would be included in this initiative. The target is to increase the volume of hectares under protein crops from 10,000ha to 14,000ha.
Finally, there’s the multi-species sward scheme, which would see €2m to support the planting of multi-species swards (these are short grasses). A target of 16,000 hectares planted is expected here.
It’s expected the specifics of the schemes will be addressed in the coming days, and additional support for the growing of grass silage is expected to be explored in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, a food ombudsman-type office is taking a step closer to being established.
Minister McConalogue secured approval from the cabinet today to prioritise the drafting of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022 to create an office to monitor transparency in the food supply chain.
This Bill will establish a new independent statutory authority, which would be known as the Office for Fairness and Transparency in the Agri-Food Supply Chain.
Its objective will be to promote fairness and transparency in the agricultural and food supply chain. It would do this a few ways – like having a performing a price/market analysis and reporting function.
It would also be responsible for ensuring that fairness is observed in the agricultural and food supply chain by becoming the State’s designated enforcement authority over the rules on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain.
“This new Office will bring greater transparency all along the agricultural and food supply chain,” Minister McConalogue said.
“It will do this by performing a price and market analysis and reporting function – publishing reports on price and market information on all sectors in the agri-food supply chain.
“It will engage with retailers, processors, wholesalers, farmers, fishers, and others on matters effecting fairness and transparency in the agri-food supply chain,” McConalogue said.
The office, which is expected to pass through the Oireachtas before the summer, will be led by a Board and will have a Chief Executive Officer. It will operate independently but under the aegis of the Department of Agriculture similar to bodies such as Bord Bia.
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Hopefully it will be worthwhile for farmers, unlike the laughable 2 cent a litre reduction on agri diesel we already witnessed.
@DERRY1973: Why the new quango cannot have its work done from within An Bord Bia? I guess it’s more important to have another €150k+ of taxpayers dosh doled out to another crony CEO.
Where will the seeds come from? It’s not as if there is extra seed available over normal years
93% of farmland in Ireland is grass. For every €288 per hectare in sales in 2019, the tax-payer added €461 per hectare to the income of beef farmers and for every €311 per hectare in sales in 2019, the tax-payer added €411 per hectare to the income of the sheep farmer. 90% of this produce is exported. McConalogue says he wants to promote fairness and promote crops that require less added nitrogen. Why then is he only offering €300 per hectare for nitrogen fixing crops (peas and beans) and only €400 per hectare for other crops?
@Sean Byrne: Those highly subsidised ruminant export commodities overwhelmingly contribute to the national release of 597 kilotonnes of methane. That’s equal the contents of over 52 million household gas cylinders. Our agricultural system is so wasteful because it is based on a glut of excess food, energy and fertiliser on world markets.
@Sean Byrne: Of all the insane things our government has done in the last two decades, increasing the size of the dairy herd may actually be the worst.
@Sean Byrne: Don’t be talking sense Sean. This is Ireland and logic doesn’t apply….
@Sean Byrne: “93% of farmland in Ireland is grass.”
83.7% of Irish farmland is Grassland (91.7% when excluding Commonage). Still a huge proportion which surprised me.
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eii/eii2016/lu/
@David Jordan: I’m not seeing a “Commonage” category for those 2016 figures. Grassland is over 92% in both the census of Agriculture 2020 https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-coa/censusofagriculture2020-preliminaryresults/ and the statistical yearbook 2021 https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-syi/statisticalyearbookofireland2021part3/agri/cropsandlivestock/ .When added up, silage, hay, pasture and in use rough grazing isn’t quite 93% but it’s over 92%.
@Sean Byrne: @Sean Byrne: Ah, the new 2020 Census. Grassland is 82.1% of farmland:
” 82.1% Of Agricultural Area Utilised is under grassland ”
This excludes commonage which mainly marginal upland grazing, unsuitable for cereal crops.
Another Bord Bia will not help farmers or fisherman. In 2020 24 million euros was approved by europe for soil sampling on Irish farms. Not one penny made it into farmers pockets instead Teagase absorbed this entire budget. It was cheaper for farmers to get independent companies to soil sample yet that option was not even considered.
At present farmers can’t retire at 65 on any pension other than old age pension. Instead those pushing pens in government offices are guaranteed full pensions.
We need farmers to create co-ops like in the 80′s just this time don’t sell out to the Larry Goodman types.
@leartius: if farmers contribute to personal pensions like public service workers do then of course they’ll draw them down on retirement.
@leartius: I agree with a lot of what you said but on the pension one, you can’t draw down a pension if you have not put money into one. You can’t expect a bigger pension just because your a farmer.
Will this payments be paid for all hectares grown even if they don’t meet top quality marks. There is only so many harvesters in ireland to match what was harvesters last year. All these extra hectares will probably be harvestered late because of this and not meet the quality needed to get the full payment.
Can our grain silos store all this extra grain and foods. Its sounds great but are we changing everything in the short term and not thinking of the long game?
My God the minister is pure useless…. you can’t just click your fingers and get farmers to grow crops or wheat!!! Wheat by the way is one of the hardest crops to grow in Ireland. Why? Because the grains are graded. If if doesn’t make the grade it goes for animal feed and if it does make it, it goes for flour. Irelands climate to too wet to produce top quality wheat and there is no safety net if a crop fails because of a wet harvest hence why we grow lots of grass. Its perfectly suited to out climate.
The last 15 years Irelands tillage farmers struggled to make a profit. The dept of agriculture pushed for more dairy. So a lot of them moved to dairy. Now he wants them and other farmers to grow crops. It just doesn’t work like that. You need huge amounts of money for equipment seed and fertiliser.
Fertiliser has trebled in price wiping out and any profits come harvest time. A lot of it comes from Belarus and Russia. It’s not a good time to be a farmer. Without them we’d have no food and still most of the city folk do not value what they do. .
@Diarmuid O’Braonáin: Ireland can produce high quality wheat it’s climate is cool temperate oceanic like that of the UK and they’ve been selling us milling wheat for year since they flooded the market with cheap wheat. Some parts of the centre and west the last is too wet and crops susceptible to fusarium and takeall but from north Cork south tipp Kildale wexford and north Co Dublin it can grow new varieties of milling wheat like skyfall winter and durum wheat. Its the way its farm will bring up the protein levels.
It’s was government decision that altered Irish farming for the worse closing down Mills as they couldn’t complete again cheaper imports. I don’t need to remind about the sugar factories ……… just cause eu wanted it to be shut and then sold the land for housing omg
As some were saying , they need the equipment to do it , it’s not like just go out to the farm and the tractor does everything.
Last year there were record yields. We need to support specialised tillage farmers by subsidising fertiliser. It’s the most economic, easiest and best way to do it. If we don’t do this, we’ll have only 50-60% of the harvest yield of last year which is bad for many other sectors in the Agri-food sector. Asking non-tillage farmers to grow tillage doesn’t make sense as they’ll need contractors who are stretched enough as it is due to scarcity in labour.
What Does Ryan think about this plan As he seems to think he Has All the Answers
I don’t want to be a killjoy and this is all very welcome. I’m also open to correction, but.what happens if we sow all these crops and then don’t get good enough weather to get good yields from said crop ? I could be way off the wall with this question
@Declan Moran: the problem is tillage farmers will reduce fertiliser rates by about 20% due to fertiliser increases. Yield might fall 15%. Then the weather could have an effect but there is not much we can do about that. So if could we could get a small increase in production in a year with a pronounced fertiliser crisis that would be good. Might offset some of our import requirements next year.
Paying farmers to grow crops,? Where is the seed coming from? , where Will the land come from,? to grow crops ,is this just another subside scam for subsidized forage ,? more hay from Holland,?
This is a joke. Box ticking.
Most non tillage existing farm enterprises ( dairy beef sheep…) are maxed on stocking rates (animals / acre)
Where is extra land coming from
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