Tillage area decreases by 20% due to weather, poor market conditions

THE total tillage area in Ireland has reduced by 20% this year compared with that sown in 2008 due to difficult weather and poor market conditions, Teagasc revealed yesterday at its Tillage Open Day at Knockbeg Research Farm, Carlow.

Farmers attending also heard how recent market conditions have placed great strain on the sector and despite some positive signs over the past few weeks the recent collapse in barley prices is a source of big disappointment.

Head of the Teagasc Crops Research Centre Professor Jimmy Burke said those in the tillage sector now have a chance to make business decisions uninfluenced by subsidies and must respond to market signals if they are to prevent losing money.

“Technical efficiency is now the critical factor influencing profitability and competitiveness and farmers who ignore this reality will not survive,” he said. Prof Burke said farmers wishing to expand must be able to live on the price paid for farm products as well as carrying the cost arising from environmental compliance, food safety and quality issues.

“Increasing scale to become more efficient is only sustainable if it generates a return on investment. EU subsidy payments now have no bearing on production, with price, and ultimately profitability resting with the farmer and the vagaries of the market place,” he said. New Teagasc research showing a very significant shift in fungicide insensitivity to a major wheat disease called Septoria was outlined.

Dr Eugene O’ Sullivan, a plant pathologist at Teagasc Oak Park, said this shift could threaten current disease control strategies.

It was also pointed out that some tillage farmers will have to test their farms this year to ascertain their soil carbon levels and take remedial action where these are found to be low.

Results presented at the open day showed that if straw is incorporated after harvest then tillage farming is carbon neutral.

Teagasc has meanwhile extended its Better Farm programme to tillage. The programme is already operating successfully in beef and sheep. The three farms are located in Wexford, north Cork and on the Dublin-Meath border. Open days will be held on these farms next year.