'Good weather' leads to bumper cereal crop

Farmers today credited good weather for the 9% increase in cereal production over the last two years.

The production of barley, oats and wheat rose by 183,000 tonnes to a total of 2.1 million tonnes in 2003/2004.

According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), this increased the Irish self sufficiency in cereals from 76% to 84%.

The Irish Farmers’ Association said the main reason for the increased harvest was the spell of good weather last year.

“There were phenomenal yields right across Europe and it was a very good growing year right across Europe and the world,” said grain committee secretary Fintan Conway.

However, he said the situation for cereal growers had returned to normality this year.

Barley production increased by 24% to 1.19m tonnes in 2003/2004 and oat production increased by 15.7% to 155,000 tonnes. The increase in production led to a 10% drop in cereal imports and a 13% increase in exports.

Irish cereals are used for animal feed, milling and malting.

However, wheat production decreased by 8.4% to 794,000 because of poor weather in winter when it was harvested.

Mr Conway said cereal farmers in general were facing significant difficulties with increased competition from grain producers in the new EU member states, as well as Ukraine and Russia, driving down prices.

“It’s become a very marginal enterprise over the lat number of years. The area sown this year is down 8%.”

He said cereal farming had gone from being the second most profitable farming enterprise in the early 1990s to one of the least profitable enterprises now.