Could sugar be one of the sweet spots at the centre of Europe's runaway food price inflation?Governments are meeting across the continent with retailers, processors and farmers, to investigate why high food prices are pushing the rate of general ...

"It is now almost certain that the area under tillage will decline this year, when it needs to be going the other way."

The group will work "to develop a blueprint that will stimulate the Irish tillage sector in its drive for greater output, efficiency, and profitability".

Irish racehorses are among the best in the world, and our tillage farmers are famous for their high yields, but the increase in oilseed rape crops could put them on a collision course.

With so much attention on pollinators, it was probably inevitable that some clever agricultural innovator would ask the question, why not use bees to deliver biological control agents to flowers and certain crops?It was the team at Bee Vectoring ...

New rules set in Brussels will ban the importation of goods, such as soya, connected with deforestation in a bid to fight global deforestation, climate change and biodiversity loss.

The bill allows techniques such as genome editing, for example, which can shorten the eight to 20-year conventional development of an improved crop to less than four years.

The National Food and Fodder Security Committee has urged farmers to prioritise winter fodder production.

The IFA has announced that it will hold a national horticulture meeting.

Plants like Japanese knotweed, Giant Hogweed and Himalayan Balsam are the most common non-native species found on farmland.

The establishment of winter crops in late 2022 was a difficult task. The removal of the seed dressing ‘Redigo Deter’ from the market has left early sown winter barley vulnerable to barley yellow dwarf virus.

Farmers are getting a new insight into the law of the jungle in their crop foliage, as they turn to integrated pest management (IPM). Now they are more and more likely to release a predator, which turns the crop into a graveyard for unwanted pests.

This year, there's a whole suite of new schemes, applications systems, monitoring systems, validation and processing systems, and payment systems.

If humans rely more on food from greenhouses in the future, pollination robots will probably play a vital role. They are already being used in tomato greenhouses.

Not many can boast of bringing space-age technology to farms around the world, yet that's exactly the case for Silicon Valley-based ag-tech firm Verdant Robotics.

Vertical farms, an indoor cropping idea which attracted hundreds of millions in venture capital investment, are reportedly falling on hard times.

Researchers in Tokyo with backing from tech giant Sony have developed a novel robot, with the ability to sow, prune, and harvest plants, helping to achieve large-scale “synecoculture farming”.

Symbols like shamrocks, Irish harps and Celtic crosses have been used to mislead people about the origin of food produce.

A further €1.2m will be paid to eligible members in the coming months.

The scheme is in recognition of the challenges faced by the Irish potato sector following the UK’s decision to leave the EU. 

"If this problem is not addressed, there is a risk the tillage area will contract substantially after two years of growth."

The creation of a scheme to collect stocks of illegally held pesticides and other hazardous chemicals is being considered by the Government.

At this time of year, we must begin to review plans for what crops to produce for the coming season, writes ruminant nutritionist Brian Reidy.

The economic returns for growers compare very favourably with traditional crops like winter wheat and malting barley, Tirlán said.

'Farm Exam' readers will be happy to hear two Signpost favourites from 2022 are set to return. Tom and Fiona Barry from Mallow, and Darren and Rory Allen from Ballymaloe Farm, Co Cork, will continue their regular updates into 2023.