Irish farm incomes increase by 4.9%

THE Central Statistics Office says Irish farm incomes rose by 4.9% last year, making our farming sector the seventh best earner of the EU-15. Meanwhile, Germany, once a powerhouse of farming, has slumped to fifth in the earning stakes.

CSO provisional figures in early December indicated a 2.2% increase in earnings in Irish farming, but when updated subsidy payments and cereal output data from the Department of Agriculture and Food, and actual milk price and volume data for the latter months of 2003 were added, the resulting figures showed increases in the value of milk output (by 2.1% or €29m); cattle (5.3% or €61m); cereals (33.4% or €47m); and root crops (15.6% or €26m). But output fell in sheep (by 4.4% or €9m), and pigs (5.8% or €17m). The cost of feeding stuffs decreased by 4.8% (€46m), while the cost of fertilisers increased by 8.1% (€28m). Net subsidies decreased by 0.8% (€13m).

Spanish farmers are now the top earners in Europe, according to Eurostat figures.