Cereal seed sales slump
Early indications show a dramatic drop in sowings of winter cereals, resulting in renewed fears that many farmers are thinking of pulling out of grain growing, because of low margins.
Deirdre Webb, Director said the IFGA will monitor and evaluate the situation up to Christmas, and it would be premature to make any public comment until that process had been completed.
Teagasc estimates the winter wheat acreage sown to date at 45,000 to 50,000 hectares, compared with 77,000 ha grown last year.
No more than 12,000 ha of winter barley have been sown. Some 20,000 ha were grown last year.
The IFA also reported three weeks ago that winter wheat sowings were running at about 40% to 45% of last year's levels due to poor returns and reduced growers' confidence.
It claimed that, in addition, many growers are standing back from rented land in an attempt to bring prices back to realistic levels and that many growers have successfully negotiated rental prices back by €50 to €80 per acre.
Merchants have meanwhile reported a significant drop in seed sales, especially for winter cereals.
And while they were hopeful of a pick up in the next week or so, the predictions were that this would not be enough to have sowing levels anywhere near those of last year. A combination of bad weather last month, decoupling, uncertainty concerning entitlements and the price of conacre has been blamed for the drop-off in winter cereal sowings.
Last week, Michael Hennessy, tillage specialist with Teagasc, said the poor weather in October did not help planting. But the new European Union policy and the opportunity for farmers to "stack" their acreage were other factors.
One of the concessions under the new policy, which comes into effect in January, is that a tillage farmer need only use 50% of the area farmed in the 2000 to 2002 period, and can still receive their full single farm payment.
This concession applies to land rented or leased.
With 51% of the national tillage area rented or leased, it is believed that many farmers, especially in the southern part of the country, are now seriously reviewing the rented land option.
