Farmers stunned by falling farm incomes
IFA president Eddie Downey said farmers rightly feel aggrieved by the latest CSO farm income figures, which show their incomes have stayed static over the past three years.
He said Ireland is gaining from agri-food exports and employment growth, but farmers are not seeing the same benefits.
“The CSO figures, which show a drop of 1% in farm incomes nationally for 2014,come less than a week after Teagasc’s projections for 2015, which show that farm enterprises across all sectors are facing another very challenging year, with particular concerns for the dairy sector,” said Mr Downey.
“The depressing reality is that in 2014 conditions were right for farmers to generate a good income from their farms; favourable weather conditions, reduced input volumes, a fall in input costs and an increase in output for most sectors.
“That farm incomes did not improve in 2014 is almost single-handedly down to the fall in prices farmers received for their products, across almost all sectors, including beef, dairy, pigmeat, cereals and potatoes,” stated the IFA leader.
