A survey of 46 tillage farmers at Dairygold’s 10th annual tillage conference on Friday 17 January gave a snapshot of where tillage farmers are on land area for the 2025 season.

The survey, carried out by the Irish Farmers Journal, showed that 70% of tillage farmers expect their land area to stay the same in 2025.

Some 13% of those who took the survey expect their tillage area to decrease, while 17% of farmers expect their tillage area to increase.

Crop area figures

The Department of Agriculture released the official 2024 crop area figures on Monday 20 January. Preliminary figures were released in June.

These figures show a decline in tillage area of 4,708ha to 341,991ha from 2023 to 2024. That’s a decline of 1.4% on the main tillage area, which includes winter and spring barley, wheat, oats, rye, triticale, beet, maize, oilseed rape, potatoes, peas, beans and lupins.

This is the second decline in area in a row. There was an increase in area in 2022 due to the Tillage Incentive Scheme.

The Government has a target in the Climate Action Plan to increase the tillage area to 400,000ha by 2030.