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Tillage farmers cut back their cereal production by almost 9,000ha in 2017.
Latest figures from the CSO show that the area of Ireland sown to cereals fell from 281,100ha in June 2016 to 272,200ha in June 2017.
This follows a drop of 11,300ha in cereal acreage the previous year.
In all, some 20,200ha or almost 50,000ac of cereals have been dropped from production in the past two years.
Total cereal area in Ireland from 2008 to 2017.
Winter barley slashed
The biggest cutback has been in winter barley, with growers slashing 9,700ha (almost 24,000ha) of the crop from production between 2016 and 2016.
They had increased winter barley sowings by 4,800ha between 2015 and 2016.
Between June 216 and June 2017, the area of spring barley remained steady at 115,000ha.
Wheat
The winter wheat area also remained reasonably steady at 60,300ha, while the spring wheat area fell by more than 10% to 6,700ha.
Oats
Spring oats was unchanged at 10,000ha in both 2016 and 2017.
However, the area of winter oats increased by almost 8% from 13,200ha to 14,400ha. This followed an increase of 1,800ha between 2015 and 2016.
Potatoes
Potatoes have been a growth area for the past two years, with an extra 600ha of the crop planted between June 2015 and June 2017.
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