The average income received from farming amounted to just €6/ha before direct payments when averaged across all sectors last year.

Teagasc’s 2023 National Farm Survey found that average direct payments of €432/ha made up 99c out of every €1 seen in the average farm family income.

This is a jump in direct payments’ contribution to farm incomes from 40% in 2022 to 99% in 2023, with the rise driven by lower dairy and tillage sector earnings on the all sector average.

Where direct payments had made up 14% of the average dairy income in 2022, they increased to 44% last year.

The average direct payment received by tillage farmers was greater than the average income earned last year, at 154% of farm income. For 2023, the same figure was 40% of income.

The equivalent figures for cattle finishers, sheep farmers and suckler farmers are a respective 112%, 161% and 231%. Direct payments have been greater than incomes in recent years.

Head of Teagasc’s rural economy and development programme, Kevin Hanrahan, told the Irish Farmers Journal that the cross-sector direct payment average almost equaling the average farm income was last witnessed in 2009.

“There have been worse years, believe it or not. [The year] 2009 was a particularly atrocious year.

“Again, these years are years where dairy incomes fall precipitously so having direct payments greater than incomes is not an unusual thing on the drystock side, but when you approach that number on dairy and tillage farms, that impacts the national average,” he said.

The authority’s director Prof Frank O’Mara said it is a “big issue” that the income generated on many farms is less than the income they receive from direct payments.

“What you want to be trying to do, and a lot of farmers are doing this, is adding to your support payment.

“But increasingly, we are seeing farmers dipping into these support payments to keep costs paid on the business and that absolutely has to be a focus: to minimise the amount of direct payments you are using and instead of that, flipping it over to make a profit.”