Editorial: land price certainty driving decisions

On a European scale, Ireland ranks in the top 20% on land price. The latest Eurostat statistics (2023 land prices released in January 2025) suggest countries like the Netherlands, Malta, Luxembourg and Austria are ahead. However, really only the Netherlands’ land price is out of kilter, reaching an average of over €90,000/ha(€36,400/ac). The other countries in the top 20% where data is available, are down closer to €40,000/ha (€16,200/ac) for the national average. Outside of the top 20% for the majority of European countries you are dropping down to a much lower level closer to €10,000/ha. In 2023, the average price of one hectare of arable land in the EU was €11,791 (€4,770/ac).

Our latest all Island dataset review and analysis puts land price at €30,900/hectare (€12,505/acre) in the Republic of Ireland, and a price of €43,840/hectare (€17,741/acre) in Northern Ireland. The recent and ongoing hullaballoo around inheritance tax in Northern Ireland shows how important land is to farming. As William Irvine, Ulster Farmers’ Union president, said at the IFA AGM when the recent change to inheritance tax rules were first announced they organised a demonstration rally with expectations that 2,000 farmers might attend but over 6,000 turned up. Land price, tax and values are emotive.

As always ‘averages’ can cover up a multitude but the factors driving Irish land price play out each week in these pages. National factors such as laws play a part. For example, nitrates – the action plan and the derogation, is essentially a crude stocking rate limiting tool for all land, irrespective of what happens on the land. As a law it is a driving force for change in land use.

Regional factors such as climate (eg solar) and proximity to networks (eg a gas line or electricity line) are also playing a part. The south and east of the country are well serviced. They also gets more sun than the west, and so energy developers from Ireland and abroad are setting up to lease and purchase land. Field-specific factors such as soil type, drainage, and so on, are of course crucial to a farming enterprise, but often seem to be further down the key drivers of price at the moment. Market forces such as supply and demand obviously play a huge role and competition for land comes not only from farmers, but also from others planning to use land for other purposes.

Key to farmers continued participation in the land market is the need to be able to understand the value of product coming from the land. Making round bale silage costing maybe €60 per bale when you factor in all costs (including a lease charge, etc) and selling them for maybe €40 per bale doesn’t make sense long term. Travelling the roads of Ireland to service land blocks away from the home farm while you leave a busy yard in the spring again doesn’t make sense in the medium or long term.

Some innovations to get young people involved, new ownership type structures, land leasing initiatives and so on have played a part in helping some young people get started. Some farmers are of the opinion that there will soon be endless opportunities for young farmers as land owners age faster than change happens. However, there are so many additional competing demands for land ownership and land use in Ireland that ‘farming’ is only one part of that demand curve. We now have a plethora of Irish and international companies looking to acquire land in Ireland for many different reasons other than food production.

We continue on the road to build data centres to service European data users and to cover the best land with solar panels. We continue to promote initiatives that are not market-led, such as organics. While we continue to reduce and limit the food production potential of our land with EU laws and inaction it seems land price is only going in one direction.

The other negative knock on effect in an Irish context is that essentially all these factors are forcing food production into more intensive production systems. A rethink, a strategy, some innovative thinking is necessary from all stakeholders including the Department and Government. We don’t want to end up like the Netherlands where the Dutch government are buying back farms and essentially having to sterilise land and a cohort of farmers.