The level of investment in farm buildings is holding up pretty well, considering the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down economic activity. The greatest level of investment is driven by dairy herd expansion and conversions to dairying. This has showed no signs of slowing, with the Irish national dairy herd set to expand by 40,000 to 50,000 more cows in 2020.

This is underpinning spending, particularly on new parlours and robotic milking machines, feed storage areas, additional cubicle places and slurry storage capacity.

Investment in beef and sheep enterprises is more cautious, but there is still a considerable level of activity. A significant percentage of the investment taking place in Ireland is being underpinned by the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS II), with the current tranche due to close on Friday 13 November. Tranche 20 will open on 14 November. Grant aid is central to allowing farmers to invest in infrastructure and technology that will improve efficiency at farm level. Irish farmers have been lucky to have access to a continual funding stream in recent years and hopefully this will remain the case with TAMS funding allocated for 2021.

The availability of funding for farmers in Northern Ireland has been much more restrictive, with only the third tranche of Tier 1 of the Farm Business Investment Scheme opening at the start of the month for a short window. Here's a flavour of the items available from a buildings perspective.