Major fall in new farm buildings

There has been a 55% decrease in planning permissions granted for agricultural buildings in the last five years, new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows.

Last year, 946 farmers received the green light to build a farm building, down from 1,467 in 2020.

The area granted permission for farm buildings in 2024 fell by 13% year-on-year and is down a massive 79% on 2020.

A total of 515,000m² of construction of new buildings, alterations and extensions to existing buildings was granted in 2024, compared to 583,000m² in 2023.

This is the third year in a row that the area of new buildings in agriculture granted planning permission has fallen, with the figure peaking at 958,000m2 in 2021, 86% higher than that of the 2024 levels. Applications for new builds accounted for the vast majority of the area last year, with 116,000m² of the area granted planning permission in 2024 attributed to alterations and extensions to current developments.

This leaves the average shed size per planning application at 544.4m2.

This is roughly the equivalent of a five-bay slatted shed with a centre passage, slats on either side with a creep/straw lieback at the rear of the slats.

Reasons

Some of the reasons for the fall in both the number of applications and area granted permission are a reduction in the national herd, high costs of construction combined with poor Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS) reference costs and uncertainty surrounding Ireland’s nitrates derogation.