The tillage supports announced over the past two weeks pale into insignificance relative to the challenges faced by farmers at present.

This week’s budget states €8m will be provided for tillage-specific support.

The €8m looks like a decrease of €2m in funding, as the Tillage Incentive Scheme’s (TIS) budget was €10m.

Some €1.5m of the €8m will go towards a €200/ha payment for those who entered the TIS in 2023, while the remainder is yet to be decided upon.

The budget also announced a 70% grant to build slurry storage where farmers are importing slurry and there is a long-term agreement in place.

'Insulting'

Last week, €7.15m of EU money was granted in aid to tillage to pay an €11/ac payment to farmers with oilseed rape and cereals.

Over the past few days, numerous farmers and members of the industry have told the Irish Farmers Journal that it would be better if there was no aid payment.

They see the €11/ac payment as insulting and perhaps costly to administer at the Department’s end.

That said, if you have 100ha of oilseed rape or cereals, it is €2,800 which will go in some way to pay a bill.

However, despite the anger at this payment, there was hope for some support in the budget.

After all the talk on the importance of tillage and the Minister’s intention to support the sector, surely something would come. The Government does, after all, have a target to increase tillage area by 50,000ha by 2030.

Decline

Yesterday’s budget offered a decline in funding and a 70% grant on slurry storage. This, of course, is intended to take exported slurry from livestock farms and possibly help to solve the nitrates derogation mess for some, while potentially reducing the cost of purchased nutrients for tillage farmers.

However, figures from the Irish Farmers Journal’s buildings specialist Martin Merrick show that it would take 11 years for a return on investment on 337m³ of slurry storage (32m long X 5m wide X 2.4m deep).

It is good to encourage co-operation between livestock and tillage farms. It promotes sustainability.

However, tillage farmers who are financially stretched will struggle to stack up such an investment in slurry storage from a dairy farm sector that only creates slurry from November to January and who need this slurry to grow grass.

The reality is, at present, tillage farmers cannot meet their annual bills and confidence for long-term investment is at an all-time low.

Many have a balance left to pay once the grain cheque has been used to cover some of the bill.

Ironically, if some tillage farmers take up this increased capital investment grant aid, it is likely they will do it to exit the tillage sector in the short term.

If you were planting crops until the rain arrived late on Tuesday night after this week’s budget, you certainly wouldn’t feel like the talk of support for tillage was a reality.