Access to land a 'huge issue' for tillage farmers

Access to land is a huge issue for tillage farmers, especially in the greater Cork, south Tipperary and west Waterford areas, Liam Leahy of head of tillage Dairygold has said.

He said that Ireland’s “fast and furious” era of milk expansion “starved” the tillage sector, but that dairy farmers were not to blame for the competition for land.

“The easy answer you hear every day is that the dairy lads are taking all the land. That’s not true.

“The dairy lads have businesses to run too. They’re trying to safeguard their own business,” he said at Tillage Day.

He said the Department of Agriculture and farm organisations need to get together and have a chat about it.

“Dairy and tillage must work together because at this moment there’s only one winner and that’s the lad that’s not farming at all,” he said.

He said access to land could be managed in a “more proactive way” and that structure and policy are needed to actually put that in place.

“There’s only one winner in this and these are the lads who are probably [going around] in a pair of hiking boots,” he said.

George Blackburn, a Wexford tillage farmer and agronomist with Cooney Furlong, said that land lost to solar cannot be replaced.

“An acre gone is an acre gone. It can’t be replaced and I think we’re kind of leaving it open to private equity firms to take over our farmland.

Marginal land

“I know everyone operates in a free market economy, but I would have a bit of an objection to [grain producing] land going into solar.

“There’s plenty of marginal land around the country, there are plenty of yards, plenty of roofs.

“I can’t blame the farmers that are going into it either, they’re being offered good money, but once it’s gone, it’s gone.”