The Department of Agriculture published the final crop area figures for 2024 last week.

Preliminary figures were published in last summer. The figures show that the main tillage area declined by 4,708ha or 1.4% from 2023 to 2024. The area has declined by 6,755ha since 2022.

In 2022, the Department of Agriculture introduced the Tillage Incentive Scheme (TIS), a payment of €400/ha to put grassland into crop production.

This resulted in an increase in the tillage area from 328,898ha in 2021 to 348,746ha in 2022. However, the area has declined since that time.

The TIS offered growers €200/ha to keep that land in tillage for a second year and the TIS was available again in 2023. However, no new entrants were allowed into the TIS in 2024.

Target

The Government has a target in the Climate Action Plan to increase the tillage area to 400,000ha by 2030.

The 2024 Climate Action Plan also outlines targets to increase straw incorporation levels to 60,000ha by 2025 and 85,000ha by 2030 and cover crop areas from about 40,000ha to 45,000ha by 2025 and 75,000ha by 2030.

The figures show that cereal area declined by 8,628ha in 2024, which directly affects the country’s ability to reach these targets, as cereal straw is needed for the straw incorporation targets and cereal area is generally where cover crops are planted.

The rise in maize area of 4,040ha and the protein/cereal mix area signals a large move in land from tillage farmers to livestock farms.

Some of these crops may be grown by tillage farmers, but not all, so the area is at risk of being lost from the tillage area.

Data

The Irish Farmers Journal has separated out the main tillage area figures from the crop descriptions supplied from BISS data. Table 1 shows what are considered to be the main tillage crops.

In 2024, the Department’s raw data shows that there were approximately 4.37m ha of grassland, 3,487ha of fallow, 14,305ha of vegetables (including potatoes), 370ha of fruit, 85ha of herbs and 43ha of glasshouses.