The future of the tillage sector is hanging in the balance. While of course many farmers are already planning and planting for 2017, the proportion who are questioning their future is too significant to be ignored. On Tuesday, both the IFA and the Irish Grain Growers (IGG) put it starkly to the Oireachtas Agriculture committee – tillage farmers are earning €2/hour and acreage is down 20% in a decade and continuously falling.
The future of the tillage sector is hanging in the balance. While of course many farmers are already planning and planting for 2017, the proportion who are questioning their future is too significant to be ignored.
On Tuesday, both the IFA and the Irish Grain Growers (IGG) put it starkly to the Oireachtas Agriculture committee – tillage farmers are earning €2/hour and acreage is down 20% in a decade and continuously falling.
It has become a catch-22 situation – farmers have no choice other than to stay in crop production until they have no choice other than to exit production.
The costs farmers are carrying in machinery repayments and the land leases they are tied into mean they are trapped into continuing production even when losing money in a given year, as it would cost more to stop than to keep going.
However, year-on-year losses now mean that many tillage farmers have reached the point where they will be forced to stop, as they have exhausted all available means of credit.
Harvest
The last week has seen windows for work, but not the sustained dry spell needed to gather up the harvest in those areas with most left to do. Monday and Tuesday saw combines, tedders, rakes and balers busy gathering up crop. There is very little grain to be harvested in the eastern half of the country, but the north-west still needs a sustained lift in weather before harvesting can be completed. As we move into October, the prospects are receding by the day. Beans remain to be cut, and with any grabbed on Tuesday heading towards 30% moisture, it’s realistically now a salvage operation.
Maize harvesting is under way, but potato lifting has hardly begun as growers wait for soil conditions to improve.
Planting
While harvesting continues when possible, planting has now started. The main priority at this point may well be catch crop. The extension for planting expires on Saturday 30 September. IFA grain committee chair Liam Dunne believes that a further extension is now a minimum requirement.
“Perhaps an amnesty is now required in relation to catch crop establishment. Through no fault of farmers, we are reaching the point where there is an environmental cost, rather than benefit, in preparing land and planting seed which will never amount to a meaningful crop, if it establishes at all.”
Meanwhile, winter barley is going in.
Straw degrading
Straw is degrading and shrinking with every fall of rain. Where it is lying in water, rotting is ruining any value it might have. Straw that has been tossed, turned, or tedded but not baled will be more brittle and suffer accordingly.
However, if sitting undisturbed in rows, it can be remarkably resilient. An indication of the extent of the shortage is that some farmers are baling bean stalks for bedding. Prices are hard to determine, as so little straw is unsold that it is absolutely a seller’s market now.
Mushroom composters are understood to be preparing for the importation of straw to get them through the winter.
Read more
Tillage farmers on the brink
Grain prices edging upwards – €140 being paid for barley
Straw stocks depleted as supply dries up
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