The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show the cost of diesel in January 2017 was 16.9% higher than January last year.

The price also jumped 3.4% from the previous month of December.

The agricultural output price index increased by 2% in January 2017 compared with December 2016.

Meanwhile, the agricultural input price index increased by 0.6% over the same period.

As a result the terms of trade index was up by 1.4% in January of this year.

Crops and livestock

The total number of cattle was 7,221,200, an increase of 3.7% on June 2015.

The results from the Crops and Livestock Survey for June 2016 were published on Friday and compare with June the previous year.

The results reveal that number of dairy cows increased by 7.9%.

There was over an 8% rise in the number of cattle aged between one and two years whilst cattle two years and over, not including cows and bulls fell by 11.5%.

Higher number of sheep

The largest number of cattle was in the South-West region, with 1.4m. The west had most sheep, also at 1.4m.

Sheep numbers for the country were up slightly at 0.8%, with ewes under two years old rising by 5.5%.

The figures for sheep two years and over decreased by 0.4%.

There amount of land under by potatoes grew 6.1% to 9,000ha.

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Farmers getting paid less out of UK retail price than in 2016