Provisional figures released today by DARD suggest that total income from farming fell by 41% in 2015 to £183m, compared to £312m the year before. This figure is a measure of total return to farmers, partners and family workers for their labour, management input and own capital invested.

DARD estimates suggest that farm business income measured across all farm types is expected to decrease by £11,491, or 46% per farm, from an average of £24,942 in 2014/15 to £13,451 in 2015/16.

Breaking this down into farming sectors, in dairying the volume of milk produced on NI farms in 2015 was at a record high of 2.3bn litres, representing a 3% increase on last year’s levels, but average milk price fell by 28% to 21.2p/l. Gross output in the dairy sector fell by 27% to £480m in 2015. The dairy sector is still the largest contributor to total gross output for the entire industry. Total gross output fell by 9% to £1.74bn in 2015.

The 2% decrease in total head of cattle slaughtered in NI was offset by a 9kg increase in average carcase weight, meaning total meat volumes increased by 2% in the year. Average price of paid for clean cattle in 2015 was 326p/kg. There was a marginal increase in the total output value from cattle to £394m.

There was little change in volumes of sheepmeat produced, meaning the 10% decrease in total value is mostly attributed to the 9% decrease in average sheepmeat prices for the year.

Intensive livestock

Total value output from pig and poultry fell by 15% to £113m and by 6% to £224m in 2015 respectively. Average producer prices for pigmeat fell by 18% and for poultry by 7% but production volumes for pigmeat increased by 7% and for poultry by 2% compared with 2014 levels. Total value of egg output increased by 9% to £87m due to average producer prices increasing by 5% and total volumes increasing by 4% in 2015.

The total output value from field crops was £59m in 2015, which is a 7% decrease on 2014 levels. This is mainly due to a reduction in producer prices for cereals as total value of wheat output fell by 2% to £9m and barley output fell by 8% to £18m.

The total value of direct subsidies to NI farmers, in the form of basic, greening and young farmer payments, fell by 5% to £236m in 2015. DARD has said that this is mainly due to the less favourable exchange rate between sterling and the euro. The most stark figure from the analysis is that income from subsidies is £53m more than the total income that ends up in the pockets of farmers.

Inputs

Total value of gross inputs for NI farmers fell by 4% to £1.39bn in 2015. Accounting for 52% of this was feedstuffs, which decreased by 6% compared with 2014 levels to £729m. Average price per tonne fell by 7% and total volume purchased increased by 1% in 2015.

Average price of fertiliser paid per tonne fell by 8% in 2015 and total volume purchased fell by 3% representing a 10% decrease in total cost. An 18% reduction in the cost of fuels and oils helped reduce total machinery expenses to farmers by 10% in 2015 to £136m.