Change is inevitable. It happens all the time but often at a pace that we can choose to ignore. Occasionally change is precipitated and accelerated by policy to make it occur faster, and that is what is likely to happen the Irish agricultural landscape over the next few years.

There is little doubt that the ending of milk quotas and the introduction of the reformed common agricultural policy (CAP) will bring significant change, especially in traditional dairying areas.

Production will intensify on dairy farms and more land will be used to produce milk. There will be some land use change and relative profitability will impact on future enterprise choice.

The increased output targets set in Food Harvest 2020, combined with the new vision being formulated in the 2025 Agri-Food Strategy, point to increasing output from all agricultural sectors. Government is helping make this happen and new taxation measures relating to leasing and land sales should help free up more land for productive use.

Agriculture 2015 – A Changing Landscape looks at how these changes may unfold within this island and also within our major competitors and markets. We look at the possible implications for land use changes on this island, and give the opinions of a number of key people in the industry who present their views as to how agriculture will evolve in the years ahead.

Minister Coveney outlines the many ways in which government intends to actively s upport output and incomes in the years ahead. UCD’s Alan Renwick suggests that we should begin to separate asset ownership and use to help achieve increased efficiency. Being able to do this would enable farms to scale up instantly, while helping industry to maximise the use of all of its existing processing facilities. Eddie Downey stresses the importance of a vibrant land policy to help maximise efficiency and Colm McCarthy believes that growth across all exporting agricultural sectors is very important for the financial health of our economy.

Land use may also be altered as a consequence of the new CAP. Greening will impact on the tillage sector by forcing the production of more crops on many farms. Convergence will remove production support from some farmers and sectors and transfer it to others. There will be winners and losers but we must hope that this will not impact negatively on our need to increase farm output.