All counties have an area sown to tillage crops according to recent figures produced by the Department following the 2016 BPS applications.

Wexford has the biggest area of crops at 68,171ha, while Leitrim has the lowest at 314ha. However, it is important to note that crops like grass up to five years old form part of the tillage mix under current BPS criteria.

As well as the standard tillage crops, the numbers in Figure 1 also include grass that is not permanent pasture, horticultural crops, GLAS-driven planting such as wild bird cover, flowers, kale, etc. This is ranked as the grand total in the figure.

However, county rankings for crop area remain broadly similar whether these crops are included or excluded. The main exceptions are Kilkenny, Galway and Roscommon, which would rank lower when only standard tillage crops are included (see Figure 1).

Tillage total

The tillage total used in Figure 1 includes only the main tillage crops like cereals, beans, oilseed rape, beet, maize and potatoes. Wexford has the biggest area of most crops except for wheat, beet, potatoes, maize and fallow land. Wexford has 51,969ha of the tillage crops above while Cork, next biggest, has 46,494ha.

Much of the difference in the two numbers for Cork (66,182ha v 46,494ha) is accounted for by grass in years one to five of reseeding. This accounts for almost 17,000ha in Cork but just over 13,000ha in Wexford. Both counties show increased grass area in more recent years compared with five years ago, as is also the case in Kilkenny.

Of the main tillage crops, Wexford grows the biggest area of barley with over 35,000ha and it also has the biggest area of beans (2,157ha), oilseed rape (1,807ha) and oats (3,243ha). Cork grows the most beet with (2,513ha) and by far the most maize at (2,956ha). Meath has the biggest wheat area with (12,608ha,) followed by Kildare with (10,292ha).