Land rental prices are reaching unprecedented levels as farmers scramble for “naked” land for the first year of the new CAP.

Reports of up to €400/acre for land without any entitlements or “maps” are coming in from places as far apart as Cork and Monaghan. Prices of €300/acre are common right across the country as demand way outstrips the scarce supply.

However, in areas of lesser quality land, prices have not risen nearly as much. The quotes are being made primarily on rental agreements for less than one year, or conacre, as it is known.

New entrants need land to match any entitlements they receive from the National Reserve. As the 31 March deadline for National Reserve entitlements approached, prices for grassland spiked to levels normally only seen for potatoes or vegetables, as the search for land without associated entitlements, known as naked land, intensifies.

The Department of Agriculture confirmed last month that young/new entrant farmers could not claim new entitlements gained from the National Reserve on land from which entitlements had been stripped. This means the option of dividing a holding, giving naked land to the new farmer and stacking all existing entitlements on the remaining land, is not acceptable.

New entrants

The land market new entrants have been forced into was heated enough as it was, as this base year for the new system sees naked land at a premium. Doubts about how to define eligibility of marginal land have meant new entrants have been looking for better land on which to establish entitlements.

While the deadline for application to the National Reserve has now passed, new entrants have until the final application deadline, almost certainly 29 May, to secure land for their entitlements. However, the likelihood is that the land market has now passed its peak for 2015, and probably for many years to come.