The past decade has been relatively tough in the tillage sector with prices being highly volatile, but generally on the low side, and input prices were up considerably.

The overall area involved, across a range of the main tillage crops for which the CSO provides data, shows a decrease in cereal, pulse, oilseed and potato areas of almost 57,000ha, or over 140,000ac. Total crop area has always fluctuated between years but the main driver of this magnitude of decline was the ending of milk quotas in 2015.

Demand

From 2014 onwards, the drive to expand the dairy sector led to increased demand for land and much of this came from land that had been rented for tillage crop production for years.

But some land was transferred from tillage to dairy by tillage farmers themselves, while more land was leased by retiring tillage farmers to dairy operators to build satellite farms.

Whatever the reasons, this decline actually began in 2012, a year that was remarkably wet and arguably began the area decline when poor and difficult land was taken out of crop production. The area sown to cereals accounted for the biggest influence in this trend, as shown in Figure 1.

While the main total area decline began from 2012, this was mainly caused by the drop in cereal area, and the total area of the other main crops can be seen to run almost parallel to the cereal area.

The crop areas included in Figure 1 are for barley, oats and wheat, plus beans, peas, oilseed rape and potatoes – the crops enumerated in CSO data. The area sown to potatoes also fell gradually during this decade with an occasional blip in area, such as in 2013.

Oilseed rape area was highest in 2012 but quickly fell back down to settle around 10,000ha.

The area sown to pulses started the decade with around 4,000ha but it responded rapidly to the new protein crop support scheme introduced in 2015 to sit either side of 12,000ha for the remainder of the decade.

Other crops

Other crops will also affect the total area but these areas are not included here because they are not included in the CSO data.

Crops such as maize and fodder beet generally occupied another 20,000ha to 30,000ha annually during this decade, but these areas also fluctuated between years.

These crops were at their highest in 2018, in response to a national fodder shortage, but the area has fallen sharply since then.

The reintroduction of cover or catch crops in the latter half of the decade has brought another dimension to crop production. Some of this was initiated by grower obligations to meet their environmental focus area (EFA), much more was stimulated by GLAS payments, while other farmers were using these crops on their own initiative to help improve the health and condition of their soils.

Cereal area decline

The fall in total crop area was largely driven by the reduction in the area sown to the main cereals. These areas do not include the small areas sown to both triticale and rye. The areas sown to the main individual cereal crops are shown in Figure 2.

There are two obvious trends here.

The major decline took place in spring barley, while the winter barley area increased. This trend reversed in 2020 as spring barley area went back up to 140,529ha and winter barley area decreased sharply. This was in response to the poor planting conditions in the autumn of 2019, which prevented the planting of most winter crops.

Barley

At the start of the decade, the area sown to winter barley was only one-fifth of that of spring barley. By 2019, the areas were almost identical.

Winter barley area had increased during the decade with the help of better varieties, improved hybrids, some difficult harvests, the impact of the three-crop rule and its higher straw yield.

However, the total barley area was much higher in the early part of the decade. This was largely in response to the higher prices in 2012, which arose because of the severe drought in the US.

But prices fall more quickly than they rise, and this had an impact on the ability to compete for rented land as the dairy expansion got under way.

Wheat

Winter wheat area varied to some degree during the decade, influenced mainly by weather for planting in the fall of the year.

High plantings in the early years reflect planting opportunities but then increasing costs and difficulties with disease control saw the area drop back from around 80,000ha to around 60,000ha most years. This fell to only 35,000ha in 2020 when bad weather prevented planting.

The fall in total crop area was largely driven by the reduction in the area sown to the main cereals

Spring wheat area followed a similar trend but had a more dramatic drop, starting the decade with 18,000ha and ending up under 4,000ha, as the demand for any form of milling wheat dried up.

Occasional surges in spring crop area arose from the failure to get winter planting done, as was the case in 2019 and 2020 when the 2020 spring wheat area increased to over 11,300ha, as all other seed types were scarce.

Overall wheat area was a relatively flat line throughout the decade. Total wheat area has been static since 2013 following the permanent drop in the area sown to the winter crop. This was partly a result of the increased use of rotations and the reduction in the area sown to continuous wheat.

Oats

The annual area sown to oats has been relatively static throughout the decade but fluctuating annually either side of the 22,289ha average.

Some of this was due to the ability to get acres planted in winter but some of the annual fluctuation also related to supply and demand and, ultimately, price. This crop is most influenced by oversupply and price trends and its area fluctuates accordingly.

Grower numbers declined

It is hardly surprising that the area reduction resulted in a decrease in the number of growers from the start to the end of the decade.

Many farmers ceased growing their own 5ha to 10ha because of the trouble and cost involved and the relatively low cost of feed and straw.

Bad weather years played a significant role in this decline, especially in the west and north.

Straw played an important role in the income from cereal crops during some of those years, peaking in the drought year of 2018.

It is estimated that grower numbers declined by 27% between 2005 and 2016 as smaller growers got out and the need for scale forced other growers to increase in size.

Prices

Grain prices and incomes were equally volatile during this period.

Occasional good years were punctuated by strings of low-margin years where gross output barely covered, or failed to cover, total farm costs.

Figure 3 shows what happened overall cereal prices since 2010, a year when prices were very low to begin with.

The global scarcity driven by low maize yields in the US (and very poor Irish yields because of wet) pulled up grain prices for 2012 and 2013, only to fall considerably again until 2018.

Surplus global production relative to demand remains the main driver of this trend, coupled with the mobility of international grain.

Potatoes

Potato prices were even more variable, dropping below 100 but mainly staying around that price line.

Prices improved in 2013 due to lower European supply and, again, in 2018 and 2019 to provide decent prices to growers during these most recent years.

Consolidation in the potato sector led to fewer growers but bigger units. Scale was essential to carry the very high cost base required for production, mechanisation and storage. \ Barry Cronin

Looking forward

As we look towards the future, there is no major reason to believe that things will be any better price-wise for Irish growers.

The EU continues to add extra costly hurdles that have to be climbed, while allowing in low-cost imports from every part of the globe, so these are not just Irish issues.

The increasing emphasis on sustainability has the potential to change many things and bring about a questioning of imports that have to be transported thousands of miles to European destinations. This same issue also challenges existing food chains if the political and consumer drive towards sustainability actually occurs.

That said, much of what is contained in the EU’s Green Deal may be favourable for crop producers, provided the targeted sustainability objectives apply at the ports and not just on paper.

The fall in total crop area was largely driven by the reduction in the area sown to the main cereals

The EU has had a history of being very unfair to crop producers by preventing access to technologies and then allowing the equivalent product to be imported.

Meeting the challenges of a 50% reduction in pesticide usage will be a huge challenge here. It may be that this becomes an inevitability as pesticide actives are lost and nature continues to win the battle against resistance development.

The objective is good, but only after alternative plant protection technologies have been identified and proven.

And to have a chance of achieving this, European farmers need access to the new plant breeding techniques to provide some of these alternatives.

The proposal to pay landowners to store carbon should bring a double benefit to tillage farmers.

A situation where farmers are rewarded for increasing soil carbon through the accumulation of sequestered carbon in organic matter would add a new income stream. And worn tillage soils have an enormous capacity to store very considerable amounts of carbon as organic matter levels rise to a new plateau.

The second benefit from doing this is that increasing soil organic matter and improving soil health brings the direct benefit of higher yield potential.

However, EU farmers are increasingly unable to compete with the huge scale available to farming systems in other parts of the world. If imports of grain and feeds continue to be allowed unquestioned access to EU markets, much of which is produced using actives and technologies that are prohibited in the EU, the survival of the sector will be challenged.

Family farms in Europe cannot compete, price-wise, with the cheapest of global imports. Family farm systems cannot survive against these pressures of global scale, so if the image that the EU is setting for its future is not accompanied by support for sustainable internal produce, then the future for grain production anywhere in the EU may be questionable.

We already know that many of those who want organic are still unwilling to pay for it.

Key points

  • The area sown to cereals and other crops in Ireland has fallen for much of the past decade.
  • The number of crop producers has also fallen, leading to more consolidation in the sector.
  • There has been a swing from spring to winter barley, but this was reversed in 2020.
  • The total crop area has stabilised in recent years.
  • Direct and indirect payment of carbon could be an additional income stream in the years ahead.