Jump in number of farmers with off-farm incomes

Over the past decade, the percentage of farmers with an off-farm income has risen from 29.4% to 43.4%.

There is significant variation across different farm systems, with more than half of tillage and cattle finishing farmers having an off-farm income.

In dairy, that percentage is 10.6%, only slightly higher than the 9.4% seen in 2015 (see Figure 1).

Director of Teagasc professor Frank O’Meara in a presentation titled Profitability, Productivity and Resilience in the agri-food sector noted that off-farm incomes help the resilience of the farms where it has become more common.

He said that Teagasc will showcase and disseminate labour efficient practices to both full-time and part-time farmers, enabling farmer operators achieve a better work-life balance and will provide more targeted education and advisory support for part-time farmers.

Volatility

O’Meara also noted that volatility within farm income is becoming increasingly evident, particularly in the dairy and tillage sectors (see Figure 2).

He said that in the drystock sector, direct payments are more important in determining family farm income and tend to dampen volatility as they don’t vary from year to year.

Teagasc forecasts a significant decline of 41% on dairy family farm income in 2026, while other sectors will see smaller changes.

O’Meara warned that poor weather conditions at times since the start of the year, depressed milk and beef prices, unrest due to conflict in the Middle East and heightened energy costs are forecast to have an impact on the incomes returned at farm level.