Income on tillage farms is under severe strain, farmers can’t afford to lose anything, much less lose bales of straw out of fields, Liam Dunne, former IFA tillage chair, has said.

Speaking on Today with Miriam O’Callaghan on Thursday, he said it’s been a serious struggle over the last five years on tillage farms and this year because of the drought crops are back about 40%, in some cases a bit more.

“Nationally, we would produce over 2m tonnes of grain a year, this year Teagasc estimates that we will be down to 1.7m tonnes which is a serious drop in production.

“It means that income on tillage farms is under severe strain, farmers can’t afford to lose anything, much less lose bales of straw out of fields,” he said.

Difficulty in securing fields

Dunne also said there isn’t a lot farmers can do to secure fields, closing a gate or putting a lock on it doesn’t mean a whole lot if someone wants to steal something.

“The problem is the fields are open and bales have become quite valuable. Someone could find themselves with €1,000 worth of fodder on a trailer in short space of time.”

Also speaking on the programme was Tom Stephenson of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA).

“I had to put extra security in due to the sheer demand for bales and people coming in and taking them out of the field.

“In the tillage industry lorries come in, tractors come in [to fields] and no one passes any remark on them because it’s a common occurrence this time of the year.

“But since this fodder crisis has come in, we’ve had to put additional measures in place – old slurry tankers and trailers in gateways – to make sure that our customers get supplied with the straw they ordered six months ago.

“My bales were stolen last winter, they were silage bales and they disappeared out of the field overnight.

“There was only 13 but there are places this year around here where there’s been 130 bales stolen,” he said.

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