Over the past few weeks this paper has demonstrated the massive problem facing tillage farmers at present in terms of access to land and loss of tillage land due to a lack of joined-up thinking on Government policies.

In a survey by the Irish Farmers Journal in February, 65% of tillage farmers surveyed who lost land this season lost it to dairy farmers as new nitrates rules mean that they need more land to keep the same number of cows.

The Government could bring in schemes to improve the working relationships between sectors and to encourage a more sustainable agricultural system.

At present, farms are becoming very specialised. Our traditional method of farming in Ireland was in mixed farming systems and this made sense in lots of ways. Animal manure was used to grow crops and keep soils healthy and those crops helped to feed and bed the animals on the farm.

Fodder crops scheme

As farms specialise, the farming sector needs to work together to bring back a sustainable system on a larger scale for the whole sector.

A fodder crop scheme was introduced in 2018, when livestock farms produced small silage crops due to drought. This scheme paid tillage farmers money toward the growing of a forage crop that would be grazed by their own livestock or another farmer’s livestock.

This scheme should have remained in place and could still be brought back into place.

It would allow stock to move to a different parcel of land to graze and reduce feed and land requirements on livestock farms and it could help to redirect slurry.

Farmers could agree to take slurry to reduce the cost of growing the crop and this may help the livestock farmer to stay under nitrates limits, while also ensuring slurry goes out on to a different block of land to help to improve water quality.

ACRES

Current schemes also need to allow for co-operation between sectors. At present the date which you can graze catch crops under ACRES is 1 January. Most livestock farmers will want to graze these crops before then. The plants may also be flowering and may not be suitable to graze at that stage and these crops should be grazed in appropriate weather conditions.

There are more suggestions on this from our readers on tillage page 39.