This year’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) farm structure survey contains a range of new questions compared with the previous survey in 2016, chief among them being 11 questions on the use of irrigation outdoors over the past 12 months.

The survey is also asking farmers for the average area of arable land that has been irrigated each year over the last three years and how many litres of water was used in the last 12 months to irrigate the land.

Some of the other questions in relation to irrigation are about where the water comes from and whether the farmer is paying for the water that they are using to irrigate.

The last farm structure survey in 2016 had the main body of questions based on labour on farms.

It included questions on hours farmers and their family members spent working, as well as what work the contractor does and how many hours the contractor does work on the farm.

Slurry

In 2023, there are no questions based on the topic of labour and also no questions about slurry or fertiliser.

The 2016 question on slurry and fertiliser asked about the method of spreading and also how much was put out on the land.

Agriculture equipment and resources is a new section in the 2023 survey.

Here, the questions include if a farmer has access to the internet on their farm and if they use electronic farm management tools to assist with farming. The section also includes questions based on the use of farm machinery and if they are owned, rented or shared among farmers.

The final questions in this section asks whether farmers are using livestock management equipment including automatic feeders and milking robots.

The farm structure survey this year is also asking farmers about renewable energy sources on their farm. Wind and solar are among the options they can choose from.