Land sales point to a sea change in western counties

More farmland has been sold in counties Galway, Mayo and Roscommon in recent years than any other part of the country, Central Statistics Office (CSO) data has revealed.

Over 43,000ac of farmland has changed hands in three western counties in the four-year period 2020 to 2023.

Galway, Mayo and Roscommon are classified by European officials as the ‘west’ region of Ireland and it surpassed all other regions in the country in terms of the volume of agricultural land sold per year between 2020 and 2023.

The three counties account for between 18% and 23% of all agricultural land sold in each of those years, and the amount of land sold there was more than twice what was sold in the southeast region – that incorporates counties Waterford, Kilkenny, Carlow and Wexford.

Median price

Some 13,637ac of agricultural land was sold in the west region last year, compared to 5,199ac in the southeast. In 2022, 11,061ac were sold in the west, while 5,565ac were sold in the southeast.

According to the CSO, a total of 60,344ac of agricultural land were sold nationally at a median price of €9,084/ac.

The office also analysed land types, finding that the median price for arable land nationally last year was €16,275/ac and the median price for permanent grassland was €8,887/ac.

The CSO data differs from the Irish Farmers Journal’s annual Land Report in that it is based on stamp duty payment records from the Revenue Commissioners and Property Registration Authority data, among other sources.

Only land sold purely for agricultural use with no additional entitlements attached to the land is analysed, which means that farmland bought by lifestyle buyers and as construction sites is not included.

The CSO also excludes any sales with farm payment entitlements attached to the land, as well as any land sold with a dwelling house attached to the land. Commonage land is also excluded and any inheritance transfers of land.

The office’s most recent farm census put the average size of a farm across the west region of Galway, Mayo and Roscommon at 25.5ha (63ac), the lowest of all regions.

Future leasing

The land sale data comes on the back of Teagasc’s small farmer survey earlier this year which found that over one-quarter of the country’s 48,000 small farmers are planning to lease out their farms over the next five years.

Both the sales data and the leasing intentions point to a sea change in land ownership and farm structure in the region in the coming years.

The leasing data, as previously reported by the Irish Farmers Journal, would see approximately 425,000ac coming onto the land-leasing market. That is the equivalent of one in every 25ac of land farmed in the country going up for lease.

Beef and sheep farming predominate in the west, and Teagasc has warned that small beef and sheep producers face multiple challenges of lower productivity, older farmer age profile and smaller direct payments when compared to the general farming population.