The Dealer has been loaded down in reports this week. There’s the Government’s final report of the land use review, a new EU livestock strategy, and Dairy Industry Ireland’s new pathway for sustainable dairy.

What piqued the interest of The Dealer in the case of the land use report was that way in which the Government has essentially washed its hands of it.

“It is not an articulation of government policy or a new strategy in relation to land use, nor has it been adopted by Government,” the PR missive on the land use review issued by Government spin doctors said this week.

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With a date of April 2025 marked on the cover of the tomb, The Dealer couldn’t help but wonder if Merrion Street had forgotten it existed.

Especially given the fact that there’s a new CAP and a nature restoration plan to be developed. Both of which will surely need information like that, which is contained in this review.

If it isn’t a strategy for land use and hasn’t been adopted by the powers that be…then what was the point in it?

Was it a tick the box exercise in the Programme for Government? A page in the document which lists what the report is and is not is in itself informative, because the list of what it is not is a lot longer than the list of what it is.

It states it is “an evidence-based review to propose a framework to inform and support policymakers in their decisions related to future land use patterns in Ireland”. Sounds a lot like this is something that will be thumbed over a lot in the coming years by advisers and ministers.

Elsewhere, the Teagasc National Farm Survey was published on Monday. It shows that last year was a record-breaking one for incomes in the suckler and sheep sectors, and that incomes across all sectors were up.

It is, as always, a mine of hard statistics and facts on which sound policy must always be based.

However, what farmers will take from all of the reports this week is that the only hard statistic is that there is more uncertainty ahead.

Dairy farmers have no idea where their cow numbers might sit in three years’ time as a result of the nitrates derogation and the sector’s future farm payments are up in the air given the ongoing CAP reform. Thinking of handing over the farm to a son or daughter?

There’s no retirement or succession scheme there for you…but there might be one in a couple of years’ time.

The Dealer is certain farmers would like hard statistics and facts on all of the above, rather than another batch of reports left to gather dust on the shelf.