Amost 30,000 acres of farmland have been signed up to new farming arrangements through Macra na Feirme’s Land Mobility Service over the past three years.

Demand for the matchmaking service between landowners and farmers seeking land to farm exploded during the three-year pilot programme.

With 53 arrangements in place in 2014, this grew more than five-fold to 282 deals in place by the end of last month.

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With around 100ac on average involved in each deal, more than 28,200ac have been signed up. “It has far exceeded our expectations and it’s gathering momentum all the time,” Land Mobility Service manager Austin Finn told the Irish Farmers Journal.

Now the pilot programme, which was established by Macra with the financial support of FBD Trust, Aurivo, Dairygold and Glanbia, looks set to expand. “We have three pilot areas with Glanbia, Dairygold and Aurivo but we have been extending our focus to other areas, including Galway and the west,” said Finn. “We would like to have a nationwide service and we are looking at taking on someone to help expand. We have had contact with other co-ops who want to get involved.”

Among the co-ops that have expressed interest in the programme are the west Cork co-ops, Lakeland and Arrabawn.

Most farmers involved have signed up to long leases, according to Finn. Of the 282 arrangements in place, 139 are based on leases of 10 to 15 years, while 57 are partnership arrangements and 45 are share-farming deals.

“It’s purely tax incentives driving the preference for long leases,” he remarked. “If the same tax incentives were available for partnerships and share-farming, they would be equally up there.”

Another 41 are farm-to-farm arrangements such as contract heifer-rearing and silage production.

“A lot of people use the farm-to-farm option as a stepping stone before moving on to other arrangements like full partnerships,” said Finn.

The farms

  • Between 70% and 80% of farms are dairy units, with tillage farms accounting for 10-15% and the rest beef and sheep.
  • Older bachelor farmers not the main landowners, as was initially expected.
  • Working farms with scale and good infrastructure are being offered by farmers at retirement age whose own children work off-farm. The children don’t want to work the farm or see it sold and would like to see it well maintained. These are turn-key farms ready for someone to take over.
  • Large farms with plenty of acres but little infrastructure in place. These need significant investment and suit an established farmer who can raise enough capital to pay for the work required.
  • Dairy farms of around 80 acres, milking 90 cows and laid out well enough to become a good addition to an existing farm, a second unit for a second sibling to run or as a heifer-rearing block.