There is quite a bit of land changing hands at the moment, with demand being driven by business people firstly, followed by farmers, Eamon O’Reilly of AIB has said.
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal O’Reilly said there is a very diverse mix of buyers in the market and that “cash buyers are making up a part of it along the way as well”.
“There are people out there that have large cash deposits and a lot of them are looking at agricultural land, utilising some of that cash.”
Challenge
“That, in some cases, can be a challenge for productive farmers farming beside them,” he said.
In relation to capital development, O’Reilly, who is an agri advisor with the bank covering Westmeath and Longford, said that suckler farmers are starting to talk to banks more.
“A lot of suckler farmers have done very little investment over the last 10 years and now they’re seeing they have cash in their back pocket and they’re saying ‘right, what do we need to do here?’
“Especially younger suckler farmers – they are saying how do we go and make our farm more efficient, especially with lifestyle and off-farm employment,” he said.
SHARING OPTIONS