Almost three-quarters of tillage-farmer respondents to the Irish Farmers Journal survey have applied for the Tillage Incentive Scheme.

The Department of Agriculture measure announced earlier this year to counteract a potential shortage of animal feed this winter will pay cereal growers €400 for every additional hectare of grazing ground converted to crops. The scheme has a budget of €10m.

In total, 72% of those surveyed stated that they had applied for the scheme. Half of the farmer respondents said the additional planting under the scheme will extend to less than 10ha.

A further 17% indicated that they will plant between 10ha and 20ha under the incentive scheme, with 11% aiming to plant 21ha to 30ha of additional cereals. The remaining 22% intend planting in excess of 31ha under the new support package.

Staying with tillage, almost half (49%) of the farmers surveyed stated that they had no grain from this year’s harvest forward sold.

Nine percent of the cereal farmers surveyed said they had less than 10% of their 2022 grain crop forward sold, while a further 11% of respondents had 11% to 20% of their crop tied up.

Six percent of growers said they had forward sold over half their grain from the 2022 harvest, while a quarter of those surveyed had between 21% and 49% of their grain tied into fixed-price contracts.