Silage ground is being snapped up in areas densely populated with dairy farmers, with prices of over €300/ac being paid in south Tipperary.

“Demand is so much stronger than supply,” Cashel Mart manager Alison De Vere Hunt told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“We sent out a text message looking for farmers selling silage or silage ground and out of 2,000 farmers, just two got back to us,” she said.

Ground for first-cut silage (six to eight weeks) made between €200/ac and €220/ac, she said, adding that the highest price paid for ground for one cut was €240/ac.

Ground for two cuts, from April to September, made over €300/ac.

“We’ve run out of ground to sell around here but I’d say ground for two cuts would easily make €340/ac now.

“It’s making as much as conacre ground was making a few years ago,” she said.

The farmer who sets the ground, in this instance, is not obliged to spread any fertiliser or pay any contracting costs. This is all at the expense of the farmer leasing the ground.

“There are a lot of dairy farmers who have more cows than they can feed. I also think people thought they’d get a better first cut and now they’re worried,” she said.

Meanwhile, in north Tipperary a dairy farmer paid €260/ac for silage ground from 1 April to 1 June.

“I put up an ad three days ago and got over 20 phone calls. Demand is strong, especially from dairy farmers. Land around here is starting to burn up with the lack of rain,” a Limerick-based farmer told the Irish Farmers Journal.