The tillage area has held most of the gains it made in 2022, despite current land demand pressures, according to Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue.

He claimed that the sector’s land area increased by 6% last year and that preliminary analysis for 2023 suggests there will be a 1% decrease on that.

“Preliminary figures indicate that tillage might be affected by 1% this year. Now, it’s important to know that that is on the back of a 6% [gain] last year. So, we’ve held most of those gains in the circumstances,” he added.

The Minister said that the Irish tillage area is up on where it would have been two years ago and that “we’ve made progress over the last number of years in general”.

Minister McConalogue was speaking at the Irish Farmers Journal and Teagasc Crops and Cover Crops Cultivation event in Carlow on Wednesday.

Challenges

Despite an increase in the last two years, Minister McConalogue acknowledged that there will be challenges to reaching the targets set for tillage expansion by 2030.

“There’s no doubt it’s been a challenging situation and what we want to do over the next number of years – our target is 400,000ha by the end of the decade, so that’s why I put together the tillage vision group,” he said.

The Minister described a “different dynamic from the land competition aspect” for tillage farmers this year, but that he is working to support the sector to mitigate this as much as possible.

Such support will enable the sector to hold gains and grow, he added.