Farm organisations representing tillage farmers are extremely frustrated to learn that a by-product from oat processing is being imported into Ireland and fed to animals when an estimated 50,000t of Irish oats sat in sheds from last harvest at the beginning of July.

Earlier this week, the Irish Farmers Journal revealed that significant amounts of a product called oat feed are being imported into Ireland.

While recorded as oat imports, the product is actually made up of oats and waste from oat processing.

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In 2025, 16,153t of oats were imported from Latvia into Ireland, according to raw data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). From January to May 2026, some 10,084t of the product were imported into Ireland. These oats are actually oat feed.

'Insulting'

The Irish Grain Growers’ Group told the Irish Farmers Journal: “It’s very insulting for tillage farmers to read that a significant volume of ‘oat feed’ has been imported into Ireland. Particularly at a time when stores were full of oats and farmers told not to plant oats.

"The buyers and end users of this ‘oat feed’ now need to put their hand up and justify and explain the need for importing this product.

“Irish agriculture has sleepwalked into a larger fodder crisis by undermining our tillage industry and our reckless reliance on imported by-products such as soya hulls and palm kernel that has huge environmental impacts and questionable nutritional value will jeopardise our ‘grass-based’ system.

"We believe the livestock farmers are being short changed using these products, especially when we have such a great product already in store.”

Irish Farmers’ Association grain committee chair John Murphy said: “It is disappointing to see another by-product coming in and distorting the grain market.

He said he is “fed up of imports, especially oat hulls, when there are straight oats sitting in sheds here and no one will buy them. It’s a real kick in the teeth for farmers.

“Those oats that sit in sheds have been proven to be carbon neutral where the straw is chopped,” Murphy added.

He called on livestock farmers to support Irish grain and on the industry to support Irish grain.