According to the 2024 data in the Teagasc National Farms Survey tillage farms produced approximately 118t of greenhouse gas emissions per hectare, compared to 601.3t for dairy, 126.4t CO2eq/ha in beef and 130.1t CO2eq/ha on sheep farms.

On tillage farms 86.7t CO2eq/ha came from livestock. This equates to approximately 74% of all emissions on the tillage farm.

Nitrogen use efficiency was much higher on tillage farms compared to livestock farms. NUE has been improving on tillage farms and is now hitting 70%. NUE on tillage farms has improved consistently since 2020. It dipped in 2018, a year where drought saw nitrogen sit on land and not taken up by crops when it was needed. The NUE on livestock farms reduced in 2024 and is generally around 25%.

ADVERTISEMENT

Economics

Teagasc launched the National Farm Survey results, without environmental sustainability indicators in October. In that report, tillage income was shown to be approximately €574/ha or €41,471 on a farm of 72ha, up on 2023. Direct payment equated to €480/ha, of which pillar one accounted for €296/ha – 84% of family farm income on tillage farms was from direct payments, down on 165% in 2023.

Protein production

A new addition to the sustainability report is the amount of protein produced from farms.

Tillage farms produced the second most protein per hectare of land, after dairy farms. In total, the protein requirements of 1,114 humans could be met from one hectare of tillage land (or 1,075 net) in 2024.

All of the tillage land in Ireland can provide the protein requirements of 6.9m people. In total the Irish agricultural sector produces enough protein for 35.8m people (or 30.4m people net).

Details of the farms surveyed

In total, 87 farmers with tillage completed the National Farm Survey for 2024. Farms were classified as tillage if two-thirds of the farm was taken up with tillage activities. This is in line with EU guidelines from the Farm Sustainability Network.

The utilisable agricultural area on these tillage farms averaged 72.3ha. There was an average of 49ha of tillage and 23.3ha of grassland on these farms. There were no dairy cows on these farms, but there was an average of 22.4 cattle and 7.5 sheep on these farms, equating to a total of 29.9 livestock units and a stocking rate of 1.2 livestock units per hectare. It should be noted that some of these farms may have no livestock or only cattle or only sheep.