Over the past week, I was informed of a number of tillage land parcels which are no more.

They lost out on the bidding war and the tillage farmers sensibly stood back from paying over the odds for rented land.

Unfortunately, with this year’s grain prices, it looks like farmers are paying over the odds for most rented land.

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Many tillage farmers are set for massive losses or very little profit in 2025 due to high costs, moderate yields and grain prices that are not covering those costs. Along with this, most tillage farmers’ BISS payments continue to decline.

Likely decline

And so, despite the Government’s target to increase tillage area by over 50,000ha, the area will most likely decline in 2026.

Last year, it held steady, as land that moved to fallow returned, but this year as winter crops go in the ground, tillage farmers have already lost some of their cropping areas.

This is obviously extremely hard for the tillage farmer. Their business is losing scale and viability. Their incomes are declining, their living costs remain the same as they did or higher when they had another 200ac to farm.

Yet, there seems to be very little concern out there from other sectors. Don’t get me wrong - some farmers and members of the industry genuinely see the problems and would like them solved. That’s easier said than done. The issues are many and wide.

But ignorance for many won’t be bliss for long. Pig and poultry farmers rely heavily on tillage farmers to take their manure. Yet, a large number of these farmers are happy to feed imported grain.

Imported grain

The pig and poultry sectors together use approximately 1.5m tonnes of grain each year. That’s about the amount of grain the tillage sector produces for animal feed.

Huge amounts of our imported grain is feeding pigs and chickens. Look at eggs in the supermarket that are “corn fed”, grain maize in other words. We don’t grow corn to feed those hens in Ireland.

As tillage farmers go out of business, surely there would be a benefit in these pig, poultry or cattle farmers supporting the industry in order to stop this from happening so that they have land to spread their manure on.

When people say tillage is a central cog in the farming sector it’s not a line, it’s a fact

Surely there should be some agreement between tillage and pig and poultry farmers that manure cannot be spread on their land unless a percentage of Irish grain was used to produce it.

Many dairy farmers and some beef farmers also need tillage land to keep to their stocking limits.

We will always need to import feed for livestock in this country and livestock farmers may be perfectly happy to purchase and feed those imports, but there is a bigger picture.

At the minute, most are failing to see it. When people say tillage is a central cog in the farming sector it’s not a line, it’s a fact.

If Government, industry and livestock farmers continue to ignore the elephant in the room, the tillage sector will disappear like our vegetable growers.

There will be no tillage land for manure, when Irish grain is wanted to back up the Irishness of our products it won’t be there or when livestock farmers need straw it will be gone and then people will realise the importance of the tillage sector.