It was hugely positive to see Diageo open its new brewery in Newbridge this week as detailed on page 16 of this week’s paper. It is great to see what is now the most sustainable brewery in the world built in Ireland and to see Diageo investing €1 billion in nine years here. As Minister Martin Heydon rightly said, it didn’t have to be built in Ireland and it very nearly might not have been.

He added that we must ensure Irish grain fills that brewery, and the new quality assurance scheme will play a role in that. Tillage farmers’ natural reaction to the opening is that it’s great to see it built, but will there be a better price for barley? There should be: Irish barley is the most sustainable in the world to fill the most sustainable brewery in the world.

The pilot assurance scheme must be worked on quickly to prove this. Tillage farmers are under pressure. Grain prices have not lifted in the same way as fertiliser and fuel. We see that in the crop area estimates outlined int his week's paper. Industry experts have helped us compile these figures and it is clear there will be a drop.

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We need tillage in this country and more support will be needed from Government, but also from feed mills and farmers to use Irish grain and ensure they have grain and straw in the future, as well as land for organic manures.

I had the opportunity to visit a number of tillage farmers and merchants last week in the southeast with our tillage editor Siobhán Walsh, and despite all the negativity around the grain prices and input costs, the farmers we visited remain remarkably resilient. Like any other year, crops have been planted in the hope that margins will improve by the time harvest 2026 comes around.

The level of investment on farms and in merchants’ yards is a sign of a sector looking to a positive future, however hard that is to see right now.