EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Chapter 13: Environment and Agriculture 2. The Structure of Irish Agriculture Farms in Ireland vary in size and production type, covering almost 68 per cent of the country’s land area, with most farmers involved in livestock farming. Land cover data from 2018 (Chapter 5) show that, of Ireland’s 7.04 million hectares, 4.76 million hectares is used for agriculture (67.6% of the land area) and 672,085 hectares is used for forestry (9.5% of the land area). Approximately 25,000 farmers (17% of the total) manage over 2 million hectares on farms of over 50 hectares (CSO, 2018). A further 1.8 million hectares are managed by 55,000 farmers on holdings of between 20 and 50 hectares, and nearly half of all farmers (60,000) work the remaining 0.6 million hectares, on farms averaging 10 hectares in size. Pasture, silage and hay accounted for 80.6 per cent of the area farmed in 2019, with 11.5 per cent devoted to rough grazing and 7.9 per cent to crop production (CSO, 2020). In 2016, there were 137,500 farms in Ireland (CSO, 2018). In total, 20 per cent of farms (28,100 farms) had an output greater than €50,000 per year, with 12 per cent having an output greater than €100,000. These economically larger farms produced 75 per cent of the agricultural output using 44 per cent of the total farmed area. Of the remaining 80 per cent, 43,800 farms produced less than €8,000 output per annum, demonstrating the large number of small farms in Ireland producing outputs of between €8,000 and €50,000. More than half of all farms were in the Border, Midland and Western (BMW) region. The average farm size nationally was 32.4 hectares. Farms in the Southern and Eastern region were 41.3 per cent larger than those in the BMW region, with an average farm size of 38.3 hectares compared with 27.1 hectares in the BMW region. More than 55 per cent of farmers in Ireland were aged 55 years and older, with only 5 per cent aged less than 35 years. Specialist beef production was the most common type of farming system, with 72,400 (52.7%) farms in this category. Mixed grazing livestock and specialist dairying were the next most common types, with 16,900 (12.3%) and 16,700 (12.1%) farms, respectively. There were 15,200 (11.1%) specialist sheep farms. The remainder was made up of specialist tillage farms, mixed crop and livestock farms, mixed crop farms, and intensive pig, poultry and horticulture enterprises. 329