In 2023, farmers in Co. Wexford have endured weather conditions that have made the harvesting of crops a difficult challenge to face.
Co. Wexford native, John Murphy, vice-chair of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) grain committee told Agriland that there is an estimated 5,000ac of crops in the country that have not been harvested.
In the south-east, Murphy said “there’s well over 2,000ac in Wexford to be harvested”.
“We’ll look back at this in years to come and we’ll say 2023 was the harvest we never finished,” he added.
“For a tillage farmer not to finish his harvest, both mentally and economically, is not good for him.”
Jer O’Mahony, chair of the Wexford branch of the IFA, confirmed they have written to Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue to ask what supports can be given to help farmers unable to harvest their crops.
“The amount of drying is minimal. People are going to go out because they’re desperate, and they’re going to destroy land and their machinery,” he said.
Harvest in Co. Wexford
Co. Wexford has experienced severe weather conditions in 2023, most notably the hail storm that tore through tillage crops in late June.
Since then, weather conditions have proven to make the harvesting of crops “close to impossible” according to Murphy, who added that he cannot remember three consecutive days passing “without rain”.
“Ground conditions are horrendous now. It’s not travelable on most tillage fields. The crop is just deteriorating every day.”
The lack of a dry spell for farmers in the region has made harvesting “close to impossible” in the wet ground conditions.
“The first day you’re waiting for it to dry, the second day you’re going a bit too soon. It’s gotten to the stage that there’s nothing to salvage.”
Wexford IFA has received reports from weather stations on farms in the county, which have shown the high rainfall experienced by farmers.
One such example was provided, which recorded that the average rainfall from July 1 to mid-October for the last 10 years stood at 266.3mm.
The same period in 2023 has had a total of 475mm of rain, which is 8.5″ more.
Support
Murphy confirmed that the IFA national grain committee is meeting Minister McConalogue next week to discuss supports for tillage farmers.
He said that the committee is aiming to see if a “scheme to help the people that haven’t harvested their crops yet” can be developed.
The vice-chair of the IFA grain committee said that farmers “are under desperate pressure”.
“What we’re trying to do here is make sure that nobody ends up falling for the reason of the 2023 harvest.”
Weather in 2022
The difficulty in harvesting crops this year, according to Murphy, has been heavily influenced by the weather encountered by farmers in 2022.
“If you really want to think about it, this started this time last year when we didn’t get winter crops sown,” he said.
“Then we ended sowing spring crops in land that should have been winter crop. All of a sudden then you have a late harvest.
Murphy said that last year “has nearly been the deciding factor of the harvest of 2023”, but added that he has “never seen this bad of weather” in the last 12 months.