Following the publishing of data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showing the fall of family farm incomes in 2023, these reductions are something that individual farm businesses “cannot handle”.
This is according the president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) Francie Gorman, who spoke today (Thursday, August 29) on the analysis that the association described as “the starkest in over a decade”.
The CSO data showed that the fall in agricultural entrepreneurial income was 49%, or €2.0 billion, to €2.1 billion.
Commenting on this figure, Gorman said:
“This level of volatility is on a scale that individual farm businesses simply cannot handle. It also illustrates the cashflow problems that exist in every sector due to the unpredictability of output prices and stubbornly-high input costs”.
The IFA president said this was one of the dominant themes of the meeting earlier this week with Minister for Finance, Jack Chambers and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe .
Farm margins ‘diminishing’
With the value of many agricultural outputs down in 2023, most notably milk and cereals, the value of agricultural output at basic prices dropped by 13%, or €1.6 billion, to €11.3 billion last year, according to the CSO.
Final CSO estimates for 2023 published today show that the value of milk decreased by 30%, or €1.5 billion, to €3.5 billion driven by prices being 26% lower and volumes contracting by 5%.
Gorman said: “We are operating in a high-cost economy, but farmers are at the mercy of international price fluctuations.
“As sole traders, we cannot pass on our costs and so we find our margins diminishing. The October Budget has the capacity to address some of these issues and we put them to both ministers.
“The wider agri-sector will have to shoulder some of this. The burden is too great for individual farmers to trade their way out of the impact of these extreme swings. We will be looking for support as bills fall due,” the IFA president said.
Commenting on the CSO tillage estimates, the IFA president referred to a proposal from the farm organisation to the government for a support package for the tillage sector and said the CSO data underlined “the urgency” of the support.
Gorman added that Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS) ceilings “will have to adjust to take higher costs into account”.
He also called for an additional allocation to ensure there is “proper funding” for the new slurry storage grant aid scheme proposed by the government last week.
Meanwhile, the IFA will hold the first of four regional meetings in Cork this evening to discuss farm finance and cashflow, to which the main banks and the credit unions have been invited.
The first meeting will take place this evening (Thursday, August 29) in Cork Marts, Corrin, Fermoy, Co. Cork at 8:00p.m.