The projected annual income for tillage farmers in 2024, as assessed by Teagasc in its latest National Farm Survey, comes in at just over €38,000.

This is a far from encouraging scenario for a sector within which massive investment in infrastructure and machinery is required on an ongoing basis.

And let us not forget that the 2024 income projection is significantly up on that of the previous year.

In addition, tillage farmers are working our best soils and at a scale of land management that has required immense levels of financial outlay over many years to put in place.

So, to end up working to generate an annual income that is less than the average working wage might be considered by some as a ‘kick in the teeth'.

Despite this, tillage farming remains at the very heart of Irish agriculture. Without locally produced crops, all the other sectors of agriculture will have a real problem when it comes to many facets of their endeavours.

In addition, it has been officially recognised that tillage leads the charge when it comes to Irish agriculture’s response to climate change.

However, the Irish government has failed to take a strategic approach where the future of tillage in Ireland is concerned.

Great promises have been made. However, these words have not been backed up by real action on the ground.

A lot of this can be traced back to successive reviews of the Common Agricultural Policy, which saw the drive to push for a flat rate basic payment taking on real momentum.

The real losers in this process were tillage farmers.

Subsequent to this, we had the Irish government establishing the Food Vision Tillage Group, the report from which now ‘gathers dust’ within Agriculture House.

Meanwhile, all our politicians really love to make great promises prior to an election. And they have remained consistently true to form in this regard.

The run-up to last autumn’s general election saw Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil both promising the tillage sector an additional €300 million in support for tillage over the five-year period of the current Dáil.

So the question now becomes: where is the money?

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon is due to meet with stakeholder groups from across the tillage sector over the coming week.

So, hopefully, the answer to the aforementioned question may not be too long in its forthcoming.

In the meantime, the 2025 harvest is fast approaching. Yields of winter crops are holding up well while some spring cereals will struggle badly.

But it is the market place that will deliver, once again, the real impetus for tillage incomes in 2025. And unfortunately, grain and oilseed prices remain in the doldrums at the present time.

It all adds up to another challenging year for those Irish farmers whose livelihoods are dependent on the growing of crops.