To date, 2024 is looking like "another challenging year" for farming in terms of weather, particularly for tillage and dairy farmers, according to Teagasc research officer, Trevor Donnellan.

Dairy and tillage farms experienced sharp declines in milk and cereal prices last year, while production costs remained high. These circumstances were made more difficult by the adverse weather challenges.

Tillage and dairy farmer incomes fell by 71% and 69% to an average of €21,399 and €49,432 respectively in 2023, according to the Teagasc National Farm Survey 2023.

Collectively, the dairy and tillage sectors accounted for 53% of farm income in Ireland in 2023. The stark declines in farm income follow a year of record incomes for dairy at €150,884 and tillage at €76,654 in 2022.

"We haven't got off to a great start of the year. In the grassland systems, the grazing season was very late in taking off, probably six weeks later than normal," he said and added that grass growth is currently "below normal".

"Some of that could be down to weather, some of it might be down to the fact that we've seen such a sharp and sudden reduction in fertiliser use over the last couple of years," Donnellan added.

On the tillage side, he said "we didn't have the weather conditions for putting in winter crops and, as a result, farmers have been forced to switch to spring crops, which will end up having lower yields".

"And we don't know what's ahead of us yet in terms of getting into the main part of the harvest season. So from that weather point of view, we're still looking at difficulties in 2024," he said.

While milk prices are likely to be higher this year, milk production volumes have been lower so far this year. However, volumes are likely to be higher than they currently are by the end of the year, he said.

"But it is highly likely that we'll have less milk produced in 2024 than we had in 2023. And on the tillage side, there's not going to be a whole lot of movement likely in terms of the price of cereal crops compared to last year.

"So both of those sectors are still going to be facing into quite disappointing years I would say from an income point of view," Donnellan said following the launch of the National Farm Survey 2023 yesterday (Tuesday, July 23).

"We're never going to be able to predict what the weather's going to be like over a production season with accuracy", he said, "I think what farmers need to do is plan for a farm system that's resilient to difficulties in weather".

"Dialling everything up to the max in terms of trying to get the absolute maximum yield per hectare or the absolute maximum in terms of stocking rate is probably going to lead you into difficulties eventually.

"I think dialling everything up to the max in terms of yield and stocking rate is probably going to bring you closer to these kind of weather-related challenges than if you're operating at a slightly less intensive level of production," he said.