Tillage Road Map 2030
The Tillage Road Map 2030 provides an overview of Ireland’s tillage sector to 2030, outlining current performance, market outlook, sustainability priorities, and future targets.
The tillage crops sector had a total output value in 2024 of €647m, including €264m of potatoes. In recent years, the total land area under tillage crop production has varied due to volatility in profitability, extreme weather events and increased competition for rented and leased land.
Over 85% of tillage land area is under cereal production although there has been a substantial increase in land sown to beans and oilseed rape particularly in the last two years. There may also be some potential for other cereal crops such as rye into the future.
Within cereals, barley is the largest crop (70%) followed by wheat (20%) and oats (10%) with some variation each year due to weather and responses to market signals etc. There is also variation in crop sowing date with two thirds of the barley sown in spring, while 90% of the wheat is winter sown and it is more evenly balanced (close to 50-50) for oats.
In 2023, some 4,903 farmers were considered to be specialist tillage farmers while some tillage cereals crops were grown on a total of 10,290 farms. The majority of tillage output, excluding potatoes, supplies the animal feed industry with estimates suggesting that less than 15% is used for brewing, distilling and direct human consumption (e.g. oats). The tillage sector will see continued volatility due to global production swings in response to consumption, climate changes, international conflict, etc.
Over the past decade, the Irish drinks industry has grown exports by 60%, reaching €2.1 billion across 113 international markets. This expansion highlights the sector’s strong global demand and resilience.
Market demand continues to grow for plant based products which has yet to be exploited fully. Successful tillage farming will be key to the balanced development of agriculture
and rural economies and a new and more diverse range of crops will need to be grown for food and non-food use. Embracing new technologies is essential for increasing output and offsetting rising costs. Effective cost control measures will be crucial to maintaining the current crop mix and ensuring farm profitability.