Tillage Sector: Statements Dail Éireann — 2025-10-15 ============================================================ Brian Stanley (IND), Laois I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important issue. I note that the two Ministers are here. Sometimes at debates here the senior Minister or the Minister of State do not attend but for most of this debate there were three Ministers present, comprising the Minister and two Ministers of State. While we might disagree on a lot of issues, it shows there is a seriousness about the changes that need to be made in this sector. The tillage sector needs an uplift. There was a saying “One more cow, one more sow, one more acre under the plough”, which some Members will be familiar with. However, we did not get the 1 acre under the plough and we are not getting it. There is an issue of sustainability and not just environmental but also economic sustainability. The simple fact is input costs have gone through the roof for the tillage sector. The decline in numbers has been outlined. The number of full-time tillage farmers in the State is around 4,500. There has been a huge decline as the Minister knows. We need a seismic shift. This is not about doing something on the edges. This needs to be a national mission to get more land under tillage for economic, sustainability and environmental reasons, as well as to head off the huge fines that are coming at us from Europe in meeting our obligations. Unfortunately, tillage farmers are leaving in droves. The day of farmers having a few acres of beet and a few acres of grain side by side with cattle or dairy is gone and we need to address this. The viability of the sector is under pressure. I have met representatives of the tillage sector, as well as individual tillage farmers, in recent months who outlined this very strongly. There is no doubt that they are under pressure. Milk is going well for now and so is beef but the margins are just not there for tillage. That is an honest statement to make; the business of tillage farming has to be economically viable. We need a huge shift in direction towards horticulture and tillage generally. The horticulture sector is nearly wiped out. We need to face up to that and deal with it. Any increase is welcome, and the Minister announced €50 million, but €20 million will go on ongoing schemes and commitments and the remaining €30 million is not that much of a change from last year. The Government was reported as promising €60 million - that is what IFA figures are saying – and that is certainly needed. The figure of a €100 per hectare subsidy is clearly inadequate. I appeal to the Minister to look at this again because what people in the sector are telling me, and have been telling me for a long time, is that it needs something more like €100 per acre. That is €220 or €240 per hectare in supports. We need greater diversification and to broaden the range of crops, especially cover crops. The loss of the beet sector has been a huge loss and not only financial. It is a loss in a lot of other ways as well. When it finished there were 360 beet growers in County Laois. That is just one small county. Those farmers not only had a cash crop but they also had beet pulp in December, typically. In January they had beet tops to let cattle out on when there was no feed so they were able to reduce their feed costs, which was very important. Now what happens is that everything has to be bought in and that is creating a huge add-on cost for farmers. We have a climate emergency. Farmers who I meet want to play their part in that but we must allow them to do that. Teagasc has highlighted the unique position of tillage in reducing our carbon output. That is widely accepted. It is far less than dairy per acre, for example. Dairy farmers are doing well, as previous speakers have said, and that is all well and good but it is important that we recognise that the tillage sector has a huge role to play here. The fact that the sector has contracted so much in recent years has not helped us in reducing our emissions in a sustainable way. We also have to look at our international commitments and what we have signed up to. Whether we like it or not, we need to head off the huge fines coming at us. It would be unsustainable not to. A budget was passed here last week. If we do not do something about the fines for not reaching our climate targets, the cost will be astronomical. It will be a huge burden on farmers and taxpayers and that is who will have to pay it. There is nobody else to pay that. We need more supports there and we need to diversify. I ask the Minister not to give up on beet altogether. As he knows, different lobby groups and farmers were coming together and groups of people in the agribusiness sector were looking to get that back on the road again. He met some of them during recent Governments. We need to get it going again. The income from beet or sugar manufacturing alone will not do it; there must also be bioethanol and other byproducts. I mentioned the benefits for farmers in terms of beet pulp and beet tops in the hungry month of January when they are trying to feed cattle and there is no grass and how it helps them with sustainability. On feedstuffs, the producers and mills are churning out stuff that may have as little as 5% Irish grain. Deputy Aird said he buys Irish grain, and it is good that he is buying it, but farmers are telling me that they cannot guarantee that it is. People in the mills, and those drawing the material to mills, tell me that it could be as low as 5%. I would point out to the Minister of State with responsibility for food, Deputy Grealish that this is really an issue. A lot of this is GM produce. It is not produced to the same high standards as the crops in this State. We have to have a level playing field when it comes to quality. It is really important. According to Teagasc, 19% of our potatoes is imported. That is a great cash crop. I understand how with weather patterns and changes that might be challenging but much of the country has good dry land that can be used for that. Then there are flour imports. During the latest big freeze, we almost ran out of bread. I think we had a four-day supply of flour in the country. Let us imagine that in a State that used to grow and produce all its own flour. There were flour mills including in Sallins and Portlaoise. There was great employment from the Odlum family in them but they are gone. We have left ourselves completely exposed to the volatility of global markets. We know what is going on globally; we know what America is up to and we know what is coming in with Mercosur and the difficulties that may cause. I am not arguing for completely ring-fencing the country but we have to start looking at sustainability. We have to start getting back to some basics. We cannot be so heavily dependent on imports and therefore I ask the Minister not to give up on beet. It needs to be looked at again. It was a great cash crop and farmers welcomed the beet cheque that generally came in December and January and sometimes even in early February. We need realistic supports for the tillage sector, and I include the horticultural sector in that; we need trade recognition for genuine Irish produce; and we need to increase the volume of grain we are producing here and produce that can be used for animal feed, and to be able to certify that it is Irish. This is not about putting barbed wire around the country or anything like that. I recognise that there has to be international trade but we have become overly reliant on it. When it has to be hauled from the far side of the world as well, it makes it more expensive. I call for realistic supports for the sector, trade recognition for genuine Irish produce and a massive expansion for food and animal feed security. This will help us reduce our carbon footprint and our carbon output per acre, but also provide cash for farmers. Farmers in Laois will step up to the plate. The ones I have met have stuck with the tillage sector. There are lean pickings from it. We must help those farmers to stay there. We must grow the numbers of farmers who are involved in tillage. I ask the Minister to look at some of these issues again and to give the sector due recognition. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-10-15/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:13+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-10-15