Athenry News & Views Winter 2025

Athenry News & Views

AgriView

By Joe Healy

SECTORS Writing this article at the end of November and despite a month to go before year end, I think it is still safe enough to say that 2025 will be regarded by Dairy, Suckler, beef and sheep farmers as a positive year. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the grain sector. Without doubt, the narrative for the past few months around the local marts here in Galway has been the incredible demand for Weanlings. Speaking at the recent Teagasc beef and suckler conference in the Raheen woods, farmer and accountant Trevor Boland in his presentation to the 500 strong attendance said that a conservative figure of an extra €1,000 per weanling compared to last years figures was what farmers would need to keep in mind when estimating and planning their 2025 tax liability. Similarly on the dairy side an average year round farm gate price of approximately 52c/L probably puts this year in as second most profitable year since the turn of the century with 2022 still out in front. A difficult Q4 on the international markets for many dairy products allied to strong supplies in Europe and other large milk producing countries. This pressure is expected to continue into 2026 as current weak spot market prices especially for powders are expected to remain so until there is a global decline in production. A drop of 9-10% across EU sheep production for the second half of the year in parallel with an estimated 16% reduction in Irish numbers being slaughtered has helped keep the 2025 trade strong. POLICY On the Policy front, decisions made many miles from the farm gate have for many years had as much impact on a farmers business than decisions taken inside the gate. It is no different at the moment with 3 key and incredibly important issues currently in the melting pot. In sporting parlance, Mercosur and the Nitrates derogation are very definitely deep into the second half of extra time. Hopefully, we will avoid penalties! On CAP discussions, I suppose you could say we’re in the first half and in a way, still shadow-boxing. NITRATES DEROGATION Let’s have a quick look at each individually. First up and because it was in the news today (27/11/25), we will begin with the Nitrates derogation. This derogation allows some Irish farmers carry a higher stocking rate per

hectare than other Irish farmers and farmers in other countries mainly due to our unique grass growing and grazing conditions. Those farmers also have to adhere to extra terms and conditions. As a rule of thumb farmers are allowed carry the equivalent of 170kg of Livestock Nitrogen/hectare. This is equivalent to, give or take, 2 cows/ha. Farmers in derogation were allowed up to 250kgN/ha or almost 3 cows. Two years ago this figure was reduced to 220kg N/ ha with the threat of it being removed altogether and being brought back to the 170Kg level. This would have had a serious negative impact on not only the 7,000 farmers in derogation but also on neighbouring farmers as demand for rental land would increase. It would also have had a serious impact on the economy. If it was totally removed it would cut Family farm income on affected farms by up to 40%, reduced total milk sales by €555 million, led to a drop of 15% in dairy cow numbers and result in a cumulative loss in economic output of €45 billion over the next 10 years. Thankfully, as of today, the EU Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall has confirmed that ‘the European Commission has submitted a draft proposal to the Nitrates Committee to ‘extend the Irish Nitrates derogation at the 220kg level for another 3 years subject to adherence to Former President of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) Joe Healy of Athenry