The agricultural sector in Ireland produced significantly more across all enterprises in 2019, but due to rising costs, hardly earned more.
The final estimate of the operational surplus in agriculture from the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows an increase of €110.7 million, amounting to a 3.8% rise. However, agricultural prices declined during the same period.
The total production volume rose from €2.94 billion in 2018 to €3.055 billion. This increase aligns with earlier predictions in Irish agriculture, according to the Irish newspaper Agriland.
An analysis of the results revealed that despite a 3.6% increase in the volume of goods produced, falling prices caused the value of goods production at producer prices to decrease by €258 million (-3.1%), from €8.22 billion in 2018 to €7.96 billion in 2019.
While the volume of crops produced by Irish farmers increased by 7.8%, lower prices caused the value of crops to fall by €228.9 million (-10.8%), from €2.13 billion to €1.8 billion. The main crops contributing to this production decline were fodder crops, which decreased in value by €276.3 million (-20.6%) due to falling prices.
Although milk production volume rose by 5.1%, lower prices meant that the value of milk only increased by €45.2 million (+1.8%), from €2.56 billion to €2.6 billion.
Despite a 1.9% increase in livestock volume produced, lower prices caused the value of livestock to decrease by €111.1 million (-4.9%), from €2.26 billion to €2.15 billion.
While the volume of pigs produced in 2019 changed very little (+0.4%), large price increases led to the value of pig production rising by €84.0 million (+18.3%), from €459.1 million to €543 million.
The cost of fodder crops purchased by Irish farmers decreased by €273.4 million (-20.5%) in 2019, from €1.33 billion to €1.06 billion.
The volume of feed used on Irish farms fell by 13.8%, and as a result, spending on animal feed decreased by €184.6 million (-11.0%) to €1.49 billion.
The volume of fertilizers consumed by Irish farmers dropped by 7.6% in 2019, but due to price increases, the cost of these fertilizers only decreased by €3.8 million (-0.7%), from €582.1 million to €578.3 million.