2 days ago
From one in four to one in 25: Ireland's shrinking farming workforce
The farmers, foresters, and fishers responsible for Ireland's primary production are now only one in 25 of the working population, and about one in 50 of the total population.
They are the 108,450 working in "agriculture, forestry, and fishing" in 2024, according to the Central Statistics Office's Labour Force Survey.
However, calculating farmers as a percentage of the working population depends on which of the CSO's surveys you follow, as explained by agriculture minister Martin Heydon, when asked for the number of people engaged in the food production industry as part of a parliamentary question before the Dáil broke up for the summer recess.
Mr Heydon also gave the results of the CSO's Farm Structure Survey 2023, which indicated that 299,725 people worked on 133,174 farms across Ireland in 2023. The holders of these farms were 86.8% men and 13.2% women. Only 5,791 were aged under 35, while 50,392 were aged over 65.
The Farm Structure Survey differs from the Labour Force Survey because it includes all people working on 133,174 farms, including those for whom it is not their main occupation.
Mr Heydon added that for the purposes of calculating the agricultural labour force in 2023, 127,976 farm holdings of a defined size were included.
Sole full-time
Of these, 67,362 of farm holders defined farm work as their sole full-time occupation; 28,886 described farm work as a major occupation; and 31,728 as a subsidiary occupation.
Excluding farm holders, 171,749 people worked on farms. Of these, some 132,278 were spouses and other family members, and 39,471 were non-family workers. This figure includes both part-time and full-time workers.
Mr Heydon also gave the breakdown of the country's 299,725 people working on farms, both family and non-family workers, by region.
Most are in the West, with 66,182; the border area has 56,249; the South-West has 49,814; the Midlands has 28,515; and the Mid-East and Dublin region has 27,704.
In his parliamentary question, Dublin Fingal West Labour Party TD Robert O'Donoghue also enquired about age demographics, and the minister's reply included the mean age of farm holder by county and region.
Nationally, this averaged 59.4, with relatively little variation, from a low of 58 in Donegal to a high of 60.9 in Galway. The youngest farmers are in the South-West, averaging 58.6. The oldest are in the West, averaging 60.7.
Main occupation
To complete the Labour Force Survey information, the minister said the 169,300 who worked in the agri-food sector as a main occupation in 2024 (representing 6.1% of total employment in Ireland), included 56,850 in the "manufacture of food and beverages" category, along with the 108,450 in the "agriculture, forestry, and fishing" category.
Of those people employed in the manufacture of food and beverages, some 50,225 worked in food and 6,625 worked in beverages.
Including them, and assuming that 75% of Irish-produced food is exported (it's about 90% for livestock products; however, Ireland also has large food imports), each worker in the Irish agri-food sector can be said to contribute to the nutrition of 30 people in Ireland, plus 90 overseas.
