More than two-in-five farmers have no family successor, according to a recent survey from the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association.

President of the Association Dennis Drennan told The Pat Kenny Show that he is a part of this 42% who have no family interested in taking over their farm.

“I’m just recently married and I don’t have any children and I have three nieces and one nephew and none of those are interested in farming either,” he said.

“I suppose, look, there’s a lot of more lucrative occupations out there and more steady income and they’re looking elsewhere for the opportunities there at the moment.”

Young farmer with laptop standing in field with tractor harrowing in background. Image: Budimir Jevtic / Alamy. 22/3/2017

Mr Drennan said that as a small-scale farmer it is questionable whether his farm will be viable into the future and he expects he will eventually lease his land to a neighbour.

“If you look at where farming has gone in the last 30 or 40 years, farms have had to become bigger to remain valuable and people have to work longer hours and harder hours to make the same living as they did,” he said.

“Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, they’re not capable of doing that.

“So, their only option is to get out and amalgamate other farms, amalgamate into bigger units to make them more viable.”

Regulations

According to Mr Drennan, the lifestyle of a farmer is incredibly involved, which may not appeal to younger people.

He also said that regulations are increasingly difficult to keep up with.

“Everybody’s pointing at the farmer to solve the problem of climate change and as a derogation farmer, I’ve had 39 new regulations in the last four years,” he said.

“So, it’s very off-putting for any young person to get involved in an industry and put a business plan in place when they have no security as regards to what regulations would be brought in.

“Generally, you’re putting a business plan together that could be covering the next 10 to 15-years with repayments.

"You need to have the security of income and security of what will be actually on your farm to guarantee your payments.”

Mr Drennan said that while tillage farming is often seen as more sustainable and profitable than livestock, both types of farmers have suffered the same scale of loss of income in the last 10 or 15 years.

He also said that Ireland is one of – if not the most – sustainable countries on the planet when it comes to beef and dairy farming and he would hope we could maintain this.

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Main image: Cute family farm. Image: Zoonar GmbH / Alamy. 12 March 2022