Big losses for growers as crops are battered by heavy rains
GRAIN farmers in Galway – and across the western region – are counting the cost of what has been described as ‘a disastrous harvest’ following record rainfall through the month of August.
Close on 10,000 acres of corn are grown in Co. Galway – the biggest chunk of it being Spring Barley (c. 60%) – but the monsoon type rains that fell during August, flattened many of the crops.
The final round-up of the harvesting is taking place this week, although the cause wasn’t helped by heavy rainfall last Sunday (18.4mms. in Athenry Met Station).
However, the current dry spell – that’s expected to last until Sunday – should help to get the remaining 10% of corn still in the fields [as of last weekend] into the grain trailers. Galway IFA Grain Committee Chairman, John Daly, described it as ‘a pretty disastrous’ backend for grain farmers due to the deluges that hit the West.
“It was very much a regional problem. While the harvesting was completed very much as normal in other parts of the country, the West and North-West region took a real battering from the weather.
“Crops were flattened into the ground; a lot of the corn fields were just untrafficable; while the moisture content of the crops has often been up around 30%,” said John Daly.
He added that the harvest had turned into ‘just a salvage job’ for grain growers in the West whose fortunes had improved in 2018 with good weather and a boost in prices.
“Out of the last nine years, grain farmers have taken ‘serious hits’ in four of those. Both the weather and prices were good last year but now it’s back to square one again,” he said.