Grain farmers hoping for a drier autumn
ALMOST all of the spring grain crops across Galway have yet to be harvested as farmers pin their hopes on a fine spell of weather arriving over the next few weeks.
Co. Galway IFA Grain Representative, Mervyn Cooke, told the Farming Tribune that the wet spring had delayed the sowing period for many grain farmers by up to six weeks.
“We had a very wet March which meant that some crops weren’t sown until the first week of May – it will be well into September before these are fit for harvesting,” said Mervyn Cooke.
Winter barley and winter oats crops have already been cut during the drier interludes of recent weeks and some limited harvesting of the earlier sown spring crops took place during last week’s fine spell of weather from Monday through to Thursday.
Grain growing peaked in Galway a number of years back at around 10,000 acres but that figure has dipped sharply to about 5,000 to 6,000 acres.
Prices for grain peaked last year at around the €300 per tonne mark due to scarcities on the world market caused by the war in Ukraine and the Russian curfew put on grain exports from that country.
According to Mervyn Cooke, although there were no ‘official prices’ yet, it was likely that they would be coming in at around €200 a tonne – down by €90 to €100 per tonne as compared to last year.
“I suppose it has been a difficult year all-round in farming with price drops in milk, livestock and grain. The weather hasn’t helped either with a late spring and the very wet summer we had,” said Mervyn Cooke.