‘Sums’ don’t add up for Galway’s grain growers
A DROP in the Galway grain acreage for next year now seems likely due to this year’s major price drop and the increase in input costs, according to the county’s IFA grain representative.
With grain prices having dropped this year by close on €60 per tonne from last year’s high of €200 per tonne, many growers are ‘doing the sums’ on whether the business can continue to be viable.
Galway IFA Grain Representative, Eamonn Burke, told the Farming Tribune that while it had been quite a good harvest in terms of weather, yield and ground conditions, the €60 price drop from last year was having a big impact.
“I suppose this Autumn, a lot of grain growers are just looking at the figures and saying that they just don’t add up, in terms of trying to make a profit from their enterprise.
“As well as the drop in prices, the cost of inputs such as fertiliser, sprays and diesel continues to rise – as things stand, it is a very difficult enterprise to make a profit from,” said Eamonn Burke.
He pointed out that back in the 1970s, when grain was making £90 (pounds) per tonne, a tonne of 10.10.20 fertiliser cost £56 per tonne.
Now, he said, a tonne of grain was making roughly €145 per tonne, while a tonne of 10.10.20 now cost €520 per tonne.
“That just shows how the pendulum has swung in terms of what farmers now get for their grain as compared to what they are paying for fertiliser,” said Eamonn Burke.
He said that yields this year had hovered between ‘average to good’ with the ‘change’ in the year from June making up for very poor growth due to the cold spells in the mid to late Spring period.
On average, yields have come in at about the 2.75 tonnes per acre figure, with ‘green corn’ at about 20% moisture, making €145 per tonne – drier grain at 17% moisture is fetching €160 per tonne.
The price of grain in Ireland is largely determined by the international markets and the yields from the ‘big players’ like the USA, Russia and the Ukraine.
Last year, drought conditions in America and parts of eastern Europe led to a world shortage and a consequent price hike – this year growing conditions have been much more benign across the main ‘bread baskets’ of the world.
Approximately 6,000 acres of grain are grown in Galway, most of it spring barley, although several hundred acres of winter crops have been sown over recent weeks during perfect tilling and seeding conditions.