National Farm Survey - 2022 Sustainability Report

This report provides the latest available information on the sustainability performance of farms in Ireland, based on detailed analysis of data collected through the Teagasc National Farm Survey. Economic, Social, Environmental and Innovation sustainability metrics are produced for Dairy, Cattle, Sheep and Tillage farms in 2022. The report also includes time series results over several years, which allows an assessment of how farm sustainability has changed temporally.

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Presentations from Webinar

• Sustainability Presentation Policy Developments - Trevor Donnellan (pdf)
• Sustainability Presentation 2022 - Cathal Buckley (pdf)
• Biodiversity Measurement on NFS Farms Presentation - Simon Leach (pdf)

Watch the recording of the webinar below

Economic sustainability

• Consistent with the established trend of earlier years, Dairy farms remain an economic powerhouse in Irish agriculture. Average economic returns per hectare in Dairy tend to be multiples of those in the other farm systems in Ireland and the gap between Dairy and the other farm systems has tended to widen since the EU decided to eliminate the milk quota system. The report indicates that this gap widened further in 2022, which saw a significant spike in milk prices, due to the slow growth in milk production globally, allied with strong international dairy demand.
• Varying amount of labour are required across different farm systems. Expressing farm incomes on a unit of family labour basis addresses this issue. On making this adjustment Dairy and Tillage farms can be considered as relatively comparable in income terms. The results show that both of these farm system types considerably outperform the drystock farm systems in economic terms.

Social sustainability

• Again reflecting established trends, Dairy continues to exhibit a stronger performance in terms of social sustainability relative to other farm systems. Dairy tends to be associated with a lower isolation risk (living alone). Fewer dairy farm households have a high age profile in comparison with other farm systems. Tillage farms also tend to generally outperform livestock farms on these social sustainability metrics.
• However, dairy farming is typically a very labour intensive system. In terms of labour input, on average the main dairy farm operator works significantly more hours per year than the average farm operator in the other farm systems. Given the hours required on farm, relatively few dairy farmers work off farm. However, even when the labour from time spent working off farm (which can be significant for drystock systems) is combined with time spent working on-farm, the labour input of dairy farm operators tends to exceed that of farm operators of all other farm systems.

Environmental sustainability

Greenhouse gas emissions

• Dairy: Even though herd sizes increased in 2022, total farm and per hectare GHG emissions on the average dairy farm declined, largely due to a significant decrease in chemical N fertiliser use. The GHG emissions intensity of milk production (CO2 equivalent per kilogramme of Fat and Protein Corrected Milk) also improved. Effectively this means that the average kilogramme of milk on Irish dairy farms was produced with a lower carbon footprint in 2022.
• Non-Dairy Systems: Farm level and per hectare level GHG emissions on cattle, sheep and tillage farms also declined in 2022 on the back of reduced chemical N fertiliser use. In percentage terms, the reduction in N fertiliser use was larger on drystock farms than on dairy farms, but in absolute terms, the reduction on dairy farms was larger. This reflects the fact that the average dairy farms typically use close to 3 times as much chemical N per hectare compared to the average drystock farm. The decline in chemical N use was most likely driven by the high N fertiliser prices, which emerged in the second half of 2021 and persisted throughout 2022. However, the advice to farmers now strongly emphasises reduced fertiliser use on both economic and environmental grounds, which may mean that the observed reduction in fertiliser use in 2022 could well be maintained.

Ammonia emissions

• On dairy farms ammonia emissions per farm and per hectare increased in 2022 relative to 2021, but the level in 2022 was below the longer terms trend of years before 2021. The increase was driven by the composition of N fertiliser used, with a move away from the use of CAN towards straight urea, which is a much bigger emitter of ammonia. Ammonia emissions on other farm system tended to decline in 2022 on due to reduced chemical N use and increased adoption of technologies like low emission slurry spreading (LESS). In spite of the increased usage of LESS on drystock farms, the use of that technology is still less prevalent than on dairy farms, indicating that there is room for further progress in this area on drystock farms.

Nitrogen balance and use efficiency

• Across all farm systems, N surpluses declined and N use efficiency improved in 2022. This improvement was achieved through reduced chemical N use and increased best practice technology adoption. These metrics tend to be significantly influenced by variability in weather conditions from one year to the next, although improved N management on farms also plays a role.

Innovation

• There was an increase in the percentage of dairy and cattle farms applying lime in 2022. Lime application is important in optimising the soil’s pH level, which affects the availability of nutrients in the soil and can lead to a reduced requirement for fertiliser use.
• There was also a significant transition towards the use of LESS equipment for slurry application. In 2022, 75% of slurry on the average dairy farm and 34% on the slurry on the average cattle farm was applied via LESS.
• However, while the percentage of chemical N applied in the form of protected urea is growing on dairy and cattle farms, it remains at a relatively low level in absolute terms