Press Statement

Preasráiteas

26 May 2022

Go to release: Census of Agriculture 2020 Detailed Results

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (26 May 2022) launched the Detailed Results of the 2020 Census of Agriculture. The Census of Agriculture presents a comprehensive picture of agricultural activity in Ireland.

Commenting on the results, Sophie Emerson, Statistician in the Agriculture Division, said: “The Census of Agriculture provides a snapshot of the agricultural activity on Irish farms in 2020. This census of farming is taken every 10 years and it includes statistics on farm structure, farmer demographics, livestock and land utilisation on farms. Preliminary results of this census were published in December:

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-coa/censusofagriculture2020-preliminaryresults/.

The results released today provide detail on the following categories of Irish agriculture; Organic Farming, the Agriculture Labour Force, Animal Housing and Manure Management, and Standard Output. In addition, selected statistics are now available at electoral division level.

Organic area utilised (AAU) accounted for 73,800 hectares of the 4.5 million hectares in the state, or 1.6% of the total AAU. The majority of organic AAU in 2020 was grassland (96% of organic AAU), while the remainder of organic AAU consisted mainly of cereals.  

There were 51,685 organic cattle, 74,870 organic sheep, and 161,471 organic poultry on Irish farms in 2020.

For cattle and pigs, the most common type of housing used was classified as ‘Loose Cubicle – solid floor’. The most common type of housing used for poultry was classified as ‘Cages with manure belts’.

Selected statistics are now available at electoral district level. This data can be found on the CSO’s open data portal, Pxstat. Available statistics at this level include the number of agricultural holdings, average size of holdings, livestock numbers, age of holders and land utilisation. A new interactive application has been launched by the CSO which allows users to explore the data at electoral division level. This tool will allow users to access data on livestock, land utilisation, number of agriculture holdings and information on age of holders in specific electoral divisions. The tool is highly interactive and displays the data in engaging visualisations. This application will be found here: Agrimaps”

Highlights for Editors:

Organic Farming

• A total of 1,686 farms had organic farming activity of livestock or land utilised in 2020.
• The AAU for organic farming was 73,800 hectares, or 1.6% of the total AAU 4.5 million hectares.
• The number of fully converted organic farm holdings was 1,540, just above 91% of all organic farm holdings.
• Almost all (96%) of the total organic AAU in the state consisted of grassland; the remainder of organic AAU was mainly cereals.
• There were 51,685 organic cattle on 1,157 farm holdings in 2020, 5.5% of these were dairy cows, 34.1% were other cows, and 60.4% were other cattle.
• There were 74,870 organic sheep on 378 flocks in 2020.

Agricultural Labour Input

• More than 278,600 persons contributed to farm work in 2020, on 130,200 farms (of more than five hectares).
• Of the 278,600 persons contributing farm work, 47% (130,200) were the farm holders, 41% (114,300) were family members, and the remaining 12% were non-family workers (34,100).
• More than half (53%) of farm holders stated that farming was their sole occupation while more than one quarter (26%) regarded it as a subsidiary occupation.
• Males accounted for 73% of persons working on farms and 80% of the volume of farm labour (Annual Work Units).
• Less than half (46%) of farm holders had a succession plan in place and 98% of these had named a family member as the successor.

Animal Housing and Manure Management

• Cover liquid manure or slurry storage facilities were the most widely used manure storage facility on farm holdings in 2020.
• Storage of solid manure in heaps was the next most widely used manure storage facility in 2020.
• Six out of every ten cattle houses in Ireland (62.9%) were classified as ‘Loose/Cubicle solid floor’ type houses.
• Similarly, just below 90% of the pig houses (88.9%) were classified as ‘Loose/Cubicle solid floor’ type houses.

Standard Output

• In 2020, the mean gross production (standard output) per farm was €48,380. Half of farms had a standard output equal to or less than €13,566 (median standard output).
• On farms under 10 hectares, the mean standard output was €12,557, while the mean standard output on farms above 100 hectares was €276,891.
• Specialist Dairying and Other farm systems had the largest mean standard output in 2020, with €209,006 and €338,416 respectively.
• Farms with higher gross production (standard output) are generally larger area: farms with Standard Output between €50,000 and €100,000 had an average AAU of 57.9ha. Those with Standard Output over €100,000 had average AAU of 82.5ha.

Sophie Emerson continued: “The CSO would like to extend its appreciation to farmers for responding to this Census and other Agricultural Surveys.

This publication builds on the preliminary results that were published last December 2021 which were collected as part of a European wide data collection exercise to enable the compilation comparable statistics on the structure of agriculture across the EU in 2020.” 

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