{"id":32615,"date":"2026-01-25T22:22:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T03:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/01\/25\/confidence-up-among-farmers-but-frustrations-remain-ifac\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T22:22:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T03:22:45","slug":"confidence-up-among-farmers-but-frustrations-remain-ifac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/01\/25\/confidence-up-among-farmers-but-frustrations-remain-ifac\/","title":{"rendered":"Confidence up among farmers but frustrations remain: Ifac"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"medium-10 medium-offset-1 columns article-body\" itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-epic-field=\"content\">\n<p>There is a growing confidence among farmers despite major challenges, according to Ifac&#8217;s 2026 Irish Farm Report.<\/p>\n<p>It shows that 61% of farmers feel positive about their prospects &#8211; which is up on previous years.<\/p>\n<p>However the level of positivity does differ significantly across different farm sectors.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;2025 was a strong year for the livestock sectors,&#8221; said Philip O&#8217;Connor, head of farm support at Ifac. &#8220;The outrider in those figures though was the tillage sector&#8230; confidence was massively down in the tillage sector compared to the beef, sheep and dairy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But as I say, the beef, sheep, dairy are the main biggest sector so overall, that got up the positivity,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the relative positivity, many farmers are also feeling significant levels of frustration at the challenges they face.<\/p>\n<p>The survey found that issues around rules, regulations and bureaucracy was the most common challenge, with 48% of farmers citing it as a top concern.<\/p>\n<p>This is down on the 60% who cited this problem in 2025, however Mr O&#8217;Connor said this was largely due to the growing challenges coming from other places.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Other items got a little bigger for them,&#8221; he said. &#8220;When the survey went out just before Christmas, the milk price was starting to drop &#8211; inflation is still there, we had auto enrollment coming in as a factor as well,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And even though the nitrates has been solved, it hasn&#8217;t gone away,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p alt=\"7.50am Business News\" class=\"tpe\" data-description=\"Presented by Adam Maguire.\" data-embed=\"rte-player\" data-id=\"22577377\" data-ot-category=\"C0004\" data-title=\"Presented by Adam Maguire.\"><span class=\"blocked-container\"><span class=\"blocked-heading\">We need your consent to load this rte-player content<\/span><span class=\"blocked-notice\">We use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.<\/span>Manage Preferences<\/span><iframe allowfullscreen=\"true\" class=\"optanon-category-C0004\" data-ot-category=\"C0004\" data-src=\"\/\/www.rte.ie\/bosco\/components\/player\/iframe.html?clipid=22577377&#038;autostart=false&#038;app=true\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"345\" width=\"614\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The survey also found no improvement in the level of financial planning among farmers, with 70% of respondents saying they do not prepare an annual budget.<\/p>\n<p>Mr O&#8217;Connor said that, given the level of volatility in both input and output prices, it was now more important than ever that farmers make a budget plan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you looked at milk prices over the last four years, they&#8217;ve been up, they&#8217;ve been down, they&#8217;ve been swinging,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Beef prices have gone to a record high in the last year, but there&#8217;s been a long number of tough years for beef farmers,tillage farmer prices are on the floor, we&#8217;ve had hyperinflation, we&#8217;ve had Covid and Brexit&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So volatility is very much the name of the day in the farming sector and having good financials around that [helps] weather those storms,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile two out of five farmers say they do not have a formal succession plan in place at present.<\/p>\n<p>In some cases the farmers said they had identified a successor but had not yet formalised the agreement &#8211; however one in five said they simply had not identified any successor for their business.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you looked at the dairy sector, for example, it was lifestyle not appealing to the next generation,&#8221; said Mr O&#8217;Connor. &#8220;The beef farmers, despite beef prices being at a record high, still say business viability is an issue.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Farmers are looking more long-term at it because it&#8217;s a huge decision to be made in the family &#8211; and it&#8217;s not a quick decision that farmers need to make,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a growing confidence among farmers despite major challenges, according to Ifac&#8217;s 2026 Irish Farm Report. It shows that 61% of farmers feel positive about their prospects &#8211; which is up on previous years. However the level of positivity does differ significantly across different farm sectors. &#8220;2025 was a strong year for the livestock [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}