Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 6 December 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Effect of Bad Weather on Grain Harvest: Irish Farmers Association

4:20 pm

Mr. Joe Healy:

On Deputy Aindrias Moynihan's question, I will pass over to Mr. Conway because the 200 replies went to him. To give an example of an analysis of the prices I saw earlier in the year, when €115 was mentioned as a green price at the very start, an independent analysis said that even in the perfect year, at three and a half tonnes to the acre, allowing for €40 for straw, a farmer on his own land stood to lose €58 per acre. I ask the committee to keep that in mind when Mr. O'Brien talks about having to sell one field of corn or barley at 30.2% moisture for €97.50 at one tonne to the acre. That gives some idea of the size of the losses.

Mr. Conway might now talk about the emerging patterns that Deputy Aindrias Moynihan asked about.