Ireland\u2019s ageing farming population has been laid bare in the latest Teagasc National Farm Survey. <\/p>\n
A drop in off-farm income was recorded, as a result of an increase in farmers receiving the pension. <\/p>\n
On average, 59% of farming households had an off-farm income in 2025, a drop on the 2024 figure of 61%. <\/p>\n
Farmers who work off-farm remained relatively unchanged at 43%. However, this varies by farming system. <\/p>\n
Tillage operators were the most likely to hold off-farm employment, with 54%.<\/p>\n
Suckler farms had a similar proportion with 52%, while cattle other farms had a slightly lower proportion at 50%. <\/p>\n
The comparative figure on sheep farms was 46%. <\/p>\n
Although a very low proportion of dairy farmers work off farm, 58% of dairy farm households have an off-farm employment income, with 53% of spouses working off-farm in dairy farm households. <\/p>\n
Household off-farm income in 2025 \u2013 where either the farm holder or spouse was employed off-farm \u2013 stood at 74% on tillage farms, 62% on cattle rearing farms and 57% on both cattle and sheep farms.<\/p>\n
Pension<\/p>\n
The ageing profile of farmers is likely linked to the decline in the proportion of households with an off-farm employment income source, the report indicates.<\/p>\n
The number of farming households in receipt of pensions has increased from 29% in 2022 to 39% last year \u2013 a 10% rise in three years.<\/p>\n
On average, 44% of cattle farm households were in receipt of a pension, the highest of all farming enterprises.<\/p>\n
This was followed by sheep farms at 38%, tillage farms at 26% and 25% of dairy farming households were in receipt of a pension.<\/p>\n
The average age of cattle farmers in 2025 was 60 years and the average sheep farmer aged slightly below this at 59 years, according to the report.<\/p>\n
The average age of tillage farmers in the survey was 56, with dairy farmers 55 years in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s ageing farming population has been laid bare in the latest Teagasc National Farm Survey. A drop in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,7663,21459,176,61,60,43,213704,1558,174,175,24117,230218,31615,229440],"class_list":["post-542014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-cattle","tag-dairy","tag-finance","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-niamh-murphy","tag-pensions","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-sheep","tag-succession-2026","tag-teagasc","tag-tillage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}