While there may be one final big New Year's Eve celebration still to come, many farmers are already looking into 2025 and what the new year will bring.

Farming, like any other business, doesn’t do certainty, but, as with the weather, we can all look at what we see around us and decide how best we will adopt to suit.

We can probably say with some certainty at this stage that the era of sustained expansion in Irish agricultural output is over.

Dairy may be the most economically viable grass-based farming at present, but the reality is that even if we do succeed in retaining a nitrates derogation, the capacity to expand is severely curtailed.

Knock-on effect

This has consequences beyond the farm gate, as many co-ops had invested heavily in recent years in anticipation of additional production capacity being required.

During 2024, we had the first merger of two substantial co-ops and others announcing reductions in their workforce.

For dairy farmers and the processing industry, a good year in 2025 would be holding what we have and retaining the nitrates derogation, even if it is at a lower level than it was previously.

Beef and sheep farmers finished up 2024 with record farmgate prices, but there is no denying the underlying trend of less production.

Lamb exports fell by 22% in the first nine months of 2024 and suckler cow numbers fell by 50,000 in 2024 to the lowest level in over 30 years.

Weather and market prices made 2024 difficult for tillage farmers even if the good late autumn weather made planting for the coming year easier. So what should farmers do to get ready for the new year?

Take stock

The new year is a time for making resolutions and farmers should resolve to take stock of their business and what they will do in the year ahead.

There is no worse policy in any walk of life than doing things because that it what was always done. If we stuck rigidly to that policy, we would never have moved from horse power to tractor power, nor adopted the many farming techniques that removed many farming chores over recent decades.

With the first quarter of the 21st century over at the end of this year, farmers need to look at their business and ask is it going the right direction for the second quarter of the century and beyond.

Strong commodity prices in the latter part of the year, combined with a late grazing season and good planting conditions for tillage farmers, put something of a gloss on what was shaping up to be a very difficult year.

As recently as August, there was serious concern about a fodder crisis and while the risk has eased, it is too early to say the winter is beaten before the new year arrives.

Policy continues to change

We have now finished the second year of the current CAP and the next one is already being shaped in Brussels. It is evident that policy at both national and EU level is orientated away from production towards stewardship of the countryside.

It is in a farmers' DNA to improve land and produce more, but that doesn’t fit current policy.

In a world where so many people are still exposed to hunger, such a policy may seem incongruous, but farmers have to deal with the reality that they face, not what they believe it should be.

Therefore, putting the business hat on, it means looking at where the money is and following it. If it is in organic farming or taking land out of production altogether, then so be it.

Dairy and meat processors are already voicing concerns about the direction of travel and the impact that it will have on raw material supply.

No doubt we reduce on farm production, there will be casualties along the supply chain but farmers cannot be part of a supply chain that isn’t economically sustainable.