‘You can’t blame them’: Young Irish farmers on a looming agricultural exodus

Research from Agriland found nearly 30 per cent of farmers under 45 are considering leaving the sector within the next five years

Thu Sept 17 2026 - 11:00 • 4 MIN READ

John Fallon balances full-time work as a hospital porter with part-time on his family’s suckler beef farm.

“It’s not easy for a young person to make their way in farming,” he says. “And, by the look of things, it’s not going to get any easier, and it won’t get any better either – you’re just up against a wall.”

The 25-year old from Co Roscommon is speaking at the National Ploughing Championships in Screggan, Co Offaly – where he has spent most of the day at the Macra na Feirme stand, a voluntary organisation that advocates for the wellbeing of young people in rural Ireland.

So, when the time comes, will he take over the family farm? “Oh, God yeah. That is the plan,” he answers without the slightest hesitation.

But when asked if this would be his full-time job, he answers with even less hesitation.

“No, no way – I can’t financially justify that,” he says. “The work is full-time, but the wages are only part-time, really.”

His job at the hospital is “good hours, good wages” and allows him to fit in his agricultural work between shifts, Fallon says.

“Being a young farmer ... it’s not an attractive job, and it’s not the easiest,” he says, pointing to the many demands of the work – including being tech savvy, and having strong business acumen if you want to succeed in the sector.

While Fallon may turn away from farming – at least, as a full-time job – thousands of young farmers in Ireland are considering a move out of the agricultural industry altogether.

When we talk about succession in Ireland, it generally brings up worries about death and illness, and we need to change that narrative

—  Josephine O’Neill, Macra na Feirme

Research published this week has prompted many of the near quarter of a million people who will attend this year’s ploughing championship to ask themselves the question: who will farm the fields of Ireland in the (very) near future?

Agriland, a leading farming publication, found nearly one in three farmers (29 per cent) under the age of 45 are considering leaving the agricultural sector within the next five years. Nearly eight in 10 (77 per cent) pointed to “income volatility” as a “major obstacle” to entering the industry.

“And you can’t blame them,” says Fallon.

Paddy McGuinness, a 23-year-old from Co Louth, has farmed in Ireland, England and Arizona, the US state between California and Texas. Practically “on the Mexican border – we would turn around at Trump’s wall”, he says with a laugh. “Great craic – I’ve been around, seen a few different things.”

He now works on his family’s 4,000-acre tillage farm that produces traditional wholesale cereal and grain, but has also diversified to supply woodchip as a renewable energy source to local businesses.

It is a largely successful undertaking and McGuinness clearly enjoys the work. But he feels the work often goes underappreciated.

For him, even the hedges along motorways represent a more serious, more perverse social issue. “People don’t see the value of food,” he says. “It’s an urban population thing, more so than a general [one]. People in the countryside know where food comes from ... but people in the towns and cities don’t.

“You drive down the M1: big hedges everywhere. You can’t see what’s going on. You travel from one city to the next – these big hedges, you can’t see what’s going on ... that’s creating a bit of a disconnect.

“And I think that is a big reason behind a lot of people maybe not wanting to stay in farming ... people not knowing where their food comes from is depressing for them – there’s no appreciation.”

McGuinness’s grandfather bought 167 acres of farmland in 1942 and made the most of the postwar boom in food prices, going on to buy more land in later years. “He thought he’d never see it paid back for in his lifetime,” McGuinness says. “I’m lucky I have all that history behind me.”

Others are not as lucky, he admits, pointing to the looming succession crisis in many farming families, often seen to be too taboo to talk about.

“When we talk about succession in Ireland, it generally brings up worries about death and illness,” says Josephine O’Neill, president of Macra na Feirme, “and we need to change that narrative.

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“For our members, that’s a challenge: not knowing if the family farm is going to be there for their future, what the future is going to look like for them. That’s something that is a major challenge for our young farmers.”

While her presidential role within the youth organisation is “essentially a full-time job”, the 32-year-old from Co Kilkenny is “a teacher by training. But hopefully in the future, I’ll be able to have some kind of part to play in the family farm,” she says.

The youth organisation has many asks for Government to help build a “liveable, prosperous” rural Ireland and, at least for O’Neill, generational renewal seems to be top of mind. While the future generation of Irish farmers is largely uncertain, Fallon is reassured by past precedent.

“Whatever challenge is thrown at us, the Irish farmer will always meet it head on,” he says.

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