The promise of better weather coming our way this week will, no doubt, unleash, a field work frenzy throughout Ireland’s tillage sector.

Priority number one will be to get weed control measures sorted out in winter cereals. This is unfinished work that can be traced back to last autumn when the rain started to fall in earnest.

Next up is the job of getting fertiliser on barley, oat and wheat crops.

As March progresses, soil temperatures will start to pick up with growth rates increasing accordingly.

And then it is a case of growers sitting down and working through their spring planting options.

And beans tick all the boxes in this regard. Teagasc tillage specialists are already predicting that the Protein Aid payment for 2026 will, probably, come in at around €600/ha.

A support payment pitched at this level puts real certainty behind beans, with one proviso: it is important to get crops into the ground as soon as ground conditions permit.

The reduction in contract tonnages available for malting barley this year is, undoubtedly,  a disappointment for the affected growers.

However, it’s not the end of the world. For the reasons given above, spring beans might well be worth looking at.

And, in truth, feed barley is not the end of the world if all other options prove challenging.

Tillage support

Meanwhile, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon must be congratulated in delivering the €30 million tillage support scheme that was officially opened last week.

This is proof positive that government is willing to take on board the case for additional sectoral support, if the case is made in a rational and cohesive manner.

Let’s hope that the new measure can be extended into a multi-annual commitment for tillage.

It must never be forgotten that the expansion of the crops sector is a fundamental tenet of Ireland’s current climate action plan.

The availability of the new support funding will help boost tillage farm cash flows at a time when it is needed most.

Native grains

It is also encouraging that momentum continues to build behind the principle of native grains being accepted as a premium product on the Irish market.

But cementing this principle further will require all tillage farmers committing to calculate the actual carbon footprint of their crops on an ongoing basis.

The good news here is that the use of the tillage AgNav digital platform makes this process a very straightforward one indeed.

There is no doubt that Irish tillage farmers have endured three very challenging years.

But there are now signs of genuine hope for the future appearing on the horizon.