This release presents provisional estimates of land utilisation and livestock numbers in June 2024 at State level. The estimates for sheep are based on returns from the June Agriculture Survey 2024, conducted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The estimates for cattle and for crops are obtained from administrative data from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF). The pig estimates are based on returns from the June 2024 Pig Survey which collects data on pig numbers held by specialised producers.
Farms where the agricultural area used was at least one hectare (2.47 acres) are included in the June Agricultural Sample Survey. Specialised pig farms, totalling 353, were included in the survey for June 2024 with a response rate of 87.8%.
The results for crops are based on data obtained from the DAFM Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) Scheme.
The results for cattle are obtained from DAFM’s Animal Identification and Movement (AIM) system and the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).
The June 2024 results for sheep are compiled by comparing the returns from the DAFM's 2023 Sheep Census to the returns from the CSO's June Agriculture Survey June 2024. Trends are compared between the farms that returned both the DAFM Sheep Census and the June Agriculture Survey June 2024. These trends are applied to each sheep category to calculate the final figures.
In cases where a pig farm did not make a June 2024 return, an estimate was created by taking that farm's 2023 return and applying the trend observed between the 2023 and 2024 collected data for each category of pigs.
As figures in the text and tables have been rounded to the nearest 100 units there may be slight discrepancies between the sum (or difference) of the constituent items and the totals shown. Percentage changes have been calculated on actual figures.
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