Over 278,000 people worked on farms in 2020, according to the final detailed results of the Census of Agriculture carried out by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Just under 278,600 individuals contributed to farm work in 2020 on around 130,200 farms over 5ha in size.

Males accounted for 73% of these people, as well as 80% of the volume of farm labour, in terms of annual work units (AWUs).

According to Eurostat, the EU body for statistics, an AWU corresponds to the work performed by one person who is occupied on an agricultural holding on a full-time basis.

Of all the farms included in the census, 1,686 undertook organic farming activity in 2020.

53% of farm holders stated that farming was their sole occupation. Less than half (46%) of them had a succession plan in place.

The average gross production/farm in 2020 was €48,380, while the median standard output stood at €13,566 (i.e. half of farms had less output than this figure and half had more).

The detailed results of the Census of Agriculture 2020 were announced by the CSO today (Thursday, May 26). It takes place every 10 years as part of EU rules on statistics collection.

It includes statistics on farm structure, farmer demographics, livestock and land utilisation on farms.

The results today also provide details on organic farming, the farming labour force, animal housing and manure management.

Selected statistics are available at the electoral district level, which can be found on the CSO's online data portal Pxstat.

Available statistics at this level include the number of holdings, average size of holdings, livestock numbers, age of holders and land utilisation.

Some of the key statistics announced by the CSO include: