Less than half (46.5%) of farm holders had a succession plan in place, according to the latest data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The Farm Structure Survey 2023 report notes that 98.3% of farmers who have identified a successor had named a family member.
The figures show that the southeast and Dublin and mid-east regions of the country had the highest proportion of holdings with a succession plan in place at 50%.
The border region had the lowest proportion of farm holdings with a succession plan in place at 42%.
The southwest region had the next lowest proportion with 45%, followed by the western region with 47%.
Farmers
The report highlights that the average age of farm owners in 2023 was 59.4 years.
Just over 50,000, or more than one third (38%) of farm holders were aged 65 and over, while around 6,000, or less than one in twenty (4%) were aged under 35 years.
In the decade between 2013 and 2023, the number of farm holders aged 65 and over has increased sharply from 37,705 to 50,392 (34%).
Holders were youngest on farms sized 50-100ha, with an average age of 58.3 years. The oldest holders were found on farms sized 10-20ha where the average age is 60.3 years.
Farm holders were oldest on mixed field crops farms and specialist beef production farms with mean ages of 61.9 and 60.1 years respectively.
The lowest average age was recorded on specialist sheep farms with a mean age of 57.3 years.
CSO
According to the CSO, there were 115,655 (86.8%) male farm holders and 17,519 (13.2%) female farm holders in Ireland in 2023.
Over the ten-year period from 2013 to 2023, there was an increase in the percentage of female farm holders from 12% to just over 13%.
In 2023, the western region had the highest proportion of female farm holders (14%). The midlands region had the lowest proportion with 12%.
The county with the highest proportion of male farm holders was Monaghan (90%), while Mayo reported the highest proportion of female farm holders (16%).
In general, larger farms were more likely to have a male owner, approximately 90% of the farm holders for farms larger than 50 ha were male.
17.4% of farm holders on farms less than 10ha were female, compared to 13.2% for all farm sizes.
Specialist dairying farms had the highest proportion of male holders (93%), while mixed field crops farms had the highest proportion of female farm holders (24%).
The survey results also show that there were 299,725 people worked on farms in Ireland in 2023, including farm holders, family workers and regular non-family workers.
This is an increase of approximately 30,000 (11%) workers in the 10 year period since 2013.
53% of farm holders stated that farming was their sole occupation, slightly less than the proportion in 2020.
Over one quarter of holders (25%) regarded farming as a subsidiary occupation.