The Association of Farm and Forestry Contractors in Ireland (FCI) has published its contractor charge guide for 2025 with some charges up by a maximum of 5%, while others are "virtually unchanged".

This year’s guide now lists 98 services of work up that are provided by agricultural and forestry contractors in Ireland in 2025.

The FCI said that it is satisfied that this averaged price guide "continues to provide fair and reasonable guidance for both farm and forestry contractors and their client farmers".

However, the association emphasised that this is only an information guide and actual prices may vary considerably.

John Hughes, FCI national chair, said that the increasing costs of new machinery continues to impact on the sustainability of many Irish agricultural contracting businesses.

“Contractors also have new and additional costs in 2025, with the combination of the minimum wage increase impact along with the new legal requirements around the provision of pension funding for employees due in September 2025.

"These are additional increased costs that all agricultural and forestry contractors have to factor into their 2025 operational costs,” he said.

Hughes said that fuel price uncertainty remains an issue for contractors and this "demands a level of flexibility and understanding from farmer clients at a time of unstable world supplies".

He noted that a further carbon tax increase in May 2025, will mean a further increase in fuel costs of up to 12c/L, before VAT, during the 2025 season.

The FCI chair also warned of the "noticeable scarcity of young people joining the agricultural and forestry contractor sector".

"FCI is seeking the implementation of a training and registration programme for the sector to provide long-term structured technology training for tractor and machinery operators for the sector,” he said.

The FCI has produced these guide figures on an annual basis by collating an average figure for each operation from a panel of FCI contractor members from across Ireland.

The actual guide charge may vary between regions, across soil types, distance travelled, size of contract undertaken, size and type of equipment used as well as the scale of the work done.

The FCI said that it is also aware that many contractors make individual arrangements with their client farmers regarding diesel.

As an increasing number of farmers are moving towards VAT registration, two figures are again given for each item, one including VAT and one excluding VAT.

The following is an abridged version of the guide (all prices include VAT at 13.5%):

Baling:
Cultivation:
Drilling/sowing:
Fertiliser application:
Spraying:
Combining:
Silage:
Slurry and muck spreading:
Forestry:

The Teagasc National Farm Survey for 2023 showed that the average amount spent on contractor services by Irish farmers increased to €7,340 per farm in 2023, up from €4,162 in 2015,

This data also indicated that in 2023, Irish farmers spent more than €950 million on agricultural contractors services.