The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released the results of the 2023 Farm Structure Survey, which provides an insight into farm size across the country, according to data collected last year.

The wide-ranging survey - which includes data on farm demographics, land utilisation, and output, among many other areas - is carried out in years ending in three or six, with results published the following year.

The data on farm size is based on utilised agricultural area (UAA), and shows that Co. Wicklow had the largest average farm size in 2023, at 51.5ha. It is the only county to have had an average farm size in excess of 50ha.

Farms in Co. Monaghan were the smallest, reporting an average farm size of 22.4ha.

The data shows that nationwide, the average farm size in 2023 was 34.7ha. The total number of farms was 133,174.

The data also groups these farms together in different bands of farm size, as follows:

The data is presented according to the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), which is an EU-wide system for geographically breaking down statistics across a country.

This system groups Irish counties together in national divisions, followed by sub-divisions, as follows:

Northern and Western:
Southern:
Eastern and Midlands:

In the NUTS system Dublin is technically considered a sub-division above the county level, but for the purposes of the Farm Structure Survey is considered a county under the Mid-East sub-division.

Delving into the data on a regional basis, in the Northern and Western region, farms in Donegal were the largest on average, at 32.1ha, while, Monaghan farms were the smallest not just in this region but nationwide, at 22.4ha.

The below table shows the average farm size, and number of farms by size, in each county in the region:

Looking at the southern region, the farms tended to be larger than in the Northern and Western region. Here, Co. Waterford had the largest farms, at 49.6ha on average, with counties Tipperary, Kilkenny, Wexford, and Kerry also seeing average farm sizes in excess of 40ha.

In the same region, Co. Clare recorded the smallest farm size, at 31.5ha. Notably though, the average farm size in Co. Clare was larger than any county in the Northern and Western region with the exception of Donegal.

Moving on to the Eastern and Midland region, the county with the largest farm size in the region and nationwide was Co. Wicklow, at 51.5ha on average.

Dublin had the second-largest farm size in the region, at 46.8ha (and had the fewest number of farms of any county, at 680). Counties Kildare and Meath also saw farm sizes above 40ha.

The county in this region with the smallest farms on average was Longford, at 23.1ha, the only farm in the region with an average farm size below 30ha.

In terms of farm type, over half of all farms were classified as specialist beef production (56.1%). Specialist sheep (13.1%) and specialist dairying (11.4%) were the next highest categories.

Almost two thirds (65%) of specialist sheep farms were in the Northern and Western region, while more than two thirds (71%) of specialist dairy farms were in the Southern region.

Around six in 10 specialist tillage farms were split across the South-East and Mid-East (including Dublin) statistical regions.

Specialist dairy farms were the largest type of farm in 2023, with an average size of 70.2ha. These farms also had the highest proportion of farms that were over 100ha, with 17.3% of them exceeding that size.

More than 40% of farms were over 50ha in the following types: specialist dairy; mixed crops and livestock; and specialist tillage.

Farms in the mixed field crops category had the smallest areas on average (except for farms included in the 'other' category), at 17.1ha.