While there has been a huge flight from the land here since 1972, primary agriculture remains more important to Ireland than most other EU member-states.
For instance, the agrifood sector accounts for 8.5 per cent GDP, 9 per cent of employment and 8.3 per cent of Irish exports.
Because of the relatively low import content of the industry, the agrifood sector accounts for approximately one-fifth of our total net foreign earnings from the trade of merchandise.
The industry is based on the output from the 136,000 farms where there are over seven million cattle and over seven million sheep.In the past five years there has been a steady decline in the number of farmers leaving the land, an estimated 2 per cent per annum, and this is expected to increase after the reform package.
Economists are worried that while there is a 2 per cent overall decline in farm numbers, there was a drop of up to 7 per cent in farmers leaving viable farms.The most recent estimate of how many people will be left on Irish farms in the year 2015 was published last week.
The "AgriVision 2015" report suggested there will only be 105,000 farms in that year and that only 30,000 of these will be viable and 75 per cent of these will be worked by part-time farmers, leaving a 10,000 core of full-time farmers. One farm organisation has rejected this scenario on the basis that it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.