The decline in the rural labour force could be as high as 5 per cent a year, according to a report on the future of agriculture.
Compiled by Prof Seamus Sheedy and Dr Deirdre O'Connor of UCD for the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the report predicted growing labour problems on Irish farms.
It said the signals were for a rapid decline in full-time farmers accompanied by an increase in part-time farming.
This acceleration of structural change would increase the rate of outflow of workers.
The report said: "The decline since 1980 was around 2.5 per cent per annum. Given the unprecedented intensity of push-pull forces on farm workers, the future rate of decline must be considerably more."
While it was not possible to objectively quantify what the future rate of decline would be, a doubling of the past rate of decline "will not be a surprise to the authors,"
The report said that land markets had also been affected by rapid economic growth. Land prices had risen sharply in recent years, by 59 per cent between 1995 and 1998, and seemed set to continue into the future.
The report said the outcome of the Agenda 2000 agreement had been favourable but the sector faced two more milestones ahead, enlargement of the EU and the World Trade Agreement.
It said while the threats from enlargement had receded, the outlook for the Millennium Round was not so comforting. The core issues to the EU will be a threat to export refunds and to coupling direct payments with current production.
The report said there were inherent conflicts in the objectives of structural policy; a desire to moderate the decline in farm numbers and at the same time promoting the competitiveness of the industry.
Future governments would have to decide whether public funds should be channelled to selected farmers or to all, the report said, and priority should be given to full-time farmers who were not viable but who had the human, physical and financial resources to expand and compete, the so-called "potentially viable farmers".
An IFA statement called on the Government to defend the Common Agricultural Policy and to ensure that farming remained an attractive option for young people.