Based on current birth rates, only 2,000 farmers' children aged from 16 to 20 by the year 2013 will be available to go into farming, a conference on the future of young farmers has been told. Dr David O'Connor, head of training at Teagasc, the farm and food development service, said that because in Ireland it was more normal for males to inherit farms, this left a core of inheritors of no more than 1,000 males.
Dr O'Connor said the number of people going into farming was declining at an enormous rate, and Teagasc was devising new training programmes to meet the future.
He said that last year Teagasc had offered 50 dairying diploma courses in two agricultural colleges. There were 40 applicants last year but only 30 this year.
There had been an 18 per cent decline in the number of students seeking agricultural training last year.
The level of education in farming was much lower than in the rest of the community. Dr O'Connor said Teagasc would be offering courses in the CAO system because it was through that system most people made their career choices.
The president of Macra na Feirme, Mr T.J. Maher, said farming was no longer the "sexy" occupation it once was. People had a perception of farmers as backward and negative.
"I believe it is time for all of us, as young farmers, to hold our heads up and be more positive about the future."
Mr Liam Moyles, of the Farm Apprenticeship Board, said there was a future for young farmers if they were given access to land and were allowed to farm it productively.