By the year 2015 there will be 105,000 farmers in the State but only 10,000 of these will be full- time and viable, according to a report on the agri-sector.
This represents a 50 per cent drop on the current number of viable farms, it says.
The AgriVision 2015 Committee report, published yesterday, says it expected that a total of 30,000 of the farms would be viable if there was off-farm income on 20,000 of them.
It said it expected 37,000 would be non-viable part-time farms and a further 38,000 would be in transition.
The report outlines a vision of a market-led agricultural sector, supported by research and development (R&D) and integrated into a national development plan and a rural landscape.
Set up under the chairmanship of Mr Alan Dukes to upgrade the 2010 report, which did not take into account the recent CAP reforms, new world trade trends and globalisation, the 2015 report predicts major changes in the sector.
Mr Dukes says the changes in farming would have to be reflected in attitudes towards rural development as the importance of farming declined.
"Over the next 10 years agriculture will no longer be the primary driver of rural development in Ireland. In this context, the committee is strongly of the view that Ireland's rural development policy agenda must be integrated into the wider regional planning and development policy frameworks," the report says.
It says that despite the decline in the relative importance of agriculture, when expressed as a share of national income, some 40 per cent of the population currently lives in rural areas.
The report looks at the "public goods" role in agriculture. It says people must realise there is more to agriculture than the production of agricultural goods.
Agriculture also produced public goods such as the rural landscape. The multifunctional role of agriculture as a provider of rural landscape, cultural features, heritage features and bio-diversity all had to be looked at and would, in future, provide an increasingly important justification for the public support of agricultural incomes.
The committee has recommended that Comhairle na Tuaithe develop a countryside code and national countryside recreation strategy to resolve any future difficulties in relation to access to the countryside.
It says Government policy has increasingly acknowledged the key role education, R&D and innovation play in maintaining the State's competitiveness.
The agriculture and food industries will remain important to the economy over the next 10 years and the competitive potential of these industries depends on their ability to develop as knowledge-based industries.
Mr Dukes said the most important recommendation was that the sector be linked to the market. The committee had also expressed the opinion that there were problems with over regulation of the sector compared to competitors.
He added that it was important that the food industry was totally aware of the needs of the market and that was the key message in the committee's report.
The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Ms Coughlan, said she favoured most of the recommendations she had read in the report and would give a considered view soon.