THE ninth edition of the Irish Farmers Journal Land Price Report was published by the Irish Farmers Journal this week, reporting that the average price of land per acre decreased by 9.9% to €8,914 in 2015.

Speaking at the launch of the report on Wednesday, Editor Shirley Busteed said that the market has been trying to correct itself since 2009, when the price collapsed from €20,200/acre in 2007 to €10,200/acre. Last year was the sixth year in a row that the national average has failed to reach the €10,000/acre mark.

In addition, the report reveals that the supply of agricultural land also dropped in 2015, by 13.6% to 74,629 acres.

Speaking about the drop in price and national supply, Busteed said long-term leasing is having an effect on the supply of land coming to the market. “A long-term lease is a way of tying up land for a number of years that might otherwise have come to the market.

“There is a huge demand for leasing land and the tax incentives make it attractive for the land owners. Some may have been on the verge of selling and decided to lease instead and maybe this had an impact on the supply last year,” she said. The report also indicates a return of the non-farming buyer and a surge in equestrian buyers, who are looking for large stud farms and estates that are well located and possess character and potential. There were a number of farms bought by stud farm owners in 2015, with prices varying from between €10,000/acre to over €20,000/acre, indicating that the equine buyer is willing to pay top dollar when pushed.

Land in Co Kildare made the highest price in 2015, securing an average of €13,886/acre, while Dublin suffered a major drop in price to €13,736/acre, a decrease greater than €8,000/acre. Leitrim offered the cheapest agricultural land, averaging at €4,869, with the west of the country, in general, falling behind the other provinces considerably.