THE VALUE OF Irish agricultural land fell has fallen dramatically in the past four years with prices down by over 14 per cent in the past year alone according to a study released today.

The Irish Farmers Journal has published a 32 county Agricultural Land Price report in which it details land prices in each county.

It found that the average price per acre of land in 2010 was €8,741, down almost 14.5 per cent from 2009 which itself had seen a 35 per cent drop from 2008.

Responding to the report’s findings, Shirley Busteed, property editor with the Irish Farmer’s Journal and author of the report, told TheJournal.ie:

The national average for land has, for the first time in eight or nine years, fallen bellow €10,000 per acre.
The average price in 2009 dropped by 35 per cent compared to 14.5 per cent this year.

The decline is actually slowing down so maybe things are levelling off.

The report also found that 41,339 acres of land were offered for sale last year, which is again down 7.2 per cent on the previous year.

It found that land was cheapest in Roscommon where an acre cost on average €5,545 in comparison to the most expensive which was Dublin. The capital was well above the national average with land costing on average €13,233 per acre.

In Offaly, land prices fell by 42.6 per cent in 2010, the biggest drop in the country. It  was one of 22 counties to experience a fall in land prices in the last year.

Prices were up in Co Carlow but that followed a 40 per cent drop in 2009.

Busteed added that while the figures were good for farmers frozen out of buying land during the booms years the biggest barrier for farmers wanting to buy land was access to funding.