There has been a dramatic fall in the number of people working full-time on the land, while 28,600 farmers have left farming in the nine years to 2000.
Central Statistics Office figures published last week showed that, during the nine-year period, there was an overall decrease of 55,000 in the number of persons working full-time on the land, which represents a 17.5 per cent drop.
Of this figure, more than 10,000 were aged 55 years or more.
The CSO figures indicate that in 2000, there were 141,500 farms in the State, compared to 170,600 in 1991.
The decrease represents a 17 per cent drop.
In 2000, there were 257,900 people working on farms, compared to 312,700 in 1991, representing a 17.5 per cent drop.
The figures show that the number of farmers had dropped from 169,900 in 1991 to 141,300 in 2000, a drop of nearly 17 per cent
However, the greatest decline over the period was in the number of persons who worked one annual work unit - the equivalent of 1,800 hours - on the land.
The 1991 census showed there were 181,600 such people working on farms but this dropped to 107,500 in the year 2000, a percentage drop of nearly 41 per cent.
The statistics also showed a growing trend towards part-time farming which evolved in the last decade.
These showed that the number of people working less than a quarter of an annual work unit on a farm increased from 28,500 to 59,000 over the nine-year period.
The increasing size of the average Irish farm was also examined in the survey.
The average increased from 26 hectares in 1991 to 31.4 hectares in 2000, marking a 20.8 per cent increase.
The number of farms of more than 30 hectares increased, while the number of holdings at five hectares or less deceased by 39 per cent.
The number of farms of between five and 10 hectares dropped by 30.7 per cent, while the total of those between 10 and 20 hectares fell by 29 per cent. Farms of between 20 and 30 hectares fell by 19.1 per cent.
There was, however, a 24.4 per cent increase in the number of farms covering between 50 and 100 hectares, and an 18 per cent increase in farms of over 100 hectares.
The male domination of farming has continued in the last decade with 126,200 of farms owned by males and only 15,100 farms in the ownership of females in 2000.