FARMERS in disadvantaged areas should adopt alternative farm enterprises, according to a Teagasc researcher.
The most suitable alternative enterprises for such farmers, he wrote, are forestry on marginal land and intensive crops such as seed potatoes; tree nurseries and soft fruit.
Mr Tony Leavy, of Teagasc's rural economy unit, writes in the current edition of Farm and Food magazine that about 10 per cent of farmers in disadvantaged areas introduced at least one alternative enterprise since the 1980s.
Mr Leavy is co author of a recent study on the future of western farms, carried out for Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority.
Entitled "Farm Diversification - studies relating to the West of Ireland", it found that the farms are small and getting smaller, efficiency is low and there is no access to off farm employment.
Three quarters of farmers in the disadvantaged areas of the west utilise only one third of their available labour, have an average stocking rate of only one livestock unit per hectare, and are involved in extensive enterprises, mainly cattle and sheep.