A new study of rural households has shown a 30 per cent drop in real farm income in a decade, and a further decline in agricultural activity.
Many farmers remaining on the land are earning less than €10,000 a year, according to Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority, which undertook the 18-month study of five rural communities.
The five areas examined in Galway were Clarenbridge (peri-urban), Gorumna, Connemara (remote), Lawrencetown (good farmland), Glinsk (average farmland) and Woodford (forestry).
The study was undertaken with assistance from Údarás na Gaeltachta, Galway Rural Development Company, Galway County Council and the partnership group, Cumas. It found that policies linked to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) were unable to stimulate and support rural development.
The study found that one in four farmers had part-time alternative employment in 1991, but this had risen to four in every five farming families.
Over half of Galway's 300,000 farmers earned less than €10,000 annually. Up to one-third of households were either elderly living alone or retired. About one in four people in Lawrencetown commuted over 50 miles to work.
Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív said the challenge for Government was to ensure that most people who wanted to remain in their communities could do so.
