Farmers count cost of summer drought

Podcast Ep 371: Irish farmers count the cost of the 2026 drought as Bank of Ireland’s Susan Maher discusses winter fodder, finances, investment and farm debt.

For farmers across the southeast and the midlands, the summer of 2026 will be remembered for brown fields. Grass stopped growing, cattle were housed months ahead of schedule and silage meant for the winter was fed out in July and August.

Susan Maher, an agri development manager with Bank of Ireland who covers both regions, spoke to the ThinkBusiness Podcast at the National Ploughing Championships about the drought and the winter ahead.

“Where we would have had green fields in the summer, we had brown fields,” she said. “There were scenes of farmers buffer feeding their cows around the perimeter of the field because there wasn’t enough grass there, they were eating into their winter stocks of silage, and they were feeding full winter diets in the summer when cows should have been out grazing.”

Slurry tanks filled early with cattle indoors. “It had a huge physical toll on farmers because they were an awful lot busier,” Maher said. “It had a psychological and a mental toll.”

“The temperatures have been really good for grass growth,” she said. “There’s positivity out there, and farmers are feeling a little bit more hopeful, and they’re now starting to count the cost.”

Two stocktakes before winter

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Maher said farmers need two stocktakes before winter. The first is fodder. Citing Teagasc advice, she said “farmers should have between four and a half and five months silage in the pit to get them through the winter months.”

The second is financial, starting with what is owed to merchants and co-ops for summer feed. “Costs have mounted, and those costs now have to be paid,” she said. “So we’re telling farmers they need to do a financial stocktake and they need to do a fodder stocktake.”

Bank of Ireland launched a cash flow working capital support loan during Ploughing week to help farmers cover the gap. “It’s cost effective; it’s at 4.88%,” Maher said. “We have the money to lend. We want to support farmers. We’re telling them to engage early and come into us, be bank-ready, have their financial accounts.”

Low debt leaves room to invest

Farmers are also spending on technology. “A lot of farmers are investing in technologies that will make their farms more labour efficient because labour is a huge challenge on farms,” she said.

AI was on show at the Bank of Ireland stand. “Google Gemini as a tool is there to help farmers make quicker and better decisions on their farm, and maybe take some of the hard work and the slog out of it,” she said.

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The sector can afford it. “We’ve the lowest debt on Irish farms in 25 years, so they’re really well positioned, and they’re very well positioned relative to their counterparts across Europe,” Maher said.

“Yes this is a bad year, but it’s coming off the back of a very good year in 2025. So it’s very cyclical in nature, and farmers are used to that,” she said. “They have quite short memories as well, and they’re quite optimistic, as are we.”

Building for unpredictable weather

A few years ago the problem was rain. This year it was sun. “Our farm system in Ireland has adapted for a very regular weather pattern, and it’s no longer that regular. It’s now unpredictable,” she said.

Slurry storage is high on the list. “Fertiliser is one of the biggest costs on most farms, and being able to make really good use of your slurry helps to reduce that cost of chemical fertiliser,” she said.

Grazing infrastructure, reseeding, soil fertility and herd genetics are also drawing investment. “There’s huge gains been made, and farmers are seeing the benefits of those gains as well in their breeding programmes,” Maher said.

Right actions

After milk quotas ended, the bank’s focus was funding expansion. “Now we’re in a period where sustainability is really a farmer’s licence to operate,” she said.

The Bank’s Enviroflex scheme offers farmers a sustainability-linked interest rate for taking steps that lower their carbon footprint. It began as a partnership with the co-ops and now includes Aberdeen Angus and, on the tillage side, Irish Distillers and Boortmalt.

“It’s rewarding farmers for doing the right actions on farm, which the vast majority of farmers are doing anyway,” Maher said. “They can use that money to invest in slurry storage, in additional cubicles, in infrastructure that will support their farm.”