There is a particular pride in a farm worked by the same pair of hands for fifty years. It shows in knowing which cow will kick and which gate sticks in wet weather. It also shows in a reluctance to sit in a GP’s waiting room on a fine day when there is work to be done. Ireland’s farming population is ageing, and the health consequences are no longer a side issue.
TL;DR
- 37.8% of Irish farm holders, over 50,000 people, are aged 65 or over; the mean age is 59.4 (CSO Farm Structure Survey 2023).
- Agriculture accounted for 23 deaths in 2025, roughly 40% of all Irish work-related fatalities.
- The HSA reported almost 70% of 2025 farm fatalities involved people aged 65 or over, against a 53% average for 2015 to 2024.
- Farmers Have Hearts screening found 43.8% had high blood pressure, 62.6% raised cholesterol and 29.4% elevated blood glucose.
- Supports exist: TAMS 3 farm safety grants at 60%, the €5,000 Succession Farm Partnership credit, the Fair Deal three-year cap, On Feirm Ground and Embrace FARM.
Ireland’s farms are worked by older hands
The CSO’s Farm Structure Survey 2023 put the mean age of Irish farm holders at 59.4 years, with more than 50,000 aged 65 or over. Only about 6,000, roughly 4.3%, are under 35. The over-65 share has climbed steadily: 30% in 2016, 33% in 2020, nearly 38% by 2023.
This is not a decline story. Farmers in their 60s, 70s and 80s carry decades of judgement about land, weather and animals that no app replicates. But farming is the only occupation most people continue into their eighties without any formal review of whether the tasks still suit the body doing them. That gap is where the harm happens.
Why the safety figures land hardest after 65
In 2025 agriculture recorded 23 deaths, around 40% of all work-related fatalities in Ireland, from a sector employing a small fraction of the workforce. That September the HSA reported that almost 70% of farm deaths to that point involved people aged 65 or over, well above the 53% average across 2015 to 2024.
The causes are stubbornly consistent: vehicles and machinery, livestock handling, and falls from height. These hit older farmers disproportionately not through carelessness but through the ordinary arithmetic of ageing. Reaction times lengthen, grip strength and balance decline, hearing loss makes it harder to notice a tractor reversing, and reduced night vision makes a yard at six on a November morning a different place than it was twenty years ago. Each of those changes is manageable if you name it, and unmanageable if you pretend it is not happening.
The Farm Safety Partnership Advisory Committee’s Farm Safety Action Plan 2025 to 2027, launched in July 2025, names farmers over 65 as a priority group, moving them from an afterthought to a design consideration.
The health check that keeps getting postponed
The Farmers Have Hearts programme, run by the Irish Heart Foundation with Teagasc, the National Centre for Men’s Health and the HSE, brought cardiovascular screening to marts rather than waiting for farmers to reach a clinic. Among 868 male farmers screened, 43.8% had high blood pressure, 62.6% raised total cholesterol and 29.4% elevated blood glucose.
None of those conditions announce themselves. High blood pressure has no symptoms until it causes a stroke; raised blood glucose has none until it is type 2 diabetes. They show up at this rate partly through diet and partly because a working farm has no natural pause in which to attend an appointment. If you are over 40 with a medical card or GP visit card, the HSE’s Chronic Disease Management Programme entitles you to structured reviews at no cost.
Minding the head as well as the herd
Isolation on a farm is different from isolation in a housing estate. You can be surrounded by work, animals and a landscape you love and still go three days without a proper conversation. Add price volatility, weather, inspections and the loneliness of being the last generation on a holding, and the risk is real.
On Feirm Ground, launched in 2020 by Teagasc with the Men’s Development Network, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and the HSE, takes an unusually sensible approach: rather than asking farmers to seek help, it trains the people farmers already talk to. Advisors, co-op staff, vets and mart personnel learn to spot when something is wrong and how to signpost supports. It works because the conversation happens at a gate, not in a consulting room.
For families dealing with the aftermath of an accident or a sudden death, Embrace FARM offers peer-to-peer bereavement support, counselling weekends and survivor groups, plus an annual remembrance service in Abbeyleix each June (085 770 9966).
Grants that pay for the safer option
Cost is a genuine barrier, and there is money on the table. The Farm Safety Capital Investment Scheme under TAMS 3 is grant-aided at 60%, with a minimum investment of €2,000 and a ceiling of €90,000 per holding. It covers what reduces risk for someone working alone at 70: better cattle handling facilities and crushes, safer access, replacement PTO guards and improved yard lighting.
Succession is a health decision, not only a tax one
The Succession Farm Partnership scheme, administered by Teagasc, offers a €5,000 annual tax credit for up to five years where a farmer forms a registered partnership with a successor under 40 holding an appropriate agricultural qualification. At least 80% of farm assets must transfer within three to ten years, and the credit can be set against off-farm income.
The Nursing Homes Support Scheme (Amendment) Act 2021, commenced in October 2021, closed a long-standing unfairness in Fair Deal. Farm and business assets are now capped at three years of contributions, in line with the family home, provided a family successor is appointed and commits to working the asset for at least six years. Before this a farm could be assessed at 7.5% a year indefinitely, forcing some families to sell land to fund care. Conditions apply, so take legal advice.
Both schemes reward planning done in good health. Neither works as an emergency measure after a diagnosis.
A short, honest checklist
- Book the health check. Blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose, in one appointment.
- Test your hearing and eyes. Both affect safety in the yard, not just comfort at the television.
- Stop doing two jobs alone. Working at height and handling stock are the tasks most worth outsourcing after 65, and a text saying which field you are in costs nothing.
- Reassess the yard. Lighting, gate latches, non-slip surfaces and a proper crush pay for themselves in one avoided fall.
- Start the succession conversation. Awkward at the kitchen table beats impossible in a hospital corridor.
Where to get help
Teagasc advisors handle TAMS applications and succession partnerships. Citizens Information covers Fair Deal, Farm Assist and the Rural Social Scheme. Your GP practice is the entry point for the Chronic Disease Management Programme. Embrace FARM and the Samaritans on 116 123 are there when the difficulty is not physical.
At Críonna Health we write about ageing well in an Irish context, and farming is where that question gets asked most bluntly. The goal is not to get anyone off the land. It is to make sure the person who has worked it for fifty years enjoys the next ten.
📷 Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
