More than 40 per cent of Dublin's 1,450 farmers have been the victims of vandalism in the past five years, and six of them have had to pay as much as £10,000 to repair the damage, a report shows.
The Future of Farming in Rural Dublin, published last night, found that a further 40 per cent of the farmers had been affected by trespassers on their land, unwanted visitors who left gates open, allowing animals to wander, crops being trampled and stress caused to animals.
But, like other Dubliners, the greatest complaint from farmers was that traffic has restricted the mobility required for day-to-day operations.
Compiled by the Rural Development Unit at UCD for the Rural Dublin LEADER Company and the Dublin executive committee of the IFA, the report found that Dublin's farmers had strong allies in the non-farming community in rural areas.
The researchers found that other rural dwellers in Dublin saw farming as having a role in slowing urbanisation and in the preservation and conservation of the environment.
A total of 77 per cent of non-farmers surveyed felt farmers should be supported to enable them to continue farming and 53 per cent of those felt current levels of support were "about right".
The report found there were 1,511 farm holdings in the region, and 123,555 acres were being farmed. The emphasis was on tillage and market gardening.
Fingal, in north Co Dublin, accounted for 33 per cent of land in the State devoted to vegetables and 20 per cent to fruit.
In Dublin, tillage was concentrated predominantly in Fingal and in the south-west of the county. The average farm size was 82 acres compared to the national average of 64 acres.
The survey found that farmers in Dublin were generally well educated and trained but with an increasing age profile. Most of them expected future farm incomes to fall.
However, of the farmers surveyed most had not identified a successor, and of those who had not, a third were over 50. Those who had identified a successor predicted the farm would provide only part-time employment.
In all, 42 per cent of the farmers surveyed were hiring labour, and on the 150 farms surveyed 69 full-time and 249 part-time workers were employed, mainly in the market-gardening sector.
As in other areas, 70 per cent of those surveyed had adequate labour on their farms at the time of the survey but 84 per cent reported difficulties acquiring additional hired labour when it was needed.
In its recommendations the report said the lack of land availability which is constraining the development of farms is directly related to urbanisation.
"It is difficult to slow down the process of urbanisation as it is essentially market-driven, but if farmers and other rural dwellers work together, they can have a stronger voice and a greater say in the direction this urbanisation takes," it said.