The continuing bad weather has led to a dramatic drop in the winter cereal crop, which is expected to be down 50 per cent on last year.
Because land has been waterlogged many farmers were unable to plough. Some abandoned the idea of planting winter barley altogether; others who held off now find it too late to plant.
And while winter wheat can be planted until the end of January, it is thought that many farmers will still have difficulties getting onto their land to work it.
Dr Jim O'Mahoney, an expert in tillage working with Teagasc, the farm advisory service, has said some winter tillage farmers were unhappy with the yields from last year and that had contributed to the decline.
"I expect two things to happen. There will be a huge increase in the EU set-aside scheme this year and I also expect that there will be an increase in the acreage of spring cereal crops being planted," he said.
Some of the 500 tillage farmers attending the conference in the Dolman Hotel, Carlow last week said they were having great difficulty removing potatoes from the ground.
Some of them said they would have to leave their crop in the ground until much later and this would create a scarcity of good Irish potatoes.
The conference was told by Dr Paul Kelly, a Teagasc economist, that the EU's Agenda 2000 proposals to reform the Common Agricultural Policy, if fully implemented, could cost tillage farmers between 4 and 11 per cent of income next year.
Dr Kelly predicted that the gap in profitability between winter wheat and spring barley would be narrowed substantially and this would reinforce the change to spring crops. He also predicted a fall of up to 17 per cent in tillage conacre (land rental) price.