Registered Farm Partnerships involve the coming together of two or more farmers to operate the farm business as a single entity. Partnerships have a number of benefits for participants. They improve scale and efficiency of agricultural production by encouraging the consolidation of blocks of land held and operated by farmers not within the same family.
They also encourage new skills and specialisation through the required enhanced educational qualifications of the partners and offer a better work-life balance. In addition, they contribute to improving the age structure of Irish agriculture as the creation of a Registered Farm Partnership often allows parents and children to commence the process of inter-generational farm transfer.
Currently, there are 3,362 active Registered Farm Partnerships (RFPs) with 1,441 of these having at least one female partner. Since 2016, 2,584 new RFPs have been established, of which 1,127 have a female partner.