The Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) Pippa Hackett expects around 1,000 more farmers to join the Organic Farming Scheme (OFS) this year.
There are now over 5,000 organic farmers in Ireland, with around 5% of land (225,000ha) in the country being farmed organically.
“We took in over 1,000 farmers for this year again, and I think that’s a sustainable number to be roughly taking in every year,” the minister said.
The OFS is expected to reopen again for applications around October, although no date has yet been confirmed.
Minister Hackett was speaking as part of a series this week on Agriland, in collaboration with the department of agriculture, focused on the organic sector.
The Organics Series running this week on Agriland includes interviews, a farm visit and a panel discussion in the Agriland studio. For more click here.
Organic farmers
Minister Hackett believes that Ireland is currently “on track” to meet the target set in the Climate Action Plan to achieve 10% organic land area by 2030.
The government enhanced the budget for organics to €256 million in Ireland’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan, with increased payments on offer for farmers.
“I think we’re going to see more farmers interested in it as more come in. I just think that will snowball somewhat but absolutely I think we’ll certainly meet that target. There’s beyond 2030 as well, the EU’s target is 25% by 2030.
“We’re coming off a pretty low base but we’ve a great opportunity to do it. We’ve got the climate, we’ve got the growing conditions.
“Organic farmers will contribute to our overall reduction in emissions, overall water quality ambitions and in terms of supporting biodiversity above and below ground,” she said.
The minister believes that the trepidation felt by farmers about converting to organic is “going away now”.
“I think people are more comfortable with it. When you see the number of farm walks that are available now for farmers compared to what was there three or four years ago. It’s been transformed in terms of the access to information,” she said.
Hackett, who recently attended the BIOFACH trade fair in Germany with Bord Bia, said there has been a “big shift in focus and direction” across government and state agencies when it comes to organics, which is also helping to give farmers confidence in the sector.
“There is that sense that it’s a big change, but there are many farmers who are very close to almost being organic in terms of the techniques and the level of inputs, but you still need to think about how you’re going to farm.
“You don’t have that reliance of throwing the bag of fertiliser out in spring when things aren’t going well. So you do have to be thinking a bit further ahead.
“I think, on the whole, the vast majority of farmers who do go that route, especially when you speak to them after a couple of years, they very much feel it’s been a very good decision for them, not only for themselves, but for their farm as well,” she said.
Feed demand
Earlier this week, Minister Hackett announced that around 60,000t of organic feed is needed to meet requirements for next winter 2024/2025.
The announcement was based on the findings of a feed survey in which 912 organic farmers participated, which is around a quarter of the farmers in organics before the 2024 intake.
The survey shows that the overall demand for organic concentrates is estimated to be around 33,000t.
Demand could be in the region of 20,000t for straights, 6,000t for protein crops (such as a pea/barley mix), and for 50,000 bales of fodder.
Minister Hackett said that not all of that feed is available in the country and imports will be required to make up the shortfall.
The increased cost of such feed is also posing a challenge to farmers.
“We already are relying largely a lot of imports for our organic feed. We rely on imports for non-organic feed as well. We’re not sustainable across the board.
“There’s a growing demand clearly for organic feed, I think that is an opportunity there for growers to fill the gap,” the minister continued.
“In the meantime, until we’re self sufficient we will be probably relying on imported feed, but there is an opportunity there now to displace some of those imports with Irish-grown feed.
“This is a signal now as to what the demand is, what the need is, and maybe this is something that Irish growers could shift towards to increase the area of organic tillage out there, and maybe even increase the overall tillage area if we got more growers in the market,” she added.
However, Minister Hackett admitted that the contraction in the tillage area is “a concern across the board”.
“There is a lot of pressure now on land use; it’s fair to say largely coming from the dairy sector. They need access to more land, especially with the change in derogation and that is a challenge.
“I think the opportunity here is for conventional tillage farmers to consider going organic. They can do partial organic conversion of a particular crop.
“It might be an opportunity for them to maybe start exploring that… get that premium. The yields go down but you do get a premium payment.
“Once you’ve planted, as they say, you’re shutting the gate, and you’re not really going back in there until you’re harvesting so there’s a different way, a different approach in terms of growing organic grain too that might be enticing for some growers,” she said.
The minister noted that one part of the jigsaw which is missing is a larger organic mill to process Irish grain as the demand for organic feed increases.
“There are organic processing grants available to processors some of those might be able to support the establishment of a mill.
“There are mills out there, people with small and big ones, so there’s an opportunity there for existing mills to consider this,” she said.
The minister said that the Organic Trading Hub, launched last year by DAFM, is still small, but is “there to be populated”.
She said the hub for trading livestock and feed provides the opportunity for organic farmers to build relationships with each other.