Bord Bia is “in discussions” with Irish organic certification bodies and is looking at opportunities to make the process of completing both the organic certification and Bord Bia audits as “efficient as possible”.
That’s according to the senior manager of the meat and livestock team at Bord Bia, Joe Burke, who was responding to a question from the crowd at a recent farmer meeting.
A farmer in the crowd at the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) regional meeting which took place in Cootehill, Co. Cavan, on Monday evening (September 23), outlined that he is “an in conversion organic lamb producer” and the farmer said he is “surprised that Bord Bia can’t do an organic inspection“.
The farmer noted that he is thankful to Bord Bia, which completes his inspection for free, and noted that he has to spend €700 to complete his organic certification audit and asked the Bord Bia representative at the meeting for a comment.
Responding to the farmer, the Irish food board’s senior manager of the meat and livestock team said: “We are in discussions with the organic sector.
“My colleague Emmet Doyle, who is our sector manager for organics, has raised this and is in discussions, and indeed our quality assurance team are looking to advance that conversation.”
Burke noted that there are currently two organic certification bodies that carry out inspections and acknowledged that there is a cost to completing these inspections but highlighted that there is a support payment available for organic producers to “hopefully offset some of that cost”.
He continued: “Certainly, we are keen to explore opportunities for efficiencies where organic farmers won’t have to do two audits if we can partner together.
“Many of the same factors are included within both audits and just make the process as straightforward and as streamlined and as efficient as possible [for organic farmers].”