The Minister for State for land use and biodiversity has ruled out an eleventh hour extension to the applications deadline for the new Organic Farming Scheme (OFS) because “over 1,000” farmers have applied.
The Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) Pippa Hackett told Agriland that she is happy with the response to the scheme from farmers and expects numbers to rise further before the deadline expires tomorrow (Friday, December 9).
“It is important that whatever we take in now we’re able to deliver for those farmers on the ground over the next couple of years.
“This is the first year of this scheme and we have another four years after this and I think it has been very positively responded to. I have been contacted by farmers who are excited about the prospect of going organic – this is a very good start,” the minister said.
Minister Hackett believes farmers are “engaged and informed” about what organic farming entails.
She told Agriland that some farmers have raised concerns about the market but that DAFM is working well with Bord Bia, who has just appointed Emmet Doyle as the first Bord Bia organic sector manager.
The minister said there was a good foundation in place to further strength organic farming in Ireland in 2023.
In June DAFM said that 1,734 organic farmers were participating in the OFS and annual payments under the scheme were approximately €11 million. According to the department a further 380 farmers had also applied to participate in the OFS last Spring.
“We’ve got off to a great start over the last two years as well, we took in about 700 farmers over that and we’re going to be over 1,000 again,” the minister told Agriland, she added:
“It has almost doubled the number of farmers in organics in two years. We have a way to go to get to our target of 7.5% of land farmed organically, but we will get there and I think the interest could go further.”
The government has set a target of more than tripling the organic land area by 2027 to approximately 330,000 hectares.
The new OFS first opened to applications from October 20, with the key objective of the scheme to “provide financial support to farmers to encourage production of organic foods.”
A total budget of €256 million has been earmarked for the OFS during the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which runs from January 1, 2023 to 2027.