National Organic Training Skillnet (NOTS) is planning to launch an organic and biological Green Cert programme in 2025.
NOTS already provide a wide variety of courses up to Masters level to farmers, growers, processors, food businesses, agricultural professionals, and consultants across the agricultural sector.
The organisation, funded by Skillnet Ireland and overseen by a board group of organic farmers, is tasked with providing training in organic, biological and regenerative farming.
The new programme was discussed as part of BioFarm 2024 – Ireland’s Biological Farming Conference – in Adare, Co. Limerick yesterday (Tuesday, November 6)
Sean McGloin, network manager with National Organic Training Skillnet, told Agriland that 3,000 farmers have joined the Organic Farming Scheme (OFS) in recent years and all of those have had to undertake some form of training.
He noted that “climate mitigation” has also resulted in conventional farmers availing of NOTS training courses particularly around improving soil health.
McGloin said that those attending BioFarm 2024 were 60% organic and 40% conventional farmers.
“Training has to be an entry level in, it has to be this flexible space that all is welcome and you can make a decision if organic suits you or not and that’s often done through training programmes,” he said.
There is currently a membership of around 8,000 in NOTS, including farmers, growers and food businesses.
McGloin explained that the development of a new Green Cert is now several years in the making.
“What we’ve talked about for the last 10 years is the need to have a farmer-led programme that reflects organic farming principles or soil health principles.
“We started this about three years ago, based on our membership demand,” he said.
“We’re almost there. I’d like to be able to say, while it is not definite, that we’ll be launching the first organic and biological Green Cert in the spring of 2025, that is my target at the moment and we’ve invested an awful lot of time on this one,” McGloin said.
The progress on the new programme, which is due to be submitted to Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) for validation later this month, was reviewed during BioFarm 2024.
McGloin confirmed that the new organic and biological Green Cert will have similar tax benefits to the conventional course.
“It looks very different from a training perspective, but it’s the very same award you get if you do the conventional Green Cert, but we’re doing this through a soil health, organic and biological framework,” he said.