Why such a slow rate of conversion to organic?

While organic farming has grown in popularity, the rate of growth has been slow. Why is this?

First, the figures themselves. Up until 2000, growth rates were fast. Then, a shock to beef and sheep exports froze the sector's growth until about 2005. From 2005 until today, there has been a faster rate of growth.

To put specific figures on this: in 1993, there were 283 holdings, with about 5,500 hectares of land.

This rose significantly year on year, with strong state supports, so that by 2000, there were 907.

However from 2000 to 2004 the numbers stagnated, fluctuating by small amounts year on year.

(image: an old IOFGA logo, c. 1989)

Growth since about 2005 has however been stronger. While the rate of increase has been small, the trend has at least been upwards each year since 2005.

The most recent 2008 figures claim 1450 operators, with 44,751 hectares: up c.9,500 hectares from 2005.

This trend is likely to continue from January to May 15th next year, when the window to convert to organic opens again.

However, encouraging and all as these figures are, they still represent a slow rate of growth, especially with the aim for 5% land area organic by 2012.

So why is the rate of growth so slow? One reason suggested by commentators is the conservatism of the farming community. Organic farming has been seen as an imported and urban or consumer-led phenomenon. These elements do not sit well with conservatism.

Also, farming is an isolated job; organic farming can seem doubly so, as by going organic, you are likely to be somewhat out of kilter with your neighbours.

The farming community has become very skeptical of official advice. Advice on farming has changed over the years, and this has cost farmers time and money.

Likewise, previously stable elements of the overall farming package, from FEPS to REPS, have been fundamentally altered. This has made planning difficult, change financially risky and trust of officialdom weak.

In this unstable context, advice to convert to organic farming will also inevitably be taken with a grain of salt.

That said, the new programme for government commitments to organic farming are strong. And while growth rates for organic food sales in Ireland are strong too, farmers I have spoken to fear the effects of recession on consumer priorities.

The overall effect of these positive and negative elements may be for more of the same: relatively steady but small growth rates for organic farming.

There are other slightly deeper reasons for slow growth rates.

Some question the need for organic farming at all. Southern Ireland never had an industrial revolution, whereas mainland Europe has had 300 years of one. Irish cattle and sheep eat a mainly grass based diet and Irish family farms are quite small even compared to Northern Ireland's. We are, to some extent, seen as a clean green island off the north west coast of Europe.

Of course, this is equally an argument for us to 'go the whole hog' as it were, sign up to organic and add to this clean green image. And while this happens to some extent, as seen in growth rates, this option is tempered by the conservatism outlined earlier.

Experts who study the dynamics between farming sectors have mapped out different stages of relationship between organic and conventional farming. These farming �institutional interrelationships� have three stages: pure competition, creative conflict and pure co-operation.

Pure competition exists when one side does not even acknowledge the other; creative conflict presumes some interactions and dialogue; pure co-operation presumes that both sides are signing from the same hymn sheet.

There are elements of the first two in Ireland at present: the IFA have had little to do with organic farming over the years. Even now, it has no dedicated organic farming committee. These suggest pure competition.

However, there are signs that this is, to a small extent, changing at present. Richard Moeran, chair of Cavan's IFA, for example, is an organic farmer. The numbers attending the organic farm walks this year was high.

Pure co-operation, however, is still a shimmer on the horizon.