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.

Early April organic events: thinking, doing and no april foolin

Plato and Aristotle explore organic farming in Ireland

Plato looked to an ideal essence from which our understanding of reality is formed, Aristotle looked at things. Heaven and earth, the sky and the ground, the astral and terra firma.

From fundos to realos (see history here), the organic movement has alwys had both practical and philosophical dimensions. The beginning of April is a golden opportunity to engage in both.

The least apt day of the year for the now departed Merf � Dr. Charles Merfield � to give a talk in Ireland is April Fool's day, for he's far from a fool.

In fact, he's a classic brainbox, full of science, ideas, and inventions.

Merf, until recently an organic crop researcher with Teagasc and UCD, returns to Ireland to give a talk entitled 'Organics: Philosophy of Agriculture Science and Ethics' in UCD on April 1st at 1pm.

This talk is part of the UCD History and Philosophy of Science Lecture Series, and is being held in the Seminar Room of the Humanities Institute of Ireland at University College Dublin (UCD).

Merf's seminar will briefly review the history and context of organic agriculture from its beginnings in the early 1900s with its focus on soil nutrition and human health. It will then examine the 1960s anti synthetic biocide revolution and finally today's multiple organic systems will be considered.

This history will provide a foundation �to examine the fundamental differences between organic and industrial agriculture with a particular focus on ethics, and the role of science followed by and exploration of organic's critique of industrial agriculture� according to Merf.

The next day, April 2nd, features a perhaps more typical but nonetheless interesting organic farming day.

The Teagasc organic conference will be held in the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone. It begins at 9am, and features a host of important speakers and topics.

The first session deals with a topic close to every farmers heart. It is entitled, very straightforwardly, 'Making Money from Organic Farming'. Two Teagasc organic advisors James McDonnell and Dan Clavin will present on profitability of organic farms and financial planning for farmers undergoing conversion.

The next sessions deals with market opportunities for organic milk, meat and grain. Perhaps suprizingly, there is no place at the table for the newly formed Irish Organic Milk Producers Company.

However, Glenisk's Vincent Cleary will be one of the chairs, along with chair of the National Organic Steering Committee John Duggan.

A highlight in this session will be the presentation by Dr. Nic Lampkin ofthe Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm, Berkshire. Nic's 1990 book on organic farming is considered a bible while his work on developing the organic sector in wales has been considered integral to their strong recent growth. Nic' s presentation is on UK and EU markets.

Along with Nic, John Purcell of the Good Herdsman � the largest organic meat processor in either Ireland or the UK, John Flahavan of Flahavans who have capacity to talk in more Irish produce, and Anthony Murphy (Skettering Nutrition, Co. Mayo) will present.

The after lunch session gives a farmer's perspective.

Cavan's Richard Moeran has been described as a rare breed with a rare breed. He is chair of Cavan IFA, certified organic and stocks saddleback pigs. He also carries lamb and beef, and grows much of his own feed.

His produce is sold direct and through supermarkets, so he really can speak from and for a number of perspectives.

Also presenting the farmers' perspective is Noel Lynch of Macroom (beef, sheep, tillage)
and Fintan Rice, of Fethard, Co. Tipperary (dairying).

Following this, another session on profitabilty will be held. This time, the focus is on increasing profit margins outside the farm gate. This session is chaired by Peter Young, organic farmer and journalist.

His own Castlefarm enterprise is a great model for innovative ways to increase profitability. With his wife Jenny, they direct sell, make their own cheese, do school trips and a host range of courses. The next one is on making outdoor clay ovens.

Lorcan Burke (Bord Bia) will present on purchasing trends in the current climate, while Mark Winterbotham, (Gold River Farms, Co. Wicklow) will present on direct selling.

See here or ring 059 917 020

farming's future sustainability

Here's an interview I did with Richard Douthwaite (right) of FEASTA. It appeared in last week's Farming Examiner as the front page and centre page spread.

Oliver Moore: Can you outline the overall situation with regard to the sustainability of farming, as you see it Richard?

Richard Douthwaite: Modern industrialised farming, particularly tillage, has been described as a way of converting fossil energy into food energy. There�s a lot of energy used in the application of fertilizer, in tractors, in sprays, then in packing and getting the food to the customer. The whole process is not sustainable. In traditional forms of farming, it took 4 units of energy to produce each unit of energy in food. Most of that energy was directly from the sun, and all from renewable sources. Now there are 40 units of energy going into the production of food in the Europe, and perhaps up to 90 in the US. Most of that is from fossil fuels. That can�t continue.

OM: Within this broad picture, what is the key problem?

RD: The problem is that we�re not recycling the nutrients. Quite a lot of the nitrogenous fertilizer breaks down in the soil and becomes nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG), and one of the main sources of GHGs in farming. A lot of energy is used in the production of those nitrogenous fertilizers and most of it is wasted because the nitrogen is not taken up by the plants. There's more waste when the crops leave the farm because the nutrients they contain aren�t recycled: There�s nitrogen in the proteins that go off, and there�s phospates going off too. They are consumed by whoever eats the food and go into the sewage system, and don�t get back onto the land. As a consequence of this, we need to apply more artificial fertilizers. There is a growing problem with phosphorous. There�s a finite supply: rock phosphate is getting scarcer and scarcer, and that then means that more and more energy is needed to make it available to us and to transport it from places like Morocco.

So we need to think of how fertilizer can be better retained in the soil, so that if you are putting nitrogen on, it stays there. We need to minimise the use of artificial nitrogen, and to start replacing it with organic sources, such as legumes which fix nitrogen. Then, we need to make sure that any that escapes is recycled.

OM: What are the future implications for farming?

RD: Agriculture is likely to become more labour intensive again. The trend towards the larger farms will be reversed as the cost of food and fuel rises in real terms and takes a higher proportion of non-farmers' incomes. Farmers won't just be growing food. They will be producing fuel, chemicals, fibres and building materials as well. A whole new category of multi-purpose crops will emerge.

OM: How do you envision these multi purpose crops being utilized most efficiently?

RD: It may emerge in a way similar to the co-op creamery structure of a century ago, where the co-op would take the milk and the farmer would take back the whey. I envisage a co-op bio-refinery in each community to which farmers would deliver crops like miscanthus, which would be refined to give protein powder, biogas, diesel fuel, plastics like nylon, pesticides and soil improvers. The farmers would take the improvers back to their farms to recycle the nutrients that were in the crop they delivered to the refinery. Because transport will become more expensive, the plants' bulk will be reduced in rural areas and there will be centralised refineries regionally that take the valuable bits and process them further. At the bioenergy show in Tullamore this year, miscanthus was being sold in compressed blocks for people's fires, just like the wood blocks made from compressed sawdust. But 20% of dried grass is plant protein � that�s too valuable to burn. Quite simply, we should be taking out the valuable bits before burning any biomass.

OM: So the biorefineries would produce biofuels like biodiesel?

RD: Yes, but I should emphasise that these would be second-generation biofuels, produced by breaking down the cellulose found in all plants. Feasta is very much against the production of most first-generation biofuels, such as ethanol from maize and wheat and biodiesel from oilseed rape. These make no sense from an energy or a climate point of view. Their production is entirely driven by tax-breaks and the net result has been to increase hunger around the world. The only first generation biofuel that is acceptable is ethanol from sugar cane in Brazil.

OM: If farmers go in this direction in the near future, what�s in it for them?

RD: If farmers can increase the carbon content of their soils, or the semi-permanent biomass that�s growing on them, they need to be rewarded in some way for doing this because they would be helping prevent climate change. Part of their reward would be that they made their soil much better. It is however, very difficult to measure the carbon content of soils to pay farmers a set amount per tonne for the carbon that they have taken in. Feasta is therefore setting up a working party to develop a new concept of best practice - to develop a better understanding of the types of farming that involve sequestering more and more carbon in the soil or in the plants growing on the soil. It needs to become financially beneficial to follow best practice. There could be payments through REPS, or the price of the crops could be subsidised in some sort of way. We�re going to need people in the working party with expertise in this area, and we�re getting very good co-operation from the universities and from Teagasc on this.

OM: Are there any new developments that might help with soil performance and quality?

RD: Feasta has become particularly interested in the inclusion of charcoal in the soil. It has recently been discovered that the pre Columbian Indians put charcoal into the soil because it held the nutrients there. Also, there was an increase in microbial and fungal activity which made the soil more fertile. These soils still exist in the Amazon basin where they are called terra preta, which means dark earth. What happens, it seems, is that the fungi feed on sugars sent down by the plants, and they in turn send up nutrients to the plants. So the plant sequesters carbon too. Terra Preta promises to do three things: 1 sequester more carbon in the soil; 2 hold nutrients there more efficiently; 3 give bigger crops.

OM: Where does Feasta stand on the cows vs cars debate?

RD: We don't think there should be a debate at all. Some civil servants seem to think that because cows' digestive systems give off methane, a GHG, Ireland should reduce its greenhouse emissions by cutting the number of either cars or cows. This is, we think, a total misconception. We've tried to get the IFA to make the case that cows are very different because the methane they release is not adding fossil carbon to the air but it just doesn�t seem to be bothered. It seems to hope that its political muscle will shield its members from any herd-reduction measures the government might introduce. The ICMSA has a very much better attitude.

OM: But isn�t methane a serious GHG?

RD: Methane is a very serious GHG. It�s probably 60 times worse than CO2. Official figures suggest that it is 23 times more, but that�s over a 100 year period. However, all its heating effect is concentrated in the first few years before it is broken down. But - and this is crucial - the carbon in the methane released by cows comes from natural sources. It is not adding continuously to the carbon in the air, because the plants that the cows grazed on picked up the carbon from the air. So the cows are part of the natural carbon cycle. They are not leading to a net increase in the warming effect. If you increase the size of the national herd, you get a once off increase in methane; you don�t get a continuous increase in CO2 levels, as you do if you are burning fossil fuels in a car. So there is no comparison at all between cars and cows.

OM: I presume you are talking about grass-fed animals, where the grass gets its nitrogen from legumes? And surely processing, distribution and so on need to be taken into account before you can presume diary and beef will be acceptable in sustainability terms?

RD: If meat and milk is to be produced anywhere in the world, Ireland should be one of the places producing them because the fossil fuel emissions from producing them here are lower than they would be almost anywhere else. You've also got to consider the carbon emissions if forest is cleared for beef production in places like Brazil. And, because Ireland is close to a lot of people who need meat and milk products, it should not take a lot of energy to get the food to them, although more of it will go by sea in future rather than by truck.

OM: So, in certain relatively easy to attain circumstances, we can keep our beef and dairy industries.

RD: Yes, I think so. But many more cattle will be kept indoors so that the slurry can be turned into biogas. This will be used for heating, for electricity and compressed to run vehicles. Farmers have been very slow to realise that the energy content of a bullock's dung is worth more than its meat.

OM: What's the biggest challenge facing Irish farmers?

RD: They, in common with farmers around the world, have got to find ways of turning their sector from being a source of greenhouse emissions into a sink which removes them. At present, about a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and changes in land use, such as forest clearance. Those emissions not only have to stop but, because the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is already above the safe limit, CO2 needs to be removed from the air quickly, before it has set off a disastrous uncontrollable global warming process. We might have thirty years to do this. There's no high-tech solution. Only the world's farmers can respond in time.

How is organic food and farming viewed? State, media and other views

(Hyperlinks to follow)

When writing my PhD, which was about consumers of organic food at farmers� markets, I included a section on how organic food is represented.

The state, -Teagasc, Bord Bia and the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food - had a difficult job. They had to describe organic as a specific thing, and yet not downgrade conventional food:

�Organic farming is a system of farming which avoids the use of soluble fertilizers, pesticides, growth regulators, feed additives and other chemicals� (Teagasc)

�Organic farming is an alternative method of food production, which is environmentally friendly.� (Bord Bia)

�Organic farming represents a different view of farming systems, which puts a strong emphasis on environmentally friendly and sustainable farming practices, with particular concern for animal welfare. Organic farming avoids the use of synthetic fertilisers, chemicals and/or additives.� (DAFF)

Non-state players were sometimes more specific. The IFA pointed out that they had no quibble with organic food, but that conventional food was produced by �sustainable farming complying with strict environmental and animal welfare standards�. In a position paper, they argued for

�The removal of scientifically unjustified requirements imposed by organic farming guidelines on agronomically effective and economically valid inorganic fertilizers. Since guidelines for organic farming practices are not necessarily science-based, it should be clearly specified that the justification for not allowing some inorganic fertilizer sources is for marketing purposes only and not for food or environmental safety reasons� (IFA 2003).

The media in general were mixed. Celebrity chefs were usually positive, though sometimes talked about preferring local over organic. Individual products or producers tended to get the soft-focus, rose-tinted treatment. Never a bad word was said about the biggest or the smallest, from Glenisk to local small-scale organic stallholders at farmers� markets.

However, over the course of the five years I spent doing the PhD, a marked trend started to emerge: it was no longer newsworthy, or eye catching, to say positive things about organics. Organic had already won the battle of language, so to draw people in, you now had to say something bad about it.

And it was often those who wrote the headlines as opposed to those who wrote the articles who did this: Usually, those who write articles don�t get to choose the headlines that accompany the articles - myself included.

In particular, this happened when the organic certification system worked and caught the odd chancer who was bending the rules.

When this happened, this occurrence often became carte blanche for an organic attack. So the UK�s Observer screamed in 2005 on its front pages � �the great organic food scam exposed�, mainly because one shop was convicted of fraudulent selling of organic food.

But the further into the article you got, the better, and better regulated, organic sounded.

It continues to this day, and shows no sign of abating. A couple of weeks ago there were a sequence of talks on organics, and it seems that Dr. Con O�Rourke (formerly of Teagasc) was invited to every one of them. Despite the fact that there were other speakers in attendance, O� Rourke�s statements made the headlines.

And the headline-writers had a field day. This paper, the Irish Independent and the Irish Times all shrieked from their front pages and on the headlines of the articles about how organic wasn�t that good after all.

But again, the further you got into the articles, the better organic sounded. Take the Times:

�Most organic food doesn't actually taste better than food produced with the use of pesticides, cookery writer Darina Allen told the meeting� began the article.

What was actually a caveat by Allen, based on the odd example such as old, out-of-date organic food being left for weeks on a supermarket shelf, became an exemplar of her overall position on organics - which it isn�t. This and other good news organic information slowly seeped out later in the article.

It�s as if the attendant journalists and headline writers back in HQ were waiting for one Mcnugget to present a misleading and unbalanced argument.

But this is how it is now for organics. Organics may have won the battle of language with consumers, but, and partly because of this, it now has to fight sloppy sensationalism.