Organic Farming Scheme under review: suspended until September

The details of this review, announced on 29th July, seem to suggest that without a detailed and decent business plan, you won't actually be allowed into the organic agri-food system.

Here are some key elements taken from the press release:

Trevor Sargent TD, Minister for Food and Horticulture at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, today announced a review of the Organic Farming Scheme, under which support is paid to farmers in the sector. The review will look at how available funds are used to best effect to deliver increased organic production and attain the 5% Government target

The outcome of the review will be announced during National Organic Week, which begins this year on 14 September.

Minister Sargent emphasised that like all Schemes operated by the Department, participation levels in future would be determined by the amount of funding available. "Funding for the Organic Farming Scheme will be determined later in the year when the Government are preparing the Estimates for 2010. It is my responsibility to make sure that what funding we have is used to bring maximum benefit and to realise the growing potential of organic farming in Ireland", he said.

The Minister indicated that he was likely to amend the Scheme to include selection criteria that would identify those applicants who were most likely to deliver increased output, particularly in those areas where production is not meeting the demands of the home and export markets. "Some prospective applicants may have more to offer than others, and I would urge anyone who is thinking of applying to do some research first, undertake some training and talk to an organic adviser or one of the organic certification bodies," said the Minister.

The existing Organic Farming Scheme is suspended for new applications from today, pending the outcome of the review.

See full text here

The new Northern situation: the challenge intensive organic food from Northern Ireland poses

On top of general recession-related worries, Irish organic farmers have another thing to contend with: technically organic but nonetheless intensive produce from Northern Ireland.

Northern Irish economies of scale and the sterling differential are continuing to put pressure on southern Irish organic producers.

In light of these effects, what were reported last week as strong signals for producer price reductions are reported to be continuing, whatever about the brave public face farmers and operators put on.

Organic farmers and operators fear and risk de-listing for putting their heads above the parapet and complaining. There are few processing and retailer options in Ireland.

Today I encountered an organic chicken in Tescos for E5.71. It weighted 1.118 kilos, and was E5.11 a kilo � down from E6.81 per kilo.

This chicken, from John Connolly in county Tyrone, was from Northern Ireland. Sourcing from the north seems to be an increasing trend for retailers.

The chicken was labelled UK2 - the Organic Farmers and Growers (OFG) certification code. There are nine UK certifiers, which includes the two Irish certifiers. This is mainly because Irish and UK certifiers can operate in Northern Ireland.

The Soil Association are the UK biggest organic certification body. They have been very critical of the OFG poultry standards.

While the Soil Association have a 500 recommended and 1000 birds maximum, OGF and others allow for 4800, with the option of going up to 9000 birds.

Southern Irish poultry farms tend to have up to 500 birds.

The natural flocking size of chickens is considered to be about 100. It is possible on smaller enterprises to allow for this, though some organic farmers stick rigidly to housing arrangements which encourage this.

Inevitably, this sort of flock size becomes more difficult when the numbers run into the thousands.

However the economy of scale of thousands of birds bring the price down for the consumer: hence half the price per kilo for Northern Irish as southern Irish organic chicken in supermarkets.

Competition from Northern Ireland is also effecting organic milk producers. Organic dairy farms in Northern Ireland are larger and more intensive. They rely more on concentrates than grass for feed. This increases the negative environmental effect, as feed production and transportation adds to global warming and the use of pesticides and herbicides more than grass growing does.

Organic dairy farms also have 2-3 times as many cows in Northern Ireland as their southern counterparts.

Up to half of the milk in Glenisk's pool comes from Northern Ireland. All of the organic milk in the discounter LIDI comes from Northern Ireland. This retails at E1.19 a litre, as does Tescos own brand organic milk. Glenisk' on the other hand, is usually about E1.65.

Inevitably, competition from the more industrialised Northern Irish farmers effects the price southern farmers can get.

There are also nutritional effects: organic milk regularly scores better than conventional when it comes to nutritional data, in particular the Omega 3 and 6 ratio. This has been found in studies across Europe.

Upon closer inspection of some of the more recent data, however, it appears that grass is at least as important as organic: milk from predominantly grass fed animals is nutritionally superior to milk from diary cows fed significant amounts of concentrates.

See for example the research of Professor Carlo Leifert from the Quality low Input Farming project in Newcastle University.

In southern Ireland, organic dairy cows are both predominantly grass fed and organic � a win win nutritionally.

However, for poultry and diary and the broader organic sector in general, scientific research specific to the Irish situation, followed by the marketing of the results, needs to be undertaken as a matter of urgency.

Otherwise people will see the word organic and think one product is the same as the next.

Consumers sometimes use the world organic as an anxiety appeaser: they see it and stop thinking, or worrying, about the broader ethics.

However, as even these two simple examples suggest, organic in one place is not necessarily the same as in another, even on an island as small as Ireland.

Climate change and farming part 1

In light of the new report issued today on climate change and its affect of agriculture, here's part one of a feature on climate change and farming.

The simple and objective facts of climate change are straightforward up to a point. The main question from an agriculture perspective is: how should the effort of readjustment be shared out amongst the sectors?

First, the facts: According to Dr. John Sweeney, (NUI Maynooth), The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) reports present �unequivocal evidence� that planet is currently experiencing �the loading of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere to concentrations not experienced for over 650,000 years...there is also now very high confidence that the globally averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been at least five times greater than that due to solar output changes�.

This will affect water patterns, putting severe pressure on both agricultural productivity and populations, especially in wetlands, deltas and the driest parts of Africa. The rest of the world will have more extreme weather, while 20-30% of plant and animals species will also face a high risk of extinction.

In Ireland, this will make parts of Leinster, Ulster and even occasionally Munster more likely to suffer drought, with mid summer housing of animals a possibility. Crop growing patters will alter, with potatoes more difficult to grow apart from in the north west.

Reduced fertilizer application, extensification, summer water shortages and pest/disease pattern alteration are all likely to occur.

However, the overall effects will not be as serious in Ireland or to Irish agriculture as elsewhere. Most main sectors will get to continue, albeit in a modified form.

There are two main targets the government is working towards � Koyoto (up to 2012) and the EU targets (up to 2020).

The Kyoto Protocol limits Ireland�s total national emissions to an average of 62.8 million tonnes of CO2e, per year in the period 2008 � 2012. This is 13 per cent above the 1990 baseline estimate.

Importantly for agriculture, Co2e means carbon dioxide equivalent � other Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), such as methane and nitrous oxide are measured as compared to carbon dioxide in terms of their global warming potential. Methane is considered 21 times more damaging than carbon dioxide, a figure which may even be upgraded to 25 times soon.

The EU targets of a 20% reduction in GHG emissions relative to 2005 figures are more recent and more challenging.