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.

organic and the credit crunch part 3: when organic tries harder, the consumer notices

In the face of a real economic downturn and a barrage of simplistic media pronouncements, you could be forgiven for thinking that organic farming is facing death by a thousand daggers.

The objective fact is there � the downturn. The simplistic notion is everywhere � in a downturn, people will stop thinking about how their food is produced. Food will become a basic, fairly meaningless thing again.

In reality, as I�ve suggested over the last two weeks, things are a little more complex. For example, some direct sellers are not only surviving but thriving.

The multiples have less faith in organic, but then, it is not their job to have faith in anything in particular, other than the profit motive.

A farmer who supplies the Christmas market for a particular high end multiple retailer told me that they are taking 25% less of that product from him recently. My local Tesco fruit and veg manager suggested to me that organic sales there are down too.

However, as we saw last week, many direct retailers are experiencing something altogether different.

Is it because they offer something altogether different too? People are perennially surprised to find that organic meat is so affordable at farmers� markets. Declan McCarthy sells organic meat at a range of farmers� markets across the north west at the following prices:

Mince and sausages both 12e per kilo; chicken 1.8-2.5 kg at 16e per bird; roast beef and lamb cutlets both 15e per kilo.

Similar prices are found wherever organic meat is found at farmers� markets. Organic chickens tend to be 5e cheaper than in the supermarkets.

Bulk direct sellers of organic meat, such as Drumeen farm, offer better prices again.

But direct sellers offer more than price. They offer good value, and value is about price and quality. And quality can be complex.

Talk Stella Coffey and Richard Auler, who sell, amongst other things, eggs at farmers� markets in Tipperary.

Seeing stalled organic egg sales last February, they sourced a great egg poacher, brought it to the market, brought the poached eggs to the market for people to sample, and offered a free egg poacher with every 3 boxes of eggs. Necessity bred innovation, sales went up again.

Like their customer service, their eggs are quality: hens fed sprouted grains, hens kept in natural flock sizes.

While taste is an essential part of the whole thing, it is also important to find ways to inform the customer. Farmers� markets are one way to do this.

More generally, quality is about aiming for higher markets � higher than pizza topping and powdered milk, higher than prison food.

We have, after all, the best grass growing conditions in Europe.

In the race towards the LIDLisation of organic, organic may have to add more meanings into its repertoire to survive.

When I worked in ecotourism, we developed a set of mandatory and optional criteria for tourism product providers.

Crucially, businesses needed to draw from both pools to achieve accreditation. For accommodation providers, mandatory was waste, water and energy. Optional included things like providing local or organic food or providing bicycles.

Already, the Soil Association in the UK are trying to adapt to ever changing times. They are developing a self-assessed organic-like standard for small producers. They have introduced fair trade into air freighted organic. They are looking at organic conservation grade with lower stocking rates.

In tight economic times, farmers and food businesses with a lot of good stories will fare far better than those with just one. Organic beef farmers whose animals are 100% grass fed, or who stock specific breeds have stories to tell. Stall holders with decent, up-to-date seasonal recipes each week do too.

Farmers� markets that provide a drop off service for regulars who couldn�t make it into the market that day have a great story.

Imagine a farmers� market where a different stallholder each week took their turn to do the following: on their way home, text regulars who didn�t make it in to the market that day. Tell them about the still available and affordable bounty in the van.

Necessity also breeds ingenuity. As credit crunches and recession bites, occasionally those crunchy bites will be tasty too.