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It has yet to be decided how much of the five-year CAP’s €256m in dedicated funding for organics will be allocated to the new tranche of the Organic Farming Scheme (OFS) due to open later this year.
Minister of State Pippa Hackett indicated that this figure, which will determine how many new entrants to organics will be catered for in year three of the scheme, will be decided in ongoing negotiations around Budget 2025.
The comments come as Government’s overarching organic farming target is set at 450,000ha or 10% of all farmland by 2030, with the sector having already witnessed a surge in area over the past two years.
“Well look, we haven’t completed the budget negotiations, so we have no decision on that yet, but I do hope to open it in the autumn as in previous years gone by,” Minister Hackett said when speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal at the National Ploughing Championships on Wednesday.
“I think it is really something that is really taking root now in Ireland as part of the agricultural landscape and that’s a good thing.
“It is an option for farmers and Government has supported that, whether it is funding directly for farmers or funding for Bord Bia to look at markets and everything in between in terms of advisory services and farm walks.”
Accessing land
The new organics strategy states that the organic forum will explore policies to “protect and facilitate access to land” suitable for organic farming for new entrants to help achieve the sector’s growth ambitions.
Minister Hackett said that the land use review should assess organic farmers’ access to land in the same way it will look at land for forestry, renewable energy or peatlands.
The Green Party minister also criticised the pace of the review, referencing a quicker turnaround from the agri-food stakeholders participating in the strategy dialogue on the future of EU agriculture.
“We have a finite amount of land in Ireland as it is and there are massive pressures on land as it is,” she said.
“Government has started a land use review, quite frankly it’s a bit slow for my liking, it’s too slow. You are going back to that strategic dialogue on agriculture, that took like six to seven months for a 100-page document with lots of meat in there and consensus.”
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