Flood of late applications as organic farmers break 3,100

Between new entrants and existing organic farmers, more than 3,100 farmers have signed up to the Organic Farming Scheme (OFS) 2023.

The figures include over 2,100 new entrants and what is understood to be over 1,000 farmers who were already in organic conversion or fully certified as organic already.

The Department of Agriculture is expected to publish the detail of those who’ve applied for the scheme in the coming days, but more than 80% are thought to be beef and sheep farmers.

Some 3,100 organic farmers would equate to 2.3% of all farmers in the country.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal on Monday, Irish Organic Association (IOA) CEO Gillian Westbrook said her certification body is of the “understanding” that all 3,100 farmers will get into the scheme. She highlighted that the “budget is adequate for all of them”.

Late applications

A flood of late submissions saw applications to the OFS surge ahead of the deadline on Friday 9 December.

Agricultural consultants reported a very busy end to last week, as they battled to get farmer applications through the system. There had been an understanding among some advisers that a deadline extension would come, but it did not occur.

Agricultural Consultants Association (ACA) president Noel Feeney said the volume of late applications reflected the level of farmer interest in the new organic scheme.

He said the fact that the organic scheme offered higher payments than ACRES, and many drystock holdings “fitted neatly” into it, meant that the decision to convert to organics made sense for many farmers.

Certification bodies

Gillian Westbrook said her certification body had processed approximately 1,300 new organic entrants by Friday.

The Organic Trust, the second of Ireland’s recognised organic certification bodies, confirmed it had in the region of 820 to 830 equivalent farmers.

Of the 1,300 new members to the IOA, Westbrook said 80%, “if not more”, are beef and sheep farmers. However, she did also say that the body has “actually seen a lot of beef and sheep with a small bit of tillage [on their farms] as well”.

She said that are only between five and 10 dairy farmers included in the 1,300.

Westbrook said attention must now turn to the marketing strategy for the organic produce from the 2,000 new entrants, which will be finished conversion in January 2025.

“It’s showing an awful lot of confidence in the sector. We now need a marketing plan to be rolled out,” she said.

Marketing

Similarly, Organic Trust CEO Stephen Connelly said the marketing strategy for organic produce will be crucial and that the trust will be working with its new members through events and workshops to devise such a plan.

“We’ll be working with Bord Bia to get the right message out about this sector. Watch this space,” he said.

Connelly described how the uptick in organic interest from farmers has seen it “doubling existing membership”.

“We were at so many events this year. We were everywhere we could be. We’ve certainly blown past our target,” he said.

Resources

Both certification bodies, contracted by the Department to certify and inspect organic farmers, will require some additional resources to manage the new workload that comes with such higher membership.

However, Connelly said this is probably more about “creating efficiencies in existing processes”, rather than “automatically” increasing staff numbers.

Westbrook said the IOA took on new people this summer to prepare for the application period and the additional new entrants.

Both bodies say they will be rolling out a series of farmer events such as farm walks, including those suitable for new part-time organic farmers, in the new year.

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