A new organic strategy for 2019 to 2025 sets a target of doubling the area of cereals and pulses over the next seven years.

An industry-led group, chaired by former Department of Agriculture official Martin Heraghty, set out plans for the sector which will feed into Food Wise 2025 and the Common Agricultural Policy reform.

Targets

  • Increase area under organic cereals and pulses from 2,426ha in 2017 to 5,000ha.
  • Increase area under organic horticulture from 524ha in 2017 to 750ha.
  • Dairy: current organic milk production accounts for 0.11% of Ireland’s milk pool, with 45 dairy farmers and 2,912 dairy cows. The strategy plans to increase the organic pool annually by 10%.
  • Beef: increase production from 0.8% of total cattle in 2016 to 1.6%. Currently, 15,000 organic cattle are slaughtered per year.
  • Sheep: market existing production levels. There are currently 600 sheep farmers and their 63,650 sheep (43,800 ewes) account for 1.9% of the total sheep flock.
  • Aquaculture: increase salmon production from 20,000t to 26,000t.
  • “[The targets are] at a fairly ambitious level but we think they are achievable on the basis of the actions in the report,” said Heraghty, who will chair the implementation committee. “Cereals, in particular, is a fairly pivotal sector for a number of the other enterprises.”

    Organic retail market

    The Irish organic retail market is worth €162m with a further €44m generated by direct sales.

    “The market for organic food in Ireland grew by 10.5% in 2017,” Minister of State Andrew Doyle said launching the report. “Some 72,000ha of land is currently under organic production, which is a 50% increase on the position in 2014.”