The higher payment rates proposed for next year’s Organic Farming Scheme will not be enough to push many suckler and sheep farmers to make the decision to switch to organics, according to several farmers at the Irish Farmers Journal Tullamore Farm open day on Tuesday.

Farmer fears of having to cut stocking rates, as well as insufficient price bonuses from factories for certified organic beef were cited by farmers as two of the factors putting them off conversion.

Head of meat and livestock at Bord Bia, Joe Burke, told farmers that they could factor a market price bonus of 6% to 7% into business plans done on conversion, but he acknowledged that some beef may have to be sold at conventional prices.

Certified organic beef, tillage and poultry farmer Mark Duffy made the case for conversion when describing his finishing system which sees continental cattle finished off grass at 22 to 24 months.

“The only way I can make it work is no meal and no fertiliser, red clover-based, all grass-based finishing and less numbers but it’s working for me,” he said. “A good conventional farmer will make a good organic farmer. A bad conventional farmer will make an even worse organic farmer.”

Part-time suckler farmer Trevor Boland warned that there is “huge risk” attached to organic conversion: “The payments are here for five years. What happens after that?”

The Sligo farmer said that he gets far more rain and he doesn’t have access to the straw required for the straw bedding in conversion.

While support payments have increased, he said: “At the end of the day, if you’re not generating an income from the farm, you don’t have a farm,” he said.