Organic food demand could decrease
The demand for organic food could decrease in Ireland if we consumers follow a similar trend as our British counterparts.
The current economic downturn is being blamed, and in one instance Dairy Crest, one of the largest milk processors in the UK has warned its organic milk suppliers that the company has decided that it will cut the price of organic milk to suppliers by four pence a litre. Dairy Crest is saying that this is because the market is over supplied at the present time.
In an unusual situation Dairy Crest is currently negotiating with organic certification bodies to allow their organic milk suppliers an organic holiday by allowing them to feed their cows conventionally until the over-supply has rectified itself whenever that will be. I wonder if Trevor Sargent the Minister for State in the Department
of Agriculture is aware of the above situation when he was strongly encouraging farmers to change to organic farming while attending the Organic Producers Research Conference in Tullamore recently. A change to organic farming would appear to be a viable option for some farmers at the present time but if organic food demand is likely to decrease then it could prove to be very costly in both the short and long term.
Meanwhile organic farming in Ireland continues to expand and has increased by 10 per cent on this time last year. It is still only at 1 per cent of the total farmland available in Ireland which is still very low by European standards. However, it still means that there are now over 1,200 organic farmers in this country at the present time.
Financial analysis by the Teagasc Rural Economy Research centre has shown that profitability on organic farms involved in cattle production is over 50 per cent more profitable then on conventional farms because of lower costs of production. Out-put on conventional cattle farms is much higher of course but the costs are also much higher.
There are only a very small number of organic dairy farms in Ireland at the moment and the indications are that profit margins are about the same as conventional dairy production farms. There is an increasing number of organic sheep farmers, while organic vegetable production is also on the increase.
More Stories |
Most Popular |
|
|
|
