Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I chaired a meeting last week where this issue came up repeatedly. The eastern European countries in particular seem to have serious concerns about this because organic farming is seen there as a way to achieve higher-value production. The issues of mixed use, conversion and labelling are causing most concern. The issue of genetically modified organisms did not come up much at the aforementioned meeting.

Our ambition is to get to 5% organic farming from our current 1%, which is a five-fold increase. One would have to say that some of the issues identified here are not going to speed up that process; if anything, they will slow it down.