Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Regarding the organic sector, I note that €56 million was provided for the organic scheme over the lifetime of the rural development programme, RDP. Members should bear in mind that under what is known as the N+3 rule, the RDP does not run for a fixed five-year period. Sometime a contract starts in the middle of one stream and rolls over into the next one. If anything we are generally overspending under RDP rather than underspending. We will certainly spend all of the €56 million available for the organic sector.

We asked an expert group within the organic sector to consider which interventions might be useful. That group recommended a targeted reopening of the organic scheme. The targeted areas in which it asked this were in horticulture, cereals and dairy. We accepted applications that were in those areas but rejected many others because they were not. We accepted applications from the areas identified by the expert group as areas with market demand where it would be useful to intervene and offer support. The problem is that the organic beef sector is leaking into the mainstream beef market. It does not have sufficient marketing or organisation. There is a huge demand for more organic cereals. I could give examples of places I have visited and very successful organic businesses I have seen up and running. We are importing organic grains because we do not meet domestic demand here. That is why we opened the scheme in the targeted area of cereals as we did for horticulture and dairy. In the context of the next Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, we are coming from quite a low base. I think we have 2,000 ha under these crops. I am not sure. I had better not quote a figure I cannot stand over. It is significantly greater than it has been for a while, but it is still quite low by international comparisons.

Originally, we took in everybody who applied and we had a targeted reopening of it. That is the answer to that question.