Dr. Mary Ryan:

We are doing some work for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It is one of the actions under the organic strategy. We have preliminary analysis and are getting a big data dump from the Department shortly. We estimate about 17% of animals are lost at weanling age within the organic value chain. We have not got as far as looking at genders of animals and locations where it is happening, but we will have more information when we have that. Anecdotal evidence suggests, as some Deputies have said, that if one does not happen to be close to a processor and needs to sell animals, they end up coming out of the organic chain and that is not what the Department wants.