Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

We have and it is a good news story. The land area under organic production has been increasing steadily since 2003. At the end of December 2009, there were 1,548 organic operators in Ireland with some 49,165 hectares of land under organic production methods. The programme for Government target is to have 5% of agricultural land under organic production by 2020. That is a high target but we have seen significant growth. More importantly, it is worth examining the value of the Irish organic retail market, which has grown fairly dramatically over the last seven or eight years. It was worth €38 million in 2003, and is now worth more than three times that figure. It was worth €124 million in 2009. That is a good news story.

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