Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Growing our land under organics and continuing to build a very exciting sector here is a key priority of mine and the Minister of State, Deputy Hackett. The current programme for Government target is to align the utilisable agricultural area under organic production in Ireland with the EU average of 7.5%. A budget of €21 million was allocated to the organic farming scheme in 2022, which is an increase of €5 million from the previous year. This allocation supports the 1,734 contracts currently in the organic farming scheme.

The sector in Ireland is experiencing considerable growth at present, with the area of land under organic production now at approximately 110,000 ha following the most recent reopening of the scheme. It has been reopened in each of the past two years to give every farmer the opportunity to join. I have introduced changes to the scheme this year by reducing the required stocking rate and by increasing the area paid at the higher rate from 60 ha to 70 ha, measures I believe will encourage new entrants to organic farming. These have already had a positive effect. There were 380 new applicants to the organic farming scheme, which closed for applications in April. This is almost a 20% increase in application numbers compared with 2021. Altogether, this means just under 700 new farmers joined the scheme in the past 12 months, which is significant.

In 2021, an additional 12,000 ha were farmed organically and it is expected this will increase by a further 17,000 ha, taking into consideration those who applied to join the scheme this year. These 29,000 new hectares mean a 35% increase in land farmed organically in the past two years. I am committed to continuing the implementation of the national organic strategy 2019-2025 that sets out an ambitious growth strategy for the sector by aligning it closely with market opportunities, which the Deputy will agree is important.

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