Midlands farm holds organic demonstrator programme walk

Annual funding of €150,000 was provided by the Department of Agriculture and Teagasc over the next five years to support the organic demonstrator programme.

The first walk took place on Friday on the farm of Jason and Grace Stanley, a mixed organic farm in Errill, County Laois. The Stanley farm has been selected as an organic demonstration and is one of 12 throughout the country, chosen to illustrate best practice and monitor key financial and environmental metrics.

These organic demonstration farms will focus on grassland management, livestock nutrition, animal health and welfare, financial management, environmental sustainability and crop management

The ‘Growing Organics’ Programme is a five-year programme led by Teagasc, and will promote the adoption of best practice at farm level with the results from the activities on the demonstration farms made available to all farmers and researchers. It is believed this will significantly improve the data available on different aspects of organic farming.

Minister Hackett said: “I say a special thank you to Jason and Grace and the wider Stanley family for holding this walk and for their commitment to sharing the information from their farm over the next 5 years. I am delighted that we have commenced this Farm Monitoring programme. It will examine and report on how Organic Farms evolve and perform, particularly with regard to soil health and profit monitoring. But of course it would not be possible without the partnership with the farmers on the 12 demonstration farms.“

The Minister continued: “Farmers need to know what are the changes required when they make the switch to organic farming. Like any farming systems there are challenges to be overcome and these will be openly discussed and potential solutions provided to farmers as part of this programme. I believe everyone in attendance today will have come away with some nugget of information and hopefully a great deal of enthusiasm for the sector, as I have. My thanks again to Jason for this openness and straight talking which was greatly appreciated by the large number of people in attendance.”