Hundreds of farmers turned up to view the State-run organic farm in Athenry, Co Galway, reports Seán MacConnell.
Organic farming in Ireland has come of age. It is no longer the province of the Dutch and Germans who came here for a quiet life in the 1970s, or the so-called "brown ricers" or the vegetarians.
If proof of that were necessary, it could be found on Saturday last in Athenry, Co Galway, where Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority, opened the gates of the first State-backed organic farm to the public.
The Organic Farm Demonstration and Research Unit at Mellows College, on the outskirts of Athenry, is 110 hectares that, for the past three years, have been farmed organically.
There, the best brains in Irish farming have been demonstrating that organic farming can work across the range of farm enterprises - beef, sheep, dairying, poultry and tillage.
The enterprises are being held up to critical financial analysis by the Teagasc scientists who are driving the Government's determination to increase organic output in the Republic.
The sector is tiny here, so small in fact that 40 per cent of organic food consumed in the State is imported. The 1,000 farmers who have gone the organic route farm less than 1 per cent of agricultural land - 30,000 hectares.
Irish consumers, too, eat little organic food, according to Mr Ger Shortle, who manages the organic farm for Teagasc. This compares to 2 per cent for EU consumers.
"Total organic sales amounted to around €25 million last year, so there is a demand, but that demand is now met by imports. In fact, 40 per cent of organic food eaten here is imported," he said.
"There is a clear demand for organic food and what we are showing here in the farm is that it can be grown here. But first we have to convince farmers that it can be done economically," he said.
Out on the fields, Teagasc experts were telling of the successes and in some cases, lack of success, at the unit, which later this year, will offer full-time training for farmers who want to convert to organic farming.
Beef production at the farm, they were told, was currently the most profitable of the enterprises and was delivering incomes more than 50 per cent higher than farmers who raise beef conventionally.
This is due to significantly lower costs of production, a 20 per cent price premium that consumers are prepared to pay and a top-up payment that farmers receive when they convert their land to organic production if they are in the Rural Environment Protection Scheme.
This €91 per hectare payment brings the total payment to €241 per hectare that covers the two-year period when farmers have to farm organically but receive only conventional prices for their stock.
The Teagasc researchers concluded that there was little, if any, financial difference between farming sheep organically or conventionally.
However, according to Mr Shortle, dairying has been financially difficult because organic milk producers would need a price premium of more than 35 per cent in order to give comparable income to conventional dairy farmers.
It emerged there are less than 10 organic milk producers in the State and there were complaints that the main dairy companies were not interested in getting involved.
Out in the fields, the Teagasc experts were being put to the test by the professionals - the farmers who may or may not follow the organic route.
They were told that the key to organic farming is clover, which replaces nitrogen and provides the necessary fertility for the farm to keep production as high as possible.
They were being questioned about how the experts handle disease problems, especially in sheep, because no dosing is allowed under the organic system.
They were told that while stocking rates are by necessity lower in the organic system so too are problems with disease, and the prolificacy and animal performance of the Athenry sheep flock is as good as the best conventional flocks in the country.
Last year, for instance, the lambing rate was more than 200 per cent with in excess of 1.7 lambs reared per ewe in the 100-ewe herd.
The same was true in the dairy herd of 62 cows, where the plan is to produce 1,500 gallons per cow, which is a higher output than on most ordinary Irish farms.
Most of the farmers who turned up on Saturday were there to look at the possibilities that organic production might deliver to them, as European agriculture is at a crossroads with the recent reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
"What they are doing here is not too far removed from what I was doing on the family farm 50 years ago when I was growing up," said Mr Tommy Mannion, who farms near Ballinasloe.
"It was hard work then and it looks like it is still hard work and, at my age, I don't think it would work for me," he said.
A suckler and sheep farmer from near Roscommon town told me that organics was not an option for his 250-acre enterprise, but he had learned from the experience and had got a number of ideas from the day out.
The official opening was performed by Mr Noel Treacy, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food, who launched a new Teagasc publication, Guidelines for Organic Farming.
He said that, besides the establishment of the Organic Market Development Group and the National Steering Group for the Organic Sector, a major national organic conference has been planned for October.
Mr Treacy added that the results of the first National Organic Production Census was due out shortly and he thought that some elements of the CAP reform package, specifically modulation, may be beneficial to the development of organic farming in the Republic.