organic farming

This one hopefully is a bit clearer. The base price is set for the rest of the year and into 2022. So the base price for this week is €5.05. According to that the price will hit €5.30 week 5 2022 which is the first week of Feb. I'm very uneasy about setting of price that far in advance, it reeks of them being worried that the conventional price will rise and then they can say well the price is set now it can't be risen!

Thinking seriously about it here ( even though i posted before that i wouldn't due to extra inspections etc ) Dont use much fertilizer anyway ( though never did so soil indices would be low compared to farmer switching from more intensive methods ) Only dosed weanlings once this year ( white drench ). Bedding all cattle bit of an issue, but looking at yard have silage pit next to slatted shed with effluent going into tank _ thinking of roofing it ? ( all bales now )

Look it's a good scheme and if you can get bedded areas set up the dung is far better for the land than the slurry. Just don't think there's anything extra in the beef side of things, the only difference I can see at the min is the payment. Like I said to blue if is wasn't already in it I doubt I'd go this time.

Good story by Pat Lalor on IFJ about organic farming and he explains his science behind what he does, He's Organic for over 20 years and selling porridge for a long time too. Don't know if it's free

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/kilbeggan-organic-porridge-oats-family-farming-since-1844-664299

Why would they not?

I had assumed they were separate as they were from different sources (pillar 1 vs pillar 2)

Isn’t the eco scheme just returning a slice of the BPS that was taken from you previously, albeit under a different heading? (I know this ain’t exactly true in every case, but on the whole it’s giving the same money back, but making the farmer do more for it?)

Like - will there be an overlap with the eco schemes and the new GLAS/environment scheme? (I wouldn’t have expected so?)

OK I see. I suppose my comment came about on the back of my GLAS experience where I couldn't claim the LIPP fields for organic payment (joined organic in the middle of Glas).

For the next eco scheme would imagine I will be selecting things like tree planting so as not to lose any organic dosh. Will have to wait and see the details.

Yea assuming I stay in organic I think from what I've seen of the eco scheme options the ones I'd favour are soil sampling + liming and multi species sward sowing.

Hi All,

Another Hill Beef/Sheep farmer here thinking of going into Organic either this or next year.

60H long leased, of which 20 is Green ground, 60H commonage in the same lease. Not in Glas, Beep or Stars schemes. Good BPS.

10 Dexter Cows and 250 Hill ewes, currently use about 4 tonne of fert and feed about 5 tonnes of ration mostly to sheep who all lamb.

My questions for anyone who can answer:

1/ Is there some talk of higher rates for 2023 entrants as opposed to 2022?

2/ Are there some people who can't get into another organic scheme after the 5 years is up? Assume they were compliant

3/ Whats the story with proactive medicine use like Clik on ewes before flystrike occurs? I'm aware that you can dose on a dung sample, but what about winter fluke, - if you wait till they have it to dose, they'll die and that's a welfare issue.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help..

Just to add Organic membership is around €700 a year and you need a LU stocking rate of 0.5 per hectare and paid pro rata below that. You would have to go in with the ewes to get the required stocking rate and as I said cannot see how you could work the comonage angle.

60 HA. of each. Several blocks.

My thinking was that I could use the 60 HA of commonage for GLAS/Reap.. If there's a low input grassland/extensive option there.

The planner (who isn't specifically an organics guy) thinks I could allow some of the sheep out the mountain commonage alright even of the other shareholders aren't organic as nothing is spread there etc.

This new GLAS/REAP Is in ADDITION to whatever eco scheme we'll have to do to get our former greening money - is that correct?

You can use the commonage even if the other lads aren't organic but there's more hoops to jump through and you can't have your stock mixing with the other stock and there can't be any meal feeding. That's my understanding of it anyway.

There is talk of double payments for GLAS and organics in the new CAP along with a lowering of the stocking rate to the ANC stocking rate but nobody can say for sure until the scheme is announced.

That's the way it is here, full 60 ha organic payment and 5 ha lipp payment on the bit over the 60ha. I'd be back to my planner if I were you.

Looks like the payment could be increasing.

I believe there is two accreditation bodies for organics, any difference, preferences, areas covered to favour one over the other ?