There’s been a slump in organic farming in Ireland according to the latest statistics released by the European Union. This, despite an increase in organic farming across the EU recorded for 2020, with a total of production covered set to be at 14.7 million hectares.
According to the figures, the highest shares of organic farm areas recorded for 2020 were in Austria (25%); Estonia (22%); and Sweden (20%), while shares of below 5% were recorded for Ireland and Malta.
This indicates that Ireland’s current economic status and the increase in fertiliser and food costs have deepened the crisis faced by the country’s farmers.
It’s understood that Latvia and Austria had the largest share of organic population of ‘sheep and goats’ (36% of total sheep and goat population was organic) and Denmark had the highest share of organic pig population (3.4%). The figures additionally indicate that a remarkable amount of cattle, sheep and goats were reared using organic methods. There were more than 4.5 million organic bovines in the EU out of a total 76.5 million bovine animals reported in 2020.
According to the data, organic farm managers tend to be younger. The share of farm managers under 40 years of age was twice as large for organic farms (21%) as for non-organic farms (10.5%).
LSL News.