The retail market for organic food is still growing despite the difficult economic climate, a conference in Athlone organised by Teagasc has been told.
Delegates heard that the market in Ireland for organic produce is now worth €104 million per year. The market in Europe is worth over €16 billion with the largest sales in Germany, the UK, France and Italy.
Dr Nic Lampkin, director of Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm and Senior Lecturer at Aberystwyth University and author of 'Organic Farming' presented a paper on the UK and European market situations.
He said that market growth is expected to continue but at a slower rate. He pointed out that 80% of sales of organic produce go to regular and committed organic consumers.
He would see a need for a strong unified voice for the organic industry, extolling the virtues of organic products to consumers.
The conference in Athlone heard how poor prices for conventional farm produce combined with high input costs are forcing more farmers to explore organic farming.
Just over 1% of the land area in Ireland is devoted to organic production by 1,100 farmers, which is less than the average of 5% of EU land area used for organic production. Government policy is to increase organic food production to 5% by 2012.
