Organic beef finishing systems to be explored at Johnstown Castle

Plans are in place to develop an organic beef research farm at Johnstown Castle, Co. Wexford. Joe Kelleher, Teagasc Organic Specialists, tells us more.

There has been an unprecedented increase in the number of farmers converting to organics over the past two years, including a significant number of beef farmers.

This will inevitably lead to an increase in the availability of organic beef on Irish farms. Traditionally, up to 30% of this organic beef has ‘leaked’ annually into conventional systems.

One of the key elements of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Teagasc funded Gro-FarmS project, which is being undertaken in conjunction with UCD, is to develop clear guidelines for efficient and profitable organic beef finishing systems.

Key considerations are: optimising lifetime growth rates to reach target carcass weight / fat scores as early as possible (i.e. ‘young’ slaughter age); producing adequate forage of sufficiently high quality in the absence of inorganic fertilisers; minimising the importation of supplementary concentrate feeds; and maintaining the highest levels of animal health and welfare with minimal use of antimicrobials.

The 40ha Kildavin farm in Johnstown Castle in Co. Wexford will prepare for organic conversion in the summer of 2024, before the first influx of organic weanlings arrive on the farm in the autumn time. These weanlings will be carried through to on the farm. Both early and late maturing beef breeds will be included in the trials.

The Gro-FarmS project will also evaluate varying finishing diets and finishing ages on the Teagasc Grange Animal & Grassland Research Centre. The combined research at both the Grange and Kildavin sites will help to develop clear guidelines as to the most efficient organic beef finishing systems to enable organic farmers adopt these practices with confidence.

The Gro-FarmS project also includes sheep system trials to be undertaken at the Teagasc Athenry Animal & Grassland Research and Innovation Centre and will also include the collection of environmental benchmarking data on organic farms. The project will commence in March 2024 and will run for four years.

Also read: ‘Knowledge gap’ in organic conversion to be addressed in new research project

Also read: Organically farmed area triples since 2020