Research in Organics - GROFarmS
GROFarmS Project Summary
Growing Resilient Organic Farming Systems - GROFarmS is a Teagasc organic farming research project which commenced in March 2024. It is being undertaken in conjunction with UCD. The area of organic farming has more than trebled since 2022 through the Organic Farming Scheme and ambitious targets to grow the sector further. There is a pressing need for scientific research on organic farming practices to support evidence based best practice adoption. The GROFarmS project aims to address the current research gap and provide farmers with the confidence in organic farming by demonstrating technically efficient systems of production.
Two production research tasks
Two production research tasks aim to develop evidence on best practice technologies to support profitable and sustainable organic beef and lamb finishing systems. The sustainable organic beef research on Teagasc research farms in Kildavin/Johnstown Castle and Grange and the lamb research at Athenry. Both supported by a team of Teagasc permanent research staff.
Beef
The beef finishing research being led by Dr Paul Crosson Teagasc Beef enterprise leader in collaboration with Teagasc colleagues including Professor David Wall Johnstown Castle and Dr. Alan Kelly UCD on a 98.8-acre organic beef finishing research farm in Kildavin. The Kildavin farm will be a fully certified organic holding will develop clear guidelines for efficient and profitable organic-beef finishing systems.
Lamb
Research lead for the trials in Teagasc Athenry investigating finishing options and management systems for organic hill and lowland lambs is Dr Philip Creigthon Teagasc Sheep enterprise leader. The research is in collaboration with colleagues in Teagasc and professor Tommy Boland in UCD. They will take into account effects on animal performance, environmental impact and economic returns.
Cross cutting research task
A cross cutting research task lead by Professor Mary Ryan in the Rural Economy and Development Programme (REDP) Athenry who along with Teagasc colleagues and UCD collaborators Dr. Edel Kelly and Brian Leonard will develop the Teagasc National Farm Survey to include a representative sample of organic farms. These commercial organic farms will provid in-depth socioeconomic and environmental sustainability benchmarking data to compare the performance of organic and conventional farms nationally but also to benchmark farm performance internationally. Supplementary surveys will be used to identify the behavioural drivers of conversion to organics or in the case of conventional farmers the barriers to conversion.
Dissemination
The project has ambitious dissemination plans with a cross cutting research dissemination and stakeholder engagement task being led by organic specialist Joe Kelleher in conjunction with the organic specialist team. This task brings on board industry input whilst also providing a forum to communicate progress and key research outputs consistently over the course of the project. International expertise will also be brought in to learn from the experiences of leading organic research institutes and networks. Teagasc is uniquely positioned to leverage it’s well developed extension and education resources to effectively disseminate the research outputs and trials to farmers and industry.
The GROFarmS project commenced in March 2024. It runs for four years with a cost of €1.3m funded by the DAFM and Teagasc.
Further information on GROFarmS
'Knowledge gap’ in organic conversion to be addressed in new research project'
Organic beef finishing systems to be explored at Johnstown Castle