The Growing Resilient Organic Farming Systems project (GROFarmS)

The Beef Edge

With the launch the GROFarmS project taking place today at BEEF 2024 National Beef open day in Teagasc Grange, Teagasc organic specialist, Elaine Leavy, and Teagasc researcher, Kevin Kilcline, join Catherine Egan on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to discuss the role this research programme will have for anyone interested in converting or currently in organics, as well as detail on the variety of organic events taking place in the coming weeks.

GROFarmS stands for Growing Resilient Organic Farming Systems and is an organic farming research project funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Teagasc and is being undertaken in collaboration with UCD.

In the past few years there has been huge interest in organics, a large number of farms have converted and many more are considering the option of converting. Whilst there are various opinions on the benefits of organic farming, there is a lack of evidence and figures on the sustainability of Irish organic farms. The GROFarmS project aims to address this gap by putting figures on the performance and sustainability of organic farms.

Research on beef finishing systems will be conducted on a dedicated, organic certified 100 acre beef finishing farm in Kildavin, beside Johnstown Castle in Wexford. This farm is currently being converted to organic farming standards. This includes a reseeding programme and conversion of farm sheds to meet organic standards. Complimentary research trials on organic finishing diets will also be under taken in Grange research centre which will subsequently inform the design of winter diets in Kildavin.

In addition, the Teagasc National Farm Survey will be extended to capture information on real organic beef farms across the country that will identify what different production practices are being applied on farms, and what they mean in terms of costs of production, profitability and sustainability.

More detailed information on the background to the project and updates from the project will be on the project website at www.Teagasc.ie/GROFarmS.

There is a National Beef Organic Walk on the farm of Ken Gill Co. Offaly which takes place on Friday 12th July 6:30pm:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/beef/demonstration-farms/future-beef-programme/events/#nationalwalks

And information on further upcoming organic walks can be found here:

https://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/organics/events/

For more episodes from the Beef Edge podcast, visit the show page at:
https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge
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