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Mr Trevor Sargent TD, Minister of State at the Department
of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, has welcomed the launch
of the European Union's new Organic Farming Campaign under
the campaign slogan - 'Organic farming - Good for nature,
good for you'.
The promotional campaign (Click
Here) aims to inform consumers about the meaning and
benefits of organic farming and food production. The web-based
campaign will focus on increasing consumer awareness and recognition
of organic products, and especially on young people and children
to carry the organic idea into the future.
The website contains an electronic 'toolbox'
that provides marketing materials in 22 languages - free of
charge - to professionals throughout the entire food and farming
sector in order to promote organic production and farming.
The launch of this campaign is indeed timely for Ireland.
The Programme for Government sets down an ambitious target
of 5% of the land area to be under organic production by 2012.
At present, Ireland is at 1% - with over 43,000 hectares being
farmed organically.
In April, Minister Sargent launched the Department's
Organic Farming Action Plan 2008-2012 in response to the Government
commitment. “Access to information is
a key driver in the development of the organic sector and
this new website will be a very useful addition”
- Minister Sargent said.
In the last few years, the number of organic
operators - farmers, producers, processors and importers -
has grown strongly. In 2005, there was a total of 182,305
of these operators in the EU-25 - a 13.4% increase from 2004.
In recent years, the European organic retail market has experienced
strong growth of between 5 and 30%, depending on the country.
Increasing consumer demand is strengthening the organic market
and giving farmers and processors new opportunities.
The European Commission will present the Campaign
at the upcoming National Organic Food Conference on September
4th 2008 in the Waterford Institute of Technology.
The Commission also announced a competition to
develop a new EU organic farming logo that is due to become
mandatory on all organic pre-packaged food from July 2010.
For more information - Click
Here
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