Rural areas gained least benefit from the recent record growth in employment, the Teagasc rural development conference in Tullamore was told yesterday.
Mr Patrick Commins of the Teagasc rural economy research centre said all regions had shared the gains made in the employment upsurge in the 1990s but the gains in rural areas were much weaker.
The growth in foreign investment and internationally traded services favoured Dublin and the eastern counties but Irish enterprises showed a more balanced regional distribution.
"However, the growth in employment in this area has been much weaker," he said.
Mr Commins said current industrial policy acknowledged the need to cluster related investments in a limited number of key regional centres to act as a counter-balance to Dublin and its surrounding areas.
However, the policy of balanced regional development was, in itself, no guarantee that the benefits would extend to the rural hinterland.
In tourism, for instance, he said, the doubling of revenue in the 1990s still meant that the Dublin, Cork/Kerry, Galway and Clare/Limerick regions had consistently earned 70 per cent of the rising revenue.
Mr Commins said an important feature of the development of rural enterprises was the role of "incomers" to rural areas.
These include non-natives and returning emigrants.
"Many seek a desirable residential environment and they bring with them employment experience, useful personal contacts, access to business networks and awareness of new market opportunities," he said.
Mr Cathal Cowan of the Teagasc national food centre said markets for organically produced food were expected to treble over the next four years.
Sales of organic food here had increased steadily from a very low base in the mid-1990s but was expected to treble and be worth €86 million by 2006.
Fruit and vegetables accounted for over 40 per cent of all organic sales but 70 per cent of these were imported.
Organic beef and lamb had expanded in recent years and now accounted for 25 per cent of total organic food sales.
Ireland, he said, lagged behind much of Europe in the development of an organic milk market and he urged producers and processors to consider meeting European demands.
He said producers of beef could expect to increase their net margin by 20 per cent by converting to organic but output would decline by 15 per cent, even though production costs would be 7 per cent lower.
He said almost 1,100 farmers were now involved in organic production or in the process of converting to it.
The conference heard from Mr Brendan Kearney, an agricultural consultant, that planting by farmers now accounted for 90 per cent of total afforestation compared to less than 10 per cent in the early 1980s.
Ireland still has the lowest forest cover in the EU at 9 per cent, compared with an average of 31 per cent for the EU as a whole.
Four hundred delegates from all over the State attended the conference, held in the Tullamore Court Hotel.