Who owns the farm business?
A co-op, a CSA and a farm partnership are three different things. People use the three words interchangeably, and it costs them money and time every time.
The confusion is understandable, because all three involve a group of people and a farm. But they answer three different questions: who owns the body, who buys the produce, and who shares the paperwork with the Department. Getting these mixed up is how people end up registering the wrong thing, or registering something that changes nothing.
One sentence each.
A co-operative is a legal body that the members own.
A CSA is a way of selling: members pre-pay for produce, so they
are customers.
A Registered Farm Partnership is farmers sharing a herd number
and resources — a farm-schemes registration, not a legal entity.
1. The co-operative: the members own the body
There is no standalone "co-operative" registration in Ireland today. To be legally a co-op you register as an industrial and provident society under the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts 1893–2021, and put co-operative principles in your rules. (Registrar of Friendly Societies)
- Who registers it: the Registrar of Friendly Societies, which sits with the Companies Registration Office. (same source)
- Minimum founding members: seven. That rule comes from section 5 of the 1893 Act and is still in force. (Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1893) (ICOS, starting a co-op)
- What the members own: the co-operative itself — the body corporate. If that body owns a farm, the members own the body, not the land.
- What it can do: hold property, sign contracts and employ in its own name, with limited liability, no limit on member numbers, and the power to issue share capital. (ICOS)
For the fees and the annual obligations, see what it costs to register a co-op or a company.
2. The CSA: the members are customers
A CSA — community supported agriculture — is not a legal structure at all. It is a commercial model: members pay in advance for a share of the harvest and share the risk of the season. The grower gets cash before there is anything to sell; the member gets produce and a relationship with the farm.
- You can run a CSA as a sole trader with no registration whatsoever. Most small CSAs start exactly there.
- Members do not own the farm, the business or the land. They have bought a share of a season's produce.
- A CSA can be run by a co-op, a company or one person — the model and the structure are separate decisions, and you can pick them independently.
What a CSA needs is not a registration but a written members' agreement: what a share buys, the season, the collection point, risk-sharing, and how someone leaves. (There is a free template here.)
3. The Registered Farm Partnership: farmers share a herd number
A Registered Farm Partnership (RFP) is two or more farmers agreeing to share resources, licensed into a partnership with a single herd number. It is available to dairying, beef, tillage, sheep — and also horticulture, pigs, poultry and goats. There is no transfer of ownership. (Department of Agriculture, register a farm partnership)
It is a farm-schemes registration. It is not a company, not a co-op, and not a legal entity in its own right. Do not confuse it with an ordinary partnership, where the partners are jointly and severally liable.
4. The three, side by side
| Co-operative (IPS) | CSA | Registered Farm Partnership | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A registered legal body | A way of selling produce | A farm-schemes registration |
| Who owns what | Members own the body | Nobody — members are customers | Each farmer keeps their own land and stock |
| Needs | 7 founding members, written rules, annual audit | A written members' agreement | Two or more farmers, one herd number, an RFP bank account |
| Main effect | A separate legal person that can hold land, contracts and liability | Cash up front and a guaranteed market for the season | Scheme applications and payments made under the RFP number |
5. What a co-op does not do
This is the part that matters most, and it is the reason so many people register the wrong thing. The schemes turn on who farms the land, who holds the herd number, and who holds the entitlements — not on what kind of entity you are.
On the evidence, no farm scheme gives co-ops a higher rate, a lower land threshold or a separate entitlement pot. Forming a co-op:
- creates no payment entitlements, and
- does not lower the Organic Farming Scheme minimum area — the 3 hectare floor stays 3 hectares, or 1 hectare for horticultural producers.
What is confirmed is more subtle. The Organic Farming Scheme terms and conditions define "farmer" as a natural or legal person, or a group of natural or legal persons, whatever legal status the group has, and separately define a "company" as a legal form of business organisation that is a separate legal entity. So a co-op or a company is, in principle, capable of being the scheme applicant. (OFS Terms & Conditions 2026, s.3)
What is not confirmed, and you must not assume. Whether the Department will in practice accept a co-op or a CLG as the BISS or Organic Farming Scheme applicant for your holding, and how it treats land owned by an individual but farmed by the entity, is unverified — check this with DAFM directly before you register anything on the strength of it.
One rule that is confirmed and catches people out: where an application is in more than one name, all applicants must have a single herd number, must declare all their land on IACS under that herd number, and are jointly and severally responsible. (OFS T&C 2026, s.14)
6. What a farm partnership gets you — and what it does not
It does get you:
- BISS and other scheme applications made under the RFP number, with all scheme expenditure going through the RFP bank account. (DAFM)
- A TAMS investment ceiling raised from €90,000 to €160,000. (Irish Organic Association, OCIS)
- Organic Farming Scheme participation payment payable to each organic herd ID in the partnership, up to a maximum of three. (OFS T&C 2026, s.9(e))
- Preferential stock relief and access to the Collaborative Farming Grant Scheme. (DAFM)
It does not get you:
- A lower minimum area. The rules say it plainly: the minimum area for a partnership is the same as for an individual applicant. A partnership does not get 2 hectares past a 3 hectare floor. (OFS T&C 2026, s.15(d))
- Anything for your CSA members. An RFP is between farmers who farm the land together. Your veg-box members are customers, not partners. Registering a farm partnership because you have CSA members is a category error, and it will not be accepted.
Timing note: to have used an RFP for the 2026 BISS deadline you would have needed the completed application in by 2 February 2026. Outside that, applications are accepted year-round. (DAFM)
7. The one thing to write down
Whatever you call it, write one paragraph and put it at the top of your file:
Who owns the farm business, who owns the land, and who is a customer. Three separate answers. If you cannot fill all three in without hesitation, you have a dispute waiting to happen — and it will surface in the first bad season, not the first good one.
If you have not answered the four eligibility questions yet, do that first. Structure is the last decision, not the first.
Not legal advice. This page describes published rules that change. Take the structure question to a solicitor or a co-op development adviser, and take the scheme question to DAFM in writing, before you register anything.
Free to copy, adapt and pass on.