We have had the best spring and start to summer that I remember in our 20 years of growing organic vegetables, it has been exceptional and I think we are in for a bumper harvest. I certainly feel we were due a break after the two dismal and depressing years just gone.
It is with some depression then that we face into mid July with the all too familiar vista of loads of produce and so few orders. We rely completely on individual orders each week and when our orders drop dramatically as they have done in the last couple of weeks it leaves us struggling.
It is completely understandable, the weather has been good and we all deserve a break from our routines, couple that with many people taking a well deserved holiday and we have the perfect storm.
We have all the same costs week in week out, from packing to harvest -and the crops simply must be harvested when they are ready. We also have commitments to other Irish organic growers and when we don’t have orders this leaves us with difficult decisions.
The worst case is that our crops simply are left in the field to rot and this can be a very sad and real reality. This year we took a different approach to avoid this, in the hope that it might stimulate orders, we have given away over one thousand free freshly harvested farm harvested items over the last three week but it seems it has done very little, and the sad fact is we cannot afford to continue doing this.
There is the double depressing fact that we have spent the last six months working so hard to produce this amazing local Irish organic food that now we can’t sell it.
The farm this year so far is operating at a loss, the first six months of the year we incur most of the costs, and the latter six months are when you need to recoup the costs to keep the farm rolling. Last year we never recovered the costs, it was the worst year we have had, one bad year you can just about take, but two, that’s too much of a stretch.
So this year, is the year to steady the ship to make enough to reinvest back in the farm to keep it running, and maybe if we are very lucky cover some of the losses from last year, it really is as simple as that.
With only 60 commercial vegetable farmers left in Ireland and against the continued loss leading of fresh produce by supermarkets you start to question whether after all the hard work it is worth it?
From my perspective this has always been a resounding yes because I believe in local food and growing food without chemicals and protecting biodiversity and paying people fairly, so it is a double depression to be facing this struggle of having the produce but not having the orders. Year by year it erodes my sense of commitment that earlier on was buffered by the endless energy of youth. I am tired.
We have I believe a decent business that promotes a positive and vital link to our food and our land. I would ask you now if you can at all to support us and crucially over the next few weeks of the summer holidays as our pivotal harvest rolls in from our fields and the fields of other farmers to place an order and maybe avoid that odd supermarket purchase in favour of buying from us.
If you can I thank you. If you cannot I thank you for reading, engaging and spreading the word to others that may be able to support and help us, and I thank you for your good wishes and words and energy of encouragement which keeps us going through the tough and lean times.
Thank you.
Kenneth