What happened to our food?

by Kenneth Keavey

Isn’t it funny that if you or I choose to grow our own food we will always, always choose to grow our own food without chemicals! Funny that this is a criterion in our own gardens but less of a consideration when it comes to choosing in a supermarket.

My Grandad grew peas, and turnips, and carrots and potatoes as did my dad. My mum had raspberry bushes, blackcurrants, and goose berries. We were picking and eating our own fruit and vegetables and that was in the 70’s and 80’s. What happened? Where did all the back garden growing go? Not only that where did all our commercial veg growers go? 

In our 20 years we have seen so many changes to our food system we have seen the number of vegetable producers here in Ireland fall dramatically to just 60 commercial field scale producers, down from over 600 in the 90’s. Supermarkets have had a hand in this, squeezing the farmer to the extent that there is just nothing left. The consolidation of the packing and distribution process into the hands of a few middlemen has not helped either. 

In the space of just one generation, we have become disconnected from our food. Where is our food grown, who grows it, how is it produced, how is it handled? 

This disconnection is not our fault. We have had school kids come on to our farm and been completely mesmerised by the fact that carrots come from the ground, having thought they begin their life on supermarket shelves in the plastic packaging. 

So it is that the shiny plastic packs that line the supermarket shelves give us the impression that our food system is unlimited, vibrant and fair, but of course this is not the case. The problems occur when we try to apply factory type controls to a natural system, but nature is not a factory, and the same rules do not apply. 

Over the last few weeks, I have gone out to meet some of the organic farmers that are growing for us, Philip Dreaper growing amazing organic carrots, Donal and Cameron Treacy growing the amazing organic potatoes that grace your boxes each week. We are getting the very best Irish organic apples from Richard Galvin in Waterford. The first Brussel sprouts and savoy cabbage from Padraigh and Una in Beechlawn. Amazing salad and rocket from Mick and Audrey in Millhouse farm and so much more.

We here on our farm certainly know where our food comes from, and we know that it has been produced without chemicals. 

When it comes to the apples though there is another special substance contained in each bite, a mini time machine, these apples will take you back in time. They certainly took me back to the orchard my grandad used to have in his back garden, the apples there which I picked as a young lad were full of flavour. I believe there is a distinct flavour and taste to an Irish apple, and Richard’s apples are that if they are anything.

It is exciting to see that our food and our food producers are becoming a revered part of our culture again, thank you so much for being part of that transformation!

Kenneth

There should be no food grown that we don’t own

by Kenneth Keavey

Just this week I was at the Pesticide Action Network conference in Dublin.

The EU is about to pass legislation that will role back protections that have been put in place over the last number of years to limit the use of pesticides in our food and on our land.  This new law is called “The food and Safety Omnibus law”

There is an urban myth that the head of Monsanto (the manufacturer of Glyphosate) once said:

“There should be no food grown that we don’t own”

I am sure he did not say this in public, but you can be sure that Monsanto most definitely had their eye on owning our food supply back in the heady days of GMO crops and Roundup’s unstoppable march across the world back in the late 90s and early 2000s.

The EU commission has met on numerous occasions with industry lobbying groups, including Bayer, CropLife Europe (a large agribusiness funded pro-pesticide group) and the largest farming group across Europe “Copa Cogeca” who have called for “unlimited” approval of pesticides. 

The new proposal represents a step backwards in the protections for our health and our land. 

One MEP, a right-wing Italian MEP who is an advocate for the new laws has met 9 times since March of this year with organisations including fertiliser groups (As reported by the Financial Times).

3 main changes if this law is passed:

  1. Under the existing rules pesticides must be reviewed every 15 years. The commission has proposed amongst many other industry requests, removing this safeguard. Cast your mind back to 2023 when glyphosate came up for renewal, its licence was renewed for a further 10 years, our own government here in Ireland voted very much in favour of its renewal. Under the new proposal Glyphosate would not have had this review and would have unlimited use into the future.

2. Another industry request “exempting pesticides from bans where they are deemed necessary to maintain crop yields” and this too has been adopted. currently harmful pesticides are only granted exemptions where crops would be directly threatened by a pest, a higher hurdle to cross.

3. Another industry request “extend the grace period from 18 months to 3 years after a pesticide is banned” has also been adopted.

If you would like to voice your concern and opposition to this bill, there is a petition you can sign here.

Of course, supporting organic farming is another step you can take to help ensure our land and our health is protected, and we need your support each week to keep going in a world dominated by cheap industrial food.

Thank you as always for your support

Kenneth

Why were so many people upset by this last week?

by Kenneth Keavey

We were blown away with your support for our celery plants last week, thank you so much, you have saved the celery from certain doom by a fungus called Septoria. But before we reached for the synthetic fungicide spray (We never do) we harvested it all and sent it out to you, so thank you so much.

We don’t and won’t supply supermarkets, it’s not for us.  We have you guys each week supporting our farm, and I will tell you now that you are amazing for doing so, thank you. There are few and far between businesses like ours that operate outside the €22 billion supermarket grocery net, but there are some. When you find them support them if you can. 

Now supermarkets are important we all use them, and they have a role in keeping us fed, we would not survive without them. But we as a farm and business have decided that we would prefer to operate by connecting directly with you, our customers rather than handing out power to the supermarkets.

The main reason for this decision, is it means we can operate in the way we see fit. So, we can do things sustainably, we can avoid plastic use by using compostable or paper packaging, we can work in a way that protects biodiversity and your health, in a way that is fair to our land, our planet, and to other growers we share this journey with, and in a way that keeps chemicals out of our food and land.

On that note, last week I got a load of agitated souls getting quite upset about the facts I shared around glyphosate, for instance, it is a “probable carcinogen, not my info, that of the World Health Organisation”.  It is fair enough through I suppose that conventional farmers would be annoyed, they didn’t design the system, but why advocate for big agri-corporations that make billions off our food system? 

Our food system has glyphosate embedded in it. How do we function without it? How can we grow food, the transformation will not happen overnight, it will take time and money to transition to a new food system, and with climate breakdown bringing all sorts of extreme challenges to our doors, transition we must.

How ever you feel about the health implications of glyphosate, for me it is the intensive agricultural industry it props up that I have issue with. Imagine a world where we did not have factory farms with animals being fed genetically modified glyphosate drenched maize and soya, where over 70% of the land we use is used to farm animals, or the crops that feed them (all sprayed intensively) to provide only 17% of all our calories, this my friends is not a future that will end well for any of us. 

AND NO! Not all soya is used to feed vegans, it is in fact all (nearly) used to feed cows, and right here in Ireland too. Next time you are in your local calf nut provider place have a look at the ingredients on the label of your GMO nuts, I think you may find it interesting.

So where do we go from there, well I certainly know by virtue of the support we have for our farm that we go to a place where a better fairer food system is possible and a place where we can all benefit from a thriving nature, that feeds our bodies and souls and protects our land.

So, thank you from the bottom of my heart for the uplift last week, keep us in mind, don’t forget, I wish I didn’t have to do these things to get your attention but I know we are all busy and have so many conflicting pulls on our time, so thank you for stopping for a moment of awareness and supporting us.

Kenneth

An Organic diet cuts pesticide levels in our bodies

by Kenneth Keavey

There is little question that an organic diet cuts pesticides levels in our bodies. It has to, there is no synthetic pesticides sprayed on organic food. A study in 2020 of 4 families that were put on an organic diet for 6 days, had a marked decrease in pesticides in their urine including levels of Glyphosate which decreased by 70.93% while AMPA (a chemical added to make glyphosate more effective) levels decreased by 76.71%. The authors concluded that diet is a primary source of glyphosate exposure. 

The same families showed decreases in levels of 40 of the most commonly used agricultural pesticides. 

Although there is safe levels set for all pesticide exposure in our food called MRLs (maximum residue limits), the two things that have not and would be very difficult to assess is the cumulative effect over time if we are consistently consuming small amounts of these chemicals, and the second thing is the cocktail effect of having a number of these different chemicals in our body at the same time. 

Take apples for instance. It is Irish apple season right now, and apples are one of the most sprayed fruits on supermarket shelves, the average apple gets sprayed on average 30 TIMES in a season. In a recent EU study, the most toxic pesticides contaminated 71% of the samples, while 64% of the samples contained at least one PFAS pesticide. Neurotoxic pesticides were found on 36% of the samples. Link to source here.

We are very lucky to not only have amazing organic apples from a Fairtrade Coop in France, but also fantastic Irish organic apples from Richard Galvin in Waterford. 

This brings me to our humble spinach and the little holes we find on it. It may not be the mostly slightly, but once you cook, blend or freeze it who would know, and more importantly it is a clear indication that the spinach in question has never seen a pesticide. Spinach frequently features on the dirty dozen list (US based info) but it is also sprayed here in the EU. 

The EU samples spinach at random every three years under its coordinated control programme. The most recent published round is 2022 and here is what they found: 

51.4% of samples had no quantifiable residues, 47% had residues within legal limits, and 1.6% exceeded the maximum residue level (MRL). So bottom line, half had pesticides and half did not. 

We are at the height of harvest at the moment, and we have loads of our own produce and produce from other organic farmers right now. Can you support us next week? I asked last week what we can do to make things easier and many of you responded with some brilliant ideas so thank you for that, we will look at them all and see what we can put in place. Please remember us in your weekly shop next week if you can. 

As always thank you so much for your support, it means so much.

Kenneth

PS thank you to everybody who came to our festival and supported our celebration of 20 years a couple of weeks ago, it was so nice to meet so many of you. The fact you took the time and made the effort to travel to our farm was truly amazing, thank you

An emotional rollercoaster of a week

by Kenneth Keavey

Supermarkets have a stranglehold on our food system, whatever way you look at it they set the rules, they control 93% of a €22 billion pie, that is some power when you think about it. The argument goes that supermarkets are only giving us as consumers what we want, but how would we know what we want?

Please watch my Instagram video this week. http://instagram.com/greenearthorganics1

There is immense psychology around getting people to buy high margin low value products (think ultra processed food). I was at panel discussion during the week chaired by Aoibheann O’Brien who runs Food Cloud, and the title was the “myth of choice in supermarkets” a very interesting discussion.

We have been conditioned for instance to expect vegetables and fruit to come in a certain shape and size and look a certain way, if we only ever shop in supermarkets how would we know that fresh produce comes in all sizes, and in fact comes out of the ground with soil on it, and that this is, ok? In fact, it is more than ok, it is amazing and wonderful.

The shiny plastic packs keep us in our box so to speak; they convey a very comforting all is well and this is the way things should be feel. But you know what it is not “all is well” and don’t even get me started on all the plastic rubbish generated by these single use plastics. At the excellent Climate Carnival discussion there was a discussion on plastic, and the big elephant in the room, is what truly happens to the contents of our blue recycle bin?

We pack in paper and compostable bags, and the reality is supermarkets will not pack their veg in compostable bags because they are expensive.

I spoke to a man who knows the food system and knows the buying behaviour of supermarkets, and his take was ultimately fresh food is too cheap, and supermarkets are responsible of bringing us to this point, end of story. I spoke to Philip Dreaper who is an amazing carrot grower, and he reminded me that we as consumers paid more for a kg of carrots 20 years ago that we do today. He also reminded me that growing is getting more challenging as a result of climate change.

We had an amazing day of celebrations last weekend at our 20 year anniversary Sustainable Festival.  It was emotional and uplifting and enlightening and I cannot begin to convey my thanks to all of you who came, to all the suppliers and vendors, and to all our amazing team that made it all work.

It was then with all of this as a backdrop that we faced into our usual Monday morning with orders not at all where they needed to be for mid-September, each week we had been waiting for the routines to set in and things to improve for our deliveries, and we were left with a massive glut of cherry tomatoes, for us we counted nearly 400kg which is a true mountain of tomatoes. It was with a bittersweet taste in my mouth that I had to go to the tunnel and ask again as I did in the summer if you could support us this week. I would much prefer not to have to do this.

We I am sure could improve so many things, and so many things we need to address such as cost. We know there is a cost-of-living crisis we know our produce is expensive relative to supermarkets. But we simply cannot compete on some things with them, but we would hope that how we conduct ourselves as a farm and business and community, and the value that is in the fresh organic food would speak for itself.

I am sure I am missing something, so please if you know of ways we could make it easier and better for you to order from us and help us to ensure we keep more of you our customer supporting us, please send us an e-mail (info@greenearthorganics.ie) or leave us a comment. We will take it all on board.

Thank you so much for the last 20 years, and here is to the next 20 years.

Kenneth

PS We have reduced prices on several key items to help address some of the cost issues, check out our website. Also, as an added celebration of the start of Irish apple season, we are giving away a FREE portion of IRISH organic apples from Richard Galvin in Waterford when you spend over €80, just enter the code FREEAPPLES

We really thought we couldn’t do it…

by Kenneth Keavey

On September 12th we are celebrating being in the business of growing and delivering sustainable food for 20 years.  It has been an epic journey, only made possible by your support. There is no question, we would not be here today if it wasn’t for you, our customers.

So many memories, so many challenges, I clearly remember it must have been year 2 or 3 when we were moving into our “big field” and we were filled with trepidation, could we do it? It felt insurmountable, but somehow, we did, we got to planting and you know what we got through it.

It has been a crazy journey, and there have plenty of times when we really wanted to throw in the towel. But we had a certain determination and belief that what we were doing needed to be done, that it was important, that it was more than a way to earn a living it was a creed.

We started when many were getting out of the industry, we were advised not to, we were told we were mad, we were told we needed a touch of Roundup to make it work!

We were visited by the local Garda to check we weren’t growing strange plants if you get my meaning.

I distinctly remember going to Dublin to meet Darina Allen and going into the Dept of Agriculture to question the use of Glyphosate. I asked the official why was it ok to have twice as much glyphosate sprayed on oats compared to wheat. His response “We eat less porridge than toast,”. Imagine that, what a response, too bad if you are a voracious porridge eater I suppose. Today best practice is considered to reseed 10% of your land each year, best practice to spray with glyphosate, best practices? I don’t think so, depends on what you are practising I guess, intensification and short-term goals?

Farmers here in Ireland growing vegetables organic or otherwise are amazing and have survived despite the odds. Just this week one conventional horticultural grower in Dublin won the Young Farmer of the year award, he grows 3 million cucumber a year, imagine that, that is amazing.

It is a tough industry, but there are signs of hope, just here locally my neighbour is going back to his roots growing veg, that would not have happened 10 years ago.

There is so much good stuff, and oh we need it now more than ever. Our planet our land is crying out for help, the greed and the obsession with profit is old news, look where it has gotten us, we need change.

Just today I was chatting with my neighbour as were unloading straw bales for our celebration tomorrow, and we were thinking, times were simpler 30 years ago, we weren’t as stressed and rushed. In fact, there was more cooking from scratch, there was more homegrown produce. Maybe its time to come full circle and somehow get back to our roots.

Who knows what waits around the corner for any of us. Your support keeps us growing, keeps us supporting and shouting about healthy chemical free food, keeps us championing our land our planet and biodiversity and keeps us keeping on as they say.

Thank you it’s your celebration too, hope to see you tomorrow and if not please support us next week.

Thank you

Kenneth

PS It was noted in the Independent this week, that it has been a tough year for growers, and there has been a seismic connection finally between climate breakdown and the fact that our food systems are on the edge. We truly do need your support to keep going, so if you haven’t gotten back into a routine with an order from us yet, maybe next week is your week.

Come join us for a carrot on the 12th (not a chemical one)

by Kenneth Keavey

Chemical carrots season is just about to kick off. Imagine if the chemicals used in the production of carrots were listed on the pack, would that change our sentiment about purchasing those carrots?

In Ireland we are lucky,  we have some great carrot growers such as Philip Dreaper from Coolnagrower organic farm in Offaly who will be supplying all our main crop carrots in a week or two. On our own farm just this week we have started harvesting our first fresh bunched organic carrots and the smell and taste takes me back to when I was a child and carrots tasted like carrots.

People often tell us that the taste and flavour of our “dirty” carrots take them back to a time when fresh fruit and veg actually tasted of something, back to when carrots tasted like carrots.

Coincidentally during the week, I was talking to my sister, and she mentioned she bought a turnip in a supermarket and it tasted of little.  (whereby we had a heated discussion that the Irish turnip is actually a swede)

How food is grown has a big impact on flavour and taste and there really is no substitute for healthy food grown in well fertilised soil without the use of chemicals.

All our potatoes right now are coming from Cameron in Battlemount organic farm near Athy in County Kildare, and they are beautiful and taste amazing.

These are just two examples of a whole host of gorgeous Irish organic produce that we are harvesting or sourcing and it is top of its class.

There are so many great growers both organic and conventional right across Ireland all trying to produce good healthy food, and it has been a challenging year. There is no question that man-made climate change is bringing further challenges to our doorstep.

We have been growing and selling sustainable organic produce direct to customers for 20 years now and there have been plenty of tough times and some good times. I find it hard to believe it has been 20 years, I am not sure where the time has gone, but it has passed.

I would like to extend an invite to you all to come and join us on Saturday the 12th of September to celebrate our 20 years of growing and being in business.

But more importantly to celebrate with some amazing people how we can change our relationship with food to help ease the burden our food systems are putting on our planet.

We started Green Earth Organics with a view to protecting biodiversity through growing sustainable food.  Now as we see the impact of synthetic chemicals and manmade climate change on our planet, organic farming offers a system that may help us move the needle back in favour of working with nature rather than against it.

Come and celebrate with us and reconnect with the true meaning of real food. There are just 50 tickets left I think and you can get yours here.

For all of those of you who are already planning your day I cannot wait to meet you all. Thank you for all your support over the years through thick and thin it means a great deal and there is little doubt we would not be here today if it wasn’t for that.

Kenneth

PS Our festival is a not-for-profit event in the unlikely event the costs fall below the ticket sales we will be donating any surplus to Friends of the Earth and Hometree charities.

What a week

by Kenneth Keavey

There has been loads happening on the farm this week. For one I don’t think I could have eaten finer food at a Michelin star restaurant. We have had Tom Hunt, Guardian recipe writer and eco warrior chef here for three days and wow did he cook some amazing food right out in the middle of our fields. Rustic and amazing on a wood fire, we can’t wait to share these amazing, seasonal, eco-recipes with you. They blew my taste buds away, all vegetarian, some vegan, and all 100% taste explosions. Keep an eye on our weekly recipes and on Instagram for more.

On top of that we had a national organic farm walk here on Tuesday afternoon and had an amazing group of people come along to talk and share information. You couldn’t write it though, on the button of 2.15pm as we were about to kick off the first drops of rain started to fall, (cue a little rain dance by all farmers in attendance) it then rained straight for the next 4 hours. You could tell that this was a seasoned crowd as the rain made no difference, in fact considering all the drought conditions it was more than welcome.

We had some of the farmers who supply us present as well as all the professional bodies, Bord Bia, Dept of Ag, Teagasc, IOA, and OGI. Thanks to everybody who came along it was I hope an informative and open discussion, in particular thanks to William Deacey of Teagasc for organising it.

Not to mention pallets of produce being harvested by Emmanuel and his farm team, from kale to the first carrots and parsnips, beetroot, spinach, salad, lettuce, tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, in fact today he told me 23 different crops were harvested this week, amazing.

We have also been very busy getting ready for our 20-year celebration festival.  A celebration of sustainable food and it promises to be an amazing day, there are still some tickets left, so if you haven’t gotten yours yet, please click here to reserve now, all the info can be found on that page.

It is a strange time though as if you are like us, we haven’t fully gotten back into routine yet, in fact as a family we are all over the place, between some bits of school started, some not just yet, having one girl going off to college, one starting in 5th year and our youngest just starting in secondary it is all change. Not sure I know whether we are coming or going. We have seen this reflected in our orders also, completely understandable. I think next week is when we will have to settle down and I am hoping it’s the same with many of you, our customers.

So, it really feels like autumn is beginning in earnest, like any change there is a little element of loss and sadness at its passing, loss of the long summer days and bright sunshine, but the swallows are still here, and if anything September can and has been in years gone by a beautiful month, fingers crossed that we have a good one.

As always thank you so much for your support, it keeps us growing, now really is the time of Irish seasonal plenty.

Kenneth

60% of the Broccoli crops has been devastated, why?

by Kenneth Keavey

60% of the total national broccoli crop in France has been devastated by man made climate change. Our broccoli crop is poor or non-existent; our Irish supplier has no organic broccoli. We cannot buy organic broccoli from any of our suppliers on the continent. 

I talk here every week about chemicals in and on our food, but the reality is if we do not stop burning fossil fuels there will not be any food for anybody to spray chemicals on. 

Think about that for a minute. 

This is happening now. This is the real-life impact of drought and massively intense temperatures across Europe directly impacting our ability to grow food. Our farm is still in moisture deficit. 

This is one crop. 

I walked our farm today and even though there is a small amount of rain as I write this, we are still in serious moisture deficit. Some of the crops are stunted; yields are down, this is the second time in 8 years that we have experienced serious drought issues here in the west of Ireland. 

To one extent or another we have all voted for the food system we have. Granted it has been infinitely facilitated by supermarket retail culture and our increasingly pressurised and busy lives. 

But we get what we vote for, and you can see how that has worked out for our American friends across the water. As a society we must decide what we want to reward because in the end that is what we will get. We have always maintained that local organic food production must be where we put our focus, and I have been doing this long enough now to know that growing food commercially is hard and risky and yet outsourcing our food to other countries also comes with a risk. 

The real issue here is the fact that when there is a shortage of food due to drought or floods or whatever other climate related shocks, our food systems will be compromised. 

There is little doubt that certain countries are much better adapted to growing certain crops and it would be hard to see a viable red pepper industry developing in Ireland, having said that with climate change all of that could be up for discussion. But maybe we could be more self sufficient in carrots or parsnips or cabbage. 

When it comes to our food choices we have to decide where it is we want to put our attention. The simple reality is local sustainable food production is our best chance of feeding ourselves when food becomes scarce in other places. 

I know that on a 25-acre farm we are not going to feed Ireland. But we are building a network of other growers that share our vision that sustainable agriculture is a real solution to help bring us one step closer to a better more sustainable food secure future. 

It is only through your support that we get to do that, and your support makes a difference. 

Thank you. 

Kenneth

Glyphosate is needed to feed the world

by Kenneth Keavey

We need glyphosate, it is as simple as that, without it we can’t grow enough food, excuse me?

We never really know what is going on behind the scenes, what is decided and talked about behind the closed doors. We are told things and we need to figure out if it is in our best interests to believe what we are told. For instance, we are told we need glyphosate to produce all the food that is produced in the world. That there would be real trouble if it was banned.

This was exactly the case in 2024, when an exceptionally strong agricultural lobbying group COPA-COGECA successfully lobbied the EU Commission to throw out their pesticide reduction target, this new law part of the EU green deal was formally withdrawn by the Commission in February 2024.

The EU green deal for farmers was going to cut pesticide use in half.

Thomas Waitz A green MEP from Austria said “Copa Cogeca focused on sabotaging, delaying and ultimately stopping the sustainable use of pesticide regulation. They are acting in the interests of large agrichemical and multinationals against the wellbeing of small and medium famers.” The pesticide regulation was withdrawn in 2024.

This organisation set out to protect in particular the use of Glyphosate and the bee harming pesticides neonicotinoids.

This union does represent the rights of farmers, but it represents the rights of some more than others, bigger industrial groups for one.

This same lobbying group (insert link 2) that got an agreement on the extension of the use of cages for chickens for another 10 years. In fact, behind the scenes files captured by “Grilled” (the investigative journalist website)  show this organisation receiving support from EU commissioners in blocking parts of the EU effort to beat cancer, pressuring ministers to weaken protections for wild animals, securing emissions exemptions for factory farms, and prolonging the use of cages for livestock. Using the tactics of large tobacco to lobby, cajole and convince that it is in our best interests as farmers and consumers to do things such as this.   (insert link 1)

One analysis found the EU’s agricultural promotion programme had spent €252 million over four years advertising meat and dairy products, making up a third of its budget.  Imagine if that budget was used for promoting  vegetables!

The EU is now debating a proposal to remove the periodic safety reviews of pesticides always on the market, effectively giving pesticides a carte blanche for ever.

It is safe to say that organic farming is not a perfect system, but it represents a system that attempts to bring farmers back to being guardians of the planet and in so doing creating a more sustainable food system without the use of glyphosate.

Thank you for supporting a different way of growing food.

Kenneth

PS please continue to support us during the difficult summer months if you can, it makes all the difference to our farm, and if you haven’t got your ticket yet for the sustainability festival please click here to get yours.

Link 1

https://www.grilled.media/inside-copa-cogeca-plot-to-kill-eu-green-deal

link 2

https://corporateeurope.org/en/2025/12/pesticide-lobby-instrumentalising-farmer-protests-its-attack-eu-health-regulations-0