Where have all the vegetable growers gone?

by Kenneth Keavey

Bordering our farm on all sides are fields of grass, there are no crops, no vegetables, but there are cows and there is grass. But where have all the vegetable growers gone? It used to be part of our culture and our heritage and more important than that we used to produce our own food, today over 70% of our fruit and veg is imported and some reports put it as high as 83%. There are approximately 60 commercial field scale vegetable producers left in Ireland. 

That means the majority of the fruit and veg we eat here in Ireland is now grown abroad. What happened to cause this? 

There are many reasons most probably. But one reason stands out above all others, the constant race to the bottom to give the cheapest possible price to the consumer by supermarkets has had a big part to play. Loss leading of fresh Irish produce over the years has not been kind to the vegetable farmer and you can’t really blame farmers for getting out of the business. 

It is a labour intensive business and it is difficult to attract people into a job that typically cannot compete with wages that other industries offer, and yet we must but the sad fact is that the end product, the fresh carrot or parsnip, does not pay the bills. 

This is something we have seen on our farm for many years. Our farm loses money and if it was not for you our customers and our retail business we would not survive as an independent entity. 

I still figure we need to keep going, need to keep growing, need to persist, it may well be the definition of madness and certainly doing the same thing and expecting different results is definitely that. 

It is a fraught endeavour to be involved in, and these days there is also the added uncertainty of climate change, which is bearing down hard and fast on all of us. But when you are out in the fields and your product is at the mercy of the weather you have much less control. 

All in all, it doesn’t paint a very positive picture, and yet, I love growing organic food, growing local food, and supporting other local organic farmers. There are certain glimmers of hope all round, your support for us, is one massive beacon. Younger people 

So, we will keep banging the drum and keep marching on, to what end I am not sure, but as we embark on our 20th growing season, I am hopeful for the future of local organic produce. 

As always thank you for your support it makes every difference. 

Kenneth

A cocktail of chemicals on your conventional supermarket apples

by Kenneth Keavey

Did you know we have the most amazing Irish organic apples, they have been grown in country Waterford by Richard Galvin and they have been sprayed with nothing. 

A recent study by PAN UK (pesticide action network UK) found that nearly all the samples of conventional apples they tested had at least one pesticide residue and over 85% had a cocktail of up to seven pesticide residues. In some countries every single apple they tested recorded pesticide residues. 

Many of these chemicals are systemic in nature and get absorbed into the flesh of the apple. 

In a 2022 study carried out by the Irish Department of Agriculture 79% of sampled apples were found to have detectable pesticide residues. Conventional apples are among the most heavily sprayed fruits, often treated with fungicides to prevent scab. 

To maintain freshness and improve appearance, many supermarket apples also are coated with artificial food-grade waxes, such as shellac or carnauba wax, to replace natural waxes stripped away during cleaning. 

Apples are sprayed on average 30 times in a year with a host of pesticides, these toxic chemicals can include neurotoxins which were in this study was found on over 30% of samples. 

The apples we receive from Richard Galvin are amazing, they are Irish and organic, the season is sadly ending soon, but we will continue to have the most delicious organic apples from a Fairtrade organic co-op from the South of France. 

When I was a young lad I used to help my Grandad pick the apples at the end of the summer, he had maybe 10 large old apple trees and it was my job to climb the trees to put up the jars with the water and jam to trap the wasps, and stop them from eating the sweet apples. It was also my job to pick the apples. We used to then store the apples on galvanise sheets in one of the old cow sheds. We would have apples until Christmas, after that they wouldn’t be great. They certainly were never sprayed with chemicals. 

These days with cold storage and special bins that exclude air the apples last until February and much longer and you can be the judge of the quality of our Irish apples yourself. They may not be quite as fresh and crisp as they were back in October, but they are still bursting with flavour. 

As always it is only through your support that we continue to be able to grow food without chemicals and support other Irish organic farmers that share our values, which helps protect nature and our health. 

Thank you

Kenneth

PS Nearly 95% of the apples sold in Ireland are imported.

I can’t believe it has been 20 years…

by Kenneth Keavey

This time 20 years ago I had just quit my job in the pharma industry and had started Green Earth Organics. My grandad’s farm was sitting here, my dad was unsure what to do with it, it is a small farm, and it was very hard to conceive how anybody could make a living off 25 acres. 

I passionately believed we should be growing our food without chemicals, and I wanted our food and the food for our family to be free from toxic pesticides. I cannot convey how strongly I believed that farming without chemicals was the right thing to do. I was coming at this with a Ph.D in Chemistry from Cambridge University and nearly 10 years’ experience working in the pharma industry, chemicals do belong in a lab, but definitely do not belong on our food. 

This was at a time before it was fashionable or trendy to grow local organic food. I believed wholeheartedly that our food and our land should be free from chemicals. We believed that our land deserved to be treated with respect, that trees should be planted and wild areas left, that biodiversity should be protected, and that all the other living creatures we share this earth with should be protected and not exploited. Nothing about this belief has changed in 20 years. 

The idea of growing vegetables without Roundup, and in the west of Ireland, without having a clue was deemed in a word “Madness”. Maybe an element of madness was necessary, and it was this madness and the eternal optimism of youth that got us off the ground. So yes, we were mad, totally mad, everybody was leaving agriculture, not getting into it. 

It was the maddest and best thing Jenny and I ever did, we sold our house in the UK, moved back to Ireland, scraped together as much funds as possible, with loans from our parents, credit card debt and the bit of cash we had ourselves, we ploughed it all into the farm. We were broke and didn’t/couldn’t take an income from the farm for the first five years. We lived off Jenny’s wages. 20 years of madness have passed now. 

The founding principles of the business never changed and have never been compromised. Creating a fairer chemical free food system and making this food accessible to all has been our charter and continues to be. We continue to farm, to grow good wholesome chemical free food but priorities changed at least for me from growing food to managing a business. 

At the beginning we had nothing and that was hard, now we have a team of people, we have, loans, tractors, sheds, machinery and a small smattering of experience and knowledge, it is still hard, but the challenges have changed. Since its very modest beginnings in 2006 GEO has grown into the biggest home delivery business of organic 

food in the country with our own farm and a network of other Irish organic farms that we support and buy from each week. 

It has kept on growing (which is positively amazing) and after 20 years I have come to realise that there are no quick fixes to a broken food system. But there is hope, and a growing desire by you our loyal supporters to see a better food system take shape. You are helping turn that into a reality, so thank you for sticking by our side, we hope we can continue on this path for many years to come. 

Kenneth.

Keep fighting the good fight

by Kenneth Keavey

The question is, do we ever really know what is going on? It’s a big question and generally speaking, I find myself scratching my head and asking just that question a lot these days.

But what about the stuff we are told by companies we think we can trust, stuff large corporations tell us, stuff we take for granted, stuff apparently based in unbiased science?  The facts are the facts, right? 

Well, it seems that this may not quite be the case.

When it comes to pesticides, we are definitely not getting the whole picture. Take Roundup for instance: A foundational study, a study referenced more than any other, a study that for 25 years has stood as testament to the safety of Glyphosate, has been retracted by the respected journal that published it.

In retracting the study last month, the journal, ‘Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology’, cited “serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors.” Martin van den Berg, the journal’s editor in chief, said the paper had based its conclusions largely on unpublished studies by Monsanto.

It seems, not only is the data in question but that the “INDEPENDENT” authors of this landmark study were indeed paid by Monsanto, the then owner and manufacturer of Roundup. 

Not only that but it was Monsanto’s own scientists who actually pulled together much of the information that was published in the paper, and crucially it was unpublished Monsanto trial data which was used to point to the non-carcinogenicity of the chemical, data that has never been seen.

This paper was retracted based on the lack of transparency and the conflict of interest that was demonstrated by the authors based on recently uncovered evidence.

Whether you believe Glyphosate causes cancer, or whether it is bad for the environment and our health is actually nearly irrelevant here. What is clear is that a massive global corporation actively deceived the public, to sell more of its product, for eye watering financial gain, when the profits are in the order of billions of dollars then this makes this publication and retraction extremely significant and controversial.

It is a timely unveiling as the US EPA is due to review the safety profile of glyphosate in 2026.

This same playbook of using “independent” scientists to demonstrate legitimacy and safety, has been utilised by the tobacco industry (we know how that ended) and is currently being used by big oil and fossil fuel companies to mislead and give the impression that all is well with whatever they are trying to sell.  This is not ok.

So, 25 years later, this, the most sprayed pesticide in human history (estimated at approx. 17 billion kg) has changed our agricultural landscape nearly irreversibly, it has driven us towards a food system that is hinged on cheap ultra processed commodity crops, whilst over 2 billion people starve. The argument that glyphosate is needed to help us feed the world is untrue. The argument that without it we would need many more acres to feed the world is untrue, we need to simply change what we grow, and change what we eat.

As always thank you for supporting the good fight.

Kenneth

Maybe we are not as smart as we think we are…

by Kenneth Keavey

Honestly my grandad walked these fields, he farmed here with two farm horses one called Snowball, and he did not use chemicals. The idea struck me just before Christmas that we are the only species on the planet that will actively go out and cover our food with toxic chemicals to stop other living creatures from eating it and then eat it ourselves. That is an amazing forward jump for civilisation, don’t you think?

Using chemicals to ward off disease is as old as organised agriculture, and up until recently bluestone and washing soda, that is Cupper Sulphate and washing soda was used to help prevent blight on potatoes here in Ireland. This is now restricted under organic rules. My Grandad may have used it in the 1950s, and had it been available in the mid-1800s it may have saved millions of people from starvation during the great potato famine, using it would have been the right thing to do.

The key difference today is the scale, the toxicity and the ubiquity of pesticide use. Yes, the EU have been restricting the use of certain pesticides, but it very much looks like their ambition to clean up chemicals in our food will be put on hold for now.

There is also the argument that the dose makes the poison and for something like copper of course if you consume too much of it is toxic, in fact it is more toxic than Glyphosate, this may seem surprising.

But here are two key differences.

1. The use of Glyphosate worldwide is estimated to be 800,000 tonnes annually. For Copper sulphate reliable date does not exist but use is probably around the 10,000-50,000 tonnes mark. (note it is now severely restricted under EU organic standards). Glyphosate is everywhere.

2. Glyphosate is systemic, Cupper is not. Glyphosate gets into the plant and stays there; Copper sits as a barrier on the outside and is easily washed off.

Things are never as black and white as we may want them to be, the famine and the use of copper to protect the potato crop is a good example, if the option was there at the time it would have been the right thing to do to use it.

But today there are clear alternatives to chemical use in vegetable production. For weeding, mechanical and flame weeding are clear chemical free ways to control weeds. Using crops that are more disease resistant is a no brainer, and new varieties are constantly being bred (not GMO, but using natural techniques), take the potato “Connect” which has exceptional blight resistance and tastes great (the earlier Sarpo varieties had great blight resistance, but nobody wanted to eat them!).

For pests, well some crops will succumb that is the nature of nature!

We are often asked how we deal with slugs on our farm, and whilst at times we do use an organic approved slug pellet it is rare and we have virtually no problems. The ecosystem on our farm may be in balance and provides natural protection, as with any balanced system it just works.

So as always without your support we would not be able to continue to fight the good fight, so thank you for standing by us, and Happy New Year.

Kenneth

We are so sorry

by Kenneth Keavey

I am sorry, today I must offer an apology, an apology for all the things we are doing here on our organic farm and business.

It is an apology for growing food without synthetic pesticides and herbicides; it is an apology for supporting many other local Irish organic farmers. It is an apology for persisting in this industry even though it is relentless unforgiving and can feel like a constant uphill struggle.

This is an apology for not supporting an industry that is hell bent on destroying our planet for profit, for not putting the fossil fuel and pesticide industry on a pedestal as the way of the future. I am sorry for believing our planet and all living creatures deserve more respect that the large food corporations offer.

I am sorry for thinking that chemicals that contribute to cancer and chronic illness should not be sprayed indiscriminately on our food, and definitely sorry for believing that it is unnecessary to do so.

We are deeply sorry for not using toxic chemicals in growing your food, and believing food production is possible without synthetic pesticides that destroy biodiversity.

We are sorry for growing, sourcing and producing food that our grandparents would have recognised as real food, who if they tasted our carrots today, would say they tasted like carrots tasted in their day. We are sorry for the gorgeous Irish apples we continue to source from Richard Galvin in Waterford, and all the other great Irish produce we have. I am definitely sorry for all the difficult conversations that happen in the background to keep us growing and supporting other growers.

We are sorry for thinking that climate change is the greatest threat to our beautiful planet we will ever face. Sorry for embracing solar energy, rainwater harvesting and organic pesticide free food production. Sorry for thinking energy from the sun is so much better than dirty fossil fuels. This is an apology for all the hard work by our customer service team, our packing team, our farm team and our delivery team, that work hard, do hard work, work in tough conditions and produce and deliver all your food with such care and respect.

We are definitely sorry that this Christmas you will have only the best chemical free, fresh, organic, sustainable, flavoursome food on your plate you can get anywhere, all delivered to your door in plastic free sustainable packaging. We are sorry for sourcing over 800 groceries that have been chosen because they are organic, fairtrade, plastic free, and don’t support child Slavery (I mean we are definitely sorry for that one).

Sorry that we think there must be a better way to produce food, and for thinking that although profit is important it is not the holy grail. Finally, we are really sorry that you our customers have to put up with all of this.

So yeah, sorry for all of that.

Kenneth

PS There is still time to place your order for Christmas. Your Christmas order can be the make or break time for our farm and business (I know I say it all the time but supermarkets don’t care, and will not miss you, but your order truly makes a difference to us). It is hard to close for a week and make sure we pay all our bills and staff, and last year was the first year we did close and we are closing again this year from 24th December to 4th January. It is the only time we shut in the whole year, so please make sure to order before the deadline next Thursday 18th December at 11.59pm. Please do support us this Christmas it will make all the difference to us. Remember we are not back in action until the week beginning the 5th January so make sure to stock up with groceries until then too.

Chemicals in OUR kale, no chance…and a chemical free Christmas

by Kenneth Keavey

So, we had our usual annual organic farm inspection again this year, and our produce was once again spot-checked. A sample of our kale was taken away and tested for…., now I must preface this with even I was shocked this time.

The last time our produce was tested it was tested for 870 chemicals. This time it was tested for 1200 different chemicals.

Now to be fair, some of these chemicals are banned in the EU, some are banned in the EU and are still used in other parts of the world and are still found on conventional imported food, many that are banned in the EU are still used in the US.

Whatever way you look at it, it is a lot of chemicals.

In total the most recent estimate puts the sales of these toxic chemicals at between 60-€80 billion per annum.

All of this brings me back to the idea, that we as organic farmers and producers must prove our chemical free nature! We must demonstrate that we are following the rules, that we are complying with the organic regulations, that we are not using synthetic pesticides, not using artificial fertilisers, amongst other things. This in our current food environment is fair as it protects us the consumer, and certified organic produce is a crucial way to ensure these chemicals are kept out of our food chain and for us as consumers to know we are getting chemical free food.

But, what if the shoe was on the other foot so to speak, what if we still demonstrated that we were pesticide free, but conventional produce had to list all the chemicals used in its production.

If you go into any supermarket now and check any pack of oranges, or grapefruit, lemons or limes, in fact any citrus fruit you will see the list of chemicals that have been coated onto the skin of the produce. It is clear for everybody who looks to see, one of the most common chemicals applied is one called “Imazalil” this is a probable human carcinogen, and it is applied to nearly every single piece of conventional citrus fruit you will find in a supermarket that is not certified organic.

Now this is not to cause alarm, and there is a justified argument that these compounds reduce food waste by preventing food from rotting. But here is the thing, is it worth it? Would you choose it?

Now at least in the case of citrus fruit it is clear, it is labelled and there to see, but what if all those other pesticides, we have been tested for 1200 different chemicals, what if all of the compounds that were used in the growing of our food was labelled, what then?

It may cause us to at least stop and think, and maybe consider the implications for our health and the health of the planet.

As always thank you for your support, without which we would not be here.

Kenneth

PS As Christmas draws closer, we have had challenges this week getting parsnips harvested as it has been so wet, planning our harvest and harvest from other Irish organic farms can be tricky at this time of year. If you can get your order in now it helps us plan and understand how much produce we will need, remember the deadline for Christmas is less than 2 weeks away now, and we have a finite number of products and produce, so please if you can support us this Christmas, even if you get one or two extra organic groceries from us as well as your fresh produce, it will make a huge difference, the supermarkets wont miss you but we will. Support us to help support you in making it a chemical free Christmas. The little red hat on our products indicates which products you can order for Christmas

Feeling a little disillusioned today…

by Kenneth Keavey

You know I discovered something this week, you can be very happy or at least have
a reasonably amount of happiness (whatever that is) doing what you do, but when
you enter financial considerations into the mix, it can change very rapidly.


A lady here at work said to me ‘retail destroys your soul’, and there is a point in that,
it is so hard to compete in the marketplace, especially when it comes to food. If the
truth be told I would be much happier down in an isolated corner of our farm doing
my own thing. That unfortunately will not pay the bills, the fact is farming does not
pay the bills.


This is exactly the truth we seem to have uncovered again this year, after what has
been without doubt the most rewarding growing season of our nearly 20 years of
growing vegetables. Rain when you want it, the best farm team you could hope for,
the best machinery, heat and light when you needed it, the right fertility, it has just
been 85% perfect, we have realised another loss on our farm.
Now let me explain, our farm is like an independent business it needs to be able to


“wash its own face” as it were, and it sells the produce we produce to our retail
business that then sells it on to you, our customers. We pay our farm fairly; it would
certainly be like shooting ourselves in the foot if we didn’t (and then trying to dig our
own parsnips with one foot). We don’t pay silly prices; we keep it in line with what we
would pay to other Irish suppliers. The reality is this though, that even with this
special treatment we lose money.


I am not highlighting this to be a ‘Moaning Michael’ but to outline what I see as a
bigger problem in our industry. We must at least try to compete with supermarkets,
and supermarkets have made it their model to devalue fresh food to entice
customers into their giant stores by making fresh produce dirt (no pun intended)
cheap. Just the other day I saw Irish carrots in a supermarket for 69c.
So how in the name of all that is Holy is this possible, there is an equation hidden in
there, and it goes a little like this. Either the farmer loses or the supermarket loses
and guess what? The supermarket never loses.


So, I have been racking my brains and a solution to our farming loss might look a
little like.
A. We specialise in one or two crops and sell wholesale.
B. We increase our farm prices beyond what the market allows and then end up
with our retail business losing.
C. We stop growing altogether.
D. We continue as we are and subsidise our farm with our retail business.
The only valid solution in my mind is a combination of B and D, it is sad that this is
the state of affairs, shouldn’t sustainable farming be profitable in its own right? We

are not alone, many farms over the years have closed up shop, there are only 60
field scale vegetable growers left in Ireland, we are one of them.
So, we will keep going, and we look to the next year with hope (Farming can have
this strange hold on you, that you always think things are going to be better next
year…).


Thanks for supporting us
Kenneth

PS The irony of all of this is we feel we need to reduce our prices on key staples to
bring better value to you our customers, because we value you and without you our
farm would not survive. Check out specials here.
PPS Your support this Christmas will make all the difference so please support us if
you can. The supermarkets I guarantee won’t miss you, but if you order with us it
will make all the difference, you can order one of our boxes or and get all your
groceries with us too, we have nearly 800 in stock that you can order for Christmas.

1 teaspoon of this pesticide is enough to kill 1.25 billion bees……

by Kenneth Keavey

1 teaspoon of the neonicotinoid Thiamethoxam can kill 1.25 billion bees, if you are unsure how much that is have a look at the video.  

In 2018 The EU banned the use of neonicotinoid chemicals as the data was irrefutable, these systemic chemicals were destroying bee populations and causing insect numbers to plummet.  

Enter the giant agribusiness pesticide manufactures, who lobbied for years and right up to the end to keep these chemical cocktails in the conventional farming repertoire. They knew they were killing bees and yet they persisted, no different to the fossil fuel lobbyists today, (who with full knowledge of the damage being wrought by man made climate change persist in pushing their wares as harmless.

These neonicotinoid chemicals are still manufactured in Europe and shipped to countries that currently have no ban on them including the US. Not only do these chemicals impact the insect and the bee populations, they have also impacted bird populations, as the birds eat the insects, and this has meant that in the US alone the population of insect eating birds has dropped by over 3 billion.  

These chemicals persist in the soil and a recent study showed that they are still prevalent in Irish soils even though they have not been used here since 2018.  

New studies in France have shown that the bird populations are recovering but at a slow pace, but there is hope as there have been recorded relevant increases of 3-4% per year. This new research demonstrates when nature is given a chance it can recover, but we need to give it space.

It is certainly clear to me, even though we produce so much food right here on our small farm, that biodiversity flourishes when given a chance. The native Irish honeybees that we have on our farm are some of the most productive Gerry the beekeeper has seen.  

For the size of our farm then number of birds and butterflies and bees can be positively breathtaking, and we are not doing anything spectacular, we are just growing hedgerows, growing wildflower, not using chemicals, leaving wild areas, and we are producing literally tonnes of food. It is a model that works, yes of course the food may be a little more expensive, but do you think those extra few cents are worth the investment in nature, and the investment in our own health?  

For all the talk of supporting sustainability supermarkets are still driving the price of fresh vegetable to rock bottom, and with this comes a real price, how can a farmer support a sustainable food system, if he is barely surviving? Supermarkets need to do better.

With your support we our farm has nearly made it through another year, without your support we would not. So thank you for supporting us it makes all the difference.  

Kenneth

PS As our Christmas shop is now open, please if you can support us this Christmas, the supermarkets profit margins are already bulging and they will certainly not miss you, but we will.

Order here https://greenearthorganics.ie/christmas-delivered-to-your-door

1 million tonnes of Chinese garlic…. and cooking without chemicals this Christmas.

by Kenneth Keavey

Garlic from China on Irish supermarket shelves. That’s nearly as bad as apples from New Zealand whilst our own Irish apples sit in the fields, what is this all about?  

You would have to think there is something amiss with our food system when it is cheaper to ship food all the way around the world that grow it here in Ireland, would you not?

These large supermarkets sourcing choices like many of the ultra-processed products on supermarket shelves are certainly not chosen with our health in mind. Not ours or that of the planet and with the absolute necessity of progress in reducing man-made carbon emissions for the sake of humanity at COP30, we need to make the best food choices we can, and these large retailers have a responsibility to do so too.

The reason we have Chinese garlic and so much of it, nearly 1 million kgs, or one third of all the garlic eaten in Ireland, is about price and supply. There is very little Irish garlic production with a couple of notable exceptions such as Drummond House garlic and Taylors of Lusk, but how can locally grown garlic compete with this scale of cheap imports?

Of course, importing food will always be necessary, eating seasonally is great, but to be fair, it can’t be all swedes and cabbages. We are not going to subsist on daily mashed swede, we could, but realistically is this something we are going to embrace?  

Conversely right now there is amazing seasonal veg and fruit available right now here in this small green wet island of Ireland. From Irish organic squash to amazing Brussel sprouts, to kale, to our own final harvest of cherry vine tomatoes (and it is definitely the last harvest of them) and to everything in between, we on our farm and many of the other Irish organic farmers that supply us have an abundance of local organic produce. From a carbon emissions perspective, eating more local plant based food is probably if we can one of the very best choices we can make to help mitigate climate change.

But some produce we will always need to import, think Bananas.  Whilst there may have been a time when ostrich farming was encouraged in Ireland (this is 100% true but a story for another day) I have yet to see the department of agriculture put its not inconsiderable resources behind banana plantations but never say never and with climate change that day may be sooner than we think.

But garlic from China, well now that is another thing altogether, as we plant our first garlic and as we (and I’ll put my hands up here, import our weekly boxes of organic garlic from Spain), why in the name of God would garlic need to be shipped halfway around the world when we can grow it here in Ireland or at the very least here in Europe.

The Chinese grow nearly 800,000 Hectares of garlic and export a stagging 2.4million tonnes (in 2024), and one third of all garlic eaten in Ireland is from China. It is cheap, and how as Irish farmers can we compete with that? Could more be grown right here in Ireland?

Yes of course, we could grow we ourselves are just planting a full tunnel of garlic, which will be ready for harvest in May next year.

As always thank you for your supporting a local sustainable organic food system.

Kenneth

PS We have just opened our Christmas section on our website and are really excited to be able to supply you with a mostly Irish, always organic Christmas offering. So, if you want to support local food, and if you want to cook without chemicals this Christmas then please support us. This helps strengthen our local organic food system, and you may not think it but this is one choice that can really help ourselves eat well and help address our broken food system and our broken climate.  You can order one of our fixed boxes or nearly any other product on our site.

As we were so busy last year we have had to put a cap on the boxes this year, so please get your order in early.