When they are gone they are gone… and a great discussion this week…

by Kenneth Keavey

Just this week I had the privilege of being invited to a panel discussion and the Launch of the “GIY story” which is aired on RTE every Tuesday.  It was a very interesting discussion between Mick Kelly (GIY founder), Pippa Hacket, former minster for the departure of Agriculture, Paul Brophy the largest broccoli grower in Ireland and me.

What is the future of Irish horticulture and food? Or in fact is there a future in Irish horticulture? These were the questions being addressed.  There is little doubt that supermarket food culture has been responsible for the devastation for the horticultural industry in Ireland the exact numbers of commercial growers in Ireland (numbers supplied by Bordbia) has reduced from just over 600 growers in 2000 to 74 growers today.

That is a shocking contraction, the bottom line is clear and stark.  The pricing that has been forced on farmers over the last 26 years has caused this exodus. Primary produce is always the first in the firing line when it comes to discounts and has often and is still used today as a loss leader to lure consumers into large supermarket stores.

You cannot argue with making food more affordable and cheaper, but I would argue there are few industries that are forced to accept a price less than the cost of production, it is not right.

This too is a story of the powerful and the powerless. When any large retail organisation has massive market share it can put undue pressure on small suppliers who in truth have little option but to comply. Thankfully the scales are moving at least a little in the right direction, and it seems the crisis in the Irish veg growing sector maybe the last straw that is at last offering a little protection.

None of this is helped by the “Fake farm” nonsense that is still practiced today, this too is a mechanism to hand the power to the supermarkets. Take “Farrells” in one well known discounter, this lovely Irish family name has been placed on packs to give the impression that it is a real farm, IT IS NOT.

So it is with this backdrop that we went to the fields this week to dig the last of the parsnips, in the unrelenting cold and wet, not at all ideal conditions. To be fair, we did get a break and when we started digging it was actually dry. We have had nearly two full dry days in the last 60, who said it rains all the time in Ireland.

We are in an organic programme with Teagasc and they have kindly given us a weather station, (which I have yet to set it up, in fact when I am finished writing this that is exactly what I am going to do) once set up we will have an accurate local record of rainfall amounts from now on, it should prove for interesting reading, and maybe we will start to see in real local time the impact that man-made climate change is having on our local weather systems.

As always thank you for your support, supermarkets won’t miss you, but we will.

Kenneth

Can a bite of an apple transport you back in time….?

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 400 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.

Covid seemed to rekindle our interest in food. People are really interested again, interested in where our food comes from, what it’s impact on our precious planet is, and interested in how it has been grown. This is a wonderful change. We here on our farm certainly know where our food comes from, and we know that it has been produced without chemicals.

This week we have taken delivery of the first pallet of Irish organic apples from Darragh Donnelly in Dublin he also grows the Irish organic cherries we had earlier in the season. These apples are quite frankly amazing, the flesh is a bright pink, I have never seen apples like this, and the great news is this colour is caused by anthocyanins, which are powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds.

But the best part of all is that these apples will take you back in time. They 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 Darragh’s apples are that if they are anything.

We have so many crops coming from our own farm, and we certainly know how they were grown, what field they came from, even what part of what field they came from! In fact, we could probably tell you who harvested them and who packed them into your box and who delivered them. Now you would be hard pushed to get that level of traceability and understanding of where your food comes from in a supermarket.

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