Where have all our insects gone?

by Kenneth Keavey

Next time you drive down the motorway check your windscreen, is it covered in splattered insects? This used to be the case, but now sadly there are so few insects left that in fact our windscreens are mostly clear.

In 2019 a study published by Danish researcher Anders Møller showed that insect numbers splattered on cars declined by more than 80% between 1997 and 2017. An earlier landmark study by Hallman et al in 2017 stated that “There has been more than a 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas”. This study was breathtaking in its scope and involved nearly three decades of continuous, data collection across 63 sites.

This German study tracked insect biomass in nature reserves— protected land. The insects were gone because the fields around them were sprayed with herbicides and pesticides. Have you ever heard of tramlines? The tramlines I am talking about here are tractor tracks through in particular cereal fields (and vegetable fields).

Next time you drive past a field of wheat or barley, look for these tramlines — those tracks running through the crop. They’re permanent spray lanes, put there at sowing so a tractor can enter the field over and over to apply chemicals. A typical Irish cereal crop gets sprayed four to six times between October and June.

Cereal fields (and increasing grass monocultures where all diverse plants are removed by selective herbicides) are essentially a chemical monoculture from October through June — no flowering weeds (removed by herbicide), no insects able to complete life cycles in or around the crop, nothing for birds to eat. The tram lines are the visible manifestation of the chemical applications. The crop looks green and healthy. What isn’t visible is the biological silence inside it. They’re the signature of an industrial spray programme, written in bare soil across every tillage field in Ireland.

There is more evidence of the devastation wrought by chemical agriculture, populations of European grassland butterflies are estimated to have declined by 50% in abundance between 1990 and 2011. In England, the total abundance of butterfly species declined by 58% on farmed land between 2000 and 2009, despite a doubling of conservation spending.

And finally in the USA in the last three decades, monarch butterfly populations have declined by 80–95%. Researchers studying monarchs found on average traces of seven pesticides in each individual butterfly studied. But the application of glyphosate and the destruction of milkweed a key plant that Monarchs feed on is a critical part of the population collapse.

So, the next time you drive down a motorway and you notice those tram lines, have a look at the insect splatter on your windscreen and remember the application of herbicides and pesticides and fungicides do not only impact our health but also the health of our little living friends that we share this earth with and whom we rely on for pollination and our food. (Over 75% of human-cultivated crops worldwide depend directly on insect pollination. About 88% of all flowering plants are pollinated by insects.)

As always thank you for your support, it means a great deal.

Kenneth

PS It is definitely holiday season and we are seeing harvest rolling in from the fields and also a marked increase in the absence of orders. If you are considering ordering please do, it will help us enormously especially at this time. Thank you.

Hope springs eternal

by Kenneth Keavey

I was hopeful this week that we would get our first vegetable beds made, but the soil is saturated, and more rain has arrived and more is forecast, it does not bode well for spring planting, this year crops will be delayed. Field conditions at least in the West of Ireland are poor and the soil is still cold and there is a distinct absence of life, I guess the earthworms and little bugs feel the same as we do about cold, wet damp weather. 

The excitement of a couple of weeks ago has waned a little, when we were making some good progress with our field work, it looks like for now patience is the order of the day. At least we have the tunnels to work in, and we will be planting our first new season crops (fingers crossed) at the end of next week, exciting! 

Tomatoes should follow the week after that and tomato planting usually symbolises the first proper start of the season with some brighter sunnier and dare I say it, warmer weather, we will wait and see.

In a rare absence from the farm a couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of giving a talk to a growers’ network in Louth, a lovely bunch of people growing some of their own food and it was an uplifting and enjoyable experience. 

On the road up from Galway though we passed several bright yellow fields. If you are out and about this bank holiday weekend, keep an eye out for these fields, they will have an iridescent yellow tinge. 

They shine so brightly because they have been sprayed with an herbicide that has destroyed all plant life. The chemical, glyphosate, more commonly known under the brand name Roundup will have been applied to the land prior to ploughing. 

The EU had an opportunity in 2023 to ban glyphosate for good, instead it was licensed for use for a further ten years. Here’s a couple of interesting observations: prior to 1990 there were genuinely more toxic herbicides in use, there is no doubt about that, and nobody would advocate for going back there (these highly toxic chemicals are still in use in some countries) but we have traded a smaller use of genuinely horrible chemicals for an enormous use of a probable carcinogen and glyphosate is now everywhere. 

Are we any better off? No. 

Should the use of glyphosate be curtailed? Definitely. 

Is this happening? Partially. 

The ban on using it has a preharvest desiccant (it was and still is used in some countries to dry out crops prior to harvest, a genuinely terrible idea) was a positive step in the EU.

BUT there is a loophole, the use of glyphosate can still be used to treat weeds in the crop if it is 2 weeks prior to harvest. So essentially it still can be used as a desiccant, (even it this is not the stated reason). The impact will be the same, and this chemical which is systemic, will still end up in our flour, and in our bread and in our oats. 

I for one will take my porridge glyphosate free, thank you very much.

As always thank you for your support, and happy easter.

Kenneth

The Pesticide, the Darkside and the cover up

by Kenneth Keavey

We thought we were finally emerging from a relentlessly wet spring. I don’t know why but I am always surprised by rain, you would imagine at this stage after 20 years of farming and living in the West of Ireland it wouldn’t come as such a shock!

This week we had rain that can only be described as monsoon like, giant water droplets that have again saturated the ground and delayed further progress on the farm. There is little doubt now that climate chang is impacting food production globally.

We are right in the middle of the hungry gap, and we import fruit and more veg at this time of the year, and we can see form talking to other farmers in Spain, France and Holland that the weather has put massive pressure on growing systems in these countries as well as our own and has delayed and reduced harvest, it is proving difficult to get produce at present from anywhere.

This, I think makes it even more urgent to have the discussion around our own food security especially with the closure of one of our largest carrot growers two weeks ago.

But back on the farm we have had a few days of sunshine and the three days of fine weather we got last weekend we took full advantage of. We have spread all our compost, ploughed the land and tilled some of it.

We are still harvesting on the farm too. The last of our own farm parsnips are still available, we are harvesting our own leeks and from the tunnels a bumper crop of rocket and spinach and chard, we will also be harvesting loads of green kale this week and this is the crop I wanted to talk about.

Some of the green kale is on the cusp of going to flower and if the temperature gets back to over 12C then we will have our native Irish honeybees flying all over the farm. The first place they will go is to these beautiful flowers, which we will leave until the first aphid infestation begins.

But here is a couple of facts you may be interested in. In conventional systems up until relatively recently many brassica plants were sprayed with neonicotinoid pesticides to destroy amongst other things, aphids.

These chemicals are thankfully now banned in the EU. 1 teaspoon of Thiamethoxam alone can decimate over 1.25 billion bees. But this is not the end of the story. These chemicals and this one in particular is still manufactured in the EU, in Belgium by Syngenta and is exported all over the world, it is hard to get accurate data but somewhere in the region of 10,000 tonnes of the stuff is exported to other countries. If you assume that one teaspoon is 3g, then is a lot of teaspoons, it is enough to wipe out the global population of honeybees and wild bees 10 times over.

Not only that, and here is the real dark side of this (as if it was not already dark enough) Syngenta knew and did not release data that their chemicals decimated bee population, they kept this from regulators knowing the damage these chemicals did.

So, when we are told by the companies that manufacture pesticides that they are safe, and where they stand to earn billions of dollars in profit. I error on the side of caution and tend not to put too much trust in what they say.

As always, your support, protects and supports a way of farming that keeps these toxic chemicals out of our food chain and helps protect biodiversity and in this instance our native Irish honey bee too.

Thank you.

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.

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

I know I bang on about this a lot but…

by Kenneth Keavey

I know I bang on about Glyphosate a lot, in fact I get a bit tired of talking about it. But it just keeps raising its ugly head everywhere I look, and I mean that quite literally.

Thankfully after a year of not being out cycling I am back cycling again, and I see a lot of the local countryside. I don’t know if it is in the budget or something, like the local councils using up their financial budgets before the end of the year, so it is not cut for the next year, of if there are just loads of half empty Roundup cans lying around the place and people feel they need to use them, but there seems to be a proliferation in the use of Roundup on the side of the roads here in Galway. Is it the same where you are? Is this an Irish tradition (one we need to drop may I add) or does it happen in your country too?

Anyway, recently on a relatively long cycle I came across a patch of roadway, up until this point I was really enjoying the countryside, the boreen I was on was beautiful, wild green and just all round lovely, but then all of a sudden, bang, everything was dead, everything. Iridescent horrible yellow, dead grass, trees, bushes, flowers all dead or dying and this wasn’t just a patch in a gate this was I would reckon a good kilometre of roadway maybe more on both sides. It was nothing short of devastating.

So, I ask you why in the name of God, would you do this? I could maybe half understand the logic of trying to increase visibility around a dangerous bend (but surely strimming would be a much more effective method, certainly would be much more environmentally sustainable, and you are much less likely to get cancer) but why on a straight road? Why?

There is no reason on the planet that I can think of to do this, it is just something I cannot get my head round. This is public property so what right does anybody have to go out and spread a probable carcinogenic chemical on our land?

Glyphosate is toxic to land, it is still being pushed by its manufacturers (it is worth billions), it is still being used as standard in tillage and non-organic horticulture, it clears the land prior to planting. This is not ok.

Did you know up until 2023 this systemic (this means it gets absorbed into the plant and stays in the plant) probable carcinogen was sprayed on wheat prior to harvest, prior to milling wheat into flour, prior to using flour in our bread. Thankfully this desiccation of wheat crops has been banned by the EU, thank the EU for that one. This practice is still commonplace in the UK, thank Brexit for that one.

Roundup or Glyphosate is sprayed on Soya, in fact 82% of the worlds soya crop is GMO, and get this, and this is mind blowing, it is genetically engineered to be more resistant to roundup, so more and more glyphosate is sprayed on soya, and guess where all this soya ends up, and no the answer is not vegans!

No, it ends up as animal feed mainly to feed cows, and Irish cows are not immune to munching on GMO, glyphosate drenched soya pellets either. Unbelievably all the packs of nuts for cow’s state if the product is GMO or not, as they say it pays to always read the label, it’s a pity the cows can’t read I guess.

Anyway, on that note if it wasn’t getting too dark (the evening not the blog that is) I would be off for another cycle, but maybe it would be better in the dark, and I wouldn’t see any of those Roundup destroyed verges, and my mind could find peace! 😊

As always thank you supporting our organic family farm and others like us.

Kenneth

When you go down to the supermarket today, read these labels..

by Kenneth Keavey

I had a remarkable revelation in the supermarket the other day. As I was browsing the fresh produce aisle as I always do when in a supermarket, I noticed something that really caught my eye.

It was actually quiet refreshing for a change. Reviewing each of the labels on the citrus products, they were clearly marked with the chemicals/fungicides that had been applied to the skin of the oranges, lemons, limes and mandarins. A few weeks back I was wondering if the pesticides that were used in growing carrots were highlighted on the pack would we change our behaviour?

And how is it that it comes down to the organic farmer to prove his/her produce is chemical free, why doesn’t the conventional produce list all the chemicals used in the growing of the crop? Well at least with citrus fruit we have the post-harvest treatments clearly outlined, this is the law in the EU.

It was quite a timely consideration as during the week we had one of our annual organic inspections and we were informed a sample of our produce will be sent away for screening for a mind-blowing list of chemicals (870 last time), more on that at a later date.

Anyway, back to the oranges. I am not sure that many people notice the chemicals though as it is hidden away in small print, nevertheless showing all these postharvest fungicides and wax treatments is a very good thing, as we can make more informed choices about our food. It is also worth noting that it is stated on all the labels that the skin is not suitable for eating!!

Here are some of the chemicals I found on the labels and their scientifically linked safety considerations. Also this is for an individual chemical most of the fruit I examined at up to 4 different treatments per piece of fruit.

1) Imazalil: Possible endocrine effects. The EFSA (European food safety authority) has evaluated imazalil repeatedly; the substance has raised endocrine/ecotoxicity questions in the past. Carcinogenicity concerns: possible/likely carcinogen based on animal data.

2) Thiabendazole EFSA peer-review concluded thiabendazole can affect thyroid hormone systems in animals. That is an important regulatory finding. Carcinogenicity/reprotoxicity: animal studies have shown some reproductive/developmental effects at high doses.

3) Pyrimethanil: Some experimental studies show reproductive or developmental effects in animals at high doses.

4) Fludioxonil: EFSA identified fludioxonil for endocrine-related effects.

5) Boscalid: It can be persistent in the environment

6) Azoxystrobin: Some studies indicate potential for oxidative stress and endocrine-related effects in experimental systems.

I am sure there are more, and this excludes the waxes that are also used to coat most conventional citrus fruit.

Not an entirely benign concoction, and not a cocktail of chemicals that I would particularly like to have on my food, thank you very much. I am sure you are wondering how an orange is not suitable for vegans. Well, one of the waxes that can sometimes be used, in particular E904 or Shellac (this is a resin secreted by a bug!), make the fruit unsuitable for vegans!

So, if you do buy conventional citrus fruit, please note again that it is advised that the skin is basically inedible or unsafe due to these chemicals (read the labels it actually states it there) so please don’t use the zest for cooking, much better to choose organic, and if you want to steer clear of these and other chemicals better where you can to choose organic entirely.

As always thank you for your support

Kenneth

Irish apples, picking apples, and the Dirty Dozen…

by Kenneth Keavey

I remember as a young lad having to climb trees to pick apples in my grandad’s orchard. Having been pruned and tended to over the years they had grown to to a very decent height (you needed a tall ladder to get to the top apples) these apples were never ever sprayed, and when they were picked they were stored on galvanised sheets in a cool shed, providing apples until nearly Christmas. Any those that had blemishes were used first.

During the week I was speaking to Richard Galvin who has been our Irish organic apple supplier for nearly 10 years. His apples are wonderful; they are Irish and organic and crucially are not sprayed with any synthetic chemicals. We have been receiving excellent organic apples from a Fairtrade co-op in France and from Darragh Donnelly in Dublin, and there have been some issues, at least if you were a supermarket there would be an issue.

The issue if you would call it an issue is that some of these apples are not perfect, they have slight blemishes on the skin, some of the blemishes are not ok to send out and as a result we need to grade and examine every single organic apple by hand. We do this and that is ok, but it takes time and people.

Now contrast this with the perfect apples that grace your average supermarket shelf. How do they end up so perfect and end up lasting for so long?

There is a reason that they look the way they look, and a big part of that is the synthetic chemicals that are used in their production.

Apples nearly always feature in the Dirty Dozen, and although this is a US survey, there is plenty of research demonstrating that European apples, or in fact many of the apples imported into Europe from further afield have plenty of pesticide residues on them. Apples are one of the most sprayed fresh products you can buy. A recent survey in the Netherlands found chemicals in every single sample they tested (1 click here for the article). Some had a cocktail of residues.

In Ireland in 2022 the department of agriculture tested 70 different samples of apples, 55 (or 79%!) had pesticide residues and over 4% had residues deemed as unsafe. If you would prefer not to have pesticides on your food (whether they were deemed to be below the safe limit or not) the fact that nearly 80% of all samples tested right here in Ireland had recorded pesticides is enough to make up my mind. (2 click here for the data and go to page 138)

There may be an argument to be had that these chemicals help reduce food waste, and that has a certain validity, but on the other hand, if supermarkets were happy to sell apples that did not need to look like shiny plastic apples, then maybe there would be less need for these chemicals.

Either way, my grandad would certainly not have agreed with spraying his apples, and certainly Richard and Darragh do not agree with using synthetic pesticides either, and we are grateful to be able to share their apples with you.

As always thank you for your support.

Kenneth

Chemical Carrots, you might be surprised…

by Kenneth Keavey

We have been harvesting our own lovely bunched fresh organic carrots for a few weeks now and this week we received the first delivery of beautiful organic carrots from Philip Dreaper in Coolnagrower in Offaly just outside Birr.

In the next couple of weeks, we are due our farm organic inspection. This is an inspection we pay for to prove that we are carrying out our farming and business in accordance with organic principles. One key law of course is that we must never use synthetic chemicals. We must be certified organic by law to call our produce ‘organic’.

We would never use toxic pesticides or herbicides anyway, as farming without chemicals is why I started the farm.

But the question is why do we need to prove we are organic? Why isn’t the responsibility on conventional food producer to label the pesticides used in growing certain crops? (don’t get me wrong organic certification is definitely necessary in the world we live in today)

Back in my grandad’s day, there were only ‘carrots’ and all carrots were organic. They just were, because no synthetic chemicals or fertiliser was used in growing them.There were no sprays, no synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fungicides, nothing. That is exactly how we grow them today, we sow seed, and we cover the crop with netting and then we harvest end of story, no spraying at all.

These synthetic pesticides are labelled… “plant protection products” sounds so much better than “pesticide” don’t you think? Making these toxic chemicals sound more benign, even good for the planet and our health. It sounds like spraying these chemicals is doing us all a favour including all the bees and biodiversity the application of these “PPPs” is doing something good for the world in using them. This couldn’t of course be further from the truth, they are hurting our health and destroying biodiversity. In addition did you know it is mostly the manufacturers that produce the safety related data for the chemicals they sell, a conflict of interest there? I would say so. So if your supermarket label listed the following on your conventional carrots, would you still buy them?

Ingredients: may contain,“Carrots, Glyphosate, aclonifen, prosulfocarb, clomazone, prosulfocarb/stomp, fluazifop-P-butyl, propaquizafop, quizalofop-P-ethyl, fluazifop-P-butyl, azoxystrobin, fluazinam, cyprodinil+fludioxonil, boscalid+pyraclostrobin, tebuconazole/trifloxystrobin mixes”

Or would you choose organic carrots where the label would say:Ingredients: contains “Organic Carrots”

I know which one I would choose.

As we supply directly to you our customers, it is only through your continued support that we can continue to produce healthy food and spread the message that our food choices can literally change the world.

Thank you

Kenneth

You can have double the helping of Roundup in your porridge than in your toast.

by Kenneth Keavey

I remember many years ago meeting two brothers who were growing oats for Flahavans for their porridge. One brother was growing it organically and one was growing it conventionally (With chemicals) The organic farmer tilled the ground, sowed the oats, did some mechanical weed control, and essentially left the oat crop to its own devices.

The other brother was in and out with his sprayer at regular intervals to control, weeds, and fungal infections, using chemicals such as Inatreq ™ (fenpicoxamid) another systemic chemical, Prothioconazole, azoles, and folpet.

Next time you drive past a field of cereal, have a look for tractor wheelings called tramlines up and down the field. This is where the farmer drives up and down spraying the field, and will use the same wheelings for multiple applications to reduce damage to the crop.

At the end of the day although the organic farmer may have had a slightly lesser yield they came out with the same profit due to the cost of the chemicals. Of course, what was not factored in was the cost of the chemicals to our environment and our health, so the question remains why even bother?

While the EU extended the licence for Glyphosate for a further 10 years in 2023, it banned its use as a crop desiccant.

This is the use of a chemical to “dry out a crop”, it is used to reduce the moisture level in cereal crops like wheat. Drier kernals are required by the processors for milling. Even though there is a ban on the use of Glyphosate for desiccation, farmers can still use Roundup for late control of weeds in wheat, so it seems it is still possible to use this toxic systemic chemical for control of weeds in wheat, meaning of course it ends up in our food and in our bread.

I wonder how many farmers are using this loophole to effectively continue to apply roundup prior to harvest?

Roundup is systemic, it gets absorbed into the plant and stays there, classified as a probable carcinogen by the WHO, it is the most used herbicide in the world ever, sales in 2023 reached $10.3 billion.

The funny fact when it comes to roundup is we are allowed to have twice the amount of roundup in our porridge that we are in our wheat. It makes no sense you can’t possibly say the same chemical is twice as safe in a different crop and essentially tell people it is safe to consume twice as much, this of course is rubbish.

But that is the way it is, let me frame this for you, you can have double the helping of roundup in your porridge than you can have in your toast, does that make sense to you? Well, it doesn’t make any sense to me.

I’ll be going with the organic porridge and toast thank you very much.

As always thank you for your support

Kenneth

PS Please remember supermarkets wont miss your custom, but we are completely dependent on your custom to keep our farm running, and every order makes a massive difference, there has never been a better time to get the most amazing seasonal local Irish organic produce as now, thank you.