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

A Plea

by Kenneth Keavey

Last year at the end of June I asked for your help, and I was humbled by the level of support we received. It is always with a great sense of irony that we head into July. It is the official end of the hungry gap. We are catapulted from a frenzy of farming activity and a dearth of harvest in early June to a level of activity bordering on the insane and an overflowing harvest basket. July is the time when we have a plentiful harvest, and it is the very same time that many of you break your routine with cooking. The last year has been difficult for all, and we all need a break, a break from the routine and lockdowns. 

This summer is proving to be the biggest challenge yet. We have increased our planting rates; we have developed relationships with other local organic farms and now when the time of Irish plenty arrives we find that you our customers are leaving us for all the usual reasons, holidays, not cooking, routines out the window and we understand completely. But the downturn this summer for us has been sharp and severe over the space of three weeks we have seen the level of ordering drop off dramatically, this is leaving us with so much surplus harvest with nowhere to go but back into the ground. 

This time of every year we also see a large increase in labour costs as we are now up to 11 people on the farm (all local lads this year which is amazing) and we have also hired many new packing staff to cover the extra work over the last few months and to cover holidays. It is a double downturn for us, as our costs go up dramatically and our sales go down dramatically. Anybody will tell you this is not a good way to run a business. The initial start of this growing season on our organic farm, seeds, plants, fertiliser (organic), compost, contractors and labour are very high, before you harvest even one bean. All of this is necessary to make the food in the fields happen.

Growing food at the best of times is not a money-making enterprise, far from it, we only ever expect the farm to break even and most years this is a stretch to achieve. We grow the food, because we love to do it, because sustainable agriculture is something we strongly believe in. We have PV cells generating our electricity, we have just invested in our first zero emission electric van, we collect our rainwater, we plant trees, and hedgerows, we use only plastic free packaging. We educate people on how important biodiversity is, and to get everybody involved in thinking about the planet and the environment, where our food comes and how it is produced is our critical philosophy.

All of this takes time and energy, it all costs money and at the end of the day although everybody wants to enjoy their job and although nearly everybody that works with us believes in our values and our mission, they still need to get paid.

So this is a plea, a plea to ask you to order next week, to find a way (if you can at all) to continue supporting us over the summer, to tell your friends and family to order from us, or if you can’t to pay your box forward to our Charity (Foodshare Kerry), just order a charity box online that we top-up with extra produce from the farm.

The boxes this week are loaded with the most amazing fresh local Irish organic produce, including, spinach, salad, lettuce, romanesco, cucumbers, kale, scallions, some even have new IRISH organic potatoes. The weather is meant to be hot so we figured a good helping of salad would be very much appreciated. So please if you can at all do order. Your support as always is very much appreciated.

Thank you!

Kenneth

PLACE YOUR ORDER HERE