Imagine it was less than 20 years ago when somebody erecting a polytunnel in the west of Ireland was looked upon with mild suspicion.
Or so it seemed as we were eating our dinner one night and we had a visit from the local Garda: “what are you growing out there?” “Do you mind if I take a look around?” he was of course referring to the polytunnel. I am sure the pepper and aubergine plants and even the tomatoes would have looked foreign to him, and of course they would have. Where else would you see these plants growing, certainly not in the West of Ireland, not since the supermarkets stepped in and went on a rampage of destroying our industry. Anyway, we showed him around and alleviated whatever concerns he may have had…. If you would like to listen to my little story this week from one of our fields CLICK HERE!
The second interesting occurrence, well to be fair there were many on this journey, but on this instance again it was a recommendation by a well-meaning neighbour. He could not believe, just could not get his head around, why we were not using Roundup and his advice was “just a touch of Roundup, here and there will sort you out”. Well, that was never going to happen, there is little doubt though considering we were fighting with a field covered in “scutch grass” that it would have made our lives so much easier.
It is hard to fathom how the discovery of Roundup revolutionised farming, it found its way into every aspect of farming, from grass reseeding to tillage to horticulture and to many older farmers it must have seemed like a miracle. All that hard work of weed control was suddenly controlled out of a can, it was easy and it was safe they were told. It was like the iphone of weed control, it really did change everything. Or maybe a more likely analogy would be the heroin of the drug world. Because once farmers started using it, there was no going back, and whole systems were established around its use. You had to keep using. And of course, people then forgot that there were once other ways and we were not always reliant on an armoury of chemicals to mark our stamp of control on the natural world to grow our food.
Never mind the bees, or the insects, or the myriads of plants that support life, all of that was cleared away in the name of a new efficient chemical controlled system. So that is where we are today, that is our food system, and the precarious nature of this production is never really revealed. It doesn’t take much to mess up our food supply. Roundup for all its perceived benefits has bred even here in Ireland super weeds that cannot be controlled and are more rampant, they have evolved to not be susceptible to the chemical anymore.
Anyway, I think of that Garda sometimes, and I think of all the good things, and all the positive change that has occurred and all of the support, and all of the awareness that you good people have and I feel in earnest that things have improved. Nobody looks with suspicion anymore, I think in fact more and more people understand that relationship between our food, our planet and our health. They are all interlinked. Afterall, we have only one life, one body, one planet, one shot at doing things right, and don’t we owe it to our selves to take care of it all, and if we do one thing isn’t it worth leaving the world just a little better each day by the actions we take.
Not saying it’s easy, or we get it right all the time, but that is what we try and put into action every day.
Thank you for your support.
Kenneth PS We are seeing our orders drop as the summer kicks in, if you can at all don’t forget about us, now we are getting right into the the very best Irish product of the season, we will be harvesting broccoli at the end of next week, and hopefully the first of our own tomatoes. Check out our IRISH SECTION HERE