It was one of those rare occasions, you know the ones, where you get a chance to take a break from your life for a day, to get away and do something that wakes you up again.  Sometimes it is from these breaks that you catch moments of clarity, that can be elusive during the busyness of life.  

Yesterday, myself and Jenny took a day and went exploring in the beautiful landscape of the Burren, which is only 40 minutes from our farm.

It had been some time since I had been up in the hills of the Burren. We got away from everything and it was truly amazing. It may be my maturing years, (last time I was up there I was on a mountain bike) but this time I was walking, and I noticed the abundance of flora. The Burren is renowned worldwide for the diversity of plant species that grow there, and on this particular day it was resplendent in its natural beauty.

Field after stony field were full of flowers, most of which I didn’t know or recognise. But suddenly as we rounded one corner a field of cowslips came into sight. It was a sight that transported me back in time, to a time when the fields next to our family home were full of these beautiful flowers. 

Sadly, today, these flowers are not to be found in most farm grasslands, they have all but disappeared (as have the button mushrooms that also used to be commonly found in meadows). The Burren is a haven for these flowers and one of the key reasons is the absence of chemicals. Those mountains are never sprayed, the land just gets to be.

Enroute to Clare we passed some land which up until last year we farmed. The sight of the fields was shocking, it had taken on a bright iridescent chemical hue.  

Earlier this year we finished the lease on that land.  We had been the custodians for the previous 5 years. Over those five years we treated that land very well, we increased the organic matter content, we brought up its fertility levels, we sowed red clover and left it under clover for two years, we picked truckloads of stones, but crucially we kept it alive, it was always alive while we were the guardians. 

This time last year, the last of the kale plants were flowering and those fields were alive with millions of insects and bees. Contrast that with what we saw yesterday. 

The land is only out of our care less then a month. The whole 9 acres is dead. It has been sprayed with glyphosate and it has a sickly bright yellow/orange tinge of chemical intoxication, all life is gone, all the plants are dead, all the bees are gone, all the insects are gone, and all the birds are gone.

As I reflected on the natural beauty of the Burren and what had happened to that land it was like an epiphany, it was a blinding shock at the glaring difference between the path of food production we follow and the chemical laden path of conventional food production. They couldn’t be more different. 

We came back to our normal lives and passed those fields again on the way home. I was sad that all our good work of five years had been undone in an afternoon. But anger and determination followed, and it made me even more committed to ensuring that we continue to do things right on our home farm, that we never ever use chemicals, and we protect nature at every turn.

Your support supports that mission. 

Kenneth

Florence (one of our pet rescue pigs) decided to have a day of breakouts today, she gets a little restless sometimes, even with the 1.5 acres of forestry she calls home. Personally, I don’t think she has it that bad and George her compatriot rarely goes on these adventurous little trips.

But true to her nature Florence arrived up into our packing shed today demanding more food (she gets fed quite a bit) and again I think she was being a little unreasonable and has little to grumble about. But anyway, that is life sometimes I suppose.

It’s funny how the unexpected can make you take things a little more lightly, force you to stop your routine ruminations, force you to stop what you are doing and deal with the occurrence at hand.

Well today in the midst of pressure to get carrots and parsnips sown and the onions planted with the threat of rain on the horizon, we were forced to stop our work and go and bring Florence back to her forest home. 

There are I guess two ways to look at this, an unwelcome interruption that meant more pressure to get the sowing done on time, or a welcome break that could be enjoyed. My innate sense of grumpiness was edging towards the former, but thankfully Florence is just too funny, and I went with the latter. 

It made us stop and smell the newly cultivated soil, see the flowers and bees and all the other good stuff that was happening and the experience as a result was completely different. 

Not all interruptions can be dealt with in such a philosophical manner, some you just need to throw out a few choice expletives have a bit of a tantrum and move on, this was the case with our planter this week. 

It is temperamental old and cranky and every year there is a requirement to find mutual common ground between farmer and machine, this year that ground has been hard to find and has led to moments of promising our faithful machine that its days are truly numbered. (Of course, I didn’t really mean it, all was said in the heat of the moment!)

Nevertheless, if farming has thought me anything and it teaches a lot, is that perseverance is an absolute requirement to succeed no matter what happens. 

We have been very busy planting and sowing, for the last number of weeks we have been planting kale, cabbage, Romanesco, broccoli, lettuce, and celery.  We have been sowing, salad, beetroot, spinach, chard, carrots, and parsnips, not to mention the 1400 tomato plants that are soaking up so much time at present. 

We are harvesting too, but the old crops are finishing, and the new crops are coming from the tunnels, all the field veg is in the early stages, and as a result there is a lack of certain Irish crops, this period is called ‘the hungry gap’.  

There is no way to rush nature, you need to have patience and get your timings right, take good care of your crops and the nature around as the crops grow, and the harvest will come.

So, we work, we wait, and we harvest.

Kenneth

Thanks to the guys at sketchplanations for the schematic

The first swallows arrived today on our farm, I don’t know if everybody feels it, but it lifted my spirits. These little creatures traverse half that world, arrive here on our shores against all the odds for the summer, to nest and reproduce. They symbolise hope, they are beautiful and graceful, and we are honoured to have them. 

That moment yesterday was a great one, the week I have to say has not been filled with swallows! But yesterday for at least a moment everything felt just right, it was fleeting but that’s life I suppose. 

I was out in the tractor tilling and preparing the land for the first plants. The hedgerows were bursting with life, the trees were unfurling their leaves, the birds were singing, and the kale and the wild flowers were blooming and swaying the in the warm wind, the bees were everywhere. For a moment all was right, it seemed to me that the universe was reminding me that we are on the right track.

All around on our farm was an abundance of happy healthy life, sustained on this patch of land, free from chemicals and covered in trees and flowers, and in this little area surrounded by all this life we grow your food. 

The moment was fleeting and life as it does closed in again. How to hang on to these moments of clarity has been the study of ages, and I guess I have quite a bit to learn yet. Nevertheless, it shows that unity is close and sometimes unexpectedly it enters and fills our souls with joy. If life on the land has taught me anything, it is to expect the unexpected and this moment was truly unexpected and thoroughly appreciated. 

These last two years have been that too. The business of growing food is challenging but very rewarding, it is the selling of the food that can provide the greatest challenges. It is in this arena that you have to go out and interact and compete in the real world and that can be tough. 

We certainly have learned our fair share of lessons over the years and continue to learn. Nothing it seems stands still. Life and business are very similar in that regard, they require continuously evolution and change to grow and survive, but maybe we need to aim a little higher than just surviving, have we not had this opportunity to thrive and do the rights things in the right way.

So, it begins, the start of the season is upon us once again, and philosophical musing aside, it is our 17^th growing season, and this fills me with hope. We have the first tomato plants planted in the tunnels, we have the ground ready to plant the first broccoli and Romanesco. The first outdoor lettuce, salad, spinach, and beetroot will be sown very soon. 

We do the right things in the right way here, we definitely don’t always get it right, and we certainly have plenty to learn, but maybe little by little bit by bit, and with your support and help we can improve and grow and maybe the little swallows will continue year in year out to grace us with their presence.

Thank you, little swallows, for the moments of joy. 

Kenneth 

This was a piece I was asked to write for the Sunday Times last weekend:

The start of a new growing season is upon us, and it always fills me with a sense of hope for the future. The plants will grow, and in a few short months we will be harvesting some of Ireland’s finest bounty. As with many growers, and food producers up and down the country this is a key time, but this year it feels different; the costs of producing food are skyrocketing, there is a sense of nervousness, the price of inputs are up and at the same time there is a squeeze on prices to meet the demands of the big retailers. And sometimes the sums just do not add up.

What does all this mean for a little country that is intensely reliant on food imports for its survival? As a food producing nation it seems we actually produce relatively little of what we eat, importing a staggering 77% of our food. We have been concentrating and focusing for many years now on developing an intensive and export driven meat and dairy industry, and as the intensification of the industry has accelerated, it has become more reliant on imported grain to sustain the national herd, with 60% of said grain imported. That equates to 3.47 million tonnes of grain feed imported into Ireland every year to feed our animals.

Our food security as a nation has been brought into the limelight as Charlie Mc Conalogue the minister for agriculture stated during the week.“Food security is really important over the next number of weeks and months and it is something we have to work together on.” Well Charlie, I think it is pretty important just about all the time, and it is unfortunate that the tragic events of the last month are required to bring what food we produce and how we produce it onto centre stage.

Irish farmers were asked last week to consider the idea of growing grain and fodder crops to help feed our population and our burgeoning dairy and beef herd. But the necessary skills cannot be magicked up over-night, it takes time, specialised machinery and experience to learn to grow crops on a reasonable scale.

It’s a pity then that Charlie does not turn his focus on the below cost selling practice by supermarkets which has weakened our non-export focused food industry and is causing more primary food producers to struggle to sustain their enterprises. The Jim Powers economics report published this week, states that retail prices compression threatens the viability of Irish horticulture which could lead to even more reliance on imports to feed our nation. The most recent national field vegetable census showed that the number of field vegetable growers fell from 377 in 1999 to 165 in 2014. That is a contraction of 56%

These skills are lost for ever, and once they are gone are difficult to replace.

If we don’t want to end up being a nation even more reliant on imports maybe we should shift our focus from an export dominated beef and dairy industry, to an industry that produces more crops destined for consumption at home and pay the farmer a fair price for the food. Surely that would allow us to invest and build a more secure and resilient food system.

Kenneth

How many more horticultural enterprises organic or otherwise need to go to the wall before we realise it is too late?

A very significant report has been commissioned by the IFA and published this week: the Jim Power Economics’ report states ‘Retail Price Compression Threatens the Viability of Irish Horticulture’. In other words loss leading and below cost selling of fresh produce is putting Irish farmers out of business. 

The report’s findings are far from surprising and many primary producers up and down the country will tell you, the power that large retailers hold is enormous. They have hollowed out the horticulture industry here in Ireland and it is in real danger of closing it’s doors for good unless there is meaningful change. 

It states that farmers are the weakest link in the supply chain, they have the least say in what they get for the food they grow.

Imagine the food we eat, put into our bodies, the very stuff that makes us tick and to a large extent will dictate how long we will live, our fresh food as far as supermarkets are concerned should cost as close to zero as possible.  Are we all complicit in this race to the bottom though?

It is why in part that we ditched supply to the supermarkets all those years ago, in the famous words of Frank Sinatra we decided “to do it our own way”.  It isn’t all roses either here as we are constantly competing with the very idea that food should be cheap, and we cannot compete with the supermarkets. 

But it really is only through your support, by reading this, by supporting our business and farm week in week out that we are still here and have expanded our farm and continue to grow healthy happy food, whilst nurturing the land for 16 years.

The report goes on to say:

“A cheap food policy is not a sensible food policy”

It singles out the discounters as the main driver that have severely undercut the price given to Irish farmers, and as a result all other major retailer have had to follow suit to stay competitive. The end result is less for the farmer. This year the second biggest Brussel sprout farmer in Ireland closed his doors for good as the price he was getting for his food meant his business was unsustainable.

I really wonder how many of those farmers that adorn the walls of the supermarket aisles have forced smiles on their faces for fear of losing their contracts? 

As real costs increase and as the price the farmer gets paid for the produce decreases how does that equation end up? Yesterday we paid over €2000 for agri diesel for our tractors, last year it was less than half that.  It clearly is not sustainable.

Where will all this end, I wonder? Well maybe, just maybe, it will end with change, and with more and more people making the choice to support local food where possible, even if it costs more (and yes in these times that is a big ask). 

But the benefits are immense: Local food means better food, healthier food, local jobs, local enterprise in rural areas, higher nutritional content, better flavour.  If it is organic too then the health benefits and the benefits to the planet are surely worth something too?

Kenneth