Its funny how some memories stay with us. We all have flashes that we remember, or think we remember. I have some memories of my early years and of my grandad, he was a gardener and a farmer. He brought some of the benefits he learned as head gardener at Cregg Castle to his home garden where he grew so much lovely food. I remember his little seat in the garden where he would take a break and sharpen is always with him knife and smoke his pipe. He used to make raised beds for the carrots and potatoes. When I came back from England and started out in 2004 exactly 20 years ago, I made the same raised beds in that same garden.
He gardened and farmed, and I don’t know if he was happy, but I have happy memories, so I assume he was. I have very little doubt that the work was hard and so much more of my grandparents’ time was devoted to work. He worked on his farm and grew as much food as he could. There was a strong sense of community back then and a connection to the food, it was essential, that connection to food and community. It was a means of survival, they needed that food, and I imagine those first new season potatoes were appreciated back then in a way we cannot imagine today.
There is little doubt that the convenience of the modern-day food system is something that would have inspired awe in my grandparents, to them it would have been a miracle. But I wonder whether they would have enjoyed the food? The variety and diversity: yes, but how about the taste and the freshness? Would they have traded their fresh carrots for the supermarket wrapped chemically sprayed, not so fresh supermarket carrots? Maybe not.
But we have traded something fundamental, something very important for our convenient food system, something that is in danger of disappearing from our way of life here in Ireland for ever. Something that has swiftly been side lined to move with the modernisation of our food system.
We have traded part of our heritage, and our love for food and our connection to the land for convenience, and in so doing we risk losing something very valuable.
The race to the bottom, to the cheapest food possible at all costs has a very real price. Apart from what we pay at the automated tills (These machines would have sent my grandad running back to the fields). These costs loom large, the loss of our native growers here in Ireland, the degradation of the land by polluting our soil and rivers, and the destruction of biodiversity to maximise every inch of productive land. The short-term gain of cheap food today, will not be any good to us in even half a generations time.
I loved my grandad, and the turnip juice I used to drink from a tin cup on his knee in his kitchen. My grandparents didn’t have much but they had healthy food that nourished them and the land they farmed.
Your support gives us the courage we need to continue, thank you.
Kenneth
PS please support local organic farms this Christmas, our Christmas boxes are jam packed full of the best local Irish organic ingredients on offer from organic farms including ours across the country. Get your order in now to ensure delivery on the 23rd of December.