3 Ways to Show the Planet Some Love this Valentines

by Liz Child

Green gift ideas and activities for Valentines Day.

The cynics amongst us will scoff at Valentines Day as a marketing ploy to get people to buy more, consume more, spend more. Us healthy cynics, well unfortunately we are usually right. Out of season, worryingly cheap roses grown with untold chemicals and slave labour are wrapped in plastic and flown across the world. And don’t get me started on the crappy, unsustainable chocolates! But Valentines Day doesn’t have to be all about overconsumption, after all if it’s to be about love, let’s show our nearest and dearest (and the future generations to come) some love by taking care of our one and only, incredible planet Earth. Here are 3 easy ways to show the planet some love this Valentines Day.

1. Send A Card

Not just to your love interest, write to your local authority or TD and ask for positive, environmental change in your area. Write to your favourite brands and businesses and ask for positive change. Could they use more sustainable packaging? Could they source products or ingredients from closer to home? Put up cards in your community and get together to do litter picks, beach cleans, walk to school schemes, car shares etc. Start a food waste prevention club in your community or how about a composting club? Write to people and let them know you love the planet and your community, you never know when the feeling might be reciprocated.

2. Sustainable is Sexy

Consciously choose gifts, treats and sweets that have a lower impact on the planet. Look for organic, plastic free chocolates. Gift your loved ones a subscription to an organic veg box. Plant some trees? Start a vegetable garden together? How about sourcing second hand gifts to keep new products from being made needlessly and keep old products out of landfill? For the ultimate thoughtful gift, get a local cobbler or tailor to mend your partners favourite worn out boots or coat as a surprise.

3. Eco-Activities

Enjoy the great outdoors with your loved ones this Valentines. Head to your local woods, hike that mountain, go to the beach. Take care of the earth as you go. How about organising a beach clean or a local litter pick? And after all that fresh air? You should eat a really delicious meal together. Support a local restaurant or cook up a feast at home using local, organic ingredients for the lowest impact. We can help with that here.

We’d love to hear about what you are getting up to this Valentines in the comments. Keep it clean though folks!

Black Friday?

by Kenneth Keavey

The biggest winners from Black Friday are the big corporations, it is certainly not the small independent high street shops who after the last two years are under excruciating pressure to survive and are the very ones who can least afford to offer discounts.

What are we doing for Black Friday? We will not be offering a black Friday discount. This is our business decision, it doesn’t sit right with us, we cannot justify doing homage to this greatest day of consumption, whilst our planet teeters on the edge of collapse. We are doing what we have been doing every other week of the year, working hard at delivering to you the very best sustainable healthiest food you can get anywhere.

We do offer reward points for ordering, we offer double reward points for setting up a regular order, these rewards can be used to get money off your next orders.

We reward you, our customers, with occasional discounts as a thank you or when we have extra produce on our farm. We thank you (and where you want to place a larger order) by offering you free delivery when you order over €100. But these are thoughtful rewards to you our customers for shopping with us. The principle is different.

What else are we be doing for Black Friday?

We are in the fields harvesting, we are supporting several other local IRISH organic businesses, such as Mossfield organic farm whose organic cheese and milk and yogurt is the best in the country. We are packing our produce in paper or biodegradable plant-based bags. We are filling our recyclable boxes with your orders, boxes we collect and reuse again and again. We are, with your help, standing up for a better type of consumption. After all we all need to eat, that consumption cannot be avoided. Can we eat and consume better, can we support biodiversity whilst also supporting our bodies and our health? We would say yes, yes we can. We will be delivering your boxes to your doors in our electric van on some of our routes.

We have seen yet again this year that our farm has struggled to be profitable in it’s own right. How is this possible? We have our own market and yet we can only afford to pay our farm a set amount and the end result is a loss. Primary food production is a precarious business, can we afford to discount to celebrate Black Friday? No, and really what’s to celebrate?

The pressure on small businesses to participate in this voracious celebration of consumption is immense. There is no judgment here, it is difficult enough to exist and survive as a small business and sometimes you must do what you have to do. Conscious consumption of ethical, fair and sustainable food is the cornerstone of our business.

Thank you for supporting us, have a great Green Friday.

Kenneth

Our Food System Needs to Change

by Kenneth Keavey

Hannah used to love broccoli and then she did not and to this day that has not changed. I do love broccoli. I tend to love all vegetables really, and it is a good thing seeing as I run an organic vegetable farm.

It never ceases to amaze me how much vegetable food you can produce per acre, and how many people that can feed. At the very same time it also never ceases to amaze me how much our food system needs to change; it is broken and here are the three fundamental reasons why:

1. There are too many of us eating a Western style diet. Food inequality is huge and we in the West eat way more than our fair share.

2. Growing feed for animals is not an efficient use of a limited land space. To feed a growing population we need to change what we grow and what we eat. We cannot continue to produce and consume the same food in the same way there simply is not enough space on earth. (I know we have two rescue pigs, and they are eating machines, we feed them waste vegetables, but if we had to grow all the food that they eat, we would need acres just to feed them. Using land to produce vegetables to feed people is a highly efficient use of land.)

3. The supermarkets facilitate the expectation of cheap food and they control the food supply chain. Their pricing practice makes farmers reliant on a subsidy system. Our grandparents spent nearly 20% of their disposal income on food, today it is less than 10%. The main beneficiaries of our food system are the supermarkets, large agribusiness and large food corporations, not us the consumer.

A long-term view is often difficult to reconcile with our daily challenges and life stresses (holding a screaming child for instance, Hannah was not always that picture of calm!) But the climate is changing, the sea levels are rising, biodiversity is failing and change is necessary now.

We can open our eyes if we choose to, and take responsibility for our choices, we have much more power than we realise. We can’t change the food system over-night, but we can take positive action right now.

It will always be better to eat local food. It will always be better for our countryside and our health to eat more organic food. It will always be better for our health and the health of the planet to eat less meat. Here is what we/you can do right now:

1. Get a box from us, we do things right.

2. Cook from scratch, see our blog here for inspiration, recipes, and videos.

3. Eat no/less meat and dairy. If u do eat meat make sure it is local and organic where possible.

4. Dump the plastic at supermarket tills.

5. Talk about climate change, spread the word.

6. Choose to buy a little more local and sustainable food when you can.

7. Stop spraying chemicals in your garden.

8. Start spending your money locally.

9. Buy less stuff.

10. Plant one tree in your garden.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Meade

Kenneth

PS I know I am lucky I get to live and work on an organic vegetable farm, but we can all change our mindset and start seeing nature as an amazing resource that needs to be nurtured.