Food poisioning, animal cruelty and rape of employees - the real nice side to America's factory farms

US agriculture is reeling from a salmonella outbreak which has left more than 1500 Americans ill with food poisioning and lead to the recall of more than half a billion eggs. The food firm at the centre of this outbreak had already been named a "habitual violator" of regulations and has been breaking the law since 1994. If there was an ugly face to factory farming, and an example of how loose food regulation is in the US, this is clearly it.

The DeCosters plant in Iowa which is the focus of the outbreak produces 2.3 million dozen eggs a week and has also been sued by neighbours for noxious gases, millions of gallons of uncovered manure and putrid animal carcasses left on roadways,

Not only has Mr. Austin DeCoster habitually broken food and environment regulations, in 2002 he paid a settlement to eleven female workers at his plant. Most of the women were Mexican, and the payment was made for sexual harassment and assault charges, including rapes by supervisors.

Notwithstanding the current salmonella outbreak, here's a quick run down of DeCosters adventures so far -

In 1997, he agreed to pay $2 million in fines for health and safety violations. The US labour secretary at the time, Robert Reich, said conditions on his farm in Maine were "as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop." Reich's successor, called the farms "simply atrocious," citing unguarded machinery, electrical hazards, exposure to harmful bacteria and unsanitary conditions.

In 2000, the state of Iowa designated DeCoster a "habitual violator" of environmental regulations for problems that included run-off of pig manure into local waterways.

In 2002, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced the $1.5-million settlement of the lawsuit against DeCoster Farms on behalf of the employees who reported sexual harassment, rape, abuse and retaliation by supervising staff at DeCoster's Wright County plants.

In 2007, 51 workers were arrested during an immigration raid at his farms. This was the fourth illegal immigration raid carried out by authorities.

In June 2010, Maine Contract Farming, the successor company to DeCoster Egg Farms, agreed to pay $25,000 in penalties and to make a one-off payment of $100,000 to the Maine Department of Agriculture over animal cruelty allegations that were spurred by a hidden-camera investigation by an animal welfare organization.

Why does America continually turn its back on the catastrophic problems evident in their factory farms, if anything, surely their risk to human health should at least prompt a re-think. The Department of Agriculture and the FDA in the US have so far shown little regard for cleaning up anything other than food crises long after they've happened and public health has already been put at risk, let alone the issues surrounding animal cruelty and the monopolies operating food production in the US.

"Light touch" regulation in the US is the order of the day. After all, the FDA still allows growth hormones in cows despite their link with tumours, they also permit the routine feeding of antibiotics to healthy livestock to promote their growth, a practice which allegedly contributes to the evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria and they also allow cloned animals be be sold without special labelling.

On top of this the Department of Agriculture has just announced a recall of 8,500 pounds of ground beef for possible E. coli contamination. It's sad that we know of food horrors in the US only come to light when it's too late. If you really want to know what does on on American farms read Johnathon Safran Foer's "Eating Animals". It'll tell you not just what's behind the label but also behind the farm, read it. It ain't pretty.

For more on the salmonella outbreak and the incredible flouting of regulations by the DeCosters http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/27eggs.html

Irish fruit growers - a dying breed

No wonder we can't find Irish fruit in our supermarkets; on Saturday's Countrywide we discussed how sadly many people have stopped farming Irish fruit over the past ten years, particularly apples. Not only are there few farmers left in the business, for those interested in starting up it's very costly to enter – to plant an acre costs about 10,000 euros. And not only are the start up costs prohibitive, you’ve a lot of expense on labour afterwards. And if you haven’t an existing market or relationship with supermarkets it’s hard to sell them. All of this points to why as consumers we have little choice but to buy foreign fruit in our supermarkets.


Generally the multiples are fairly unapolegic about all this, saying that for value they need to import apples from as far away as China and Chile and have a year round supply. But Irish apples can be available from September to April if they are stored and many varieties store well but it's more about what the consumer wants and if they stop looking for Irish fruit there’s no need for the supermarket to stock Irish fruit. So we can only blame ourselves for not looking for Irish produce, if there's no demand for it supermarkets won't stock it, it's as simple as that.

Despite this there are still a few growers around the country who are keeping the tradition of apple growing in Ireland and saving the breeds that were once plentiful in this country. In Tipperary Con Traas runs a great example of a thriving apple and soft fruit business despite difficult times in food retail.

He has 30 acres in apples about 20 of that is commercial breeds which he makes into juices and sells the apples, but he also has about 10 acres in Irish rare breeds. His parents were fruit growers in Holland and they came to Ireland in the 1960s as land was short in Holland, buying the land he still farms on. When they first came to Cahir they grew everything from tulips to cabbages. Apples were also something they produced and in addition to keeping on that tradition, Con has a large amount of soft fruit in the summer time; mostly strawberries and raspberries, but coming into September, now is the height of apple season on the farm.


Con also has old Irish Breeds of apples but we don’t these commercially for sale. It’s a real pity, we have some great old Irish apples with wonderful names like Buttermilk Russet, Cavan Newington and Ballinore Pippin but the fact of the matter is that in today’s mass market, Irish apples just don’t cut the mustard so to speak. You might have a great variety but it blemishes easily, or you have a lovely tasting apple which falls off the tree too early and you can’t sell them all at the one time, so in terms of commercial apple growing they have missed the boat, but in terms of growing them at home or saving Irish varieties it’s a great thing to have in your garden and also important to keep that genetic heritage alive. Con still thinks it’s important to grow these apples and he juices them and sells them direct in his farm shop.


It's great to see an example of a farm shop working really well. Certainly on the apples he is very competitive on price, somewhere around half the price of the supermarkets. On the soft fruit his prices are around the same or a little bit lower than the supermarkets - obviously the supermarkets can offer special offers but he has the freshest of produce that’s picked at the last minute. So in terms of ripeness, taste and quality Irish fruit rather than imports definitely wins out.

Fruit growing is one of the areas in Ireland where farmers have real problems dealing with the supermarkets. I was talking recently to a farmer who offered to match the price of what one of the convenience stores was selling their fruit from Chile for, but even then this particular supermarket didn’t want to take their locally grown goods. They often don’t see the merits of Irish fruit and want to sell it as cheaply as possible so what you get is fruit from all over the world while Irish strawberries are being sold at the side of the road. Con gets round that by direct selling to most of his customers but does sell some to the supermarkets. He also said to me that if you’re producing a huge amount of one fruit, raspberries for example and the supermarket change the terms of the contract or refuse to take them off your hands you’re really in a vulnerable position so having small amounts of different produce is a safer bet, if you’re solely reliant on a supermarket to take your whole production then you can end up finding things very hard.


He also makes his own juices on the farm starting with apple juice about 15 years ago. A while back he began freezing his excess strawberries and raspberries to make mixed apples and berry juices. And this is fairly technologised stuff done on a large scale, for example he has a juice pressing machine that’s the size of a small car that’s one of the only ones in Europe, so it’s quite specialised stuff. And while you might think that’s enough to be going on with he also has a another alternative enterprise on the farm - a camping and caravan park.

It's amazing to see so many enterprises on the one farm, all of which are pulling in money and working well. There’s no doubt that hard work is one of the key things that goes into his operation, when I was down with him his phone is constantly going, he’s checking in with workers picking the apples and strawberries and really it’s the definition of multitasking. Despite this there is an approach which is working for him in doing small things that don’t require massive investment at the outset.

He warns about farmers growing 500,000 tonnes of something being a lot more vulnerable than someone smaller so it works for him to spread the risk among different enterprises, particularly in dealing with the supermarkets this seems to be an advantage. So while farmers are often told you have to be huge to compete, trying alternative businesses out in small stages seems to also work.

The Countrywide programme featuring this item on Irish apples can be heard at -
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/countrywide/

Cons website is www.theapplefarm.com and he's located outside Cahir on the road to Clonmel, its a super place and a real example of alternative enterprises not only paying their way but being hugely successful.

No, not fish, it's an Omega 3 enhanced cow

"Heart-smart" bacon? "Healthy" hamburger? The GM giant Monsanto thinks it's found a way to make red meat better for us and guess what, it's got both foodies and environmental activists worried.

Monsanto has produced a genetically engineered soybean that contains a version of omega-3, the well known "smart food" which has been shown to improve cardiovascular health. That's why we're told to eat more oily fish as omega-3 is usually found in seafood.

Monsanto's genius is to come up with meat products that have omega 3, so consumers can ditch that healthy serving of salmon and tuck into a burger instead. The omega-3 enhanced pork and beef comes from livestock being fed with the enhanced soybean, a nifty way to add value to your cheap as chips burger for sure.

And of course, Monsanto has filed patents on the "derived benefits" of feeding animals its new wonder product. Food products normally aren't granted patent protection. According to a story filed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "the new patent applications have touched a raw nerve among those who see them as an attempt by the company to exert control over the food chain.""There's been a much more liberal approach to patenting food, and this patent raises issues about that," Dr. Matthew Rimmer, an Australian expert in agricultural intellectual property, told ABC. "Jurisprudence in the United States takes a very expansive view of patentable subject matter."

Monsanto replied by saying that it has no doomsday plans to control the world's food supply. "Monsanto does not intend to take ownership of livestock or fish or to sell company-branded milk, meat or eggs enriched with omega-3s to consumers," the company posted on its website in June. But environmental activists don't believe them, not for the first time. A representative from Greenpeace told the broadcaster "As a community, we need to decide whether we want our most basic foods to be owned by chemical companies."

This is not a new debate - the ownership of seed patents is something Monsanto continually comes under attack for. But if the widespread use of enhanced soya brings Monsanto to a stage where they also own the patents to meat produced from soya-fed animals, then some parts of the meat sector, particularly in the 'States could arrive at a sticky situation.

GM crops are not currently allowed to be grown in Ireland but there is an argument that we should let in GM animal feed as it would keep costs for farmers down, especially in the pigmeat sector. And you can imagine if this omega-3 enhanced feed is available, wouldn't many Irish farmers want it as it adds value to their product?

Keeping Ireland the Food Island GM free is worth the extra we pay for non-GM animal feed. Remaining GM free and keeping the perception that we have as a clean, green island has a lot more value in the long run to Irish, UK and especially EU consumers of our beef and pigmeat products. I just hope the regime stays as it is in this country - stick it out and consumers will stick with us, if we go down the American road, we'll only have more heartache in the longterm.

Irelands only wine, double entendres aside

I went onto RTE radio yesterday (The Mooney Show) to natter about David Llewellyn's Irish wine. I ended up saying "So I met up with David and he took me down to his tunnel to look at his grapes". The production team were hysterical, I wasn't. Apart from that clanger it was a nice item about what is essentially a novelty wine but Dermot O'Neill the gardening expert added to the discussion saying by that many more of us might be producing wine in future years as the climate warms. I'm on for that, it would definitely cut our wine bills.

Wine making in Ireland might seem a little bit far fetched, but various people in the past have produced wine in very small quantities - particularly those in the South and South West of the country who have been growing grapes or buying grapes and making their own wine for their household, a bit like home brewing I suppose, but few of these wines have been commercially available until now.


Climate is key to producing wine but interestingly the grapes themselves have a lot of importance in terms of climate. The development of varieties in Germany and particularly the South of England has led to vines that do well here providing the summer temperatures don’t plummet. It's been 20 years since David Llewellyn planted his first vines after returning from working in the wine business in Germany. He calls our climate “challenging” – a very polite term, and he’s spent a long time experimenting with what might work in this climate and has a couple of different varieties of vines growing on the farm.


Last week I went out to his farm to record the radio piece. Disappointingly the vineyard doesn't look anything like the beautiful stepped terraces of Northern Italy or the huge level hectares of vines that you see in Southern France. Because it’s Ireland, David has his vines in plastic tunnels (don't go there) to protect them from the damp and disease. At this time of year the grapes are a smaller version of a table grape, so about the size of a marble. The grapes are incredibly sweet and melt in your mouth which is the surprising thing, but it's that sweetness which is essential as its fermeted sugars which produce alcohol, therefore no big sweetness, no wine

Between now and the end of September the grapes will ripen then they are brought to a little machine that crushes them and takes the berries from the stalks, the stalks are quite bitter and need to be separated. Then that pulp is taken out, put into a press and pressed through cloth under pressure and then that juice is fermented into wine.

Like the general rules with wine, David bottles the whites sooner - in the spring after their harvest, but the red takes a year to two years to be ready. He sometimes adds sugar to bring up the alcohol level from about 10 to 12%. He produces a Sauvignon Blanc, a Rondo Regent, and a Cabernet Merlot. I've tasted the Cabernet Merlot and it is surprisingly good, a little young if you like, with no huge depth of flavour but it's a light fruity red wine and for people not fond of big heavy Merlot flavours this might be a nice alternative.

If climate does warm in future years we could see some farmers entering the wine business but really it's hard work to do it in Ireland and you need good knowledge of viticulture and be passionate about wine. But there’s no reason why anyone couldn't start a few vines and produce your own wine for drinking at home, and it could save you a bit of cash. Lusca wines are expensive – 38 euro a bottle, though he does half bottles as well. If you're looking for wine at more value you will certainly find it but the idea of growing your own wine is hugely appealing - a bit like owning a chateau. But a few vines in tubs on the terrace? I think I'll try it, if all else fails they'll still look pretty.

The programme can be heard at -
http://www.rte.ie/radio/mooneygoeswild/archive/index.html

To semi-rural or not to semi-rural

Peregrine falcons are bad bastards. This morning one of them dive bombed a wood pidgeon who was calmly pottering in the field outside our house and in a matter of seconds made mincemeat of him. Then he sat on top of the poor bird and tore him apart. While brutal, it was fascinating to watch.

The rain was pelting down, even the neighbours horses had squeezed into the field shelter (all five of them, which is usually interesting) but the peregrine ignored the driving rain and the horses and chewed up chunks of pidgeon for a good half hour.

Myself and the baby watched from the bedroom window but the baby wasn't very impressed. She likes her mammals large and her birds small, so that she can point at the bird feeders hung outside the kitchen windows and bellow "Tit!". Or rather "Dhat!". I found the whole thing thrilling, even if my knowledge of birds is limited to finches of various colours and a strain of robin we seem to have at our place who are so violently territorial they make Quentin Tarantino characters look lame. [One morning I found one of the robins sitting on top of the dead body of his rival pecking out his eyes for a small snack.]

So, downstairs we headed, to look in the bird watching books and sure enough the bird outside the window was a peregrine, with his distinctive black cheeks. I was delighted, I felt like texting all of my friends instantly, then I remembered that they have real lives where they do not look out of the window at birds killing other birds for half an hour in the morning.

At the moment we are living in a rural area close to a large town. It's great; I can keep an eye on farming and food production and who's doing what in their fields, while we still have our going- out nights, our nipping down to the shop for Bad Snacks, and all the advantages of country life - peregrines in the garden, pheasants patrolling the hedgerows, the activities of the dairy farm nearby and of course, loads and loads of illegal dumping.

While I loved watching our neighbours cut their barley last week (I hope they get a decent price this year) what I don't love is the sky high piles of scary stuff appearing in the lanes. And if you're situated in anything that looks like a country lane that's close to a urban area you've had it. And it's not only the usual - carpets, household rubbish, mother in laws etc, early this year we had five deer carcasses dumped over successive months, some of them headless, in a lane close to our house.What I can't work out is why.

Around that same time I did a report for RTE Radio's Countrywide programme on deer stalking and for sure, poaching of deer is a thriving activity at the moment. But it's usually to sell the venison to some naughty game dealers are buying out of season. Some say that lamping of deer at night is taking place, again for venison or for cheap meat for dogs - lurchers and the like which are used to bring them down. Nice.

To dump the carcasses makes no financial sense as you have to transport them to the lane, and drag them into the hedge - presumably to hide them, which hasn't worked at all well if I can see the white arses of the deer sticking out of the hedge ten yards away.The neighbours and myself can't work it out. It could be a farmer who is culling them because they're eating his grass. And doesn't want the bodies left on his land. Whatever the case it's an ugly practise and presents obvious public health issues if they are not removed.

This is the thing with country life. While you think you're safe from mad urban stuff it doesn't mean that mad stuff, whether urban or rural, doesn't come knocking at the door. In a few weeks we are to move from this house, to a more rural area. It'll be a big change and we will miss the proximity to urban life that we have now. I really don't want to go as I love it here but one thing is certain, I don't want to go back to living in an urban area. My daily walks round the edges of the fields are truly, the nicest part of the day. If we moved back into a town the labrador would get fat, and the baby and I would have nothing to look out the window at. Mind you, there's always Dr. Phil on the telly...

How your iPhone could trim your grocery bill, beat the supermarkets at their own game

Smart Consumer: How you can be a winner in the great supermarket sweepstakes
Suzanne Campbell, The Irish Independent Thursday August 12 2010

This week the National Consumer Agency announced that the price of branded goods in our supermarkets fell by on average 14 per cent from January last year to July 2010. It's good news -- but it doesn't mean that shoppers can relax.

What's clear is that we're much savvier at shopping than before. It's easy to clap ourselves on the back for buying discounted goods but to prevent prices rising again, we must still shop smart and let the supermarkets know that we're keeping a close eye on what they're charging us.

The National Consumer Agency survey also showed that while retailers are competing with special offers and promotions, they are also frequently changing the price of individual items.
In recent weeks Irish food and consumer internet forums were busy with shoppers angrily citing price rises across a number of goods. "The hot chocolate I buy used to be €1.55 for nearly a year, only to be raised to €3.55", "one of my favourite yoghurts went from 99c to €1.35 per pot over night, how does that make sense?".

Add to which numerous angry posts about the shrinking number of Irish goods being stocked and a rise in the marketing and shelf space occupied by a supermarket's own brand products. Is it the case that in order to keep the balance of power on the side of the consumer we must continually monitor what the supermarkets are doing?

Tara Buckley from independent retail group RGDATA says that shoppers need to stay savvy if they're to continue to get bargains. "We're hearing from retailers that consumers are going to a particular shop for one discounted product; nappies or wine for example, and then leaving with just that item rather than shopping around which is what the retailer wants."

There has also been a shift in the type of foodstuffs we are buying: "Retail figures show that more of us are buying home-baking goods and cooking from scratch. And there is also a slight upturn in the sale of treats such as chocolate. Where people feel they are shopping smarter across the board they are rewarding themselves with small treats, and the World Cup gave a great boost to snacks and alcohol sales."

But it's also clear that discounted goods have to be paid for elsewhere in the store. Supermarkets are good at raising prices by stealth on products that don't get a lot of attention, and then heavily marketing their big discounts. To make sure you're always one step ahead, be aware of the game playing that's taking place when you least expect it -- during your weekly shop.

Use Technology
If you've an iPhone, apps such as Red Laser (€1.59) are useful for price comparisons -- it scans a barcode and tells you where the item is on sale for less.
Sites such as Thatsagreat offer.com searches local areas for grocery discounts and also carries hair and beauty discounts and dining-out offers. Using online shopping sites such as Tesco's or Superquinn's gives you up-to-date pricing without leaving your home.

Don't be suckered by signs
Once in the supermarket door, don't be swayed by big signs screaming out promotions.
Big red "discount" signs give the impression that everything on the supermarket floor is good value. Lots of signs doesn't necessarily mean lots of bargains.

'Buy One, Get One Free' or similar deals
Unless you are sure you are going to eat these foods don't buy them. And don't think that freezing them gets rid of the issue -- they still have to go into your mouth or in the bin once they get to your home.

Only buy "Two for One" meat deals if you have a meal to put them in.
But picking up discounted mince is usually a good buy because in five minutes it can be made into home-made burgers (just add a little garlic, onion and packaged sage), a simple chilli with peppers and tomatoes or a spaghetti bolognese. These are great meals to freeze if you want to make a big quantity once-off.

Multi-buying
Don't assume that the bigger pack is cheaper. Sometimes you have to really look at the label to find that buying four or six bottles of cola isn't that much better value. Large quantities of foods like this encourage you to get through them quickly, and may not be the healthiest option.

Premium Discounts
Supermarkets love discounting luxury items such as wine or their premium ranges. Before you buy it, think for a second if you wanted this item before you saw it reduced, and that there may be another item alongside it which is still actually cheaper.

Fresh fruit and vegetables
Loose vegetables are usually cheaper and have a lot less packaging for you to dispose of at home. The cheapest way to buy veg is usually at your local vegetable shop. They'll usually throw in a few bargains and it's nice to feel part of a local food culture rather than someone to be got through a till queue as quickly as possible.

Promotional cards
Use your loyalty card but beware of accruing points for the sake of it. Remember that loyalty cards track every item you buy. If you're a fan of luxury ice cream, the supermarket will target you with promotions for ice creams or more cynically, try to win you over to their own premium brand and away from the brand you were buying before.

Tempting your palate
Other tricks supermarkets use include displaying foods that go well together; soft drinks with salty snacks, crackers and cheese or fresh fruit and cream. This is to encourage to you to spend more. Vegetables are put near the entrance to convey a feeling of freshness and health, and bread is placed at the door to get a consumer salivating and prod them into buying more food. Ditto the rotisserie chicken. It's not there just to sell chicken is it?

You against them
The supermarket's goal is to keep you there as long as possible, confused, and buying things you didn't come in for. Their layout tricks are putting essentials far away from the entrance so you have to pass lots of other goods before you get to them.
The most expensive goods are also placed at eye level throughout a store, check the shelves above and below eye-level for a cheaper alternative.

Use a shopping list
It's boring but plan ahead. Think at the beginning of the week how many nights you will be eating in, entertaining or weekend meals you will need. Write a list with staple simple dishes on it.

Choose meals that are simple to prepare and buy for and you're more likely to make them. Making a list cuts out several trips to the convenience store during the week. This is when your grocery bill can really shoot up.

Just remember that the supermarket's job is to make margin, and if they discount products they have to make their money back elsewhere in the store. Shop around, watch the figures on your receipt and always stay one step ahead if you want to keep your grocery spend at an affordable level.
- Suzanne Campbell
Irish Independent

Why does the National Consumer Agency want Walmart here?

Despite us having the second highest grocery prices in Europe, today the National Consumer Agency are saying that competition among the big four retailers is cooling down as that they are all charging virtually the same for the popular branded goods we buy. While the NCA are happy to admit that supermarkets are raking in exceptionally high profits they are also advocating taking away the cap on the size of retail units to invite bigger firms into Ireland and provide more competition. Hello, have you looked at what's happened in the US, what are you thinking NCA?

Allowing huge units to locate here will only lead to chains like ASDA (owned by Walmart) coming in to promote a cheap food policy, squeeze farmers and food producers virtually out of business. I went to an ASDA/Walmart store recently in Swindon which was about the size of Colorado. I bought a loaf of what was described as "bread" for 26p. Two weeks later it had the same consistency and appearance that it had the day I bought it.

Can you call this food? If we invite these types of retailers into Ireland they will still source everything they sell from the cheapest producers in the world, Irish farmers will be left out in the cold and ultimately, superstores will prescribe what and how we eat. I don't want Walmart as my food future thanks.

It's incredulous that the National Consumer Agency think that cheap food from giant American conglomerates is the way to go. It's bad for everyone in the long run. Over the past ten years there has been about a thousand Phds completed on the effects of cheap food and the impact that giant retail units has had on towns and local businesses. Michelle Obama recently identifed whole regions of the US which are food wastelands - nothing is grown, everyone eats crap. The NCA really need to read a bit more, look at what has happened to America's food environment and get a bit of sense.

Todays NCA statement -
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0810/breaking29.html

We might laugh at Vogue Café but lets not pretend we don't do branded restaurants

I thought themed restaurants died off in the '90s. Apparently not. According to the Wall Street Journal, Condé Nast is looking to expand its magazine-themed restaurant business across the globe.

Apparently Moscow already has a Vogue Café, and a GQ Bar. If that's not bizarre enough they also have a Tatler Club. What next? Condé Nast Traveller cocktail bars with Malaysian palm beach decor and plinky plink music? Maybe not - I spent some of my dissolute youth on a Malaysian paradise island which had banned alcohol, a fact which rather inconvenienced Philip and myself.

It's testament to the power of Condé Nast's brands more than anything that they can expand willy nilly into what have been diffcult waters for other groups, remember the Fashion Cafe anyone? The company is apparently trying to build its brands beyond print magazines, which have been suffering from drops in advertising.

Is it the case that outside Europe and American the lure of Western brands will still bring people to a food outlet? Have we moved on here or have we just re-trained our brand sensitivites to Marco Pierre-White and Frankie Dettori, - both of whom have branches in Dublin. We may pride ourselves on being more sophisticated than to eat in a Hard Rock or Vogue Café, but we do exactly what everyone else does in the world by eating branded food restaurants that we somehow percieve as being of gauranteed quality. In my experience branded outlets usually mean very much the opposite. Yes of course we're more sophisticated than people in Moscow. Starbucks anyone?

Interesting that cloned meat is classifed as "novel foods" under the Food Safety Authority in the UK

This latest UK food safety cock up says more about traceability in our food chain and how badly it is working than the ethics of eating cloned food - that's a whole other story. I just hope that this can't happen in Ireland. Today the Food Safety Authority here said that as far as they know there is no cloning research going on in Ireland, but more to the point, many of the prepared foods such as pizzas, ready-meals etc that we buy in Irish supermarkets contain meat from the UK. So it's not as if we're free from any risk as consumers.

More worryingly, the FSA in the UK has said that it does not know how many embryos from cloned animals have come into Britain from abroad. They are continuing to investigate reports that milk from cows born from US embryos have entered the food chain.

I can't believe the FSA haven't learned their lesson from BSE and controlled the use of cloned animals better. BSE destroyed UK's beef sector for over ten years. This is exactly the type of thing that scares people away from eating beef, and if I wasn't an informed consumer who knows that Irish traceability in beef is top notch, I might be looking at burgers in a new light.

The story so far - from the BBC today:

Meat from two bulls which were the offspring of a cloned cow have entered the food chain in Britain, officials have admitted, as they continued to investigate further possible breaches.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said that meat from two bulls, Parable and Dundee Paratrooper, "will have been eaten".

The animals were among eight cattle conceived using eight embryos harvested from a cloned cow in the United States, it said. The news has fuelled debate in Britain about the ethics and safety of cloning, although experts insist food products from the offspring of cloned animals pose no health risk. Under European law, foodstuffs produced from cloned animals must pass a safety evaluation and gain authorisation before they are marketed.

The FSA is responsible for authorising "novel foods" such as meat and other products from clones and their offspring and said it had neither granted any such authorisations nor been asked to do so.
Its investigations started earlier this week after a newspaper report that milk from the offspring of a cloned cow had gone on sale to the public. But as it carried out this investigation, it discovered that meat from Dundee Paratrooper, which was slaughtered in July last year, had entered the food chain. Local council officials identified its owner as farmer Callum Innes of Auldearn in northern Scotland.

Hours later, it also confirmed that meat from Parable, which was slaughtered in May this year, was likely to have been eaten. The FSA has also said Wednesday that it did not know how many embryos from cloned animals had come into Britain from abroad. Investigations are continuing into whether milk from two cows also born from the US embryos had entered the food chain. Food products from the other four in the group have not done so.

Campaign groups for animal welfare and organic farming have voiced concern over the issue.
Compassion For World Farming highlighted risks to animal welfare posed by cloning, while the Soil Association voiced safety fears and said the use of clones could reduce genetic diversity within agriculture. But the National Farmers' Union Scotland said there were "no risks" to human health posed by food products from the offspring of cloned animals.
Professor Hugh Pennington, a leading microbiologist at Aberdeen University, said that while the word cloning "has an H. G. Wells ring to it", the process was "perfectly safe".
"They are just the same as their parents from the genetic point of view so there's no problem there," he said.

David Bowles of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals told the BBC the issue was about "transparency" and showing consumers they could "trust what they go into shops to buy -- and at the moment that is in doubt".

Irish poultry and pork farming, River Cottage it ain't

Good to see Brendan Smith our Minister for Agriculture is to introduce new grants to improve the standards in sow housing and poultry farms. Out of all the livestock we produce in Ireland, sows and poultry get by far the worse end of the deal. For these animals, being raised for our plate is rarely how you see it on prettified food programmes. I've filmed in pig houses, a lot of what goes on tape couldn't go on air.

Cattle and sheep in Ireland are reared in an “extensive” system, which means they are outdoors in low stocking ratios with access to grass and only housed in the winter months. On the whole, this is ideal from a welfare standard and we can all sleep easily at night knowing that while that lamb shank at dinner tasted fantastic, the lamb that provided it had a fair shot at a decent outdoor life.

Pigs and poultry are a different matter. Both are as near to intensive farming as you can get in Ireland, and having been in poultry houses and seen how densely packed the birds are, I am compelled, despite the price difference to only buy free range chicken that has some kind of access to outdoor grazing and foraging.

Pigs have the worst situation of them all. Pig farming in Ireland is indoor, intensive and free range pork is still a tiny minority of the marketplace. Pigs are kept indoors in tiny pens their entire life and cannot live in a group, forage and do the intelligent pig stuff they like to do. Sows farrow (give birth) in metal stalls the length of their body with no room to move whatsoever, the piglets are kept away from the sow by a rail to stop her lying on them. If the sow was in a larger area she wouldn’t lie on them in the first place. If we kept our dogs this way there’d be a national uproar.

However under new EU animal welfare directives which will come into force at the end of 2011, both sows and hens will benefit from more animal friendly accommodation. Battery farming of hens in the EU will be entirely banned by 2012, so the infamous metal cage the size of an A4 sheet of paper will exist no more. Interestingly, in February of this year Poland campaigned to remove this ban or have it exempted for another five years but they were overturned.

Farmers in Ireland are at least going to get some help to comply with the new regulations in the form of 40% grants towards investments in new animal housing. To be fair, Irish farmers are regularly under pressure to comply with EU legislation that constantly alters and inforces new regimes such as the Nitrates Directive. However, when Ireland took on board the Nitrates Directive and complied with its purpose of keeping our waterways clean of agricultural run-off the plan worked.

Change can be costly but if it’s change that benefits the welfare of the animals we choose to raise for food, the environment and those who we share this planet with, we all benefit.

From starving on the side of the road to Ring 1 of the RDS. The journey of a rescue pony

HORSE SHOW SEASON: When Lulu the pony was found by the Irish Horse Welfare Trust on a housing estate, she was rake thin and lice infested. Next week, though, she will take her place in the distinguished surroundings of the RDS for the Dublin Horse Show. SUZANNE CAMPBELL on the work of the trust

NEXT WEEK LULU the pony will find herself groomed to perfection as she enters the ring at the Royal Dublin Society’s Horse Show. But it was on the edge of a housing estate in Finglas where the pony first came to attention, not by a judge wearing a bowler hat, but a volunteer from the Irish Horse Welfare Trust (IHWT).

Lulu’s early misfortune is typical of an increasing crisis in horse welfare across the country that has seen levels of abandoned animals soar. She was spotted by a member of the public, who reported seeing a pony at the side of the road who was tiny, starved and covered in lice. The IHWT took her in, rehabilitated her and found her a loving owner. In a pristine stable yard in Co Tipperary, Lulu now looks like a different pony.

“She was probably only a year old at that stage but had already been put into harness; she still has some marks from it,” says Katie Tobin, who has had horses all her life and became the pony’s guardian after she rang the IHWT and offered to rehome a horse.
“I had enough grazing to keep another animal so I told them I’d take one off their hands – whatever they wanted to give me. When the horsebox arrived, I thought there was no horse in it she was that small.”

In her stable, Lulu is quiet but self-possessed, eyeing us in quick glances as she munches through her breakfast, anxious to appraise her visitors without missing a scrap of her food. It was clear from the beginning that the pony wasn’t the usual offspring from the black and white horses kept around Dublin’s housing estates.

“She has a lot of quality blood in her, and with her pretty head she could be part Welsh pony,” says Tobin. She thinks the pony was probably stolen as a foal and fell into the wrong hands. “I’m just so glad she was picked up by the IHWT and then came to me.”

For the past 10 years, the IHWT has been taking in welfare cases and retraining horses coming from the racing industry, giving them a second chance as riding horses. Currently, it is inundated with rescue cases as economic woes have put many horse owners under pressure; starving and abandoned animals are being reported to it daily. In a new campaign, Welfare Aware, it hopes to raise more money from equestrian-related industries, as it relies hugely on public donations.
“It’s heartbreaking to see the work they do on so little money,” says Tobin. “Without the IHWT, the simple fact is that this pony and many others that they’ve rescued would be dead.”
Tobin saw Lulu’s potential early on and began showing her in hand (without a rider) when the mare was two. “Outside the show ring she was fine, but once inside she would be really badly behaved – rearing, sitting down, everything. I used to be so embarrassed I’d want to leave.”

Then she found a local girl, Shannon Sheridan, who could really ride her and handle her personality. “I’ve no children of my own. I had seen Shannon ride ponies on the circuit and I basically pestered her mother Michelle to death to try Shannon on Lulu. Once she sat up on her, the pair just clicked. She’s a fantastic rider, for a 12-year-old girl she can read a showing class better than many adults.”

Shannon Sheridan clearly knows every inch of the pony and slides off Lulu’s rug for us to have a closer look: “She can get a bit fat so we have to watch her food.” While Lulu has plenty of quality, she is also brimming over with personality. “She landed me in the hospital once when she took a fright at some white tape coming through the field gate,” laughs Tobin.

And what are their chances in Dublin? Tobin is confident. “If Lulu behaves and doesn’t get tense, she will do well.” The pony will take an hour to be plaited up and get her coat shining for the ring, but as Tobin points out, the real work is sorting out her boundless energy before she goes in front of judges. “We work her in sometimes for a couple of hours before her class, she has bottomless energy levels.”

Does Shannon Sheridan think the pony might be a challenging ride in the big surroundings of the RDS? She gives a nervous laugh: “Yeah.”

For Tobin, the hard work and expense in showing the pony and bringing her to the top level of competition has more than paid off. “I have another pony in Dublin the same week, but you know it’s Lulu that I’m really excited about. It was my dream that she would get there, and it’s a real success story for the IHWT. It proves all animals deserve a second chance.”


A nose for bags
LOUISE O’LEARY, the designer behind Louloubelle bags, was so taken with the work done by the Irish Horse Welfare Trust that she is launching a bag in aid of the charity. “I always had rescue cats and dogs from the pound and then I took in a rescue mare. She was found by the side of the road in north Co Dublin. The vet said she mightn’t last 48 hours.” O’Leary named the mare Hazel and watched her slowly improve in health. “For the first few weeks she had her head buried in the grass just eating, then one day she came trotting over to the fence to greet me.”

Since then, O’Leary has found her “an absolute joy. It’s amazing an animal that was mistreated and left to starve can be so grateful for what she has. So I thought, what can I do to help – I can’t take in more horses but I can design, so I decided to launch a bag named Hazel [pictured below] to raise money for the trust.” One of Louise’s aims at Louloubelle bags is to make handcrafted products from ethically sourced leather. A third of the world’s leather comes from China, where animal-welfare practices have received a lot of criticism, and cats and dogs are killed for their fur. For O’Leary, this was an important issue. “I think there is a lack of awareness about where leather comes from; if people knew more about it they might make different decisions.”

When she began her business, sourcing leather that is a by-product of the food industry was a difficult task. “I searched for a long time in Italy for a factory that would produce to high ethical standards. Even Carlo who runs the factory says he doesn’t want to make money off the back of animal abuse. I get offered leather all the time that is cheaper than the stuff I buy, but I suspect it’s coming from China.” For O’Leary, the bag is a way of giving back for the pleasure she has had from giving an unwanted horse a second chance. “The work the IHWT does is unbelievable, they badly need donations and people to adopt their animals if you have a suitable home for one.” The bag is available from ihwt.ie for a special price of €250 (normal RRP is €500). All proceeds will go to charity and the bag will be on view at the IHWT’s stand during the Dublin Horse Show.

Lulu and Shannon Sheridan will be in the Show Hunter Pony class at 9am in Ring One on Sunday, August 8th, during Horse Show Week at the RDS Dublin Horse Show