Making organics part of our food future

At the National Organic Conference in Limerick last week I grabbed this photo of Peter Ward with a large basket of potatoes wrapped lovingly in brown paper to hold in the steamy goodness. Peter provided lunch on the day(more pictures below) and what was particularly lovely was both the melt-in-your-mouth quality of the free range pork from Crowe's Farm in Tipperary but also the use of flowers to dress the meat and salads. It was a beautifully simple effect and one which summed up much of the philosophy of the conference itself.

I met a lot of great people on the day and learned
so much from the wonderful speakers, who brought expertise from both Ireland and abroad to the event. I particularly liked Henry Tucker's insights into the way consumers think and how food companies can exploit it. Basically when it comes to us consumers, it's all about ME. He pointed out how food producers sometimes neglect to aim their product at some need or desire the consumer has in their immediate sphere rather than appealing to the philosophical or ideological ideas behind organic or local food. We all want to eat food that has an "x factor"; and one of the ways producers can keep this to the forefront of what they are doing is to make sure the food they make tastes great. Really great.

Another speaker from the UK, Adrian Dolby explained the workings of the 7000 acre organic holding he manages in the Cotswolds. The farm keeps 2500 ewes outside all year on a diet of little more than grass. No supplementary feed, no worming doses, just pretty much them and mother nature out on the mountain; even for lambing, and the farm is a highly successful commercial enterprise. In fact the decision to change the farm to organic status was a commercial one rather than a "green" decision.

One of the highlights of the day for me was learning about how a group of ordinary families in Skerries County Dublin came together and approached a farmer to grow produce for them. It's a fantastic scheme, one which provides organic veg for consumers in Skerries which couldn't be more local (the farm overlooks the town) and provides a fair return to the farmer. The scheme is working well for everyone involved and could be replicated in areas all over Ireland; cutting out the middlemen, excessive packaging, transport and waste. Other workshop sessions on the day featured expert presentations and discussion on topics ranging from supports available to those considering organic farming to export markets for Ireland's produce.

One of the strong feelings emanating from the conference was the need to reach the consumer with a clearer message about what organic food stands for and the possible need for an over-arching group to represent organics in Ireland. There's no doubt consumers are sometimes put off by price but this message is not a simple one as organic food isn't always more expensive. They are also sometimes confused by its benefits.

Whatever the often conflicting research has said about polyphenols and the health properties of organic vegetables, I've always thought the point of organic food is that it comes without the pesticide and herbicide residues left behind by conventional farming. It is also much kinder to the environment and managing the fragile biodiversity of Ireland is essential for all of our food futures. The sales of organic food in Ireland are currently holding their own despite the recession, and the conference was another reminder of the passion, energy and innovation in the sector. A big thanks to Bord Bia, the Department of Agriculture and Limerick Institute of Technology for organising such a fantastic event.

I feel that organics in Ireland are now in the second generation; we now have big players like Glenisk selling organic food successfully in a tough economic environment to a discerning consumer. The green message is often not enough; the product has to compete with so many others that it has to be simply great in itself. But producers understand this and ideology has become reality; organic food is here to stay. It won't feed all of us all of the time, but it has a centrally important place in Irish food production and one that consumers are supporting with their buying habits. The conference presentations should soon be available to read at the bordbia website (www.bordbia.ie) and as always I will keep you posted on news and industry trends for local and organic food. Happy eating x

Am I still drinking tea? Yes. My response to the Rainforest Alliance and all the lovely and not so lovely comments on the piece

As I can't seem to comment on my post below (The real price of a cup of tea) because of some weird website glitch, I'll respond here to the Rainforest Alliance and others who've got in touch regarding my tea piece, published last week in the Irish Times.


I appreciate readers comments on the article, the responses I received on Twitter and the statement from the Rainforest Alliance regarding the working conditions for women at Lyon's Tea's Kericho site. However the women interviewed for our piece by journalist Jody Clarke gave a very different account of their experience of working at Lyon's Tea's Kericho plantation. There is always a difficulty when parties connected to an issue have such different versions of how things work. On one side there is the Dutch NGO SOMO, the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and the women we interviewed while on the other side Unilever and Rainforest Alliance who say there is no issue with sexual harassment at the site.


I think it's fair to say that sexual harassment of women workers is not uncommon in Kenya and the KHRC attests to this. That it would be absent altogether at a site as big as Kericho where there are 16,000 workers, many NGOs and people on the ground in Kenya might find difficult to believe. Unilever say they have put a confidential telephone number in place and want women to document any cases of abuse but in my mind this rings a bell (sorry for the pun) to the anonymous phone reporting numbers offered by the British authorities in Northern Ireland during the troubles. It was a great initiative but when you talked to people on the street were they going to use it? No.



Ollie I welcome your comment and yes Fair Trade is a different scheme to the one operated by Rainforest Alliance, there are many "ethical schemes" in food production and obviously they operate to slightly different standards. The overall point I was making is that in developing countries where human rights and working conditions are often so terrible, it may be difficult to completely stamp out unfair work practises, abuse of workers or environmental degradation. In these countries these are often so ingrained in workplaces that to overturn such practises completely or within a short period of time may be unrealistic.


So what are we to do? Ethical schemes may not be perfect but food produced under them is still probably produced under slightly better conditions then where simply market forces prevail. The choice is ours; it's not an easy one. Hopefully if we educate ourselves about food and not stick our heads in the sand, we can learn a little more about it and make better choices, even though sometimes what we learn may make us uncomfortable.


TASTE OF DUBLIN



On a lighter note, Philip and I spoke at Taste of Dublin last weekend in the Chef's Table tent in an interview with food writer Katy McGuinness. Here's a picture of us having a glass of wine in Iveagh Gardens afterwards which is a truly beautiful urban garden and one which Dubliners don't make the most of. Taste of Dublin takes place in the gardens and its a great event for foodies or for those who just want to hang out with a glass in their hand in beautiful surroundings.


In our interview we talked about real food, what we buy to cook and eat at home and how to avoid eating stuff that is bad for your health, badly produced or bad from the perspective of the people or environment that produced it. So we yakked on about this sort of thing and hopefully entertained people for a bit. It's good to meet people and talk about food issues face to face and also to be quizzed about issues you write or broadcast about. It makes you consider more what consumers really think about food and in that respect it was a really interesting event. My next post will be on the National Organic Conference which I've just returned from chairing in Limerick, but now its time for bed and en route, guess what? A nice cup of tea x

The real price of a cup of tea

Yesterday's Irish Times published a story I'd been working on with journalist Jody Clarke for a couple of months. I'd discovered that Lyons tea (the biggest selling tea in Ireland), has a plantation in Kenya where women allege that in order to secure lighter work duties or better housing conditions for their families they are forced to have sex with supervisors.

I researched the story, interviewed the principals and then journalist Jody Clarke who is based in Kenya then came on board. He travelled to the estate and interviewed women who had worked there. They told him about how the supervisors demand sex, bribes and harass the older women. Lyons Tea who are owned by the giant Unilever food group say there is no problem with sexual harassment at the estate and that they disagree with a report compiled by Dutch organisation SOMO which alleges that women on the estate suffer poor working conditions and "rampant" sexual harassment.

Working conditions for women at Kenya's tea plantations are generally poor, but the real problem with this case is that the Lyons Tea Kericho estate is Rainforest Alliance certified. Rainforest Alliance say that they say their audits of working conditions on the estate have found no problems. Generally as consumers when we buy a Fair Trade product we assume that workers are being looked after and are not suffering the kind of problems which the Kenyan women allege. What I found writing this piece is that what we might consider to be an ethically produced product may not be the case in reality. If you're interested in this issue you can read the full piece at the link below.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0611/1224298716294.html

Basketcase is back

Basketcase is back. Yes, this is a picture of Rachel Allen in some kind of cupboard. More on that later.

Firstly thanks for all the nice comments and good wishes on our new arrival - our little baby is finally home. Life now revolves around four hour feeds and a pair of very small blue eyes which would melt your heart, and all is well in the Campbell/Boucher-Hayes household.


While I'll be taking things easy over the summer and doing lots of bringing not one but two small creatures to visit the lambs next door, there's some food events coming up which I'll flag and keep you up to date on. And as I can't ignore what's going on in the countryside outside my window; the farming year to follow and delicious food to cook and eat.


In my short absence a small food hiccup seems to have taken place in Germany. As the crisis there develops it's clear that the emergence of Ecolis with lethal, fatal consequences looks to be something that we're going to see more of in our food environment. As of today, the outlook for the 664 sufferers is a pretty poor one. Many of the victims who ate contaminated food will face life long health problems from the HUS (Hemolytic uremic syndrome) which the ecoli brings with it. This means the possibility of kidney dialysis and renal failure, and an usually high probability of a fatal outcome. It's a horrific disaster with concrete details of where the contamination came from still unclear. But more on that again.

The next few days will be a busy period for me; Philip and I are speaking at Taste of Dublin in Iveagh Gardens this weekend. The Chef's Table tent at the event features interviews with chefs and foodie people - Philip and myself are appearing on Saturday at 6pm; we'll be talking What's Ireland Eating?, how they get the figs into the fig rolls and other such mysteries about the stuff that goes into our mouths. The Chef's Table tent schedule (which is actually a kind of yurt - looking forward to yak hair rugs etc) is at http://www.tasteofdublin.ie/ and follow the link with the Rachel Allen photo above. Rachel plus chefs such as Kevin Thornton, Gino D'Acampo, Conrad Gallagher, Nevin Maguire, Antony Worral Thompson, Catherine Fulvio and Derry Clarke will also be doing question and answer sessions in the tent; really looking forward to that.

Then on Tuesday next I'm down in Limerick to chair Bord Bia's National Organic Conference. For food producers, organic farmers or those interested in organics this is a pretty essential event; the line-up of speakers is an impressive array from the UK, France, food marketing, food trends and artisan food arenas. There's actually so much taking place on the day and great workshops in the afternoon that I'll have to sprint very fast round the conference centre at LIT to catch all the acts that I'm interested in - I'll need my music festival game face on. More info on the conference is at http://www.bordbia.ie/

I've also an upcoming investigative piece in the Irish Times which is due for publication this weekend. This piece was written a while back and has taken some time to research and bring to this stage. Investigative stories like this are always a lot of hard work but I think a lot of Irish consumers may take a deep breath when they read the piece. It involved myself and an Irish journalist based in Kenya delving into allegations of sexual harassment made by women who work for one of Ireland's most successful branded products.

This was and still is a tricky story; it took a while to get to the bottom of and the allegations may put some people off their breakfast. That's all I'm going to say. Ciao for the moment and happy eating x (bet you're all worried now)