Funeral planned this Wednesday for Ireland's "Good Food Sector"

Irish anti-GM groups have today announced a "Funeral Procession" in Dublin this Wednesday 12th for Ireland's good food sector following Teagasc's planting of outdoor GM potatoes. The planned procession will depart from Stephen’s Green (Wolfe Tone Memorial) at 12.00 pm on Wednesday and will arrive at Agriculture House via Dawson Street and Molesworth Street where "a requiem service will take place."
 

The groups involved in the march which include IOFGA and NO2GM, plan to present a spade to Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney to ask him to put a stop to Teagasc's GM trials. I very much doubt this is going to happen after the EPA have approved the trials to go ahead but protesting gives the many individuals and groups in opposition to GM potatoes a chance to air their grievances. Last week they applied in the high court for a  means to tackle tackle Teagasc's plans without GM protestors being personally liable for the costs of the action. They lost the case but I hear there are more challenges to follow so watch out for updates here. 

In this week's edition of the Irish Farmer's Journal I'm away from the topic of food and GM to write about farmers, their vets and what the large animal practice sector may look like in future years. During Ireland's boom, equine and small animal practices thrived and there was a fear that in some rural areas vet cover would decrease to the point of creating difficulties for many farmers. This was borne out in some counties such as Mayo but it's clear now that there is a re-balancing in the sector. 

Large animal practice is thriving and female vets are very much in evidence on farms. As they make up the largest number of veterinary students we will see a slow shift this direction, and happily, all the vets I spoke with in my piece saw a vibrant future in on-farm work. There have been difficulties in the past between vets and farmers (largely relating to cost of services) but I feel it's a relationship becoming less adversarial and more in tune with each other's needs. Animal health on farms and resulting productivity is becoming more and more important, and farmers and vets are clearly working more together in weeding out problems like BVD before they arise. Check out the piece in the Journal and it's available on their smartphone app version which is a brilliant news service. Coming up in later in the series I'll be dealing with food price inflation, problems for Irish pig farmers and Bord Bia's Origin Green - what the scheme means at farm level.   

Meet the GM hacker who modifies food in his kitchen

Is GM food the devil? Last week I spoke at Kilkenny Arts festival on plans to grow genetically modified potatoes for the first time in Ireland. On the panel with me was Cathal Garvey, a bio-hacker who makes GM food in his kitchen, literally. Cathal brought a lot of new light and discussion to the subject.

He gave us a basic run down of how genetic science works and explained how he can hack qualities from one plant (such as luminesence) and insert it into another. Hey presto - glow in the dark bananas. What Cathal advocates is more discussion around GM food which informs consumers rather than scaring them, and liberalising the ability to alter food so that anyone can do it,  taking control from the agri-chem giants such as Monsanto and DuPont.

It's clearly one of the problems in the debate on GM - Monsanto have such a bad name in this area they make the Republican party look like a bunch of Carmelite nuns. And for most people, Monsanto is GM. They have wreaked the American food chain, polluted it's environment with unwanted crops, sued farmers and wield an unethical, ridiculous amount of power in how food is produced.

But genetically modifying food is not simply Monsanto. What Cathal (pictured below) advocates is that GM should be available to everyone. For young scientists like Cathal, there is the potential to create food that is patent free, and could have a role in impacting positively on hunger in the developing world.

Now this kind of talk upsets most people. Most foodies and consumers consider GM devils spawn and any genetic modification of anything, is unnatural, and unwanted. They say GM won't solve world hunger, the GM agri-chems have already meddled with Africa in a threatening way which has benefitted no one but themselves. But again, GM is not Monsanto. It is much more than that. What has raised people's hackles about the proposed trials in Carlow is that the potatoes may eventually become a commercial project that will again benefit private business and no one else. But Teagasc's answer is that it's not a commercial project and that without that without testing GM they can't go forward in understanding how it affects the environment.

If you want an overview of the Teagasc trials, check out this recent piece I did on Today with Pat Kenny explaining the potato sector in Ireland, the prevalence of blight and an explanation of Teagasc's plans at Oakpark.
http://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A3228018%3A133%3A14%2D03%2D2012%3A

What's clear is that GM makes people impassioned and angry most of the time. What was refreshing about our talk at Kilkenny is that no one threw rotten fruit at us, all views on the topic were aired and there was lots of new stuff learned by all. Opening up the debate on GM, separating the scientists like Cathal from the Monsantos of this world allow discussion that's not adversarial but interesting, funny and really valuable. And if you want to make your own luminescent yoghurt, have a look at Cathal's website below. And send me some when you're finished.

http://www.indiebiotech.com

Would you pay more for non Genetically Modified food?

In the UK, Morrisons, the large supermarket chain has dropped its requirement for poultry suppliers to feed non GM food to their chickens. They say it's a cost issue for producers, and here in Ireland it's certainly the same.

So we as consumers want to pay less for our chicken fillets, we have to accept that poultry here is fed with genetically modified food. In fact feeding chickens, pigs or cattle non-genetically modified feed is significantly more expensive than the more commonly and cheaply available GM feeds. So do we care as consumers?

Apparently not. Most of the animal beef, chicken and pigmeat we eat in Ireland is fed with GM rations. The only way to absolutely assure that you're not eating animal products fed on GM food is to buy organic. And that obviously has an expense premium attached.

The Morrisons announcement comes just as the debate on Teagasc's plans to grow GM potatoes at its Carlow research centre is hotting up. If you want to know more about the issue check out my interview on Today with Pat Kenny at the link below. GM is a complicated, emotive topic. This radio piece focusses primarily on Teagasc's plans and gives an overview of the issue. You could do hundreds of hours of broadcasting on GM and still not come to agreement between those who support the technology (Teagasc) and those who hate it (GM-Free Ireland) and other groups.

It's very much the case that GM has a sorry history in the US and needs to be hugely regulated and watched as a developing technology. Does it have a place in food? You have to make up your own mind.

http://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A3228018%3A133%3A14%2D03%2D2012%3A

GM or not to GM. That's the question, bet I know the answer

There's a rift appearing in the Irish agri-food sector which could affect what has for so long now been a good news story. Last week Teagasc announced that they've applied for a license to sow genetically modified potatoes at their research centre in Carlow.

Irish groups opposing GM claim this threatens our export food market in a climate when agriculture is one of the top performing sectors of the economy. Surveys do suggest that consumers don't want to eat GM food, and that the perception of Ireland as a "clean, green nation" is key to the success of our exports in countries like Italy and Germany.

It also comes at a time where in the US, farmers who choose not to grow GM are currently taking a class action against Monsanto - they fear that when Monsanto's GM seeds contaminate their own crops, Monsanto will claim ownership and charge them licence fees on what were originally sown as non GM foods.

But Teagasc and agri-food experts like Dr. Paddy Wall say the fear of GM is nonsense and it's the only way to tackle world hunger, and a mistake for Ireland to not embrace it. They also feel not allowing GM animal feed into Ireland has made our pig and poultry sectors completely uncompetitive. There argument is - if consumers want Irish food at a fair price, eventually we will have to accept genetically modified crops as part of that picture and that arguing against it will damage Ireland in the long term.

Let's also remember that the Teagasc research is not to look at the economic viability of blight-resistant GM potatoes here, but to look at their environmental impact in the first instance. I'm doing a radio report on this next week and encourage all who have a vested interest or from a consumer point of view, a preference to GM or non GM food, to get in touch. Let your views be known!

Building an Artisan food sector in Ireland - hey folks, it's already there

I returned windswept and shaken from a conference in Tullamore last night. It wasn't the content of the day that had me in shock but rather getting stuck on Brian Cowen's throw-s***-loads-of- money-at-Tullamore-to-keep-my-seat series of ringroads built without a single sign back to the motorway that tested my nerves. Let alone that the weather did its level best to add to the confusion.

Happily, earlier in the day I was speaking on the subject of building jobs in rural Ireland from the artisan food sector - a subject close to my heart, and my stomach. According to Bord Bia's figures released last week the artisan food sector is in good nick - the 400 small food companies they work with provide 3000 people with employment and with a turnover of 400 million annually it's grown at a rate of 7% per year since 2007.

But all isn't rosy in the garden, and as someone who talks to food producers throughout the year and tells their stories, things are a little harder on the ground. Getting paid is a major issue for small food producers, with suppliers of cheese and the like waiting long periods to get paid from outlets which buy their stock; particularly restaurants. Not only does this create cash flow problems but it fosters fear that their buyer is about to go under which isn't the nicest feeling in the world.

If you're a small food company, getting money from banks to expand or provide more employment is almost impossible at the moment, and dealing with very restrictive food regulations is also driving people mad. I know that Eurotoques the chefs group has made representations to the powers that be to make things easier for smaller producers; putting Irish food businesses through the hoop on regulations that aren't followed in other EU companies seems particularly unfair.

We all want to eat safe food, but if we see butchers in France with more casual set-ups than what's required in comparison to here still producing good safe food, then the legislation can surely to be adapted to be more flexible.

The decline in consumer spend is the biggest problem communicated to me by producers. Whether they have a stall at a farmers market or produce large quantities of a premium product to the multiples, their customers are spending less money and business can be tight at times. However, I spoke with one food seller yesterday who pointed out that if people come into your shop and spend less, you just need more customers to come in the door to make up the same numbers at the end of the month.

So expanding customer base is key, while keeping the customers you already have. I feel that even in these less than rosy times, people who buy artisan food even occasionally find it difficult to go back to eating total rubbish. I think once you're converted you stay that way, and if you spend less now on food (like most of us do), then so be it. It's simply the case at the moment that if more consumers are tempted go down the local/artisan food route, and spend money on it even now and again, then producers can stay in business.

My presentation (which you may not gather from the above) was actually very positive about the Irish small food business sector and this was backed up by case studies by Joy Moore from Oldtown Hill Bakehouse and Bernadine Mulhall from Coolnaowle Country House and Organic Farm from who gave a potted history of how their businesses had started and where they stood now. Both were really interesting examples of successful hard working entrepreneurs who had a passion for what they do.

Bernadine's situation in particular stood out as herself and her husband had left conventional mixed farming to start an organic system. After spraying their wheat crop with pesticides every year her husband was ill afterwards for several days. So they turned organic and his health recovered. This doesn't say much for what we're putting on our fields, though I think we knew this already.

Overall the conference was a great day, and thanks to National Rural Network who invited me to speak. It was lovely to catch up with buddies from my old days on Ear to the Ground and with Ollie Moore, Catherine Mack, Duncan Stewart and other writers who share a common agenda in keeping good food in production in Ireland. While it's clear that it's our large scale dairy and beef sectors that are the real contributors to the 8 billion euro worth of food we export each year, artisan food still has a very important place at the table. It functions as a way to keep people farming, making food and living in the Irish countryside, which far outways the attractions of producing factory food at low prices.

While there's a world wide market for cheap food, we will kill farming in Ireland if we adopt the US model of producing at the lowest possible price point. Somewhere in the mix Ireland can occupy the middle ground and in fact, the upper ground as well.

Thanks again to all the great speakers who contributed to my knowledge on renewable energies, dairy expansion and the other subjects which aroused a lot of discussion on the day. A further big thanks to David Meredith and Kevin Heanue from Teagasc for letting me grill them on supermarkets; getting to the bottom of their huge margins and understanding what exactly they are up to.... but we'll hold that news till later.

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