Irish food´s Riverdance moment

After a Summer and Autumn of hard work and a lot of travel I´ve been so busy with my journalism that I´ve realised I need to post some new stuff here and let those outside Irish media to see what´s going on in Irish food and farming. Happily the big story of this year - our horsemeat scandal ended up being something postive for our food sector. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland who was first to spot the problem earned a lot of credit for lifting the lid on the murky world of "meat agents" and a European trade involving many countries and players and in some cases criminal activity in the food chain.



The truth is that aside from a very small number of rogue players, Irish beef is a fantastic food, extensively farmed, grass fed and fully traceable. In fact since the story broke Ireland has gained new markets for our beef exports and just this week we´ve seen Japan lift a ban on imports of Irish beef since the BSE scandal. Confidence is high in the food we are producing here. In many ways I´m busier than ever in a work sense because the message of our book from 2009 - that food is important, that the economic boom in Ireland ignored the farming and food sector, that the farming sector is one of this country´s selling points is now hugely recognised.

Ireland has more food festivals than ever. More food entrepreneurs than ever. But today I again visited a small food producer - a free range poultry grower whose livelihood is threatened by regulations which he feels are designed for big multinational food businesses and not the small scale individual. This is something I hear a lot on my travels around the country. But despite challenges to small or artisan producers, overall the local food culture here is growing apace. In 2009 when we penned the book there was no such pride in Irish food, and farming was a dirty word. Now there is truly a food to fork culture where many consumers, not just foodies are engaged with trying to buy local food and good quality food. Yes there are still difficulties in the sector and in these times us consumers also have less money to spend. But with less money there is also awareness of Irish food´s huge value to the local economy.


Recently the Dublin Web Summit took place in Ballsbridge Dublin - it´s a giant tech festival if you like, bringing together 10,000 tech start ups, venture capitalists, international brands and 400 international media. For the first time at the web summit not only Irish tech but Irish food was put centre stage. Good Food Ireland - an organisation of food producers and restaurants simply took over the catering. Instead of the usual mass-produced conference food, the delegates dined on venison sausage, Birgitta Curtin´s smoked salmon, relishes and Irish cheeses in a menu designed by Ballymaloe cookery school´s Rory O´Connell.

Watching the delegates taste the food in the beautiful tented setting in Herbert Park Dublin (photographed above) made me realise this really was a special event, a special moment. Finally Irish food was getting the attention it deserved. It was Irish food´s Riverdance moment - an instance where something essential to us and taken for granted is pulled into the limelight and lauded. There is no going back.



Here´s my report from the day on RTE radio´s Drivetime programme
http://podcast.rasset.ie/podcasts/audio/2013/1030/20131030_rteradio1-drivetime-thefoodsum_c20464354_20464356_232_.mp3

Hate to say I told you so #horsemeat

One of the frustrating things about Europe's current horsemeat crisis is that welfare groups in Ireland warned the Department of Agriculture many times about the problems of horses being transported live to Europe. These animals were known not to have passports and dealers openly admitted (also documented in the UCD report of 2010) that forging passports to get horses into factories wasn't an issue.

For many years I have helped the Irish Horse Welfare Trust to try and heighten awareness of the neglect of horses and the issue of live transport. For cattle and sheep transported to Europe or elsewhere there are strict regulations on travel times and welfare, none of which exist for horses. Horses are not checked at Irish ports before they travel for health or individual identification. This free movement of horses under the tripartite agreement between England, Ireland and France was identified in the UCD report as detrimental to bio-hazard controls - laughable now we have proof that many of these horses were going for human consumption. Authorities here denied that Irish horses could be going into the food chain until a Dutch processor in Nijnegan was revealed last week to be selling Irish and Dutch horsemeat as beef. This piece of news closed the circle in effect, though it's still not clear whether this meat came from carcasses killed in Irish abattoirs or from the live trade.

www.IHWT.ie

What we also know is that of the five Irish plants who were granted licenses to slaughter horses to cope with the surplus of horses after our boom years, only two are operating horse slaughtering at present. Why? Because there are much larger numbers (the department estimates around 16,000 horses) going out live on lorries to Europe.

horse transport

If 12500 equines were killed in licensed slaughterhouses (excluding the knackery system) here in 2011, why the larger number of animals going for live transport with its additional costs? Think about it. You have to have a passport (albeit very easy to obtain) to bring a horse to a factory here. Not so if it is killed abroad, even in the UK. The USPCA have identified false passports and forged veterinary signatures used on passports of animals going on the live trade, some which have been dosed with bute or other drugs. So of course the numbers are bigger - it's far easier to get them into a factory in Poland or Italy than in Ireland, as loose as the system here is.

I have two horses, both of whom I could apply for a passport for tomorrow from the 12 agencies allowed to issue them and get both into a factory next week. That's no reflection on B and F Meats et al. It is an illustration of how the passport and identification scheme doesn't work. This situation has been pointed out to the department many times - by myself, the IHWT, the USPCA and the SPCAs involved with horse welfare and rescue. The lack of regulation has been boiling under the surface for so long that it comes to no surprise to anyone involved in horse welfare or movement that there is horsemeat in the food chain. Horses are sold in Ireland for as little as 10 euro. Last year I loaded up a horse with an IHWT officer outside Bray that had been stabbed in the shoulder and was living on a piece of scrap land with no feed or water. It had been sold to a 10 year old child for 30 euro. Doubtless, its destiny was a lorry to Europe before we got hold of it.

An IHWT project on urban horse welfare in Limerick

What has been of little mention throughout this debate is the welfare issues involved here. Horses are put on lorries that are injured, about to foal or dying. Can you imagine the hellish journey these animals go through without food or water to be slaughtered in hellish conditions like those filmed by hidden cameras at the UK abattoir.

What the horsemeat scandal has revealed is there is overwhelming problems with the equine identification and movement system. Vets need to go back into ports, and the passport system enforced. Having a scheme in place is nonsense without enforcement.

These points were put to the Department of Agriculture's chief veterinary office Martin Blake on Primetime by broadcaster Claire Byrne and myself in a segment on the horsemeat issue. It seems there is little admission of the scale of the problem or how long it has been going on for. All I can hope is that recent events will speed up the will to look again at the tripartite agreement. Something radical needs to happen about the welfare and slaughter issues at the heart of this trade, let alone the dangers for us humans the consumers. You can view the segment at the link below.

http://www.rte.ie/news/player/prime-time/2013/0218/

The horsemeat in burgers scandal. Are we consumers partly to blame?

We consumers. We love cheap food

Oh how we love cheap food, but then gasp in amazement that it might contain something unpleasant. This week’s shock discovery of horse DNA in Irish burgers grabbed headlines around the world. But are we, the consumers also to blame for this debacle?

Our lust for a bargain has been mirrored in the advancing market share captured by Lidl and Aldi in Ireland – we’ve fallen in love with the low-cost German model. At a recent dinner party several well heeled guests boasted how they’ve halved their grocery bill by going to discounters. I replied that Aldi is a great buyer of Irish food – purchasing everything from Aberdeen Angus beef, sparkling water, artisan cheese and yoghurts for its own brand range. Food producers whisper to me that Aldi pay on time with “no messing around”. They’re only too glad to board the German steamroller.

Meat processing for burgers

Yet our desire for cheap food and the lengths the food chain will go to supply it are central to how horse DNA got into our burgers. Supermarkets want profits up, share price up and they do this by driving prices down. Their goal is to pay suppliers as little as possible including those who process beef. But like any product, food has a bottom line from where it can be produced or not. Below that line cost-cutting can put consumers at risk. For this very reason I’ve campaigned at Oireachtas Committee level for a supermarket ombudsman to ensure farmers and food producers can produce our food cleanly and safely.

Irish beef at its best; grass fed and highly traceable

Last year Monaghan chicken farmer Alo Mohan told me they made 56 cent on every chicken. These same chickens are then retailed as low as 2.99 by the supermarket. How can a living breathing animal which has been nurtured, fed and cared for from birth to cost less than a cup of coffee?. And if the farmer is getting 56 cent out of a 2.99 – who is taking the largest cut? The supermarket.

Chicken farmer Alo Mohan

But who’s driving this? Us the consumers.

It may come as a surprise that food prices in Ireland are in fact artificially low and far lower relative to the UK. Since 2005 food prices in the UK have increased by as much as 35%. By comparison, Irish prices are just 3 to 4 per cent above their level of seven years ago despite the euro area as a whole increasing by 15%. In this same period, the price of oil and grain has made the cost of producing food explode. In Ireland, recession and weak consumer demand has kept the supermarkets in razor sharp competition, trying to keep the price of food low despite production costs rising.

As our incomes shrink and bills dropping onto the hall floor are ignored for days no one wants to go out and pay a whopping amount on groceries. But in our desire for value we can end up with products like the supermarket spaghetti bolognese I examined containing just 16% meat. What on earth is in the rest? Most likely what are called food “extenders” and “fillers”.

Extenders and fillers are used to add volume and taste to sausages, burgers, ready meals and any amount of things in our trolleys. They arose from the need to produce lower cost food and can reduce costs by 10-30%. This week our Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney described the ingredient that carried horse DNA into the Irish burgers as powdered beef-protein additive – a filler used to bulk up cheaply produced burgers.

"Pink slime" was commonly used in US fast food chains

Also common is mechanically separated material from animal carcasses known as mechanically deboned meats (MDM) where meat on bones is ground and processed into a product that then goes into other foods. You might remember the unpleasant “pink slime” story which broke in America recently. This MDM (resembling pink ice cream) was found in many fast food chain burgers. But once it was exposed that ammonia treated to “clean” the slime, fast food chains boycotted it in a desperate bid to calm consumers.

Most of this intense manufacturing takes place in Europe and looks to like the source of our imported horse DNA problem. It’s frustrating that Ireland has the best food ingredients in the world with demanding standards on food safety and traceability. Yet somewhere an ingredient manufacturer has cut costs, or deliberately defrauded other manufacturers and consumers. You won’t find many other countries doing the type of DNA tests the FSAI carried out on meats because frankly they would be too scared about what it might reveal.

What needs to happen quickly is identifying and punishing the supplier who sold this tainted ingredient into Irish burgers. In 1999 the Belgian dioxin crisis cost Belgium 625 million euro and the prime minister his job. Yet the Belgian father and son who knowingly sold machinery oil into animal feed causing widespread PCB poisoning received ridiculous suspended sentences of two years. The penalty for messing up the food chain should be an enormous headline-grabbing event to match the damage done by the event itself. Horse DNA in Irish beef burgers is not acceptable. Who is going to take up the tab for the damage done to our own food sector and jobs?

So what can we do to eat safely and not pay out a fortune? The answer is keep your food chain short and keep things simple. And let’s be honest, this takes work. But putting a small bit of thought into what I buy makes me feel safer about what I feed my children in particular. I buy my meat and vegetables from local shops in the village. I buy store cupboard foods in one big shop about every three weeks in either Superquinn or Aldi picking brands and suppliers I know and trust. Kidney beans, tinned tomatoes, butter beans, chick peas, chilli flakes and herbs are all imported products, my trick here is to buy what has the least added ingredients and cooks well.

If you only want to shop in the supermarket always buy Bord Bia approved beef, pork, chicken and sliced meats for kids lunches. I’ve been on these farms, seen the processing and this is the highest level of auditing in food you’re going to find. I never eat ready meals but cook my own – cottage pies, ratatouilles, warming chillis and soups, freezing half for another day.

Preaching only to buy local and artisan goes over most consumers heads and budget. But buying less complicated foods and ingredients is one way to bypass the extremes of food manufacturing. Remember horsemeat is also present in many snack foods and crisps sold on European supermarket shelves. The more processed something this, the more surprising the ingredients are on the label. Keep things simple is the key, buy Irish and above all enjoy your food. Our food sector employs 200,000 Irish people, let’s hope it can weather this storm. 

Sustainability. Sounds green, woolly and warm but what does it really mean for the Irish food sector?

This week in the Irish Farmers Journal I wrote about what sustainability programmes can yield to food producers. Sustainability has been a buzz word bandied around liberally in the past decade. Unfortunately it has also been frequently abused by many food retailers and manufacturers.

More recently the term has gained renewed focus as commodity prices move sharply and continuously upwards. The scramble for land in developing countries to feed our Western appetites has become a contentious issue. Here in Ireland our chief food and drink marketing agency Bord Bia has put a sustainability programme into place. In the following analysis I spoke to farmers, Bord Bia and outside voices on what issues are involved. Of huge importance to farmers is looking at the costs of more form filling against the benefits that may come in the door in terms of farm income.
So what are those benefits? Is sustainability just a word for lovers of open-toed sandals? Or is it a way of farming in Ireland that could yield us huge benefits in the future.


Greening the Shamrock; where’s the pound, shilling and pence?

Irish Farmers Journal Suzanne Campbell, 18th October 2012

Bord Bia’s Origin Green scheme had its “soft launch” earlier this summer; promoting sustainability as something far from green and woolly but as a hard business strategy for Irish food exports. As Ireland’s clean food image is already a seller, what does ticking more boxes on waste and emissions mean for Irish farmers? Is greening the shamrock a strategy that works for big food, or can tracking sustainability create rewards that will filter down to Irish farm incomes?

Sustainability is safety, and Ireland’s track record on extensive production could be worth more than we bargained for in a resource-strapped world under pressure to meet demand for food. With a population of nine billion the global marketplace is a huge opportunity for Irish exports. But it’s also placing pressure on basic but limited resources like water and land.

The new scramble for Africa is about land for growing food, and supplying Western diets from developing countries creates complex issues. Ethiopia which farms baby corn and mange tout for the UK and Ireland has suffered renewed hunger this summer after drought. According to former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, hedge funds and other speculators bought African farmland the size of France (over 210,000 square miles) in 2009. He attacked the growing practice of “land grabbing” by which countries are buying or leasing land in other nations to increase their own food security.

Food companies cannot afford to be labelled as unethical in terms of where their food is produced and they also need to make sure that the bottom won’t fall out of supply chains. This is where Ireland steps up to the plate; we’ve plenty of rain, good grass and we’ve just began tracking exactly what’s going in and out of the system.

In May of last year Bord Bia began auditing use of water, energy, waste levels, animal feed and production practices on Irish farms. Beginning with farmers in their Beef Quality Assurance Scheme, so far 30,000 members or 94% of QA producers have participating in the sustainability survey; the first national assessment of environmental performance of farms worldwide.

One of the farmers involved in the auditing is Richard Hogge who farms sheep and sucklers in Stonyford County Kilkenny. He views the scheme as worth getting involved in, despite the additional workload. “There’s a fair bit of trust and honesty on the farmer’s part as you’re putting in all your details and costings, so I had to gather all that. Then it’s processed at the Bord Bia end and I get a chart coming back to me outlining how my farm is performing on the different elements.”

For Richard there were obvious rewards in seeing how profitability could be improved. As he has 350 ewes on the farm and 25 sucklers, it was clear from the feedback that his grass could be better utilised by cattle but it didn’t suit his sheep enterprise. “I could have shorter time with cattle indoors but as I need my grass for sheep outdoors all year this is difficult to improve on. At the same time I compared well on how I’m finishing my animals – little outside purchased concentrates, and I’m also getting a calf per cow every year. If I considered a continental bull I might get more kilos per hectare but might lose out on the better calving ratios and fattening from my Angus bull. I’m getting the heifers away at 18 months and the bulls away at 20-22 months off grass. So it’s a balancing act.”

Richard came into the scheme from his involvement in Bord Bia’s quality assurance schemes for his sucklers and sheep. “This was thrown in front of me as an option and for me it wasn’t a hard choice as I’m involved in nearly everything that can be done to improve my lot. For farmers there’s an advantage that it’s showing you what can be improved with what you’re doing, and ultimately that’s saving money ”.

Some of the top farmers taking part in the sustainability programme were rewarded at the Ploughing last week in New Ross by Bord Bia, The Irish Farmers Journal and Teagasc for efficiently producing cattle at a suitable specifications for export. One of these winners was Michael Murphy from Nenagh for his dairy calf to beef production. In a business where profitability can be tricky, Michael found the auditing gave him an outside eye on productivity on his farm.

“When the charts came back, compared to the national average I was up there near the top which made me think I was doing everything as near as good as I can. At first I didn’t know much about carbon footprint and it is difficult for farmers to understand. Sometimes they don’t think about details and may not have any plan in their head about when they’re going to slaughter what they buy.”

For Michael tracking every last figure is the only way his business works. The 200 calves he brings in yearly are fed by machine which communicates with the calf’s electronic tag. He also weighs them every two months.

 “There is a definite time span for any animal I have, you need to keep animals moving along and putting on weight everyday. I can’t understand lads not weighing cattle, I suggested a weighing scales at a discussion meeting and they called it a luxury, for me it’s essential. Overall I found the experience a good one, and if other farmers are thinking about it it will improve their efficiency without doubt.”

Jim O’Toole at Bord Bia was one of the driving forces of the sustainability monitoring, previously working on the Quality Assurance schemes. Quality Assurance has been a huge success for the marketing of Irish food, and customer feedback shows shoppers identify with traceability and “safe food” assurance. But why the move into the more “open-toed sandal” area of sustainability? For O’Toole it was a natural progression from the monitoring they were already doing.

“We did work that was completed in 2009 with some of the bigger customers of Irish food – food service, retailing and manufacturing to see how important sustainability was and we concluded it was an important issue. Our natural production in Ireland would resonate with that perception, but what we felt was that companies wanted more evidence.”

Bord Bia returned to the topic in 2010, asking respondents again about sustainability. Instead of falling in importance as recession dug in, it seemed sustainability had hardened in importance. For customers of Irish food and particularly beef and dairy, sustainability was now on the slate of key words and concepts, but what was driving the impulse for food buyers?

“The debate about sustainability is often described as a triple bottom line – environment, financial and social” says O’Toole. “If there isn’t a financially sustainable supply chain that supply chain could break down. There is also benefit from efficiencies by improving their environmental performance in terms of reducing waste, energy etc so there’s a cost saving there as well as enhancing brand value”

The scale of ambition of Origin Green is huge. To date 27,500 of Irish farms have had a carbon footprint assessment done. 45% of Irish export food and drink production has signed up to the scheme; retailers, food service operators, manufacturers, Unilever, Nestle, McDonalds, Danone and Tesco are already involved. For retailers like Sainsburys with their “20 things for 2020” strategy, auditing our own sustainability on Irish farms can’t fail to be an attraction as it means someone else doing the hard work for them. It’s a move that has put Ireland ahead of the pack, potentially yielding us a competitive advantage.

But farmers might ask - if retailers are so interested in sustainable food chains, why don’t they just pay farmers more? Would Tesco’s investment of £25 million in the Sustainable Consumption Institute at University of Manchester be better spent rewarding extensive farming systems we already have. Sustainability is clearly a great buzz word for retailers and at the corporate table, but where or when is the payback?

“It’s too early to tell” says O’Toole. “The cheap food debate isn’t one that isn’t going to get settled very quickly but from our experience with this programme the buy in we are getting from farmers it means Ireland can secure markets in the future. What we’ve got to do is prepare our industry to compete and win business so it’s a strategic long term initiative.”

Padraig Brennan, senior information analyst with Bord Bia has been working with Teagasc and understands that Origin Green needs to appeal at farm level. “There’s no point in being environmentally sustainable if you can’t make a living out of it. Being sustainable comes down to getting more output from the same input, more beef and more milk on a daily basis – a combination of management, genetics, and using resources on farm.”

As it stands, many food companies aren’t making demands on suppliers in terms of sustainability but as Padraig points out, it’s about Irish producers getting in before the rest of the posse. “We are putting structures in place so rather than waiting for when it happens and being forced into certain things, we’re being proactive in this area and creating that point of differentiation.”

But how important is sustainability to our European customers of Irish food? Marine Digabel, a journalist with Agra Alimentation in Paris came to Ireland this month with a group of European food industry writers, visiting Richard Hogge’s farm and the Glanbia plant in Ballyraggart. “In France there is a real interest in sustainability but  after the French election,  local food and French jobs have become more important.”

With financial woes being felt among France’s retailers and consumers, several things are happening in their grocery market. Apart from poultry, meat consumption is decreasing overall but organic meat is growing its share. Sustainability may have been overtaken by local, but as it makes sense to bottom line, it’s a strategy not being ignored among large French companies like Danone.

“Definitely they are all working towards less energy, less carbon, less waste” says Digabel “probably not because they’re deeply interested in environment but its more about reducing costs all along the chain.” Does getting on the sustainability train early create advantage for Irish producers?  “I don’t know if the Origin Green programme in Ireland will make people switch from one supplier to another. But it might make them more tempted to change. Definitely simply the fact that it’s measured – that companies know they’re working with people who have quality assurance and traceability and tracking the environment, is good for a long term perspective.”

Padraig O’Donnell agrees. Auditing sustainability is about creating solutions for customers of Irish food who may not be ready now, but will need assurances on sustainability in the longer term. “We explain to buyers what the programme is and what it’s trying to achieve. As we get more food and drink manufacturers on board we want to show commitment from a 3-5 year plan and also roll out advice at farm level. We want the companies who are supplying them with product to show the targets they have achieved. A lot of these customers have set out targets to reduce energy, waste targets here and they want their suppliers to help them meet those targets.”

Whatever way the food market moves, Ireland is better off one step ahead than one step behind. We mightn’t have valued it twenty years ago but the homogeneity of our production systems is something other countries have now bypassed, making branding themselves sustainable more difficult. “It’s definitely quite easy for Ireland to set up a programme like this as you have extensive grazing” says Marine Digabel. In northern France it’s similar to Ireland but in some places we have intensive production so there is huge disparity. The same scheme in France would be difficult to implement as you are saying “this type of production is better than another”.

“For me the material payback is in lowering costs” says Richard Hogge. “It’s no good to me unless I can improve profitability, the farm I’m running is a business not a charity. For scheme for me has pointed out where money can be saved without affecting the environment. It’s like bringing the euros and the farm along together.”

Feed your tourists well, they have feelings too

Rome is a magical city and as food goes, it has some of the best in the world. After spending a few days there last week, I pretty much ate my way through the city, with the highlights being polpo con salsa (pictured left),
Saltinbocca (veal and bacon) and swordfish carpaccio which are Roman specialities.

Like most heavily-touristed cities, most of the food around the busy areas like Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps etc is pretty rubbish. A lot of the dishes are microwaved or re-heated from earlier servings. One reason for this is that restaurants pay extortionate rents to be in tourist areas. So to make it work financially, they serve the cheapest ingredients possible with plenty of cut price techniques. Staff are usually unskilled and you wouldn't want to look too closely at their kitchens.

Roman restaurant law is also pretty hard on businesses. You have to

pay two months wages in June and December, and another months worth into social security. At the fabulous Fortunata de Pantheon (pictured right and below) the owner explained how rents were killing Roman food and that it was hard to find good value in the city that wasn't "caca". Fortunata is one of Rome's best loved restaurants, and it's walls are adorned with photos of it's favorite customers - Helmut Kohl, Ronald Reagan et al.. He also made the point that only massive ,attention to detail kept their business as popular as it is, despite opening its doors decades ago. When the family opened five franchises around the city they eventually sold them off, as it became clear that they couldn't deliver the same level of quality served in their main restaurant. As the food wasn't the best it could be, they didn't want their name over the door, so they got out. Take heed Gordon Ramsay et al... getting bigger is often the kiss of death in the restaurant business.

One lovely thing about Rome is the value for money in food. At Fortunata de Pantheon most of the mains were between 10 and 20 euro, and the food was breathtaking; everything had huge flavour and the ingredients just screamed freshness and quality, from the ricotta stuffed zuchini flowers to clams that tasted of the sea in the spaghetti vongole. Ristorante di Tirambo on Piazza della Cancelleria was another great recommendation. I had a tartare of Piedmontese beef with black truffle and sheeps cheese. A carpaccio of vegetables with shrimp was also beautifully balanced, very simple but super tasting. Again this was a great value place with food which you simply don't get the chance to taste in Ireland. It's also gorgeous to sit outdoors in the fading evening sun and to be in a city that is one of the most beautiful in the world.

Everyone should go to Rome at some stage in their life, and if you haven't been, it's a fantastic destination for those who like their grub. But stay away from eating on the main tourist squares and anywhere with a waiter wandering outside trying to get you in the door. You'll leave significantly lighter in pocket and could have an eventful holiday spent largely in the confines of your bathroom.

And it's a trend seen in most cities. Food designed for tourists is often pretty awful, you only have to think of Temple Bar to see this is also the case in Ireland. With a few exceptions, we tend to think that tourists don't notice bad food, but it's a costly mistake. Tourists who eat well are more likely to remember their trip fondly and recommend the destination, and the restaurant to others. So the lesson is, feed your tourists well, after all, they have feelings too.

Would you eat meat that was grown in a lab? Even if it solved world hunger?

Winston Churchill - bon vivant and lover of food, drink and the odd giant cigar, once offered a view of the future where meat would be grown not on a farm, but in a lab. Churchill wrote: "We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.''

While it sounds very Orwellian and proves that Churchill wasn't just handy at moving model armies around a giant map table - now, eighty years after his pronouncement, Churchill's predictions are coming to pass. Scientists are close to producing the world's first commercial meat grown in a lab. Mark Post of Maastricht University, one of the premier scientists in this field, claims he will produce the first "cultured meat" burger by the end of the year.The question is, would you eat it?

Most initial reaction will no doubt go along the lines of "Hell No!!!"

After all, lab grown meat is grown from stem cell technology, a science that makes a lot of people squirm as in the first place, let alone, suggest they eat the results. In order to grow "cultured" meat, stem cells are taken from pig or poultry muscle and then cultured with added nutrients to form a film of animal flesh. Think - chicken fillet, only thinner.

If you're at this point pretty repulsed by the idea, think of the following reasons for why lab-grown meat could be better for animals and also, better for people.

Growing meat, whether in factory farms or out in fields, is one of the major contributors to global environmental degradation, especially de-forestation and global warming. It uses up water resources and has contributed to huge loss of biodiversity. Currently our appetite for meat has meant that almost one-third of global land use is used for growing either meat, or cereals to feed meat animals - including cattle, pigs and poultry. You could argue (and plenty do) that our lust for meat, and the growing "middle class" appetite for meat in China and India is killing the planet.

And how does the alternative stand up? - research shows that cultured meat has 80-95% lower greenhouse gas emissions, 99% lower land use and 80-90% lower water use compared to conventionally produced meat in Europe. More importantly, even if the meat produced by factory farms (which certainly in the US and in some cases Europe, have proved to have dubious records for animal welfare) was replaced with cultured meat, it would take the horrors of large scale factory farming out of the food chain. If people don't want to look at video of where their chicken is produced well then they probably would be better off served by something grown in a lab.

But the real issue comes when you look at world hunger. Cereals are grown all over the world not for people to eat, but to go into animal feed. And this is the case even in developing countries where hunger and deprivation are serious issues. Cultured meat, (given that over time it would have to be produced at huge levels) would mean that less cereals leave the food system for animal feed and instead can be given to humans, yes - us, to eat.

So what about it? Would you eat it, even if you knew it was morally and ethically more correct?

Back to the future; our fabulous female food producers

Basketcase has been on a break the last few weeks while I tackled a large amount of pesky print deadlines. But it means I've a couple of strong (and some very entertaining) food stories coming up and an exciting few projects emerging in the next few months. Tomorrow I'm back on the road in my touring office - (otherwise known as the landrover held together with string) to interview a great rural food producer who is also a woman - Mag Kirwan - pictured left. Just in case there's any confusion, Pat Whelan is the butcher bloke and I'm the one in the middle.

As the Irish food and agriculture sector gets stronger each year and provides more of our exports and GDP, I'm noticing many more rural women involved in producing food, whether it be artisan products or in larger food manufacturing. Over the next few weeks I hope to bring some of their stories on air on RTE radio. One of the reasons I want to feature rural women is that they are huge drivers of growth, both economic and in a wider sense, in rural Ireland. Over many years I've spent reporting on farming and rural issues I found it was often women who were at the centre of rural development projects. In LEADER initiatives such as Ballyhoura in Limerick,

IRD Dullhallow in Cork and around the country, they were plugging away on the ground getting community schemes together, with many of them in the area of food.

It's not hard to see why women and food are a natural pairing in Ireland. While farming was traditionally considered "men's work", Irish women ran mini-enterprises from their kitchens. Selling poultry and eggs provided them with a household income that they could control. On mart days when the family livestock were sold, the profits could end up over the counter of the town pub and if they came home they were reinvested back into the

farm or spent on essentials such as animal fodder for winter or a pig to fatten. Poultry was a way for rural women to accrue money for children's clothes, school books or other needs often

seen as non-essential from a traditional farming point of view.

As in developing countries today, women and small businesses are drivers of upwards mobility. By selling crafts, saving money and forming co-ops they can completely change the future of their children through small measures. Rural women such as my grandmothers were enterprising and resourceful. Both managed dairy herds and a steady supply of eggs with my nana Campbell investing in goats to sell goats milk (very unusual in the 1960's) to local people.

My nana McGauran knitted aran jumpers for extra income. As I child I spent many evenings on the floor of her Fermanagh farmhouse holding yarn spread between my two small arms as she gathered the ream into a single huge ball to knit from. I remember the ticking of the loud slow clock and the open turf fire with its gigantic cast iron pots. My grandmothers also kept poultry flocks, turkeys and seasonally had food solutions to fit whatever produce was available. Always the focus was on saving, economising and getting the best out of what they could get trade, sell or grow. It's ironic in a sense, that while we're going through difficult times in Ireland, these women from our past learned that food can make you money; and it's a tradition we're still playing out today.

I was talking to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland during the week who confirmed that huge numbers of queries are still coming into the organisation from people wanting to start new food businesses. Many are from women who are skilled cooks and have a resource to sell. It never fails to amaze me the passion and will to succeed that food producers have to keep doing what they do. To start businesses in difficult times and in an environment that is heavily regulated as Ireland is no mean feat. But there's new food businesses popping up all the time, and much goodwill and positivity in the sector.

If you want to support rural businesses and small producers there's plenty of fabulous food to choose from. Typically when I visit these women and listen to their inspirational stories I am sent home with a bundle of their produce on the passenger

seat of the jeep - delicious cheese, pork, lamb, milk, chocolate... And guess what? I still buy their food, months or even years afterwards. In fact it's not a stretch to say that on any given week a large amount of what we eat at home is produced by the women below, with some of it (Ann Rudden's chocolate, Ballymaloe relish) making an appearance every single day. This isn't an exhaustive list of Ireland's female food producers, but its a picture of those that I've shared a cup of tea with, or buy from regularly as I really believe in their food. I promise to compile a more thorough version when I get a chance as its a great resource for both for Irish business women and foodies. But for the moment, check them out, buy some of their food and you may create a habit, and some friendships of a lifetime x

Birgitta Curtin from Burren Smokehouse, Bernadine Mulhall Coolanowle organic farm, Eileen Dunne Crescenzi, Ann Rudden from Aine Chocolates, Saoirse Roberts Connemara Smokehouse, Debbie Johnston at Sweetbank Farm, Mag Kirwan Goatsbridge Trout, Mary Kelly Moonshine Cheese, Giana Ferguson Gubbeen Cheese, Margaret Farrell of Oldfarm pork, Sarah Furno at Cashel Blue cheese, Avril Allshire-Howe Roscarberry Recipes, Eileen Bergin The Butlers Pantry, Maxine at Ballymaloe Relish, Emma at Glenisk (we couldn't survive without the Cleary family's milk, yoghurt and cream) Nicole Dunphy at Pandora Bell, Bernie Burke of Burke's ice cream, Kate Carmody Beal Organic cheese, Darina and Myrtle Allen, Amy Caviston of Caviston's fishmongers, Janet Drew from Janet's Country Fayre, Lorraine Fanneran restaurateur and Italian Foodie Sauces, Caroline Hennessey from 8 Degrees Brewing, Jen and Claire from the Dungarvan Brewing company, the amazing Margaret Jeffares from Good Food Ireland, Sharon Ni Chonchuir Dingle food seller, Hannah from Waterfall Farm, Santina Kennedy from Kennedy's Enniskerry, Glenillen Farm, and finally The Dominican nuns at An Tairseagh organic food market, Wicklow.

Happy Eating x

I went all the way to Manhattan and all I got was a lousy stomach bug. Bad Food part deux

Good to see my post on food safety in Irish restaurants generating heat on twitter thanks to @keithbohanna and a bit of back and forth on whether restaurant owners are beaten down by food regs, or whether we're all a bunch of sissies who get ill at the sight of a raw steak. I agree that over-regulation drives small producers and restaurants mad, but putting customers at risk is another matter and if you are served with a closure notice, it must have been felt that bad practice was taking place.

While most restaurants in Ireland put food safety high on the agenda it's still sadly the case that we've all been poisoned by some food outlet at some stage, and this is coming from someone who survived a long period in India eating street food without any catastrophes. I think my stomach out-bugs any newcomers. Can't be a good sign but anyway...

Taking the topic further afield, it seems the most swanky city in the world still has big problems with food safety, New York's Department of Health's recent list of restaurants-breaking-the-rules featured two Michelin starred eateries - Gilt and A Voce on Madison Avenue. Another well-known downtown restaurant The Meatball Shop was given a fairly high score of infringements including “food not protected from potential source of contamination” and inadequate personal cleanliness. Lovely.

So just because you put your high heels on (yes gentlemen), spend two months on a waiting list and pay a fortune, it doesn't gaurantee what you're eating is perfectly safe. I think in general Irish chefs and restaurant owners open restaurants because they have a passion for food and would never fall into a standards vortex. Most of them feel that the food safety regs here are too severe, but if they are really involved in their businesses and regularly police the standard of food leaving their kitchens they have nothing to worry about. It's the cowboy operators that put customers at risk, and some tales told to me recently would seem to bear this out.

I thought the recession might weed some of them out but it seems recession kills off good joints as well as bad ones. The only thing we can do is vote with our feet; eat where food is prepared with care and has an authenticity behind it. If possible, eat food produced in Ireland. And no, chicken caesar salads in Temple Bar are not Irish food. I think consumers are becoming more educated on what is genuine food and what is a cheap rip-off, but not everyone can spot this. In the meantime the FSAI are going to keep rapping knuckles, hopefully as time goes on, there will be less of them to rap.

Red meat - the most intense nutrient-rich food available to human beings

A new take on meat - my piece in today's Irish Independent

With celebrities from Paul McCartney to Star Wars actress Natalie Portman telling us to eat less meat, switching our shopping habits towards a vegetarian diet is one of the pieces of advice dominating the food world right now.

The rise in obesity levels combined with the unsustainable nature of beef production means that consumers are now encouraged to limit the quantity of meat they eat and turn instead to buying more vegetables, fish and meat alternatives.

But a new book by Irish butcher Pat Whelan argues that going back to the old-fashioned staples of our traditional diet; eating plenty of beef, pork and lamb is not only a healthy choice but one essential to our wellbeing. Whelan, who is the fifth generation of his family to be involved in meat production, runs a butcher shop in Clonmel, Co Tipperary and his knowledge of meat from farm to fork has earned him a Rick Stein Food Hero award.

In his book "An Irish Butcher Shop", Whelan argues that one of the reasons consumers find it easy to turn away from meat is a lack of knowledge on how to prepare it and an over reliance on inferior quality meat sold in plastic packaging in supermarkets.
He points out that beef should not be sitting in a pool of its own blood in a plastic box, and that everything about the mass production of meat and the way it's marketed to consumers is contrary to the core benefits and joys of eating it.

He argues that instead of turning away from meat, we should be appreciating its unique benefits -- red meat is the single most intense nutrient-rich food available to human beings. It's a crucial source of iron and trace elements such as zinc and copper, as well as vitamins B12 and B6.
Fat on meat is also something we shouldn't be afraid of -- it is fundamental to the taste and tenderness of the finished product.

Irish beef that is fed on pasture develops a good covering of fat which gives it great flavour. Because it's grass-fed, this makes the meat a high quality, close to organic product. Meat from grass-fed animals has up to four times more omega-3 fatty acids than meat from grain fed animals. It is also the richest known source of CLA or "conjugated linoleic acid"; an exceptional omega-6 fat which has been attributed with antioxidant and anti-cancer properties.
Most of the current opposition to beef consumption is related to cattle "feed lots" -- vast industrial-scale feeding units found typically in the US but now growing in popularity in India and China. Here animals live on a regime rich in maize and cereals which is not their natural diet.
As the appetite for beef grows across the world, we have to produce more cereals (wheat, barley and so on) to make the animal feed that cattle eat.

In many developing countries, feeding cattle (or chicken and pork in large quantities) takes other foods and water resources out of the food chain. Put simply, if everyone across the world adapted to the 'Western Diet', we'd run out of many foodstuffs, and water.

Farm animals also produce more than 10% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions but new approaches to the anti-meat argument such as Simon Fairlie's book -- Meat: A Benign Extravagance has swayed even the hardened environmentalists such as best-selling author George Monbiot back towards eating meat. Fairlie argues that it's specifically feed-lot production of cattle that reduces the world's food supply and that what we should be doing is eating meat but simply less of it.

In Ireland the situation is very different; cattle and sheep roam outdoors and eat grass which is in plentiful supply, so the beef and lamb we eat takes a minimum of inputs and is fairly sustainable.

However, most pigs and poultry in Ireland are farmed in intensive indoor units where the quality of the animals' lives is poor and again they are eating a cereal based diet.
Ireland comes closest to factory farming in these pig and chicken "units"; vast indoor sheds packed densely with animals.

The intensive production of chicken and pork over decades has also affected what we're getting on our plate -- pigs are slaughtered at about seven months old, and unfortunately quality and flavour of modern pork has been affected by the breeding of faster maturing pigs. So the consumer pays the price with an inferior-tasting product.

The bacon and rashers most of us eat have been injected with brine, and can often contain more water than meat content. So while we think mass-produced cheap rashers are good value, if they end up a third of their original size after cooking then it's a bad deal.

You might get better value from an artisan-produced pork that's more expensive raw but yields more meat when cooked. One way to keep both sides happy is to continue to eat meat but put more thought into what we buy.

Pat's book is full of recipes for everything from 'pot-roasted shoulder of lamb' to 'boozy rabbit with prunes'.

His advice is to vary what you buy from the old staples of sirloin, fillet, lamb cutlets, pork chops and rashers. Try new cuts and free-range or artisan products occasionally. The pay-off is in quality, taste and ultimately better value for money.

An Irish Butcher Shop by Pat Whelan, published by Collins Press. Suzanne Campbell's food blog is at www.basketcase theblog.blogspot.com
- Suzanne Campbell
Irish Independent

Hey ho, the supermarkets are at it again

Last week we heard how Ireland has the second highest food and drink prices in the EU. This week it's becoming clearer why. If farmers are barely scraping a living and we're paying way over the odds for our groceries, who exactly is getting the fat in the middle? Eurostat's figures showed that what we pay for food is 29% higher than the EU average. Ireland recorded the highest prices in Europe for dairy produce such as milk and cheese, and despite being the biggest meat exporter in the northern hemisphere - we are still paying the fifth highest meat prices of the 27 countries surveyed.

In an investigation just published, it turns out that the high prices we are paying are the result of multi-national chains abusing their dominant position, poor information on special offers beyond local markets in the EU and the slow growth of e-commerce. The EU commissioner Michel Barnier has just revealed the results of a new study along with the promise to introduce new rules on food retailing in the autumn. Half of all retail in Europe is grocery and is dominated by the big multi-nationals such as Tesco and Carrefour. The report found that prices can vary hugely for products, even for the same product in different outlets that belong to the same supermarket. Barnier's report also found that Ireland is still wrapping its food in huge amounts of expensive packaging, up to six times as much as the lowest member state.

It's always been the case that there has been a disconnect between what food is worth to food producers and what we consumers pay for it. In some cases the contrast is actually offensive to farmers; rendering a unit of production (a beef heifer etc) just not worth rearing by the time you've paid your costs. Many farmers can barely break even, such is the power of the mulitples. Time and time again during the writing of our book and continually still, I am being contacted by farmers who are having terrible treatment at the hands of the multiples, few will give their names as they are terrified of being blacklisted. Especially as summer time is fruit season, it unfortunately coincides with many sad tales from fruit growers. One farmer told me last week how a retailer refused his strawberries even though he had matched the price of their imported product from Chile. Then the supermarket insisted that the farmer collects any unsold product and waste and pays for its disposal. They refused to sell it at a discounted rate, he said they simply couldn't be bothered.

Roll on some proper supermarket ombudsman legislation, transparency of their profit margins, and codes of practise which must insist on fair treatment of producers. I spoke to an Oireactas Committee about this last May, the legislation is in consultation phase, I just hope they get it out into the marketplace to protect both farmers and consumers as quickly as possible.

More at -

The Examiner
http://irishexaminer.ie/ireland/politics/goods-wrapped-in-up-to-six-times-more-packaging-124307.html

Patience Wheatcroft in the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704535004575348944028858252.html

Spring Lamb from farm to fork

From Farm to Fork: Sweetbank Farm, Wicklow
The Irish Times 15/5/2010





WORDS: SUZANNE CAMPBELL
PHOTOGRAPHY: ALAN BETSON

To stressed out city folk, organic farming may seem like an idyllic occupation, but as Co Wicklow farmer Debbie Johnston explains, it's not all home-baked pies and eco-glamour.

ON A SPRING day, when the white cuddly lambs are frolicking in the fields, you could be forgiven for thinking that farming is one of the nicest occupations on the planet. At Debbie and David Johnston’s farm in Newcastle, Co Wicklow, the scene is perfect. From cut-stone farm buildings, the couple go about their work, managing 90 head of cattle, a summer fruit farm and their biggest enterprise – more than 100 organic certified ewes. But though it may seem a bucolic idyll, the Johnstons have just finished lambing, and they have a more realistic take on things.

“Lambing!” says Debbie. “The BBC did a week of television shows on it and we were just laughing watching it. For us it’s hard work, we’re exhausted now that we’ve got to the end of it.” Their ewes began lambing in mid-February. “My husband, David, does all the work. To be honest, I’m really the support crew. He goes in and out of the sheds all night and makes sure that every ewe is doing okay. You could leave them on their own but he doesn’t take that risk.”
And it can be a risky business. Debbie showed me two adorable orphaned lambs whose mothers had died. “It does happen, you do everything you can to avoid it but every farm will have a couple this time of year.” These two are well-loved characters, climbing up the fence to see us, or more accurately, to see if there’s any chance of a feed. It’s no surprise that the antics of an orphaned lamb are a current YouTube sensation.

But having cute livestock doesn’t necessarily pay the bills. Over the past year many farmers have been weeping into their mugs of tea as milk prices fell to below the cost of production, and beef and grain incomes weren’t much better. Then winter set in, which we’re only just emerging from. “In a normal year you expect your grass to be growing by St Patrick’s Day,” Debbie says. “This year was like nothing we’d seen before. We had no grass, we had to use up stocks of feed and spent days breaking ice on water troughs, sliding around the yard and praying for the weather to change.”

Luckily, spring seems to have finally arrived and it’s with spring lamb that the Johnstons have carved out a niche business for themselves. They sell direct to customers who come to their farm to pick up a box containing a whole or half lamb during the months May to October. “We did many things over the years to diversify. The land had been in David’s family for four generations but he saw the writing on the wall in terms of farm incomes dropping and knew we could no longer rely on producing the same thing year after year.”

The Johnstons’ first innovation was growing summer fruits, something they are still involved in. They opened a farm shop which they ran successfully for 10 years. “It was really lovely but we found most of our customers were coming to the coffee shop and not really buying our produce. The reality is you have to be selling what you grow, and when we costed the time and effort to run the shop, we called it a day.”

At the moment, a mix of beef, summer fruits and organic lamb is working well. “You always have to be thinking on your feet with farming, and what we do is to offer top quality, grass-fed lamb at a really attractive price. Our product is up to 30 per cent cheaper than the supermarkets and selling direct is a way of controlling what we produce, all the way to the customer. We are not waiting for market fluctuations or depending on someone else to set the price.”
Debbie keeps a close eye on the business end of the farm and the minute something stops making money, “that’s when you change your strategy. It’s hard when there’s such a drive to make food cheaper, but cheap imported food is a false economy for all of us. After all, farming and food employ 300,000 people in Ireland.”

What keeps her doing what she’s doing when margins are so tight? “Sometimes you really wonder why you keep going,” she says with a laugh. “But I do really love it and I still get attached to the livestock, I even get a bit sad when animals are loaded into the trailer.”
Nevertheless, attachment to their lambs doesn’t stop her giving me her top cooking tips. “Keep it simple,” she advises. “The flavour is there, so you don’t need much seasoning. I like to butterfly the leg, stick in some sprigs of rosemary and roast it on the barbecue. Or if you’ve a few people coming, use the loin of the lamb, tie in some herbs and cloves of garlic, pop it into the oven and serve with some new potatoes.” Cute or not, now I want to start cooking.
The Johnstons’ lamb is available from their farm at Tiglin, Newcastle, Co Wicklow. A half lamb is €85 and a full lamb is €190. A half lamb cut to customers’ requirements is roughly the size of an average freezer shelf.
See sweetbankfarm.com; tel: 086-1730497

FROM FARM TO TABLE
Ring of Kerry Quality Lamb is a group of 27 farmers who sell their lambs direct. All lambs are matured for a minimum of seven days and cut to the customer’s specification. ringofkerryqualitylamb.ie.

Fieldstown Farm in North Co Dublin delivers half or whole lambs, butchered to your specific requirements, to addresses in the greater Dublin area (whole lamb minimum for delivery). Customers from further afield can collect their order. irishfood.ie.

Lambdirect.ie is a group of eight farmers from Mayo who farm, butcher and sell their own mountain and lowland lamb. They offer cuts packed in sealed trays ready for the oven or freezer. This summer they plan to offer a barbecue pack. Free local delivery once a week in their van. Contact: Ray Cawley, Shanvallyard, Tourmakeady, Co Mayo.

Doolin Farm Direct supplies local limestone-reared lamb direct to the consumer through box schemes, on-line orders and farmers’ markets. Contact Alan Nagle, tel: 086-4014132, doolinfarmdirect@gmail.com.

Comeragh Mountain Lamb in Waterford offer boxes of lamb; a full lamb includes legs, shoulders, cutlets, loin and gigot chops, and mince. Recipes included with every delivery. comeraghmountainlamb.ie.