Ear to the Ground and ten years later..

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I was very excited to hear this week that I have been shortlisted in the Guild of Agricultural Journalist's Awards for "Best Online Journalist". This is a huge thrill for me. I started Basketcase two years ago to keep up a discussion on issues affecting farming, food and rural life in Ireland. As you've gathered, the blog is written for anyone interested in food, where food comes from and the affect that food policy has on farming families and people who enjoy the countryside.

Being nominated is a huge honour. Many years ago I produced a TV programme which won a Guild award for Best Television Programme. Myself and journalist Mairead McGuinness (who is now a MEP) travelled to Holland to investigate the dioxin crisis there as part of the "Ear to the Ground Investigates" series. Our programme won and we went on to make many more investigative programmes where we tackled harder stories about the food chain and food policy. They were great times and great stories.

I learned a huge amount about both producing and writing from working with Mairead who at that time was editor of the Farming Independent. Mairead was hard to please but rightly so. Information had to be correct, properly researched with no stone left unturned. In fact it wasn't a story until at least five phonecalls had been made on it which is a pretty good rule I still tend to follow. It then had to be developed, and shaped into something that made sense quickly to readers or viewers with care and the correct emphasis. I then went into RTE television and radio where I produced and directed entertainment and current affairs programmes. Over my time there I directed shoots in France, UK, Belgium and Thailand and became more hard-bittened and cynical about the business. I interviewed both Bertie Ahern, and Beyonce, neither of whom made much sense.

The best moments are the things people say off the record. And sitting opposite Condoleezza Rice on George Bush's visit to Ireland on the Washington Press Corps bus, because it was the only posh coach with a toilet. Being in the right place at the right time always helps.

Like many people I found my creative and journalist impulses flattened by working inside a large organisation like RTE. At that point I got out to concentrate on writing. I still return to Montrose to contribute on food and farming on Radio One's Today with Pat Kenny and Countrywide, and to chat at people's desk and get the gossip. I also report for television - last season on The Daily Show, The Consumer Show and earlier this month at the Dublin Web Summit. Going in and out of television is a whole lot better than working there full time. And there's nothing like the very off the record craic you have on the road with a crew.

I'm still quite old fashioned about how I work and when I see "holes" in stories or information that is simply incorrect it drives me mad. Opinion is not reporting, but the lines between both have become hugely blurred now with web publishing and the huge splurge of content available to us. Blogging is a great medium but not when it's simply selling product. Many food blogs unfortunately have become spin shops for food brands; great for PRs, but not great for readers. There is still great writing and journalism out there, you just have to look harder for it.

When I worked on Ear to the Ground Investigates I was delighted our programme won a Guild award but to be nominated for my blog is much more a personal thing. Farming journalism in Ireland is of a very high standard with publications like the Irish Farmers Journal, the Farming Independent and Farmers Monthly writing content specifically for those who farm be it in the poultry or suckler to beef sector. These papers are vital to the farming community and for me they provide news, features and comment across all the different types of food production which in Ireland are widely varied. They also provide very strong technical content whether you are looking at upgrading your milking parlour to changing your AI to improve productivity.


With Basketcase I try to write for those both inside farming and also outside it and give a picture of how farming policy affects consumers and those who are interested in food provenance, development issues and the environment.

My print work at the moment can be found in the Farmers Journal, the Irish Independent consumer pages on a Thursday and in The Gloss magazine every month as part of The Irish Times. For The Gloss I write a food column "This Edible Life" which is the more fun, and dare I say the sarky side of both myself and the food business. I am also continually involved in TV - we made two "What's Ireland Eating" documentaries in the last two years and we have other projects in development. I don't write much about my personal life in my blog, and sometimes there is a pressure to do this if you are a journalist as personal information is of interest to people and gives them a window inside your life. I try to keep my family life fairly private but I do hope to write more about one personal project I am involved in that relates very much to Irish rural life so keep a watch out for that. Basketcase may have to produce a sister blog if I find it's of big interest to readers.

The awards ceremony is this Friday the 9th November so I'll have to pull the hay out of my hair (literally) and get the glad rags on to attend the awards dinner which I'm really looking forward to. It's always great to catch up with old colleagues, editors and people in the same field. Writing for me is a quite solitary job apart from when I'm on farms or visiting food businesses. It's nice to connect with people in the same field and start taking notes on the back of a napkin like several of us ended up doing at a recent awards dinner. While journalists are great at talking, they'll never miss out on a good story...

http://www.farmersjournal.ie

Can foodies and commercial farming co-exist?

Savour Kilkenny organisers you know who you are. Again; a great festival. Again I return home so stuffed with gorgeous local food I roll out of my car on arrival, replete with foodie gifts for just about everyone except the dog.

What stood out for me about this year's festival was the inclusion of John Bryan from the Irish Farmers Association on the Foodcamp panel where I was also speaking. As someone with a foot in both camps, I feel the food world and the farming world frequently revolve around each other like two suspicious planets. Rarely do they have an opportunity to meet, engage in discussion or put to bed misunderstandings that exist between the two sectors. The GM issue has polarised this with many foodies and food groups now pretty angry with Teagasc and the IFA. Many also oppose the general idea of commercial farming which they feel is overfond of GM animal feed and supports a liberalisation of GM technologies in Ireland.

In fact the position of both sides is far more complex than this, but you wouldn't believe this unless you talk to the people involved. And that's the problem, many foodies never meet anyone who farms and most farmers have scant time to talk about the eating quality of a white truffle from Piedmont or what Rieslings they particularly enjoy.

Speaking on the Kilkenny Foodcamp panel last Thursday I suggested both worlds have a lot to learn, and more importantly to gain from each other. The IFA are superb lobbyists and have access to Simon Coveney our Minister for Agriculture and Brussels in a way that leaves the artisan and small food sector far behind. Yet both are singing from the same hymn sheet. Irish cheeses and artisan products are the shop window that sell our clean green image to the likes of Sainsburys and Danone. Big food can exist with small food, but unfortunately I often find myself the only person in the room saying this.
So kudos to Mag Kirwan and the organisers of the festival for including the IFA. As Mag said herself during the panel discussion "I hate the word artisan. And you won't make money making produce at your kitchen table". Her business Goatsbridge Trout had to grow to be successful. Others can remain small and still make money. What's important is that there remains a no size fits all mentality to the food sector in Ireland. Those that are very big or very small are not necessarily in opposition to each other. Yes we have to be careful that Harvest 2020 means sustainable production and that Ireland steers away from a factory farm model. But the only way in ensuring that is that the farming and the food sector shares more common ground and starts talking to each other like the example of what happened at Kilkenny. So, what about it lads?

Chocolate rabbits, fine food... Say hello to the awards season

There's very few people able to coerce the premier of any country into auctioning a chocolate rabbit but if anyone's up for the job, it's Margaret Jefferes. Margaret is founder of Good Food Ireland - a tourism and food organisation which brings together the best of Ireland's food producers, restaurants, cafes and accomodation. In my work I come across members of Good Food Ireland all the time and it's testament to Margaret that she has gathered those at the top of their game into her organisation. The sublime Merrion Hotel, Cliff House Hotel, Chapter One and food producers like Graham Roberts of Connemara Smokehouse, Glenillen Farm and Cashel Blue cheese are all members of the group. These are people and companies who I've covered in stories because they are doing something different and authentic in food. And when I travel around the country to interview farmers and food producers I always find the Good Food Ireland folk a fantastic, energetic and fun bunch of people. The minute I get out of my car they're there with a warm welcome, an honesty and humour that always makes me really warm to them. Maybe it's because they gain strength from each other in what can be a lonely business - running a food SME in a recession. But whatever the reason, they have huge passion for what they do, and I always end up chatting for hours and more importantly, laughing, a lot.

Earlier this week they held their annual conference and awards in the Shelbourne Hotel Dublin. It was an honour to asked to speak at the conference alongside the likes of Kevin O'Sullivan editor of the Irish Times, Feargal Quinn retail legend, Fred Karlsson Founder of DoneDeal.ie, and Mary Carney winner of MasterChef Ireland. Mary spoke about "Creating Great Taste Memories" and the good and bad memories we all have of Irish food which brought me back to the terrible days of the 1980s microwave lasangne but also my Donegal grandmothers insanely good soda bread. The lunchtime spread of foods from Good Food Ireland was so fantastic it was hard to take in. I think I had about fourteen separate things on my plate at one stage, everything packed with flavour, beautifully cooked and as Irish as it comes. Some of the highlights from the conference talks on the day were from Sile Gorman, Aran McMahon and Peter Ward from Country Choice who all spoke about how difficult it is to make money out of producing or serving good food, but that what keeps them going is the love affair they have with food, and the feedback they get from their customers who come back again and again.

The awards ceremony was later in the evening and it was lovely to see some great Irish businesses like Goatsbridge Trout farm, The Chocolate Garden and Ballyvolane House collect some well deserved silverware. But for me it was a race over to Trinity College for my second appointment of the day - the Bord Bia Food Industry Awards, and yes, I finished the evening pretty well fed. The Bord Bia awards were slightly different as they are aimed at larger food businesses. Huge Irish success stories like Largo crisps won awards alongside Flavahans porridge (a staple in our home), Country Crest, Green Saffron, Jameson Whiskey and a new collaboration between Kerrygold and Cashel Blue which will see the Grubb family's handmade cheese on shelves in the mega marketplace that is the USA. It's fantastic to see this kind of innovation taking place as our big brand leaders like Kerrygold could do a lot to give smaller businesses a leg up in markets where they already have a foothold. And now more then ever, when our food exports are so important in keeping jobs in Ireland is the time to exploit this further. Here's a shaky photo of Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney speaking at the event; bigging up the export performance of Irish food which is set to hit 9 billion euros by the close of the year. Just so you know, the Bord Bia dinner was St. Tola's Cheese, roast Irish pork and a berry crumble to finish. As usual with Bord Bia's events, it was beautifully done and a really lovely evening. For me it was also a chance to catch up on the gossip with other farming and food journalists and we had a lively night with lots of laughs. Particularly pleasing to me was seeing the "journalist writing tomorrows piece on back of napkin" approach is live and well, as a quick scan around the media table revealed. Having no napkin to hand, my own scribbled notes were made on the back of my speech from earlier in the day. We're nothing but enterprising, us lot.