Yes! I believe that modern farming methods and contaminated food are killing us.

And it is a scandal of enormous proportions - the biggest issue facing the Western World today.

Hundreds of millions of people are having their health compromised or are being downright poisoned by the food and drink we produce.

We are directly contributing to the illness and death of our children and our communities by giving them contaminated food.

And we cannot claim ignorance of the issues any longer - the body of evidence is now overwhelming and, practically every day, it is added to by further food scares. Our latest crises (July ‘99) are dioxin in the Belgian food chain and dioxin and other contaminants in mothers’ breast milk.

Some are taking responsible action by seeking out and buying the purest food possible - the majority are criminally ignoring the problem. Who is to blame for this disaster?

The normal scapegoats we pick on are greedy large-scale farmers and their multi-national suppliers of chemical inputs.

But we the consumers are the major players and we have, by our avariciousness and apathy, done the most damage. Of course the producers of food and their suppliers are also to blame as indeed are governments and other agencies.

We are all part of the problem and must contribute to the solution.

But it is with us the consumers that most power lies - we must get off our butts, kick ass and change this terrible situation.

Lest we forget, we have collaborated for decades in a cheap food policy that has allowed us to spend a disproportionate part of our incomes on luxury items rather than clean, healthy food. The house, the car, clothes, holidays, education and entertainment have all been given much higher priority than pure food.

Some countries, especially those usually more socially advanced than us, have already identified the severity of the crisis and are moving rapidly to fight the problem.

Denmark, for example, has identified clearly what the consumer wants (four out of five of its own consumers frequently buy ecological products) and is very logically applying its resources to meet the burgeoning demand. A committee has recently advocated that the whole of the agricultural industry become organic. Others, e.g. Austria - the European Agricultural Minister’s home country(!) - is now seventy times (not 70% - but 70x!) more organic proportionally than Ireland.

Why are we not developing the same strategy?

When consumers are accusing farmers of being "murderers" and judges calling them "poisoners", & with juries still out only on the extent to which herbicides, fungicides, and so on cause human disease, surely there is enough of a case to warrant drastic action?

If you add to these the huge public concern over Genetically Engineered food, the health hazards of BSE/CJD, Tuberculosis, Brucellosis, the over-use of antibiotics and continuing breaking news-stories, we have a crisis on our hands of epidemic proportions.

Drastic and immediate action should be demanded.

And that is easier than many would have us believe.

Organic farming has been the victim of black propaganda - the subject of highly professional and concentrated bad-mouthing. It deserves however a better hearing and I, as a former, successful conventional farmer, will here attempt to clarify the subject.

The case against organic farming runs something like this; organic farming is new and relatively untried; it only works on a small scale, and following from that, prices are high and availability of produce is hit-and-miss. Additionally, farmers contemplating the larger scale are persuaded that yields would be lower and there would be a loss of income during the transitional years.

Another, underrated, but important difficulty is the image organic farming has accrued for many conventional farmers. It is perceived as an alien, foreign, almost sect-like movement imported by hippie blow-ins.

Mind you, many of the newcomers gave substance to that prejudice by being unconventional, dogmatic and holier-than-thou in their attitudes to the locals.

However things have moved on since then and we must be grateful to the pioneers for lighting the original candle of awareness.

We must further be grateful to the other producers and processors, both local and foreign, who have taken organic farming from its humble beginnings and have now broken into main-stream markets.

But it is all still too little and we are not going anywhere fast enough to deal with the problem - only a fraction of 1% of our food is produced organically. Sadly there are those in the organic movement who are satisfied with this slow, controlled rate of growth.

But if we are to feed a mass population with safe food soon we need a paradigm shift.

We too need to mobilise our resources quickly and efficiently like Denmark.

Perhaps one way to co this is to draw on the vast experience of farmers themselves particularly the older generation.

I have often been exasperated with the modern organic movement and its basic assumption that this is a new technology, the exclusive invention and territory of the newcomers and that their way is the only, and politically correct way to proceed.

Well, PC it may be but new its not - its as old as the hills themselves. From Cuchulainn to my father's time we were all natural farmers. Our image as quality food producers derives from the wonderful, natural quality of our food as produced up to about 30 years ago. There were no health scares then about Irish produce-except that you might be unhealthy if you didn't get it!

And damn good at the job of natural / traditional farming we were too. Instead of the "bag-manure" we had mountains of farmyard manure - diseases were kept in check by rotating crops and animals and what we sold was the same as what we ate ourselves - we had every confidence in it.

It was a thinking kind of farming too and you had to listen closely to the lore of the older generation or usually suffer the consequences. Even so there was always room for improvement particularly in the use of new machinery which, thankfully, took the drudgery out of a lot of manual jobs.

Today, with the average machinery available on any farm, large-scale composting, the key to commercial organic farming, would be a doddle.

Remove the aura of mysticism, dogmatism and exclusivism from today's organic farming, and you have - traditional farming!

So, organic shouldn't be anything new to us - we've done it all before, we even still have the methods, remembered by our older generation, and we did it large-scale and nationwide.

The argument still remains as to lower yields and loss of income. A recent report of a 200 acre experibe more profitable than conventional farming. I am not surprised at this finding although the result is probably premised on getting a premium price for the produce. I would contend however that this, although nice when you can get it, is not necessary for profitable organic production.

For example, I know a case study of a farmer who took over a 180 acre badly-run farm and within a few years, by farming organically, had restored fertility and was making a handsome profit. He encouraged many others to do the same - it was not a difficult system to follow and there was no need to join any organisation or have any transitional period.

What was even more unique about him was that he neither looked for, nor got, a penny more for his organic produce. His type of farming was profitable without either market or government subsidy! Bear in mind that today you have both. His well-documented system, mostly based on traditional methods, could be an excellent model for many farmers wanting to go organic.

Our agricultural methods today are a copy-cat of Britain's post-war industrial agriculture designed to bring cheap food at almost any environmental cost to the urban masses. This was the new agriculture - this was what replaced traditional farming. And somewhere along the line, in competition with their industry,we lost our quality in pursuit of quantity together with our hard-fought-for agricultural health status.These intensive farming practices are becoming increasingly discredited and there are some experts who even say - We ain't seen nothing yet - there is worse to come".

I think it should be a national priority that we should be looking at alternatives and especially perhaps seeking a way forward in agriculture that is uniquely our own.

The question should not be whether we go down the green road but when and how. Because if we don’t others will.( Britain, surprisingly, could be the radical innovator -the signs are there and after all she hasn't much to lose - are we to be belated copy-cats - again?)

Sainsbury's, in an interesting transitional move, insist that the majority of their farmer suppliers use "integrated crop management" - which includes using natural pest control methods. Recently, Tesco, again in the UK, have introduced what they call "level pegging" of prices between organic and conventional food. In 120 of their stores they are displaying the two types of food at the same price.This is not a case of a conglomerate having a morality attack ..no..its just good business sense. You don't need a crystal ball to see what is going to happen.

I think the Tesco move is especially interesting because prices are the key to the whole issue. Whilst organic food continues to be highly priced it can only be the luxury foodstuff of the better-off and already comparatively healthy - a sort of modern lifestyle accessory. It can therefore safely be ignored or bad-mouthed to the margins by those afraid of it as a potential competitor. When it starts appearing on the shelves as cheap as, or even cheaper than, conventional food it is a different matter altogether.

Suddenly there is the prospect of a mass market-equally there has to be a mass supply to meet it.

Where is this going to come from?

The infant organic sector in Europe, representing less than 1% of total production, will not in the short term be able to supply it.Some of the demand will be met by transitional methods like Sainsbury’s mentioned above. Most will come from the third world.

But a lot could come from us if we got our act together and planned for this market.

What we need is something like a Green Agricultural Policy, a GAP as opposed to a CAP. A national forum of farmers, agri-business people, Teagasc, environmentalists, consumers, organic farmers and politicians could be formed to co-operate and work out a way to win this ment at Teagasc, Johnstown Castle shows organic farming can one. The stakes are huge! Imaginative solutions are needed. What I would like to see them come up with is a policy to change the whole country to natural food production methods ! This shouldn’t be thought of as being particularly radical. After all, the first step need only be the re-establishment of traditional farming. I'm fairly aware of the complexities of this and other steps but they certainly are not insurmountable. And the EU may be very well disposed towards supporting the idea - it wouldn’t be much more than an extension of the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme, (There are currently 40,000 REPS farmers in the country of which 1% are organic).

Ireland, the Green garden of Europe! Now that would be something worth achieving - something to be really proud of. The advantages could be enormous.

It would create a substantial number of new jobs (mostly in the regions, where urgently needed), more wealth, better health, increase tourism and improve the environment out of all recognition.

"Green Ireland" would take on a whole new cache.

We would be a world leader, and deservedly so, in something we used to be very good at - the production of quality food.

But more than all that we owe it to ourselves and particularly our children (who have never experienced non-chemical food!) to create an almighty fuss until things get changed for the better.

Would it not it be great to once more have full confidence in what we eat and experience farm produce from Ireland as the best, the freshest, and the healthiest in the world?

We could do it - but will we?

Will Denmark, Austria and others beat us to the organic cornucopia and leave us fighting an expensive and futile battle to retain the begging-bowl system of quotas and subsidies that we have in recent decades become addicted to?