Quote of the week Agriculture is one of the most ill-conceived human endeavors. We plow down stable communities of hundreds of species of plants to get single-row crops. We replace entire ecosystems with pesticides, fertilizers, precious fresh water, and tractor emissions. Then, after every harvest, we start all over again. Organic agriculture breaks this cycle. But it's just a Band-Aid on the wound.  Richard Manning, in an article, Super Organics  in Wired. www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/food.html?tw=wn_tophead_4 
Manning is the author of Against the grain: how agriculture has hijacked civilization.

Thursday 29th April 2004
A turbulent priest  Fr.Neill O'Brien died yesterday of cancer. He was a brave man who put his life on the line for the rights of workers in the Phillippines. He was a thorn in the side of the oppressive Marcos regime and in the rapacious sugar plantation owners in his missionary locality on the island of Negros. He was imprisoned with eight others (who became the celebrated Negros Nine) and sentenced to death on trumped-up charges. 
Although not exactly known for my sympathy with the Catholic church, my involvement in the protest during Reagan's visit to Ireland in 1984 was particularly directed at securing his release. A call from Reagan to his buddy, Marcos, forced by our efforts, resulted in him being released. He controversially, pope-like, kissed the ground on his return to Ireland. He gave credit to the efforts of his mother, family and activists at home and abroad in saving his life. 
He returned to the Phillippines after the fall of the Ferdinand Marcos regime.The situation there however had not improved under the commie-paranoid Aquino administration. In 1990, O'Brien observed; "Negros is a boiling cauldron and the only way to stop it exploding is to turn down the flames." Australian Fr Brian Gore, another of the Negros Nine and his close friend, said, "We deal with people not with souls. It churns my insides to see that we might abstract ourselves into the more remote area of spirituality. I’ve been in the Philippines 20 years and I’ve never seen one soul yet." 
Fr O'Brien spent his latter years as editor of a Columban missionary magazine. He published two books, Seeds of Injustice, 1985, and Revolution from the heart, 1987. Social justice activism worldwide has lost a physical voice. His message however will live on in his example and writings. 

Quote of the week  "Lime on lime without manure makes the farmer rich and the son poor." From a book Lime Kilns, glimpsed in a book shop in Penzance last Christmas. Lime, in the latter part of the 19th century was seen as a  panacea for fertility ills but over-use led to long term problems. .

Tuesday 27th April 2004
I am returning today from Dublin, having attended a conference on sustainability and several events in the Convergence Festival (it still goes on - see www.sustain.ie - try to see the Woody Harrelson film Go Further if nothing else). 
There was much stimulation and entertainment - some even world-class happenings - and I will try to convey the gist of these when I get back to the lair. 
It has been a week of wonderful contact (with one exception!) and resulting networking. 
There is so much to report: I should have one extraordinary document to publish (first publication); surprising views to relate from an Irish farm leader; a Ghandhiesque experience to tell you about; three occasions of sex and activism; and how the anti-GM movement has been raised to new levels (nothing to do with the former)
But first I have to deal with an unprecedented number of emails (there is practically panic out there from nursing mothers - see Breast is Best? below, 17th April) and phone messsages (my Eircom Call Answering is chock-a-block). 
And I have a few other extra-mural commitments this coming weekend. 
In the fulness of time.........

When I left West Cork last week, the weather was cool, windy and showery, and I thought, 'This is a good week for the city'. Instead it has been sunny, warm and dry - tee-shirt weather and street-side Mochas and wraps - of the eating kind. I hear that, if anything, it has been even nicer in the south and I look forward to getting back. Everything will be pushing out of the ground in the garden and I hope seedlings and things are not too parched. I hear that mackerel are running in some places on the south coast -  a spur to get the old Zodiac back in the water. A breakfast of the 'silver darlings' would go down nicely now, Mocha or no Mocha.

Monday 26th April 2004
Monsanto Terminated - at least in one major market.The transnational corporation has suffered another body blow to its plans to spread its GM food technology worldwide. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has just announced that the cultivation of genetically modified crops will be prohibited on his country's soil. This nips in the bud Monsanto's project to plant 500,000 acres of soybeans in Venezuela. Before a recent international gathering of supporters in Caracas, President Chavez admonished genetically engineered crops as contrary to the interests and needs of the nation's farmers and farm workers. He then zeroed in on Monsanto's plans to plant up to 500,000 acres of transgenic soybeans in Venezuela. "I ordered an end to the project," said President Chavez, upon learning that transgenic crops were involved. "This project is terminated."
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=17960 (via www.gmwatch.org )

Interesting that a news trawl in Google did not show any reference to this story, four days after its break on Vheadline.

April 23rd 2004 
Improving organic standards  The European commission is allocating €18 million over the next five years to help develop quality and safety standards in organic food and processing in the EU. 

From Russia with cash  An enquiry to me from Russia for a quote for organic meat products from Ireland, in 20 or 40ft containers, will be passed on to anyone interested. But methinks I will be telling the Russian importer shortly that there isn't enough organic meat in Ireland for export to fill even one container. Where should I send him - Argentina? Australia?

Alternatives to toxic household cleaners. The Trevor McDonald programme about toxins in breast milk, and the item I did below Breast is Best, caused a flurry of emails and phone calls. There will be more on this later, but, in the meantime, here is a source of  information on using alternatives to toxic cleaning products in the home: http://riri.essortment.com/organiccleaning_rase.htm
With the aid of white vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice and salt, you can clean almost everything in your house including toilets and laundry - or so I learn from this site. Did not Mrs Beeton say all this a long time ago? 
You may find more by searching in Google. If you do find a better site, let me know.

Convergence Festival starting this week in Dublin - see www.sustainable.ie 

Education and the Transition to a Sustainable Society. This will be a full-day event held at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Aungier St., on Friday 23rd April. Fee €50. Contact for further details; sewp@gn.apc.org  or phone Belfast (028/048) 90 249112

GM workshop Mon 26th April  Register by phone 0404 43885  An item from the GM debate in Ireland five years ago. 

April 17th 2004 
Breast is best - if organic!  No I'm not referring to chicken portions - although of course it does apply to them too - but about breast milk. 
When I was in the childrearing loop, 20 years ago, "breast is best" was beginning to be bruited about in Ireland as the thing to do. My wife Karen, well-read and idealistic as she was, opted (I was just a lagging-behind camp-follower), against the grain - including the medical and religious ones - for the natural way. It was a revolutionary thing to do in those days - a bit like communism - and was also deeply frowned on by the the upright burghers of Clonmel (largest town in Co.Tipperary). A friend of ours, equally inclined towards the baby-feeding au naturelle, was barred from a café in the town for breastfeeding (notwithstanding her delicacy and discreteness, and indeed her cover within a crowd of us). There was an immediate, feminist (the "terrible beauty" had been born by then) boycott of the restaurant. It closed.
In the meantime BiB has become mainstream. And all us right-thinking wallas should give it our complete support, you would think. But no, there is a suggested fly in the ointment. And it makes sense.
The ITV show Tonight with Trevor McDonald , two weeks ago, showed that there were "positive traces of potentially harmful chemicals" in mothers' milk. And the sources are not just the usual suspects of fags and booze, but household equipment, including mobile phones, cleaning products and pesticides in food. 
Katherine Tucker, from Tufts University in Boston, said, "Don't get your clothes dry-cleaned; eat organically; throw out the super-strength cleaners." 
And the sad, sad thing (and an indictment on the organic industry and those within it whose ethos is to keep it a high-priced niche market), one of the women said, "How can I possibly afford organic - I have four children!"  www.itv.com/news/1931844.html 
So the message is: it is indeed a good trend that so much baby food nowadays is organic, but feeding the baby begins earlier than even in the womb. Toxins, to a large degree, are deposited in the fat tissues of mammals like ourselves, and breast milk acts as a conduit for the poisons out of the woman and into the baby. Again according to Ms Turner, "Breast milk is the first and largest dose of these toxic chemicals that children are exposed to..."
Lends a new meaning to the practice of "detoxing", doesn't it?
Now, what about butter, milk and chesse?

Recommended Books The following three, pioneering books - books that I consider no self-respecting farmer, agricultural educationalist or administrator should be without, had been out-of-print since the 1950s; Fertility Farming, Fertility Pastures and Cover Crops, and Herdmanship, all by Frank Newman Turner, (published by Faber & Faber). They were available, reprinted in the US by a one-woman-publisher, Bargyla Rateaver, until very recently. I have just heard that age and infirmity have caught up with the venerable academic and she is now in a nursing home. Consequently, activity on her website http://earthlink.net/~brateaver/books/index.htm is suspended. 
However, all is not lost. 
After much searching, I found this great, pro bono, Australian site, run by Steve Solomon. www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010104howard/010104frame.html  Steve has made it his mission to have important books in the areas of soil and human health made available online, within the contraints of international copyright law.
So, spend some time on the site: see and consider downloading works by the founding fathers (and mothers!) of the modern organic movement, Alfred Howard, Eve Balfour, Friend Sykes, Newman Turner and others. Contrary to much received wisdom (ever hear of a German or Dutch "organic pioneer" - with imagined exclusive access to organic holy writ -  give any credit to their English or American progenitors?) the organic movement was not an exclusively central European one sprung, fully fledged from the post World War II fatherland.

April 14th 2004 
Organics rubbished - again 
One of the reasons that I am doing what little I do here is because of a TV programme I watched with my son over four years ago. We could not believe our eyes and ears as, one after another, lab-coated scientists, with eminent qualifications and associations, took their turn in earnestly (apparently) saying that organic food and farming was bad for you and that GM was the answer to our food security dreams.
It was my overpowering impression (it was my son's too) that these guys were lying through their teeth; that they didn't really believe what they were saying, and that their real attitude was - eff consumers, corporate profits and academic budgets were what was really important and let's (we that are the cream of business and academia) thrash this pipsqueak organic movement led by dread-locked dropouts and green pinkos.
My response was to promise to start mixing it with these cynics and see where it would lead. I started by writing to the BBC about their biased programme. Click here for text of that letter. 
And I'm still writing.
And they are still doing what they do. 
Here is the latest: it's from Prof. John Hillman, Director of the Scottish Crop Research Institute in his annual report. He says, "The claims of organic farming for health-enhancing qualities cannot be validated, it is low productivity compared with conventional and biotech agriculture, and has a high dependence on poisonous copper salts (to control pests).
Organic production also means: blemished crops, the risk of mycotoxins and reduced vitamin C levels, reliance on faecal fertilisers, raising concerns about food-poisoning micro-organisms, eggs of parasitic nematodes and pollution of water-courses; with reliance on tilling leading to soil structure damage and release of greenhouse gases."
Organic marketing, he adds, is often based on criticism, sometimes scaremongering, about conventional and biotech agriculture. Furthermore, the system has high production costs and cannot meet the increasing demand of global food supply without encroaching on natural habitats.
http://business.scotsman.com/agriculture.cfm?id=418472004
(via www.gmwatch.org Daily Newletter 14th April).

Bear all this in mind when I link to the latest good news for organics tomorrow.
  
Selling lamb as lamb  Come on, own up; how many of you could really tell mutton from lamb? Very few, I would wager. You don't have much of a chance either if you rely on your butcher or superma  rket for information. "Mutton" is an obsolete term as far as they are concerned: the thinking seems to be that if the leg has become so big as to look like a bullock's, chop it in half and sell it as "fillet of lamb" or "half leg".
If you want the real, unadorned, juvenile McCoy, and organic as well, contact Christine and Paul O'Sullivan here on the Beara Peninsula. You just haven't tasted lamb until you've had theirs. For the moment, whole lamb and sides and occasional pork cuts, frozen, can be supplied from their home, Clover Farm, Allihies, West Cork. Fresh meat also can be collected from their organic butcher near Bantry. Tel. 027 73295. 
Sorry to all my visitors off the island - you'll just have to source your own local organic lamb.

GM Debate in Ireland  According to Green MEP Patricia McKenna yesterday (Morning Ireland, RTE Radio !), "There is no public debate in Ireland on GMOs" as she lambasted the Taoiseach (PM) Ahern, for his waffling on the subject, and for voting (with 5 others) in favour of allowing GM food and crops in the EU.
I mentioned the cancellation of the big GM conference for Dublin last week. Apparently that event is now on again, but at a later date - June 19th - 20th. 
A one-day GM "workshop" will be held on Mon. 26th during the Convergence Festival. See below for details.

Heartiest congratulations to my brother, Stevenson, who has just been elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Steven's election to the almost 200-year old society, is in recognition of his achievement in completing a 3,000 km, trans-European, solo trek (no back-up) with his Spanish horse, Murphy, in 2002. He plans to do a horse-circuit of Ireland this year, and will be visiting me here on Beara. You can read all about his trek and plans at this link Horseback Pilgrimage . He would be delighted to hear from anyone who would like to help with sponsorship. All contributions (€25.00 and above) will be acknowledged on the web pages.
Stevenson William O'Connor FRGS. Your health sir!

April 8th 2004  News Flash 
GM debate cancelled  The GM conference, billed  for 26th April in Dublin - see "You have a goldmine..." - below, has been cancelled. There's talk of it being put on in June, but we'll wait for further details. If anyone can throw some light on this...? A direct approach to the organiser was not replied to. 

Take steps to remedy that desire for the "book you read the review on" by visiting Ireland's answer to Amazon (but with a voice at the end of the phone!). Muriel Lumb's crackingly good website, www.booksteps.ie is your gateway to buying books that provide  "practical solutions to day to day problems, be they environmental, physical, psychological, spiritual or educational." I am flattered that Muriel once thought my site was impressive - we did a Dreamweaver web-building course together - but whereas I can but dream on about a site redesign, Muriel has put her acquired web skills to excellent use. Remember the wonderful, door-step (it weighs about 3 kilos) book, Fatal Harvest, I have raved about (see Publications page, top right)? Yes it can be on your step within a matter of days (An Post willing, of course) from Book Steps  - at-cost postage only, as you'd expect from an ethical bookseller. I could actually collect a copy by boat, as Muriel's place is just across Bantry Bay to the south east. 

April 6th 2004 
The Tipperary Institute Environment Conference - how it should be done! 
I was bowled over by the recent conference in Thurles. There was spirit, and hard work, and professionalism in abundance, a range of stimulating speakers, and what was particularly gob-smackingly impressive to me, organic or fair-traded food and drink served throughout the three days of the event. And this, even when there was only one, strictly speaking, organic event on (my own humble workshop) the menu.  Read and learn how to do it, you wannabee organisers - see a full account of the conference  Celebrating the Environment.  Read and learn how not to do it - Kerry Blues - IOFGA conference 2001)
OK, I throw my hands up and declare my interest (before it's thrown at me!). I'm a Tipperary man, born and bred. But those who know me well, know that county patriotism in me does not take the orthodox route and as many smarted from my campaigns and writings in Tipperary as were pleased. See e.g. Slievenamon - wind farm blown away and the preface to Famine - a tale of Tipperary

April 5th 2004  
"You have a goldmine in Ireland"  This was not a reference to the yellow stuff (or to the hegemony of the O'Reillys and others of the Golden Circle) but to the black and brown stuff, our topsoil, that covers a few million acres of our little island. The metaphor was used by Prof. Vyvian Howard, UK, describing our relatively unpolluted land, in conversation with Michael O'Callaghan, Dublin. Michael, a recently declared anti-gm activist (see www.gm-freeireland.ie ) was pitched against pro-GM Prof.Tony Kavanagh of Trinity's, Dept.of Genetics, in a slot on RTE 1 today (Leo Enright 12 - 1pm). 
These were new protagonists on the Irish airwaves on the subject, and neither performed particularly confidently.Their nervousness was apparent, and they were both weak in presenting their cases* This reflects, perhaps, the lack of practice of recent public debate in the area of GM food and crops compared to Britain, for example, where the subject is constantly, passionately, and to a large degree, eruditely put forward. God be with the days of our home-grown, feisty, effective, Genetic Concern (squashed by Monsanto - but Monsanto has since, like Paddy's snakes, been driven from these shores), Skibbereen and glorious Growing Awareness (started by local housewives) four years ago, when world class debaters and workshops send powerful messages to politicians at home and abroad whilst transnational corporations trembled. 
Gm-free Ireland are a new start and they are to be welcomed in an otherwise deserted field.
Whilst our new anti-GM debaters are cutting their teeth they have also been busy organising, it has to be said, a top flight conference within the up-coming Dublin Convergence Festival (why didn't Michael O'Callaghan put in a plug for this on the programme today? Surely a golden opportunity missed!). 
Here are  some of the principal speakers for the whole-day conference; Michael Meacher, MP (former UK Environment Minister and a right thorn in Blair's side on the GM front), Dr. Arpad Pusztai (Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology - remember the GM potatoes and the cancerous rats?), Rémi Parmentier (Varda Group, former Political Director of Greenpeace); Dr. Mae-Wan Ho (Institute of Science in Society and  who spoke so effectively, despite being temporarily on crutches, at Skibbereen in 2001). The Forging a GM Policy for Ireland event is on Monday 26th April at the Cultivate Sustainable Living Centre in Essex St (Temble Bar, west the road, as we say down here). It promises well and, at the very least, debating skills will surely be improved as a result.
Visit www.gmfreeireland.org  for Irish GM news and details of the conference. Entry fee is €12. Phone 0404 43 885 to book.

The Convergence Festival itself, also at the Cultivate centre, is quite an extraordinary collection of events, spread over ten days. Best look at their site www.sustainable.ie/convergence for the complete, ambitious programme. I attended the Revitilisation of Irish Agriculture conference end of it l last year - Report
And on top of all, that there is another sustainable event in Dublin, overlapping the Convergence one - Education and the Transition to a Sustainable Society. This will be another full-day event held at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Aungier St., on Friday 23rd April. Fee €50. Contact email for further details sewp@gn.apc.org  or phone Belfast (028/048) 90 249112

* In comparison, for example, to a Trinity College debate, 18 months ago, when the big-hearted German, from Ballybrado, Richard Auler, spoke for us all, and the motion against GM crops was carried. 

It's a Long way to Tipperary and also, I'm ashamed to say, a long time (where does the tempus fly to?) since the conference there at the Tipperary Institute. My report, finally, tomorrow. 

April 1st 2004
News Flash - Chardon LL Maize, the only GM crop approved by the UK govt's Field Trials last year has been kiboshed by Beyer, the German biotech company. Anti-GM groups are hailing it as a major victory. Michael Meacher, ex environment minister, said, "The government has been saved from itself..." 
No definite reason has been given for the sudden backdown - the go-ahead had only been given two weeks ago - but failure to finalise compensation agreements and separation distances (Herr Fischler's "coexistence" criteria)  from conventional and organic crops, not to mention the storms of unwelcome activist attention (see The Ecologist this month) one crop and one company would attract, were powerful disincentives.

Convergence  Keep your appointments diary open for the annual Convergence Festival from the 22nd April - May 2nd. Details to follow. 

Czechs beat Ireland  Soon-to-be-a-EU-member, the Czech Republic promises to be a huge player in the organic sector with almost 6% of its farmland certified organic. 

Cork Food Directory  Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe House Restaurant is compiling information for a publication Local producers of good food in Cork. If you think you are such a producer, grower, rearer or processor, organic, craft or otherwise, butcher, baker (but not candlestick maker) contact by phone, 021 4652531 or email; res@ballymaloe.ie. 
Now I know I'm read by many conventional farmers and no one would admit to producing anything less than "good food", but I know you - all 7,000 or so of you out there in Ireland's largest county - will be reasonable and only contact Mrs Allen if you would fit into the "slow food", craft or organic categories.

Friday 30th April 2004
Irish farm leader says no to GMOs - sort of  Ruaidhrí Deasy, deputy president of the 85,000-strong Irish Farmers Association, said at a workshop, Forging a GM Policy for Ireland, in Dublin this week; "The IFA's stance on GMOs is: Keep GM products out of Ireland. We don't need them. We certainly can't pay for them. And our customers don't want them." 
Mr. Deasy, a substantial beef and tillage farmer from Tipperary, is focused on ousting the current "plain speaking style" grass-roots favourite, John Dillon, and becoming the next president of the powerful farm group that his father Rickard Deasy once led. 
The ambitious farm leader has been around: he worked, in his thirties, for an aid agency in Africa, where he was appalled at the record of multinationals in the third world. He had particular experience of Nestlé in marketing formula baby milk - against local breast feeding - resulting in horrific mortality. "They don't care;" he said, "They sit in their plush boardrooms but they don't give a hoot. All they care for is profits."
In reference to Monsanto (whose representative in Ireland, Dr Patrick O'Reilly, was in the audience - mute throughout, apart from being head down in the wings with an RTE woman) Deasy said, "The technology (GM) is in the wrong hands. We must say no to Monsanto control. The last thing Monsanto did was to put in the Terminator gene which wipes out the plant's ability to reproduce.That enslaves farmers the world over."
All in all, a man of conscience and straight thinking, one would surmise, and a friend, an ally perhaps, of organic, sustainable and GM-free ways.
But how then can you reconcile this: " I am however not a Luddite (implying we are?)" and, wearing his "Teagasc (Irish agric.research body of which he is a director and which has funds of up to €1 billion for GM research) cap" he went on to say that we must have GM research in Ireland (wide smile from Dr O'R). Three new laboratories have been buillt, he told us, which are, so reassuringly, "completely enclosed". 
And more non sequiturs from Mr Deasy at the workshop: 
The pesticide Round Up (Monsanto's killer application) is a "godsend to Irish farmers".
 Is he another of those who would advocate it is so safe you could drink it?
"Do not sex up the argument against GM".
 Why?  Because "sexing up" was so successful in the past - "Terminator Genes", "Frankenfoods" etc? How else are penniless activists to take on multinational millions? (Another smile from Monsanto man O'R but  a lashing from fellow panelist, Bridget Carlin, Irish Seed Savers Association ).
"Don't quote false statistics. GM hasn't killed anyone yet." 
Same argument used by self-proclaimed pro-GM "zealot" on Irish national radio today (Today with Pat Kenny. RTE Radio 1, PK talking to Dr Clive James).
"I have never seen a farmer willingly destroying his environment".
I don't believe that.
"We have the cleanest water in the world"  
Check that, Mr Deasy, with Margot Wallstrom, EU Enviro. Comm. who is threatening to fine us to oblivion because of our contaminated water. 
"I have no problem standing over the quality of Irish food." 
He'd have to say that, wouldn't he?  
In other comments, he practically dismissed organics as a failure. Look at Austria, he urged, "They targeted 20% organic but the market collapsed before it reached 15%." Sure, there are some serious problems in some markets, but, world-wide, the market is the fastest growing in the history of agriculture and is now worth, at $25billion, more than the total GM industry. 
Having claimed that his farm "was, to all intents and purposes, GM free", Mr Deasy neverthesless declined, at my request, to declare his farm the third area in Ireland to be declared officially GM Free (after The Ginger Man, J.P. Donleavy's farm and the Irish Seed Savers Association property in Clare. For my part, I am declaring Planorganic's, 5 acre holding here in West Cork, GM and Canvass Free from today).
Mr Deasy, if he was a man that really cared for the overall good of the land and people of Ireland, would spend a little less time in "plush boardrooms" himself and remember - and learn - from the trickery and lethal deceit of multinationals out of his African experience. He would also do himself better justice by trying less to project himself as a "man for all seasons", and just come straight out and tell his audience where he stood.
He could do well to follow his leader's lead in "plain speaking".

The lightly-attended workshop last Monday, at the Cultivate centre in Temple Bar, was a  very useful exercise. There is more from it well worth reporting. It is seen as a prelude to a more ambitious conference later in June. 
For details and a report on the workshop see www.gmfreeireland.org  
Like so much in the past, in Ireland, on this and other issues, events like this rely heavily on the resources of one individual. Michael O'Callaghan, of Wicklow is the one to thank for this current resurgence of the anti-GM debate. I know he personally paid the airfair and expenses of at least one of the attendees and presumably picked up the other considerable losses/costs of the event. Maith an fear.