June 27th 2002

World Food Summit in Rome last week was described by some as a farce and a shambles and contributed nothing to help the plight of the 800 million people who go hungry each year. 
The US delegation however hailed it as a triumph. They managed to get an appreciative reference to biotechnology - GM by any other name -  in the final declaration and were gleeful that biosafety or the precautionary principle were not an issue.
The organic lobby however, was not absent at the World Food Summit nor without its influence either (no references to an organic element at the WFS were seen in the general media).
The international organic body, IFOAM were fighting our corner for us and seem to have made an impact out of all proportion to its economic power. 
Intensive lobbying and circulation of printed material to delegates was much in evidence. 
But an "Organic Day" organised at the parallel Civil Society Forum was one of the most stimulating and enjoyable events of the Summit. Speakers included German Ag Min Renate Kunast, Dr Vandana Shiva and IFOAM president, Gunner Rundgren. To give participants a taste of what could be, organic food and drinks were served at the reception and at a convivial, al fresco dinner that night. 
See IFOAM's website for more. www.ifoam.org 

The Begging Bowl. Dairy farmers in Dublin yesterday, clamouring for a better price said; "The situation is getting graver by the minute ...if we are not on the land farming, we will be on the dole queues begging." 
The EU Dairy Management Committee, meeting today, are unlikely to help - if anything the price of milk will go down! 
I'm sorry for the farmers, Europe-wide, that were suckered into following the yellow-buttered road to fat mountains and milk lakes. If logic applied to these things they should be regarded as agents of the govt in fulfilling the demands of the CAP over the years and, like the civil servants they helped to proliferate, get their just rewards in terms of pay, conditions, pensions and so on.
But sure where is there justice?
The dairy farmers and others might profit by having a look at this site; www.farmerslink.org.uk . One of Farmers Link objectives is "To examine the changes needed in agricultural policies and practices to reflect the commmon interests of farmers and rural communities..."

Asterisk in Jail. Justice? The brave Jose Bove, organic farmer, trasher of MacDonalds and indefatigable foe of globalisation, has finally been canned. It took a right-wing turn in French politics to finally do the Joan of Arc on him. 
With hundreds of supporters following in a protest circus, he drove his tractor to the French prison last week to begin his three month sentence. Guess who's dancing with glee? See: www.igreens.org.uk/make_jose_bove_serve_his_time.htm] and www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?cinagro4&51 and follow the GM giant's trail. The elusive Pimpernel, Andura Smetacek (remember in relation to Trewavas?) pops up variously.

The Golden Goose. As Irish supermarkets are described as dominating the Irish organic food industry (Sunday Business Post 23rd June), I noticed perhaps the highest "organic premium" ever in my local SuperValu shop. Organic Diced Beef was almost 100% more expensive than the comparable, conventional meat beside it. 
Somebody is profiteering here. Is it the producer? The processor? The supermarket? This is the sort of pricing that gives organics a bad name and ensures only the wealthy (and already healthy?) can afford organic food.
Are organic farmers' markets the answer?

Falling on DEFRA's Ears. I was going to recommend a website to y'all - but I won't. It sounded good - www.sustainable-development.gov.uk - but on closer acquaintance, it is downright sinister. Take for example one of the objectives that it is proposing to bring to the World Summit for Sustainable Development in J'burg, in Aug; "Making globalisation work for sustainable development."(There are going to be 60,000 delegates at that jamboree and they are going to be all served up organic meals I hear - will they be flown in as well?).

Soil Association operates out of a car-boot. As it's the silly season for shows and festivals, I must mention (no not Glasonbury) the Cereals 2002 show in Lincolnshire last week. Really only for the big farming boys, whose toys can be as big as a 450bhp Caterpillar tractor, all the Big GM corps were hugely represented.
According to the Guardian, June 26th, the Soil Association was there too, "but round the back, operating out of a car boot."
Hopefully they were distributing subversive literature.

Bitter Harvest leaves sour taste. There is a strong letter condemning the recent Bitter Harvest programmes on BBC in the NGIN newsletter of 25th June. See www.ngin.org.uk. Claire Robinson says she is disappointed with the "documentary" which to her seems like "merely a propaganda exercise to smooth the way for commercialisation of GM foods." Ms Robinson goes on to point out that "Missing from the programme were every single one of the scientific reasons why the environmental lobby is so concerned about GMOs".
Is this our very own Claire Robinson? 

A Natural Insecticide. Kathy Mc Mahon in Kildare, Ireland has much to tell us about the incredible properties of the Neem tree. She makes creams and  lotions that can help with scabies and psoriasis and has good information on the efficacy of Neem extracts in controlling up to 400 different insects. Like myself, she is a great fan of Comfrey. www.neemwell.com 

NB The latest on slug control is that a 2% caffeine concentrate will give them a squirmingly painful death.
I however, have made the discovery of the century! How to effectively repel the fat little chompers. Am I going to tell everybody? Not yet - patents pending.

Eat more fruit and vegetables (see last week's item, same title) Alan Reilly of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland urged us all on Irish National radio this week to eat more fruit and vegetables - this time to avoid ingesting acrylamides* the nasty chemical created when food is carbonised as in chips and fries. Its the devil and the deep blue sea thing. 
Yes of course, I would say, eat more fruit and vegetables but only those you feel sure have not got the levels of pesticide contamination that were described in last week's UK report. 
*First reported by yours truly weeks ago - Irish TV reported it today.

Look Up its B A. Things may be looking up for British Airways as they (finally?) go the road of the low-cost airlines. I got an email today from BA (prompted by my slagging of Ryanair last week? Could I have such wide readership?) advertising fares all over the shop at bargain-basement  prices e.g. France/Benelux from £69.00 return all inclusive. See their site, www.ba.com/newlowfares/9 . 
Their marketing slogan should really get up Micky O'Leary's already out-of-joint (slaughtered in the press last week) nose: it is,  
"Enjoy British Airways service at a 'no frills' price."
I will expect a discount from them when next I go organic conferencing. J'burg? Sustainable Development - sure isn't that my parallell slogan? 

Treble Value? Still on the  subject of airlines and airports and suchlike (and yes there is an organic angle - patience!), Aer Rianta, the Irish Airport Authority say in their current radio ads, that their perfumes and cameras and other gee-gaws for sale in their, now not tax-free (to us EUers anyway), shops are "Treble Value". 
As I scanned their Cork Airport shop recently, I couldn't see any value there at all - let alone treble!  And what's more, I couldn't see anything organic, wild or remotely ethical in their whole selection. I was hoping to find a few organic baubles to bring to the conference in Otley.
The manageres thought it a good idea that they should stock organic;" We're always being asked for them, you know." She said she would bring it up at their next marketing meeting.
I hope that it's not as remote a possibility that Aer Rianta will respond positively to my suggestion as it is to get a glass of water on a Ryanair flight!
Let's keep an eye on them all in the meantime and nudge and banter until we get a service.

Flower Power (no, again, not Glastonbury) I went to the Mallow Show (see last week's item, Chelsea in Ireland?) on Saturday last. Firstly, I must apologise for getting the entry price  wrong.The € 12.00 was the price - if you booked through Ticket Master. At the gate, the price was € 15.00! Many turned up and left in disgust at the "rip-off".
And what did you get for your money? 
Essentially, you got a provincial trade show with mostly garden and household stands and, if that was it, we'd all have been storming the cash desk to get our money back.
But the permanent gardens established over the last four years and in the centre acting almost like a hub, Rob Hopkin's attractive straw bale-house, raised the game sufficiently to stave off revolution. 
Another palliative was the Coom Mountain Co-op's (a West Cork alternative community) craft village and the surounding, ingeniously creative sculptures made from from recycled materials - prize-winners in a childrens' competition.
In the strong evening sunlight (it eventually came out against predictions), I had my best moments of the day photographing those dazzling sculptures - hard to believe that old cans and plastic bottles and other rubbish could be made so interesting and attractive. I hope to publish some photos on the site next week.
I almost forgot: the Chelsea prize-winning garden! 
In quarter scale, it didn't do it for me! Sorry.
But the Garden beside it did.
I made a strong connection with two green elves there to the strains of a harp and violin being played in an arbour. Only later when I met Ruth, the female elf, did I realise how good her costume, make-up and acting was. 
That lovely natural woodland garden was designed by the Collards, (Chelsea garden builders too) of Future Forests, Cork.

Steven in Santiago! My little brother has finally arrived in Santiago de Compostela after an adventurous four weeks.This leg of his 3,000 km journey to Ireland was very much a rugged one from the south, not following the well-established pilgrim roads of the northern route.
Both he and his horse, Colie, are taking a well-earned rest before continuing east towards Bilbao and Biarritz.
Sadly, he has nothing organic to report so far. 
Apart from having the adventure of his life, Steven is raising money for mental health charities. 
We have set up a bank account at Allied Irish Bank, Castletown Berehaven, Co.Cork - Steven's Spain to Ireland Charity Horse-ride, Acc.No. 30067094.
So, if you're feeling generous.........All substantial donations will be acknowledged and final distribution accounted for.
I may put up a web page for him and show off some of the great photos he's been sending me.

June 20th 2002

Eat more Fruit and Veg - at your peril! 
The most recent report of the UK's Pesticides Residues Committee makes depressing reading. As traditional strawberries-and-cream time arrives, we learn that UK-grown strawberries had illegal levels of the suspected hormone disrupter, Dicofel, in them. Milk showed no residues however - this time - so the cream may be OK!  97% of the fresh salmon tested had residues including DDT. Potato samples had Aldicarb residues - Aldicarb is described by the WHO as "extremely hazardous" etc etc. www.pesticides.gov.uk
But finally there is a substantial move in the right direction at least for the most vulnerable in our society - babies. The chairman of the PRC, Dr Brown recently expressed concern over the levels of pesticides in baby-food and in particular the "cocktail effect". Consequently, zero tolerance of residues in baby-food is to be introduced in the UK in July. Ireland?
On fresh fruit and vegetables, we have to use our own cop for the forseeable future! 
None of the organic samples showed residues. 
See Friends of the Earth's analysis of it all at: 
www.foe.co.uk/pubsinfo/infoteam/pressrel/2002/20020619165419.html

Organic Conference, Otley College, Suffolk, UK. The roving correspondent (mise) made it to the conference, courtesy of RyanAir, or more accurately, despite their incredible lack of courtesy (see below)! 
The hospitality and welcome offered by the organisers, Marina and Mark O'Connell was, in stark contrast to our Irish fly-by-night carrier, faultless. More importantly, the quality of the speakers, the challenging, intelligent questioners and the smooth running of the 3-day weekend was a model that much better-funded and so-called more prestigious organisations, could usefully follow. 
Great efforts to provide organic meals and tit-bits were made (which I firmly think is essential at an organic food event), with the last-day lunch, mostly provided by the regular students, a delight of home-grown salads and shop-bought organic products (I finally got to taste the Highgrove Estate Lemon Refresher - luvverly!).
The conference was stimulating, demanding, and gave all participants much to digest. It was also fun - and many participants connected extremely well - by work day and social evening. 
Finding organic beer however in the gorgeous, local Suffolk inns was impossible (what we settled for however was often delectable and I'm sure tastier than some organic ones) and even a trawl by Mark in a supermarket on Sunday turned up only a single bottle of Fuller's Organic Honey Dew. It was but poor consolation for the crate he was to get for me. I'd intended to treat the company after the Ireland/Spain match* 
Having met one of Britain's experts on organic beer at the conference, I will shortly, and finally (I promised this at the beginning of the year), have a list of the best organic beverages available - very few for Ireland though, I'm afraid.
More on the conference and links to on-line reports, in the next weeks. See Irish Rover item below for the list of speakers.

* I have yet to see the match! Although I couldn't resist watching the first half penalty. One heart attack later, I rejoined the afternoon seminar.
Developments in the game however, were kindly signed to me  - some of the English attendees couldn't drag themselves away from the TV. Such a lack of commitment!

No Go Joe. Irish Ag Min Joe Walsh, stalwart supporter of Irish agri-business, gets his old Ministry back. There was speculation that he was for the chop but it seems that powerful lobbying by business tycoons, including huge Coolmore Stud  owner, John Magnier (and incinerator objector -see Burning Questions below) persuaded the Taoiseach (PM) to retain Walsh. The intense lobbying is purported to have taken place practically on the steps of Leinster House (parliament) as Ahern was on his way in to announce the ministerial appointments.

NoeI, Noel... No, the louring sky is not driving me to fast-forward to Christmas, it is instead an announcement of one who is to come. Irish Junior Ag Min, Noel Davern (his brief included Organic Development) has lost his job and is replaced by Noel Treacy (of whom I will have more next week).
I'm sure that Davern's demotion to the back-benches has nothing to do with his support for the MBM-burning incinerator in his South Tippperary constituency - where Mr.Magnier's 7,000 acre stud farm is located. But if a word from the horse magnate could give a leg-up to old Joe .......?

And now for something completely different - the Incinerator. The professional campaigning by the Tipp. anti-incinerator groups has resulted in 17,000 objectors signing a petition.
The campaign now also describes how the dairy industry in the area might be affected.  More than 375 million gallons of milk are annually produced within a 40-mile radius of the proposed incinerator, we are told. A spokeswoman for the anti-incinerator group said that, "Both industries (horses and cows)....rely on protecting our clean air, soil and water". 
Has something dramatic happened to the intensive dairy industry in Ireland, that I haven't heard about? Is it really that clean? Is an organically reared horse equivalent to bloated Friesians on nitrogen-forced Italian Ryegrass? 
I'm not sure whether they are choosing the right stable mates there.
Lord Webber (Andrw Lloyd) who lives in palatial, nearby Kiltinan Castle is, along with 50 others, officially objecting to the incinerator to An Bord Pleanala (planning board).
(The composing peer, who lives in well-groomed, stud-farm country is obviously very keen to keep it that way - he also has an objection in to the board about a proposed local pub. The community organised a petition against the good Lord's objection. Get's confusing?).
As the South Tipperary Co.Manager considers what he is to say to the councillors next Monday, neighbouring Waterford Co. Council rejected a joint waste management plan for the South East Region by one vote last week. The plan included an incinerator. See Burning Questions last week

Chelsea in Ireland? No, not the Clinton version but the Chelsea Flower Show gold medal winner, Cork girl Mary Reynolds. She will be presenting a miniature version of her prize-winning garden, A Celtic Sanctuary, at the Mallow Garden Festival 2002 Show. Another feature of the event will be talks and demontrations by the straw-bale house builder, Rob Hoskins, whose straw house last year was the sensation of the show. 
There is much more to be seen and experienced at this very popular and attractive event and probaly worth every shilling - sorry cent - of the € 12.00 entry fee.The show at the Mallow racecourse runs Thurs. to Sunday this week. 
And yes, it'll be raining there too.
 
Note to organic farmer Michael Hickey, featured in the Irish Farmers Journal last week. Go again Michael, and this time don't turn back - it's worth the money!

Harvesting the Sun. As farmers struggle with unprecedented wet weather a bright future for solar energy is predicted at a conference today in Co.Kerry. The Brandon Hotel, Tralee is the venue for the See The Light - No Bills from the Sun Conference and Study Tour. It continues tomorrow. Information, 023 42193 and www.irish-energy.ie/reio.htm . 
The forecast is for rain, rain and more rain.

Look out - its RyanAir. Yesterday an Irish High Court judge disbelieved the evidence of Ryan Air boss, Michael O'Leary whom he described as "hostile, aggressive and bullying" and awarded damages of € 67,500 and costs to plaintiff June O'Keefe. O'Keefe had been awarded flights for life as the first millionth passenger on the airline back in 1988. RyanAir had then tried to severely curtail her privileges. 
There also was a suggestion yesterday that budget airlines were cutting safety corners 
On my way back from the Otley Organic Conference (my excuse for including this item) I and my fellow passengers suffered a multitude of delays and indignities at the hands of the low-cost airline. No frills we expect at the prices but unscheduled thrills - nose-dive landing in Cork etc.- and spills - we all had to traipse out onto the tarmac at Stansted and claim our luggage. 
We were sitting in the plane on the ground for over two hours! 
But there was also some great ironic humour from the beleagured passengers. 
But this isn't the place to say more about this - if any one wishes to hear the full story, I am writing it up at the moment and will email it by request..
Maybe it's time to start a Victims of Ryanair Support Group - if there isn't suchlike there already.

O'Connor Don Quixote. The brother continues his adventurous horse-marathon through Spain (see item 27th May in Archives). After four weeks he is now just a few days south of Santiago de Compostela.
The horse has been giving some grief and has shied and bolted twice so far. Colie, the brute - sorry - the horse, seems a tad work-shy as well and poor Steven has walked most of the 1,000 kilometres covered so far. 
They now both have foot problems and are resting-up in the border-town of Moncao(?). 
He was a little bemused at the swamping affection he had been getting from the Spanish since Sunday last - whenever he revealed himself as Irish. Being a rugger man and also not speaking Espanol, he was blissfully unaware of the fact that Spain stole the World Cup game from us at the weekend (our "unbeaten heroes" returned to a rapturous reception in Dublin - it hasn't occurred to anyone that Spain played a filthy game, didn't deserve to win and that at the very least, we should be boycotting all things Spanish - except perhaps their excellent 1994 Rioja). 
I will shortly have the mental health charity fund-raising account set up. Be ready with those cheques.

Organic GM Foods? I hear rumblings from the US that the organic movement there is "begrudgingly acknowledging" that a level of contamination of organic produce by GM material may be inevitable.
I am still receiving information on this. 

Super clean - not. Super cheap - not. Superquinn's six-week organic promotion goes on but the family owned business is having a bad week otherwise in PR terms. 
It was firstly fined for litter at its elite flagship store in Blackrock, Co. Dublin. Then the same store featured in a comparison of prices with an exclusive supermarket in St.Tropez - the basket in Superquinn was 21% dearer!
Ask UK visitors to Ireland what they think of our shop prices for food, drink and other household items?

June 11th 2002

G-o-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-l. That was the radio announcer's Brazilian-style roar today as Ireland scored its first of three goals against Saudi Arabia and went  through to the next round of the World Cup in Korea/Japan. I will be giving away my soccer blow-in status by saying this but, why did they not let those nice Saudis score just one teeny, weeny goal? The poor guys didn't get a single goal in the whole tournament and they seemed to be so anxious about it.
Anyway, Ireland is in a glorious carnival mood tonight and jumbo jets are being chartered by the hour - serious! - to add even more fans to the 15,000 already there. Interestingly, at the German/Ireland match, there were four times more Irish than Deutschers.That's the Celtic Tiger for you now. Organic? Ahmmmm ...Sushi? 

Burning Questions.
Q. If you have horses that collectively are worth 100s of millions of €s, what do you feed them with and how do you care for them?
  A (no-brainer) You, obviously, give them the best feed in the world and the finest care that money can buy.
It is a well-kept secret that the bloodstock industry in Ireland follows largely organic methods of farming. Organic hay, alfalfa and oats are flown in, mostly from the US and Canada and grazing rotations of livestock (to reduce parasites and provide the best grass for the horses) mimic the best of pre-industrial, agricultural methods.
In the 1940s and '50s, Friend Sykes, a UK horse-breeder, Quaker and organic pioneer, proved beyond doubt the worth of organic pastures and feed to the English post-war bloodstock industry. 
The astute trainer and breeder regards his out-of-print Sykes' books (see Publications page) like a Cabala . Even the almost-forgotten, wonder herb and fodder, Comfrey, is traditionally part of the bone-building regime used by top breeders (I have all kinds of insider, horse-lore that would be very useful if I ever wanted to set up as a breeder/trainer, again - don't hold your breath however - despite its glossy farms and its sleek, dark, Naomi Campbell-like,  beautifulI horses, I ain't convinced that it is a very ethical occupation, this so-called Sport of Kings).
The bloodstock industry in Ireland could be described as the largest organic industry in the world.
To the largest stud farm in the world, Coolmore in South Tipperary, Ireland, organic or near-organic methods are essential to the successful management of their 6,000 acres of Golden Vale, prime limestone farmland. Combined with ultra-expensive care - including physiotherapy provided in purpose-built horse jacuzzis - from highly paid, world-class vets, these methods give stud farms like Coolmore the fine edge they need to be top dog in the business.
The same applies to leading trainers like Aidan O'Brien, Tippperary (Epsom Derby 1st - and 2nd! last weekend).
Q. If an industrial development threatened to spew toxins all over your manicured estates, thus raising health doubts in the minds of horse-owners, what would you do?
A. This. Fight it tooth and nail. Thus both O'Brien and major Coolmore investor John Magnier, are funding the most elaborate environmental campaign ever seen in Ireland - to stop the building of just such a development - an industrial incinerator - in their area. 
Not because of the threat to their organic status, which in any case is not official (and they certainly don't shout it from the rooftops, for sound political and business reasons) but because they would lose huge value on their businesses, their properties and their horses.
The campaign, designed and managed by a professional public relations company and advised by environmental consultants, leads however on the threat to the environment and human-health issues. 
Mass meetings, staffed by many Coolmore employees, have been held and thousands are being mobilised to object to the planning permission for the incinerator. Although the facility will burn other wastes, it is the lurid image of  the hundreds of thousands of tons of BSE-suspect meat and bone meal, MBM, waiting to be burned, and its associated deadly dioxins and prions (not killed by burning) that is galvanising the local community. 
I should declare myself here - I am against incineration - I believe it is a last- ditch method of waste disposal - the one with the most hazards attached and discredited worldwide. 
It certainly should not be - as it is being proposed here in Ireland - the first option to deal with our communal problems of waste-creation. The gov., here as well as in the UK, desperate to avoid the crunching financial sanctions that will come from the EU if waste recycling targets are not met, sees the private incinerator sector as the only way to make up for the sloth of the past in the narrow time-window left. I think they both have another think coming!
The people of South Tippperary will not allow this development to go through.
Feelings are running high - very high. 
I have personal experience of Tipperary people's radicalism when they are so aroused - the Save Old Slievenamon, SOS, wind power-station campaign of the mid 1990s for example. It was fortunate that there were no bodies lying around after the high passions aroused at that time!
There is a tradition of radical action in the county. In the nineteenth century, South Tippperary, nicknamed "The Cockpit", was the scourge of the Empire for it's "Outrages" (see for example my Famine Justice link on the Home page). It was also at the centre of the Young Irelanders' rising in 1848 and later in the century many of the great Monster Meetings were held in the county. In 1918, the first shots in the War of Independence were fired in Tipperary. 
The people already feel their democratic rights have been trampled on by the shoddy way in which they claim the planning order was bum-rushed through by the County Manager - without even a councillors' vote, I've been told!
Once again the gov. are on a hiding to nothing with their desperate, last-minute environmental policies. Junior Ag Min (at least in the last gov - today's status not yet known) and member of the Dail (parliament) for South Tipperary, Noel Davern, is not flavour-of-the-month with his constituents after he started off the first meeting with, "Now listen lads, we have to have the incinerators somewhere..."
His non-attendance apology at the second public meeting was received with derision.
Although the elite, tax-haven, bloodstock industry, much-beloved by Charles Haughey (disgraced ex-Taoiseach [PM]) is not noted for its philanthropic or democratic impulses they are welcomed as powerful and substantial supporters to a citizens' movement. 
This passionate campaign may lead not just to the banning of an incinerator in Tipperary and the consequent shunting of it into somebody else's backyard but to an acceptance of community responsibility for the wastes we produce and to proposals to find working, recycling alternatives. 
A proposal that may go somewhere, at least in relation to the MBM disposal (it costs over € 300 per ton to pay Germany to burn it for us! The value to the Ronan company, renderers and developers of the incinerator project, could be € 60 million per year from this material alone!) is to apply MBM either directly, or following some processing, to the land as fertilizer. 
Bone meal and blood is an ages-old soil improver - and the prions aren't going to be destroyed anyway, so they say.
Equitably, each community would take it in proportion to their livestock numbers. South Tippperary, with its large farm-animal population would therefore have to accept thousands of tons.
Even Coolmore, who also produce many hundreds of cattle for slaughter each year, would, I'm sure, accept it's share of resposibility and spread the material on its broad acres.
They might also be persuaded to come out of the closet about their mostly organic, environmental practices and give us all a chance to have equal treatment, in terms of food quality at least - the jacuzzi can wait - to their pampered horses. 
It's an ill wind ......
The Coolmore/O'Brien/citizens' website is www.noincinerationsouthtipp.com. The Links page doesn't seem to work and a lot of the material in the site has been recycled (!) from other campaign sites like www.noincineration.com but it has at least one good quote: " (incineration)....advertises to the world that you are not clever enough, either politically or technically to recover your discarded resources in a manner which is responsible to your community or future generations" - Faqs page.
Although the developer has been fined for environmental enfringements in the past, a statement that, " Ronan's have an appalling environmental record" is a bit dodgy I would have thought. 
In the interest of balance I would have liked to recommend a pro-incineration site - but I couldn't find one! 
Perhaps contact the County Manager, South Tipperary, Noel Davern TD, The Dept of the Environment and the Dept. of Agriculture. Also try Google Search, 

For non-GM couch potatoes? Programmes on the BBC are causing considerable controversy in the UK. A two-part drama, Fields of Gold, is a story about DNA from GM crops crossing over into animals and humans - the horror of Horizontal Gene Transfer (can it happen? See, www.i-sis.org.uk/contdenhgt.php). 
The pro-GM lobby are frothing at the mouth over the series which is co-written by Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger and the novelist Ronan Bennett. They were shown on BBC1, last Saturday and Sunday. 
Then there is Bitter Harvest: three broadcasts, Out of Eden, Bitter Harvest and On the Eight Day, which trace the beginnings of GM in California in 1972 through to the present day.They are scheduled, respectively, 16th, 23rd and 30th June on BBC 2, 8pm. See the lively debates on www.ngin.org.uk ,and
www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,725120,00.html
If anyone has a video of these I would appreciate the loan.
Nothing to do with the above programmes I believe, but the UK Royal Society, which had been very pro-GM (it infamously crucified the Hungarian-born Dr Pusztai for his research that indicated rats developed cancers after been fed GM potatoes) has just announced that it is going to call for an investigation into the claimed benefits of GM tests and for "greater honesty with the public". At last! At long last. Blair listen! 

Not the end of the affair. The source of the pesticide Nitrofen that contaminated German organic chicken meal has finally been traced to a former east German warehouse used to store large amounts of pesticides and other chemicals. As German officials suggest that the contamination might have originated as far back as 1999 and involved conventional feedstuffs, the Belgian government is bringing in emergency measures to ban all German imports of animal and human food unless accompanied by a guarantee that it has no Nitrofen in it.

The Irish Rover. There are so many organic trade shows and conferences around these days (not so plentiful in Ireland though) that you would be addled and broke trying to get to even a selection of them. But I like the sound of this one, and I might send over, at enormous expense, my roving correspondent, to cover it: Organic Food and Health, Otley College, Ipswich, Friday 14th June. Speakers: Laurence Woodward, OBE, Elm Farm Research Centre: Dr Vandana Shiva - by satellite link from India - Anne Marie Mayer, topic, Nutritional Quality of Food - What do we know?, Andrew Whitley,Village Bakery, Cindy Engel, author of Wild Health and Clive Peckham, whose subject is Organic Food on the School Menu. A good line-out on a small budget! Contact, mjoconnell@otleycollege.ac.uk  and www.otleycollege.ac.uk 

The case for oganic strengthens. The world's longest-running experiment in comparing organic and conventional farming side-by-side has pronounced chemical-free farming a success. "We have shown that organic farming is efficient, saves energy, maintains biodiversity and keeps soils healthy for future generations," says Paul Mader of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Frick, Switzerland, which carried out the 21-year study. This report is an important one for the confidence of the organic sector - it must be, Trewavas fires broadsides at it! 

These people (and myself) are not certified! They are not mad either, and they are a growing breed completely side-lined by the recent Organic Report. The Heubachs, a German couple living in West Cork, grow everything naturally, and scrupulously ethical, without being organic certified. They offer a wide range of potted herbs and flower arrangements from their stall at Macroom (Tuesdays am) and the Coal Quay in Cork City on Saturdays. 
Caroline Robinson, at her very popular fruit and vegetable stall, sells a range of produce from her own gardens and those of friends. Caroline, like the Heubachs, is un-certified but I, and many others, trust her produce completely. Her customers also enjoy the experience of dealing with the knowledgeable grower/activist ex-teacher Caroline. Coal Quay, Cork City, Saturdays. Usually sold out by lunch-time - you have been warned.

Burning Bush.The Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency released a report last week, quietly and without any fanfare, acknowledging that global warming not only exists, but that it has us on a path to certain disaster. The EPA even offered a solution - get used to it.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-07g.asp