March 30th 2004 
Say cheese! Say raw milk cheese! Having met several of our organic and craft cheese producers at Kenmare last Sunday, I was interested to hear from Michael Strauss in California that his www.beyondorganic.com site will feature a radio discussion Raw Milk Cheese - Scapegoat or Sacred Cow?  tomorrow. Check it on his website today - it is advertised to begin live at 10 am but that's PST (Pacific Standard Time). Not to worry though if you don't get it live, as it will be archived on the site anyway. 
Incidentally, somebody recently tried to persuade me black and blue (!) that Cashel 
Blue cheese was a sheep's cheese. No! Absolutely not!  Cashel Blue is unequivocally a cow's cheese. The confusion arose, in my adamant friend's mind, probably, because the Grubbs do make a sheep's cheese on behalf of their neighbour and relative, Clifton Brown, at their plant in Tipperary. It is branded as Crozier Blue, and a lovely cheese it is too. 
Still on the subject of cheese, it was good to meet Olga again, and her lesser half for the first time (he calls my news "spiky"!) of Knockatee Organic Dairy, Tuosist, Beara Peninsula. You may remember me raving about their cheese last year, especially when they were so readily available at the Fair Day market in Castletownbere (sadly, no longer). The hard-working couple, hosted 45 visitors on Saturday last - one of the tours of the Slow Food Weekend.

No boners* here!  It was good to finally meet, in the flesh as it were, Jens Krumpe, the producer behind Terryglass Organics, Tipperary. He too was in Kenmare at the weekend and doing a lively trade with everybody else. His speciality is Angus beef, hung in the traditional way, on-the-bone for 21 days, to produce succulent and tender meat. He also does  pork, chicken and eggs. Jens attends some farmers' markets but can deliver countrywide also. Having been through the mill with the other Irish certifying bodies, IOFGA and the Organic Trust, Jens is now finally content in the arms of the Demeter Standards. Contact Jens Krumpe, tel., 090 97 47341, mobile; 087 6597313. Email; terryglassorganics@eircom.net. 

* 'Boners', as you all probably know, is a N.Z. slang word for 'downers' which is an American slang word for downed, sick animals in the slaughter house yard, suitable only for pies and sausages. There's an Irish word for them too, but I just can't think of it at present. Help?

Smoke without fire The Ferguson family from West Cork were prominent exhibitors in Kenmare too, with their cheeses and smoked meat products, sold under the Gubbeen label. 
I have in the past tried their smoked, free-range, dry-cured ham and bacon. Delicious! And good value too. Because, even if on the face of it, they are more expensive per kilo, read on. Have you ever wondered when trying to fry a rasher these days what the white scummy muck is that oozes out? Well, that's the injected brine and gel that the modern industrialised method of curing bacon uses. It can account for up to 60% of the weight! Don't believe me? Check with higher powers than me - talk to the Food Detective at food.detective@thetimes.co.uk.
Contact the Fergusons for cheese; gubbeencheese@eircom.net 
and meat; smokehouse@eircom.net 

March 29th 2004 
Slow Food does brisk business in Kenmare The square in the pretty, estate town of Kenmare in Co. Kerry yesterday was the scene of one of the liveliest food markets ever seen in the south west. Part of the Slow Food Weekend, it attracted hundreds of shoppers, visitors and locals (especially after midday Mass). Even the heavy downpours didn't dampen the enthusiasm of customers as they tasted  venison stew flavoured with chocolate (a Sicilian recipe), raw-milk Milleens cheese from Beara (fluently explained by Quinlan Steele), barbecued lamb's tongue, Skellig Chocolates (helpless chocoholic that I am, I sampled a champagne and brandy truffle whilst the smoked mackeral from a previous stall was still being masticated), and so much else. Shopppers were titillated with many samples to graze on and producers were kept more than sweet with the many, subsequently converted sales. 
Remember, this was a wet Sunday in March! Lent for Crissakes!
There is something exciting afoot! 
I will have more to say on this at a near-future time.
The social chit-chat at stalls was also a great part of the attraction. It is perhaps too early for feed-back from the weekend to come in but I was particularly curious about the Presidia Dinner (€ 80 for non-members at the Park Hotel) on Saturday night. One man thought it was "tremendous" but he was more impressed by the "€ 50.00 (guessed) bottles of wine" he got "free" with the meal. A lady from Dublin, however, unswayed by the free, Febvre-supplied wine was not bowled over by the "Kerry Beef" (Kerry Blue or just off-the-shelf from the local butcher is not clear) "tired vegetables" and Wild Atlantic Salmon. She "expected more from a 5 star hotel".

Click here for the magazine article by yours truly on the past, present and future of the organic movement in Ireland.

Coming  - Tipperary Environment Conference, The Irish Times article "Looking for organic growth" by Gretchen Friemann and a major overhaul of the Markets section of the Where to buy... page - please contact me with any details of markets old, markets new and market news. 

Quote of the week GM crops are not science. They are technological products of science. To claim, as Tony Blair and several senior scientists have done, that those who oppose GM are "anti-science" is like claiming that those who oppose chemical weapons are anti-chemistry. George Monbiot, Guardian, 9th March. www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1165076,00.html 

March 26th 2004
Into the west for Slow Food  Oops, I almost unforgiveably forgot! The Slow Food movement, that magnificent half-way, designer house to organic - "the glue between producers and consumers" as they describe themselves, is having its annual weekend bash just over the hills from me in Kenmare, Co.Kerry. See www.slowfoodireland.com for all the details. 
It's a slickly organised programme, with tastings, excursions to local craft food producers (two led by Darina Allen and John McKenna), workshops, music, dancing and of course eating.
So, get going, the opening cocktail party is at the 5 star Park Hotel at 7.00 pm.
If any of you organic types get there, you might later answer for me the question posed on the SF's website: "When we pay considerably more for an organic chicken is that a guarantee that it was farmed in good conditions with plenty of room to roam free; or does it just mean the chicken was reared on organic feed?"
 
...and social good  And for those of you with less-deep pockets and tastes for champagne and cocktails, don't forget the .corksocialforum.utvinternet.com or hone 026 47352 for details.

Later this week - a full report on the Celebrating the Environment conference in Tipperary - hopefully with photographs.

March 20th 2004
The Country Small Holding article  At long last you, that didn't do the noble thing of buying the UK magazine last September, can at last have a gander at my 3,000 word article Ireland, Land of Contrasts. This is with the kind permission of the editor Diane Cowgill. Just remember that the article was pitched at a British audience. Click here

UK GM approval could cause constitutional crisis There are royal shenanigans in the UK following S.S. Environ. Maggie Beckett's decision last week to allow the growing of GM maize for cattle feed there. The Scotland and Wales independent (!) assemblies were threatening at one stage to veto approval but a pro-GM vote was squeezed through in the Scottish parliament by one vote, and that only by a fluke. Wales has taken a strong stance so far against approving GM crops but the gov.needing the Welsh vote is engaged in 'bullying' behind the scenes and the situation remains fluid. See www.gmwatch.org for the latest news. 
Talk of a constitutional crisis is in the air as well as revolution in the ranks. Alan Simpson, MP for Nottingham South has joined with almost 3,000 other notables in undertaking to participate in the destruction of GM crops by signing the radical Green Gloves Pledge. The Pledge reads: "If the UK government gives the go-ahead to commercialise the growing of GM crops against the overwhelming wishes of the British public, I pledge to non-violently remove GM crops from the ground or support those who take action to remove GM crops". 
Far be it for me to foment the taking of extreme action in a neighbouring state but if you would like to go public with your support, the Green Gloves Pledge can be signed online at www.greengloves.org

This is what acceptance of even the limited approval of GM maize for animal feeding would result in, according to a recent article in the Independent: "Contamination (from GM) could also spell ruin for organic farmers, who rely on selling unmodified produce free of chemicals. Once the genes had spread - for example through pollen carried from nearby GM crops - they would no longer be able to sell their food as organic. In time, organic agriculture would become impossible..." http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=498685

A right royal affair There may be further royal shenanigans at Lismore Castle, in Co.Waterford this weekend as the Organic Prince himself is spending the weekend there with Camilla Parker Bowles. They and other elite guests are attending the 60th birthday party of a friend. Few details are available but there will be a twelve course banquet, I have discovered. 
Think of it; if the Prince of Wales insists on the feast being organic, there could be a dearth of organic produce in Munster for some time to come.

Ceilliúradh '04 - Celebrating the Environment Just to remind you that this conference at the Tipperary Rural and Business Development Institute, Thurles starts this Sunday and continues to Tuesday 23rd March. For full details go to their website www.Tippinst.ie or phone Maureen Ryan at 0504 28000. 

Cork Social Forum are hosts to a Weekend of Creative Dialogue on the theme of Who Governs? Let's take responsibility at the community Hall, Ballinhassig, Co. Cork. See  www.corksocialforum.utvinternet.com or hone 026 47352 for details.

March 17th 2004 
Lá Fhéile Phadraig - St. Patrick's Day 
A happy, Green day to all of you. 
Many argue that the date should be changed to a more summery one, but no one  can complain today - it is a beautiful morning here on Beara, and, I believe, throughout the country.
Even if, as some believe, St. Paddy wasn't all he's cracked up to be, or existed at all (see St. Patrick ) - we'd have to invent something like him to give us the excuse for a day of exultant, nationalistic and cultural fervour, like everybody else. 
My mother, bless her, was an expert at shamrock-gathering. She looked very severely on anyone with the tell-tale white spots of clover on their "shamrock". She used to say (in the 60s!) that it was getting more difficult to find the real thing because of artificial fertilizers. How much more difficult it must be today. 
Where does the dear little shamrock come from these times?
Is it all clover? 
Or is it grown in China, as someone recently told me? 
Which or whether, joy of the day to all who are Irish or empathize with us wherever in the world you may be.
And let's hope that Ireland will some day be a Glas nation once again.

March 15th 2004
Ireland beats England  Eight decades on since independence and still it's always so sweet when we do slip one over on, or do something better than, the 'old enemy'. (What is that expression about revenge? "Best tasted when cold"). And not that it's such a rare occasion anymore; we've so much to crow over these days that one is spoiled for choice - we've out-sung them, out-danced them, (outraged?), outraced them, (horses - some of the time anyway), out-performed England economically, culturally, in literature and so on. And now we beat  'perfidious Albion' (and incidentally the rest of the world) in introducing a brave new ban on smoking. 
From the 29th of this month it will be illegal to smoke in any workplace in the Republic. 
There have been screams of protest from the main drug (alcohol and tobacco) peddlers, the publicans and their representatives, and in the case of the infamous Cloth Cap King himself, country publican and member of the Dáil (parliament) for Kerry South, Jackie Healy-Rae, threats of outright rebellion (searches in Google News will tell you all about JH-R and the debate generally).
But it is something genuinely to be proud about, to celebrate, and it is all much to the credit of the beleagured Min. Health, Micheál Martin (Min.in an otherwise much-discredited administration).
Unprecedented numbers have already given up smoking and huge amounts are going through the throes of withdrawal in these last few weeks before the interdict. And the great thing is that most are using the ban and the associated stigma of being a social leper - sucking the fag in spartan shelters or kerbsides - as the stick to beat themselves out of this pernicious addiction. It seems that fashion, 'coolness', will be the ultimate dragon slayer of the tobacco habit. 
The eyes of the world are upon us. Let us not let them down. 
And above all, from our point of view, let not those with the grace of organic religion be seen to be wanting (for there is some suspicion that smoking, and especially of the lethal, do-it-yourself, Rizla 'rolly' type, was endemic amongst the organic 'early adaptors') in leading the race to abandon tobacco and its 4,000 + chemical toxins (as  I flick the dandruff off my halo, I can boast that finally, last November, after countless stop/go attempts, I have given the weed the boot). 
And of course, vis-á-vis our ex-colonial masters, there is the question of rugby! At least of very recent rugby!
I cycled into Castletownberehaven after the last update of this page and watched titanic Ireland's glorious sportsmen, Brobdingnagly beat (there was a run on superlatives in the many panegyrics since the victory - these were all that was left) the World Champions in their own, gilded Twickers cage. Our famous McCarthys Bar, deep in conservative GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association - promoter of the native games of hurling and Gaelic football) territory, never rocked so loud to a 'foreign game' before. 

In vino organicus veritas*  There are very few labourers in the organic vineyard in Ireland and I'm sure there are no fortunes to be made there, especially given our dreadful ratings in the organic league table and the draconian** excise duties and other taxes on our wine imports (Why so you may well ask? I suspect there are stout and spirited reasons!).
But there are always stalwart souls about ready to take on the Sisyphean task of doing ethical, small-scale business in our beloved, rule-and-support-the-powers-that be-bound isle. 
And two such are the Tobler's, husband-and-wife team, Urs (Swiss) and Helen (Irish) who established Vendemia Wines in 2002. Ethically-driven to the core, they only offer near-European wines from France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland, on the premise that 'it seems fair to support those closer to home and is more caring for the environment.' 
I'm glad to hear from them too that I was not the only one that had been often disappointed with the organic wines on offer in Ireland. They agree that many of the early wines imported were 'somewhat vinegary' and over-priced. With the rapid progress in research and experience in organic vinification, however, the Toners firmly  believe that there is now good quality out there and at reasonable prices. 
I, for one, am prepared to believe them and will soon try some of their labels.
They mainly sell through their website www.vendemiawine.com and at some farmers' markets - Kilkenny, Wednesday morning - Leopardstown, Friday and Pearse Street on Saturdays. Or simply phone them at 056 70225.

 *I hope this is right; my five years of second-level Latin in Catholic school only left me with a smattering of Gregorian chant, the Pater Noster and Confiteor (in full, mind you) from the Tridentine Mass liturgy, and a sub-rosa patois for use on the odd occasion that I met up with fellow refugees. 

** The excise duty on every bottle of wine - regardless of value -  is around €2.20. There is VAT then on top of that. Interestingly too, the excise on champagne is around €4.00 a bottle but it is the same on sparkling wine -  even if it cost only €2.00 per 75cl!  And when you think that some champagnes, like Dom Perignon or Crista,l can cost over €100.00 a bottle, it's not exactly a level playing field, is it? 

March 6th 2004  
Wales beats Ireland  As the clash between Ireland and England in the Six Nations Cup looms this afternoon, this headline may seem to be a touch out-of-date - and downright inaccurate! But don't penalise me, yet, I'm just being funny; I'm not referring to the "ruffians' game" ("played by gentlemen" of course) at all - I'm talking about the extent to which the Principality of Wales is scoring against us here (Ireland, for those who haven't figured out that this .com emanates from the region of .ie) in the anti-GMO stakes. The First Secretary of Agriculture, Rhodri Morgan (Labour) said last month that the National Assembly (of Wales) would do all that was legally possible to restrict genetically modified crops in Wales. It was a matter of doing what UK and EU legislation allowed to prevent organic crops being polluted by GM crops, he continued. Whilst allowing that consumers' "freedom of choice" is a first principle, the Ag.Min. insisted that "preventing contamination and cross pollination of organic crops was equally as important." 
Several county councils (including that of my favourite county, Cornwall) in the UK have also voted to be GM-free areas. 
Is it beyond imagination that our Ag. Min and councils would do likewise? And if so, why so, do you think? 

Franz shows his hand  If any one was in doubt about where EU Ag. Comm. Franz Fischler, stands with regard to GM crops, listen to what he had to say in England a few weeks ago. Defending the motion "Free trade is fair trade" at the Oxford Union, he was asked what he thought of Britain being on the point of authorising the growing of GM maize; "I don't see any reason any more for a moratorium. We are at the beginning of a new technology ... I think this will become more and more the normal way to breed new varieties." 
So, for those of you that think the bluff Franz is in bed (metaphorically speaking of course) with the likes of his Green country-woman Renate Kunast (Min Ag Germany).......
(could nay find the text of this speech on the web, not in usual places like   http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.submitqry=qry&stockqry=fischler&owner=en where FF's speeches are usually nested. The Oxford Union debate was on 4th Feb.

See more on FF, in slippery mode, below:  European Pre Action Plan Hearing  Jan 19th, Paradise Lost  23rd Jan and Organic side-by-side with GM  2nd December.

"Voodoo" Lord raises the spectre of GMOs being blocked by blind opposition from activists and the organic movement  Lord Richard Taverne has come to life again to hound the opponents of GMOs. "Blind opposition to GM crops is the triumph of dogma over reason" he says in an article in the Guardian this week. He continues in this way to round up the usual suspects - "The strongest argument in favour of developing GM crops is the contribution they can make to reducing world poverty, hunger and disease." Blah, blah, etc, etc... http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,1160749,00.html 

Lord Taverne is chair of Sense About Science - see  http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=151] - and author of The March of Unreason, published  November last. 
And for lots more goodies on him see,  http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=127&page=T 

There was a lively response in Thursday's Guardian Letters columns; "Noble ideas about feeding the world are being used to cloak ambitions of economic dominance. In the case of GM foods the objective is quite simple - corporate monopoly of seed supplies.... eradication of any maverick species spawned as a consequence of the market imperative (is impossible). Scientists can only claim true success in any GM adventure when they can demonstrate not only satisfactory performance of their products but also infallible means of destroying any pathogenic offspring. The government is using a pseudo-scientific justification of GM to conceal its acquiescence to global, corporate control of key food supplies - a policy with truly catastrophic potential."
Prof Roy Butterfield
Southampton University

You will remember that the lordly Dick was the fellow that infamously called organic farming "voodoo science" some time back. Organic farming is based on the proposition that natural pesticides are good and synthetic ones are bad. It is "back to nature". In the days when our food was as natural as any organic farmer could possibly wish, people died like flies. It is voodoo science. 
Follow the full text of the speech in the Hansard record of the House of Lord's debate. http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200102/ldhansrd/vo020130/text/20130-04.htm 

Indeed you might find some of the other peers' contributions educational as well. I'd suggest Lord Plumb (plum daft!), the Lord Bishop of Hereford, "I do not support organic food because it is nutritionally or environmentally better; I support it because of the available market that is not being met" and Baroness Byford, "...all outlets above a certain size to provide a minimum space for locally produced food". Watch out for interesting terms such as "food deserts", "human miles" and a quote from a prominent Irish businessman Niall Fitagerald (chairman of Unilever) " ...Would we prefer the precautionary principle or a plate of fish and chips?"