Water springs eternal. I had a call yesterday, 21st May, from a crowd, Galtee Spring Water Filter Systems or somesuch. They are offering to test my water for free! Been waiting long for such an offer. They are going to find me by Sat-Nav, if you don't mind. They will have to wait, like everybody else outside the graveyard on the 'top road' to be collected and guided in by me. Sat-Nav me b......s!
Will be very interested though to see the analysis of my 'Power Water'. Power Water, for those not in the know, is rainwater from a certain direction, and other special conditions like hail and when there's thunder about, gathered in a stainless steel tank with special mineral stones. I gather another flavour in a beach-combed mussel barrel (very special - my Grand Crú). I will be glad to pass on the details of 'making' this uber-H2o on payment of €5,000 in cash or vouchers for Aldi and Lidl organic fruit and vegetables - the best and the cheapest in Ireland, apart from my own of course. I will be back in the markets again this year - the signs are propitious.
They, Galtee Cheese, whatever, did not ask me where my supply comes from.

Food Markets. The amazing expansion of food markets in Ireland continues and I must get down to putting a conprehensive list together for this site (would anyone volunteer to do this?). Even my local town, Castletownbere, has one since last week. It will be held on Thurdays and Fridays on the lovely back terrace of our local excellent restaurant and 'eco emporium', Loop de Loop.

Famine. Those of you that have read my thesis on the Famine may be interested in a film-for-TV coming out next September. Summer of Sorrows is the story of emigration from Ireland to Canada in 1847. Watch out for great scenes on the Jeanie Johnson and for myself, my son Senan and friends. I play the part of a beggar musician playing/singing the sean nós version of Sliabh na mBan. Not to be missed! See www.tilefilms.ie

Food miles debate generates more heat than light.
Local is good and food from afar is bad. The longer the trot to the market place, the worse the environmental impact. It's simple, self-evident, easily grasped. It's been the mantra of many of us now for the best part of two decades. Well, we may have to revise our smug little chant in the light of new findings. How about this? Lamb from New Zealand has only one sixth of the environmental impact that UK lamb has even after travelling 14,000 miles by sea to the consumer in the UK! Or this? Again to the UK Consumer; tomatoes from Spain may have half the carbon cost of British-grown tomatoes. There is much more of this to come when new methods of measuring the whole impact of a foodstuff are applied. In my opinion, these measurents LCA - Life Cycle Assessment and GWP - Global Warming Potential are long overdue and should bring a new realism to the debate over food miles. Defra and others in the UK are piloting the measurements and trying to come up with suitable consumer labelling that would carry the new information.
But you needn't choke back the mantra completely yet; air miles, for almost everything, are still in the sin-bin. And we have to work out the LCAs and GWPs for organic food at home and abroad. Some of this is going to be very interesting. Consider organic meat: organic cattle, it could be argued, exude (you know what I mean!) more methane and nitrous oxide in a longer production cycle than conventional cattle and thus have a higher GWP. Ergo .......?
Read more in article by Richard Woods at www.timesonline.co.uk

Box schemes. I welcome (in almost every case) information about box schemes and farmers's markets and am glad to include details on the well-used Where to Buy page. The markets are well covered nowadays too in the relatively new website, www.irelandmarkets.com. The bi-monthly Organic Matters magazine, apart from being an excellent read (it gets better and better, see the most recent issue March/April in the shops now. It's heartening to see it is getting a goodly amount of advertising these days), also lists organic markets in Ireland.
Would Norman Kenny, with a box-scheme in Kildare, please contact me. We seem to have a wrong telephone number for him. Many thanks to the vigilant coresponents who keep me on the straight and narrow in regard to accuracy.

Volunteer web content provider needed. If anybody would like to help me compile a definitive guide to farmers' markets, and box schemes, and shopping recommedations for the best value in organic food, near-organic and otherwise healthy options...........

Chickens are in the firing line again with drops in sales resulting from the English bird flu scare/scandal. But organic chickens are coming in for a pasting too - if for different reasons. A Sunday Times article (18/02/'07 News section) - Shoppers in organic bird 'con' - claims that organic chickens are being bred in conventional flocks, kept in large indoor densities, fed chemically-treated feed and routinely given vaccinations - i.e. not very much different from the abysmal conventional production methods. And at prices twice as much (for Ireland read, three times as much!) as for conventional poultry. And all because the big guys have pressured the Soil Association in the UK to dilute standards says the article. Not that our own lot are immune to such pressures (and ignorance - copper sulphate for one) either.
Lesson; don't buy your organic chickens or eggs from supermarkets. Source local small-scale organic producers by word-of-mouth and through farmers' markets. QED. But don't ask conventional butchers about the source of chickens - they will say something like; 'Sure we only sell Irish chicken from down the road' a statement I overheard in the English Market in Cork last week. The labelled bird was from a well known gigantic producer.
There is generally a growing scepticism afoot in Ireland about organic food (see also the article immmediately below on beef and lamb) and prices, especially in supermarkets. In the same issue of the newspaper, Sarah Carey asks - whilst shopping in supermarkets - if organic is 'a consumer trap or the real thing?' She further comments that 'supermarket organic produce has gimmickry written all over it'. She, like me, is 'happier with food from farmers' markets, where the product is genuinely local'. And now there is no excuse as farmers' markets are everywhere.
Questions should also be asked of those who put (or should put) themselves up as spokespersons for the organic cause. Where were they, for example, when Gerry Ryan's ex-Teagasc 'potato expert' guest was knocking organic spuds for six a few weeks ago. I only entered the fray the following day when I was told about the item (I don't normally listen to 2FM) and there wasn't a peep from the organic sector. If it wasn't for the excellent Organic Matters magazine and the stalwarts in farmers' markets and those doing box schemes you wouldn't think there was an organic movement in Ireland at all at all

Wedneday 25th April 2007
We here on the beautiful, unspoilt (relatively speaking - as yet!) Beara Peninsula are about to find out if we have a political base to support a Green Party candidate in the forthcoming general election. Quentin Gargan, environmentalist and anti-GM campaigner, formerly of Dublin and now living in Kealkill, will be pressing the flesh and demonstrating his all-electric van in Castletownbere next Fair Day, Thursday 3rd May. The local Green Party will also host a showing of Al Gore's film on climate change in the Cametringane Hotel on Wed 9th May. For further details on this and more about the candidate see www.quentingargan.com.
There will also be a unique opportunity here in West Cork to check all the TD hopefulls on their environmental credentials.TV enviro-celeb Duncan Stewart will host a Q & A-style debate at the West Lodge Hotel in Bantry on Monday next 30th April. 'The south-west region is going to have its particular challenges, and we want to hear from our politicians how they are going to manage the changes that are coming down the line” Duncan says.

Slow Food is fast-track to good, healthy food production and consumption - and of course marketing, especially through farmers' markets.
Tonight, RTE 1 presents the first in a new 8-part series, Fresh From The Farmers' Markets at 7.30pm. Presented by Clodagh McKenna, idefatigable campaigner for Slow Food, organics and instigator of many of our recent farmers' markets. She will visit markets and producers and then concoct dishes from the acquired ingredients. Her culinary (and food politics?) skills derive from being at first a student at Ballymaloe and later a chef. This first installment will feature visits to Cork markets and farmers. As last week's Sunday Times has it; 'Less food porn, more a bracing walk with wellies'.
How green is our valley (or Peninsula)?

Saturday 28th October 2006
Irish conventional beef and lamb 'no different from organic' This was the tenor of replies to the Irish radio programme, Today with Pat Kenny (RTE Radio 1, 10am to 12, weekdays) after Kenny (rather unfairly, I think, nicknamed 'The Plank') had featured organics on the popular magazine programme on Thursday. The general reaction, as gleaned by myself - admittedly only from what was quoted on the programme the following day - was hostile to organics coming both from the compere himself and the public. At least two contactees slagged off the organics industry as 'only being able to market themselves by casting aspersions on conventional producers'. How dare they, indeed! As we all know (especially from the Bord Bia fairy tales - remember my wee campaign to remove their lying, if poetic, description of the background to Irish food).

Mushroom Clouds of Chemicals But the organic guys and gals didn't have to cast very far - if they were in the casting game at all - as yesterday the Today programme featured a major investigation into one of the main players in the Irish mushoom industry, Shannonside. If the allegations made - about, among other things, the use off illegal chemicals - are true then there are very serious questions to be answered by the Dept of Agriculture (who gave generous grants to the company), Bord Bia (who blesssed the firm with several Quality Assurance Scheme awards) and the Food Safety Authority (who claimed it was not their business at all but the Dept. of Agriculture's).
Working practices and conditions at Shannonside Mushrooms, as described by ex-employee Mrs Flynn, were quite shocking. Little or no regard was paid to the safety of employees or indeed to consumers. Furthermore, pay vastly below the legal minimum was the order of the day and deductions of PAYE tax from, for example, a grossly under-paid Eastern European were shown not have been passed on to the govt.
But it is the abuse of banned, carcinogenic chemicals and the seemingly wanton exposure of staff and the public to banned toxins that should be the main issue.
At the very least, the health status of everybody working in the allegedly polluted environments on the premises should be checked.
In the meantime, it is certain that the govt., the industry and the supermarket customers of Shannonside will do their absolute minimum to deal with the problem. However, consumers listening to this sorry tale should know what to do - Exercise your ancient right of Boycott! There should be no place in our country for rogue companies that take risks with you and your children's health.
Get the point Pat?
See the irony of your own position this week?
It is because of the sort of abuses catalogued yesterday by you that we are involved in promoting organic and thus safe food and environmentally sound farming practices.

If you missed the above, you can listen to it all on www.rte.ie. Follow the links to the Today programme.

Saturday 14th October 2006
A Class Act!
Tonight in the mediaeval-walled town of Fethard, Co.Tipperary, better known today as the home of Coolmore Stud and Andrew Lloyd Webber, a grand bunch of 60-year-old fellas are getting together to celebrate a famous victory. In 1963, the tiny, local Patrician Brothers High School (total student population then, just over 100 and, in those ultra-segregated days, all boys) put out a hurling team that defeated the mightiest schools and colleges in the province of Munster to gain the much-coveted Dr Kinnane Cup. The win, against massive odds, had a lot to do with the captaincy of the obstinate and indestructible Dinny Burke, today a senior teacher in the much larger and desegregated school) a young monk called Paulinus, who was the trainer, and total dedication - indeed fanaticism - and support from the whole school, pupils and teachers alike. The concentration on winning got so intense that in order to strengthen the team reprobates and rebels (of which I was one) were drafted in and speed-trained for the job in hand. It was edge-of-your-seat stuff when the final was drawn and there had to be a replay. The drama was played out in Thurles Stadium on a cold and blustery October day. By the final whistle we had won, if only by the proverbial skin-of-our-teeth. It wasn't until I saw the bonfires on the approaches to Fethard and the crowds greeting us that the magnitude of what we had achieved came home to me.
I would have liked to have been there tonight to share in the celebration. Apparently the Kinnane Cup has been borrowed for the night and I'm sure it will be filled and emptied several times and with stronger stuff than the Cidona we were allowed in '63.
I will raise a glass here tonight to be with them in spirit and to remember our distant great achievement. I will also sadly recall one of our number who has passed on, Paul Raleigh.
We had some good times - in hard times.

New to the market See the Where to Buy page for two new (well, one's a year old) farmers' markets in Dublin. The other is so new that it's not even open yet. Launching next Thursday in Dublin 4, the latter will have a saxophonist to entertain the shoppers. Springing from the organisers of these markets, there is also a new Dublin-area box scheme.

Nuclear to solve the world's energy problems? I have been reading James Lovelock's most recent book, The Revenge of Gaia. Whilst his controversial, apparent shift to advocating nuclear power has been seen by greens in general in the last few months as a 'betrayal', this world-class scientist's thoughts and proposals, in this his 86th year, are worthy of deep consideration. Lovelock was the darling of the environment movement for the last 25 years. His (and his co-author Lynn Margulis) Gaia hypothesis was welcomed as a sort of cuddly New Age concept when it first saw the light of media coverage back in the early 1970s. Few however took the trouble to delve into the detail of the idea and follow the development of the professor's thought in the interim e.g. Gaia hypothesis evolving into Gaia theory. If they had they may not be so trigger-happy today with their quick condemnations. The book makes the striking claim to be a last-minute wake-up call for our civilization! It will make many uncomfortable, including the organic movement and the advocates of alternative energy, especially wind power stations. It is, in my opinion, a must-read for anyone seeking clarity about our macro environmental problems and solutions to them. I cannot claim that I understand all the science therein but the brilliance, conviction and sincerity of the man are transparent.
See other stuff about Lovelock and his connection to Hungry Hill in the Archived Weekly News - use the Search function when online.

Wed 21st June 2006
News Flash Percy Schmeiser, the doughty Canadian farmer sued by Monsanto over alleged use without license of GM seeds is giving a talk tonight (Wed) in West Cork. He will be at the Quality Inn, Clonakilty at 8.00 pm. Check my Archived Weekly News 
Coming soon:a review of farmers' markets in Ireland; the gross(ery!) hypocricy of Tesco; exploitation of WWOOFers and more.

Thursday 6th April 2006
The Soil Association battles against EU regs on GMOs and organic standards
The European Commission have just come out with a proposal to amend the Regulation that governs organic farming and food in the EU. We are totally opposed to this proposal, which is a major threat to the integrity of organic food in the UK.Our key concern is that the proposal would allow GM contamination of organic food that would risk nearly one in a hundred mouthfuls being GM. The EU would allow routine contamination of organic products with up to 0.9% GM, with no need to label the product as containing GM or giving any information to consumers. This is in line with the desire of the US Government and GM companies to see all our food contaminated with GM.
The EU proposals would also obscure the local origins of organic food by imposing a generic EU organic logo or the words "EU organic" on all organic food, and would concentrate more power over organic food and farming in the hands of the EU Commission. The revised regulation seems designed to force organic farming and food into a vision of globally competitive commodity production based on the lowest possible standards. The Soil Association's own standards will not be compromised or weakened, but we will fight to protect all organic food. Working alongside organic organisations in other EU countries, and environmental and consumer groups, the Soil Association is determined to stop these damaging changes. See their website www.soilassociation.org for more information.

Birds of a feather? Have you noticed how the media here in Ireland have been mentioning 'free-range' chickens and 'organic' in the one breath - in relation to housing fowl as a preventative measure against Asian Bird Flu? Is this not giving some of the spurious free rangers a free image ride?

The Catholic Church may give its endorsement to GMOs See Fr Sean McDonagh's recent Irish Times article - GMOs may not be answer to banishing world hunger at,
http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm?fuseaction=news&doc_id=12343&start=1&control=207&page_start=1&page_nr=101&pg=1
Fr McDonagh also took on Prof. David McConnell on radio last week (Today with Pat Kenny RTE Radio 1) over GMOs. All the usual chestnuts were tossed about and it was sad to see Mc Donagh lose on points to the glibber Mc Connell. It is, methinks, not enough to be passionate, and well-informed to win media debates. 'Ad hominem' may not be fair play but who would expect fair play from the new biotech conquistadors.
See also GM potato trials 'will ruin local agriculture' at, Ireland Online, 22/02/2006, http://www.unison.ie/breakingnews/index.php3?ca=9&si=87434. Interesting that some conventional farm organisations are taking a stand against GMOs; Eddie Punch from the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association said he and his colleagues were taking part in the protest against the potato trials because they believed 'Ireland should be able to market its food as natural and GM-free'. And another spokesperson said, "If we go down the GM road, we will compromise irrevocably our ability to sell to premium European markets [and] to the maximum number of consumers," he said.

Saturday 18th February 2006
Growing Awareness, the Skibbereen-based food and farming group, has come up with an interesting programme of walks, talks and workshops for this yeae Grafting, is on the 12th March at Gortnamucklagh Woodland Farm, Skib. Some of the following are on Permaculture, Composting, Medicinal Herbs, Forest Seeds and Edible Seaweed Gathering. The cost for each one-day course is only €25.
Farm walks commence on 21st May at Lisa Davies' lovely holding on the Sheep's Head peninsula.
For further details see www.growingawareness.org.

Sunday 22nd January 2006
David Storey
I was deeply saddened to hear of the death last Friday of David Storey, writer, journalist and environmentalist. David has been, by far, the most prolific writer about organics in Ireland in the last decade. He was co-editor (with Cait Curran of Galway), of the magazine Organic Matters, which has now reached such a high level of production quality. He contributed regularly to the Irish Examiner with feature articles and other contributions. David's Organic Diary in that newspaper was a weekly fixture for many years in its Thursday's Farming Supplement. He was also a published author and one of his booklets about polytunnel gardening is still in print.
As a standards inspector for IOFGA, David was, by all accounts, very popular with the hard-pressed organic community who often greeted him with copious quantities of tea and home-made organic delights. He was invariably greeted as a friend, an advisor and a purveyor of news. He had a great sense of humour, endless stories and more than a fair share of common sense. I enjoyed a pint or three with him several times in Glengariff when he was on his inspection rounds in the South West. He tried to impart some of that sense to me. Creative about nicknames, he dubbed me 'The Exocet'.
David will be sorely missed by all his many, many friends.
The organic movement in Ireland has lost their main media champion.
My heartfelt sympathies to his wife Karin, his children and all his family. He will be buried in Westport, Co.Mayo tomorrow. Full details of the funeral arrangements were in the Irish Examiner yesterday.
Daithi, you were one of the good guys - Slan agus Beannacht.

Jim

Thursday 12th January 2006
Thanks to all for your good wishes, at the Solstice, Christmas and the New Year, and to those I did not get in contact with - and indeed, all site visitors - I wish you the best of health and good luck for the coming year.
As many of you have noticed, this news page has been dormant for the last two months. I regret that I did not get around to answering all who were basically asking 'Whats up? Why are you not updating the site?'
I'm not telling all now except to say that I have been busy on a few other projects (that may hopefully have a payday) and, as all my female site visitors know, we men ain't good at multi-tasking. I am probably a tad extreme in that department, to the point of obsessiveness, those who know me well would say. So although there's been lots of issues and items that I would have liked to comment on, I have found it difficult to tear myself away from the other tasks.
One thing before I leave you again - it will be a few months before I'm back in this particular saddle properly: I keep hearing despondent tales from organic producers. Many are finding that it is becoming increasingly difficult and prohibitively expensive to remain official organic farmers affiliated to one of the three certifying bodies. I am being told that significant numbers are dropping out and relying on their regular consumer customers to trust them and their produce. Some are saying that farmers' markets are their only solution and talking of forming a body to represent their interests.

Thursday 10th November 2005
'Stay farming, growing and healthy- Go Organic!' - is the topic of a seminar this Friday 11th November at An tIonad Glas Organic College, Dromcollogher, Co.Limerick. The speakers will be: Denis Cotter, chef and co-proprietor of the Café Paradiso, in Cork; Mary Lynch, organic adviser and lecturer, and Kathleen Synnott, MEP for Munster. It is an evening event, starting at 8 pm. See www.organiccollege.com or phone the director Jim McNamara at 063 83604.

Gone organic Three farmers who have shown their mettle as organic producers will have open days over the next week. Fintan Rice from my home area, Fethard in Tipperary, will be the host on Wednesday. Fintan is a very proficient and profitable organic dairy farmer getting excellent yields from his herd. See www.teagasc.ie for further details.

Where is NOW? No. I'm not being Beckettian or Mylesian in my question, but this is National Organic Week in Ireland, or so a little birdie has just told me. My avian informant was not funded by the €150,000 budget that Bord Bia supposedly has for marketing the event, so where the heck has this money been spent and has anyone out there heard about or spotted any events that could be remotely said to be part of this NOW? Even Ear to the ground, (this evening RTE 1) let not a whisper out about it, although it did have a clichéd segment on organic farming.

Organic matters, so it does, so it does The Irish bi-monthly magazine Organic Matters for Nov and Dec has just reached me and, apart from an article about turkeys, has not a single seasonal illustration. No holly! No snow! No recipes for organic Christmas pud! Not even a Solstice sacrifice. Great!
Deliciously perverse it smacks instead of summer and sunshine and burgeoning fruit and vegetables with even a tank-topped WWOOFer displaying her broccoli. And there is the stirring story of nuns doing it - organic gardening that is. All together though it is a cheerful effort, well worth its €4 cover price (sure that's less than the price of a pint - much, much less than the cost of an organic pint. Although if you were in England at present you could, according to SO'C, my Penzance correspondent, get about 1.45 pints of organic bitter for €4 in any Weatherspoons). Its good to see that they have fairly substantial advertising these days too but who on earth is Skretting - full page ad inside front cover - and what have they got to do with the organic world?

Monday 24th October 2005
Do worms get your goat? I mentioned papaya seeds as an alternative cure for worms in goats a few years back. And, thanks perhaps to Google, I have had requests since from all over the world; the latest are from Australia* and Bermuda.
A West Cork organic farmer with very wide experience of animals swears by papaya seeds as an effective vermifuge. With her permission, here is the method she uses.
Papaya seed may not be the most easily accessible remedy in these islands for routine worm dosing. More prosaically, garlic in various forms is the cornerstone of natural worming according to The Complete Herbal Handbook For Farm And Stable by Juliette de Bairacli Levy. First published by Faber & Faber, London in 1952, it has run through many editions since and is the 'bible' of the natural approach to animal husbandry. It mentions papaya seed as a wormer, but only peripherally and in the company of pumpkin, nasturtium, grapes, and melon seeds.

Sunday 16th October 2005
Fighting back - get my drift? Finally, some organic farmers are taking a stand against the cynical strategies of the ABCs* - Ag Bio-tech Corps - to contaminate all agricultural crops with GM varieties by stealth.
A coalition of over a thousand Canadian farmers has taken the Monsanto and Bayer corporations to court. The group is demanding compensation for financial losses due to contamination of organic fields by genetically engineered pollen drift. According to one plaintiff farmer, Dale Beaudoin, "This is no minor issue. It is a matter of independence and survival for all farmers world-wide." http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/lawsuit090805.cfm

* From my Quotes Page "The hope of the industry (ABCs) is that over time the market is so flooded (with GM organisms) that there’s nothing you can do about it. You just sort of surrender!'  This is the GM industry letting the cat out of the bag! Don Westfall, Vice President, Promar International, Washington, consultants to Kellogs, Unilever, Aventis etc. Full report, $5,000!

A few questions;
Anybody got an organic remedy for eliminating bindweed?
And do papaya seeds work as a worm remedy for goats?

Monday 5th September 2005
Back to School
There is excellent advice and practical suggestions on what to put in lunchboxes for our returning-to-school youngsters on the website, www.indi.ie.. Great to hear that fizzy drinks in particular - on average, equal to 11 lumps of sugar and 200 calories - are a definite no-no. Crisps deservedly get the thumbs-down too.
A few extra suggestions;
Organic Fruit yoghurts from Glenisk, the small pots, 150g, for 69 cent.
Organic apples. SuperValu have a half-price offer on Italian organic apples. Unusually, the countrywide chain also has half-price offers on organic tomatoes, bananas, lettuces and carrots And, if you are quick, you could get organic strawberries just out-of-date, for 99 cent ( a F &V manager from the supermarket told me that they are 'flying out of the shop'. A lesson there - organic at the right price and the argument is over, perhaps).
Smoothies are recommended by INDI - but I don't know of a commercial product. So you could make your own, using the above good value produce

If you want to be really, really creative, here is a recipe from Horizon Organics (US); And, if you do make them, you might send some to me for tasting???

Toffee-Almond Shortbread
These easy bars store and travel well, so they're perfect for tossing in a lunch box or keeping on hand as an after-school treat.
Yields 4 Dozen Bars.

1 cup Organic unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 Organic egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped almonds, lightly toasted
1/2 cup toffee bits
2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 13 by 9-inch baking pan. Using an electric mixer or sturdy wooden spoon, combine the butter and sugar until blended. Stir in the egg yolk, vanilla, salt, almonds, and toffee bits. Add the flour all at once and mix on low speed until incorporated. The dough will look like a coarse, crumbly mess and should not be beaten smooth. Turn the dough out into the prepared pan and press it firmly into place in an even layer. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until barely coloured. Cool briefly, then cut into bars while still slightly warm. Cool completely before serving.
Nutrition Information ½ cup:
Calories 93; Protein 1g; Carbohydrates 11g; Total Fat 5g; Saturated Fat 3g; Cholesterol 15mg; Sodium 81mg; Calcium 9mg (1% DV).

Monday 29th August 2005
Irish chickens 'appalling' Over 20 years ago, my infant son had an un-shiftable fad for chicken. Knowing intensive farming practices only too well at the time, I could not in all conscience expose him to the hazards of eating the factory-farmed article. I had to go out into the highways and byeways of Munster to get home-reared ('organic' was hardly known at the time) chickens to cater for his special appetite for the chukkies.
Since then we have all been exposed to increasing horror stories about intensive chicken rearing. (remember Felicity Lawrence's book, Not on the Label etc. See Publications page). But sadly it goes on, and most consumers find it irresistable to buy the dirt-cheap, commercial product.

It is refreshing though when the cudgel is taken up again - especially by high-profile reataurateurs.
The latest critic on the block is Meath-man, Richard Corrigan, owner/chef of the Michelin-starred, Lindsay House Restaurant in Soho, London (www.lindsayhouse.co.uk). On Irish radio last week, he called for a boycott of Irish chickens describing them as 'appalling' and ''full of antibiotics'. He went on to say that we are 'producing muck - crap', and that he "would never eat chicken unless it was from a farmers' market". Richard, who offers such things as 'Saddle of Wild Rabbit, Crubeens and Clare Island Organic Salmon' on his menus, also described farmers markets and traditional butchers as 'national treasures' that we should all wholeheartedly support. Right on Richard!
Needless to say the Irish Farmers Association is down on his neck with the pathetic retaliation that, "Mr Corrigan may need some publicity for his new restaurant, but he should not abuse a platform afforded to him by pedalling (sic) ill-informed views about chicken production in this country."
' All houses must have a controlled environment which ensures that ambient temperature, air quality and lighting meet the needs of the flock throughout the growing cycle".
Right! I know you are only doing your job, IFA-Man, but read Felicity's book me ould son.

The ever-vigilant-about-protecting-factory-farming IFA, are today screaming blue murder about draft proposals that antibiotic use be taken out of the hands of farmers, 'professionals' as their spokesman, Padraig Walsh, calls them, and giving it into the hands of (ahem!) professionals, the veterinarians.
Muiris Dromey, I salute you. Muiris, from Clonmel was our vet, and my friend, on the farm in Tipperary in the early '70s. He lamented the gross ignorance and misuse of antibiotics on farms in Ireland then. "Some day", he said" we will reap a whirlwind from this".
How true, how true! MRSA etc. Muiris died three years ago. He was a decent man, extremely professional at his job and much loved and lamented after his untimely death.

For insights into where the IFA and the government-supported food agencies are coming from, read my articles in Archived News, Nov 2003, Irish Food Mythology, and Nov 2004, Darby O'Gill and the Little Food People. These revolved around an incredible piece of paddywhackery food marketing dreamt up by the editor of the Irish Food Board's offshoot www.foodisland.com (I was astonished to find last night that this website, with its foggy, foggy view of Irish food production, has completely disappeared! The vapid rubbish has evaporated! Has anybody got the scéal?).
Far be it for me to claim that my complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority was actually taken note of. The ASA told me that they could not act on the case. But did they have a word in the ear of the misty-eyed public servants that peddled that nonsense? Does my kind of activist journalism work? Do they get the point - eventually? Do they realise that they are the ones that are destroying our food reputation, the future of the rural economy and holding us up to international ridicule and opprobrium?

Monday 15th August 2005
A day associated with Artemis, the Virgin Mary, Lugh and, in Scotland and Ireland, hill climbing, berry picking and fertility cakes. One cake recipe is for hand-harvested wheat, ground on a quern stone, kneaded on a sheepskin and baked on a fire of sacred rowan wood. The embers of the fire were then carried around the farm or garden and scattered.

I went sunways around my dwelling
In the name of Mother Mary
Who promised to preserve me
Who did protect me
Who will preserve me
In peace, in flocks, in righteousness of heart.
(From Carmina Gadelica, Lindisfarne).

Here on Beara we have the splendid, traditional horse races at Allihies this afternoon. Take my tips, and be guaranteed to lose your shirt!
This morning at Hungry Hill, a thousand people are expected to gather to honour octogenarian Dr Lyon's 1,000th ascent of the mountain.

Wednesday 10th August 2005
Barbie Guys and Organic Barbie Guys If you want some light entertainment, I can link you to some correspondence I've been having about conventional and organic barbecues and men's and women's roles in them. Email me:

WWOOF I have many requests for placements wth organic hosts for August and September. Contact me for details.
A constant complaint over the years from prospective volunteers is the charge of €50 to join WWOOF and get their list of independent hosts. The Irish list has about 80 contacts. My request for further details from the WWOOF organisation has been ignored so far. Comments?

Birthday Boy Thanks to everybody who online, by post, or by local delivery sent birthday wishes and gifts, but especially to my family for making the 3-day celebration from last Monday very special. My brother Steven's contribution in terms of his singing skills, thoughtful and energetic help was very special. It was a delight also to meet his two daughters Sabina and Jessica here for the first time in years.
The barbeque site worked very well, with its multiple pits, crane, and pots. A gazebo (courtesy of my sister Patrish and her husband Jim) and old windsurfing sails served as rainshields and windbreaks - they llent a circus-like atmosphere to the surroundings. Mostly, however, the colourful coverings sheltered us from the sun by day and later the c of the night. But on Thursday morning we needed all the shelter we could get to allow the departing-breakfast feast to be held out of the mist (it later turned into torrential rain - for which the remaining growing spuds were gasping). My sister Elma was as usual spectacular with her culinary skills (brooking no competition in her domain) and her husband, Moss, kept the fires fed with appropriate deadwood to complement my furze 'firelighters' and green-wood pile.
Another branch of the family is turning up this coming weedend. .

Friday 29th July 2005
The dictatorship of the dry weather has arrived again. The bottomless pit of gardening yaws open and, now that the mackerel season is in full swing, one has to find a few more hours in the day (or night; extraordinary midnight fishing trip recently with a mirror-like sea, a razor-sharp.half moon and phosphorescent phyto-plankton transforming everything into a galacatic light show).
Beara goes a-partying from this weekend too - the Regatta Week - and of course there is a gaggle of birthdays to celebrate, including my son's girlfriend Sabrina's and my own 'near-60th' next week. Friends and family are congregating and, from bank holiday Monday, the barbeque will be lit and kept on the go for most of the week.
New recipe for pollack;soak cleaned fish in a brine to which lemon juice, cider and herbs (fresh fennel, lemon balm and basil) are added, then hot smoke.for a few hours. Locals say 'Pollack is a grand fish but you have to add the flavour'. I tried mackerael this way too but although many liked it I didn't think it was an improvement on the unique taste of that fish when freshly line-caught. The only accompaniments to this seasonal wild bounty from the sea are one's own potatoes and salad - organic of course. 'Summer time, when the living is easy, Fish are jumping and ......'

The website will have to join the ever-expanding queue of 'winter jobs'...

Thursday 21st July 2005
Xenophobia on Beara. Locals get outlandishly loutish and threatening about land, jobs and 'blow-ins'. Journos, contact me at this email address.

Monday 18th July 2005
The 'French Connection' in Bantry On my way to the Horton family festivities in Baltimore at the weekend, I saw the Friday street market in Bantry.
It was a revelation! The sights and sounds and smells were redolent of Provence. Artisan food stands and organic produce were everywhwere. Shoppers and stall-holders seemed cheerfully interactive in the glorious sunshine. Sadly I did not have time to talk with many or buy very much except for some wonderful home-made fudge (made by a woman who was on the same West Cork Enterprise Board business development course as my son Senan) for some marginal presents.
Six years ago when I was selling my garlic on the street of Bantry, I and the few other stalwarts were treated hostilely by the resident shopkeepers, the GardaI and traffic wardens (despite which I managed one day to sell over a IP 1,000 of produce). I will visit again very soon and do a proper shop and talk and report back to you on it. Farmers' markets seem very much alive and well in Ireland today. Viva la Revolution!

Wednesday 14th July 2005
Bastille Day Just the day for finally starting the boules pit and inviting around those with a French connection. It is also the birthday of Stephanie, my best friend Tony's wife (they got married last year - remember? - and I was best man and all that). I wish her the joy of the day, as Commander Aubrey would have it (I'm reading a lot about Trafalgar these evenings). Her father Richard is 80 tomorrow - joy to him also - and the family and friends are partying in Baltimore, West Cork over the weekend.

We (the Countess, companion and I) are planting comfrey, 5,000 plants, in a new no- or low-dig raised-bed horticultural system. I'll tell you more about that later. And the mackeral are finally running!

A dry spell of weather has arrived, so am very busy - with dry-weather things. It, as they say down this way, 'has made a lot of rain' recently. Consequently my water tanks are full and ready for the tunnel irrigation etc But I'm now happy with the 'good' weather for a time.

Titled labourers Anybody got employment, farm or domestic, for one or two very bright Polish students? One is the Countess Agata Ollkowska of Lisiecki and the other is her long-term friend, Marta Dratwinska of Nowakowska, a research pharmacist; both are from Warsaw. You won't have to accommodate their retinue of servants but you will have to store their substantial luggage; it takes up the whole of one of my caravans.

Wednesday 6th July 2005
G8 protest 'Mellow to Militant' is how one press organ described the contrast between the Live 8 weekend of wonderful music and the violence in Edinburgh this week. I can't applaud the militants - who are but a fraction of those turning up for the G 8 summit - but neither can I condemn them totally, knowing what it's like being bottled up in the heat of protest by 'over-zealous' police - putting the kindest spin on it (The CIA and Irish Special Branch - the 'Heavy Gang' - tried to provoke our noble little band - 'The 600' - in Ballporeen in 1984 - The Reagan Visit - but the ordinary Irish Gardai were great in defusing the several potential flashpoints. I remember the rush to the head when I, a local bookseller at the time, was taunted with 'You commie bastard' by a nose-picking SB 'officer', backed up by Uzzie-packing CIA agents. Earlier the same charmers promised me 'a hot reception, sonny, if you ever come to the United State'.

My organic Talks and Walks series finishes with a barbecue for the class next Saturday 9th July. If any of my site visitors are enjoying a holiday on our glorious Beara Penisnula, you are invited to join us between ! and 5pm.. A contribution of organic goodies - home-grown or otherwise, would make you particularly welcome. Ring me at 027 70717.
Would anybody like Mont Breschia bulbs? Have a huge amount cleared from my gardens. you can have some by just paying for postage.
Having got stranded on Monday evening in rising wind and sea when a loaned outboard finally packed in, I really need a good reliable 'runner' from 9 - 20hp. Can you help?.
I'd like to hear of how blight is affecting your organic potatoes. Have interesting things going on here with my many different varieties. For example, the 'blight-resistant' Setanta (released last year by IPM ) were the first to be blighted this year. Most other varieties here are however, so far, touch wood, completely blight-free.

Independence Day I apologise to all my American visitors for not wishing them well yesterday for the 4th. We have a small Am. community here on Beara and some of them were celebrating with a glittering party just down the coast from here. One couple however were excluded from the celebrations, but then they are of a very independent cast of mind. Something ironic there!

Monday 4th July 2005
Making a difference There was a wonderful film on RTE 1 on Friday last - The Girl in the Cafe. Incredibly timely activist/drama romance from the BBC - with Bill Nighy and Kelly MacDonald - about a G 8 Conference and how it might be. Despite being a little tub-thumping for the UK and its politicians, it was an absolute delight in fantasising on how a very ordinary person can make a difference. With the very successful Live 8 concerts this last weekend and the huge turnout of protesters at Edinburgh, very many ordinary people - three billion, according to one estimate - are making a difference. As Gordon Browne had it on Sunday, it all adds up to a 'beacon of hope' - we hope.
Perhaps there will be a noble outcome from all this and we will have progressed a long way towards making poverty history. See www.makingpovertyhistory.ie

Thursday 30th June 2005
Make Poverty History - in Dublin today, 6.30pm, Parnell Square.
“In this new century, millions of people in the world's poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved, and in chains. They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice ! It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.
Do not look the other way; do not hesitate... Act with courage and vision. The G8 leaders, when they meet in Scotland in July, have already promised to focus on the issue of poverty, especially in Africa. I say to all those leaders: do not look the other way; do not hesitate. Recognise that the world is hungry for action, not words. Act with courage and vision. I entrust my hopes to you. I will be watching with anticipation. Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom. Of course the task will not be easy. But not to do this would be a crime against humanity, against which I ask all humanity now to rise up. Make Poverty History in 2005. Make History in 2005. Then we can all stand with our heads held high.”
Nelson Mandela, London, February 2005.

Drop the Debt
More and Better Aid
Trade Justice

Fuelling the Future - The Challenge and Opportunity of Peak Oil The 2-day conference on community responses to the coming energy crisis, at Kinsale Further Education College, Kinsale, Co. Cork, last Saturday and Sunday 19th June 2005 was a huge success and congratulations are due to the irrepressible Rob Hopkins and his colleagues for the ambitious project. I am still being briefed by my 'local correspondent' on the proceedings and will also get a summary from the organisers later.

Blight warnings have been given over the last few days and weeks. One of the potatoe growers in my class has lost all his early potatoes - British Queens and Home Guard. You know that I am very reluctant to use 'Bluestone' (Burgundy Mixture - copper sulphate and washing soda), allowed by every organic certification body.I have used it in the past on field potatoes and it is effective when used properly. I have never come across anybody who uses it properly. I will give the mixture and methods to any correspondent, if they really want to use it. I have never, ever used it on tomatoes outdoor or indoor and I urge all growers to stop using it on tomatoes or generally indoors in polytunnels etc. Search my Archived Weekly News pages for previous articles on the treatment.
I am experimenting this week with alternative treatments and I'll let you know about developments.

Thursday 16th June 2005 - Bloom's Day - Enjoy the kidney and your toxic Denny's, if you dare!

Wednesday 15th June 2005
Farm walk (fourth week of the 8-week Organic Food and Gardening talks and walks, I'm giving here on Beara) went well (I think!) on Wednesday last.
We had a beautiful evening for it anyway - even the 'midgets' minded their manners.
To give my throat, and the audience's ears, a rest, Peter Hanley of Dunboy gave us an interesting few minutes explaining his 'nuke' in my comfrey 'plantation'. Peter is a beekeeper and a great man to fix outboards (sells them also - has just got an agency for Yamaha). His 'nuke ' is a 'nook' (probable spelling) - meaning a cut-down hive to capture swarming bees. He spoke as if to-the-manner-born and without any warning from me. Some people have all the talent!
I probably spent a little too much time on tools, the experiments with comfrey and in answering questions as we went along. I'm so easily diverted from the programme - but they all seem to expect that from me now. My catering arrangements went slightly awry and instead of bastable bread and other goodies they were lucky to get a bit ot self-served apple tart and cream. But as one understanding pupil put it; 'Jim you'd need staff to do what you'd planned for this evening'. It's true, a half dozen other pairs of hands would have been useful for the prep. day and Nigella Lawson (dream on!) in the kitchen. Not a bloody WWOOFer in sight when you need them. Remember the inverse law?
Surprisingly many (the younger ones!) were tired after three hours on their feet and wouldn't even wait for the beverages, which were, albeit, a mite slow in coming (can't get good staff these days, dontyaknow).
In the end I was a bit tired myself. Well it was a 23 hour day - I stayed up till 3 am around the campfire with a some friends and a few bottles of wine.
I will ask one of the group to write a piece about their visit to Sandmount - Ardagannive - the Height of the Sand. Hopefully it would prove to be revealing and confirm for me that this wee series is a once-off. I wonder if it would unravel my inner secret - that I am not a gardener at all; that I am much more a food activist and agricultural experimenter - for which of course I make no apologies. Almost anybody can teach - and learn - gardening. Fewer, but still many, can do the organic gardening bit. I think what I am doing with my local group is largely enjoyable for them. But I hope it is also unique and unsettling for them - I am f.....g with their heads. In the meantime I am enjoying learning gardening from them - that is, the older, more experienced gardeners in the class. They are as wide a cross section of the community as you could possibly get and terrific questioners. All the great fundamental questions have been asked if not answered. I believe I am answering them in installments.
But as well as the expert, conventional gardeners on the course, there are a few that have just ventured into the great outdoors beyond the patio door and need signs for the right end of a 'three prong pike' or a SuperValu trowel. They probably find the going tougher - but I've lost only one so far and he might have thought he was going to a Teagasc-like (God forbid?) thing more to do with decoupling and nitrogen reduction. Don't really know that much about him but wish him well anyway.
I will have the long-suffering class' verbal feedback this evening. Am ready for the flak, Jack, but I will still bomb the taget!
This evening I will have a surprise (although they are now expecting surprises all the time as I once more veer away from the programme) for the group - weather permitting. Tell you about it later.

Some one else's experience of organic talks
I have an instructive and entertaining article about giving talks on organic gardening to post here in the next few days. Not by me (sighs of relief all round), but by a very experienced and, I would guess, organised lecturer, Adrian Saunders from Antrim. You'll enjoy it - it'll be up by Friday.

Bank Holiday Monday 6th June
It's an ill wind....Pity about the wet weather this weekend for the holiday-makers. But I was happy to have my new water tanks filled to the brim. I have about 1,500 gallons in reserve now and with a pond in the making will have much more soon. Will need it all for the 'storm-proof' tunnel I am building - and the mucky clothes (three changes of gear yesterday)!
To keep me even futher on my toes, I have a farm walk and 'tea' this Wednesday for my 'stoodents'. I will later put up a page of the questions (some of them very challenging) my sparky class have been asking.
I have put some of the answers on the back burner until 'The Visit'; you know ', a picture (or demonstration) is worth a 1,000 words'.
Have some interesting new ideas on how to use comfrey more intensively and sock the likes of the Averys and the Hudson Institute (and Tommy 'Standown') with their spurious argument about farmyard manure and organics, in the eye. Pictures etc later.
Which reminds me; if any on you want comfrey plants/cuttings, contact me right away. Remember you can have one free - just pay the postage and packing - €5.00 to the address on the Home Page. I will gladly quote you for more if you want them. Google 'comfrey' for more on this wonderful healing, soil-conditioning and fertilizing plant. I had 'one for everybody in the audience', free of course, for my Wednesday Organic Food and Gardening class (one place has become vacant - if you want to join, contact Ann or Mary at The Haven Centre FRC and get the next 5 talks and the barbecue at the end. €35 - sure it's for nothing! And free plants!).

Weather forecast Poor consolation for the weekenders, but the weather will be dry and sunny for the rest of the week - and beyond - in Ireland and the UK. Honestly! You can bank on it - I have arranged it. Clean, organic living gives one special favour with the gods.

Singing for aid. If any of my UK visitors would like to give me a little gift, would you text 84599 anytime in the next week with the letter 'C' (Edinburg for the G 8 summit)? Thousands of tickets for the Live Aid concert on the 2nd July will be awarded by lottery. It costs £1.50 per call. I'd trust you to send me the tickets if we strike it lucky. Surplus tickets (dream on O'Connor!) could be auctioned for African aid charities on Planorganic.
Bob Geldof was knighted after the last Live Aid concert - will he beat John Paul II for sainthood after this one.? More power to his elbow anyway.

Running for aid - Good luck to the 40,000 + women runners in the Dublin Mini-Marathon (10ks) today. Most of them will be raising money for charity. Sir Bob aint the only saint in town.
And, of course, I've arranged good weather for them too.

Saturday 4thJune 2005
Beautiful morning (Wed) again here on Beara, but raining heavily. Not everyone's idea of a good day but the wet stuff is gurgling away into my tanks and the potato plants are drinking deeply, as they need to do. On top of that I am feeling very smug in getting all my major garden tractor-work finished with the first splatters of rain yesterday evening. I sleot the sleep ot the just last night.

Beautiful morning (Mon) here on Beara. Much work to be done on the gardens and on the seashore but a perfect day for it.

RTE (Ireland's national broadcaster) joining the league of organic bashers? I hear Tommy Standún of the Consumed programme (Monday last RTE Radio 8pm) gave a platform to the notorious Hudson Institute to mouth their, by now, to all intelligent life on earth at least, well-hackneyed propaganda against organic farming.
Tommy boy, you're years out of date with this pathetic attempt to give those gooks from the public relations arm of the ABCs (Agri Biotech Corps) airspace. I hope that it is a case of you just doing bad research - perhaps you're even a bit innocent? Or did they get to you (a lifetime's supply of Round Up perhaps)?
I shouldn't be too hard on you I suppose, as you are - giving you the benefit of the doubt - only reflecting the Irish government and its organs' attitude to organic farming, and of course the Irish Farmers Association and Teagasc etc.
Ye're all on a loser though.
We may be at the bottom of the league in organic farming (the fastest-growing sector of the international food industry) as a result of official blindness, but the genie is out of the bottle now and farmers markets (87 in Ireland now - 4 just three years ago!) with so much natural and fresh (and often uncertified and good-value organic) produce, the Slow Food movement, the (albeit struggling) certified organic sector, the artisan food producers, all together with the massive groundswell of concern (eg - the Taskforce on Obesity just set up) amongst consumers at present about what we and particularlyour children are eating.
Personally, I've never seen anything like the current interest and awarenes of food and where it's coming from - the revolution I feel has arrived before I expected it! All us activists - and Jamie Oliver too! - have something to do with it?
Meanwhile, back with the reactionaries; the Hudson Institute, an extreme right-wing American think-tank, are no longer taken seriously in the educated world, even in their US home. But I suppose there are a few naive (or corrupt!) corners of the global media that swallow this bull manure still.
'Manure' is the Avery's key area of expertise, literally too. But they went so ridiculously over-the-top some years ago (ABC - the US network, I think) with their stuff about organic lettuces and e-Coli etc and the vast amounts of animal manure used if there were a large-scale shift to organic farming, that they no longer get interviewed by serious broadcasters.
Read all about the Hudson Institute and the oily Avery brothers in several articles in my Archived Weekly News or of course, Google them. Look up the notorious, anti-organic Prof. Anthony Trewavas as well. He once started the process of suing me for libel. Moi? Sure I never say anything bad about anyone.
And don't forget to sock it to Tommy and RTE. Standown Mr Standún, and don't take a bow.

Consumed - I missed the programme on Mon. night; would be interested to hear your reactions.

Many thanks to my correspondents for the advice on giving talks on organic gardening, especially Adrian Saunders.

Farm workers I am inundated at present with requests for paid work - not WWOOFing - on farms and horticultural units. Most of the applicants are students, the majority from Poland and the Czech Republic. Some are undoubtedly, from their CVs, excellent, willing and experienced workers. If you have any ideas about who I could refer them to, I would be glad to hear from you.

Talking the talk I started giving a series of 8 talks last week on organic food and gardening. The course was over-subscribed, to my great surprise, and a second lot is already been talked about. If anybody has experience of giving talks like this, I would like to hear about their experiences and would be open to advice.

Is organic food just an Emperor without any clothes? Listen to Consumed, RTE Radio 1, next Monday night, 8 pm, to hear this question being answered.

Organic Matters - it really does. This month's magazine from the Irish Organic Grower's Association is a particularly interesting and attractive issue. Get it in the shops if you don't have a subscription. Good to see that there are new advertisers, one of whom has an interesting competition. I'm having a go, so don't too many of you enter!

Oh! Oh! Lisdoonvarna, Lisdoon, Lisdoon.......The Slow Food 'Convivium' in Lisdoonvarna last weekend was a great success. Didn't hear about it in time to put in a mention. Sorry. Anyone write it up for me?
I am hoping to have a new article contributor shortly. Watch this space.

The Shame of it! - The blame for it?
A government reply to a question from the Green Party's Trevor Sergeant on Monday last confirmed (what I had been telling you for some time) that organic farming in Ireland is declining!
The only country in the world with an organic sector where the acreage is going down!
Ironic that on the same day, the Junior Minister of Agriculture, Brendan Smith was dishing out awards at the Organic College in Dromcollogher - www.organiccollege.com - and praising the college sector for its contribution to Irish agriculture.

Sunny Days Beautiful weather down this way the last few days. Those who didn't get their spuds in during the narrow weather windows earlier, have a great chance now. My 'front' garden is a sheltered suntrap, consequently, fruit and vegetables are quite advanced. My early potatoes are almost a foot high and getting their first earthing; garlic is over 18" tall, allowing for the tops turned down, and some butterhead lettuces are a foot across. I have a purple broccolli stalk almost 6 feet high! It's provided huge amounts of those delicious 'spears' since January. I'll put some photos up as soon as I figure out how to do it on this new programme.

Farmers Markets in Ireland Slow to start but now growing apace, farmers' markets are springing up all over the shop. I managed to keep up with new developments for a few years - my Where to Buy Page was downloaded extensively when there was no other guide. Now there are several and I have been assured that the best is on the Board Bia website.
Regular readers will know that I have an allergy to BB and Food Ireland marketing blurb and other lies, so I won't review the page. Maybe somebody would do it for me? I suppose if you throw enough public money and public servants at a problem you might sometimes solve it! www.bordbia.ie/go/Consumers/Buying_Food/farmers_markets/

Bitter Harvest Many of you clicked (cut and pasted - the software is not converting URLs to live links -yet) on the BBC's Bitter Harvest below and enjoyed listening to it.
Also try www.strauscom.com for the Beyond Organic radio show.

The Biodynamic Agricultural Association conference, Soil, Plant, Animal, Man.
takes place over 2 days - Sat 30th and Sun 1st May - in the Camphill Community, Dunshane, Brannockstown, Nass, Co Kildare.
The cost is €65, including meals and you can book at; 056 7754 214 and email bdaai@indigo.ie
See their website; web link www.bdaai.ie

Listen to Bitter Harvest at www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/features/vaisakhi.shtml
The Bitter Harvest series looks at the plight of farmers in India through a series of 5 separate programmes of about 10 minutes each, covering issues such as seed-saving, patents, farmer suicides, depopulation of rural areas, subsidies, free trade and the debt trap.
The corporate take-over of farming, the green revolution and biotechnology are an almost constant point of reference. There's also lots of interesting detail on how, for example, the entire public system in the Punjab is used to promote Monsanto's seeds, and how Monsanto makes use of religion in its advertising to farmers in order to project its seeds as miraculous. From www.gmwatch.org

Friday 22nd April 2005
Fuelling the Future - The Challenge and Opportunity of Peak Oil
A 2 day conference on community responses to the coming energy crisis.
www.fuellingthefuture.org
Kinsale Further Education College, Kinsale, Co. Cork
Saturday 18th – Sunday 19th June 2005

Many experts are now agreeing that world production of oil is reaching its
peak and that we have reached the point of maximum production from which the
only way is down. What will this mean for a country as dependent on oil as
Ireland (Ireland has the 7th highest consumption per person of any country
in the world, the USA is 30th)? We import over 80% of our food, and over
85% of our energy. How can be begin be become more self reliant, and thus
less at the mercy of international events?
‘Fuelling the Future’ is a two day conference which will bring together many
of the world’s experts on what is known as Peak Oil, and at how the
impending energy crisis will affect our lifestyles, our communities and how
we design our economy. From this point on, world oil production will no
longer be able to keep up with demand, it is in effect the end of the age of
cheap oil. This has profound implications for how we feed ourselves, house
ourselves, and organize our communities, as well as where we live and work.
Hosted at Kinsale Further Education College, home to the ground-breaking
Practical Sustainability course, which has done much to bring permaculture
and other aspects of sustainability into mainstream education, this weekend
is about solutions as well as problems, what we can do ourselves to prepare
for a lower-energy future.
Speakers include;
Richard Heinberg – author of The Party’s Over – oil, war and the fate of
industrial societies, and Powerdown – options and actions for a post-carbon futurem. Richard is one of the world’s leading lecturers on Peak Oil and what we can do about it.
Richard Douthwaite – economist, author and founder of FEASTA, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, Richard writes extensively on ‘green’ economics and on localization. He is author of many books, most recently he edited FEASTA’s latest book ‘Growth – the Celtic Cancer’. He lives in Westport, Co. Mayo.
Dr Colin Campbell is regarded by many as the foremost authority on how much oil is left in the world, where it is and much longer we have until the oil crisis really starts to hit home. He worked in the oil industry for 30
years, and since his retirement he has dedicated himself to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil.
David Holmgren is the co-founder of permaculture, together with Bill
Mollison in the 1970’s, since when he has devoted himself to demonstrating and teaching permaculture, both in his native Australia and around the world. David’s latest book. ‘Permaculture – principles and pathways beyond sustainability’ has done much to reposition permaculture and to place it right in the centre of the whole sustainability debate.
Rob Hopkins teaches permaculture at Kinsale Further Education College and widely around Ireland. A founding director of The Hollies Centre for
Practical Sustainability, he has done much to pioneer permaculture design
and natural building in Ireland, and was recently awarded Cork Environmental Forum’s prestigious Roll of Honour award.
Jim O’Connor runs www.planorganic.com, Ireland’s foremost organic farming website, which attracts over 65,000 hits per day. He is an outspoken advocate of organics and of a common-sense approach to farming and land use.
Eamonn Ryan is a Green Party TD, and is the first member of the Dail to use the term Peak Oil. He is leading the way in mainstream politics as regards the Peak Oil issue, what does it mean for Ireland, and what can we do about it?
In addition to the main speakers, the programme will also include breakout
sessions looking at areas such as renewable energy options, local
currencies, local food, natural building, creating sustainable community and fuel crops. These will be led by some of the country's leading experts in the field.
For the latest line up and all the information about the conference, as well
as for booking, please visit the Confererence’s website,
www.fuellingthefuture.org.
You should attend this conference if;
You want to separate the fact from the hype about the current oil
crisis and what it will mean to Ireland
You want to be a part of the debate about how we can plan and
prepare for a lower energy future
You work in the areas of community development and/or sustainability
and you want to keep at the cutting edge of thinking in this field
You want to learn the latest thinking about solutions to
environmental problems, especially the move towards localization of our
economies
You are interested in sustainability, and want to hear the latest
from the world’s leading experts.
We can arrange interviews with the speakers for you if you wish.

To find out more either phone 087 635 9662
Email – info@fuellingthefuture.org
or write to The Hollies Centre for Practical Sustainability, Castletown,
Enniskeane, Co. Cork, Ireland.

Good God, it's Good Friday 25th March 2005
Hello, hello hello All rumours of my demise, as the fellow says, have been grossly exaggerated. I'm back! And the story that I was in Cuba for the last three months studying up on their organics, cigars and rum are, regretfully, not true. Perhaps next year I will pay the venerable Fidel a visit. Did I ever tell you that when I was farming in Tipperary back in the 1970s I was nicknamed 'Che Guevara'; to do with robbing banks (well actually standing up to them, on my father's behalf - "You have the deeds OK, we hold the farm and you will not take it away from us' Threatened publicity, sandbags and shotguns were part of the mix - and it worked!), my hairstyle and the ex-military surplus clothes I used to wear. The facial hair matched the famous black-on-red poster and the army clobber was utterly practical; it withstood the rigours and wear and tear of farm and building site. 
I don't owe anyone an explanation for my absence - you are not paying for this - but I'll tell you anyway, because you have been so good. I was astonished to find that the traffic on the site was very high in my absence! Why? I don't know the reason but it seems that much more of the site was being read. Such a pity I can't yet feed you the stuff I'm writing at the moment - it's quite entertaining, though I say so myself, and it will undoubtedly be controversial when it finally hits the fan. 
The reasons for my being 'down' are a little more prosaic. The laptop threw a wobbly after the last update in January and I couldn't access the website. Progressively, over the next weeks, software began to cut up rough and the mechanics were beginning to sound like my old tractor before I did 'the job' on it. But as long as Word worked and I could copy to floppies, I kept going. 
I am involved in a 'major writing project' (that's what everyone is being told; has to be all very hush-hush, don't ya know) so, as long as I could bang the old keys and save my precious manuscript pages, I staggered on. Then one day smoke began to come from the machine - the laptop, not the tractor. I knew then that I was in deep compost. On top of that I had just discovered that the external CD burner was not copying properly i.e. I had no backup. That was obviously the dignal to seek professional help (for the computer, and, if I lost all, for myself!). I use Outlook, the Office version, as an archive - there were 17,000 quality emails there in Sent, Inbox and other folders. All in all there were thousands of other files - almost 4 gigabytes. And I was in danger of losing the whole shebang.
In the end I came out with my hands up and went to see our local fixers, Beara Computers (www.irish-networks.com) 
May Sheela na Gig always rain her beneficence on them; they did a wonderful job of replacement and recovery on my antigue machine and I'm back in the land of the living(!). But young Aaron Byrne was the man! Thank you A. for all (most of which I didn't understand) but especially the recovery of my last-written chapter from one of my mouldy floppies (the total cost was only €270).
And Aaron, I promise to use those new Sony disks from now on, honestly. And back up my files to CDs - I will, I will. 

Ireland the Food Island, haw, haw, bloody haw! For a good laugh, have a look at the article from the archive Darby O'Gill and the little food producers (Nov 2003). Read the introductory page to www.foodisland.com 
Excerpt: ' Here you will find an embarassing "dancing at the crossroads" view of agriculture in Ireland, where an antidiluvian Irish environment is presented, untouched by any fiendish industrial revolution, or any other development or pollution for that matter, in which Irish food is produced in idyllic, pristine conditions. "The abundant, almost yearlong, growth of sweet grass ensures that the cattle are content to outdoor grazing (sic) for the greater part of any year. Such free-ranging activities on diverse and seasonally changing herbage sets Irish beef and dairy produce apart....." (sic, sic). This is exactly transcribed!
Even St Patrick is invoked - it's to his intercession, according to this blurb, that the salmon owes "it's majestic ability to leap through the air." 
And of course the weather gets an airing too - "Ireland's soft and complaisant climate has also helped in sustaining older patterns of agriculture." 
Can you believe it? If I wrote this stuff what would you say to me?'

Is the Civil Service scribe that wrote this gibberish of this same world? Is it perhaps one of these overpaid PRO 'frends' of a minister that wet-dreamed this up?  
And note also how the feckers are riding on the coat tails of the organic and craft food producers. They have no shame. 

Organic Ireland So what's been happening in organics in Ireland whilst I was 'away'? Has it gone away? (as the powers that be in gov. and the IFA would dearly love). Who's bitching at whom? Any shops closed down by our ever-vigilant organic certifying bodies and the sharp-toothed Dept. of Agriculture. Who's resigned from what? Why is David Storey not writing the organic column for The Paper no more? Whose cheating whom now? How many more farmers have dropped out of IOFGA? Is Organic Matters still there? My complimentary copies have stopped. 
Talk to me. I haven't time to dredge. 

Backlog There are hundreds of items waiting to go on the site. I will get around to them all sometime.
Thanks to those who said they liked to read the N & C and wondered when I'd be back. Thanks to the Californian fan that suggested that my thousands of readers subscribe a few bob each to keep the show on the road. Fat bloody chance! But there are a few out there who think this site is worthwhile - I had three offers to buy me a new laptop! But I'm very happy with the refurbished old steam model. It's now got a new 40 Gig hard drive. Jazus, but that'll take some filling!

I am now running the website in Dreamweaver (as opposed to Microsoft Front Page - apparently I am lucky not to have become unhinged by five years using this devious and capricious software). My life (my IT life, that is - nothing wrong with the other one) will be a lot easier when I get the hang of this Dreamy stuff. I did a course in DW and Adobe Photshop two years ago and have all the notes and books - but time! Time! Time!
I have a lot going on at the moment, so the site, email and DW practice etc is only getting an hour in the mornings before 8 am. I would love to see the website develop fast - and there is a partner in the wings that would help that along - but I cannot give it or him my attention until the early winter.
I had lots of offers of help over the last few months, including three to buy me new hardware. I am really grateful for all the generosity but what I really need from now on is to be able to delegate or employ somebody to help run the website. If you can help with expertise call me, or give a donation towards creating a job by sending cheque to my address on the Home Page.