Organic hill farming

A whole system, from production to consumption, with biodiversity improved along the way, through the scrub-reducing activities of this cattle breed in this location....

The foothills of the Knockmealdown mountains, like any other mountainous region, is not what you might call typically good farming land. And it is not in any way suited to high stocking rates. Along with upland grassland, this part of Ireland is characterised by wet heath, scrub, dry heath and dense bracken. Yet somehow Joe Condon and his wife Eileen have managed to turn a remote hilly farm with commonage into a thriving business.

In fact the Condons, through their farming and retailing practices, have turned their splendid isolation into a thriving organic food business, one that has an array of feathers in its bow.

They manage to protect and indeed develop biodiversity, while directly selling an especially healthy meat to their customers.

The Condons are organic beef farmers, and their meat comes from a Galloway herd. The products are artisan from beginning to end: the Condons use a local butcher, Michael McGrath from Lismore: �hand butchering is essential to the process. People like Michael develop a feel and a vision for what they are doing - you could look at the job and it looks easy. It�s not. You have to have the skills, the discipline, the training. You have to make sure that no gristle ends up in the burgers, for example.�

Joe has a small scale processor licence under his IOFGA organic certification, so he contracts out the processing work under his licence.

The Galloway is well suited to the hills. There is research to suggest that these sorts of traditional breeds do a far better job than sheep at keeping unwanted monocultures of scrub at bay in sensitive areas. On the Condon�s farm, as in the farms in the BurrenLIFE project in Clare, farming is being used to protect and improve biodiversity, not hinder it.

There is also research to suggest that Galloway meat has more Omega three, and a better Omega three to six ratio that other meats.

Joe is quick to let his customers know this � the website through which much of his sales are conducted is called after this fact: http://www.omegabeefdirect.ie/ .

I asked Joe about how the direct selling works: �We deliver frozen burgers and beef direct to the consumer through a courier. I drive over to the depo in the evening, not the middle of day, so the products are only with the courier for 10 hrs. I can track POD (Proof of delivery) on line .There have been no slip ups to date�.

Customers can order quarter pounder burgers, and all the steaks � sirloin, striploin, mince, fillet, cubed and round, along with a stir fry option. There are three box options on the site, and 5 kgs clocks in at �95.

And the reviews couldn�t be better. The latest addition to the long list of high profile customers is the Schoolhouse gastropub in Ballsbridge, Dublin. Joe�s meat featured on Richard Corrigan�s Corrigan Knows Food, while John McKenna eats Joe�s burgers at home: As he said himself recently when interviewed in the Irish Times �if you've got three kids as we do, the box with the burgers from Joe Condon's farm is a box from heaven�. And Conor Pope, also in the Irish Times, gave the omega direct organic burgers the top rating of 5 stars, ahead of all comers.

Joe doesn�t just deliver direct. He also sells at two farmers� markets, Dungarvan on a Thursday and Waterford city every second Sunday. His FBD insurance allows him, as a food processor, to trade at farmers� markets at no extra charge. This type of direct selling particularly appeals to Joe:

�You couldn�t put a monetary price on what has developed out of the farmers� market. You get to improve your product; you know if you are going in the right or the wrong direction; you develop your sales techniques. And there�s an unbelievable amount of networking; journalists, chefs, they see you there. At home on the farm, nobody sees you.�

True. Especially at the foothills of the Knockmealdowns.