ORGANIC GROWERS OF IRELAND

Producer groups can very effectively work well for clusters of farmers or growers. While they have a chequered history, there are plenty of good working examples, such as the Wexford Fruit Producers.

Another horticultural example of a producer group is the recently formed Organic Growers of Ireland.

(pic: organic basil crop)

This new group was established by certified organic horticulturists, who felt that their own needs and interests were not being sufficiently represented.

The OGI are modeled on the UK's Organic Growers Alliance. The UK group aims to bring growers together to help promote and represent growers' interests, as well as accrue other benefits from sharing experiences.

It has emerged as an effective body for interacting with certification and state bodies on behalf of organic growers in the UK.

The Irish version, the OGI, have similar aims and objectives. Initiated at an Organic Conference in Birr in March 2009, already they have held a number of horticulture walks in various locations around Ireland.

There were 6 in 2009, including on the holdings of the Kearns sisters in Roscommon, and Jonathan Doig in Cork.

Five more again have been held this year, including a recent return to the holding of Deirdre O Sullivan and Norman Kenny in Kildare.

OGI have also made submissions to the relevant authorities. These include to the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food with regard to developing the sector.

This submission noted that organic horticulture was historically underfunded and under represented, and that the targets in the Organic Action Plan did not necessarily chime well with the needs of organic horticulturists.

This suggested the appointment of a horticultural development officer, with responsibility to provide training and supports for new and existing growers, and to work on mentoring, advice and market development.

The submission also cited other key areas requiring attention, including �third level and post graduate education in organic farming, an organic apprenticeship scheme, research, on-going market development and financial supports for growers.�

There has been some movement on this horticulture appointment in recent times: however, as of yet, no one has been recruited for the post.

The group hold their first conference and AGM on Monday 22nd November. This will be held in the suitably mid-Ireland location of Kilcormac county Offaly, in the Kilcormac Development Association Hall, from 10am-4pm. (Kilcormac is on the N52 main road between Birr and Tullamore, Co. Offaly)

Topics for the morning session include the following:

The potential for commercial production of organic seed varieties, with Peter Bourke, head gardener from the Irish Seed Savers Association (ISSA), and Madeleine McKeever from Brown Envelope Seeds in Cork.

The ISSA have 8 hectares in Scariff, east Clare, where they research, locate, preserve, educate about and use traditional varieties of fruits, vegetables, potatoes and grains. Brown Envelope Seeds are based in Skibbereen in Cork, where they have produced and distributed vegetable seeds from, since 2004.

Both have, in no uncertain terms, pioneered the development of organic seed availability in Ireland.

As there is a new initiative from SuperValu to increase the amount of Irish-grown vegetables on sale in their stores, a representative from Supervalu will also be speaking, as will Kinsale's Colum O' Regan, who has been involved in this new venture.

There will also be presentations on irrigation in polytunnels and on a field scale with Billy Clifford (Kerry) and Dirk Flake (Galway), as well as a representative of P and A supplies, who supply pumps and irrigation equipment.

Finally, there will be a presentation on compost and compost teas with Michael Miklis, a biodynamic farmer and grower based in Killkenny.

In the afternoon, the OGI will have a general meeting, where they will plan their upcoming activities. A number of trade stands will also be in attendance.

All told this day should be of interest to anyone interested in or currently growing, organic horticulture crops.

Price for the day is �30 (includes a 25% reduction from National Organic Training Skillnet) which includes an organic lunch and tea/coffee.

For more: irishorganicgrowers@gmail.com, NOTS, or 071 96 40688.

Global Seed Vault part 2: the critics

See here for part one: here
Not everyone is completely enamored with 'the Vault'. Dermot McKinney, project manager of the Irish Seed Savers: � its a very nice idea, but the only way to save the planet from disaster is to have seeds in people's hands, not in a vault north of Norway.�

Others working in third world development have also expressed similar concerns about about the emphasis on ex situ rather than in situ seed storage.

According to the Non Governmental Organisation Grain, there are, as they put it, faults with the Vault: [this is] �just the latest move in a wider strategy to make ex situ (off site) storage in seed banks the dominant � indeed, only � approach to crop diversity conservation. It gives a false sense of security in a world where the crop diversity present in the farmers' fields continues to be eroded and destroyed at an ever-increasing rate and contributes to the access problems that plague the international ex situ system.�

One practical concern expressed is the static nature of the vault. According to Dermot McKinney �storing seeds far into the future may be impractical. The seeds would be imprinted with the traits of now. They may not be viable�

So 'the Vault' is like a moment in time, a library where all the books are dated no later than 2009:

�Things change but these seeds won't. The climate will have changed. We use a 10 year rotation here at the Irish Seed Savers to deal with this in the real world�.

From a developing world perspective, the Vault can actually be seen as a moment of final theft:
�The system operates under the assumption that once the farmers' seeds enter a storage facility, they belong to someone else and negotiating intellectual property and other rights over them is the business of governments and the seed industry itself�, Grain claim.
As depositors are not allowed to put in seeds that are already stored in the Vault, first group in essentially claims ownership. So while the origin and subsequent generations of development of many food plant seeds occurred what is now modern day Iraq and Syria, farmers from these regions still growing food plants are disenfranchised from access to the Vault.

In a doomsday type situation, which is the function of the Vault, a minority of rich western nations and private corporations would thus own the world's seeds.

"This system forgets that farmers are the world's original, and ongoing, plant breeders,�� said Shalini Bhutani, GRAIN�s Asia Programme Officer, who is based in New Delhi.

Norway was chosen for its stability, and without doubt it is one of the world's most stable and indeed egalitarian nations. It also shows a strong commitment to environmental sustainability, and is supposed to be unlikely to suffer from natural disasters.

Eerily enough, Svalbard was at the centre of the biggest earthquake in Norway's history, measuring 6.5 on the Reciter scale in February 2008.

For their part, having invested so much of their own resources in the Vault, the Norwegian government are slightly bemused by the criticisms:

According to Jan Borring of the Department for International Cooperation in the Norwegian Ministry of Environment, a key issue is the fact that �storage space is not unlimited� and �most of this material will be generally available anyway� because of international trading rules and arrangements.

Crucially, the Seed Vault �is a duplicate facility, an extra layer of security, not a working seed bank as such, and even less a community seed bank that distributes seed directly to farmers or others� according to Borring.

Forward again to 2060. Would a raggle taggle band of scavengers get access to the seeds if they really needed them? How will power and politics play out in such a doomsday scenario? History and present realities can teach us, if we choose to listen to the lessons.