Ollie's annual christmas wish list to Santy

Dear Santy

How are you? It must be tough this year. For me, it's hard to know what to ask for. I mean, you have been very good to me in recent years, and I should by now be more self sufficient. How many more bail outs do I need?

Plus, I feel like I should just make whatever it is myself, such is the fashion for frugality these days: Grow it yourself, mend it yourself, where will it all end? Making jumpers out of old odd socks knitted together, to sell at the car boot sale?

Maybe I'm wrong to even be asking for stuff. So I'll try to be creative and modest, like dresses in the 1930s.

(image from green santa : check them out!)

First up has to be the implementation of the programme for government santy. I was very surprised to see all the organic and GM bits in there, especially with all the details about horticulture, voluntary GM free logos and the like.

So even just that, which includes a re-commitment to reaching 5% organic. That would be just dandy.

All kinds of options would open up, were we to reach 5% organic. Especially considering the fact that organic farms build soil quality, which helps prevent floods while also taking carbon from the air and putting it into the ground. That's just what we need now, so it is.

Maybe then, organic could start to take centre stage. Or, at least, not be left out in the cold completely.

Isn't it funny how the IFA complained about being left out of the big conference in Dublin David McWilliams organised? After complaining about being left out of the Irish Economic Forum, they left organic out of the conference they orgnaised.

This despite organic actually being a growth area in agri-food! You couldn't make it up Santy.

Maybe the organic guys should leave someone out of their next conference � biodynamic, or local, or the like.

I'm hoping you can also rig the vote on the new EU organic logo too. Is that too much? Otherwise, someone will probably set up a facebook campaign which will mean that the most partisan and least suitable logo will actually win.

Can you believe, Santy, its being decided by a public vote? They got students to come up with designs, and then made a shortlist available for voters. Do you remember that time the Wolfe Tones version of A Nation Once Again got voted the best song ever on a BBC pole? Either we're facing that malarkey Santy, or I'll get you to fix it for me.

I'd love to see some more organic farmers getting creative and finding creative routes to market. I know organic farmers who are selling tail and tongue to really trendy but affordable restaurants these days Santy � who'd have thought of it, eh?

I know the banks are being extra mean these days but necessity breeds ingenuity Santy, so I'm hoping more products like some of the great new ones we've seen come on board this year will emerge.

Now, that's a fair bit already, I know. Just here me out. Now that organic conversion has become available again, from 1st January, I'd like a handful of new organic farmers in each of the following areas: dairy, arable, horticulture. Just a handful now � I'm not greedy!

So in dairy, I'd like 4, in arable 5 and in horticulture about 5 big guys too. That's not too much more now is it? The conventional diary price is so poor santy, that there must be opportunities for them � especially with the new organic dairy farmer company, the Little Milk Company.

Who knows, maybe even Venison? Rudolph and the lads better watch out themselves! I'd say they are fairly organic, and would provide a mean meat for the hungry mob I have here to feed. Lean times here in Ireland, Mr Claus.

Things are tough santy, but I know you'll pull through. You always do!

Ollie's Christmas list: santy calling....

Dear Santy, Ollie again. I know some people think I�m a bit old for all this Santy stuff, but after last year, I can say with absolute conviction that I am a believer!

I mean, I wanted an overall majority for the Greens, and a Minister for as opposed to against the Environment. Now, I didn�t get the overall majority, but I did get a Green Minister in the Department of Ag with responsibility for organic, and a Green Environment minister.

And I wanted the Minister for as opposed to against the environment to at least watch the movie An Inconvenient Truth. Our new minister for the Environment met with Al Gore a few weeks back. I also asked for a dig out for the small organic growers. Fair play Santy, you really are a miracle worker.

And, while it�s tough for conventional farmers at the moment, with rising prices for all their agri-industrial inputs � the fertilizers, feeds, pesticides, fuel and all that, it just might encourage a few of them over to organic. Organic farmers� costs are also rising, but the playing field seems to be levelling a bit.

So it is with both hope and expectation that I�m writing this note to you. I feel a bit like the boy who has a fair bit and wants a fair bit more.

Anyway, the first one is fairly straight forward: I want the bits the Greens actually got into the programme for government to happen.

Especially 5% organic farming by 2012 and more support for farmers� markets. So if you could start working on that, Santy, great. I�d say the IOFGA manifesto is probably a good place to start, if you want to increase the organic acreage. There�s plenty of good advice in there; what�s more, I think the new Minister has already been listening to them. So, like most other kids these days, for me Christmas is just one big gift giving season.

You could add to his work by establishing a new organic development agency to kick start production, magic up a �20 million annual budget for the sector, encourage public institutions to provide organic food, and help out the tillage and horticulture sectors.

Minister Sargent, Santa�s little helper, has already done a bit for horticulture and tillage, but far more needs to be done.

He�s also started on the farmers� markets, but he really needs to start cracking the whip in a way befitting of a man with a double-barrelled authoritarian name; a minister and a sergeant.

He needs to get the county managers into a room, to tell them to tell their underlings to treat farmers� markets with the respect they deserve. And he needs to follow up on this by, with other Ministers like John Gormley, who has local government under his remit, setting local authorities targets to change their behaviour and attitude. In particular, all local authorities need to allow roadside advertising of farmers� markets. That way, you Rudolf and the rest of the Reindeers might actually find your way to one on your travels.

Here�s a real tough one for you now Santy: can you try to get some of our dusty old nutritionists to finally start accepting that, sometimes, organic food actually is more nutritious? What are they afraid of? There is so much recent research, especially into fruits, vegetables and milk, to suggest that it is more nutritious, that they�ll have to change their minds soon Santy.

In fact, if you could only stop them from trumpeting that ould broken record mantra �there is no evidence to suggest that organic food is more nutritious�, that�d be a start. It just keeps on popping up everywhere, so it does Santy, no matter what evidence comes out.

I know you have some sort of connection to Coca Cola Santy, which might colour your opinion, but even Coke are adding Green tea to a new product range of theirs, Diet Coke Plus. They advertise that this increases the antioxidants in the product, but really Santy, antioxidants are what all this new research is showing at higher levels in organic food.

So I�d recommend laying off the Coke Santy, and joining the reindeers in chompin on the organic carrots I�ve left out for you.

Yours in anticipation,

Dr. Ollie Moore

ollie's christmas list: what I weally weally want

This is what I want from Santy. And if I don�t get it, I�ll be very very cross. If I do get it, the world will be a far better place.

OK, first things first. I want the Green Party to get an overall majority. Well, it is a Santy list isn�t it, and you can work wonders. You don�t even need petrol to fly around the world. The Reindeers probably produce a fair bit of Methane gas with their burps and to a lesser extent farts, but it�s still not as bad as aeroplanes now is it?

That�s another thing. I want a tax on gratuitous flying. I�ve flown once in the last two years, and I felt bad. On the plane, I read their �in-house� magazine, Cara. Hecktor, who to be fair I think is a good laugh, was interviewed in it about his travels. He made a joke about the fact that he�s flown �well over a hundred� times from Galway to Dublin. That�s completely wrong as a practice, and should have a massive environmental tax put on it. The whole world suffers because of that level and type of Co2 emissions, and it costs less than the train. Wrong, wrong wrong. Please help Santy.

Speaking of tax, how about a change in the tax system? How about punishing what harms the environment and rewarding what helps? Organic farms can sequester Co2 from the air (i.e. reverse global warming by sucking in Co2 and making it safe), have higher rates of biodiversity and loads more. OK just an increase in the REPS payment for organic producers, and an opt-out of REPS for very small organic growers. Now that�s just a wee stocking filler for a man of your talents, isn�t it Santy? Like, Denmark taxes pesticides and subsidises organic food is schools and hospitals Santy. Come on!

And speaking of organic farming, how about ending the folly of what gets called co-existence between organic and GM? We�re doing OK on that one so far Santy, but we need to stay vigilant. Can you believe, they talk about adventitious contamination, and, in the same breath, talk about the inevitability of this contamination. Santy, my dictionary says that adventitious mean �accidental�. What�s an inevitable accident Santy? I�m confused.

And what about Bird Flu. Pleeease pleeease, let the truth come out on that one. You have the power! Some experts are now are saying that wild and farmed outdoor birds are the victims, not the cause, of the deadly strain. They claim that the flu comes from the intensive factory farms of south east Asia, and gets so strong these factory farms, that it kills outdoor birds when they come into contact with it. And the flu is following poultry and poultry by-product transport routes, not the migratory paths of birds. You must have some across a few migratory birds in your travels? Did they look sick?

I also want some more stocking fillers. Little things. I want the minister for the environment to be for the environment. He argues against us even coming close to our Koyoto targets. Can you get him to go to the new Al Gore film, An InconvenientTruth? It�s really good. Very clear. Stark, I�d say. It�s on at the moment- I�m sure he�d have a chance over the season. While you�re at it, can you give him a copy of George Monbiots� new book, Heat? Well actually, seeing as this is a santy list, can you read it to him each night as he sleeps, so it embeds in his subconscious, and he just starts to act on the stuff in the book.