I'm redraftin a bit of me PhD at the mo, so postings have slowed down for a bit, and will for another 10 days or so....however, here's another of my Examiner articles in case you missed it first time around.

Ever wanted to know what a life in the week of an organic farming development worker would entail? Well, read on........

�Monday usually involves a bit of admin, organising upcoming training and paperwork to keep the funders happy� so says Sean McGloin of the Western Organic Network (WON). WON organise training all over Ireland for organic farmers, and for those considering the organic option. Sean, a graduate from the Ballyhaise Agricultural College, is the main organiser of these trainings, and in this capacity, is kept busy six days a week. And there�s more plotting and planning involved in this role that you�d imagine. An interesting life, but a busy one nonetheless.

�Last Monday, I was also working on getting another mobile butchers, as the Leitrim Organic Co-op�s one is attending a market in Dublin on the day it used to attend the Carrick-on-Shannon farmer�s market�. Monday also involved worked on organising a rare breed (Moiled cattle) training day in Antrim. A busy fella, and it�s still only Monday!

�On Tuesday I was at a very interesting workshop in Mountmellick. It was about what�s called care farming or social farming. It�s the idea that farms can be therapeutic centres, where people can come to work and learn. Because it would involve people with difficult backgrounds, mental and physical disabilities, depression, drug or alcohol problems, domestic violence and so on, getting funding for something like this would require a broad spectrum of cross cabinet departmental co-operation. And there isn�t much in the way of policy in this area, so there�s a lot to be done on it. However it is a promising area � over 40 people attended the workshop. Some groups are doing something similar already, like the Camphill communities, brothers of charity, St. John of Gods. Of course it can also be another income stream for farmers.�

Wednesday was the Teagasc organic production conference. �It was very upbeat, they were expecting 120 and got more like 160. And most of them were conventional farmers, which was great. A horticulturalist with 150 acres spoke of supplying hotels and catering in general, and avoiding the supermarkets altogether. Overall, the speakers were good, but one guy really stole the show. A fantastic guy, over from Australia, spoke about specialised machinery for organic horticulture. He was really enthusiastic and really professional .He did a fantastic presentation on mechanical weed control. Nobody could believe how far they�d come. He�s even invented his own small-scale machinery, which could easily be hooked up to a small tractor on a farm in the west of Ireland�

Thursday involved working on supplying organic lamb to the north east: �it�s one of the areas that the market hasn�t developed for. But Leitrim Co-op may have another contract for supplying organic lamb to a retailer � up to 2,000 a year. The logistics have to be worked out, quality, weights, continuity of supply, but it�s looking promising We�ll organise training for producers if it happens.� Sean also worked on the upcoming farmers� market conference in Athlone, did a bit of admin, and somehow squeezed in a bit of studying for his MA in Organic Agriculture, which he�s doing as distance learning through Aberdeen University.

On Friday, Sean had his weekly meeting on Septembers� food festival which will be held in Drunshanbo, and, of course, more admin and more paperwork � which, as you�ll probably see by now, is the bane of everyone who works in the funded sector�s life.

He didn�t even stop on Friday either. Saturday was part two of the pig production workshop, on trainer Ted Mole�s organic farm in Roscommon. This was the fifth such course run by Ted.

He didn�t do anything specifically organic-related on Sunday, he tells me. Somehow, I�d imagine he took the odd work-related call, and probably ended up talking shop with someone, somewhere.

The Western Organic Network can be contacted at:

Enterprise Centre, Hill Road, Drunshanbo, Co.Leitrim, on 071 9640688 or by email at info@westernorganicnetwork.com

Identity and masculinity in modern Ireland

Just to prove that I am not completely obsessed with organic farming, here's an article I wrote a while ago for the Irish Examiner about male roles and parenting in modern Ireland.

Whenever I take my kids to the park, I�m always amazed at how people keep saying things like �oh you�ve got your hands full there�. I mean, I�ve only got two kids! When my partner Vicki takes our kids and sometimes more kids to the same park, no one bats an eyelid. I got to wondering why this was the case: why do people still have lower expectations of men than women when it comes to parenting?

I spoke to Dr. Sara O� Sullivan, who teaches a course on gender in UCD about the issue. I suggested to her that people, in particular from an older generation, often have a conservative conception of the role of the man in the family. While she agreed, she qualified the idea by suggesting that within couples, expectations had in fact changed. It�s just that the practical realities of work hadn�t kept up: �within couples, there is an expectation of more involvement. There is an understanding that the breadwinner role is an outdated one, and that the father as nurturer and a carer is something that is expected. Some kind of contribution to other domestic work is usually expected by women. That can cause a little bit of difficulty because the broader context of work outside the home hasn�t changed, and that can be problematic for both men and women�

Some changes in Celtic Tiger Ireland have made the situation even more difficult. In particular, the length of time it takes to get to and from work each day. People live further and further away from where they work, so in many cases, the working day starts at 5 or 6 in the morning.

My own personal way of dealing with the problems of commuting has been to try to avoid it altogether. For the last few years, I�ve been working from home. Now, this obviously isn�t an option for everyone. But having previously commuted long distances I decided to try to cut it out, at least while the kids are so young. Working in academia, I decided to turn more to research than lecturing. I managed to get a research contract where I could do most of the research from home. I converted a garage into an office, got broadband in and this office is where in fact I�m writing this article from right now.

There are many effects of this, some positive, some negative. Overworking and cabin fever can be issues. Ironically, imposing a 9-5 type structure can sometimes be helpful.

While it�s great to see the kids more often, I often end up shooing them out of the office when I�m trying to work. This can be a bit disconcerting for them, as I�m there but not fully accessible. At least working away somewhere, I�d be, to some extent, �out of sight out of mind�, though there are obviously problems with that too.

However the positives completely outweigh the negatives. Notwithstanding the occasional need for structure, being in charge of your own time is great. Once I get enough work done, I can start and finish when I like. When I take breaks it�s with the family, and I can give a hand when needed. Being able to re-organise when I start and finish the day is handy for those vital occasional occurrences � like the World Cup. Proper hot food at lunch is a real treat. As my daily commute is walking down the stairs, I save on money, time and stress and obviously get to spend longer with my family.

My partner also works from home; she runs a child care service, and hopes to turn this into a cr�che. This might suggest we share the work load equally, but of course we don�t. As you can see from the ESRI figures in the box, men aren�t always great at doing their fair share.

I�m reasonably happy that I do enough of the kiddie/school-related activities and the cooking. We cook a lot because we�re both at home and are real foodies. But there are defiantly some things we men don�t seem to even realise need to be done. Sometimes it seems that men do the fun stuff with the kids and women do the more nitty-gritty stuff. Many men, myself included, seem to avoid some or all of the following: clipping the kid�s toenails, washing the floor and windows, scrubing the skirting boards, hoovering, cleaning the bathroom properly�eh, better stop there�.

Demographically, two parents working outside the home is the norm these days in Ireland.

Some academics suggest that women who work outside the home protect their dual roles. I put this point to Sara: �There is some recent American research on dual income families, looking at how women protect the role in the home even when they are working outside the home - to retain their gender identity, to present themselves as good wives, good mothers. So they seem to be doing huge amounts of work once they get home�

Along with this, society doesn�t value this work adequately. According to Sara �you are seeing a stalled revolution, in that women are entering the workforce in huge numbers, but there isn�t a countermovement into the home. I think the reasons for that are quite interesting. Work is valued, whereas work in the home isn�t�

Recent research suggests that on average, Irish women�s commute time to and from work is shorter than men�s. While this has obvious advantages, it is a double-edged sword. Does this suggest that, in general, women have jobs but men have careers? According to Sara: �Certainly for women with children, in Ireland at present, that would be the suggestion, yes�

What do these realities and expectations mean for modern men? Is masculinity is in crisis?

Dr. Anthony Clare (psychiatrist and author) points out that there has been a reduction in importance of manual labour, a decline in the breadwinner role, and changes in how families are formed and function. Many single parent families are thriving, and most of these are single female parent families. There are inevitable consequences for men: �the point of them, their purpose, their value, their justification - is a matter for public debate�

He suggests that men were once sure of their place in the world, and even when they weren�t, they created the impression that they were. Now, he claims, men are both less relevant and more anti-social: �Throughout the world�antisocial behaviour is essentially male�when it comes to aggression, delinquent behaviour, risk taking and social mayhem, men win gold�. Suicide is also a predominantly male practice.

In the past, Clare claims that in his practice he saw more women in crisis � �empty-nesters� who�d lost their identity. Today, however he sees middle-aged men who�ve been �put out to grass, compulsorily retired, downsized, rendered redundant.�

Think of Warren Schmidt, the character Jack Nicholson played in the movie About Schmidt, or Willy Loman in Arthur Miller�s Death of a Salesman. Clare himself points to Homer Simpson as an omnipresent and negative role model, telling kids that male parents are bumbling buffoons.

Sara points out that in advertising, men are often portrayed in this buffoon-like way: �all the adverts that use a dad, or a man in the kitchen, almost always position them as absolute ejits, with absolutely no competence in any domain. They are always saved by their wives or mother or somebody else.�

But is it really all that bad? Aren�t some men forging new identities, is identity more plural these days, and, if so, are all our little identity bits completely gendered all the time? What about the gender(ed) messages that migrants, travel, and the media give us?

Metrosexual man is one such new man, maybe even a new new man. Rather than being unsure of his place and identity, metro man puts the man into manicure.

Back to Sara: �The metrosexual is the dominant advertising image presented to men, and this is a lot more of a take up of beauty products, you know waxing, fake tans and the like. Certainly there is an increase in the emphasis on the body, but that�s younger men. I don�t think it really impacts on older men�

I�m not so sure that most younger men are comfortable being considered metrosexual. I reckon that men get ridiculed relentlessly when they partake in the next feminised product that comes along � currently it�s the manbag. Maybe men can act slightly metrosexually, once you don�t tell them that that�s what they�re doing.

At this stage, I�m not even sure if I�m not sure about my identity crisis. But I don�t mind. At least I don�t have to listen to Ian Dempsey or Ryan Tubridy while stuck in traffic in the morning.

natural soap (opera material!)

how natural are natural soaps?
Some of these brands are also available on this side of the pond, including in Ireland
have a look: clean up
it's more a story of drug categorisations in the US, punks called germs and the purity of their personal hygiene (which is v pure btw!)

this article follows on from the recent outline of Suzanne Padel's forthcoming research into organic farmer values, available here

Is money the main motivation for farmers converting to organic today? How do organic farming values differ today from the pioneering days? New research into organic farmers in five different countries finds that the values then and now do indeed differ: this research, however, finds that they are not necessarily any weaker. What about Ireland?

I spoke to two pioneering organic farmers about values. One (Joseph, not his real name) started farming organically in the early 1980s. The other began in the early 1990s; Cait Curran, an organic market gardener. Both pioneers claimed that organic farming values were indeed different, including attitude to money:

Joseph �In the early days it was about nature, animal welfare, harmony and balance: for many also a way of life�and it was certainly about financial survival rather than making money�
Cait: �The health of the soil is the cornerstone of organic practice so that was always a huge concern for organic pioneers�organic producers have lost much of the ethos that defined a way of life as well as a livelihood. A percentage of farmers converted purely for the available money through REPS, but these are the ones who also exited from the scheme when the REPS period ended�.

A recent convert, Ralph Haslan (dairy farming since 1973, certified organic since 2001) did de-emphasis the financial side of it:

Ralph: �Today it�s geared a little bit more towards the commercial, but that�s because there is a market for it now. But it�s not the only issue. They are not making any more money, or much more money, being organic. But they have less stock, less inputs and are getting the same return...to rely on the money end would be a false economy�.

Interestingly, he adds �it is a market-led operation; you have to find your own market. It s not like a co-op coming to you and saying, �we�ll take whatever you have off you��.

Pioneers did feel that organic standards are now weaker and attitudes to organic rules questionable. Both State regulatory bodies and farmers themselves are to blame:

Joseph: �Now it is all about compliance, finding loopholes and getting away with the absolute minimum required by the standards. Derogation is the buzzword�if you make a good case you get, nearly always, what you want. To find ways to prevent or minimise problems are too cumbersome�dosing is easier than working out proper rotations. There is also the idea, in the heads of some people in the Organic Unit, that a further erosion of rules and regulations will bring in more producers�.
Cait: �I feel there has been a softening of standards particularly in relation to livestock production and this will follow for cereal production as well through efforts to raise the levels of production. Conversely, horticultural production has become more regulated.�

It�s not all negative from the pioneers. Joseph claims to notice that many farmers he meets who are considering organics �see clearly the negative sides of conventional farming and have serious doubts about their future in it�. Cait does also suggest that at least some converts also start believing in organic farming once they�ve been farming that way for a while.

Ralph seems to be one of these. I asked him if he thought about the environment before he converted to organic: �no to be honest. We were all, not brainwashed, but led to believe that this (farming with synthetic chemicals) was the way of the future.�

However, by the early 1990s, he was starting to get worried: Before I turned organic, I could see the ground needing more and more chemicals and fertilizer to keep going�. Today on his farm in Offaly, he sees a marked difference: �we�ve more diversity on the farm, there�s more wildlife. We�ve a lot more birds and butterflies, bees, everything. And worms. The amount of earthworms we have on the farm is unbelievable�

Overall then, values do seem different, but not radically so. For many, it may not be the life choice it was. Likewise, state and commercial pressures have their effect. However farmers do also seem to become organic in mind as well as practice in the end.

from the Guardian in March:

Adam says that the pressure leads management sometimes to behave almost inhumanely. He tells a story by way of illustration: "One day I got a call from a store manager in Manchester, saying that four men armed with shotguns had just come in and robbed the store. He said that he thought they had got away with �2,000, and wanted to know what form he needed to fill in to explain when cashing up why the tills were going to be two grand down that night.

"It was only when I asked about the girl who had been on the checkout they robbed that it became clear that she was still sitting there, expected to carry on working. Not only that, but he hadn't called the police either. He had called me first, wanting to know what the armed robbery meant for his admin duties. This is what being a manager at Lidl does to you: it makes you so hard that when you're involved in an armed robbery, instead of being terrified, you just feel like saying to the robbers, 'You have no idea how much harder you have made my day; how much extra paperwork I am going to have to do now.'"

Wow. Well worth reading, is the article on LIDI, their secrecy and their staff relations

Are organic pioneers different to recent organic converts, and if so, how?

One of the most common clich�s of organic farming is that once it was wholesome and now it is in some way less pure. Once, organic farmers toiled away, for little or no money, with only the environment and the planet in mind. Today, so the story goes, organic farmers are at best vaguely committed and wary of the old image of organics, at worst only in it for the money.

This notion of previous purity and current callousness has a long lineage. Throughout time, everyone seemed to worry that in their day, things were decent, but nowadays, things are in some way more corrupt, decadent, mean-spirited or possessed by some other foible.

In my own research into the history of the organic movement in Ireland, I constantly encountered people who felt that they were there at this pure starting point. Often, people who started farming in the 1980s and early 1990s seemed to feel this way. Yet there was an organic movement in the 1970s too � Rod Alston, Charlotte and Ben Colchester and the like started then, and others too who have since stopped.

But before them, there were people like Anthony Kay, whom I also interviewed. He brought his biodynamic bread to the launch of the Irish branch of the Soil Association in the 1950s in Dublin. And he worked on an organic farm and stud that had been card-carrying organic, indeed biodynamic, since the 1930s, called Kilmurry.

But still, this notion of being the first, and being the most pure, persists. Inevitably, researchers who study the area argue over whether the movement�s values get watered down. This argument has run since 1997 in particular, when Buck et al developed the notion of conventionalisation.

This conventionalisation of organic agriculture thesis suggests that in a variety of important ways, the organic movement more and more resembles conventional agriculture, and that this trend is inevitable.

Conventionalisation suggests that organic standards would be lowered by the arrival of larger agri-business, that agri-business would appropriate profits which would pressurise farmers, and that organic agriculture, faced by these treats, would become more and more like conventional agriculture.

So broader agro-economic and socio-environmental values, certified standards, allowable inputs would all be modified or weakened: issues around power, control and distribution would be make organic �organic lite� � not in any important way different from conventional agriculture in how it is produced of distributed, or in it�s overall effects on the environment or society.

A massive and heated debate over this conventionalisation thesis developed amongst researchers since 1997. While many arguments for and against have been put forward, today I�m going to focus on just one � values.

Suzanne Padel, in a piece soon to be published, considers the issue of values: Do organic farmers today have weaker values than those of yesteryear? Padel actually interviewed organic farmers from five European countries: Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and Switzerland.

She suggests that newly converting and the earlier, pioneering organic farmers do not neatly divide into two groups, with the pure old guard and the money-minded new recruits. In fact, and despite the statements by established organic farmers about newly converted farmers only being motivated by money, very few noteworthy differences were detected between the two groups.

Instead, she suggests that the complexities of conversion to organic, as well as the specific circumstances of their farming categories are more important than any personal characteristics.

While newly converting farmers acknowledged the benefit of grant aid, they denied vehemently that this was their only motivation. Newly converting producers seemed concerned with organic farming keeping pace with general developments in agriculture - environmental conservation, animal welfare and consumer expectations. Organic farming as an alternative and as an educational tool were also emphasised by this group.

The old guard were more closed, like their farming systems. They were (indeed are) concerned primarily with the soil and the land. Closed production cycles and farming systems values, such as overall farm soil health were emphasised by this group.

So is this the case in Ireland? Have a look in the examiner next thursday an see what the a selection of organic farmers in Ireland think ofof Suzanne's research

(also, if you want to see the full research, then it will be published in the first 2008 edition of the International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology.)

Spirituality, self-sufficiency, selling and the split: a brief potted history of organic farming in Ireland

Here's an article on organic organisations in Ireland, and how they developed from the 1980s to today. It is a linear and political take - I may contribute a cultural take sometime soon. This is essentially a v short history of IOFGA - the Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association. As it happens, according to Anthony Kay (one of Ireland's genuinely pioneering organic farmers) a branch of the Soil Association was established in the 1950s in Ireland. He baked some bread for the event.

IOFGA was set up at a sequence of meetings in the early 1980s. Then, it was called IOGA (i.e. The Irish Organic Growers Association), which reflects just how important vegetable growers were to the movement back then. The grand total of 6 people attended the first meeting. Long haired, beardy men and shaven-headed women sat around on bales of hay in Rod Alston's place, Eden Plants in Rossinver County Leitrim. 40-odd attended another gathering in Blackcastle Co.Meath. By 1984, 2-300 hundred attended a three-day conference in Glencree (Wicklow). The name was soon changed to IOFGA.

Before the mid 1980s, the vast majority of organic producers in Ireland were homesteading migrants. By the mid 1980s, native born Irish farmers like Gerry Brown (a vet from Roscommon) and Michael Hickey (a beef farmer from Tipperary) were entering the fold. Bigger enterprises were being established, like Ballybrado farm. IOFGA had 350 members by 1986, but few of these were full time farmers.

A gradual but unmistakable divide was forming in the 1980s, between commercially-minded farmers who saw both the commercial and environmental merit in larger-scale organic sales, and those more interested in a smaller, but 'purer' environmentalism and alternative living.

In the Winter of 1991, a personality-driven split occurred. While there were genuine differences between the two camps, things didn't work out as simply as you might expect.

People who stayed with IOFGA were concerned that there was a conflict of interest in the Irish Organic Inspectorate(IOI). The IOI were the organic certifiers at the time. The only people who could possibly know enough to certify organic produce were those directly involved in the sector. So this controversial situation was unavoidable. The move away from alternative living and a feeling that the inspectorate was behaving in an elitist and unaccountable manner were also cited as being problematic by some.

Those that went on to form the Organic Trust (OT) were, in the main, committed to larger-scale organic production. They worried about inspection standards, a particularly nationalistic logo which was in use from 1987-1991, xenophobia against blow-ins, careerism in IOFGA and the emergence of possibly weak national standards with emerging Irish government interest in the sector: the much maligned Charlie Haughey actually gave substantial support to the sector in 1991, and actually farmed Kinsealy organically.

None of this went smoothly, as you can imagine; IOFGA represented many, often divergent interests: alternative living, environmentalism and rural native Irish farmers. Also, it was the body which received state support. Organic Trust represented the biggest producers in the land, but were in a legal vacuum for a few years. In what was a very symbolic act, the Ballybrado farm, perhaps the most visible landmark on the organic map, was split in two.

Slowly, the woulds began to heal. In 1996, equalisation between the IOFGA and OT standards occurred. The organic sector grew, with around 1000 producers and around 30,000 hectares of certified land by the end of the century. Today, IOFGA represent about 2/3 of producers, and the Organic Trust about 1/3. People tend to join either IOFGA or OT without any real reference to what are now largely the political differences of the past.

That said, IOFGA still carries out more political work - whiel Organic Trust members are also anti-GM, IOFGA members have been to the forefront of the anti-GM campaign. They also produce the magazine, Organic Matters. Organic Trust still claim to certify the bigger producers and an overall larger amount of produce, but maintian a fairly low profile otherwise.

IOFGA is now located at Newtownforbes, Co. Longford, (T) 043 42495 (F) 043 42496 (E)iofga@eircom.net.

Organic Trust is at Vernon House, 2 Vernon Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin 3, Tel/Fax: +353-1-853 0271, email organic@iol.ie