Chapter 1: What are the benefits of supporting local producers?
The Claire Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance. You do often want to shop healthier and to save money, as myself and Carina have been discussing, and to support local. But it can be hard to know where to start and if it makes a difference. Well, to offer us some tips and advice on all of this, I'm joined by founder and CEO of G.I.Y. Grow It Yourself, Mick Kelly.
Mick, you're very welcome. Good to see you. Thanks for coming in. So tell us about what you do, first of all.
Yeah, so GIY, we're a non-profit social enterprise, started back in 2008 and we're basically trying to reconnect people to real food. I think the food system's broken. I think that we've become really, really disconnected from our food and I think we can see the impact of that in our health and in the health of the planet.
Well, it's hard to get an Irish vegetable.
Yeah, well, exactly that. Unfortunately, I mean, I think our kind of food security is sort of an illusion. You know, our former Taoiseach, Clare Bradcur, used to say that we could feed 50 million people and that'd be grand if all they want to do is eat beef and dairy, because that's basically what we're doing.
And we're sending it away.
Yeah, exactly. 90% of what we produce as a nation goes out of the country. And we import pretty much everything else. So if you think about it, all of, like if you think about the average plate, I suppose the meat might be Irish, but pretty much everything else is going to be imported typically. Around 85% of our veg and fruit. Most of our grains are, you know, the wheat for our breads.
Everything else pretty much is imported. And when it comes to veg and fruit, as you said, in the 1990s, we had about 600 commercial veg growers. We're down to just over 70 now.
So what is it? It's just not commercially viable to do it, is it?
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Chapter 2: How is the food system broken and what are its impacts?
And that's so in real terms, the price of veg has stayed more or less stable over 25 years. It's gone kind of down and then up, but it's, It's more or less the same cost as they were 25 years ago, whereas the consumer price index has kind of gone like that, obviously. And most of our other types of foods have increased in price.
So and then their input costs have gone through the roof, energy, oil, fertilizer, all that stuff. And they're just leaving the sector in their drove a couple of weeks ago, actually. Carrot grower that had about 12% of the national carrot crop down in Kilkenny went out of business, 45 jobs gone, you know. So it's just, it's collapsing in front of our eyes.
And unless we do something about it, and obviously government has a role to play, but also us as consumers, then there won't be any veg for us to buy.
You're asking us then to support our local producers, the ones who are still there, still grinding it out.
Yeah, there's a couple of things. So obviously those 70-odd growers are kind of the big guys. They're the guys producing maybe 30-40% of our broccoli and all the major crops. And they need our support or they'll be gone. So it's as simple as that. And like it comes down to, you know, as a consumer, when you go into a supermarket, often you have a choice.
You know, I went, I called into a supermarket on the way over here and there was like there were potatoes on the shelves in the supermarket I was in. Some of them were Irish and some of them were French, which is mad like that. We're importing little salad potatoes from France.
I always think that's mad. And I always think it's mad that we're importing so much green vegetables because we're good at that. Like that's easy for Ireland to do. I mean, that's what we were always told. We were good at growing and yet we're bringing it in from Africa or from all over the world, really.
Yeah, absolutely. And like some of that seasonal, I mean, we don't have any broccoli at the moment, for example, in season in Ireland.
There's a kind of a gap. We expect to eat strawberries now in December.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do local vegetable growers face?
We have one in G.O.I. but we're not the only one that likes the Green Earth Organics and the Happy Pear do it, Cork Rooftop Farm and a few others. And that's a way to access, you know, really good, I would say very good value for money food, you know, on local and seasonal.
Okay, Mick, we're going to leave it there for today, but you're going to come back and talk to us again. This is going to be a running theme. We certainly will. That's Mick Kelly there from GIY.
The Clare Byrne Show with Aviva Insurance.
Weekday mornings at 9 on Newstalk. Conversation that counts.