The Menu: Wouldn't it be wonderful to buy fresh fruit and veg grown by your neighbour?
Nigel Martin of Waterfall Farm. Picture: Eddie O'Hare.
Back in the 70s, Cork farmer Declan Martin called into his local branch of the supermarket chains that were beginning to spring up around the country.
He and wife Rosemary, growing vegetables since 1967 on their Waterfall Farm, just west of the city, were seeking more outlets and the branch manager was more than happy to stock their produce, to be delivered to the store each week.
This model operated successfully for over a decade until one day the manager informed Declan his produce would now instead be fed into a national supply chain, sent up to a central distribution hub in the midlands and then dispatched all the way back down to his original local branch in Cork to be on the shelves for sale.
It was an early canary in the coalmine, warning what lay ahead for traditional local food systems, eventually to be subsumed into larger industrial models operating on a national and even global scale.
Since the 90s, we have lost over 90% of horticultural producers and on what Bord Bia once marketed as the Food Island, we import 83% of our fresh fruit and vegetables, including apples and potatoes, both easily grown in Ireland.
In addition to having to make do with inferior imported produce, we are also dangerously vulnerable to failures in the international food supply chain leading to food shortages.
Our food resilience, that is, our ability to grow and produce enough to feed ourselves as a nation should external supplies falter or disappear entirely, is now dangerously precarious. And though this industrial-scale model generates huge profits for large processors and retailers, primary producers, farmers and growers, share little or none of the bounty.
At the end of the chain, consumers face increased prices for inferior imported produce and increased promotion and consumption of ultra-processed foods is leading to an ever-growing epidemic of chronic non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, obesity and heart failure.
Did I mention the catastrophic impact of global food systems on climate change, responsible for between one quarter and one third of greenhouse gas emissions? Simply put, the global food system is destroying health, society and planet yet the task of changing it appears impossible.
Now, I’m not so cruel as to entirely curdle the cream in your porridge, which is why I’m delighted to share news of the Cork Food Policy Council’s food strategy.
The Cork Food Policy Council (CFPC), founded in 2014, is a voluntary partnership between representatives of the community, food retail, farming, fishing, restaurant/catering, education, environmental and health sectors and Cork City Council. (Full disclosure: I am a member.), and aims to work towards a fairer, healthier, more secure and sustainable food system for Cork city.
Such a system would ensure all citizens, including the most deprived, would have continuous access to fresh locally grown and produced food, ideally chemical free or organic. The system would be economically and socially just, prioritising health and welfare of local citizens and the local producers who feed them.
For example, in parts of Cork, residents can’t afford to run a car and are poorly served by public transport, yet local shops and supermarkets offer far less choice than in wealthier parts of the city.
In many areas, it is far easier to access takeaway fast food than fresh produce and entire generations are growing up without any idea how to cook nutritious meals for themselves.
So, rebuilding an economically viable and sustainable framework of local growers counts for naught if neglected parts of Cork don’t benefit equally — accordingly, food and health education will also be crucial parts of the strategy.
These days, Declan’s sons, Nigel and Trevor, run Waterfall Farms, though acreage farmed has been substantially scaled down and other than their farm shop, 90% of sales are to more enlightened local restaurants and catering outfits.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to once more pop into a local supermarket for fine, fresh seasonal veg and fruit grown by your neighbours just up the road?
The CFPC food strategy is now open for public consultation on the Cork City Council website, with all ideas, thoughts and opinions on how to improve local food in Cork gratefully received.
consult.corkcity.ie/en/consultation/cfpc-policy-consultation
In the spirit of keeping it local, let’s look to the latest foray from a splendid local spirits producer, Rebel City Distillery, which not only recently released its new Maharani Pomelo Vodka but has also just opened its Spirit School, offering an immersive experience into the art of craft distilling.
Sited in its Marina distillery in the beautifully restored former Ford factory, it is part of the distillery’s award-winning visitor centre offering interactive sessions to learn, explore, and even create your own spirits.
