From growing organic veg in skips to cooking dinner for 160 for seven months in an Antarctic research station, to working in the Democratic Republic of Congo, young Kenmare-born chef and nutritionist Sadhbh Moore is constantly “walking the talk” in her quest to make our food systems better thought-through and better for the planet.

Sadhbh is one half of The Sustainable Food Story: with her life and business partner Abi Aspen Glencross, a synthetic meat scientist turned heritage grain farmer, Sadhbh runs supper clubs with an emphasis on local and foraged foods.

The duo have also recently published their first book, Sustainable Kitchen. But what does Sadhbh mean by sustainable? And is the movement towards individual actions like beeswax wraps and foraging for our supper just disguising the actions of corporations who are more than happy to let the individual bear the burden of fighting for a more sustainable world?

Green Bites caught up with Sadhbh on a visit home to Ireland for a conversation in a polytunnel….

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“Even a lot of the grain that would have been coming from the Ukraine would have been for animal feed.”

Join Jason Horner, the Co Clare organic market gardener who, in 2021, turned from growing veg as Leen Organics for Ennis Farmer’s Market to growing seed commercially. Jason now grows seed for Brown Envelope Seeds in West Cork and also works as the Gaia Foundation’s Irish Seed Sovereignty Programme Coordinator, where he works on educational and outreach programmes to promote seed saving amongst farmers and growers, and also on campaigns like NO PATENTS ON SEEDS.

In the time since Jason started growing seed last year, food security issues have been pushed to the fore by the war in Ukraine….so how do Irish farmers and growers need to adapt in this fast-changing world?

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Glyphosate

While many farmers, the Irish Department of Agriculture and Teagasc say that Irish farmers can’t get by without the controversial herbicide, not everyone agrees….

While some EU countries are in the process of banning Glyphosate, the most used herbicide on the planet and the active ingredient in Monsanto’s RoundUp, Ireland’s Department of Agriculture and Teagasc, the Irish agricultural training and research body, say there’s no alternative and that Irish farming is not sustainable without it.

Ellie is joined by John Spink, Teagasc’s head of Crops and Environment, organic farmer Ross Jackson who runs Lacka Lamb with his wife Amy and farms organic oats and barley, and NUIG researcher Dr Alison Connolly, who is conducting research into glyphosate exposure in Irish farming and non-farming families, for a look at the current state of play regarding the chemical which has been involved in several controversies including high-profile cancer lawsuits in the US for occupational exposure and emerging evidence that glyphosate can have negative impacts on bee health.

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2020: Sugar in hindsight

It may have seemed like a sweet deal, but the history of Irish sugar leaves a bitter taste in the mouth in hindsight….

The closure of the Irish sugar industry in 2005 was a staggering blow to Irish food security. From being self-sufficient in sugar and molasses to importing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of these commodities per year, often from countries whose cheap production relies on horrendous working conditions on sugar cane plantations, it’s difficult to look back on the demolition of the industry as anything other than a retrograde step. 

The salutary tale of the demolition of Ireland’s indigenous sugar industry, whose closure impacted 3,700 beet farmers and thousands of other jobs, in light of recent concerns for food security raised by Brexit and the Covid Crisis, still has plenty to teach us. 

From compensation packages for Irish farmers to a particularly sweet deal for Greencore, the food company that shut up shop under pressure from an EU sugar reform scheme, Ellie is joined by Allan Navratil, a farmer whose family history is steeped in the story of Irish sugar, for a 2020 look at Ireland’s lost sugar industry. 

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Growing Community

Green Bites visited with community gardens on Cork’s Northside at the end of the spring Covid-19 lockdown to learn how gardening is not only used therapeutically to aid mental health, but to grow resilient communities. 

Community Health officers Sarah Carr and John Paul O’Brien give Ellie a tour of NICHE Community Garden in Knocknaheeny.  Nearby in Gurranebraher, Micheál O’Connor has founded The Hut Rooftop Garden, at a resource used predominantly by young people.