Oh dear I am really digging deep now. Digesting as it were. Fermenting even. I have been ruminating on some information that is quite frankly an emperors new clothes moment.
 
I was wandering through the ChatGBT app to explore emissions in the organic sector and strayed into the livestock emissions. Dear oh dear. How dreadful are all those cow farts! The emission numbers are high…but I wanted to quantify how high as compared to something else. It puts things in perspective you see. So I thought, I know…I’ll compare it to the emissions from bombs. Afterall we hear about all the rockets and missiles and bombs every day in the news.
 
What a surprise to find this out and I am quoting Chat GBT here. “ Military emissions are largely excluded from national climate reporting ( eg Kyoto, Paris) making them a hidden carbon hotspot.” WHAT!!!!???
 
Please do check this one out for yourself. I’m still recovering from the shock. I cannot begin to take this CO2 emissions guilt seriously if there is not a true picture. Trust = Truth & Transparency
 
Farmers! It’s time to call out the system that is trying to break you. By being exempt from reporting then the Military Industrial Complex undermine the validity of this plan. Like research that exempts the data that doesn’t suit. Can we trust it? Before we count down to the time we will be expected to pay carbon fines there will have to be some serious kick back on this issue!  

​Anne Maher

​It is not that easy to keep up with tariff stories so I  might be very out of date by the time this goes out. I just wondered about butter. If Irish food exports were subject to tariffs which made them cost prohibitive then would this mean there is a glut available at source? Would we need to bury the butter in the bogs again to preserve the glut for the mean times… can you tell I obsess about this food? It brings back memory from childhood about my parents taking an organised bus trip from Portlaoise to a place in the North called Jonesborough in Armagh in the 70s. I remember boxes of butter coming back. Obviously worth travelling great distances as a group on a bus for this food. I guess the price was prohibitive at the time south of the border. I can’t say if this was a once off or a regular thing. But notable now when I dwell on the same desire to find good food. It seems too easy to get food but there is effort involved in the valuable stuff! The question I have today is how far will you go to get it? 

​Anne Maher

If you come from a farming background chance are you will have had some brain rewiring time to adjust to the use of the letters AI. Artificial insemination has become intelligence. It was only a matter of time perhaps! I have just read Klaus Swabbs book on the 4th Industrial Revolution. Gosh he was enthusiastic about how technology was going to be the wonderful gamechanger. Indeed it is difficult to deny the progress and speed of technology. But have you noticed the brakes being applied more lately? Screens have not been the answer to seamless learning in schools. In fact there is a return to pen and paper. A realisation that technology does not provide all the answers. Finding the balance of traditional and modern is our challenge today. Personally I find the automatic tills a challenge. “Unidentified item in the bagging area” This slogan is up there now with “Mind the gap” The latest gadget to keep up with. How bloody awful it is for the rising number of folk suffering with memory loss and dementia to have to cope with the speed of technology development. Are we checking out mentally I wonder? Screens are robbing our children of the ability to socialise and every daily interaction that can reinforce socialisation is being digitised. Social connections are so valuable for our health and slowly we are realising this. But will we be able to recover the virtualised children in time? That is the concern.  

Anne Maher

I watched the Irish documentary with Liam Neeson narrating the story about the Irish famine again recently. This two part series was compulsive viewing reminding us of the catastrophic events that changed Ireland forever. As an adult of course I realise there are many reasons that contribute to famine, but as a child I was taught it was because a crop had failed. I was also taught that the famine lasted three years. 1845, 1846, 1847. You know how you have to learn those dates for primary school and they become seared in your memory…
 
This documentary though said it was seven years long. Seven? What? Did I forget this detail? Maybe. It’s a significant detail to overlook….but then this is Irish history and to the victor the spoils. History is very subjective. It is always a version of events that we get. Who benefits from the truth not being told. As I type the Kennedy files are released. Are we ready for it? As Jack Nicholson famously said you can’t handle the truth… it is difficult to learn there was food available but not everyone could have it when they needed it.
 
What would have happened if the local population were allowed to eat the local food that was available at the time? I often wonder this. Provision of access to nourishing food is vital to our survival. It remains one of our goals. Generational memory runs deep. 

​Anne Maher

In the same few weeks that a compulsory housing order for chickens was announced publicly because of Bird Flu, the EU also authorized the use of mealworms as a novel food. The company Nutriearth in France are leading the way here with the only authority to sell yet... A very fancy website with plenty of the right words. Selling pet food and supplements, the mealworm is being well utilized for its properties of being a protein substitute. So between doggie dinners and vitamin D supplements we are slowly being sensitized and what starts out as novel becomes standard..but how do you make people buy in to the concept??
 
Here is what they say about it themselves…
 
Among all edible insects, Tenebrio molitor (or mealworm) is the first insect approved by the European Food Safety Authority as a novel food under specific conditions and uses, testifying to its growing relevance and potential.
 
Tenebrio molitor is not only suitable for animal feed, but is also considered ideal for human consumption and has even been recommended as a bio-regenerative survival food for space missions.
 
A bio regenerative survival food for space missions….. I can hear echoes of another generation saying it clearly   “what planet are they on??”  
 
Meanwhile the culling of chicken has begun in Northern Ireland. Thousands of birds culled because a flu virus is detected. Imagine the same approach on humans? The kill all approach is considered the answer…like roundup, broad spectrum antibiotics will we eventually realise that it is counterproductive to the health of the species? How about survival of the fittest strategy? Or does progress in science and immunology count for anything now? Selective science I’d say.
 
Or perhaps the investors in meal worms are keen to take the market once and for all? Cutting out the middlechicken and we can eat the meal worms direct. What a cost saver! 

​Anne Maher

There is no doubt you cannot put an old head on young shoulders. How do you teach younger folk about the importance of a sustainable food system and protecting our farming culture?
 
It has taken me years to understand it, despite being in the food game of teaching home economics and public health nutrition.
 
Gaming teenagers with only interest in phones and play are hard to square with the reality of life sometimes. What life skills do they have that are useful?
 
But I do remind myself often that there was a time when my priorities were different too. A major life change for me happened in 1992 when I made the decision to teach in Botswana. Now with no internet, this did mean finding information in libraries etc. (Remember those times?) Training courses with APSO in Dublin were kind of exotic and adventurous. I know I would not have access to the “comforts” of home and would have to adapt. To be honest I was very naïve at 25 and to put that in context I was slightly obsessed with how I would cope not knowing how I would manage without my weekly fix of Coronation Street. Deirdre was about to go to jail…
 
Suffice to say I survived. The addiction was severed and I saw the world differently. Thank goodness. It’s amazing what you see and learn when you are not distracted.
 
The virtual world is many people's reality now. Rather than a dedicated timeslot for our addictive screen, they are with us 24/7. It is concerning. Are we losing the ability to make common sense of reality? Wellbeing is centred around grounding ourselves in reality. Touch the soil, connect with people, turn your face to the sun. You never know what answers you will find!

Anne Maher

This one has captured the angst of the awakening real foodies.. we have noted the rising numbers coming in looking for real milk with “none of that new fangled feed” that apparently keeps the bovine flatulence in control. The climate friendly milk etc. Sigh…..
 
Some thoughts on this one.. as a feed additive this isn’t a new concept. We will find it very difficult to avoid Bovaer throughout the food chain already..you may have avoided it in your choice of milk but probably consumed in plenty of chocolate over Christmas! Food processing involves so many interventions along the way that to actually consume the original food is difficult enough. If you rely on a label to give the “trusted” information then it is easy enough to change that and mislead you into consuming again… Feed additives are not new and our digestive systems and metabolic health are suffering for decades. All the additives along the food chain to extend shelf life and effectively act as the proverbial botox and filler to enhance the visual appeal certainly have their side effects on our health. Emulsifier, colourings, flavourings etc can cause havoc with our health and I cannot see Bovaer being different despite the assurances. I’d suggest they don’t use the term “safe and effective” in their marketing taglines.
 
 Bovaer though may be slightly different as a feed additive in that it presents a “moral” defense for its use. Who would have thought that we would be encouraged to buy a product from fart free cows to save the climate… Funny how the climate can be saved with lots of companies making money..? Where does this money come from? The farmers who have to pay to feed it to their animals? The consumers who have a premium added on to their shopping? There is a lot to be said for going direct to your local farmer and saving the climate all those wasted air miles. The infamous middlemen won’t be amused. 

Anne Maher

The American election has happened and it appears that the shock is wearing off for many who were surprised at the result. It remains to be seen how this will all play out but I for one am hopeful that the Make America Health Again mantra will have a profound effect in reality. While most people seemed to focus on the figurehead of Trump, I have been interested in the team in the background. Recognition of the poisoned food system and the acknowledgement of the role of our farmers as a solution is tantalising stuff! Talks of school meals for children being organic…imagine that! I admit to getting rather excited at the prospect of Joel Salatin being asked to be an advisor to the new government on behalf of agriculture. The ultimate example of regenerative farming at policy level? Woooa! Progress! Enlightenment! The SAD (standard American diet) may become happy again…
 
Yin and yang later in the week on the other side of us a Uk political advisor John McTernan announces that farmers are “ an industry we can do without. We don’t need small farmers”. Ireland sits in the middle, a tug of war metaphorically speaking as changes are afoot. Amidst change there is bound to be chaos so hang on tight! Keep nourished and carry on! 

​Anne Maher