ECO-KIDS:Food growing isn't just for experienced farmers and allotment owners – as increasing numbers of young enthusiasts are proving . MICHAEL KELLYreports
ONE OF THE BEST good-news stories amid the current doom and gloom is that thousands of people around Ireland have been re-introduced to the joys of producing their own food. Growing your own is a lifestyle choice that not only makes sound economic sense, but is also good for physical and mental health, and makes you feel more connected with your community and environment. Industry sectors associated with food growing are among the few that are experiencing growth during the economic stalemate. For example, according to Bord Bia, the value of herb, fruit and vegetable plants and seeds sold in Ireland jumped from €9 million in 2002 to €15 million in 2008 – a 66 per cent increase.
These positive trends are being reflected in a resurgent interest in food growing among young people. Courtesy of the Incredible Edibles programme run in schools by Agri Aware, a whole new generation of children are re-connecting with the land and everything that grows in it – more than 100,000 children took part in this year’s growing challenge in schools. The following young boys are producing their own food and turning it into more than a hobby.
Patrick and Hugh McInerney
The whole country has gone mad for pigs, according to these young Co Carlow siblings. The brothers balance their school work (Patrick is going in to third year, while Hugh is going in to sixth class in primary school) with the operation of a fledgling business called Carrigslaney Pigs, which specialises in selling rare breed pigs. They have been struggling to keep up with demand.
So how did they get into keeping pigs? “I read an article in Country Life,” says Patrick. “It was about a girl from England and she was about my age. She had three or four breeding sows and was also buying in weaners and killing them for meat. When I started to do some research, I realised there was really no one out there doing it, so there was a bit of a gap in the market.”
The McInerneys are not a farming family. It’s a strange thing, therefore, that the boys are so interested in keeping pigs, according to their mother Helen. “They live on a diet of the Farmer’s Journal, Country Living and DVDs about tractors and Victorian Farm,” she says, looking somewhat bemused.
Patrick and Hugh got a one-acre field at the back of their house ready for pigs. They invested in a plastic pig ark, fencing, feeding troughs, feed and their first batch of pigs – Gloucester Old Spot weaners that they fattened up for six months. The pigs were then dispatched to the local abattoir and then to the butcher to be processed.
“Our local butcher has been really helpful to us,” says Patrick. “He butchers the meat and then packs it in plastic bags for us. So far we have just been selling to family, neighbours and friends. People will just say to us, ‘Put us down for a few pounds of sausages’.”
Does he feel bad about the fate of the pigs? “No not really. I love looking after them while they are here and after that the meat is fantastic. We love the rashers!”
We all trot down to have a look at the pigs in the field and I pretend not to be worried as a giant Old Spot sow and five weaners run towards us. They are all hungry and impatient to be fed. The pigs are fed twice a day – a mixture of rolled barley, flake maize, soya bean meal and beet pulp is soaked in water overnight until it looks like a big bucket of porridge. “These weaners are 16 weeks old now so they have another eight or nine weeks to go,” says Patrick.
The business developed so quickly that they soon hit a snag – they couldn’t source enough weaners to keep up with demand for meat. So they decided to start breeding pigs themselves and sourced three Gloucester Old Spot breeding sows. Patrick brings us into stables beside the field where two of the sows have recently given birth to a litter of little piglets (six in one litter and four in the other). Though they are the size of little puppies (and just as cute), all 10 of them have in fact already been sold to customers who want to keep pigs themselves.
Later, as we sit down to eat, the phone rings. It is an enquiry from someone who has seen their ad on the classifieds website DoneDeal.ie, and is looking for seven gilts (a female pig before she has had her first litter). “I’m planning to get another three sows,” says Patrick, “but for the moment I have no more pigs to sell. It’s a pity.”
Though they are enthusiastic about the venture, the brothers don’t have the naivety you might expect from ones so young. Neither brother is convinced their long-term future is in agriculture (Patrick would like to be a vet and Hugh a journalist), but for the moment they are happy with their enterprise. “There’s huge demand there this year,” says Patrick, “but there are lots of people getting into breeding pigs now so I wonder will it be the same thing next year?”
www.carrigslaneypigs.com
Oisín O’Neill
It’s a fair bet that Oisín O’Neill will be forever known as “the remarkable Oisín O’Neill” – that is how he was described on the programme for the recent Dunmore East Festival of Food, and the name has stuck already. Oisín’s talk on keeping hens was one of the festival’s biggest draws, not only because it’s such a hot topic, but also because he is just 12.
A large crowd (young and old) listened intently as Oisín expertly took them through the nuts and bolts of keeping hens – he talked about the different breeds, what to feed them, where to house them, and how to make sure they lay plenty of eggs. After his talk he fielded questions from the throng and kids queued up to rub a hen he had brought along for the afternoon. In the week leading up to the talk, he received quite an amount of press coverage – he was interviewed on RTÉ Radio 1’s The Frugal Household and on local radio station WLR. By all accounts, he handled the pressure with aplomb.
How does a 12-year-old become an authority on such a complex topic? “When I was really young my uncle had hens and we used to go visit him,” he says. “I loved them straight away and I asked my dad if we could get some. We got some of our own hens then, and after a year or so I started looking after them on my own. I went on the computer to read about them and I also got some books.” He also joined the Irish Society of Poultry Fanciers so he could find out more about the different breeds.
Oisín has 11 hens in his garden in Co Waterford – a mixture of Rhode Island Reds, Sussex, Silkie and Seabright hens that wander around the lawn, scratching and foraging. His hens provide a sizeable quantity of eggs each day for the family to eat, and his mum and sister Deirbhile use the excess for baking.
“I enjoy looking at them and feeding them in the morning and afternoon. We give them layer’s pellets and barley to eat, and plenty of water to drink.” Not all the chores are quite so pleasant – the henhouse has to be cleaned out regularly. “It’s not too smelly if you do it every week,” he says. “We have a plastic seed tray under their roost, which captures their pooh, and we can wash it out then on to the compost heap. After a year you can use that on your plants to make vegetables grow better. If you put it on immediately it would burn them.”
So how did he turn from hobby hen-keeper to giving a talk at a food festival? “They wanted someone to talk about hens and I have been really interested in them since last summer so I said I would give it a try. It was good fun.”
Download Oisín’s guide to keeping hens at www.giyireland.com.
Stephen McMullan
At a recent County and City Enterprise Boards competition, a company that produces organic honey won an innovation award. What is particularly noteworthy is the fact that the owner of the company is just 14. Stephen McMullan is a young entrepreneur and environmentalist, and calls his company Huni, which stands for “Honey Unspoiled, as Nature Intended”. Because he currently has just two hives (though he has expansion plans), his product is as sought- after as a rare consignment of truffles. You can’t buy Huni honey in the shops, but if you are lucky enough to live in Stephen’s neighbourhood or attend his school (Scoil Uí Mhuírí in Dunleer, Co Louth), he might just sell you a jar.
How did he get interested in bee-keeping? “I was at our school sports day a few years ago, and a local beekeeper called Eoghan MacGiolla Coda brought along bees in an observation hive, and you had to guess how many bees were in the hive. I just loved everything about them really. How busy they were, how they made the honey. I’ve always loved nature anyway.”
During his summer holidays that year, Stephen became an apprentice to MacGiolla Coda, who has hives throughout Co Louth. He busied himself reading everything he could about keeping bees. He also did a bee-keeping course run by Sr Mary Catherine Duffy at the Louth Beekeepers Association, and became the youngest certified beekeeper in Ireland. “Given the chance,” he says, “I’d rather be out with the bees than doing anything else.”
Now into his third summer keeping bees, Stephen has two hives at the back of his house. “Eoghan gave me a mini-hive with four frames in it, which is called a nuke, and I built it up to a full hive. I have two hives now. To get started you basically need to get a frame with a queen in it and two other frames of brood and a frame with a store of food. When you have that you are basically a beekeeper.”
Once a week Stephen gets kitted out in his bee-keeper’s suit and checks his hives. “During the inspection you are checking the hive under the headings of REDDS – R is room, E is eggs, D is development, D is disease and S is stores.”
Getting stung is par for the course, and Stephen is well used to it. “I get stung at least once every time I go down to the bees. I wear a suit that goes down to the waist but I don’t wear the big bee-keeper’s gloves because I find them too awkward. So I wear rubber gloves and you can get stung through them. It doesn’t bother me any more. I just scrape the sting off with a knife, puff a bit of smoke at the bees to calm them down, and then get on with it.”
Bee-keepers are grappling with the impact of the Varroa mite, which can infest honeybee colonies, in some cases wiping them out completely. Conservation of honey bees is vital to the future of mankind, according to Stephen, given that we rely on bees to pollinate flowers. No pollinated flowers means no food to eat. “Varroa is a mite that lives on the bees, and because it is imported from Asia our bees have no defence against it. You have to put strips into the frames which have acid on them, and the bees rub off it, which kills the mites. Because bees are under threat it’s even more important for people to learn how to keep them.”
Stephen is expecting a bumper harvest this year. All indications point to it being his best ever. He has 40lb of honey on his frames already, and he expects that figure to rise to 100lb before he harvests the honey at the end of August. He sells the end product for €5 per jar. Profits from this year’s harvest will be reinvested in the business, he tells me. “I’ll spend it on equipment or anything else the bees need. Then the rest will go in the bank. Eventually I would love to be a full-time bee-keeper, with maybe 60 or 100 hives.”