Many fine speeches were heard at the Growing Awareness conference on genetically modified food held recently in Skibbereen, but I think the star turn was Caroline Robinson, a grower from Co Cork, who gave a funny but wise talk on the realities of being an organic grower.
She and her husband, Eddie, once farmed cereals on 400 acres in Kenya. When the EU donated a grain surplus to Kenya, their business was ruined. They vowed that if they were to farm again, they would do so on a small scale, with minimum inputs, controlling the operation from growing to selling.
Now, they produce vegetables on five acres - Caroline estimates that just three acres of organic vegetables produced all year will feed 100 families.
They put manure on the ground the year before they plough it in to produce, and her key strategy is that "you feed the soil, not the plants". They avoid the F1 varieties - hybrids intensively bred for consistency and high yield - qualities less useful to the small-scale grower, as they seek gradual picking and don't want to be faced with 500 heads of cabbage all ready at the same time.
Each Thursday, Caroline delivers her boxes of organic vegetables, a system which "guarantees us an income every week". On Saturday morning, she sells on Cornmarket Street in Cork, and on Tuesdays in the city's Macroom market. "What you all want to know is: do we make a living?" she said. Well, they have just bought a further 30 acres, and they are paying the mortgage, and it is all working because of offering "local produce for local people".
The conference was addressed by a range of international speakers. Those who supported genetic engineering were certain their technology is the way forward, but the confidence of the "green" farmers and growers seemed to me to be a very potent contrast to the mood of their conventional counterparts, so maybe the geneticists shouldn't count their battery chickens just yet.