The Common Agricultural Policy, like NATO, is the child of the Cold War, its purpose to ensure that Europe has enough food to survive a Soviet blockade of the Atlantic. But nowadays Europe's enemies seem less lethal. Myself, I go for months without worrying about U-boats from Baghdad throttling the lifeblood out of the Eurasian landmass, and my dreams seem curiously untroubled by thoughts of North Korean pocket battleships standing off Mizzen Head and waylaying merchantmen in the southern approaches, or cruising into Lough Foyle to accept the surrender of Derry.
But the Common Agricultural Policy endures nonetheless, as comprehensible as astrophysics and as distorting of trade as a black hole is of asteroids. The CAP keeps food prices high, discriminates against produce from the poorest countries in the world, and is obsessed with quantity; and that is a true wartime monomania. In the radio-phonic background, one can almost hear Lord Haw Haw and Workers' Playtime, even as sirens wail a warning of incoming steroids, air-raid wardens check on antibiotic blackouts and searchlights illuminate the skies with warnings against unpasteurised milk.
Safeguarding standards
The reaction against the adulteration of Eurofood started over a decade ago with Eurotoque, and in Ireland with the incomparable Myrtle Allen. By far the most knowledgeable journalist about natural foods in Ireland is Maureen Taplow, whose new book, Good Enough to Eat (Gill and Macmillan), reminds us of how far behind other countries we are. No doubt that is because we were economically less developed; but of course that is no longer true - so how well are we equipped to encourage smaller scale production and safeguard standards?
Maureen writes: "The Swedish Parliament has set a goal of 10 per cent organic land by the year 2000, and there are already over 350 companies producing over 1,500 food products. In Austria, which is quite similar to Ireland with extensive grazing, the government made a concerted decision that the only way to survive as a small country within the EU was to specialise in organic farming. . .In Germany the market for organic food is growing by 25 per cent per year. . .In Denmark, 15 per cent of all fresh milk is organic; one agricultural school is devoted entirely to organic farming."
And in Ireland?
"In Ireland, there's no policy, no research, no training. An Organic Consultative Committee does exist, but the Department of Agriculture has been unable to inform me how the Minister plans to act on its advice."
Ah yes, an Irish non-solution to an Irish problem, which we will allow to grow and grow until we wake up in the morning and it has its thumbs in our eyes, like Dublin traffic, the Army deafness claims or any of the many scandals which have caused such sleek purring wherever Senior Counsel gather to devour lobsters the size of armoured Jack Russells as they yodel for yet more vats of Chevalier-Montrachet.
Organic farming
Not that organic farming is the answer to everything, but as Maureen observes, failure to ask the questions is foolish. And how much of what is called organic farming is really organic farming? For a virtuous while I took to buying pig-meat marked free range, at about twice the price of the ordinary honker. But then when I re-sampled factory-bred porker which lives in perpetual artificial light and is fed the chemicals which once made East German female shot-putters the envy of the world, and then compared it with the "green" hog which was supposedly raised chortling happily amid the acorns and cowslips until one day it was deftly and painlessly pushed off its perch, the only difference was in the colour of my bank manager. So naturally I went back to ordinary rashers, and both my bank manager and my bank balance returned to pre-green pucelessness.
But as Maureen points out, who is to say what free range is? Does it have the same veracity as the Wicklow cottage which "oozes charm, with oodles of potential", which means that it is a garret in Kilbarrack with dry rot, from which you can see the Sugar Loaf through one of the numerous holes in the roof? And was the "free range" pig able to glimpse a window once a fortnight?
Honest sausage
Yet, bizarrely, we are being fastidiously over-governed in certain areas, rather as a negligent parent compensates with too many trips to the zoo. Take cheese. "Irish health authorities appear to be fearful of raw milk cheese," reports Maureen. Ten years ago, the Food Safety Advisory Committee actually recommended that all milk in Ireland be pasteurised for all purposes, even though we could still import raw milk cheeses from other European countries.
Yet when it comes to that honest citizen the sausage, there are virtually no government regulations, and therefore ample room for lawful dishonesty. Trade guidelines state that the pork content need be only 44 per cent; these guidelines are not mandatory, and trade sources agree standards are dropping. Few things are quite as demoralising as the involuntary vegetarianism of bogus bangerdom.
The essential point of what Maureen is saying is that shopping for food these days is complex; you need to have your wits, and her book, about you. Good Enough To Eat. Good enough to buy.