'Feeding Ourselves' in Cloughjordan

Ella McSweeney of RTÉ’s 'Ear to the Ground' leads a stellar cast of national and international speakers and organisations at the annual Feeding Ourselves event in Cloughjordan on Saturday March 3rd.

“Rural Revitalisation through a Co-operative Approach to Farming and Food” is this year’s theme. International guest speakers from the European Parliament (Hannes Lorenzen) and the GROW Observatory (Pavlos Georgiadis) complement Irish experts from a range of farming, food, environmental and rural development backgrounds.

Topics for the event will be of interest to anyone with a stake in agri-food and rural Ireland. Both broad and specific perspectives will be taken throughout the day. For example, the benefits of co-operative approaches for rural revitilisation will feature, as will real life examples of local north Tipperary businesses with elements of the co-operative ethos. These will include Riot Rye Bakehouse and Crawford’s Farm, both from Cloughjordan.

Initiatives which may suit specific farms, groups of farmers or communities will be showcased. These include high nature value farming (James Moran), social farming (Aideen McGloin), community supported agriculture (Pat Malone, Tamara McGinty), all of which will feature.

Hannes Lorenzen will update participants on changes at EU level to the Organic Regulations, in the area of seeds, soil and group certification. 

The event is organised by Cloughjordan Community Farm and Cloughjordan ecovillage-based sustainability NGO Cultivate. It is supported by European agri-food policy NGO ARC2020 the Horizon 2020 supported EU innovation project GROW Observatory, UCC Centre for Co-operative Studies, the Night Orchard and the Cloughjordan Ecovillage.

Cloughjordan Community Farm is a member-owned and operated farm in the village, supplying dozens of local families with fresh vegetables, eggs and meat, produced on part of the 67 acre ecovillage site in Cloughjordan. Membership is opened to all local residents of the Cloughjordan region.  

Academic institutions such as Gurteen College and UCC’s Centre for Co-operative Studies will be in attendance, while national and European NGOs such as Food Sovereignty Ireland and food business start-up Foodture and also be making their presence felt through talks, breakout sessions and installations.

Feeding Ourselves 2018 is to be held at St Kieran’s Hall in the village of Cloughjordan, to accommodate the expected larger numbers of attendees for this year’s event.

“We’re overwhelmed by the interest in this already”, Davie Philip of Cultivate says. “There are over two dozen speakers, but this is primarily a participatory event, a gathering of people active in making food, farming and rural spaces work better, for their communities and their environment.”

The event is complemented with an evening time show called speakEATsy, which features spoken word poetry, live singer-songwriters, a compelling conversation style interview with Pavlos Georgiadis, DJ and a sumptuous meal from local ingredients.

Cloughjordan Community Farm and Cultivate are co-organising the event. All proceeds go to these two organisations. Registration from 9.30. To book both Feeding Ourselves and speakEATsy, go to nots.ie/courses/feeding-ourselves/.