‘Once you actually taste something that you’ve grown yourself, it changes everything,” says Niall Fitzharris, a carpenter by trade who built a cafe in the Dublin mountains. He now grows the fruit and veg that go into the food he serves, on his one acre in Leitrim.
Baker Seamus Jordan planted his crops of organic spring wheat last week. The south Carlow man’s move into farming provides the perfect solution to his business, Plúr Mill & Bakery, which he set up in 2021.
This month, Eugene Larkin’s family farm in Birr, Co Offaly, will be covered in a sea of yellow the rapeseed flowers grow in full bloom as spring arrives, with bees and butterflies buzzing in and out of it.
Switching to organic farming won’t result in productivity “falling off a cliff” if you do your homework and seek plenty of help, according to recent convert Stuart Rogers, who says his farm was inviable before he made the change.