Farmer Gobshite?

This may seem like old news but I've been waiting for an update, waiting to hear that the corporation that owns the patent on the seeds that this farmer used was going to sue him. After all we know the biotech companies are very litigious and are happy to sue even those using their seeds through accidental contamination.

But I'm still waiting. For those of you who don't know what on earth I am talking about, I am referring to the recent case of the Welsh farmer Jonathan Harrington who took it upon himself to procure and then plant GM strains of maize on his farm in Wales. Even more worryingly he claims to have fed livestock with the maize and passed on seeds to other farmers. This means that GMO's are in the food chain and not labeled correctly as required by law. Also, as he has refused to name the farmers he has passed his seed onto it is impossible to trace where some of the crop could have ended up. All this means that Harrington can and should be prosecuted by the British government for what he has done.

Wales, like Ireland is a GM free zone. That means that no GM crops can be planted within it's borders. Unfortunately although this is a strict farming policy they are unable to uphold it by law.

There are two main issues here as I see it:

Firstly, Wales is now contaminated with GMOs, even if Harrington declared to whom he had distributed the seed it is impossible in unsupervised sites to guarantee that there is no contamination into neighboring land. There is no going back from this point, it is doubtful that Wales will ever be able to declare itself GM free again. This exact problem has surfaced across Northern and Southern America causing the integrity of organic produce there to constantly be undermined.

Secondly, corporations such as Monsanto have a history of suing farmers for breaching the patent on their seeds. Monsanto explain the reasoning behind this on their website. As director of a small business I would see what Harrington has done as be detrimental to the reputation of the product. It is for this reason that I would expect to see him being sued by the company involved.

It is sad to see Wales loose it's GM free status due to the irresponsible actions of this one individual. As GMOs are not allowed in organic farming I can only hope that farmers in the vicinity will not have their livelihoods threatened by the potential loss of their organic status.

Whatever your view on GM food Farmer Harrington's actions have to be seen as damaging. Not only does he undermine the arguments of the pro GMO campaigners but he heightens the fears and reservations that the public already have about Genetically modified foods.

UPDATE: There's a postcard campaign, just a bit of fun aimed at this farmer to join in here:

Further reading
Jonathon Harrington:
Check Biotech
BBC
The Guardian - Harrington's reasoning

GM Contamination:
The CS Monitor
Organic Processing Magazine
Reuters

Giving up paper for Lent again.

For the second year running the staff at Feelgood Organic Hampers are going to be giving up paper for lent. So come Ash Wednesday we are going to be once again clearing our desk of paper and striving to keep it that way until Easter Sunday.

Although I have seen some important improvements since we first attempted to run a paperless office last year there still seems to be a large amount of unnecessary paper that builds up over time. Every task and every meeting adds to the piles that congregate on desks or get pinned to walls.

Feelgood Organic Hampers by its very nature has a commitment to the environment and by giving up paper I believe we are taking one step further to becoming a truly sustainable business. Although we recycle, our long term aim is to significantly reduce the amount we use. It’s not until you attempt an experiment like this that you realise how much we rely on paper.

In the past year we have implemented several changes. Including eliminating cheques by paying suppliers online, making use of wipe clean customisable calendars and using software solutions for managing our diary. We have even started to use virtual sticky notes.

This year I hope to take things one step further. We may have changed the way we think about paper but we are still surrounded by it every day. Our biggest challenge is our accounting and over Lent I will be investigating several solutions to make this a paperless process.

So we're getting geared up for our challenge starting on the 25th of February. I'm going to be keeping a paper diary, posting updates here.

My night in a haunted house.

Headless Santa in attic


Me and my organic biscuits
Spooky K2 device

So many people have been in touch wanting to know what happened on Friday night in Old Carlow Gaol that I figured I better blog about it.

16 of us met at the cafe in the Carlow shopping centre at 7pm. The 'Old Gaol' and the 'Governor's House' are still pretty much intact and serve as the shell within which the shopping centre is housed. The last two people to be hanged at Carlow Gaol were killed on March the 30th 1835. Lucinda Sly aged 60 and her 21 year old lover John Dempsey were executed for the murder of Lucinda's husband. A massive crowd assembled to watch their last moments, some accounts describe Lucinda pulling up her skirt and shouting abuse at the heckling crowd. Some people believe that it is the ghost of Lucinda that haunts the old Gaol now. But if it was her roaming the Carlow shopping centre on Friday night she was playing tricks on us.

Our party consisted of 13 amateur ghost hunters, a producer from KCLR and two paranormal experts; Danny and Cormac from Leinster Paranormal. Our experts were armed with recording devices and a 'K2' which picks up EMF signals emitted by the supernatural. It was this K2 which provided the majority of the entertainment for the night. Danny and Cormac had investigated the Carlow Shopping Centre on several other occasions and had even succeeded in recording some strange chilling whispers. You can hear some of Leinster Paranormals recordings on their website.

We split into groups and investigated some of the paranormal hotspots within the centre. The holding cells were an obvious choice. Now populated by whirring computer equipment and office furniture they no longer seem sinister but are perfectly preserved. It was easy to imagine what they would have been like when in use. The holding cell itself was very oppressive, only one tiny window allowed natural light in and a metal door that fitted tightly to the frame kept the airflow to a minimum. The room itself had no sharp corners and this, according to Danny, was designed to keep detainees in a state of distress after interrogation.

The basement of the Governor's House with it's low ceilings and strange well is another centre of paranormal activity, many people have felt there shoulders and arms being touched whilst staking out the area. Upstairs the attic also has a history of unexplained incidents. On our return to the gym area where we were to sleep that night we found Stephen, one of the staff from KCLR in the changing room area looking quite uncomfortable. He had felt a bad vibe in the room, particularly the sauna. Whilst we had been out investigating other areas he and another member of the station had heard the sound of a metal door slam. I sat alone in the sauna for a few minutes and soaked up the unnerving atmosphere that remained there. It was agreed that we would take a break and then return to this room with the K2 device.

Just to explain what the K2 looks like. It is a small handheld electronic device, it has a trigger mechanism which we kept held down by a coin. At the top there are a series of lights which light when EMF (electro magnetic force) is detected. All power to the gym area had been cut and we had to find our way around with flashlights. The only power in the room came from the sprinkler system so interference from electrical impulses was unlikely, this made this set of rooms perfect for detecting EMF emitted by... and it seems strange to be typing this... ghosts.

Our entire group went to the sauna / changing rooms with the K2 device, which was placed on a bench in the centre of the room. We each introduced ourselves, it was also the first time we had formally introduced ourselves to each other which made it an even more surreal experience. The idea was that we should direct questions at the ghost and if the ghost wished to answer it would light the lights on the K2. If the lights began flicker the person that asked the question would persist. The first few questions met with no change in the device, four or five questions in we started to get a response. At first just 2 green lights lit but as we continued the signal got stronger. Being nervous, and many of us slightly cynical the questioning inevitably became light hearted, one of my colleagues from the Carlow Business Club, remembering that she had forgotten to bring any milk to go with the flasks of tea and coffee asked would the ghost mind popping downstairs and getting a pint of milk. To our surprise the lights on the meter bounced up and down from one to four lights. We then asked was the presence a servant? again the lights flickered all the way to the top, next 'are you a child?' a positive response again... then with the only 16 people in the shopping centre in this room we heard the sound of a metal door slam and echo around the building. The lights died down and we got very little response to our questioning in the next couple of minutes. Cormac from Leinster paranormal went down into the shopping centre and slammed every door he could find but there was none but the condemned prisoners cell that made a sound like the one we had all heard.

We rambled around the shopping centre, my group took a digital recording device with us as we tested each area for atmosphere or experience. I spent 10 minutes or so holed up in the condemned prisoners cell with no result, it seemed that all action tonight was to happen in the Gym. When we got back from our wandering we found Stephen in an even more distressed state, his group had remained in the changing room area with the K2 and he had heard a whisper, felt something touch him and seen something move out of the corner of his eye. When he followed the path of the apparition he had seen an outline of something in the sauna. He was visibly unnerved by this experience. The K2 had been 'lighting up like a Christmas tree' during this experience. As Stephen's group left we decided to sit in the sauna for a while. We started the digital recorder and sat in the dark and waited. Nothing obvious happened but after sitting there for just a few minutes I got a very strong urge to leave as did the others.

We took another break before returning with the whole group. I was given a mic and sent to the sauna to record what I felt inside, but sitting inside there by myself I no longer felt anything. Outside in the changing rooms the K2 was responding again so I joined the group there. By now we had established that the entity was a female child servant, Danny was persuading the ghost to light up as many lights on the K2 as she could, it was at this point that Kim one of my fellow ghost hunters felt a cold touch to the side of her body and a whispering. She felt a wave of empathy for the entity and asked Danny to stop pushing the child so hard. She moved position and felt the cold touch again. We resumed our questioning, the lights on the K2 continued to flicker up and down, at times remaining lit on 3 strong lights for 3 or 4 seconds at a time. At one point, although I can't remember quite when, we heard the metal door slam again.

Finally I asked 'Do you want us to go away?... if you want us to go away light up the lights and we will leave you alone.' 3 lights on the meter lit up and stayed lit for a number of seconds. Everyone looked around, no one wanted to leave, we were all intrigued by what was happening but if it was the ghosts wish we had to. Danny asked the ghost to confirm that it wanted us to leave... nothing. He asked again... nothing.

That was the end of our experience. We did a bit more wandering around but nothing else was reported so we finally sank into our sleeping bags and waited for the security guard to let us out.

So has my experience changed my mind? do I now believe in ghosts and the paranormal? Sadly I have to say no, I feel that I need more than the unexplained banging of a metal door and flashing lights on a electronic device to persuade me that ghosts exist. I am disappointed, I almost wanted to believe but nothing I experienced that night pushed my belief far enough. Would I spend another night in a haunted house? I'd love to, if anyone has one that they want me to check out feel free to get in touch!!!

Feelgood Organic Hampers goes ghosthunting.

I am representing Feelgood Organic Hampers on a ghost hunt tonight Friday 13th of February at Carlow Old Gaol which is apparently 'officially haunted'. The Gaol which now forms part of the Carlow shopping centre is said to be haunted by Lucy Slye, the last person to be hung in the Gaol.

I am a cynic and certainly don't believe in ghosts but am willing to be proven wrong. I'm going to bring in some of my favorite organic treats, that way if Lucy does show up I'll be able to keep her happy with an organic biscuit and a cup of tea, maybe she'll even let me into the secrets of the Gaol!! I'm also going to bring in my wind up torch if I can find it, the whirr it makes when I charge it could be enough to put the fear into my ghost hunting colleagues.

I'm going in with 12 other volunteers consisting of other local business people and staff and listeners from KCLR radio. KCLR will be broadcasting live at 9pm with updates every hour after that. You can listen on line here.

If I survive the night it's business as usual at the Naas Farmers Market tomorrow.

My Challenge 2009 - Grow my own veg.

The last year or so seems to have seen a massive interest in growing your own. Gazing out of the window at my snow covered mess of a back garden I wonder when my proposed vegetable garden is going to become a reality. Over the last few years I have gathered many books on the subject and just need to take the first step towards growing my own food.

Our garden has been overgrown for a long time. When we moved in it had been lying farrell for many years, since then we have cleared and trimmed the evergreen trees which were robbing our land of natural light which has seemed to encourage weeds at an alarming rate.

This year, I have decided is going to be the year. I've earmarked a corner of the garden that is to become my first bed and intend to build a raised bed there. I won some gardening tools in a raffle recently and I must have some offcuts of wood that can help me create my bed. I also received a gift of some seeds pre-planted in propagating trays so I'm ready to go if only this snow would lift.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to record the progress of the garden here and blog guilt will add to my gardening guilt and the vegetable bed will finally become a reality.

What I really need is encouragement and help so if any of you have suggestions of blogs or websites that can help me along my way. Or even if you have your own tips on how to grow best organically I would be delighted to follow them and publish them here.

Here's to happy gardening!