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Is bigger, really better?

Posted by Green Earthe 13/04/2018 0 Comment(s) Environment,Plastic Free,
Expand, produce more, take on more cows, intensify your systems, cram more crops and animals into a space that is too small, but keep on going, keep on pushing the limits and let’s just see where it all ends, and anyway we can pack all the excess produce in plastic and ship it to China. We will be alright let’s just keep on plodding away down this well-trodden path, after-all isn’t everybody else doing it? Therefore it must be sane? I don’t think so.  
 
Since the Earth is finite, and we will have to stop expanding sometime, should we do it before or after nature's diversity is gone?
 
 
 
As the thoughts of shipping trucks full of hay into the country to save the starving cows, that are being industrialised to ship milk powder to China whirled in my head I quickly decided I needed a change of scene to break the cycle.
 
So, on possibly the first bright warm day this year I took myself off for a walk around our polytunnels. The bright warm sunshine and the beautiful tender new plants are food for the soul.
Over the last two weeks we have been trialling compostable plant based bags, and as far as I can ascertain they work pretty-well, getting rid of single use plastic bags from our farm produce is top of my list. In my usual impatient manner, we started the trial last week, we just had to do it, get it started, see what happens before we commit to a big order of custom made bags. 
 
I had a rather humorous discussion with the nice fella in the compostable bag business. As he was extolling the virtues of the bags telling me how fast they decompose (you can put them on your compost heap and they will compost quickly in about 12 weeks), a thought struck me: what if we buy a year’s supply and they actually biodegrade before we get to use them! A vision of opening up the boxes of new compostable bags in six months’ time with nothing but mush in there flittered through my mind. I have been reassured that this will not be the case, but it certainly drives the point home that they are not going to be hanging around in the environment.
 
Maybe it is the warmth of the sun or having some time off over Easter, but I feel there is good reason to be hopeful.
 
Spring is here, the ploughing on our farm is nearly done, the tunnels are full of crops, our first batch of plants are due to go out into the fields this week.  
 
We are trialling biodegradable bags, the water we are using on our plants is saved rainwater and our energy is being produced by the sun
 
This year we will be a net green energy producer if the predictions are correct and finally we have an amazing team of people to bring it all together.
 
There are indeed many reasons to be happy and hopeful for a more sustainable future.
 
Thanks for your support, we really appreciate it. 
 
Kenneth & Jenny
 
www.greenearthorganics.ie
 
P.S. We’ve expanded our Plastic Free grocery aisle – you can now get pine nuts, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, dates and cashew nuts all wrapped in plastic free packaging! Look out for the symbol [PF] on our website.