Money? GOD No. (Failing to grasp the nettle.)

Fellow growers from farming co-ops around Europe have been visiting Ireland for a whistlestop tour of the great and good things happening in organics. Invariably, that included a trip to the North West. Land of Lovely Leitrim; "Like your own personal Tibet, but with more lakes and craic, and no oppression" as novelist DBC Pierre explains to the UK's leftie-indie-arty population via yesterday's Guardian.

The sun shines, the local organic scene glows, and generally speaking the delegates seem to be enjoying a favourable impression of the work that is happening on the ground here. On one farm walk I collar an English grower who has managed 100 acres and an organic marketing co-op initiative with her partner for some 11 years . Here I think, I may find my holy grail - the secret answer to how to make a living out of organic horticulture. Excitedly I ask her what she believes to be the elusive tipping point, the scale and style at which organic growers need to operate to be commercially viable. “You mean in money terms? Oh GOD no. We barely break even. Each year we wonder is this the year when we finally decide we have to give it up. The only good thing is that we work so hard – late into the evening in the season and up at dawn - that we really don’t have time to spend money the way other people do. We do it because we love it, but it doesn’t add up. I'm afraid I am the last person to give you hope. But I definitely think you are asking the right questions, and they are the questions people don't ask”.

Another delegate suggests that we have to think in terms of making a 'livelihood', not a traditional, comparable salary. And he suggests that scaling DOWN from 100 acres (particularly when a chunk of turnover goes into renting additional land) might be one solution in her particular case. And still the tipping point escapes me.

The elephant in the room. There are such fundamental questions to be asked about who we train up to be the growers of the future, and if they really comprehend the kind of scale and committment required in order to be commercial before they start. Questions about whether the infamous issue of 'import substitution' is actually achievable or just mindless, uninformed rhetoric, trotted out by officials who mean well but have yet to grasp the nettle.

But where there are problems there are also opportunities. Opportunities to tease out and share solutions in terms of how to operate in the most efficient, productive way possible. So it was REALLY good to receive the tip only moments later about a new concept in small-scale farming currently being piloted in the US and Canada. I won't say more about it here as I am currently writing an article about it, but I think I may be one step closer to my holy grail, and positively beyond myself with excitement...(how sad is THAT!).