Earlier this year, I wrote about free range pig farmer Peter Twomey, of Glenbrook Farm, a 15-minute drive from Cork city centre.
I praised his superb free range pork, and Peter subsequently reported a significant response to the piece and a sharp rise in sales, both online and at his Saturday morning farm shop.
That growing renown was further cemented by the Cork on a Fork food festival, with multiple dining events – including pop-ups on the farm itself – showcasing his magnificent meat. After all, his pork is the ideal exmaple of a premium, local, lasting product, very much the festival’s core purpose.
All in all, it was a good boost for a small producer – except Peter can no longer find a local abattoir to have his livestock slaughtered, thanks to the decline of small abattoirs.
Forty years ago, there were over 850; today, there are less than 100. Peter now has to make a 374km round trip to Portlaoise once a week.If it weren’t for a butcher friend helping with collection, that trip would be doubled.
I have written before about the marvelous Lúnasa Farm, in Co Clare, a great example of mixed regenerative farming including their own butcher’s shop in Clarecastle. There is no longer a single abattoir remaining in the entire county of Clare to kill their pigs. They make two 200km round trips to offaly: once to deliver the animals, before returning to collect the carcasses.
Cass McCarthy,of Lúnasa Farm,describes the need for a local abattoir as pivotal to their business and is at least thankful that they don’t have to travel as far to have their superb beef cattle slaughtered. That to may change.
Worse again, ger Rynne, of Inagh Free Range Pork, also in Co Clare, is closing down for good, no longer able to justify the eight hours of driving for two 300km round trips to slaughter his pigs.
In recent years, small speciality food producers in the Burren came together to create a very successful food tourism proposition, not only promoting the produce but also bringing visitors to the area. Ger’s excellent free range pork was a big part of that offering.
And it’s not just pigs. Small poultry producers are equally affected, closing at a rate of knots. So too are small producers of beef or lamb, wishing to improve their lot by selling a premium product from the “farm gate” rather than settling for far lower prices when they sell into the industrial meat processing sector.
Back in the ’80s,when Larry Goodman and others began scaling up Irish meat processing to industrial levels,the Department of Agriculture revised regulations to fit this new large operational scale,regulations that shouldn’t have been remotely applicable to small abattoirs.
I once spoke to a retired county vet who deeply regretted how he and his colleagues were then encouraged to vigorously apply the regulations to smaller abattoirs, driving livestock producers into the arms of the industrial processors and beginning what has turned into the almost complete erosion of the sector.
The agriculture department seems to have long forgotten that Irish farming is an ecosystem and a healthy ecosystem incorporates both big and small, and all sizes in between.