Moving slowly through the deep straw that provides a cozy bed for his heavily pregnant Montbéliarde cows, Pat Mulrooney coos softly beneath his breath. Their large eyes seek him out as he passes through the group, and wet muzzles inhale his scent before lowering again to resume the steady munching of hay.
Mulrooney’s land in Manganstown, County Tipperary, lies at the foot of Slievenamon—in the Irish language Sliabh na mBan, mountain of the women. This lush and fertile landscape, which Johnny Cash called “the forty shades of green,” boasts a natural abundance that has helped propel Ireland to center stage with the creation of the world’s first national farming sustainability commitment. Created and administered by the Irish food board, Bord Bia, the effort is called Origin Green.
An ambitious and unprecedented proposal, Origin Green is the only national-level sustainability program in the world that unites government, private-sector food companies and farmers. “A national commitment is the key thing,” says Jason Clay, WWF’s senior vice president of markets and executive director of the WWF Markets Institute. “As we work to protect nature at a planetary scale, we need sustainability actions not just on the part of individuals and corporations, but countries as a whole. Ireland’s commitment gives the whole food sustainability movement an important shot in the arm, a vision of what could be, of what should be.”
Initially designed to give Irish food an advantage in the marketplace, in three short years Origin Green has been embraced by nearly 400 food companies and has the potential to become a roadmap for the sustainable production of food worldwide.
Low-Impact Learning
Mulrooney’s farm is typical of an environmentally focused vigor across the Irish agricultural sector. Tradition and romance are still there—the grass, the rain, the passion of farmers—but there is a newer technological and business savvy that has positioned Ireland as a best-practice model in terms of food chains.
Farming and a growing artisan food sector are helping the country recover from a deep recession following the banking collapse of 2008. In the boom years, land was an asset on which to build houses. Now it is being farmed efficiently and sustainably by a generation of ambitious, educated farmers. Driving a leaner and more sustainable food sector has made Ireland the fourth-largest exporter of beef in the world, and the producer of about 10% of the world’s infant formula—made from Irish milk powder.
In essence, Ireland is a trusted source of healthy food. And that, combined with this public commitment to sustainability across its food and farming sector, has been essential to securing new marketplaces for Irish food in places like Asia and the Middle East.
Irish farms are typically small—around 80 acres—and family owned. Farming has high visibility in rural areas and the food and farming sector accounts for nearly 1 in 10 jobs. Before Origin Green, Ireland was already operating a grass-based system on the vast majority of its beef farms and dairy farms. The added value Origin Green brought to the table was the measurement and verification of factors like carbon emissions with international bodies such as the UK’s Carbon Trust, an independent carbon-reduction verification group.
Ireland has the lowest carbon footprint per liter of milk produced in the European Union. It’s no surprise that Irish-produced food is so attractive to international food and beverage companies such as Nestlé, Wyeth and Diageo.
The Gift of Rain
Rain and a temperate climate are the keys to Ireland’s farming economy; grass nourishes beef and dairy herds like Mulrooney’s for nine months of the year. “In Ireland,” the farmer says, “keeping animals on grass has really paid off.” While conjugated linoleic acids found in grass-fed beef and milk are now prized for their cancer-inhibiting properties, for farmers like Mulrooney, science is a latecomer. The specific yellow creaminess of Irish butter was always a telltale sign of its grass-based nutrients, and to maximize this he is sending the milk from his herd to be made into award-winning cheese.
“Three years ago I got several farmers together to try and think of ways to be more than just commodity producers and price takers,” says Mulrooney. “We started out with a cheddar and now—under our Little Milk Company label—have a range of cheeses that have won awards all over Europe.” That cheese is now in the process of getting accreditation through Origin Green.
In Ireland, keeping animals outdoors longer uses less grain, water and electricity, and produces less waste than some other approaches to farming. And while not every country benefits from the same natural abundance, many nations are crafting alternative routes to sustainability that fit their realities more closely. Still, in this particular situation, Ireland has a head start. And ironically, those long-standing principles Mulrooney has used to farm organically for decades are now routes to efficiency in conventional farming.
For him, farming sustainably is also a pathway to a more fulfilling life. “This is not an easier or cheaper lifestyle,” he says. “It is a choice to farm in a more environmental way, and therein lies the satisfaction.”
The National View
For Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney, Origin Green has been far more successful than he envisaged. “When Bord Bia came up with this idea of auditing the sustainability of our food,” he says, “I didn’t think it would be adopted by food companies and farmers as easily as it has been. Yes, it’s an environmental crusade—but with a real commercial edge. Happy cows and green fields make a good image. But to back that up now we have the science to show the long-term benefits behind this traditional way of farming.”
Measuring and certification take place throughout the year on farms where auditors use handheld, GPS-enabled devices to capture information on grazing, fertilizer use, feeds consumed, manure management, water use and biodiversity. This data is then transferred to a central database at Bord Bia where performance on every farm can be compared. In turn, that database provides individual feedback to farmers that helps them become more sustainable and efficient producers in a world running tight on resources.
“Very soon,” continues Coveney, “there are going to be regions of the world, even parts of Europe, that simply cannot farm the way they do now because of diminishing water and other resources. Sustainability is the future, and Origin Green presents accountable, trackable proof of that.”
While Ireland’s beef farmers fill order books belonging to some of the world’s largest food companies, Ireland’s food picture is still quite varied in scale and type. But common to all is the realization that everything is built on the environment, and that farming foods of the future will mean unlocking doors to the past.
