9 October 1997 Edition
Time to grow
Robert Allen in Switzerland finds that the Irish could learn from the Swiss about making use of the land
Land has always been a contentious issue in Ireland. People have always had to dig out a living on someone else's property, never mind those who benefited in 1922 and those few elite farmers who now enthusiastically embrace industrial agriculture with all its promises.
For most of us land is either a site to build a house on or a patch of ground for keeping a score of sheep or an area for growing a few flowers around a well kept lawn. Those with the imagination to make something of a little bit of land are few and often far between. This contrasts sharply with continental Europe where every bit of spare land is put to use to grow a bit of this and a bit of that. We're not talking here about the monocultures, such as sugar beet, that exist in Ireland because they exist in France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Switzerland too along with huge fields of maize (corn) for example.
What also exists in these places but not in Ireland is a sense that every bit of land should be cultivated - an industrious attitude that doesn't impress everyone, yet while this is not an organic growers' revolution it is an indication of what can be achieved. It wasn't for nothing that the 19th century German Chancellor von Bismark once remarked that if the Dutch farmed Ireland they would feed Europe. We won't comment on his assumption that if the Irish ran Holland it would be under water!
Earlier this week I travelled from Basel, in the German speaking north-west of Switzerland, to Martingy in the French speaking south of the country near the Italian and French borders. I had already been impressed by the industriousness of the people, with their gardens and fields which display a range of flora, fauna and some wildfowl but also a rich picking of vegetables and fruit, during a few days in Basel where I managed to get out into the nearby forests with the help of a tram or two.
Then on Monday I travelled with a friend on a German train that cruised into Basel railway station from Dortmund on its way to Geneva. We passed through green valleys beginning to show their autumnal colours and because the weather was unusually hot we had a panoramic view of the countryside which is adorned with wide lakes, high mountains and towering peaks.
As we sped southwards we passed through Neuchatel, Lausanne, Montreaux and alongside Switzerland's largest lake, Neuchatel, and its famous neighbour Lake Geneva I was struck by the use of virtually every spare piece of land. Nothing seemed to be grown on its own. Even on small holdings sturdy vines could be observed in between patches which contained a range of vegetables, fruit trees, flowers and nut trees. Many of these were on slopes which caressed the shores of the two lakes.
The Swiss climate allows its inhabitants to cultivate crops we would associate with the Mediterrean, which was a surprise to me because I thought it was a bitterly cold country hidden under an Alpine range that pokes through the sky. It's not apparently. Yes, the winter is cold but the summers are hot even in the north where Swiss land is indistinquishable from French and German. Obviously they still get real climates here, even if that is slightly contradicted at the moment by these remarkably hot autumn days which Swiss people more commonly associate with mid-summer. So the abundance of sunflowers amidst vines of black and green grapes with vegetables such as pumpkins, courgettes, leaf beet, runnerbeans, Portugese cabbage and fennel, clusters of walnut and hazelnut trees, apple, apricot and plum orchards and bushes of herbs, is a sight for the weathered eyes of those who believe we too should be making the best of our climate by growing produce for local communities.
The geology of Switzerland is just as unyielding as Ireland's. The land is very stoney in places, boggy in others and while it drains well there's not a lot you can grown on high mountains slopes. The problem we have is freeing the land from developers, farmers dependent on the demands of industrial agriculture and local authorities. We presently import more than three-quarters of our vegetables and export a large property of the animals we fatten on thousands of acres now overburdened with phosphorous. Surely it's time we began a real green revolution - one that will feed people and provide them with labour intensive employment at the same time.
Land has always been a contentious issue in Ireland. People have always had to dig out a living on someone else's property, never mind those who benefited in 1922 and those few elite farmers who now enthusiastically embrace industrial agriculture with all its promises.
For most of us land is either a site to build a house on or a patch of ground for keeping a score of sheep or an area for growing a few flowers around a well kept lawn. Those with the imagination to make something of a little bit of land are few and often far between. This contrasts sharply with continental Europe where every bit of spare land is put to use to grow a bit of this and a bit of that. We're not talking here about the monocultures, such as sugar beet, that exist in Ireland because they exist in France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Switzerland too along with huge fields of maize (corn) for example.
What also exists in these places but not in Ireland is a sense that every bit of land should be cultivated - an industrious attitude that doesn't impress everyone, yet while this is not an organic growers' revolution it is an indication of what can be achieved. It wasn't for nothing that the 19th century German Chancellor von Bismark once remarked that if the Dutch farmed Ireland they would feed Europe. We won't comment on his assumption that if the Irish ran Holland it would be under water!
Earlier this week I travelled from Basel, in the German speaking north-west of Switzerland, to Martingy in the French speaking south of the country near the Italian and French borders. I had already been impressed by the industriousness of the people, with their gardens and fields which display a range of flora, fauna and some wildfowl but also a rich picking of vegetables and fruit, during a few days in Basel where I managed to get out into the nearby forests with the help of a tram or two.
Then on Monday I travelled with a friend on a German train that cruised into Basel railway station from Dortmund on its way to Geneva. We passed through green valleys beginning to show their autumnal colours and because the weather was unusually hot we had a panoramic view of the countryside which is adorned with wide lakes, high mountains and towering peaks.
As we sped southwards we passed through Neuchatel, Lausanne, Montreaux and alongside Switzerland's largest lake, Neuchatel, and its famous neighbour Lake Geneva I was struck by the use of virtually every spare piece of land. Nothing seemed to be grown on its own. Even on small holdings sturdy vines could be observed in between patches which contained a range of vegetables, fruit trees, flowers and nut trees. Many of these were on slopes which caressed the shores of the two lakes.
The Swiss climate allows its inhabitants to cultivate crops we would associate with the Mediterrean, which was a surprise to me because I thought it was a bitterly cold country hidden under an Alpine range that pokes through the sky. It's not apparently. Yes, the winter is cold but the summers are hot even in the north where Swiss land is indistinquishable from French and German. Obviously they still get real climates here, even if that is slightly contradicted at the moment by these remarkably hot autumn days which Swiss people more commonly associate with mid-summer. So the abundance of sunflowers amidst vines of black and green grapes with vegetables such as pumpkins, courgettes, leaf beet, runnerbeans, Portugese cabbage and fennel, clusters of walnut and hazelnut trees, apple, apricot and plum orchards and bushes of herbs, is a sight for the weathered eyes of those who believe we too should be making the best of our climate by growing produce for local communities.
The geology of Switzerland is just as unyielding as Ireland's. The land is very stoney in places, boggy in others and while it drains well there's not a lot you can grown on high mountains slopes. The problem we have is freeing the land from developers, farmers dependent on the demands of industrial agriculture and local authorities. We presently import more than three-quarters of our vegetables and export a large property of the animals we fatten on thousands of acres now overburdened with phosphorous. Surely it's time we began a real green revolution - one that will feed people and provide them with labour intensive employment at the same time.