SESSION 2 THE ARTISAN AND THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Darina Allen Welcome back everybody and Im Darina Allen of Slow Food Ireland and Ballymaloe cookery school and the title of this session is the artisan and the education system and during this session we are going to try to concentrate on that particular topic of course and how to inform the next wave of consumers through the transition year curriculum on the value of purchasing locally produced food and then an examination of how to encourage more third level culinary arts and agricultural science students to purchase and produce more artisan foods. So thats our mission. And I would like to introduce you now to Ruth Hegarty who is the secretary general of Euro-toques Ireland and Ruth is going to speak for about 15 minutes on, her theme is the education, the essential ingredient in a vibrant local food economy. Ruth Hegarty. Thanks Darina, I think my presentation is going to have a slightly more informal approach than ines and thanks to ine for her fantastic presentation earlier on which I think really, feeds really well into this topic and Ive scribbled down a lot more notes since hearing the previous session, so hopefully Ill be able to remain coherent. Obviously Im not Alice Waters who was muted to do this bit first but I suppose I was more locally sourced, the smaller carbon footprint. So what were looking at obviously is education and the title that was given was education and the artisan, I may have strayed slightly away from the artisan part of it but Ill come back to that and explain. But just to look at, I suppose the taste council, their aim with this session as Darina mentioned was to take the opportunity to engage or to look at the opportunity to engage and influence transition year second level students and also third level catering and agriculture students by putting a space on the curriculum for local food and high lighting the importance of local food in the economy with the aim of influencing the next generation of food consumers and food producers. So I did take the taste councils kind of aim and outline for the session as the outline for the presentation and what Im going to do, although Ill mention I suppose what we might like to do in an ideal world, what I will try to do is look at whats achievable and look at some short term and medium term goals. So I suppose firstly I just kind of want to outline why we need to look at food education and then Ill briefly explain, give a summery of the presentation. I know theres a lot of writing on the screen here, I suppose I kind of wanted to look at, you know the positives in relation to food in Ireland but also the reality. You know we do have a thriving agri food economy, you know weve all seen the statistics about how our agri food exports are contributing in a very significant way to a possible export led recovery in Ireland. We do have a growing interest in and demand for local food and I think in the current environment theres a more genuine desire to support local, so people really are trying to go out there and support local businesses, whether food businesses or otherwise. People are also looking for more value and I think were starting to develop a better understanding of value, that it isnt just based on price, so quality is a big factor in it as

well. And consumers are becoming more discerning, theyre becoming a lot more careful about how they spend their money and looking for that value element. The food industry has been really responsive to the economic crisis, I suppose our own industry, the restaurant industry has been particularly responsive and you know has had to change the way it works and has had to, you know find that value offering that people are looking for. We have new artisan producers emerging all the time and still in the current climate theres so many new food businesses being set up and we do have a lot more chefs using local produce on their menus, unfortunately it is true that a lot still dont. But we have, I mean I suppose from our point of view in Euro-toques we see so many more chefs and restaurants now who fit in with the Euro-toques philosophy than we would have, you know 5 years ago. But on the other hand all of us who are involved in, you know the restaurant food industry, artisan food industry and that, we are in a bit of a bubble as well and its, you know we can kind of, we look at it and say oh theres big demand now for local food and everything but at the same time we do have to, you know take a bit of a reality check and you know look at Ireland and its food culture and before anyone gets upset when I say that we dont have a real food culture, I dont mean that we dont have, you know our own food identity and our regional dishes and all the rest of it, what I mean is we dont have a culture of food being constantly part of our everyday lives, you know where people constantly discuss food. We do have a big disconnect still between consumers and where food is produced, where it comes from and as we heard earlier a disconnect between farmers and their markets. We still dont put a very high value on food and as we know weve like a huge amount of food waste etc. We dont demand the best and by that I mean we dont, in general people in Ireland dont feel that they deserve to eat the very best food and they dont demand that. And as we heard in the earlier session in relation to retail, you know there still isnt enough demand there coming from consumers to force retail to you know use locally sourced produce. A lot of people cant cook, farming and cooking arent considered with very high status as careers by a lot of people. A lot of our farms are not sustainable businesses in the sense that, as we also heard in ines presentation, you know theyre not actually, a lot of them are actually losing money on their produce. We do have a high level of food imports. At the moment our restaurant industry is in serious crisis in relation to getting chefs, good chefs or any kind of chefs to work in the restaurants and we have to look at why that is. And of course like most countries now we have serious problems, health problems related to diet. So its not all rosy in the garden and its obvious that we do need to do a lot around food education and building a stronger kind of food culture in this country. So basically, and Ill have to start hurrying up because weve reduced the time for this session. Im just going to try and look at why education around food should concentrate on the whole area of local food and Ive put in artisan/real food and Ill come back to those terms which Im not overly happy with using but, and well look at what the goals are in education in this area, how education in this area fits in with government policy and current initiatives that are there and why we need to try and look at a more coherent

approach to this. And then what we would do in an ideal world and what we can do realistically now. What messages were trying to get across and then looking specifically at transition year and third level, who were trying to target and what were trying to achieve there. And then Im going to make some proposals at the end which are just my proposals really and which Im throwing out there I suppose for discussion. So just looking I suppose quickly, I mean food education encompasses a huge range of areas and I suppose the biggest overriding thing, I suppose from our point of view as chefs is taste and that should be the starting point and then after that youve all those other elements but really what we should be looking at, you know as a basis to everything were doing is educating people around taste. And you know food education really encompasses so many different aspects of education and life and we really need to be looking at it from that point of view when were talking about putting it on the curriculum and talking about food education. In Euro-toques we firmly believe that food education needs to be holistic, we dont think its good enough to, although its good that theres so many kind of healthy eating programs and healthy eating policies in schools now, we come at it more from the point of view of trying to teach the pleasure that there is in food and interest in food and how its produced and you know all those various elements but not specifically targeting, you know healthy eating and nutrition and not telling people what they shouldnt eat but more teaching them an enjoyment in food and a balance and people talk a lot about something like, you know things like the French paradox, why French people can seemingly eat all these things that are fattening etc and still they dont have the weight problems that we have in countries like Ireland and the UK. And essentially the main reason that a lot of people come up with for the French paradox is that they take pleasure in how they eat and they have a balanced approach to how they eat. And you see that across kind of strong food cultures, mainly you think of the Mediterranean countries, France, Italy, Spain but its certainly true of most Asian countries as well, food pervades everything, people constantly discuss, people ask each other what did you have for lunch, what did you have for dinner. But the thing that goes through all those cultures is a balance when it comes to food, thats not something you can teach in a book, you know its something that needs to be learned over, you know a long process and kind of throughout your life and we need to kind of think about how we can start to learn that in Ireland. And from that point of view when were talking about education, it kind of is a limited word maybe when we think about education, were thinking, you know in schools were thinking of you know putting it on the curriculum, having a book about it or whatever and I suppose, again you know we have to look, we have to take a more holistic approach to the thing. I use the terms local and artisan because thats what the taste council put into their wording for the session and I suppose artisan sometimes can be perceived as something a bit elitist and obviously it is specialist so Ive worked with the terms local and artisan but recognising the limitations there as well, you know I think really what we need to be looking at is the kind of, the family farm model that we have in Ireland and the kind of

agriculture that ine spoke about earlier on. And educating people initially around good quality fresh primary produce but I think local is probably the best word to use for the moment in the sense that it does incorporate a lot of the different elements that we need to look at like seasonality and sustainability. So with that why use local and artisan as the basis for a holistic food education, well as I said you know using local food, its a practical medium to educate on the many different facets of food that I listed earlier, you know we can use local food to teach about cooking and nutrition, seasonality, how to buy food, how to be more responsible in your food choices, origin of food etc. But also using local makes it more real to the people who are being educated and it does also nurture a sense of responsibility around your own place and your own community and you know a real understanding of where the food is coming from because you can actually, you know go down the road and see. And we need to get this idea across that food is relevant to everyone and you know its central to all our lives and its something that we derive a great deal of pleasure from. So in terms of then I suppose the economy and wider society, why educate around local and artisan food, well I suppose something thats been quoted often by the taste council in their submissions to the likes of Food Harvest 2020 and other reports is the local food multiplier affect and this is really, really important and really pivotal and maybe should be almost at the basis of our education around local food and that is that, well this was a British report by the new economics foundation in London but I mean obviously you can just translate this into euros, that 10 spent in local business equals 14 in the local economy. Whereas if that same amount of money is spent in a supermarket it actually only results in 14 in the local economy so every transaction in a multi national supermarket results in money actually leaving the community whereas if you go to a local business that money stays in the community and multiplies. You know the importance of artisan food in the overall economy and that artisan sector, you know as was referred to earlier on is really important to our tourism and that feeds into the image of brand Ireland which will be spoken about in the later session. Theres a huge amount of entrepreneurialism around you know local food and artisan food, a huge amount of innovation in the area and obviously you know this all feeds into rural enterprise and employment in rural areas which obviously we need to really protect and promote. Local food obviously has a big impact on environmental sustainability and you know our green image and we need to you know make that green image a reality, if thats what were marketing ourselves on, so concentration on local food is really, really vital. And then health around seasonality and all that is an impact as well and also it helps us to focus on what is uniquely Irish. So just in terms of local artisan food education, the areas that you know I feel that we need to kind of be aiming to, what we need to kind of achieve is to show young people

the importance of food and agriculture in our economy and in our society and to teach, you know respect for food and for those who produce it. Obviously were looking at trying to encourage more young people to go into agriculture and food industries and for them when they get into that industry to take a more quality approach to what theyre doing. But also to encourage a more quality demand from consumers, future consumers and empowering young people to make better food choices and providing them with the knowledge to do that. And also, you know overall goal which you know would further all these things is to foster a pride and a real food culture. So just briefly, I mean this all fits in very well with, you know current government policy, I referred to Harvest 2020 and Pathways for Growth, there is recognition there of you know the importance of artisan in our economy but also the important thing is our image, you know the green brand etc. In terms of just government initiatives that are ongoing, you know we have Just Ask from Bord Bia which is all about people trying to look for the origin of their food, Failte Ireland, you know have made food in tourism, food tourism a big priority and Place on the Plate is one of the initiatives there. And also Teagasc, rural development program which I think what ine was speaking about as part of their rural development program, as far as I know. So also you have a plethora of non government bodies who are, you know involved in food and agriculture and many of them have educational projects and activities. The kind of work that already goes on in schools, you know work shops, gardens etc and theres a raft of different projects and different people involved in schools as it is, so I mean obviously weve got a big recognition of the fact that education around food is needed, everyone probably, Im sure theres no one in this room that would say we dont need more education around food, whatever the aspect, you know that youre coming from is, that we do definitely need education around food. But in reality there is, we dont seem to have any official policy around it, theres no strategy in place, everyone is kind of going off doing their own thing and theres no coherence. You know even the initiatives that are being run by different government departments and different state bodies, theres really no cross over and people dont seem to be talking to each other. So you know we need to decide what our vision is for Ireland and we need to decide how food education fits into that. And then we need to sit down and maybe not start talking about it, maybe start doing something about it. so you know we need that buy in from government, from state agencies and from industry and we need everyone, you now to put their money where their mouth is really and you know accept that this is something that benefits everyone and its vital to our economy and its something that we need to work at in the long term. In an ideal world we would be looking at, you know starting from scratch, educating the pallet, you know working with children from day one really and you know throughout the primary school curriculum and in fairness theres a lot of, you know theres a lot of thing going on and the curriculum has changed a lot since most of us were in school, so you know theres a lot more elements of kind of environment, food, etc, agriculture in there. But what Im kind of trying to look at here I suppose is the low hanging fruit and also the areas that we just cant, you know let go any longer, where we have to make changes.

Transition year is the low hanging fruit and Ill explain why and then in third level agriculture, culinary arts courses, theres just no question that something dramatic needs to be done now to bring the local food element into these course. So just to look at why I suppose, you know what we can achieve very quickly with 30,000 per year in transition year courses, weve almost I suppose close to 5,000 in agriculture and culinary arts courses. So were looking at, you know targeting 100,000 future farmers, food producers, chefs, policy makers also and regulators and most importantly consumers within 3 years. The transition year, you know why transition year, it has you know the elements of trying to promote life skills, the emphasis on enterprise, business start ups etc, the format allows for, theres a lot of flexibility there, it allows for specific modules to be introduced. I suppose in a way you could look at it as a weakness that schools can chose their own programs, which is great for the students obviously but just that obviously you cant, at the moment you cant force any school to deliver any particular program. There are some food units being offered to transition year at present but again none of them have this kind of, you know overall kind of holistic approach, theyre specific to, you know to either health or tourism. But the taste council, you know the taste council put down, you know targeting transition year as one of their goals and theres absolutely no reason that I can see from the research that Ive done that the taste council cant actually put together their own unit to offer to transition year students. However because of the fact that you know every school chooses their own units, there would need to be buy in and support from government agencies and it would need to be properly promoted. And again going back to having a coherent strategy. And I suppose just broadly and more specifically these are the kind of things that could be encompassed but Im not going to write a curriculum here for it today. Apart from kind of curriculum elements, theres calendar elements, outings etc, I put down restaurant because I think that going and actually eating in a restaurant would be an extremely valuable exercise, not just because Im trying to drum up business for our members but. In terms of third level and I know I have to finish very quickly, really the whole mindset around how we train farmers, food producers and chefs at third level needs to change. You know we do need thinkers, we do need theory to an extent but none of this is any good unless we have practitioners, you know unless we have people actually coming out into those industries and staying in those industries, carrying out the farming, the food producing and the cooking. So you know we have to first of all think about whether were coming at this from the right direction and whether the likes of the CAO is the right route to bring people into these industries. You know certain courses in third level have become very popular which means that the points for the course shoot up and youre only getting, you know people who get 4 or 5 As into those courses and you have to ask whether, you know thats needed.

I think, you know we need to be looking at people learning the craft first and then theorising on it later. We need to go back to the whole idea of apprenticeships which seems to have become kind of something of a bad word and is being forgotten about at the moment. Even though artisan people have been calling for a while to have apprenticeships put in place for artisan production. So look Im not going to go into detail on agricultural science, its not really my area but we talked about the things that probably do need to be done in terms of encouraging diversification and so on in agriculture and obviously the third level institutions need to play a part in this. In terms of culinary arts course, thats you know training for chefs and you know ultimately some are, a lot of the artisan producers as well, we need to look at bringing local into curriculum content but we also need it to be an overriding theme, it needs to be constantly there in our colleges that you know we need to be thinking about local food. We need a serious amount of industry input into those culinary arts courses and they need to be designed based on industry needs. And we need to look at procurement in colleges, the ingredients that are being used in the kitchens for practicals and for on site catering. And we often hide behind, you know European legislation in relation to this or regulations but you know if we look at the Rome model, they have, they are using local food in their entire school system and that was allowed by finance law that was passed in initially bringing regional and organic into public food procurement. So we need overriding local theme going through our culinary arts courses. So in terms of what we can do, ok we could put together a body with the departments, the government departments, the state bodies and industry and put together an overall coherent policy and I think if its desired and if thats a desired outcome from today, thats something that we can look at as a long term plan. But today I just want to mention well really 2 things that I think are achievable and one thing Im just kind of throwing out there for a bit of fun, at second level I think that we need to, from today to say that you know a transition year unit will be designed around local food, that a support service course for transition year teachers will be delivered and that the appropriate contacts and resources are put in place for what they call as calendar events around local food. And that this be publicised and promoted properly to schools and this can be done before the next academic year. And at third level I feel that as an industry we should be strongly requesting that all courses that are designed by Failte Ireland and delivered through institutes of technology and further education, have a local theme running through them, that chefs learn how and why they should source local and seasonal ingredients and that this also goes into the procurement policies for courses and that these courses are refocused to meet industry demands. And the final thing I wanted to say is we never see teenagers in restaurants in Ireland and we need to look at ourselves and think about how we can get more teenagers into restaurants and what that would do for food in the future, thank you.

Darina Allen. That I find incredibly important is to start young enough and were talking today about the transition year program really but weve had incredible success through Slow Food Ireland, little project we have down in east Cork where we linked in with 9 local schools and each of them has a school garden and they teach the children how to grow things and how to make compost, we send a chicken coop with 2 hens to each of the schools so the children themselves learn how to look after hens and how eggs are produced and the manure goes back on to the compost to go back into the garden. And the response weve got from the teachers and from the parents is incredible. And in one school alone last year 20 parents when the kids went home saying mammy, mammy, got hens at home and 35 parents started to grow vegetables. So you can, and you can get the kids, they will eat anything that they grow. So I know the chair is not meant to go on about a whole lot of stuff like that but Ive seen it with my own eyes, the difference it can make, its so easy to get people fired up and then all the bits connect up. So now with great pleasure Id like to introduce, or at least ask my panel to introduce themselves. Pat Whelan. My name is Pat Whelan and I own and run James Whelan butchers, a traditional business based in Clonmel in county Tipperary and were committed to delivering great tasting meat, respecting traditional methods. My family is rooted in agriculture, weve maintained the abattoir at the centre of our business so we control the process from farm to fork. Im also delighted to be here as chair person of the Tipperary food producers network, a very vibrant network of 30 businesses in Tipperary representing SMEs and last year we launched our first education program which was Food Connect which was a great success, thank you. Domini Kemp. Hi Im Domini Kemp, Im one of the company, Itsabagel Limited, I also write for the Irish times and Im a member of the Taste council and I suppose the reason Im sitting here today is because Im heading up a working group within the Taste council and were trying to help design some sort of project thats going to be specifically aimed at transition year students sort of called the artisan market project. And the idea is that its a pilot project kicking off in January 2012 running through until June and culminating in a farmers market style day and I guess the aims of the project are just to help promote knowledge and interaction with artisan producers and also to help cultivate this entrepreneurial spirit in relation to food, its also community spirit will hopefully also be nurtured. But also most importantly we really hope to influence the purchasing power of the students and possibly the institutional dining that exists within schools. So I suppose thats why Im here, other than to suggest a 3 months compulsory stint in Ballymaloe, I suppose looking for help and suggestions and really trying to get this pilot as something that we could potentially present to the department of education as something that could be rolled out for transition year students.

Margaret Kelly. My name is Margaret Kelly and Im from the curriculum and qualifications area in the department of education and skills dealing with first and second level curriculum in schools. So I just want to mention briefly what's in the curriculum already, what our constraints are and where there might be opportunities. The whole concept of sustainable development and food is linked in with a lot of subjects already in the curriculum and right from the infant classes in social personal and health education, throughout their primary school children learn a lot of things but they learn about healthy eating and the importance of good nutrition and local produce and the food pyramid. And in geography they learn all about the impact of human settlement and the important industries in Ireland, like farming, fisheries, forestry, etc. And the whole concept of the food chain and the idea of getting your product to market. Food Dudes is a program thats funded by the department of agriculture and An Bord Bia and the European commission and its being rolled out to all 3,500 primary schools on a phased basis and they bring in the, they actually physically bring in fresh fruit and vegetables into schools and they stress the importance of your 5 a day and gradually then the kids start bringing the vegetables home and the message gets to the mammies as well. So it has had a very influential impact on diet at home. And in primary schools 98% of schools have healthy eating policies, its much less in second level, its only about 1/3 of second level schools would have them but theyd see that as very important in primary level. Now there arent the opportunities to change the curriculum there but what you can focus on is enriching the curriculum, enriching what's already there. The kind of work that Darina mentioned already ties in with geography, it ties in with science and it ties in with social personal and health education, most schools have school trips, theres the Food Dudes program as well. At post primary those issues are continued and I should say too that the Green Schools initiative is another major opportunity because they do an environmental audit and they plan environmental issues around the school. And we have the highest participation of any country in Europe, over 80% of our primary and second level schools are part of the green flag initiative and about 2,300 odd have got a green flag already. But thats another opportunity for composting, for growing stuff, for bringing in the animal to mention Darina Allen. Ill go on perhaps introducing the panel and Ill come back again to you. Michael Kelly. Michael Kelly is my name from Grow it Yourself which is not for profit, started about 2 years ago, very simple aim, to get people to grow their own food. I suppose we see, you know home grown food as sort of the silver bullet to a lot of the problems that we have in the food chain because when people, I think Darina sort of alluded to this, when people go through the experience of growing something, it doesnt matter whether theyre, you know self sufficient or just growing some herbs on a balcony, once they have that experience they start to understand seasonality, they understand that you know its not natural to see a butternut squash in a supermarket in April and so as consumers and people that grow their own food invariably still have to be consumers, like I do myself, they go to a supermarket or a farmers market, they tend to make better decisions, you know they seek out local food, they seek out seasonal food, you know they make more

patriotic decisions I suppose as consumers, which is good news I think for the domestic food industry here. But we see the same, you know the same approach I think is needed in terms of education, its mixing, you know mixing in, I think Ruth mentioned this as well, its mixing in that kind of holistic approach so making sure that students get the experience of actually growing something and that means I think then that theyre much more likely to, you know understand that whole process, so thats my interesting in it today. Declan Troy. Declan Troy, Im assistant director in Teagasc of research and I also have responsibility for technology transfer of the research outputs, particularly in the food sector. My view and the view of Teagasc is that I think the time couldnt be better for such an initiative, were post Celtic tiger, were looking around at isolated desert almost and the only thing growing is the food industry and particularly the local artisan real food and you know were all becoming to realise, most of us already had realised that you know if you get your quality, your safety and your nutrition right in food, you have something to sell, whether its locally, regional, nationally or internationally. So with that in mind then its ok for us to know about that but weve a massive opportunity now with our young educated population and I can talk later about the third level but particularly the transition year and indeed the, I was going to call them low babies, but primary school cohort as well. I think its really important now that we do sell food to them in a sense of intellectual awareness, again in the broadest sense that its something not just for nourishment and to fill ones stomach as it was in the past but actually its recreation, its certainly nutrition and above all its taste and experience. And I think its onus on all the agencies, including Teagasc, Bord Bia, BIM etc to come together and really form a coherent strategy to meet the goals as mentioned earlier. But someone has mentioned one thing in the room this morning and that is the recession and the government cut backs, they will have an impact, I mean Im speaking as a victim, not as an implementer but I mean we would love to do a lot more in this area but the funding has not been and doesnt look like its going to be available to the same extent as we would wish. But it is up to everyone in the room, as mentioned earlier by Pat from the IFA to get to the minister and say look this is a massive opportunity for Ireland to really step up to the mark. Mirtn Mac Con Iomaire Im a lecturer in culinary arts in the Dublin institute of technology, Im also a food historian and I suppose part time broadcaster. Basically around 12 years ago we set up a degree, an honours degree in culinary arts in Cathal Brugha Street and in the last number of years as well weve brought on honours degrees as well in food, culinary entrepreneurship and bar management and bakery as well and we now have a masters in product development and culinary entrepreneurship. And we now have our, weve a number of doctoral candidates now as well in the area of food. I myself a few years ago finished a PhD on the history of Dublin restaurants, using sort of an oral history methodology, so went around and spoke to the old chefs, waiters, restaurateurs, got their life stories, a number of them have passed away now, thank god weve actually managed to get that knowledge and its there. and I think you know the whole idea about oral

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history as a mythology as well amongst students, getting out talking to, I know that Bord Bia, there was work there with the Taste Council as well on sort of oral history but I think its really important to actually develop sort of a history of, and again Darina with your book about, you know how things were done, skills, forgotten skills, I think thats very, very important. So basically from the idea where were at, you know we would be working with our students, again a very, very sharp bunch of students coming in on the degree program, 1 or 2 graduates here in the audience who have, and our graduates have gone on and are working in the best places, not only in Ireland but in the world and also have worked with the leading food producers in Ireland as part of their internship programs. Sorry one master student of ours has just finished a masters last year on basically the link between cooking, basically your ability to cook and your level of food choice, so I think thats very, very important because what we found is that people who used to learn how to cook at home, that is disappearing and now you know theyre depending more on, you know the idea of, you know home economics in the second level, the trouble with that is that a lot of, you know not everyone does it and not just that but actually the amount of practical element has been reducing in that. So really I think its very, very important from primary schools, secondary schools through, but starting with primary, secondary and through to third level, to bring cooking in and the health benefit of that to the whole nation I think is very, very important. Darina Allen. Margaret Ill go back to you again, how realistic do you believe it is for a food education program to be rolled out for transition year students nationally and what barriers do you see that need to be overcome if were to do that, which we I think all agree is enormously important initiative. Margaret Kelly. Id just like to, before I answer that, just say briefly, I mentioned what was happening at primary level and the same kind of issues are happening in second level but the main areas in second level are home economics where as you say its getting more social sciencey but still 40 to 45% of it is still, the emphasis is on food and consumer studies and nutrition and the importance of local produce etc. Agricultural science, we have about 6,000 students every year doing agricultural science, again practical farming, soil study, grassland, crops and animal science with a strong practical element. And then a big area is, that you mightnt think of, is business studies and enterprise where we have huge numbers studying enterprise every year, 16,000 and we have 15,000 students taking part every year in the student enterprise competition which is organised by the county enterprise boards. And theres a similar one that Agri Aware have which is focused on 3 themes, food, farming and agriculture, same kind of thing, enterprise competitions. And theyre important because they give you the generic skills for setting up your own business but theyre also important because a lot of the projects that schools put forward are related to food and one of the winners last year was, their project was called foul play and they bred turkeys for the Christmas market. So there are opportunities there and a lot of what happens in student enterprise happens in transition year because thats one of the few places where theres time and space for development. So the opportunities are transition year where we have 20 hour modules and 45 hour modules and the national

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council for curriculum assessment, the NCCA which is our curriculum body, has developed a format, a template descriptor, a format for organisations or schools to use if they want to develop their own transition units, so thats an opportunity. And the other opportunity is that in lower secondary is being reformed now and we want more bottom up creativity and innovation in schools. So as well as subjects therell be short courses which are going to be 100 hours long, broadly equivalent to half a subject and again thats going to create a new opportunity for this kind of development. So yes and there will be a 2 to 3 year lead in period before courses begin on the ground but the time to get in is now, linking with, key players would be the home economics teachers association and the agricultural science teachers associations and the NCCA. There are some transition units already, theres the Failte Ireland tourism awareness program and one of the modules is on food. Darina Allen. Yes I know there are many really good things happening. Margaret Kelly. Theres one good food, the Irish Experience which is more specifically about local produce and the tourism market which is a particularly good one and theyre on the NCCA website but theres room for more there and for short courses and for the kind of activities that enrich what's already on the curriculum. But as far as mainstream subjects are concerned, there just isnt the opportunity, theyre totally overloaded as it is and the government has set out an agenda for reform in maths, science, literacy and numeracy and there just isnt room for this. Darina Allen. So its being looked at on an ongoing basis and so, it just suddenly occurs to me as I see the wonderful panel in front of me here, that there might be, Michael who is sitting beside you there with Grow it Yourself Ireland, I know who has already been involved in many educational things and growing, so maybe there could be, and Domini and others who are already on the thing, could perhaps have input into it, is that something you could see happening or is that, does the system. Margaret Kelly. Yes I could, now with transition year and with short courses it will be the schools that make their own decisions, what to offer within a framework that the department sets out but as long as the key skills that were looking for are being developed theres lots of opportunities there. Darina Allen. And also perhaps, you mentioned there that theres, it seems to be going more and more towards the academic social and scientific rather than. Margaret Kelly. Well home economics is yeah.

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Darina Allen. In a way I always think it doesnt really matter how a microwave works and nor do we need to know but you know in a way its great to be able to sort of whip up a little omelette or, so I certainly would like to see the emphasis more on learning the practical skills that you could actually feed yourself and earn a living from your cooking and so on with it as well, so perhaps thats something that could be looked at. I want to throw this open to the floor now and just to remind you as you look to have some questions for our panellists here, please introduce yourself and also say what organisation you represent. Hans Wieland. Hans Wieland from the Organic Centre and I also represent Seed, which is a new collaboration, probably the first collaboration of 6 organic centres in the country with the support of the Marino Institute in Sligo and the Blackrock Education college and Id love to basically offer our service as a partner for Taste because what we all need probably in order to kind of bring that forward, we need classrooms, as Darina mentioned. And classrooms for Taste are gardens, because it would be great maybe if in a years time our students in first year, second year, up to transition year, up to university level, would discuss potato varieties like the panel of the Dublin football team or Manchester United, so if you can basically discuss the difference between Roosters and (inaudible 11.58) and Pac Choy and Mitzuna, then were on to a winner. And in order to do that we need to have facilities which are gardens as outdoor classrooms, like Darina has her classroom in Ballymaloe so at Organic Centre we basically establish school gardens, we offer our kind of expert service for any school who would like to establish an outdoor classroom. And we can promise you it wont be kind of an additional cost for teachers or for care takers, I would be a fantastic facility to enrich the schools. As Margaret has said and so my idea would be its probably a good way to start this whole new education of evolution at transition year because it would be the easiest way to get an inroad into that. But I would basically claim that we need foundation for transition year and the foundation would be starting at primary level, so that would mean we would need to discuss at some stage how realistic will it be that we become kind of, school gardens as part of the curriculum from primary to secondary to third level. Darina Allen. Thank you very much. Lorcan Cribben. My name is Lorcan Cribben and Im a chef in Dublin, Id be into the whole education thing in a big way. I think the most important factor with food is taste and flavour. If you sit young people down and you talk to them for a long time, you know 5% of them are going to get it, if you physically give them something and you let them eat it and they like it, maybe 30% of them or 50% of them will get it, its so important, it has to be practical all the way. And young people starting out in the industry, for the first 3 months of their training should use a knife and then their whole career will fast track so quickly because theyll pick things up so quickly because theyll have the skills that they need and they will understand and they will get food a lot quicker.

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Brid Torrades. Brid Torrades, Euro-toques member and also a mother of 5 and thats my first point, I as mother of 5, I have experience of the education system as it is with one child in primary, 2 in second level and 2 in third level. Of the primary level a lot of money and resources were put behind the Food Dudes project, I didnt see any Irish produce coming up in our school, maybe it was there in other schools, there was certainly no seasonality about the project and as my son said one day, oh I dont have to eat it today because its Sunday, because he didnt get a prize on Sundays for eating his vegetables even though he was an avid vegetable eater. So I think that a lot of those resources might have been misdirected and that if they went through something like this Seed project that I have just learned about, that that might be a better possibility. Certainly Euro-toques members have gone into primary schools and weve all had very, I dont know, exhilarating experiences where weve learned from the children, we learn what the children know about food, what theyre, in my case I come from a rural area so there would be a lot of farmers in the area, it would be great to get some of those farmers into the school, I think there are great opportunities there for getting the parents into the schools to educate the children and that would be a Canadian method where they would have the parents a lot more present in the education of their children. And I think that would be a cost effective way of going forward in that. Darina Allen. Thank you very much. Brid Torrades. Sorry can I just burst another bubble, just on the case as Im a chef and an employer and Ive also employed graduates from the DIT program and Ive always felt that I have to actually go back and start from scratch, even with honours students and that it would be better to start teaching through an apprenticeship program, it would be easier to get the message across because I think a lot of the students missed out on that lesson. Darina Allen. Well perhaps you can share your experience with Mirtn and that will, out of that can come a positive way to understand and so on, to move forward, thank you very much for that Brid, Im going to move to this side of the room now, the gentleman with the glasses at the back. Ivor ODonovan. My name is Ivor ODonovan, Im a lecturer in hostility and tourism in WIT. Ive been conducting research over the last 2 years into direct supply chains which is farm to fork and last year Failte Ireland gave me some funding, thank you Failte Ireland to look at the idea of stakeholders and bringing stakeholders together and we looked at stakeholders coming from the artisans, coming from tourism and hospitality, people like coming from the restaurant association of Ireland chefs and we brought them together and we asked them a number of questions in relation to direct supply chains, how we would support them and how we would develop them. Now there is a paper out there, Im not going to go through it completely but in relation to education, well we looked at the idea of

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networks education and the idea of marketing but in relation to education, what was identified from this was the idea of looking at it from 2 elements which was the passive and the active. Im not going to talk about, Ill talk about third level in relation to that but in relation to passive, just quickly, there is a scheme that you should really look at the idea of what happened with maths and science and theres a group called Calmas down in WIT and they have been supporting science and maths through young people, particularly through the idea of primary school and on through that and its a really, really good model, theyve been funded from Europe and I suggest seriously that you look at it. in relation to third level and Im sorry Darina, just give me one more second, my paper is out there and I will be releasing it in relation to that, there is a big lacuna in the market in what our saying and the idea of developing programs for artisans. And Im really interested in looking at that area and developing the idea of food networks. So if anybody here would like me to come and talk to their groups or come to their groups Im really, really interested in expanding, you know peoples knowledge and I know this is not the format for it but my name is Ivor ODonovan and you can contact me at WIT, Id be delighted to talk about it. Darina Allen. One of the really big things, youve put your finger on it, that will make such a difference is when, you know when and its already beginning to happen in the catering college, WIT, DIT and so on, where they actually are actively encouraging their students to actually link in with local producers when they go back to their own area and buy from them and to buy local food, put it on their menus and have that as a very important module, not just a module but something that runs through the entire culinary education. And of course having a garden around a culinary school also makes it much easier to make all those points. And just the other thing that, little thing that I found as had a huge impact as well is when local producers come to deliver their cheese or charcutary or ducks or chickens or whatever to the school, I bring them in to the school as a producer of a week, bring them in and introduce them to the students and say this is the person who reared those wonderful ducks or chickens for you and that, making those links and showing people how easy it is to actually make a link with an artisan producer and showing them how, to buy from them instead of just picking up a phone just once a week and taking the easy option to just order everything in from a catering company, they do a great job but it actually can make a huge difference to the quality of the food on your menu and also to the local farmers, food producers, fishermen, if all of us in the food education business empower our students and educate them in how to form those links in the first place. Frank Shinnick Frank Shinnick Fermoy Cheese, we had a really good organisation 20 years ago called the farm apprenticeship board and with the advent of quotas, students, they lost interest in farming and it was eventually taken over by Teagasc, now with quotas about go to in the next 3 or 4 years I think we should seriously look at farm apprenticeship board again because they gave a practical experience to education and I was talking to my local vet yesterday and out of 80 students who did first year with him, I asked him how many can actually milk cows and he said 7, you know out of 80, so theres something lost here.

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But the big danger in this is that ok a lot of these vets, they go and you know become vets and they learn the hard graft but a lot of these vets, they come into the department of agriculture and they never actually calf a cow, you know so that we need to get practical experience back to the people who are making decisions because if you want to sell me a calf, you have to sign your name 5 times and if there was a kind of a practical education, the people in the top wouldn't be bringing out ridiculous regulations like this, thank you. Graham Roberts. Graham Roberts from Connemara Smoke house, just to go back to what Lorcan I think was saying there earlier, particularly with young children, taste is very important rather than talking to them for too long and something that all of us can do, very much on a local level without taking too much of our time and Ive done it with a couple of our local schools, is just going in, showing them practical things, filleting a fish, slicing a fish but then most important getting them to taste it and the reaction is absolutely incredible and its a very simple thing to do, that chefs can do with their local schools, just go in and show them how to prepare a simple soup or something like that and it just gets them understanding a little bit about food. Darina Allen. Absolutely and Ill take one more question and then I have to ask the panel to wind up with their suggestions at the end. So Seamus and then that lady just in front there. Seamus Sheridan. One thing I noticed last year was in our local school that I work in, our primary school, we started doing the lunches and more or less every child is entitled to the lunch in the school, the lunch consisted of 7 individual pieces of food including a small bottle of water, a small processed sandwich, some small plastic packaging of chopped southern hemisphere fruit. If you look at the cost of all those free lunches, surely would the department of education not save money by employing somebody in the school that could cook sandwiches and cook the food in the school for the children instead of spending, wasting money on unnecessary packaging and very dubious quality food. Darina Allen. And could also create employment in an area, you and Donal Lehane over this side should get together because you have similar thoughts on it and I think its a brilliant thing to explore further. That lady with the white blouse and then Ill come back to the panel. Annemarie Walsh. Hi Im Annemarie Walsh from the Tipperary Kitchen, Im part of the Tipperary food producers and I was involved in the Food Connect program last year which involved the transition year students of the Presentation college in Thurles and we won that Food Connect program. From my experience therefore Id like to say first of all recent news this week, Steve Jobs retired from Apple and the commentary about him was, the reason he was so successful was that he focused on the end user. Weve had no comment here today on this discussion or the previous discussion on the end user. Now in relation to

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what Darina said, is that if we plant the seed in the primary school in relation to our primary students there, we are creating end users of the future. The feedback, I met this week the transition year students who I worked it and all the feedback from them was that it was the hands on aspect that really blew their mind and also the fact that I particularly focused on the business aspect of food, its very food focused here but actually were in the business of food so we not only need producers and farmers, we also need people wholl market, who can sell, who do IT etc and we need to widen that discussion because if weve got, as in the discussion, farming children leaving the farm, if they go and do marketing and they come back to the land and bring their skills through that career, then its all the best. So I would think that by focusing on the primary school were developing end users of the future, which is what were all after, I think we should forget about the department of education, forget about everybody else, if we want anything done, like weve done in our own business, weve got to develop end users of the future and weve got to do that ourselves. So I would agree with the commentary that was made here today, we should have a triangle of teachers, food producers and restaurants and those 3 groups today, as Ruth Hegarty said, if theres cooperation between all of us, we can do it ourselves, we dont need grants, we dont need funds, weve all got the resources on the ground. And we should come back to community based education. However I would like to propose that Darina if she had time, that she might push that, you are the lady who could certainly put that on the agenda on a nation wide basis and I would propose Darina Allen if she would ever, in her spare time take up that and thank you very much. Darina Allen. Thank you very much Annemarie, I would like to see as part of the curriculum a garden in everybody single Patrick Wall. Food is a fundamental fuel for the body, you wouldnt put diesel into a petrol car but most people in Ireland would eat anything, you know and we have an epidemic of diet related disease and its amazing in the young people that were seeing disease in the young people like maturity onset diabetes, they call it maturity onset diabetes because it used to occur when people were 40, now were seeing it in teenagers so like the health service cant cope at the moment and if you knew about the resource constraints that the health service have and the impact of the resource constraints on the health service delivery, you would look after your health a bit better. Ruth talked about balance and enjoyment and I think that we need to, and quality rather than quantity and thats what we need to, we need for people to start thinking about what food, the role food plays in their life and to focus on quality rather than quantity. Like people spend a fortune on cosmetics to make themselves look well whereas if they thought a bit more about what theyre eating theyre look even better. So the one take home message that Id like to give all of the producers here is that when people ask you tomorrow what business are you in, dont say youre in the food business, youre in the health business, doctors and nurses, theyre not in the health business, theyre in the sickness business, theres a subtle difference.

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Darina Allen. Thank you very much Pat. So very quickly a take home message and we should focus back on the transition year program, a quick sentence from each person of something positive we can actually do, that we can do and that we will do from today. Pat Whelan. I think we as an industry need to integrate more in a practical way to the education system empowering the children that are in education, give them the knife, let them have a go and encourage them to have a go and I think we have to sign up to that and give of our skill. We dont need funding, we have the practical skills, we have the ability to do it and its that community approach that is actually going to make a difference. Ruth Hegarty. Yeah again I dont think that really any of this requires extra funding or very much money, I think all the skills are there and theres a lot of people out there who are willing to offer their skills. Just to go back to the third level and the chefs, I mean really theres a serious crisis for the industry, if we cant train good chefs who know about how to use local food and who put artisan producers forward and promote them as chefs have done in the past and as Myrtle Allen has championed, you know our artisan producers from the moment that she opened the doors of Ballymaloe House, if we cant produce chefs who follow that philosophy, then weve got a serious problem. So I think you know number one we need to get into the culinary arts courses, we need major industry input and I think industry are willing to give it. And we need an emphasis on local. Domini Kemp. Just I suppose to reiterate I guess the project that were hoping to roll out will be very broad in a sense that it is targeting business, it is targeting artisan producers, it is looking at all these elements that have been flagged today. You look at companies like McDonalds and rather cynically theyve always targeted children because theyre trying to create customers for life, I suppose the good food producers of this country have to do something similar and I suppose its by improving the standards it will raise the bar for the food that theyre sold and the food that theyre being served in school. Margaret Kelly. Well Id emphasise the 3 opportunities, practical enrichment of the curriculum, thats already there at primary level and giving the kids the opportunity to taste the real thing and to grow the real thing. Then theres space in transition year and in new junior cycle short courses. But I think it would be important to make alliances with bodies like the home economics teachers association and the agricultural science teachers association so that youre linking in both the business side and the practical side into the system. Darina Allen. Thank you Margaret very much. Michael, this organisation GIY Ireland which some of you may not have heard of, its quite an extraordinary phenomenon, in less than 2 years they have just under 10,000 members and so theyre showing people how to grow and

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linking people to food every single day, so Michael you probably have one good sentence as well. Its already made an extraordinary impact in a very short time and I congratulate you on what you started. Michael Kelly. Thanks Darina, I was going to be good until you teed me up like that. I just think the important thing is coherence and I think Ruth talked about this, theres like so many organisations like ourselves and Euro-toques and others doing great work individually and I think the challenge, I know we dont need another talking shop but the challenge is how do we get everybody, you know singing off the hymn sheet, to use that awful phrase, I think thats the key thing. And just a kind of a, I suppose a shameful plug but very relevant to this, next weekend in Waterford we have the GIY gathering which is about 400 people hopefully coming down to Waterford and one of the panel discussions we have is talking about, you know how to do exactly what you said there, put a school garden into every school in the country. So anyone interested have a look at our website on that.

Declan Troy. Ill just say a couple of things, one is that the food industry is a highly fragmented industry but the problem with that is, its highly fragmentedly represented, in other words theres a lot of people representing the food industry on many different committees, so I think, you know not just for this session but even brand Ireland and other issues, it needs to be much more coherent and almost systematic. In relation to the transition, absolutely, we have 15,000 transition year students into the Teagasc centres every year for science week and its absolutely like a zoo. I mean theyre swinging, eating, throwing, you know theyre really, growing the food, tasting the food, making the food, so the practicality is absolutely a must for children. And the last thing Id say is if you're trying to change let alone develop a culture which in your presentation you said we havent there, but Id say we have a fragmented culture of food, its a serious issue to change or to develop a culture and therefore my own view is that it will take a major effort of resources, whether its human resources, skills but I also unfortunately think some funding will be needed as well. Mirtn Mac Con Iomaire 3 quick things, the first thing, one of the first things brought in when I started teaching in Cathal Brugha street was to make sure that every student I had was brought out to a restaurant to eat, because when I trained you were taught how to cook, you werent taught how to dine. And I think thats very, very important where you actually see the whole picture and you understand, you know the link between the service, between the ambiance, between the music, the food, the whole lot. I think if we could roll that out to transition year students, get students out into restaurants, you know that whole socialisation thing, I dont know if anyone ever saw the Wire where they bought sort of kids from, the winners of a project school in to have a meal and they were totally uncomfortable. You know we have done it in Cathal Brugha Street, we have brought kids in from disadvantaged areas into dine and just even to use knives and forks, the

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whole idea, it just opens your eyes, thats number 1 and I think that can be done at a very low cost, do you know what I mean, its just a field trip. Number 2, the idea, I take a few points on board here about the chefs and culinary arts students, one of the biggest problems is the cost of employing, to employ a culinary arts student is one of the most expensive courses in all of Ireland, alright, because you have 16 to 1, when you get your practical lessons, you only have 16 students to 1 lecturer, you also have equipment, you also have food, all that sort of stuff. You go to UCD you can have 500 people into a theatre or whatever and 1 lecturer, alright, much different. And what theyre trying to do is that all the time theyre trying to reduce and reduce and reduce the amount of practical hours. So I would love to do what you suggest Lorcan, absolutely and the practical lectures there are fighting that all the time but unfortunately the cost of that and thats what's been dominating things. Thats number 1 and number 2 theres a big problem, we talk about apprenticeship, theres a huge problem here with apprenticeships, because basically we have a thing called Cert, alright, then Cert got brought into Failte Ireland and now Failte Ireland seen to have washed their hands of sort of training the chefs, ok and then its moving out and everyone is in a limbo land, not knowing whether day release chefs are coming in, not knowing if full time chefs are coming in, who is paying for it, because its so expensive, the ITs dont want to, you know they are trying to nearly, we need to have, you know get together and actually fight that case, we really do. Darina Allen. And find a way yes, well thank you very much and just 1 or 2 final little thoughts that struck me. we can each and everyone of us can make a difference, its not just up to the government or to various organisations, every single one of us at home in our own places can make a difference to bringing up the awareness of the quality of food, about connecting food to health and so on and we can buy, make it a mission to buy at least some of local Irish food every week, chefs can put local food and make a real effort to put local food and buy from local farmers and fishermen on their menus so that when locals and visitors to Ireland come they get a taste of that place, not just a generic menu that could be found anywhere in Ireland or anywhere else. So we can make a big difference, we can ask for local food in local restaurants and then we can, ourselves we can each time serve Irish local food proudly in our own families, to our guests and our visitors. And we all know I think in this room that food is such an important part of our future in Ireland, its one of the things thats really going to and is already driving the economy. So we really also need to emphasise to our children and our grandchildren that there are huge opportunities in food and in food production in farming on all the different levels, on the business area and marketing, enormous opportunities there. Its been kind of slightly looked on as a secondary kind of career. I remember realising I was such a disappointment to the Dominican nuns in Wicklow years ago when I told them I just wanted to learn how to cook and everybody else was doing law or the sciences or something, they thought theyd failed but anyway there we are, its come in handy enough all the same. And so in this way each of us can make a big difference not only to Irish farmers and fishermen and food producers but to the whole Irish economy and thank you, my whole panel today for their contribution, thank you for your questions and thank you to Bord Bia and to the Taste Council for this forum.

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