Attending a recent conference in Mullingar organised by the Irish Food Service Supplier’s Alliance, I was struck by the growing complexity of our food systems and the ever-present and evolving challenges faced by the increasingly large number of actors involved, ‘from farm to fork’.

While COVID forced a rapid recalibration of these systems and highlighted the importance of local producers and markets, the previous global ‘order’ has been largely restored – though tariff-talk promises further disruption.

One ‘old-new’ trend referenced by several conference panellists was ‘scratch cooking’ – cooking from scratch using simple, quality ingredients: a welcome counter-balance to the increasing prevalence of ultra-processed foods, and one which celebrates the primacy of the primary producer.

Returning from the event, I called in to Pat Lalor in nearby Kilbeggan. Pat embodies many of these values, producing simple, wholesome, local food – the perfect back-to-basics antidote to the morning’s musings on global food system complexities.

A lion in the making

Although a masterful communicator, Pat was an unhappy schoolchild who just didn’t fit in the strict, uncompromising educational regime of the time.

It was only when he went to Warrenstown College that the world of learning opened up for him. He later earned (through distance learning, eschewing the classroom setting) a BA at NUI Galway and an MSc (on green manure) at the University of Limerick.

A chance invitation (one day, while weeding turnips!) to chair the Kilbeggan Macra group also had a profound impact, building Pat’s confidence and skills, further nurtured by the Tullamore Lions Club.

Still an active member, Pat was central to the Lion’s ‘Hooves 4 Hospice’ campaign, with over 800 animals pledged by 600 farmers to raise over €1m for a Midlands hospice, a remarkable testament to the generosity of farmers across Ireland.

Idiot-proof

Pat always wanted to be a farmer, and his father Tom – who had an exacting eye – helped hone Pat’s innate farming ability.

He tried various things – including a tree nursery on the farm – but a pivotal juncture came in 1999 when Pat ‘went organic’.

A purely commercial decision, it was the lowest-cost transition option, requiring less structural changes than alternatives like pedigree cattle or forestry.

Today, half the farm is permanent pasture. With no chemical inputs for over two decades, it finishes 130-140 store cattle, mostly Limousin and Charolais, which Pat buys direct from other organic farmers every autumn, selling in late summer as forward stores.

Pat Lalor with some of his oats.

Housed on oat straw over winter, they generate plenty of manure (their primary purpose!), which Pat aerates three to four times over summer (keeping temperatures below 65 degrees) to generate ‘well-rotted farmyard manure’ which he applies to the cropland in September.

Pat grows winter oats for human consumption exclusively. He has a nice, simple, ‘idiot-proof’ system: two years under oats, then two years under clover.

The clover, mostly red (but may include more white in future), is cut twice annually for silage and mulched as necessary later in the year.

The oats are harvested in July, dried (<13% moisture) on-farm and then sent to a local mill for processing (cleaned, dehulled, rolled, steamed etc), before being returned to the farm in 1-tonne bags.

The oats (inset) are then packaged by hand and sold through outlets nationwide, with a small amount exported.

Demand exceeds supply but there are no expansion plans (‘enough is enough’) as Kilbeggan oat’s unique selling point is Pat’s farm ‘terroir’, which gives them their specific texture and taste.

Vanishing landscapes

Pat’s farming philosophy features in a thought-provoking new book, Vanishing Landscapes, which tells the history of the modern social and political changes that separated us from our every-day familiarity with plants such as apples, saffron, woad (once used to colour our clothes), grapes, timber and reeds.

Pat at his home near Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath

The final chapter tells the story of grain and how it became part of a global market, controlled by the modern banking system. The author, Bonnie Lander Johnson, describes Pat’s farm as a ‘model of organic elegance’ where ‘a perfect circle exists between the cattle, the clover and the grain – all three of them flourishing, while also giving to the soil instead of taking from it’.

In an era where mass-produced, ultra-processed foods are increasingly dominant and detrimental, and where the significance of the farmer seems to be shrinking, Pat’s story provides much-needed inspiration: simple, nutritious ‘raw’ food, produced year-on-year from the same few fields, packaged and sold locally, perfect for ‘scratch’ cooking.

Pat and his wife Lily’s son, John, now run the porridge and cookie business, while also being deeply involved in the future of the farm. On a sunny day with grandchildren playing outside, crops planted and cattle just out on spring grass, Pat has a chance to relish the unadulterated joy that the farming life can frequently offer.

It’s great to know that this beautiful Westmeath ‘farmscape’ – and its custodians – won’t be ‘vanishing’ anytime soon.