About Growing Awareness
Growing Awareness is a Skibbereen based Food and farming group that was established in 1998.
The aim of Growing Awareness is to ensure that everyone has access to food grown and produced in a way that restores respect for the earth, respect for food and respect for farmers and growers.
The Objectives are as follows:
- To encourage and facilitate consumers in making informed choices about the food they eat
- To raise awareness on food and farming issues
- To keep Growing Awareness in the public eye
- To have all the information available to the market
- To support best practice projects or practical initiatives
- To assist positive change
- To take positive action
- To network with other organisations
- To encourage clean farming
The Idea for Growing Awareness arose in August 1998 as a group of individuals concerned about the genetic engineering of food. This led to the successful weekend conference in Jan 1999 "Genetic Engineering in Food and Agriculture."
In March 1999 a one-day conference on organic milk production was held in Rosscarbery. Other events in 1999 at which Growing Awareness participated were; the Shanagarry March, Skibbereen Festival Parade, The Frog Fair and Mallow Garden Festival. In July 1999 a one-day Seminar on Seed Saving/Worm Composting was held in Baltimore and in December 1999 Growing Awareness participated in the Trocaire Toy Campaign for Fair Trading A Newsletter was also sent out to all (56) members.
The Main event organised in 2000 was the “Need or Greed: Challenging the Globalisation of Food and Agriculture” conference held in the West Cork Hotel in January 2000. This weekend conference was opened by Minister for Food, Mr. Ned O’Keefe, and attracted a large crowd who heard presentations by over 20 speakers. The speakers included Green MEP Patricia McKenna, local farmers, the economist Richard Douthwaite and Caoimhe de Barra of Trocaire. Later in the year a Schools Campaign consisting of workshops with Transition Year students in Mercy Heights and Rossa College, Skibbereen was carried out and in March 2000 at a workshop with Baltimore Women’s Group “The Coffee Game” was played.
The seed saver group started in April 2000 as a response to the large amount of interest generated by the workshop given by Anita Hayes of the Irish Seed Savers Association. This event was hosted by Growing Awareness at Glebe Gardens in Baltimore during the summer of 1999 It was also as a response to a meeting of the Irish Seed Savers Association at which Growing awareness was represented where it was suggested that a local seed saving group could be started in West Cork. During the summer the seed saver group held garden walks at Creagh Gardens, at Caroline Leftwick’s garden at Thornhill, Skibbereen and at Lisa Davies garden in Glenlough. Tomato day was held at Jean Perry’s Glebe gardens in Baltimore and Potato day was held in September 2000 at Madeline McKeever’s farm at Ardagh. There was an emphasis on seed saving and the preservation of genetic diversity in farm and garden crops at these events.
The other major project of 2000 was to start a Farmer’s Market. This opened on 5th of May 2001 and is still running successfully every Saturday morning in Skibbereen’s Fairfield. In 2003 a Heritage Council grant was received to run a series of farm walks and workshops entitled ‘West Cork’s Agricultural Heritage’ A further grant was approved for 2004 for six farm walks and a series of workshops entitled ‘Sharing West Cork’s Agricultural Heritage’
From 2005 to 2009 Growing Awareness continued to put on Walks and Workshops through the summer months. With great support from generous farm hosts and other volunteers these were enjoyed by up to 100 people per event.
During 2008 and 2009 the organiser of Growing Awareness decided to take a less proactive role in organising events with the proliferation of other groups organising food and farming related events. For this reason our activities are on hold for the foreseeable future.