Ground-up approach on food and farming

ALREADY known for its array of food festivals, Galway launched the schedule of events for its year ahead as designated European Region of Gastronomy 2018 (ERoG) last Friday.

Boasting more than 12,000 farms, 689km of coastline, 258,000 people, 52 islands and 350 restaurants, it comes as no surprise that Galway is the first Irish region to attain the award.

Programme Coordinator Elaine Donohue says that the theme of the year is: ‘From the Ground Up — Feeding Our Future’ and she feels this communicates how the entire county of Galway has something unique to offer.

“There’s a real closeness to the land in Galway, it doesn’t matter where you live, everybody knows a farmer, so it was a really obvious theme for us,” she says. “Also with obesity on the rise we know it’s important about starting from the ground up and including everyone from school children to chefs and farmers and deciding what Galway stands for when it comes to food production.”

A big part of the year’s programme is linking urban and rural areas together to showcase Galway as a food hub. On March 24, Gabriel Flaherty, a goat farmer and cheese producer based in Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands, will be holding a farm tour to inform farmers how he managed to diversify his farm business.

According to Elaine, our main farm stakeholders, Teagasc and the IFA are also hugely involved in the organisation of the events.

“Teagasc are leading our sustainability and feeding the planet agenda, while we’re very happy to have IFA president and Galway man Joe Healy sit on our board as he’s able to help us link in with farmers,” she adds.

Sheep Day 2018 is sure to be of interest to farmers and will take place on the grounds of Teagasc Athenry on July 7 with up to 15,000 visitors expected at the free event.

Meanwhile, the European Association of Agronomists Seminar due to be held on August 29 in NUIG will see economists from all over Europe travel to the west to learn about Galway’s year as ERoG. Elaine says that some of the events such as Cong Food Festival, Clarenbridge Oyster Festival, Bia Bo Finne on Inisboffin, Tuam Food Festival and Loughrea Medieval Festival are “just a taster” of what’s on offer.

“The current schedule is just the beginning, we’re still getting projects in from community groups in the county. There’s something for everyone and it shows how the people of Galway are really embracing the year ahead,” she says.

For more visit galwaygastronomy.ie or if you would like to add to the programme’s project list email regionof gastronomy@galwaycoco.ie.