He spent decades working in famine-stricken war zones, but Steve Collins is now building a farming enterprise from scratch in West Cork, writes
Sam Wheeler
WHEN you’ve spent most of your working life in Third-World war zones at the front line of the global battle against famine, the issues facing Irish farmers can appear first-world problems.
Dr Steve Collins, though, is farming his 140 acres of marginal mountainous land on the Cork-Kerry border with the same boundless enthusiasm, innovation and intellectual rigour with which he has been battling starvation in Africa since the mid-80s.
English-born Steve, who has a herd of pedigree Dexter cattle and a burgeoning blueberry business, isn’t just a footsoldier of the aidwork world — he is one of the top brass. A qualified medical doctor with an additional PhD in nutrition, he devised a model for treating famine-hit communities that has been adopted in 60 countries worldwide. In 2001, he was awarded an MBE for services to humanitarianism.
He is still the chairman of a charity Valid Nutrition, and runs Valid International, a research and development consultancy. His expertise is in demand across the globe, but he is committed to making a success of his farm in Derry Duff. He bought the property with his wife Claire in 2005 when he was feeling “a bit burnt out” from battling the “bureaucracy and vested interests” as much as from the actual suffering.
Explaining his move to the wilds of West Cork — the nearest shop is 15 minutes’ drive away — he explains: “I’d spent 30 years treating people on the point of death, I’d seen a lot of death, lot of war, lot of famine. It’s very difficult to bounce between war and famine, and normal life.
“When you’re dealing with someone who has just seen all their children die of starvation, and you come to Dublin, and someone is complaining because their new Merc has got a scratch on it… I mean, if you have a new Merc, it’s quite legitimate to complain if it gets scratched, but it’s very difficult to move between that and starvation. So I moved down here to be far away from that, so I didn’t have to be confronted by that.”
Although he doesn’t have a farming background, and he hasn’t been to agricultural college, the 56-year-old launched himself into his new enterprise with a can-do attitude and a scientific approach.
“I’m winging it,” he grins. “I talk to people. Scientific method takes you a long way — when you don’t know things, you try things out, you work out what works and what doesn’t. It’s about not being afraid to fail.
“It was the same with the aid. I developed a model to treat mass starvation, because when I failed — I caused a cholera outbreak — I was open about it. I published the results of what I’d done wrong and really analysed it. In farming, we have a go; if it goes wrong, look at why it went wrong. I don’t just go ‘well, it wasn’t my fault’. You look at why, what you could have done differently.”
Steve has chosen his projects carefully. He didn’t just opt for Dexters (whose meat he sells to high-end retailers such as Mannings Emporium, a deli in Ballylickey), because they look cute, or blueberries because he likes muffins.
“I picked a breed that was easy,” he says of his 55-strong herd of dwarf cattle. “Dexter were bred in Munster, they are adapted to the hills and the bog, they are very low-maintenance — they calve themselves. I’m ranching more than farming. They are up in the mountain all year — I’ve got no sheds. Obviously it’s a learning curve, but the medicine helped. The basic principles of animal health are the same as human health, so the veterinary is fine. I very rarely get the vet out.”
The nutrition side has also helped, leading Steve to his drought-busting sprouting machine. His understanding of soil health — which he likens to finding the right microbial balance in the gut — drew him to blueberries. That and the low price of beef, even for the highest-quality produce.
“Farming cattle, unless you’ve got a really intensive set-up — big fields, mechanised, loads of big sheds to put them in in the winter — you’re never going to make money,” says the father of Sean (8), Cara (7) and Conor (5).
“I can turn over about €20,000 on the whole farm in cattle. Because the cost of food is so low — you can get s**t beef really cheap, farmers round here can’t compete with that. If you’ve got really good land in the midlands, then maybe. But not here.
“So I’ve cut down on the Dexters, I’m focusing on the blueberries. I was looking at what would work, and I found out that blueberries grow really well in marginal, acidic soil. And they like a lot of water. They don’t mind the cold in the winter. The temperatures are good for them.
“I’m putting in 8,000 plants over six or seven acres. There’s a lot of work — you’ve got to put windbreaks in, raised beds, irrigation, fertigation. There’s quite a lot of up-front costs, and a long lead-time. I started in 2014. I had to import the plug plants, and I won’t start selling until next year. So there are uncertainties about it. But I did a market research study with Tralee IT — focus groups etc. I know there’s a good market, good prices. I reckon I can get 20-30 tonnes. Blueberries are massively popular. I can turn over more with one field of blueberries than I can with the whole farm of cattle. I’m applying for a grant for a processing plant.”
Steve points out that the adverseverse effects of climate change are already beginning to bite, and he is a big advocate of diversification. He and Claire also have apple orchards and a plant nursery; they sell innovative plant pots, run farm tours and are starting Airbnb at the home they designed themselves and which they played a major part in building, having lived in an old site cabin for eight years during the construction.
With traditional farmers gettingting squeezed harder by falling grants and produce prices, as well