Couple put roots down in thriving farm project

Lifestyle –  Judy Murphy meets a hard-working pair whose sustainable food operation focuses on seasonal fruit and veg

There are salad spinners and there are salad spinners, and until you have visited Fergus Anderson and Emanuela Russo on their small farm outside Loughrea, the chances are you’ll never have seen a salad spinner made out of the drum of a defunct washing machine.

Set into the counter-top of their packing shed, this giant ‘spinner’ is used to give an initial wash to the many varieties of lettuces and herbs they produce at Leaf and Root Farm under the Community Assisted Agriculture scheme

It’s just one example of the creativity this young couple have brought to their sustainable food project, which they’ve developed on two fields beside Fergus’s family home.

Their backgrounds are academic rather than agricultural and both gave up office jobs in Brussels to take on this project. They did so because they believed that developing an environmentally friendly local food production network was the most important work they could do.

Italian-born Emanuela had been a journalist and Fergus worked in advocacy for Via Campesina, an organisation representing peasant farmers. What they learned from that helped to inspire their move.

Four years on, after a lot of ground-breaking and back-breaking work, they are the main fruit and vegetable supplier to Galway’s Michelin-starred Loam Restaurant.

And they are developing a local food supply system that focuses on seasonal fruit and vegetables – with potting sheds and two polytunnels to make the season as long as possible.

The fruit and vegetables grown at Root and Leaf are available to local people via a Community Supported Agricultural scheme, a supply chain that doesn’t involves supermarkets or wholesalers. People sign up for a six-month period and, for that commitment, they get a ‘share’ in a weekly harvest. Vegetables in the shares might include carrots, broccoli and onions as well as more exotic items such as kohlrabi and tomatillos, with recipes for less familiar ingredients. There’s a huge selection of fruit, too, which will start becoming available shortly.

When we meet at their farm on a sunny Friday morning, Fergus and Emanuela, who are as lean and fit as you’d expect hard-working, healthy-eating farmers to be, suggest taking a walk around to see the variety of vegetables and fruit that it’s possible to grow on a small amount of land, and to get a feel for what they’re at.

The walk is punctuated by breaks so we can sample strawberries, salad leaves, and some of the many culinary and medicinal herbs they produce here, including the liquorice-flavoured anise hyssop, so it’s a more than pleasant experience.

As they explain how they are creating raised beds to combat weeds, and using ‘green manure’ to ensure the soil is continually fed, you get an idea of the work involved in keeping Leaf and Root so productive.

Their potting tunnel is the launch point for all their projects; it’s where they plant everything from seed, beginning in February, so they get a head start for the Spring.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.