THE ANNUAL threshing in Carey’s went well on Sunday. The dry September ensured a sufficient supply of oats to keep my father and his friends (aka the South Meath Vintage Society) occupied for a few hours.
When the machines were turned off, the pitchforks confiscated from the children and an excited Jack Russell had cornered a rat, my sisters and I served the tea and scones while some of the men set up the rope for the sheaf throwing competition.
It was then that my neighbour Patsy Prendergast and I could have a proper chat about the grave issue of our morning porridge.
Or to be more precise, our problem in sourcing honey for the porridge. Among the many problems the country and our household faces in 2009, you might think that honey hardly bears consideration. That would be a mistake.
The honey problem has escalated into a global crisis encompassing fraud, starvation, environmental disaster and an Argentinian cartel, not to mention the great Chinese Honey Laundering Scandal.
All summer I had kept watch on the empty spot on which Michael Gleeson’s Enfield Honey usually sat on the butcher’s counter. The absence was starting to prey on my mind. We live a life of simple pleasures and a spoonful of honey on one’s porridge seems little to ask of the world. It brings psychological as well as nutritional benefits.
A victim of Catholic guilt and the intensive mothering demanded of the middle class, food is a cesspit of anxiety for me. It’s either too dear or too cheap. In which morally unacceptable supermarket was it purchased? How many air miles? Were small children or impoverished farmers exploited in the production process? How much salt, sugar or chemicals does it contain? Is organic better or a marketing ploy? Whatever about fat-free, I crave anxiety-free food.
Michael Gleeson’s honey provides almost unique reassurance to body and mind. Air miles: zero. Carbon footprint: the three miles from his house to ours. Quality: international award-winning produce with known medicinal benefits. No chemicals and no exploited labourers (well, except for the bees). It is sweet to taste and untainted by doubt.
I rang Michael to find out what the problem was. The wretched rain. Bees can’t get out in the rain so they can’t mate, collect nectar and they can’t pollinate. It was so serious that our bee population was facing starvation this winter.
The recent dry weather allowed them to collect sufficient nectar from (and here’s a surprise) ivy – to make some last-minute supplies to feed themselves. Unfortunately ivy honey is bitter and unpalatable for humans. I asked Michael if we planted more flowers would it help? A little but not much, he says. The finest honey comes from trees like wild growing willow, sycamore, blackthorn and of course, the cherry blossom.
So what shall we do? We can buy another brand but whatever it says on the label the chances are it’ll come from Argentina, the world’s largest exporter of honey. In a good year Ireland produces 250 tonnes of native honey and imports 2,000 tons from the Argentine.
At this point in the story, the apparent rustic purity of beekeeping transforms into a trade war that makes the oil market look like a picnic.
As the numbers of bees declines worldwide, Argentinian farmers have realised that their dominant position in the world market confers them with great power. Just as Opec manipulates the price of oil by controlling the supply, the South American beekeepers are holding back their harvest in order to drive up the price.
This seems rather mean, but they see it as just revenge for aggressive action from the American government some years ago. The US slapped tariffs as high as 66 per cent on Argentinian imports in order to protect their own beekeeping industry.
Now with the spread of Colony Collapse Disorder and disease and pests such as the Varroa mite, Americans need Argentinian honey and we’ll all have to pay for it.
Needless to say the sinister forces of China are also in play. Not content with controlling the world’s supply of children’s plastic toys and American debt, China wants in on the honey trade. But their product is the subject of great suspicion.
In 2002 the EU banned Chinese honey due to their fondness for feeding chloramphenicol – an antibiotic – to their bees. The following year, Vietnam and Singapore, hitherto unknown for their commercial honey product, suddenly found thousands of tonnes of honey to export.
The increase was too quick to be credible and tests were conducted which confirmed suspicions: this was Chinese honey.
Although individual beekeepers have been known to fraudulently pass off pots of imported honey as their own, China’s global honey laundering operated on a previously unimaginable scale. The Chinese government claimed to crack down on antibiotic usage and the ban was lifted in 2004. But chloramphenicol continues to show up in random tests of imported honey.
Michael Gleeson – a retired garda – put his investigative experience to good use and has helped to expose dodgy honey to the Food Safety Authority.
So this winter our honey is probably chemical free but comes with enough air miles to earn entry to an airport VIP lounge. All we can do is pray that 2010 brings not just the green shoots of recovery but some sunshine, home-grown honey and peace of mind.