FW: Letter to Editor.

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From: groomevet@hotmail.com
To: independent.letters@independent.ie
Subject: Letter to Editor.
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:26:59 +0100
In fact, this was not printed by the paper. Badly written, poor commentary- or Myers doesnt air criticism ?

Dear editor,
K.Myers wrote in the Irish Independent of Friday 16/10/09 "I am grateful to a reader for the following from the Great Green Plan...which says all we need to know about this bossy bunch of scary lunatics"We will develop a template for the establishment of farm-gate shops and ensure that the necessary legislative arrangements are made to facilitate this".K. Myers is apparently critical of this Green party plan to foster farm-gate shops as he then writes a stream of consciousness in which Myers positions a farm-gate shop at the centre of an Enid Blyton children's story. I have a number of questions after reading his piece-Is Myers crediting Enid Blyton with the prescience to predict and endorse a growing self-help movement of the rural economy in the 21st century?Or is he simply writing to appeal to the one third of Ireland's population - those over the age of forty, of which I am one-who MAY have actually read Enid Blyton?

Myer's criticism of the farm-gate shop movement is wide of the mark and unhelpful to our economy's current weaknesses for the following reason; Ireland's is a small open economy in which the majority of what we consume is imported and the majority of what we produce is exported. This model of Foreign Direct Investment dependency was successful in contributing to the phenomenal growth of Ireland's GDP from 1993 to 2007. However the weakness of our dependency on global trading has been exposed during recession. In short, now we in Ireland lack sufficient indigenous means of production, across the entire commercial spectrum, to stimulate sufficient internal cash flow to power our own economy towards recovery. The farm-gate shop movement is one means of stimulating the local economy by generating cash flow for commercial farmers, small food-producing business, small shop-keepers and creates a virtuous circle of cash retention in the local economy. The current reality of farming for the factory and consuming the imported produce of foreign multi-national retailers is contributing to rural and small town unemployment and the shrinkage of our SME sector.

The farm shop movement is of growing economic importance in the UK where there is now a growing market for fresh food from known local sources. Here in county Kildare we have a number of thriving farm food outlets which the local consumer is responding to. The message is travelling across Ireland's SME sector. Countrywide, we now see shop local campaigns successfully spreading the message of spending local euros locally. There is a growing understanding that spending our euro in local producers and local small businesses benefits all of us. The SME sector is the engine of our economy. The self-help principle of the farm shop could be the starting point for recovery and for a new vision of the future shape and balance of Ireland's economy,

yours etc,
Des Groome,
Kildare Vet Surgery,
Chairman, Kildare Chamber of Commerce,
groomepetvets.blogspot.com