DesirelandPotatoes with Purpose – The Story of SPUDS
The SPUDS project is harvesting. A new short film created by Eavan Aitken and Greg Dunne of Stoneybutter to promote the SPUDS project, is now online. Potatoes with Purpose: the Story of SPUDS, was funded by GIY Ireland and Allied Irish Bank’s ‘Get Ireland Growing Fund.’ The film, which was premiered at the Waterford Harvest Festival in September of this year, communicates the aims and successes of SPUDS, which is a voluntarily run community research project run in collaboration with Coolmine Therapeutic Community.
SPUDS.ie was launched in 2012 in response to the decision to trial Genetically Modified (GM) potatoes in Ireland. Those who objected to the trial felt that allowing the cultivation of GM crops in Ireland should be a public decision. Unfortunately the public do not feel well enough informed. To address this knowledge gap we decided to set up a community based research project to run in tandem with the 5 year GM trial.
The aim of SPUDS community based research is to raise awareness around the threat of potato blight and the issues that impact on the sustainability of Irish grown food. This year SPUDS began a collaboration with Country Crest, champions of Bord Bia’s ‘Origin Green‘ programme, to apply what we have been learning on a commercial scale. The experiment has been an outstanding success and we are looking forward to developing this crop into market ready products, including another limited edition of SPUS.ie Crisps with a Conscience!
where can i purchase sarpo axona in ireland, ,i live in county down,
I did quite a comprehensive post on where to source blight resistant varieties in 2013 which you can view here: http://desireland.ie/interested-in-growing-naturally-blight-resistant-spuds-in-2013/. Mr. Middleton in Dublin and FruitHill Farms in Cork as well as the Organic Centre in Leitrim will get them to you by post.
If you are looking for larger quantities you could contact Sarvari Research Trust directly and get them sent directly from them: http://www.sarvari-trust.org/. I have bought them by the 1/2 ton and up from them since 2012 when we launched SPUDS. I think they also hope to have them stocked in larger bags this year in horticultural suppliers this year including Woodies. I will write another post about this if it happens.