“Disruptive policy” is what is needed to combat rural depopulation, an organic Kerry farmer will tell an EU event later this month.
Kate Carmody, who is vice-chair of Hemp Cooperative Ireland, said she is “totally frustrated” by what is going on in Ireland at a local and national level, in that “we talk everything to death”.
“We have committees. We have report after report and nothing translates into action very much.
“They [the government] have all these little grant schemes where they give out a few bob to keep people quiet and happy, but there’s no meaningful change. And it’s meaningful change that I’m interested in,” she told Agriland.
Rural depopulation
Carmody said that commercial and social services moving out of rural areas is having a profound impact.
“Once you withdraw infrastructure from rural areas, you can see the population leaving and it’s something that has tormented me so much living in North Kerry, as I’ve seen services disappear one after another.
“All of the villages are turning into ghost villages. The countryside is becoming dilapidated,” she said.
Although recognising the need for urban centres, the farmer, who is a qualified biomedical scientist, said this does not mean that rural areas are neglected.
“Economic is not everything. We have to be social. Socioeconomic deprivation is a man-made construct from neoliberal capitalism, which bases everything on a value in terms of GDP (gross domestic product), a monetary value, instead of putting a social value back into our communities.
“They’re all being totally annihilated on the basis that it’s not economic.”
In her address to an EU “policy lab” on rural depopulation in Brussels on June 29, Carmody will encourage a “bottom up approach” to rural deprivation through empowerment of local communities.
She will suggest the formation of “social cooperatives” which can register as charitable trusts to access funding to advance local ideas.
“I think we should develop this at European level and let the people who are actually in the community create the cooperative trust and look for the money because they know their communities.
“They know what might work for them. They might fail but what I’m seeing at a European level and the national level is huge amounts of money going out through research projects – many of which are not practical for rural areas.”
Carmody will also outline the work of Hemp Cooperative Ireland which is aiming to develop a sustainable network for hemp, flax and medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPS) across Ireland.
“I find it much easier to get a voice at European level than we would here in Ireland, where we see the same old faces at every table when it comes to policymaking.
“For a disruptive innovator, like me, it’s great to be able to talk about disruptive policies, policies that will make a difference.”