Waterford Bakery to feature on tonight's episode of Ear to the Ground

Maeve will be in Wexford with Tillage Farmers who are having a year to forget. Darragh will be in North Dublin finding out about a crop that is still a little unusual for these shores, sweetcorn. And Ella is in Waterford meeting a baker using old Irish grain. 

Tillage 

After a considerably wet year across the country, this year's harvest has been a disaster for some grain farmers. Almost 5,000 acres of crops have been left unharvested in 2023, the majority of which are in County Wexford - where the wettest September since 1974 has been recorded. 

Sweetcorn Harvest 

It’s not often that you’d pass a field of sweetcorn in Ireland, as our climate up to now has made the growing of this sweet treat almost impossible. But John and David Hagan from Skerries in North County Dublin, like a challenge, and they’ve been perfecting the art of growing sweetcorn since the 1980’s when they grew a couple of acres, to this summer when they planted over 40 acres. Darragh Mc Cullough visited the Hagan brothers during the late summer as they prepared to harvest the first of this year’s crop. 

Seagull Bakery 

At the Seagull Bakery in the South East, Sarah Richards and her husband Conor Naughton use Irish-grown flours in their loaves and pastries. For them, it's all about food security, sustainability and supporting local producers, as well as going against the notion that we simply don’t have the right conditions in this country for growing milling wheat. 

Thursday 23rd November 2023 

RTÉ One - 7pm