{"id":335285,"date":"2026-03-08T11:37:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T11:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/335285\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T11:37:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T11:37:20","slug":"giys-mick-kelly-we-love-the-idea-of-irish-produce-but-do-we-love-it-enough-to-pay-the-true-cost-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/335285\/","title":{"rendered":"GIY\u2019s Mick Kelly: \u2018We love the idea of Irish produce \u2013 but do we love it enough to pay the true cost of it?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">The GIY founder has been on a mission to get Irish people growing their own produce, but now he\u2019s taken on his biggest challenge to date &#8211; transforming an abandoned site into a commercially viable vegetable farm. Here, he talks about the rise of UPFs, the hot school meals controversy and why a future where supermarkets stock no Irish vegetables is closer than we think\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mick Kelly. Photo: Dylan Vaughan  \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/7fa4d9ca-32f9-4d71-b570-fdb71e7f6491.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Mick Kelly. Photo: Dylan Vaughan  <\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">In 2000, there were 600 commercial vegetable growers in Ireland. Today, there are only 60, and according to Michael Kelly of Grow It Yourself Ireland, at the rate things are going, in just three years, there could be none at all.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The result will be poorer quality vegetables in supermarkets that have to travel longer distances to get there, with lower nutritional value and higher prices. \u2018Whose interest is that in?\u2019 is the question Kelly poses to me over coffee in a Dublin city-centre hotel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The GIY founder has been on a mission to get Irish people growing their own produce, but now&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,898,128197,132860],"class_list":["post-335285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-shp","tag-signature-human-interest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}