Storm Éowyn: vegetable growers who ‘lost everything’ left with big repair costs

Many vegetable and fruit growers have been left to bear a heavy financial cost from the damage from storm Éowyn over the weekend.

Brian Dilleen of Mad Yolk Farm in Craughwell, Co Galway, told the Irish Farmers Journal that claiming the damage from an insurance company will not help fix the financial toll.

“I will not claim for insurance, because the irony of the insurance system in Ireland, they would claw every bit of money they gave me in my claim back over the next 10 years as they increase my premium and I’m already paying them enough.

“The word on the street is if the government could chip in, that would be fantastic. It’s for small businesses, small growers, small farmers.

“If they could chip in €5,000 to €10,000 depending on the damage, that would do wonders so farmers don’t have to depend on the community, being ‘the beggar man’.”

Mad Yolk Farm

Dilleen’s vegetable farm also produces eggs from its chickens for its farm shop and runs a sauna.

The storm caused significant damage to the plastic on his 20mx9m vegetable polytunnel, it knocked a tree on to the roof of the changing rooms for the sauna and it lifted the roof off of a three-bay compost-making unit.

Other than infrastructural damage, the farm was also without power until Monday night, meaning that Dilleen had to keep his farm shop closed for two days and his sauna will remain closed until the damage is fixed.

Despite the damage sustained on the farm, he said that he still considers himself one of the luckier vegetable farmers.

“Genuinely, I think I’m one of the lucky ones; I still have a business. The hens are still 100% and we still have two of the polytunnels,” added Dilleen.

“We’re looking at €10,000 minimum of repairs; that’s a lot of money for the nature of the business we’re in. But I know other growers and they’ve lost everything.

“I sincerely think this is going to be the norm. A lot of people are saying this is a once in a 50-year thing, but the way the pattern is going here, we seem to be getting very severe inclement weather. With that, you have to redesign everything.”

Oranmore Organic Farm

Raman Singh has spent the last three years building an organic vegetable farm near the coast of Oranmore Co Galway.

Three of his largest polytunnels, at around 900 square metres, were destroyed, with their steel frames bent and plastic torn, while two more tunnels suffered torn covers and damage.

In addition, his propagation tables were flipped upside down, ruining trays of expensive organic seeds and his spring crops were lost.

“I live five minutes away from the farm. I couldn’t come to it on [Friday] night and the next morning the roads were blocked, so I couldn’t come out till midday the next day,” he said.

“It was shocking when I saw it for the first time. It survived all the storms over the last three years and I’ve worked on farms, so when I got this farm, up on the hills in the windiest place, I built my tunnels stronger than all the tunnels I saw in the past. But still, I couldn’t save them.”

Fundraiser

Singh, who is originally from India and recently gained Irish citizenship, has set up a GoFundme page to help recoup the estimated €20,000 in damages sustained to his polytunnels.

Once his farm is back up and running, he has also pledged to hold an open day on his farm to showcase the improvements on his farm and to thanks those who supported him.

Looking to the future, Singh said that it will be important to invest in a fabric more durable that plastic due to the increasing amount of inclement weather.

“I’m adding more support bars this time. I’ve seen some tunnels back in India made not with normal plastic but a woven cloth that’s much stronger than it.

“With plastic, if there’s any little hole the wind will make it bigger.”

The fundraiser has currently raised just over €10,000 - to donate click here.