Ballylagan Organic Farm

Background

Ballylagan Organic Farm produces beef, lamb, pork, poultry, eggs, fruit and vegetables, all to organic standards and certified by the Soil Association. The Shop does not currently have butchering facilities and all the meats are butchered by a contract butcher and sold in the shop deep frozen.

The purpose of this website is not only to sell you produce, but to put you in closer contact with the food you eat and the methods by which it is produced. Whether you are vegetarian, carnivore or omnivore, we hope that this site will have something of interest, and that our shop will always be able to sell you something good to eat.

History

Ballylagan Organic Farm was the first farm in Co. Antrim to achieve organic certification from the Soil Association in the early nineties.

We were the first organic farm in Northern Ireland to open a farm shop outlet. It was officially opened by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales on the 5th May 1999. The shop stocks a wide range of foods - everything from meat, fruit and vegetables to an extensive range of dairy products, dried and tinned foods, salamis and fish products.

Ballylagan Organic Farm has been mentioned in the Observer Food Monthly March 2006 under the readers awards for best retailer of homegrown basics in Northern Ireland. It has also been mentioned in Rick Stein's Food Heroes and the Bridgestone Food Lover's Guide to Northern Ireland.

Farm shop

The shop was opened in a desire to help address two problems:

Almost all food retailed in the UK is currently sold by supermarkets. It is virtually impossible to make any money from a small farm if you are locked in to supplying the supermarkets. Most of the food produced in the UK is produced by large scale intensive, chemical reliant farming, with more than 80% of the food produced being grown by less than 10% of the farmers. Many of the remaining 90% of farmers also have full time jobs or are being driven by economic hardship to leave the land.

In the early 90s the government was indifferent to organic production and the handful of organic producers were faced with the choice of retailing the products themselves, transporting it across the border, or losing money. At Ballylagan, we decided that we would retain at least some control of our destiny if we opened a shop and started retailing our own product. From small beginnings we are currently able to retail the majority of what we produce.

Increasingly there is an apparent lack of knowledge as to how food is actually produced. With every food crisis, whether it be BSE, foot and mouth or an outbreak of food poisoning, the government response is invariably to regulate to the point where people feel that the only safe food is produced in a test tube, comes out of a packet and is cooked to the point of extinction. At Ballylagan we produce real food, which is not steeped in chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Much of the time it is available for inspection as it grows.

We have moved the shop to the new premises across the yard.