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Talking food, culture and politics with Seamus Sheridan by Ronan Lynch   Seamus Sheridan doesn’t want to talk about cheese. “I love what I do and I know the jobs it supports but this isn’t really about me or Sheridan’s Cheesemongers”, he says. As an advocate for Irish food producers and the slow food movement, Sheridan could talk for Ireland on the subject of food but today he is wearing his political hat as the Green party spokesperson on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. This year he will run for election to Galway city council and he believes that Ireland is facing in to a struggle over food and agriculture that will have broad long-term consequences for the country.   Starting from a market stall selling cheese in 1995 Sheridan’s Cheesemongers has evolved into a well-regarded business with shops in Galway, Dublin, Waterford, and a shop and distribution centre in Meath. In recent years they’ve added a new business making brown bread crackers in Cork and they now employ a total of 45 people. These days, ‘Sheridans’ and Irish farmhouse cheese are virtually synonymous, but he says it’s a workaday struggle for small food producers.   ‘Agri-food’ and fisheries is Ireland’s biggest indigenous industry and under the Food Harvest 2020 initiative, the Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries aims for a 33% increase in the primary output in agriculture, fisheries and forestry, and a 40% increase in value added. Sheridan believes that this massive expansion of food production can only come about by ceding control of our food to a handful of multinationals. “What worries me is that we – and particularly this government – seem to have developed very close links with large multinational food producers. Fine Gael is supporting and promoting the agri-food business to the exclusion of artisan and craft food producers and small and medium farmers”. He believes that the government is taking the hard-won reputation of Ireland’s traditional food producers and handing it over to food corporates chiefly interested in producing processed food.   Last year, Sheridan challenged Minister Simon Coveney’s characterisation of the opening of the Kerry Foods’ research facility outside Naas as “probably the most significant announcement ever” in Irish agriculture. “I welcomed that investment and the jobs it created, but the most significant announcement ever?” says Sheridan. “Make no mistake, a lot of food science – even though people start in it with good intentions – is used not to feed the world but to generate maximum profits at a maximum price targeting the less-well-off in our society who can least afford it. Look how many ingredients are synthetically developed to mimic flavours – that seems to be the holy grail of Irish food development. But let’s look at what end products they develop. Is it real or synthetic ham?”.   Sheridan marvels at the facility with which the corporate food sector has borrowed the language of artisan food production and green policies. “I’m now watching the entire Irish agricultural sector which looks like an ad for the Green Party”, he says. “You’ll see this language: Origin Green, sustainable Ireland, ‘Farm to Fork’. But our green image is not just a marketing tool. It has to be based on an ethos. We’ve seen disgraceful examples in the horsemeat scandal. Some of the protagonists’ websites were claiming to be fully-traceable from farm to fork”.   Sheridan contrasts government support for multinationals and food corporates with support for small food businesses. “When you take away raw agricultural produce and the multinationals, we have the smallest amount of indigenously owned exporters in Europe. It’s very difficult for small businesses to survive unless you export so we have to be an export-led economy if we are to generate sustainable jobs particularly in relation to food and crafts. As a business person, let me say that we need far more support for small businesses”.   Sheridan wants to see more people from business and other areas of the social economy getting involved in politics. “It is possible to be involved in business and be on the left, and we need to strengthen the left wing, in a modern sense. Labour are doing admirable work in social reform but they are letting Fine Gael and multinational corporations run rings around them”. Sheridan’s involvement with party politics began in the late the 1990s when he got involved in a court case to defend the rights of Irish cheesemakers to produce cheese from raw milk. “That case was really my first political involvement with the corporatisation of food”, he says. “Fighting the raw cheese case also gave me a real appreciation for the importance of science in politics and it gave me great faith in the judicial system. Protest all you want, but if you believe your case is valid, go to the district court. In a way that’s what brought me into contact with the Green party, because the only TDs willing to help me at that time were Trevor Sargeant and John Gormley”.   “Food” says Sheridan, “is wrongly portrayed in Ireland and the UK as an issue for the middle classes, or even as an elitist issue. Food and the quality of food is a left-wing issue all across Europe. The Slow Food movement [which emphasises the connections between food, community and environment] had its origins in the Italian communist party. Carlo Petrini, who founded the Slow Food movement, asked ‘why shouldn’t we eat good food, and support our local farmers?’ There is a misinformed idea that Greens are anti-farming. When you go to the South of France, you’ll find that José Bové, who is one of the most outspoken Green party members and MEPs, has built his entire base among small farmers”.   “So, if I was from the left in Spain or Italy or France, the issue of access to butchers and markets and good food is part of political conversation”, he says. “The only food that we debate about in Ireland is new