The Apple Farm

Do the math. Con Traas farms forty acres on a north-facing incline – they call it The Apple Farm – in County Tipperary, in Moorstown, on the road between Cahir and Clonmel. He doesn't even have that mule that freed slaves were given in 1865, along with their forty acres, on the orders of Major General William T. Sherman. Just the forty acres.

The man from Teagasc would take a look at The Apple Farm and declare that such a place would yield half an income: too small, less than ideal situation, the land no great shakes. Half an income, then.

Not if you do math the way Mr Traas does. Con Traas's forty acres employs a dozen people, and a dozen more at the height of his harvests. Out of forty acres! There is a word for this: genius.

Do the polymath. In his latest Apple Farm News, for winter 2010, four white pages of notes on what Mr Traas is up to at any given time, the subjects range from farm weather stations to the failure of artificial sweetners to global food trade to local agricultural economies to the application of systems-based practices on the farm to soil analysis to measuring carbon in fields growing elephant grass to a recipe for mulled apple juice to a crossword for kids.

There is a word for this. You know it already, it's the G-word: genius.

Mr Traas is perhaps the most singular farmer at work in Ireland. Everything he does runs contrary to conventional agricultural thinking, and everything he does he does better than anyone else does. And he smiles a lot, something farmers have forgotten how to do. He studied at UCD, and whilst there Professor Michel Hennerty was a major influence: “he demonstrated to us rigorous scientific and critical thought, and taught me to accept nothing as proven unless you could work it out from first principles yourself”. And he has a philosophy: “to produce in an environmentally sustainable way fruits and fruit juices for sale direct to consumers at reasonable prices”.

Forty acres and a philosophy. He doesn't need that mule.