Cork Rooftop Farm, urban farming with Brian McCarthy

The NeighbourFood Podcast

In this week's episode, we are continuing our explorations of the next generations of people working in Irish Food and chatting to Brian McCarthy, co-founder of Cork Rooftop Farm.

This is an urban farm, unlike others. It was set up by Brian McCarthy and his friend Thay Carlos as a lockdown project back in March 2020. He says himself they were only “trying to grow produce for ourselves, not with any commercial motivations, just purely for downtime during lockdown” and today it is fair to say, it has grown legs everywhere.

This project began as a 7,000 square feet area on the rooftop of his family’s business premises in the heart of Cork city just around the corner from where Brian lives.

Before they knew it, Brian and Thay were assembling a polytunnel, planting seeds, receiving soil deliveries, building raised beds, and transplanting plants. Now fast forward a short 18 months, and this project has morphed into aeroponics, microgreens, pasture-raised hens, a no-dig market garden, and an army of people working with them. Cork Rooftop Farm has just opened a farm shop downstairs which sells of course their own produce, grow-it-yourself products, house plants, wholefoods, and supplies from other organic producers in the area.

Brian is certainly the type of guy that sees an idea, gets inspired and goes for it. He’s like in, 100% in. We hope you enjoy our chat with him which goes into detail of all the ins and outs of the farm, what his philosophies are, some of the issues facing young farmers today and lots more.

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.