"We felt quite threatened with developments and we had small children at the time. So we decided to look out for a healthy environment."

"It was not one of those modern farms with square fields and lots of concrete. It's an old Victorian farm with a rich environment with rivers, woodlands, fields and wetlands."

Initially he started with growing corn and other cereals, planting their huge walled garden with vegetables and developing a small sheep flock.

At that point, in the early eighties he was a lone voice crying in the wilderness. There was not today's awareness of the meaning of the term organic, neither was there today's concern over food safety. The Irish were not prepared to pay the unavoidably high price of organic produce. Josef and his family however had seen the way organic produce had developed on the continent and were confident that the same awareness would come to Ireland. In the meantime he decided to sell his produce abroad.

Displaying for the first time his acute business ability, he approached Nestle with cereals for their organic babyfoods. When Nestle inspected the farm and analysed the cereals and soils they were astonished at the purity of the produce, containing little or no metal residues. Then the ball started rolling. Soon he was involved with the Organic Farmers' Association and was bringing others into his developing network of companies looking for quality organic produce.

This initial contract with Nestle was the first example of what was to become Josef's approach to selling organic produce - to go abroad, secure a lucrative contract on the basis of the excellence of your product, and then return home and involve others on the same initiative. When the word got out that they were growing organic cereals people started calling in search of organic flour. So they built a new stone mill. I le relates this in a matter-of-fact way as if it was the logical and obvious thing to do.

"It was the only chance we had to start a national distribution of grain," he says simply.

Today he himself only produces a fraction of the produce, which passes through his system under the company name of Ballybrado House. He is only farming 340 sheep, a tiny flock by today's standards. But he stresses that if you are to farm organically you cannot maintain large flocks. Instead he co-ordinates the distribution of the produce of 45 other organic farms and, being able to speak for so many, he is in a position to command respect from very major buyers. For example: he has just returned from Frankfurt where he secured a contract for 12,500 organic lambs; a couple of years ago the trendy clothing company Esprit ordered 10 tonnes of organic wool from him and now Greenpeace want 600 sweaters. This is big business. He is forced to buy organic wool from England in order to fulfil his contracts.

Despite his initial successes in selling organic grain, it became increasingly uncompetetive as transport costs rose. As soon as he saw the writing on the wall, Josef devised a secondary scheme with the aim of selling a finished product with greater added value instead of raw material. He went into biscuit making and now manufactures three types of luxury organic biscuits and is about to launch a new product, which he calls 'Savoury Nightbites'. These are little non-sweet biscuits, flavoured with different herbs, to be eaten with a glass of wine. He is confident that there is no other product available like it.

He is reluctant to reveal any overall turnover figure for the Ballybrado company but he does admit that one contract for biscuits alone to a single customer in Germany is worth an annual £40,000.

Many organic farmers are overwhelmed by the sheer practical enormity of what they take on as they attempt to grow their own vegetables, bake their own bread, spin their own wool, make their own cheese - and try to make a living on top of all that. Quickly life looses all joy as they find themselves on a hideous treadmill of their own making. Josef, however quickly realised the impossibility of doing absolutely everything himself and reckoned that if he could distribute and delegate the workload, more people would benefit and production would be higher The biscuits are made by a bakery in Bray using Josef's own organic cereals and are delivered to him ready for distribution. The mill has been moved to someone who will use it seven days a week instead of the one Josef was running it for. The weaving has been shifted entirely to the Kerry Woolen Mills and according to Josef, has developed into a lovely niche for them.

"I never thought you had to own the production plant to supply the consumer with organic produce," he says firmly "You have to oversee, to retain control, but just because organic farmers can't afford their own production plants or abattoirs doesn't mean you lose control of the process. You must make maximum use of existing facilities. I see myself as a co-ordinator."

From the start the farm was run as a company and every success of the farm was shared by others as Josef involved more and more organic farmers into his distribution and marketing network.

"I never liked the idea that ownership is the key to distributing the earnings of work. It is easier to share success when it is run as a company.

"An Bord Bia - Something Special", 1998