Winter at Devereux farm comes more from windchill than real cold, but arrive it has. The ground is now sodden and there will be no chance of moving anything except a wheelbarrow across the ground until March.
I have had a visit from Simon Parfey who supplies my compost tea, advice on organic matters and soil samples. A visit such as this allows a period of taking stock on the year that has passed. Effectively the year has been disease free. Gone is the vision of hundreds of plants with branch die back in 2013.
Insect pests are represented by the vapourer moth yet again. The variety Altaiskaya took some real punishment from aphids. The plants recovered but it was remarkable how specific it was to this variety.
Matt and I, along with Seth Pascoe from Cornish Seaberry visited Germany at harvest time to see how a fully mechanised sea buckthorn harvesting system works. It gave an impressive vision for the future showing that with investment significant areas of commercial sea buckthorn are viable. The news that one farm in Germany had yielded 300 tons from 25 hectares, planted only four years ago – indicates that breeding and technology are moving the crop forward.
Seth went on to the International sea Buckthorn Association conference in India last month. With 200 delegates from 18 countries it is clear that the global sea buckthorn industry is moving forward. The conference is held every two years, with a European event inbetween. Our next one in 2016 will be in Latvia. An interesting location as a lot of good research work comes from the country. As there has been further news of sea buckthorn fly attacking orchards in Scandinavia and Germany this year, it will be good to hear first hand as to what preventative measures growers are taking to combat this menace.
There will always be new challenges ahead, but should one feel optimistic or not as to the outcome of the Climate Change conference in Paris this week. Our farm was flooded in 1953, an event that happened approxiamtely every 100 years. Following surge tide events in 2007 and then 2013 we are now aware that these events are no longer once in a lifetime incidents. The flooding in Cumbria has shown that government investment made after the 2005 floods has proven inadequate. Reliance upon government to solve these issues is maybe wishful thinking. Solutions may have to be found more on using local knowledge and resources. Challenging climate change needs to be tackled both on a proactive and reactive basis. It is up to global governments to be proactive in generating resources for new technologies; regulatory controls; and risk managing this crisis. But it is up to local communities to assess their vulnerabilities, plan how to minimise the impact of extreme events and be able to react to such incidents and control their futures.
For my business it too has to find its own solutions for survival and success. In January I have a visitor coming here who I see as a sustainability guru. Getting to grips with sustainability is about making choices. Choices that avoid wasteful operations. Insuring that investments will reduce resource reliance. Building the concept in every layer of the business. It is a worthy goal, but progress may have to be balanced by practicality in the short term. So that is my focus for 2016 – that and delivering a real crop of sweet Siberian berries.
