It has been both a practical and an academic week. Kicking off with a good dose of manual weeding first thing on Monday morning loosens up both body and mind. The next three days where allocated to the great Food Matters Live conference. In reality Matt covered Wednesday and I the other two.
Food Matters is going to become an annual pilgrimage. With eight seminar rooms, each turning out twenty odd technical discussions over each day, the only complaint I have is there is too much choice.
This year my focus was on nutrition for health; marketing; packaging with a look in on immunity. With the drive to find natural alternatives to sugar, and so much talk about the after taste of stevia – the last talk on Thursday threw Yacon in as an option.
Sea buckthorn’s nutrient quality will always define its taste as sharp, but the UK consumer has been brought up on sweetness. Finding a new source of natural sugar without calories is of interest. One that maybe we could grow on the farm would of course be of interest. Growing sea buckthorn has its growing challenges, so the fact that Yacon comes from Peru should not be a barrier. One might question however why we should bother.
The answer possibly comes from a vision of the future. I read this week that a recent IPSOS MORI poll indicates that 9 out of 10 people say they believe climate change is a threat. This comes at a time when next month the UN will hold their Climate Change conference in Paris. One of the seminars at Food Matters was on sustainability within the food industry. Waste and resources management becoming a key concern both from an economic and environmental viewpoint. It also featured at Generation Farm 2015, sustainability this time being necessary to challenge a “trilemma” of threats of food scarcity, climate change and the depletion of natural resources – particularly soil. Building our farm future on integrated crops that deliver the capacity to produce on farm product with a minimum of resources has to be a vision to work for.
Soil is our greatest asset. It is the medium that over the past few decades we have taken for granted too much. It has to be managed sustainably for future generations. It is the medium in which over 95% of the world’s food is produced and yet it is being lost at an alarming rate. It is not only the means to grow our food, but also the means by which we deliver the nutrient quality in our food.
Conferences like Food Matters reveal trends of which nutrients offer health opportunities in the future. Our international sea buckthorn conferences and growers bible give plant and soil management ideas to enhance the quality of the sea buckthorn crop. Market trends might provide specific nutrients as quality indicators. But focusing on particular nutrients can miss the point. Sea buckthorn is not an artificially fortified product. It has a natural nutrient formula that works in a multitude of ways. As growers we must nurture and deliver the natural formula to consumers – that will be our quality parameter.
If soil is an essential resource, small businesses access to funding is equally important. It is concerning therefore when it is reported that 17% of SMEs report their overdrafts have been reduced or withdrawn over the past two years. The Bank of England reports that every day since 2011 £5 million has been cut from SME overdrafts.
The pre-2008 recession economic environment saw borrowing levels at un realistic levels.For SMEs developing new enterprise is risky and this does not fit well when banks are under pressure to reduce the riskier element of their balance sheets. Crowd funding is an option. The news this week that the mini drone project fronted by KickStarter is causing concern re-inforces the need for realism and caution.
Some enterprises look for quick returns. Sea buckthorn takes a number of years to come to peak yield. Our vision for sea buckthorn is a long term future with a sustainable crop -delivering natural quality to satisfied customers. Developing the business is not a challenge, it is a process – and even the weeding can be enjoyable.
