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Natural by name, not natural by management

britishseabuckthorn

As the sun rises higher and spring approaches more of the Siberian varieties are showing signs of life. Like a theatrical performance Klaudia was first onto the stage as usual this year. Next to show was Augustina – although|I doubt whether this correlates with it being an earlier harvesting variety. Elizaveta is now chasing these two and looks as if it will show more leaf than Klaudia shortly. This leaves all the rest which are all on the move, even if one describes it as just a modest bud crack. What is good is to see Gnom coming on in time with all the rest. As the male I hope that this indicates a good development sync for pollination.

Following Kirsten Jensen’s visit her intructions are being followed. First of all the large and mature German plants have been pruned. Having left these to develop too far it followed instructions to a level but still possibly needs some extra intervention this week, as I lost courage with some plants which had a serious haircut. The other part of the instruction at this stage was to strip the grass away from the plants. So a 1 square metre area has appeared around two thirds of the plants. It is relatively easy work with a monkey’s claw as the grass is still dormant and roots pull from the soil without too much effort.

Off the field there has been some fireworks. I read with some alarm that the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has forced the withdrawal of 107 St John’s Wort products from Amazon. The action seems to have been a reaction to health benefit claims being made by sellers. The MHRA state their remit to enforce the Nutrtional and health Claims regulations is not only regarding what is on packaging but also what is said in personal testimonials and on websites.

As someone who is developing a business ( in fact more than that – our farm’s future ) on crop and product derived from botanicals that are high in bioactive compounds it is clear that regulatory compliance guide how we develop our products.

The problem with the EFSA regulations and the European Food Safety Agency approach always has been that the complexities of multi bioactive botanicals do not behave in a regulated fashion. Grown in a natural environment, products derived from plants are subject to environmental variables. The way the bioactives synergise produces thousands of options as to the actual pathways that these might interact with the body once consumed. The issue, as I see it is that many of these botanicals have been used for centuries. These traditional uses have created an understanding as to the potential benefits. Traditional use also throws up side effects. So knowledge is based on observation and practical experience. I would contest that many pharmaceutical drugs are licensed for specific use but their use is not without side effects. Even the mainstays of ibroprufen/ paracetomol and aspirin are in this category.

This regulatory activity has its roots in poor market behaviour. Poor quality product or product that risks overdose. Product that claimed too much. Product that did not deliver on claims. All these resulted in EFSA regulation demanded by politicians and consumer groups.

I go back to what we learnt from the Food Matters Live event in London last year. Consumers are not really interested in what is on the label. They want; they expect; they demand that what is in the title is what is in the bottle. So it is up to the producer to know that what they are selling will be in the bottle.

Some product can deliver an image of quality to a consumer through an accreditation stamp. Accreditation though is only as good as the monitoring system that goes with it. It really comes down to the quality of management of the product throughout its whole life cycle. Accreditation can lead consumers to a false level of confidence if product creating has weak points in the chain.

The description of “local” within product marketing is often misleading as local in an era of efficient transport and distribution can still deliver high quality product from hundreds of miles away. What is probably more important is the number of links in the supply chain. The more people that become accountable the higher the risk that quality is not monitored with rigour. a short supply chain is not always perfect, because what one is looking for is a refined personal chain of responsibility. If the delivery of product is through a huge organisation, then sometimes that can introduce weak links.

I do believe that accreditation is a useful tool for the consumer. Accreditation must fit with the standards required to be delivered. Those standards must be deliverable. Then the producer is accountable.

I see sea buckthorn as having had its centuries of testing through practical human experience. The necessity now is to deliver it in a way that regulators remain happy and consumers retain access to a high quality product that delivers all they see in what they want.

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Value – who pays for it

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There is something very special about this time of year. Cold nights remind you that it is maybe still winter, but as I wandered through the sea buckthorn there were those tell tale signs of spring which shout that a new year is on the way.
This new year is going to be a dynamic one.
Up until now the trials have been developing in size, scale and complexity. In 2012 the plants were establishing and I viewed them as strong and having a capacity to grow whatever the conditions. 2013 there was more maturity but trying to keep weed growth under control was becoming an issue. I wanted to grow without chemicals so the only option was manual and my goodness, manual takes time. Time was not on my time and the weeds out competed the sea buckthorn, plant stress levels became un-sustainable and 40% of the crop fell under a serious attack of fungal disease. 2014 that problem had to be resolved. Resolved it was with the use of mulch and a compost tea brewer. The plants responded with vigour. Stress levels fell, disease did not re-emerge.
The concept works but it was all manual. The compost was shovelled from a trailer behind by car. 60kg per plant and 5000 plants takes a huge amount of time. The compost tea brewer was a great concept start, but having to feed the compost first; then brew the tea, in a machine that could only supply enough for 800 plants at a time created delays so timing of applications was not ideal.
So this year, the priority is for the site to be mechanised. The mulch needs an applicator, which is being designed and built as I write. The compost tea will now be ready made with no brew delay. Having a tractor on site means that my garden mower will go home and a robust tractor mower allow for the intercrop to be cut and controlled. Timely applications means less stress for the plants, and more time for management.
Add to that the advice from Kirsten Jensen from our UK Sea buckthorn event last month – buy a finger weeder to slice out the broad leaved weeds that plague the edge of the mulch strip.
All this together makes 2015 feel like real progress even before it has started.

But in the background there is the concept that this has to turn into a business.
Sea buckthorn is not a crop that will grow without careful management. Harvest is still a challenge – although that is the next project after completion of the mulch applicator. Investment in time, land, plants, machinery, management time all package to a cost.

In consumer terms everyone is looking for value. Value in the amount paid against the benefit the product provides. But value is not just a consumer issue. Value is delivered by a supply chain and is regulated by markets. Excess of supply over demand creates falling prices. When markets were local costs were more direct. Labour costs were comparable. Production costs within a country are impacted by the same energy market; the same competitive transport costs; common regulations. Once one goes global costs are not comparable. Global markets are in some senses good for the consumer because the most efficient producers gain the business that can deliver product at the lowest cost. There can even be environmental gains. Growing fresh food in East Africa and taking advantage of natural sunlight energy outweighs domestic high energy consuming alternatives. But low cost has hidden costs.

Costs of production are only low because values are different. If labour costs are low, it means that people are being paid less – an obvious statement but the result of that is a lower standard of living. if governments subsidise its national traders it means that it is difficult for competing business in other countries to succeed so choice to consumers reduces. If standards of production are lowered to reduce costs then quality becomes variable and for consumers – you get what you pay for. What is alarming is that whereas the global agricultural industry is under pressure to produce value at low cost the products of the industry are becoming an increasing target for crime.
We are told that organised crime is operating in the food supply industry to the global turn of $49 billion. Possibly 10% of US food could be adulterated.
As the global population grows so will the demand for food and this problem will potentially on get worse. This at a time when household budgets are squeezed. The impact of this on the global market is stark when one looks at Fairtrade figures that have fallen 3.7%, reducing the low back to fairtrade producers by £1.67 billion. Fairtrade, as with organic does represent a premium value and in an age of the rise of discount stores these types of traditional value adding, ethical based may be losing touch with the market.

If discount stores are the traders by choice on the High Street for the next ten years then value is not something to be marketed. Value must be inherent in the product. So does that question the need for brands.
Brands represent the value that is not in the product title. Brands represent the connection with the customer and the producer. If the connection is good and delivers value in information and trust then brand has value.

It is the consumer who pays for value and choses what is value. As a producer of sea buckthorn I totally believe that my product has inherent natural value. The job is to show the consumer why my product has value and why they should buy it.

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Academic/SME partnerships

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Sea buckthorn is a plant that has been studied worldwide with focus on its taxonomy; its genetics; its agronomy; its processing; the potential benefits form its consumption and so on. For all of this it remains relatively unheard of in the UK. In the last decade cranberry, blueberry and pomegranate have come to the fore, but for why?

The sea buckthorn community globally focuses strongly on production; on the development of new varieties; on processing technique; on biochemistry within the berry and recent in the leaf. The crop is grown in Europe, but for local and national markets, with more significant crops in Asia also being focused upon internal not international markets. The UK is a country that imports most of its needs. Sea buckthorn has lost out to the US investment in cranberry, and pomegranate with blueberry emerging as a fruit that is now common as a fresh offering on supermarket shelves. A product will not develop unless it is available in consistent volume, quality and price. Mature competitive markets like the UK are also possibly supplied by risk averse companies who invest where they can calculate sales volumes rather than on whether they can develop markets.

But sea buckthorn has quality. It has centuries of traditional use. Its bioactive compound mix fits with market interest. Its taste is new, fresh and unique.

So how does one break into a market. The UK consumer is sophisticated, understands value, and has a level of cynicism about marketeers. The recession has been rolling from 2008 and product now has to deliver value for money and be affordable. Sea buckthorn is already in the marketplace and internet sites of Amazon and ebay offer price points that have discounts that one has to consider are not earning the seller much or any profit.

In such a market product is not unique. Product by name may vary in presentation, in composition and in price. Internet sales are not conventional retail outlets. The stark presentation of multiple sellers offering the same product at varied price stretches consumer loyalty to particular brand. But price is not everything. The debate about why so few people switch energy companies or banks is an example. Brands do make a difference because they are the guarantee of quality – of the delivery of consumer benefit – the same consumer benefit that when matched with consumer need creates a sale. It is the feeling of confidence in brand that creates repeat sales and that is the bond of trust that I would look for when selling a product.

A bond of trust comes from confidence and an understanding that the product delivers what it says it will.
With a natural product – or a product that has come from a natural not wholely manufactured environment, there are complications. The growing environment has many variables, many of which are difficult to predict or manage. These can and will alter the quality of a commodity. when we are looking at creating a product from a natural commodity that inherently has variable qualities this demands that the commodity is managed in such a way as to reduce the impact of these variables. It also demands that the supply chain that takes the grown commodity through to the consumer treats the product flow with the same attention to detail to nurture and protect the natural qualities that the consumer expects from the product.

This takes me to the title of this blog. Farming has been through a number of revolutions that have driven its productivity. Mechanisation; improving fertilisers; managing pests and diseases; better varieties and genetics all have led to this point in time.
The realisation that feeding the global population never used to be a problem is now changing. There is becoming less land available and productivity is not lifting sufficiently to meet the demands of the future.

The term sustainability used to be one that was the language of the environmentalist. It is now the language of the politician and policy maker. It is becoming a term that needs to convert into practical activity to create an equilibrium in the growing environment. An environment where the soil becomes a capital asset no different to money in the bank. The soil has the ability to add value to our agricultural management. It has the ability to reduce the impact of the variables that impact on our natural commodities. The variables that influence the qualities that consumers look for – or even demand when they look for product.

This is not easy. It is not a quick fix. For fifty years, maybe a hundred we have relied on easy gains from science and development. Now the stakes are higher and the needs are greater.

Delivering consistent quality in reliable quantity requires detailed understanding of the processes we manage. This understanding will take time, but time will deliver the knowledge necessary to improve quality.

Quality is a vague word but in the realm of food and diet we now know that quality does count. Obesity, diabetes, cardio vascular disease – all quantified as diseases with links to diet. Stress and lifestyle are other factors but coming back to agriculture and growers we need to understand the need to deliver not quantity into the market, but quantities of quality and meet needs that provide for the health of nations.

As a grower I am not a scientist. I do not have the knowledge nor facilities to undertake my own research that can hone my growing sea buckthorn crop into one that delivers the quality that I have written about. But I know my potential consumers will want to know my product is what is says it is. I also know that I need to be continually improving what I can offer based on understanding how to get the best out of a crop and what it can offer a customer.

Regulation will prevent me from describing the qualities I seek. But that should be no barrier to seeking knowledge and improving the offering to the consumer.

That is where seeking professional academic partnership becomes important. There has been some press recently regarding the bias that these partnerships might create. If a company pays a researcher to provide research does it corrupt the researcher? There are no guarantees that research results will provide what one wants to hear. If the product that is delivered through research that is poor and manipulated by marketing, the most significant test is whether the consumer and trade press will accept the research and the product as having the qualities it promotes. If research is peer reviewed it has value. it has value to the researcher to gain respect; it adds value to any resultant product to gain market trust; it create consumer loyalty to the brand of the company that brings the resultant product to market.

So coming back to sea buckthorn – to develop the market in a competitive world peer reviewed research is the key to success. It costs in time; in resources; in cashflow; but it will bring long term respect and relationship with market and consumer.

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Risk and resources – marketing issues for sea buckthorn

britishseabuckthorn

Our meeting last Saturday introduced some other concepts that impact upon the need for integrated production for sea buckthorn.

The nature of the crop at the moment is largely foraged and small scale. The implications of this are seasonality and how does one turn fresh berry into product. Harvesting also has issues.

Seasonality is a concept that is rare in today’s market where crops are grown all over the world. Growing crops abroad often encourages questioning of environmental credibility. The logic of flying crops in from distant lands only becomes apparent when it is compared to the significant costs and use of energy to guarantee high yield in cool climate. Consumers want to pay as little as possible for their produce and that needs intensive farming. Carbon footprints will become increasingly important in the future and energy saving use and farming methods that reduce carbon emissions will be part of that.

We often want to see our products produced locally and foraged crops tick that box very well, but what does local mean?

Local in many minds means in the same village or within the area of the town that you live in. But in terms of food production it is now possible to harvest product fresh and move it to market within hours because of our transport infrastructure. So local does not always guarantee the only form of delivery of fresh quality.
Local can also be perceived as an understanding that it comes from a farmer or small producer that one knows or can associate with.
This cuts through the issue of distance and places the concept into trust in the producer. Trust to deliver a fresh and quality product.
Identifying with a person – even a named farmer is important because it creates and is a transparent form of traceability. It associates the consumer with the producer and the land that the product has come from.

This is possibly different for a restaurant as so many now advertise their use of local produce. In reality what does that mean? Many grow their own vegetables and herbs, some even their own meat. That is truly local.
That is true to its meaning, but the desire to use local in this context provides the chef with quality that is absolute. Quality that is quantifiable and that provides the best opportunity to maximise taste and flavour in a dish.

Quality keeps coming into the equation when thinking about food supply from a small business. It is the USP that the producer can offer and that the consumer looks for.

But for a small producer there is often a barrier in product development. Small production does not fit well with modern food processing technology and equipment. The availability of machinery to pasteurise in ways that protects nutrients and taste exists but unless you are lucky it will not be local to a producer. These machines also are expensive and therefore throughput is important. Small producers have small volumes of produce to process and this does not fit well with the capacity of many processing machines. So often the ability to access the best technology that can sympathetically process high quality foods is limited.

I have been impressed at sea buckthorn conferences by the ability of some small producers to develop their products. This comes about because of access to new product development facilities that are cost effective. In particular are the facilities offered in Manitoba, Canada where small producers can hire facilities and technical support to develop and bring their product to market. This requires government aid and revenue support. In this case the facility is also tied into the University of Manitoba which helps to bring technical assistance to the opportunity the facility provides.

Small business is often resourceful because it has to be.

An article last week by Julian Mellentin of the New Nutrition Business brought this to relevance for sea buckthorn.
Small business lack resources so they are more targeted when looking to markets. Targeting specific consumers creates connection and loyalty. These sort of consumers are probably more self motivated, they might represent a niche market, but that is enough for an SME to need as a start-up.
The internet age has reduced marketing costs and product launch risk so accessing consumers directly through their mobile phones creates opportunity for sales and growth.
SME’s are by their nature personal enterprises. They are driven by personalities with great belief in their product. Restricted resources and high risk can be managed by taking time to develop a market. Speciality food is not a get rich quick business.
Taking a product into a market that does not know you or your product is high risk. Excepting it to provide quick return compounds this issue. Development at a pace that is able to grow resources that can then be re-allocated to expand the business minimises the risk. It takes longer but is more secure.
How long did it take CocoCola to become what it is today – a start up from pre world war one?

So this is the model that I see for sea buckthorn. Slow and certain, built on strength; built on quality; and a defined focus on the consumer trust, need and willingness to pay.

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UK Sea Buckthorn Association – Valentine’s day meeting, agronomy talk

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The concept of an event came about because I really needed some advice about pruning my plants. Kirsten Jensen has been a delegate at several International and Euroworks conferences that Matt and I have attended. As a berry and fruit agronomist in Sweden she is highly respected by the European sea buckthorn community. It is an unfortunate truth that the UK does not have expertise in sea buckthorn, so inviting Kirsten to come to the UK to look at the plants at Devereux farm was an obvious choice.

It is part of working with sea buckthorn that knowledge transfer comes naturally. Every two years there is a Euroworks conference which attracts 80 or so delegates from across northern Europe. Everyone interacts and exchanges experiences. Many do compete with each other, but there is an open discussion which in some people’s minds could qualify as open innovation – the art of co-operating and hoping that the result will be partnerships and innovative product development.

When Kirsten agreed to come to the UK it seemed a golden opportunity to use her visit as a focus to bring together those that are actively working with sea buckthorn.

As Kirsten agreed to provide a presentation on growing sea buckthorn it seemed right to develop the meeting as one for prospective growers. The result was a really good mix of interests. Growing; product design and manufacturing; agronomy; import with people coming from across the country.
Running this type of event for the first time creates pressure in terms of hoping that the event is worthwhile. Will speakers fill the day and keep interest throughout.
The result though I think was positive all through.

One of the elephants that I wanted to let loose in the room was to look at the economics of growing the crop. As we have not harvested a crop yet, we have not hard figures on outputs, but we are starting to accumulate costs of production. The stark fact is that, as with growing wheat in a global market in 2015, growing sea buckthorn as a commodity requires a good yield; management that is in control of pests and diseases; and a minimum use of inputs. This this scenario there may be a profit, but in the UK we are still looking at hand picking. Hand picking is fine if the labour is free. The model for an orchard may therefore be up to one hectare ( 1000 plants). Over that and harvesting requires bought in staff to ensure that the crop can be picked when ripe. If minimum wage is £7/hr and economic living wage closer to £8 – then add tax and national insurance and possibly an agency fee for finding staff and costs accelerate to over £10/hr. Talk is that hand picking rates are around 2-3 kg per hour if a plant has thorns and all of a sudden these berries are expensive.
Establishment costs again depend upon scale. Ideally the site needs to be drained. Weeds need to be bought under control. Any pan under the top soil needs to be broken. pH needs to be adjusted. Try to establish without these and you risk slow growth disease and even loss of plants.
Most of Kirsten’s farmers are organic. She advocates the use of a Swedish manufacturer fungus based biopesticide for the control of disease. This can be used as a drench when first planting, or as a spray to reduce the risk of fungal diseases. Her presentation showed impressive results following multiple applications on diseased plants.
She is a great advocate also of clean rows. No weeds around the plants – and for this, the use of a finger weeder. For me I have one field that has the plants growing in grass. The main field now has weeds in rows being surpressed by green waste mulch. There is still an issue with broad leaved weeds along the edge of the mulch and a finger weeder will solve this.

Establishment costs also depend upon the source of plants and whether they are one or two year old cuttings.
Planting, as with harvesting can be at no cost if you do it yourself, but if not, digging two year old cuttings into clay can be hard work and with the cost of a cane and some mulch and fungal control costs could rise to £1/plant. Of course not everyone has clay.

Kirsten also advised digging deep into the soil so allow the tap root easy access into the water table.
The use of a mechanical post hole digger is useful for this.

Having established plants then comes the management.

Growing sea buckthorn takes attitude. It requires accepting what sea buckthorn is. I have grown my plants as young plants needing to grow on to maturity. Hence my german plants now have a stem that is 2-3cm across. After our meeting we went to the farm to look at the plants. The principle issue I had wanted from Kirsten’s visit was advice about pruning. The fixation that berries grow on old wood creates an idea in the mind that old wood is good wood and that age creates better yield.
That is fine in the wild, but farmed plants are not in the wild. We are looking for high yields not high plants.
So the advice to me is that I have to reduce the size of my plants, cutting out mature branches to bring on new growth that will provide the crop in two/three years time. It is a form of coppicing. It accepts that the plant has real vigour to replace woody growth and that the old just grows longer and moves berry production further away from the stem. The plant grows bigger and bigger and in my windy conditions with wet winters that de-stabilise the soil plants grow too large with the risk of them blowing over.

I also have to remove secondary stems from these aging plants so they need serious management which will impact on harvest until the new growth comes through to replace the old.

The next query I had for our Swedish agronomist related to why two mature plants had died last year.

These were planted in 2009 and in full berry but in June/July there leaves desiccated and the whole plant died.

The answer was quite simple.

I had in the previous winter had a muntjac deer come through the site and it nibbled the bark of the plants. in some cases this was more than nibbling, it was chewing around the stem. As a response I used some old spiral tree guards to wrap around the stems to prevent the deer from doing any more damage. In hindsight I should have taken these off.
The plastic allows fungi to develop between the bark and the guard. It was this that infected the plant and killed it.
So to prevent deer attack again I am going to need to use wider shrub guards or rounds of netting secured with canes into the ground. Muntjac are not a big problem, but one hungry deer in the middle of winter can do a lot of damage.

The next issue relates to one of the principle characteristics of sea buckthorn.
The frankia bacteria on the roots that fixes its nitrogen.

When one grows young plants there is a natural concept to give it extra feed to ensure that it has enough food and water. This might provide vigour but with vigour comes two problems. First the plants become lazy. the frankia do not establish as the plant does not feed them so the ability to reduce one’s inputs is lost.
For me that means that the use of chicken pellets is both wasting money and reducing one of the principle reasons why one can call sea buckthorn a sustainable crop. Over feeding the plant to lose the frankia is just a waste.
Kirsten in her presentation showed us some ways to rejuvenate the Frankia and that needs to be a principle management job for this year.

Overfeeding and watering also impacts on encouraging disease such as stigmina causing branch die back.
Some water in times of extreme hardship seems to be a good thing. Routine water maybe is not so good. I need to check this against german work as irrigation is an aspect of creating high yields. Probably this is still controlled irrigation against a scenario of lack of water, rather than routine watering whether it is or is not necessary.

The final point that has come across from Kirsten’s talk on managing sea buckthorn is the fact that the cut and freeze harvesting method is not a matter of pruning off viable berry bearing branches. It is a matter of pruning to encourage new growth that is a must for the viability of the crop in the future. Hand picking is an option if numbers of plants are small and facilities unavailable, but for me I see cut and freeze as the way forward. Accepting this will allow for expansion of my crop because I can see improved harvesting rates. It is possible that in this field of harvesting mechanised options both exist and will probably expand. This is key to developing the crop’s viability in the UK for the future.

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Sea buckthorn – an inspiration on the concept of what is a natural product

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This last weekend was our first sea buckthorn event. What we have been trying to do at Devereux farm is create a business based on the plant sea buckthorn. Why sea buckthorn? Sea buckthorn because it has so many qualities that are unique to itself. How many nutrients it has I am not certain. It may be 190, as quoted by so many, but it may be more. The benefits that these provide are diverse. I believe this because I have read some of the research work that suggests links with varied health benefit, but more importantly for me I have been taking sea buckthorn capsules since 2009 and believe that they have provided me with a higher standard of health resilience. You might say – give me the proof, and that is the issue about a natural product. It is difficult to find the proof. the proof comes from commitment, practical trial and consideration of the results.

I mention the word natural because it was questioned on Saturday as to whether one could define it. It is a term that we use when describing a product to help a consumer feel that they can understand more about its background. Natural for me comes from my background. I am a farmer, a grower of product that comes from the soil. A grower of product that relies on the environment to give it sustenance. It would not develop and mature if it were not for what it derives from the soil it grows in; the sun that provides its energy; the rain that provides essential water. There are levels of management that I provide, but these are there to provide protection from pests and disease. The development of product is largely down to what the plant can pull from the immediate area around it and create the leaves and berries that I want.
These are natural things. The process is a chemical one. A process of natural chemistry that is highly complex and varied. The demands of the growing cell are well known. The way that plants develop is understood. the complexity of the soil is understood, but if the soil that the plant grows in is healthy it involves a myriad of organisms that creates another world of complexity. Complexity of biological and chemical pathways that deliver essential components to the plant, often in return for benefits that the plant provides in return. These are the issues that I could associate with the term, natural.

I suppose it also comes with a level of acceptance that the process is not one in which I am in total control. Product creation that is as a result of a designed manufacturing process allows one to intervene at any stage and influence the process.
A natural production process may allow for some understanding of the process, but it is not designed by human hand. One’s understanding might allow for intervention to some degree but on the whole allowing a natural process to evolve, creates the production environment which allows reliance upon the processes of the soil and the air to create the product. It allows for complex chemical synergies within these environments to provide the mechanism to deliver the product.
Intervention to improve the production process is determined upon the level of knowledge that allows the right form of intervention to override what would normally proceed within the constraints of the growing environment. The environment is not always perfect. Weather patterns, pollution, chemical intervention and the health of the soil may all result in an end product of variable quality and even production failure.
Hedgerows are not always full of abundant fruit. It varies from year to year as conditions allow. Alternatively we farm and grow plants with a level of management to adjust the variations that the seasons and the years provide.

Thinking about the term natural brings me to the term – organic. What does it mean? What it means to me may be one thing. To the consumer another, and maybe to the organic accreditation bodies another altogether.

I see it as allowing the natural processes to develop my crop through natural chemistry, with a level of intervention which does not disrupt natural chemistry in the plant or soil. I know I have to intervene, because the natural environment is not always good enough to provide a consistent crop. But I have choices as to how I look to improve those growing conditions. Those choices could be to use a chemical that I am told will guarantee to protect a crop or improve immediate fertiliser availability so that the plant can operate independently of the soil. But how will the use of those chemical interventions impact on the holistic health of the soil and its ability to provide my plant in good times with the best growing environment? Will short term gain remove the abilities of the soil to deliver nutrients, micro-nutrients and control over pathogenic fungi and bacteria that might attack the plants in the future?

Chemical intervention may reduce the risk of a poor crop, it may also reduce the risk of reduced quality in the crop. Quality is what everyone looks for, so surely it might be better to use the modern interventions that science provides.

Quality assurance; lower risk of failure; improved production because of less disease all these are attractive. But can a healthy soil deliver the same, or similar results without the precise management inventions offered by chemical treatments.

The answer I would suggest is yes, but with increased risk to crop quality and yield. It requires as greater knowledge as the chemical route, with the acceptance that one is more at the mercy of the weather. A chemical route reduces stress in the plant helping it to cope with stressful times.

But all this presupposes that the end product quality it what you expect.

Quality is driven by agenda. It is driven by the need to produce reliable and consistent benefits that are designed by a producer for their market. It can be very specific. With product development comes viability and profitability. The latter demands that unnecessary cost undermines good returns. Quality that is created specifically in a targeted way is not wasteful as it has specific aims to channel dedicated resources into known output. Nature does not work that way. The resources dedicated are complex. That does not mean any less specific, but there is a set process involved within the soil that is channelled to create the processes that allow plants and crops to draw on its resources. The end result is not a process that has been designed for today’s markets, it is a process that has been evolving over millennia.

So what I draw from all this. Why is it important to me?

The attraction that I see in sea buckthorn is in its ability to harness a mass of bio-compounds that if consumed have the potential to deliver nutrients in a concentration that helps to improve health resilience. I am of the mind that the power of this is generated in the synergy of all the bio-compounds and the chemical relationship they have one with each other.

Intervene in this synergy and you reduce the ability of the whole to deliver the benefits that might be available. It is a natural construction, formed from a natural environment.

Hence when I view quality within the concept of sea buckthorn, I view it within the context of that whole bio-compound soup. A profile of natural chemistry that has a concentration that will be influenced by the environment in which it has been created. Do we really understand how that natural chemistry works? Do we understand how the human body assimilates all those nutrients within the context of their reactions together and their reactions within the human body’s functions.

So if it is difficult to define the precise relationship between the presence of a nutrient/micro nutrient and the ultimate benefits it can bring to health then intervening within the process of its production needs to be benign in order to best guarantee that any benefits that you look for are not lost.

I believe therefore that my way forward for growing sea buckthorn is to grow it as sympathetically as possible and look to harness the environment to grow the plant and not provide any measure that might change the biochemical profile within the plant. I need to ensure that it has sufficient water and food to develop and for the soil to be healthy. The end result I look for is a product of natural design not of mine.

This will lead me onto my next blog, which is what I have learnt from talking to Kirsten Jensen as a sea buckthorn agronomist who came to our event from Sweden this weekend. IT follows the concept above, but actually demands that I understand what sea buckthorn is first, rather than what I think it is.

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britishseabuckthorn

This weekend we have our first farm event for sea buckthorn. Since 2008 both Matt and I have visited conferences around the world to piece together how we are to develop sea buckthorn as a crop at Devereux farm. Matt has been to India; Tibet and Lithuania, I have taken in Siberia, Finland and several trips to Germany. Each of these is characterised by the openness of the community that makes up those involved with the plant. Networking is a key driver for development of all innovation in today’s world. In sea buckthorn we have the International Association based in Beijing that meets every two years. Across the world there are increasing numbers of interest groups being created. All of these help promote interest and understanding in sea buckthorn as a plant; its benefits and how to transfer those into product.

So Saturday is to be a gathering to discuss the role of the UK Sea Buckthorn Association. For some years there has been interest in Scotland based around an active practice of foraging for wild sea buckthorn. Engagement with Queen |Margaret University in Edinburgh has looked at the nutritional benefits and how they can be harnessed into product. We have two visitors from Cornwall with a sea buckthorn orchard being planted this winter. Growers are coming on the basis that we have invited Kirsten Jensen to come over from Sweden to give us advice from her experience as a sea buckthorn agronomist. The Devereux farm agronomist is coming too to compare notes and ensure we take as much from Kirsten’s visit as possible.
Sweden has a number of growers and a breeding programme for new varieties that are suited to their conditions.
Choosing the right variety is a key factor always and although access to plants is sometimes difficult I am hoping that we will learn of the advantages of varieties that are not widely in circulation.
Harvesting will be under discussion. The use of shakers seems to be an option but again not widely talked about.
One of the primary interests I have personally is how to prune my plants. With German plants now 6 years old these need some radical pruning. The Siberian plants are still immature so they will need a different treatment. This sort of knowledge is obtainable from books, but it is so much better to have practical advice first hand.

When we have had visitors before our kitchen has been bubbling and brewing new recipies using our berries. The latest offering is some spectacular Turkish delight really catching the unique flavour of sea buckthorn.

It promises to be a great way to start the year. The year when the primary problem to solve will be to keep birds off the crop. Having overcome disease problems in 2013, I feel confident that we will solve this in 2015.

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Changes in climate and food attitude

britishseabuckthorn

Climate change is a curious thing. There are still those that deny that it exists. There is the hangover of the confusion between concepts of global warming and climate change. There are still arguments over the impact of human activity.
We all like to make decisions based on factual evidence, but as with many things in life, there are so many variables. Variables that are themselves subject to systems that we are only starting to understand.
One of the attractions that I have found about sea buckthorn is the network of those for whom sea buckthorn is either a fascination or part of their life.
So this week I heard from two both reporting on issues that I would attribute to a change of climate.
As a farmer climate stability would give one economic stability. Seasons are important. Winter particularly provides a potential kill of pests and diseases.
Now though seasons blend from one to another. Weather is a series of record events whether heat or wet. For Devereux farm winter though has become an extension of autumn through into spring.
I heard this week from Finland where temperatures are oscillating from one week to the next, one mild and just above freezing, the next dipping down into temperatures that in the UK we would call artic.
Then from Mongolia, reports of temperatures that are below minus ten degrees C. At least half the normal chill factor that will confuse their ecology in the same way as my Siberian sea buckthorn finds my mild temperate winter.

Where will all this go – for all the computer models there is uncertainty which will impact on predicting how a crop will turn out at harvest. But that is life.

Another interesting issue this week has been the WHO report on where the world is heading. As with climate change, making long term predictions requires a level of belief that is sometime difficult to accept. But we know that the western world particularly suffers from obesity, diabetes and cardio vascular disease issues. Unfortunately as the global economic grows so it seems does the health problem. Is it credible therefore to predict that by 2030 one third of the world population will be in a state called “pre-diabetic”.

The message behind this is that food producers and the food supply chain needs to step up to the challenge. Regulators say that food is not a medicine, but diet is one of the best forms of preventative medicine that we have. it is continuous and relentless. It is an essential that everyone partakes in every day, in fact several times a day. It is time that we started to accept that food is more than calories, fat, sugar, salt – a package of negative factors. We must turn this around and look for the positives. Limit the negatives maybe, but that is just good management. There needs to be an understanding and belief brought back that the balanced diet is a way to a long, healthy and productive life. Yes, we are living longer now – but that life is under the shadow of a rising National Health Service budget that neither the government nor food consumers can afford.