The start of this last week has my diary filled in with daily sea buckthorn field work. The chief outstanding job being the clearing of grass weeds around the German and Finnish plants. This is still a hand job with a monkey’s claw, clearly approx. 2m square around each plant. So the plan is to do 4 plants at the start of the day; 4 at the end. Of the 180 in this group, half are now done. The objective is to clear the grass and then replace with 25mm green waste based compost. I expect the compost to keep the weeds down reducing competition for the sea buckthorn for nutrients. It will also improve the organic content in the soil. Interestingly though the german and finnish plants have not had the same branch die back fungal disease issues that the Siberian plants had in 2013. Maybe this is just because they find our environment easier to adapt to, whereas the Siberian plants have to take a huge leap from continental extreme climate to coastal temperate conditions.
I digress. This last week I have not weeded eight plants per day. Tuesday I went to the International Food event (IFE) at the Excel centre in London that this year incorporates Propac as well. Visiting conferences/exhibitions means a day out when work on the farm will not be done, so it needs to be worth it.
IFE is a very international event, whereas Natural and Organic in April will focus more on UK producers. Sea buckthorn is a globally traded fruit so an international event should show some importers offering sea buckthorn product. This year I found Artic Power Berries on the Grocery Accelerator stand. Artic berries are bringing in a powdered sea buckthorn product alongside blueberry and cranberry. I saw the product as a useful ingredient for caterers and recipies. The company is Finnish in origin and has attracted a prize from Grocery Accelerator which is impressive in itself offering new companies mentoring and financial investment support. It would have been good to have seen more sea buckthorn at the event but there are a remarkable number of high nutrient fruit based drink products on offer. But these are all using what I would consider conventional fruit ingredients – one could add the growing interest in vegetable based juice. This concept is interesting at a time when sugar in drinks is under scrutiny.
Press on the European food Safety Agency (EFSA) activity in the past few weeks has been focusing on safe limits on caffeine. Also this week it is now being taken to court by Dextra Energy from Germany following their EFSA 2012 approved claim being rescinded by EU states who are concerned about the impact of sugar consumption within their populations. At The Food and Drink Innovation Network event in London comment was made regarding the issue that EFSA guidance is making marketing wording so dull that consumers are not being attracted to functional foods at a time when diets are still high in fats/salts and sugars.
There is that old phrase – we learn more and more about less and less until we know everything about nothing. It seems that as we focus more on trying to provide consumers with the “perfect” diet; the safest foods; we are actually missing the point that people just need good quality nutrient rich food ingredients.
On Wednesday my sea buckthorn trial project partners – InCrops enterprise hub based at the University of East Anglia had their final conference as the Incrops project was coming to an end. One of the presenters, who has a family in farming but is now very much involved in Eu and government policy focused upon how the world was to be fed within the concept of rising populations. Diets are changing worldwide. In China poultry consumption has increased 1500%; meat 170%. Over the last 30 years crop yields have increased 30% but by using only 3% more landmass. Against this population has increased by 31%. within a context of greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change agriculture in the Uk accounts for 12% which is twice as much as emissions from the transport industry. The stats got worse. 1.3 billion tons of food waste – accounting for 24% of all calories produced. Against this we see farming falling in profitability. We waste more but are not prepared to pay for it. We do not value food. How does this square off with EFSA saying that companies must promote functional foods with such dull marketing that consumers are just not taking up the message. I come back to my past point that while the National health Service views food in hospitals as irrelevant to health then we have confusion as to whether food influences health. I came away from the InCrops conference thinking that we do not value food – that is why we are willing to waste it.
I must return to sea buckthorn. The more I view our contradictory approach to delivering food into the market, the more I feel that sea buckthorn has a real place as its high nutrient content has been appreciated for centuries.The fact that botanicals are complex and difficult to study does not make them an ingredient source that should not be at the forefront of delivering good diet and good health to consumers.
But who am I to say – I am only a farmer.