Blog

Confidence is a remarkable trait. It is a psychological boost based on how you feel about yourself and what is going on around you.

My 14 year old son goes off to his school bus at 7am. As we went outside the dawn was just starting. It had been raining overnight, so the air was clean and crisp. However, what made me smile was the bird song was loud, strong and confident. Although those birds had gone through a night of heavy rain and col; although they had to forage for their food – their take on the world was good. Good for them – and good for me.

Last night I was looking for some research papers and diverted to have a look at the New Nutrition business website. Julian Mellentin is a highly respected analyst in the food and drink sector. Each year he publishes the top 12 trends that are coming out of the food/drink sector. This year the top trend of the 12 is – “Naturally functional”. Foods and drink products that offer a need and benefit for the consumer  that is sourced from ingredients that are natural not processed.Naturally functional means that the product does not rely on being fortified with added nutrients to make it provide benefit. It means that the product has been well made so that the natural nutrients in the ingredients have not been degraded in the making of the product. When I read this – it raised my confidence. This is the year of the Horse- so maybe it is also the year of the Shiny Horse, Hippophae.

Fieldwork continues – more pruning and staking plants onto canes. Providing stakes to help support plants might seem obvious, but originally I did not plant my seabuckthorn out and tie it to a cane for support. The reason mainly being cost. Each cane was about 7p as a 3ft cane, and I have to keep my costs to a minimum.

The site I have at Devereux farm is on the coast so we have strong winter winds. Rain is also a constant winter feature and this makes the clay soil soft. The plants are blown backwards and forwards and gradually the soil around the stem molds into a hole around it so that it provides no support for the plant. As plants grow larger this problem gets worse. Each year i have given a cane to those plants that were suffering worst from being blown about. Now I am biting the bullet and giving them all a 4ft (18/20lb) cane, tied to the plant with Easi tie cord. Easi tie I buy from Farm Forestry. It is made of soft rubber and therefore I believe it does not rub the bark of the plants to much. It is always a concern that the cord will damage the plant, But I hope that I will find that the support is more of a benefit than a problem.

Climate change is an emotive subject, but we do suffer from increasing incidents of heavy downpours of rain and sharp squalls of wind. The worst of these justs of wind may last no more than 20 minutes but I have found that the middle sized German plants also suffer from these 70-80mph gusts. These plants went in in 2009, I took away their support stakes in 2012, but this year I will need to give them some back to straighten some that have been blown sideways.

Last year I was contacted by Richard Hogan and Andy White in Ireland to say that their seabuckthorn business was being closed down by the Irish government. The government view was that seabuckthorn was non a native and that it was an invasive species that threatened habitats protected under the EU Habitats Directive.

Yesterday must have been a productive day. Again the internet revealed a report on manageing seabuckthorn in dune habitats here in the UK. The UK Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has seabuckthorn listed as an invasive species. Since the 1970 it has been seen as a threat to sand dune habitats. Now however UK conservationists are seeing that some of the dune habitats where the seabuckthorn is growing are infact an interesting habitat all of their own. A habitat that is worth managing and studying to understand its value. Andy is going to post the report on his Irish seabuckthorn website – its worth a look.

Different subject – statistics – they can be viewed many ways. Himalayan seabuckthorn grows up to 5000m in these mountainous regions. These areas are also the habitat of the tiger. The tiger that we see being pushed to extinction.

I saw on the World Wildlife Fund webmail this morning that in Nepal the population of tigers has gone up 60%. This relates to 200 tigers. In the same WWF mailing it also shows that mountain gorillas have gone up from 680 to 880 – also 200 of these iconic creatures. The sad thing is that this success is within two protected strongholds within a country where 400 people in every square kilometre are trying to live. Habitat loss is the cuase of so many of these issues. Our UK farm bird population has crashed over past decades as our farming methods have not provided space for refuge/feed/water. This is a reality but it is more than sad.

As populations grow we squeeze out wildlife. The relentless growth of the global population, the needs is demands has to at some stage relate to reality. That production resources are finite. The loss of species is a tragedy, but it is also an indication that what we do must start to become sustainable. Production sustainability at all levels is staring to become possible as technology improves efficiency and monitoring equipment allows for management of resources.

Production sustainability is good for the environment – it also makes commercial sense. The technology reduces input resource use which reduces costs. It improves processing output quality. Julian Mellentin is saying that this is the year of Naturally functional foods. It indicates that the market values the natural goodness. Natural goodness that we have to define to ensure it is fully understood and becomes a market driver.

We need to define the nutrients in seabuckthorn that make up this natural functionality. We need to define what the natural functionality is in seabuckthorn that is valued by the customer. We need to define which nutrients drive the natural functionality that the consumer wants. Finally we need to understand how we grow seabuckthorn to provide the market with a consistent quality that represents that natural functionality.

Put all this together – sustainable production methods of a crop that is undemanding of its environment, producing a natural product that delivers the benefits that the consumer is demanding and we have a perfect formula for a naturally functional food business. What is more is that if this formula is followed it produces product and producer image to the consumer that is based on quality and integrity. Both of these create premium returns which make it all worthwhile.

Its still January – so I can still say – Happy New year.

This blog continues to follow the progress of growing seabuckthorn at Devereux farm. From November 2011 until now monthly updates have been on the family farm’s website – ( www.onthewildsideproducts.co.uk ). The change is appropriate as the seabuckthorn plants at Devereux are now successfully established and a more focused blog site seemed appropriate.

For those that have not been following this project – the concept of growing seabuckthorn was conceived in 2006. The farm needed a new enterprise that would provide economic growth through the ability to add value with on-farm processing. The farm has been in the Eagle family since 1921, although it was rented before then. With 600 acres of arable land on the Essex coast adjacent to the very beautiful Hamford Water National Nature reserve, it is coming under increasing threat from tidal flooding.

The East coast of the UK was substantially flooded in 1953. Half of our farm was flooded then, following which the seawalls were raised to 5m high. Recent surge tides have brought the sea level close to the top of even this wall height. Government support for seawall maintenance has been falling year on year. It is widely recognised that a repetition of the 1953 flood is not a matter of if it will happen again – but when it will happen. Climate change, whether man made or a natural cycle is happening and with it increased sea storminess and the potential of long term sea level rise. So investing in a high value crop that  requires a small area of the farm is a response to both the need to give the farm business an opportunity to grow and absorb the risk of losing land to the sea in the future.

The seabuckthorn project started with the support of the InCrops Enterprise hub, based at the University of East Anglia. In 2009, Dr Mark Coleman from InCrops and I attended the International Seabuckthorn Conference in Belokurika, Siberia. Following on from that, InCrops formed a collaborative agreement with the Lisavenko Institute of Horticulture for Siberia. Lisavenko started developing commercial seabuckthorn breeding in 1933 from the local Altai wild stock. This makes them the foremost breeder of seabuckthorn worldwide.

The collaborative agreement allowed the supply of Lisavenko varieties to be supplied to set up trial sites in the UK to test the viability of growing Siberian seabuckthorn as a commercial crop. The condition being that these plants were for crop trials and there should be no propagation or breeding work without prior agreement .

Prior to this, in 2009 we had planted 150 mixed German and Finnish varieties at Devereux farm. This included seven German and three Finnish female varieties.

In 2010 the first shipment of seven Siberian female varieties arrived, to be established on two sites – Devereux farm and one in Thetford Forest. Each year following this there has been a further importation of plants. Two further locations have been established. Additional Siberian varieties have been added to bring the total to ten.

In 2012 400 Latvian plants were imported representing four varieties. It has been widely reported that Siberian varieties had been susceptible to a fatal disease in the Baltic States several years ago. Planting Siberian seabuckthorn carried risks as our fam soil is heavy clay and our winter temperatures are mild. So these environmental challenges to the imported plants may create threats to the plant vitality which are not predictable. Growing European varieties from Germany, Scandanavia and the Baltic spread the risks to the success of the project.

In 2014 plant numbers will rise to 5000 at Devereux farm. The German plants have been producing berries since 2012,  I am hoping that this year will be the first year for the Siberian plants to produce enough berries to analyse for quality.

Quality is my goal. With seabuckthorn quality is governed by choice of variety; environmental conditions; crop management; harvesting efficiency; post harvest handling and processing. At each stage there are opportunities for quality changes.

The question is – what is quality? When growing wheat or other commonly grown crops the market need dictates the optimum qualities needed to aid processing of a food product. With seabuckthorn the market is poorly established. Growers and researchers define the common phtyo-chemicals found in seabuckthorn – flavonoids, polyphenols, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals. Marketing statements are made that suggest the health benefits that have been associated with seabuckthorn. The products from seabuckthorn are still sold as commodities without standardised qualities that define specific use.

In 2012 we sponsored a meta-analysis of the benefits of seabuckthorn for cardio vascular diseases, undertaken by the Medical Research Council. It is clear that research is extensive but lack of funding does not seem to generate  clinical trials  that provide conclusive cause and effect results to substantiate specific health claims.

Having taken seabuckthorn oil capsules since September 2009 I firmly beieve that seabuckthorn provides overal improvement to my personal health. A number of friends have also taken up the product and report, less winter cold issues. But this is not a process that satisfies the European Food Safety Agency to allow a health claim under the Nutrition and Health Claims regulations.

So without the evidence to link a particular benefit to a particular compound it is difficult to specify which of the 190+ nutrients identified are the most beneficial and can therefore donate the quality of a berry. To the grower, specified quality is normally associated with the price per kilo. If you cannot specify quality then the crop becomes a commodity and the price is governed by global availability.

Until we can define quality the returns on growing seabuckthorn will not necessarily reflect the amount of work that goes into growing and harvesting the crop. It also means that unless there is specific agronomy research to identify how to improve flavonoid/polyphenol/fatty acid quantity the crop will remain based upon growing the best varieties available and as with all crops, hoping that the environmental conditions provide a perfect set of conditions to provide a good crop of clean berries.

Seabuckthorn is, in my view, a superfruit. It may not have unique compounds in it, but it is the way those compounds work in synergy with each other that matters. The modern consumer with access to the internet is sophisticated, educated and also cynical to false marketing. Those developing seabuckthorn for the market place need to quantify the compounds in the berry/leaf that will deliver consistent benefit to the consumer. Identifying those compounds will identify the often asked question – what is seabuckthorn. Furthermore it will be those compounds which will identify the quality that will substantiate the price for the grower’s crop.

Happy New Year.