For over a month I have been listening to the speculation and division that surround Brexit and found it profoundly depressing. There comes a time when life has to move on. For farmers, Brexit is not just leaving Europe. It has triggered the Agriculture Bill which will radically reform our industry over the next ten years. The fundamental change in the removal of farming subsidies requires a positive response, together with the challenge of facing up to climate change. Coming at a time of political and market instability does not help, but one cannot change reality.
Starting to grow sea buckthorn was a leap of faith almost 10 years ago. Finally we have a healthy crop in the ground, a bespoke harvesting system under development leaving the concept of producing and selling a product as the crowning task to compete the process.
In the face of a time of uncertainty it seems that positivity, focus and keeping concepts simple has to be the order of the day.
Our crop has high nutritional opportunity. With vitamins A,B,C,E together with omega fatty acids 3,6,7, and 9 headlining its attributes we have the potential to deliver product that is both natural and healthy. This is a time of year when consumer trends are published, a factor which maybe gives impetus in big business to new approaches to marketing, but marketing is not what is important. For alongside climate change, diet is becoming a massive challenge. A challenge that has developed in spite of government policy and regulation, a science-led food industry and vast amounts of diet related research.
It is interesting to see that one trend forecasted is that a balanced diet is gaining consumer focus. The concept of the balanced diet is ancient. The gut microbiome is a great new focus. The 100 trillion bacteria loaded in our gut that process what we eat and provide the body with the essential fuel and metabolites that drive our health. This concept changes the focus for narrowly based diets back to the idea that a healthy gut is what maintains a healthy body, not a bunch of specific nutrients.
It makes me think in terms of new crops we should be looking to grow on the farm. The UK is a small country that should not try to compete with countries that can grow cheap grain. We need to change to focusing on specialist crops that are focused on dietary benefit. Cheap grain has sponsored an unstable economy for agriculture, requiring subsidy to prop it up. Maybe finding crops with direct to market nutritional added value will help to redress the need for subsidy and create a real market for real food.
2019 for us will be a formative year, not because of Brexit, but because we will be producing our first commercial sea buckthorn crop. A crop made possible by the harvesting process. The first crop that we will nutritionally analyse. It will start the next process to define the best growing methods to improve the nutrients that we target as important for our consumers.
Brexit is bringing about change, but change has always been happening, so it is not to be feared but embraced.