Why our countryside is turning blue
msnmoney.co.uk 23/08/2006All over Britain, a scattering of arable fields are turning a delicate and unfamiliar shade of blue.
The crop is borage, a star-shaped flowering plant best-known as the sprig added to a glass of Pimms. Well known in antiquity in Persia for its medicinal properties, it is frequently used as an ingredient in salads in eastern Europe. Now, under the name of starflower, borage is used as the base for several aromatherapy products.
"The acreage of borage is growing across the board," said Alison Hamer of the National Non-Food Crop Centre.
While we have got used to seeing the dazzling yellow of oil seed rape, this floral blue is still something of a novelty, and certainly easier on the eye. Borage, a hairy plant which grows up to a metre high, is particularly rich in certain omega fatty acids, and tonnes of it will be crushed to produce a single litre of highly-concentrated essential oil.
Promoting healthy skin
The gamma linolic acid found in the seeds of the blue flowers have been used to help promote healthy skin. There is evidence that it is beneficial in treating eczema, lowering blood pressure and cutting cholesterol. Traditional uses of borage are in toothpaste, cosmetics and high-quality pet foods (where it acts to give animals a glossy coat), as well as Pimms.
This is not the only cosmetic crop. Farmers are now examining echium and camelin, which are also used in aromatherapy. Other non-mainstream crops include Abyssinian mustard for low-fat vegetable oil, willow coppicing and elephant grass (which can reach eight feet high) for alternative power production, and other oil seeds as bio-fuels. There are also a return to traditional hemp and flax production for textiles and animal bedding.
"Though these will never be majority crops, we are bound to see more of them," said Paul Tame, a regional environment advisor to the National Farmers Union.
This isn't a case of farmers becoming misty-eyed hippies and donning their rope sandals. As always in farming, there are hard economic reasons for the decisions.
See NNFCC's own website with more details of alternative crops
Why is it happening?
One major reason for the popularity of alternative crops is the change to the EU subsidy regime, which started to be implemented in 2005.
Under the Common Agricultural Policy farmers are no longer paid subsidies to grow specific crops, they are instead paid, under various quality, environmental and animal welfare schemes, an annual sum known as the single farm payment.
Under the scheme farms also have an area of land called 'set-aside' on which food crops cannot be grown, but for which they get a payment. Last season, farmers had to set aside 8% of their land on which they would be paid £190 per hectare (about 2.5 acres).
In theory borage can be grown on set-aside land, but James Arnold, production manager at the Kings subsidiary of Frontier Agriculture says this is a little tricky. "You would have to be certain that the contract wasn't destined for the human food chain," he said. Whether in swallowed starflower oil capsules or massage oils, aromatherapy would seem to involve ingesting the substance.
Plenty of advantages
"Borage, like almost all the alternative crops, is grown on contract," noted Mike Abram of Farmers Weekly. Knowing the price in advance is definitely an advantage in contrast to, say, wheat, where the farmer plants not knowing what the market price at harvest will be.
A crop like borage, worth £2,000 per tonne, and average yields of 0.4 tonnes per hectare, works out at £800 per hectare. This is as good as wheat, where each hectare typically yields nine to 10 tonnes at £80 per tonne, or £720-800. Better still, it is a known income before the planting decision is made.
Unlike many traditional crops, borage needs little in the way of fertilisers or pesticides. This not only enhances its reputation for purity but saves farmers money.
Farmers have discovered that the proximity of bees aids borage yields, so it is quite common to see rows of bee hives near the fields. The honey produced is of course an extra source of income.
Play the stockmarket with £100,000 in our fantasy sharetrading game Environmental benefits, and money too Being a spring sown crop, borage following a crop of wheat or barley can gain farmers additional points under a biodiversity scheme designed to improve the prospects for insects and ground nesting birds. With enough biodiversity points, farmers can qualify for extra payments.
"The fact that borage can be used in aromatherapy gets us one stage closer to the markets," said farmer Arthur Hill. Other attractions are that it can be harvested by combine harvester, and can be used as a rest crop which helps the soil to recover, added Hill, who is chair of the National Farmer's Union's combinable crops board. Farmers can apply for aid to set up their own crushing machinery, so that they rather than middlemen extract the maximum value from the crop.
Despite the changes in CAP support, many alternative crops are directly subsidised through EU schemes, including short-rotation coppice of willow and poplar, elephant grass for power generation, and hemp and flax for fibres. Being non-food, these can be grown on set-aside land.
The end of old certainties
All in all the change in subsidy regime and the greater exposure to market forces is removing some of the old certainties which shaped the British countryside. Some big traditional cash crops are under threat.
Sugar beet, once grown to guarantee a domestic source of sugar during wartime, and hitherto one of the most heavily-subsidised crops, is no longer so lucrative under new World Trade Organisation rules. As redrawn, the WTO rules now favour impoverished producers of cane sugar in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Two big UK sugar beet processing plants are being closed by British Sugar, though growing demands for bio-diesel may help underpin demand for the crop. It now makes sense for farmers to look further afield for the right balance of crops and commercial opportunities.
Even some of the clouds have a silver lining. While high oil prices have hit farmers overheads, they have also provided the spur to substitute vegetable oils as vehicle fuel and lubricants, and fast-growing wood or grass for power generation in place of gas or oil-fired electricity generation.
In the US, the farm lobby has succeeded in underpinning the price of corn (maize) through government initiatives to turn millions of tonnes of it into an additive to gasoline.
Things can still go wrong
However, in farming there is always uncertainty. Borage is vulnerable to excessive heat, and indeed this year's crop in Essex has been "diabolical" according to Peter Fairs from Great Tey who planted 560 hectares.
"There is a lot that can go wrong with many of these alternative crops," Abram said. So far, the British farmer has barely begun to tap into the possibilities of alternative crops. Less than 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) across the UK is devoted to borage, but in Canada, New Zealand and Argentina the crop is grown far more extensively.
When it comes to essential oils, everything is down to price and quality. There is no advantage in being close to the final customer, because the vital ingredients of the aromatherapy industry are so concentrated that transport costs are really not a factor. In the UK, the manufacturing end of aromatherapy is made up of thousands of small firms, many run part-time by those who see it as a lifestyle choice. Total sales are at least £20 million a year, and growing fast.
"It's almost a kitchen table industry," said Richard Chatterton, sales manager of Equinox Aromas Ltd, an importer and wholesaler of essential oils for aromatherapy and cosmetics.
Buyers and producers of specialist oils will be able to get to speak to each other at a seminar being held in York on November 28th.
Blue sky thinking
Britain's fields have had blue crops for many years. Decades ago, particularly in Norfolk, the blue was from lavender which was grown for perfumes, but has now largely gone out of fashion. In the 1990s the only blue you were likely to see was from linseed, whose oils are the basis of the floor covering linoleum, and were heavily subsidised under the CAP.
Find out more about one of the UK's last-remaining lavender farms
These days, borage is part of the mix. With farmers now more inclined to look for unconventional crops, there are likely to be more colourful fields to come.
