Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Sun’s shining, but is it too late?
Not even a healthy dose of flax can help ease the stress farmers are enduring right now, says Ro Collingborn
FLAX was originally a popular crop for the linen industry but commercial growing stopped about 60 years ago, due to the advent of cheaper man-made fibres. It is due for a renaissance, both as a healthy addition to food, and as a natural fibre. Waste flax can even be used to make high grade paper. In the field, it is categorised by its pretty blue flower. The countryside must have looked very attractive in the flax-growing counties of the past. Flax, which is also known as linseed, is a useful form of protein for inclusion in cattle feed.
It’s recorded that in 1864, 320,000 acres were sown to flax, dropping to 32,000 in the 1930s. Now, a small amount is produced in East Anglia and in cottage industries in Northern Ireland, and selective breeding has meant that there are varieties yielding 50% more.
Flax has been in the news recently for its health-giving properties. In a well-regulated one-year university trial in Canada (double blinded with a placebo), it’s been shown as being good for your heart, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and reducing blockages.
The trial results indicate that a 30g addition of flax daily can lead to a 50% drop in heart attacks and strokes. It has been shown to improve the skin in a 2020 trial in Germany, hydrating skin, making it smoother and less sensitive. The fibre in the seed also provides relief from constipation.
Flax seed has important characteristics; it is rich in fatty acids and antioxidants. To get the whole healthy effect, the seed needs to be ground, possibly in a coffee grinder. You can then sprinkle the seed on your morning yoghurt, cereal or porridge; it can also be sprinkled on salad or cooked in cakes, muffins, bread and bagels. It has been shown to reduce high blood pressure, but if your blood pressure is normal, flax seeds will have a negative effect.
It seems as if dairy, with its easily absorbed combination of calcium, vitamin and minerals, plus its own protection against type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular problems, is a perfect partner for flax. I am thinking of buying some next time I visit a supermarket!
It’s very notable that supermarkets have made excessive annual profits this past year, while most farming sectors have struggled in the face of extreme weather, the effects of Brexit and climate change. Many farmers have had to leave the industry due to financial pressures, shortage of labour and the new manure regulations. These require huge investment, which many farmers think there’s no point in making if they have no successor to follow them.
Daily milk deliveries are now 2.2% below last year, while the organisation Concept Dairy said that producers need to be receiving about 42p a litre to be making a return. Most are not. It’s no surprise that many farmers are struggling with mental health issues. The ground is so saturated that it cannot absorb the rain that has been falling almost every day, and grass lands and cereal crops are struggling. We did see some reasonable crops on an evening visit around Avebury, but round here, many crops have failed, so replanting is necessary. It’s a Catch 22 situation as the fields have been too wet to take any machinery. With the water table so high, on our clay soils it will take more than a few fine days to rectify the problem.
We are a grazing farm, and like to have our cows out between the end
of January and mid-November if weather conditions allow. This is far more than the 180 days specified by some supermarket buyers. This year could not have been more challenging. Not only has it rained nearly every day for three months, but the grass is getting too long and getting away from the cows.
The plan is to have a three-week rotation, (which is ideal for building up carbon) where the cows are in each paddock for one or two grazings, taking the grass down to one leaf, so that it is stimulated to grow again. Over the rest period it puts out three leaves, at which point the cows go back in again. If the grass starts off at a later, more mature stage, it is extremely hard to get it to respond as we would like – and getting it right is
essential for future grazings. Normally we would have been round all the grazing fields at least three times by now, not just once. Plans for early silage making are also on hold, as the grass is behind normal growth levels, particularly as fertiliser application has had to be cut back.
All in all, it doesn’t make for a happy farmer, and farmers’ wives getting the brunt of their partner’s ill humour are not happy bunnies!