Archive Article: 1997/09/20
It is the beginning of the new season and times are hard. A new low-cost approach is needed so what better way to start the new year than to halve the cost of my rape seed. I resolve, for the first time, to save my own.
I didnt anticipate much difficulty with this. After all, the NFU had sorted it out for all of us when they agreed that we growers would pay millions of pounds to the seed breeders in the form of royalty payments on home-saved seed. In the case of rape there is a breeders royalty of £1.18/kg which, bearing in mind rape is only worth about 15p/kg to sell off the farm, I thought it was a pretty generous settlement on our, the growers part.
I rang up a firm to organise the home-dressing of my 250kg of seed. Have you had it tested for glucosinolate levels? they asked. It has to be tested and give a result showing glucosinolate at a level of less than 18 micromoles/g of seed before it can be used as home-saved seed. Oh, Ill send you a sample I said trying to sound as if I knew what they were talking about. Sorry they said, but I doubt whether you are qualified. You need a certificate of competence to take a sample of seed.
Apparently you have to stick something called a sampling spear into something called the bulk and collect these samples in something called a bag and then do something technical called label it. Of course, when the full complexity of this procedure was pointed out I realised that I was hopelessly ill-qualified.
A week later my sample was duly taken by a qualified sampler whom I must say sampled with extraordinary skill (cost £28.30 to include £1 of sample bag). He then asked me for evidence that this seed was derived from certified seed I had bought the year before. If not, and MAFF subsequently carried out an inspection, I risked losing my area aid. After rooting around in my office I managed to find the batch number. My sample was then posted off (£2.50) to the testing laboratory to undergo the XRF method (18.50) to see if it registered less than 18 micromoles of glucosinolate per gramme of seed. It failed with a tantalising result of 19.
At this point I considered chucking the whole thing in and ordering merchant certified seed instead. However, I was told by the home-saved seed firm that a merchant could sell me seed with glucosinolate levels up to 25 micromoles/g. In other words if my Apex had been grown on contract to a seed merchant it could be accepted up to 25 micromoles, but I would be prevented from using it myself if it was more than 17.9.
Thus a merchant could charge a contract grower £6,000/t for the same rape seed that he could retain for his own use because it was not up to the standard for home-saved seed.
So riled was I by this injustice that I threw caution to the wind and submitted my sample for the more accurate but expensive HPLC test (£41.80) to see if I got a better result. Another week passed and, joy of joys, the result was 14. A full 3.9 within limit.
The seed is now sown. I estimate I saved over £700 by avoiding the clutches of the seed merchants. A hard won £700, but when the odds seem stacked unfairly against the farmer the principle is important as the money.
Not that Im dismissing the importance of the money. If the economics pundits are to be believed £700 might be about the measure of my profit this year.