OF&G :: The Blog

…. not altogether a surprise. Let’s face it, if you’ve been following our sunflower shenanigans you’ll be well aware that there’s been a clear leader for a while now.

However, today we have the full results and can put to bed a very colourful episode at The Old Estate Yard.

There has been controversy, competitiveness, secret recipes and devastating rabbit damage. The competition has been reported in a leading trade publication and posts on the topic have had a disturbing tendency to top the “most read” list on this blog.

So without further ado, let the ceremony commence:

[ENTER STAGE RIGHT]

Ladies and Gentlemen – and Certification Officers,

The OF&G sunflower growing competition was the product of an inspired suggestion made at a staff meeting while the company “gardening club” was being discussed.

Obviously there was a great deal of work to be done to ensure the success of such a mighty undertaking, but after 12 committee meetings and legal approval of the proposed rules and regulations (a document only slightly more involved in its preparation than the Magna Carta), our intrepid entrants were free to unleash their horticultural skills.

Meticulous planning was demonstrated by some of the more committed entrants, while some simply opted to drop in a seed and draw faces on their plant pots.

As growing began in earnest, there were some testing times along the way, as well as challenging hurdles to be negotiated.

Not all entrants made it serenely to the eventually necessary re-potting stage, though special mention has to be made of the specimen that was, to all intents and purposes, completely devoured by a rabbit, only to come storming back to an eventually mid-field placing. A sunflower we can salute for its true Dunkirk spirit!

It is likely that this ceremony will not be the final chapter in the story for those who were there. The debate on the selection of suitable finishing pots will rumble on in years to come. But today is our chance to recognise commitment, achievement and skill. And with that we open the envelope of dreams…

In reverse order:

Processing CO, Ruth Lamb – 107cm (died due to lack of water. Tch)

Processing CO, Joanna Gleeson – 116cm (Commended for most attractively decorated seedling pot)

Producer CO, Katie Owens – 123cm (worthy, but disappointing)

Quality Systems Admin, Lorraine Pickering – 132cm (alleged ‘secret feed’ proved, well, pointless)

Producer CO, Nicola Mason – 146cm (the famous rabbit-mauling comeback)

Office Manager, Angela Norman – 170cm (arguably our most green-fingered person. Was she mugged?)

And the clear winner, with a delightful specimen that could probably make two dozen bottles of oil all on its own…

Producer CO, Alex Patchett – 205cm (cor blimey, wot a whopper!)

Congratulations to Alex. Please step up and take your bow:

Our worthy winner. Alex Patchett with his impressive entry.

And with that, we’d like to thank everyone who has supported this endeavour, including: our worldwide Twitter followers; the Chief Executive, for not shutting it down when it all got a bit silly; Stephen Clarkson, the judge and jury; our mums; the sun; the great British summer; and especially the bees. But not the rabbit.

A bit of fun has been had this week by organic milk cooperative, OMSCo, which has erected a tribute to Stonehenge -  made out of refrigerators painted to look like cows.

It’s a nice stunt to raise the profile of organic milk and give OMSCo a platform to promote its benefits. The move has generated quite a bit of press interest and must surely be a-moo-sing (sorry!) motorists on the A303 at Encie, in Somerset.

Particularly of interest to us though, was the fact that it’s on OF&G licensee Robert Foote’s land and this piece done by the BBC has given Mr Foote a lovely opportunity to spell out what difference being organic has made to his farm and his farming practises.

He points out that the use of natural fertilisers on the land has proved to be far more efficient than artificial alternatives and gives a pretty upbeat assessment of the current organic farming landscape from where he stands.

If you want to see the creation in place you’ll have to get your skates on – it’s only there until September 29.

The impartial observers among us are getting the distinct feeling that the great OF&G sunflower competition is all over bar the shouting.

Er, do you think we have a winner yet?

The picture probably says it all. That fine specimen of a perfectly formed sunflower is the pride and joy of Certification Officer, Alex Patchett, who has nurtured it from seedling to strapping XX-footer.

The deliberate avoidance of giving a height there comes down to the fact that we are nearing ‘official’ measuring time, when the man with the tape will give his final verdict (this week or next depending on when he can be bothered or is actually working from the office instead of a train).

Given the sorry state of some of the other entrants, you’d have to say things are looking good for Alex, but after a nail-biting summer it will be a relief to all to have an official verdict and chance to name-check  the runners-up (politically correct speak for ‘the losers’).

It’s not clear at the moment whether there will be another seasonal event to harness the competitive spirit that bursts forth from OF&G Towers, but somehow a poinsettia growing contest in time for Christmas just doesn’t have the same kind of unbridled drama…

Somewhat strangely, the Food Standards Agency has felt the need to publicly dismiss the findings of a French study that called into question its own recently published and controversial report.

The FSA-funded research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine made the claim that organic food was no more nutritious than non-organic. This has been disputed heavily by some heavyweight scientists around the world but, even so, led to some very damaging and misleading headlines about organic food.

Last week we highlighted here a French study that called the FSA/LSHTP findings into further question. That French report has since been highlighted by a number of media outlets and the FSA has come out fighting, claiming that the French used ‘diluted data’. Take a look at this piece by The Ecologist.

What seems immediately strange is that the FSA feels the need not only to defend its own report, but to attack the French one in the process. Why is a body that should be agnostic on such issues coming across as desperate to avoid having to officially recognise any empirical benefit to organic food and farming? Your thoughts on a postcard – or a comment below…

It has been a short number of years now since the first evidence appeared linking organic milk to measurable health benefits. Bits and pieces of studies have continued to trickle out since then, all pointing to positives.

Today we’ve come across a piece in Scotland’s Daily Record newspaper that, in essence, suggests more of the same – continued pointers to benefits. We couldn’t find the original science, or even an abstract for the study in question (I confess it wasn’t an exhaustive search, mind you!) but who are we to doubt the venerable Daily Record?

Anyway, the piece is worth a read and you can make up your own mind. It also references the Quality Low Input Food study, carried out at Newcastle University (and across Europe) under the guidance of Prof. Carlo Leifert, and which has presented some interim findings before the full publication, which is expected next year.

Incidentally, Prof. Leifert will be discussing this at our Selling Organics: What’s the Story? conference in London, on October 8. Get in quick if you’d like to be there.

Okay, a bit of fun to start the day. You surely can’t have failed to notice hip hop artist Kanye West being lambasted across the media for his incredibly arrogant and cringeworthy interruption of unfortunate MTV award winner, Taylor Swift.

Well, it seems no-one is going to let Kanye forget it for a while as parody after parody of the incident parades itself across the internet. But you can imagine how shocked we were to find OF&G embroiled in the whole affair…

Get off our website Mr West. We know Beyonce has a better site, but they were visiting us – this was our moment in the sun!

An apology is expected imminently…

[Get your own, personalised Kanye interruption here: http://kanyelicio.us]