Farming: Oilseed rape fat acid woes

FOLLOWING problems with last year’s crop, oilseed rape growers will see this year’s produce having to be tested for free fatty acid (FFA) levels before it is taken into store.

Speaking in Edinburgh this week, Bruce Ferguson, chairman of the Agricultural Industries Confederation arable committee, said he hoped the 2012 experience, with many samples well above the maximum industry standard, would not be repeated this year.

He believed the problem last year was triggered by the highly unusual growing season. March 2012 had been very warm and dry and the crop came into flower early and continued in bloom for nearly eight weeks. This was followed, he said, by a prolonged cold and wet ripening period: “Something happened to the chemistry of the plant over the season that led to the high FFA levels.”

This was not the first season Scottish oilseed rape had been affected by the problem, but in previous seasons the overall percentage of the crop affected had been small and, through blending samples, the problem had been removed.

Last year, the FFA problem was far more extensive and, through lack of specific testing at intake, it was often a month or more before the merchants had realised the scale of the issue.

Only determined work by merchants and exporters had seen the problem dealt with, but they would be on the front foot for the 2013 harvest.

AIC Scotland chairman Archi Lamont, however, warned that the testing equipment was expensive at up to £40,000 per machine and that might be beyond the resources of smaller-scale merchants.

ANDREW ARBUCKLE