Business

Business How to get nosey elephants to buzz off

Engineers secure curd table contract

Bright ideas sometimes have dire unforeseen consequences. Cane toads were introduced into Australia with the aim of controlling a sugar cane pest, the cane beetle, but they overmultiplied and became a serious ecological problem. For many years the Common Agricultural Policy gave grants for removing hedgerows to enlarge field sizes and increase agricultural production. The unforeseen effects were to destroy habitat for creatures and mammals, disrupt the ecological chain, enable crop-eating pests to multiply, and result in reduced crop yields. Costly spraying followed, with pesticides draining into streams, affecting fish and plant life. Without hedgerows to absorb rainstorms, water drained faster into rivers, causing greater flooding. Eventually the EU began to give grants to restore hedgerows. Sadly the damage had then been done. The results are around us, with fewer small mammals, birds, butterflies, dragonflies, bees, wasps and insects. Herons, woodpeckers and various other birds are a rarity. When I was a boy, you could catch salmon and trout in the River Stour, and there was a salmon leap beside the weir at Throop Mill; today both the salmon and the salmon leap have gone. This makes the story of the Elephants and Bees all the more inspiring. In 2009 Dr Lucy King started a pilot project in Kenya, using elephants’ fear of African honeybees to help reduce crop damage and minimise humanelephant conflict. Beehive “fences” were built, with lines of beehives suspended above the ground. The Beehive Fences proved a natural elephant deterrent, helping protect farmers and farmland. Farmers could cultivate without their crops being trampled or their families harmed, so were not violent towards the elephants. Beyond the fences, elephants could roam without being hunted. The beehives provide an economic boost to farmers through greater pollination and the harvesting of ‘ElephantFriendly Honey’. Soon Beehive Fences were built at 24 farms on the frontline of crop raiding events in the Sagalla part of Kenya. Under the leadership of Dr Iain DouglasHamilton CBE, CEO of Save the Elephants, beehive fences are now spreading across many parts of Africa. We live in a wonderful but intricate world, where simplistic responses sometimes do more harm than good. But where we do the science meticulously and work with rather than against nature, we can unlock new and exciting opportunities – the more natural the better. Does your business have the scope to work imaginatively with nature, to solve a longstanding problem, improve productivity, or develop a new product or service? It’s worth giving the idea a buzz! n Adrian Fisher is an awardwinning maze designer in Durweston.

By Miranda Robertson

A Sparkford firm has secured a deal to build processing equipment for a cheese manufacturer in India. The order of four open curd tables secured by Sycamore Process Engineering is believed to be just the start of a very productive relationship with a leading food packaging and processing company. The company’s growth plans include expanding manufacturing and sales internationally. Sycamore has designed, built, and delivered numerous open curd tables already. The tables perform curd conditioning, whey drainage, curd salting and mellowing for milled cheddar and stirred curd type cheeses. The tables currently being built at Sycamore headquarters will be shipped to India in March 2021. 62

WHEY TO GO: Sycamore Process Engineering directors from left, Jerry Redman, Paul Manning, Tim Sharp and Joe Routledge

Paul Manning, project director at Sycamore Process Engineering, said: “International expansion was the natural next step for Sycamore and this deal really helps establish us in the global market. We have a really robust and competitive offering; we’re absolutely thrilled to get the global agreement signed and look forward to delivering these great open curd tables worldwide and continue to support the cheese industry as we have done for many years. “The team have been working hard on the design updates and improvements over the past few months and have landed on a superior offering, that now puts us ahead of our competition and gives us a competitive advantage in the market which we can now share and benefit our clients with.” The tables are available in a range of different sizes and options, producing up to 2,450 KG of cheese on the largest model. You can watch a video of them in operation at youtu.be/bhFRy7GML-g. Made in Britain members Sycamore were winners in the 2019 Somerset Business Awards. The firm is a trusted provider of process solutions in dairy, food and drink industries. With over 30 years’ experience, they pride themselves on delivering quality to every customer, regardless of complexity, size, or location.

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