lavender farming

[southwestfarmer]

I looked into this about 10 years ago and visited Norfolk lavendar as well as a Provence lavender farm in France. The French method of lavender harvest is to cut and leave to dry on the plants in sheaves and once dry, oil is extracted, providing a pure clear oil suitable for perfumes etc which is very high value. The majority of lavender harvested in the UK is cut with a modified forager and then steamed green to release the lavender oil but this oil isn't as pure due to the green pigment so is suitable for adding as a scent to soaps and house hold products and inherently lower value in comparison. There were many reasons why i didn't go for it.
You had to grow, process and market the crop yourself, as there was no ready made market. Farming 450 acres on my own, meant additional labour and skills would be required to achieve this. Harvest would clash with combining and possibly require additional drying and storage areas. I decided it would be an interesting enterprise, but would consume a lot of management time especially at an already busy time of year. Could I really deal with thousands of public? In France the crop was grown on limestone soils, which i don't have, although it grows well enough in the garden.
The plus sides were roadside fields with south facing slopes which would provide a great advertising board for it. There is a huge potential market from customers in the Birmingham and Black Country areas nearby.
The conclusion was to keep it simple and just keep my eye on the current cropping without being distracted. In hindsight I was correct continuing with what I am doing, but the new lavender enterprise would have potentially created jobs opportunities for the children to grow into.

what so assuming you had the time and facilities to do so you would ?
seems a very lucrative way of farming even if there is a large labour cost and if the way france harvested was better why cant we do it in england

 

[solo]

what so assuming you had the time and facilities to do so you would ?
seems a very lucrative way of farming even if there is a large labour cost and if the way france harvested was better why cant we do it in england

It would have been very attractive financially, but dealing with the volumes of people/dogs especially at weekends, would have tested my patience.
We don't have enough hot dry days in a row to dry the crop outside so our drying costs would be vastly greater than other countries. Maybe now with feed in tarrifs for biomas it could be made to work cheaper. For my situation it would have meant contracting out the majority of my farmwork to concentrate on the lavender enterprise. At that time that wasn't for me.

 

[Blod]

@southwestfarmer I applaud your enthusiasm. However, it might be time for you to start doing some donkey work in terms of research if you are serious. If you want to know about Lavender farming ask a lavender grower. Look at the sales prices of farms in an area you are interested in. (Land registry?) Work out what you would need to spend on the specialist equipment. Buy some lavender soap and see if you like it. Look at websites of established growers and note how long they have been trading, what they sell. Read reviews on tripadvisor to see what their visitors like and dislike. There is a wealth of information out there for you.

 

[southwestfarmer]

@southwestfarmer I applaud your enthusiasm. However, it might be time for you to start doing some donkey work in terms of research if you are serious. If you want to know about Lavender farming ask a lavender grower. Look at the sales prices of farms in an area you are interested in. (Land registry?) Work out what you would need to spend on the specialist equipment. Buy some lavender soap and see if you like it. Look at websites of established growers and note how long they have been trading, what they sell. Read reviews on tripadvisor to see what their visitors like and dislike. There is a wealth of information out there for you.

in the process of researching it indepth

 

[Danllan]

This may have been mentioned already, and I have missed it, but isn't there a link between lavender / lavender oil and miscarriage?

 

[southwestfarmer]

really didn't know that !

This may have been mentioned already, and I have missed it, but isn't there a link between lavender / lavender oil and miscarriage?

 

[JCfarmer]

http://www.profitableplantsdigest.com/top-10-faqs-about-growing-lavender-for-profit/

it says on this website on a small scale 15000 pounds can be achieved of the equivalent of quarter or an acre so that's 60 k an acre this cant be right and I know that everything on the internet isn't true but I have read this on a number of sights

Are you a lavender farmer yet, southwestfarmer?

 

[Dingers]

Are you a lavender farmer yet, southwestfarmer?

Would be keen to know - have some questions myself on the topic!

 

[Oscar]

Went to Australias largest lavender farm in January and they were busy harvesting and processing while we were their. It was absolutely rammed with visitors, $30 dollar/ adult entry and the shop/ cafe were heaving . Who ever did their PR and branding had it down to a tee as you could buy basically lavender everything and a mascot called Billy the Bear inspired toys,clothes etc all aimed at kids. Coach loads of Japanese tourists were lapping it up(although I bet its quiet now re virus).
They had two kubotas tractors with a single row harvester off to one side which plucked the flowers off and blew it into a 45 gallon container on back linkage. They changed containers in field and towed it back on a trailer with like a skip truck up and over arm behind a gator. Back at yard, it got hoisted off trailer and slid in a shed where they had three ovens where it got heated with steam and the steam picks up the scent and condensed out it ran into a 2 ltr container. I think the cooking was around 45 minutes and they were getting 1.5 ltrs of oil per 45 gallon size of flowers ie maybe 60 kg worth ?

 

[ultraG]

@Oscal hat's really interesting colour. I'm in the midst of research for a 30-50 acres lavender farming project. Lots of good points in this thread. Would be glad to hear if Southwestfarmer made it into lavender farming or not. One point in this thread was about french farming techniques. I saw a Lavandin (hybrid grosso) farmer on youtube steam it straight from the cut (though the drying bit could have been edited out but it didn't look like it. He was outsourcing the steaming / distilling to a specialist who did it straight from his harvest container. It was interesting to watch. Other funny bit about that vid was to watch them all moan at how successful australian farmers are at it. There was a big aussie farmer who came along with his lavender infused teddybear. They all sneered at it. I thought the teddy bear was a great value add! if not for your kids, for your pet! haha

 

[ultraG]

another point: the climate in UK is noticeably drier and warmer in the south east / east. Not sure about the soil though, but it seems the main issue is drainage and acidity. If that's out of the way, the biggest challenge would be to go organic. If that's not an issue, I think to keep it simple and focus only on oil in phase 1 would be sensible, as long as you have a bulk buyer in the perfume industry. Anyone know how hard it is to establish that kind of distribution network? I guess it probably depends first and foremost on the quality of your oil.

 

[Exfarmer]

another point: the climate in UK is noticeably drier and warmer in the south east / east. Not sure about the soil though, but it seems the main issue is drainage and acidity. If that's out of the way, the biggest challenge would be to go organic. If that's not an issue, I think to keep it simple and focus only on oil in phase 1 would be sensible, as long as you have a bulk buyer in the perfume industry. Anyone know how hard it is to establish that kind of distribution network? I guess it probably depends first and foremost on the quality of your oil.

The essential oil industry can have serious ups and downs. It has no real outlet to other sources and when their is a glut it is unsaellalbe and it may take some years to clear there glut.
Know of one man who was sitting on a million pounds worth of a certain oil in his garage and workshop , just laying about. Apparently had been 6 or seven years since he had last sold any but he was confident it would return. I wont reveal the oil type since it could reveal the location , but it may all be gone now anyway. Most growers have made there money elsewhere but it can be extraordinarily profitable in the right season.
I was growing evening g primrose oil for a few years until the main end customer was revealed to be a complete fraud

 

[ultraG]

The essential oil industry can have serious ups and downs. It has no real outlet to other sources and when their is a glut it is unsaellalbe and it may take some years to clear there glut.
Know of one man who was sitting on a million pounds worth of a certain oil in his garage and workshop , just laying about. Apparently had been 6 or seven years since he had last sold any but he was confident it would return. I wont reveal the oil type since it could reveal the location , but it may all be gone now anyway. Most growers have made there money elsewhere but it can be extraordinarily profitable in the right season.
I was growing evening g primrose oil for a few years until the main end customer was revealed to be a complete fraud

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting indeed. Then a more cautious approach would be to start with a diversified approach to be ready as fast as possible (from year 3 onwards) = Local markets for fresh and dried cuts, farm store and web marketing for same + two or three basic value added products (soap, candles, sachets), oil for bulk and finally ecotourism during the blooming and harvesting. That hinges on sorting out marketing and distribution channels. Not an easy task but not impossible either with some careful research. Plus you can outsource webdesign quite reliably these days.

 

[Man in Suffolk]

Any idea of planting cos. Got 3.5 acres to play with here.