Sprouts have desirable nutritional qualities.

In particular they are well endowed with vitamins, minerals and other nutrients - while remaining relatively low in calories.

Going into farming

I do not consider myself to be a farmer by nature. In general, I would rather pay people to grow food on my behalf - and get on with other things.

However I have gone into sprout farming due to problems with supply.

There were two main problems - availability and purity:

• Availability
  • I find I can buy some fresh herbs locally - and can source some sprouts locally. I can get mustard and cress sprouts easily enough. Young plants like rocket and watercress are avaiable - and I can get lamb's lettuce - and a few other young greens in prepared supermarket salads. However this misses out many major attractive varieties, and limiting my diet to this fare would limit its diversity.

• Purity
  • I'm concerned that - of those young plants that are available - I cannot trust many of my suppliers to grow their crops without excessive use of pesticides - and other undesirable ingredients. Strawberries and spinach ranked as the two most pesticide laden foodstuffs in [a recent consumer survey]. An attraction of growing things myself is that I am in control of my own pesticide strategy.