By Ivor Traktor, Farming Correspondent (intern)

Suffolk scientists have invented an amazing device to capture sheep flatulence, which accounts for 25% of the country’s greenhouse gases.

The brilliant invention will help reduce global warming – and also provide a source of renewable energy, futher benefiting the environment.

The device works by running a tube from the sheep’s backside into a specially-constructed polythene bag strapped around the animal’s rear quarters.

“It’s a sort of colostomy bag for sheep,” one project insider explained.

It allows for the collection of methane from the sheep, which is generated as each of its four stomachs digests large quantities of grass everyday.

Gas goes down the tube into the large bag. Once fully inflated, a special valve allows for the gas to be syphoned off by the farmer into an adapted gas canister.

These canisters are then fed into a processing plant, which burns the methane and creates valuable electricity.

Each bag also has a safety valve to allow excess gas to escape should the farmer fail to empty it in time – preventing explosions that could harm the sheep.

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It’s a gas: sheep being tested with the fart collection systemThe process is so simple and cheap that farmers across the UK will be able to adopt it by the end of the year.

Boffins are now looking at extending the project to other ruminants like cows and goats, which also generate huge amounts of methane flatulence.

Mr Barry Fleece, from Sheep ‘O’ Gas, the company behind the innovation, said: “The issue of sheep and cow flatulence has been known about for years.

“In the UK these farts, and to an extent belching, genuinely accounts for 25% of greenhouse gases which damage the ozone layer and speed up global warming.

“We looked at a simple way to capture sheep farts and then harvest them for use as an energy source.

“The sheep in our test facility took to the system very well. They did not seem to mind something being stuck up their backsides. At first we thought this was because they came from Wales, but it seems local sheep were the same.

“We’re confident this will be a commercial success, allowing us to move into the lucrative cow fart market.”

The National Farmers’ Union has been monitoring the Halesworth, north Suffolk trials closely, and is expected to recommend that the Government provides grant assistance to farmers who take up the novel technique.

A spokesman said: “It will be cool to say one day that you live in a house powered by sheep farts.”

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By Ivor Traktor, Farming Correspondent (intern)

A secret plantation of bananas has been grown in Suffolk to test if global warming is changing the county’s farming habits forever.

Farmers believe temperatures have risen sufficiently in East Anglia for the tasty fruit to thrive in Suffolk’s rich soil.

Now the successful trial could see large swathe’s of the countryside being transformed into a sea of green banana trees with their bunches of dangling yellow fruit.

It will mean a guaranteed future for many farms struggling to cope with competition from abroad – especially dairy farmers who are currently losing money thanks to the leading supermarkets driving prices down.

And it will be good news for Suffolk’s consumers, who will be able to pay much less than the normal 70 pence or so per kilo, because the fruit does not have to travel half way around the world before arriving at the supermarket shelves.

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The secret banana plantation, somewhere near Stowmarket

The Suffolk Gazette was given a tour of the secret 100-acre plantation facility near Stowmarket. It was planted three years ago, and the young trees quickly blossomed in the balmy weather.

Project director and farmer Mike Straw explained global warming had reached levels to enable the experiment to go ahead.

“Bananas need an average temperature of 80 degrees and adequate rainfall in which to thrive. Thanks to global warming, we now enjoy those conditions in central Suffolk.

“It cost £10,000 to import the plants – bananas are really grown on plants, not trees, although they can grow up to five metres tall. I spent two months in west Africa learning the business and felt the time was ripe.

“It was a gamble, but the plantation grew quickly and we have just enjoyed our first harvest of lovely, juicy bananas.”

He said the first two-ton crop was given away to local schools and hospitals without anyone knowing they had been grown locally.

“We wanted to keep the planation secret so we had a head start on the competition,” explained Mr Straw, who also runs a 500-acre arable farm growing mainly wheat and potatos. “But now we’ve shown it can be done, we’re about to go public.

“Britain will go bananas for British bananas.”

Entrance to secret plantationThe successful trial will likely see copycat plantations cropping up all over Suffolk within the coming years, which could attract whole new varities of wildlife.

And Mr Straw believes banana plantations is just the start, with pineapple and mangos also being trialled on his farm from next year.

But the Green Party warned global warming was nothing to be celebrated. Suffolk spokesperson Jasmine Golding fumed: “We must do all we can to stop global warming.

“It might mean lovely local bananas, something to be celebrated by farmers and consumers alike, but it will also mean sea levels continue to rise – and before long Suffolk will be wiped off the map anyway, so what’s the point?”

Bananas are normally grown in tropical regions of Asia, Africa and across to the Caribbean and Central and South America.

A spokesman for the National Farmers’ Union said: “We back anything that diversifies the produce grown by our members. We know these bananas will be going public soon.

“So keep your eyes peeled.”