How mountain daffodils can help patients with dementia

Growing a farm full of daffodils is about as Welsh as it gets. For one ambitious farmer, however, it has also led to a pioneering new business ready to lead the way in the fight against Alzheimer’s.

Perched at the top of the scenic Black Mountains, Kevin Stephens’ project began six years ago, testing and trialling the hardiest daffs able to survive the elements.

Now his fields brimming with Wales’ national flower are able to produce kilos of miracle chemical galantamine, which is used to slow the progress of the destructive disease.

“My eldest decided he wanted to be a farmer like his grandad,” said Kevin.

“Nowadays there’s no way you could run a farm just on sheep so we were looking for something else.”

While galantamine can’t cure Alzheimer’s, it has been proved to slow down its symptoms by tackling an imbalance of neurons in the brain.

So far it has been farmed in China and Bulgaria, but Kevin’s plants contain a concentration of the chemical far higher than before – all thanks to the altitude his crops are grown at.

A former shepherd turned software developer and engineering enthusiast, Kevin’s introduction to the world of daffodil farming came through a chance encounter with biotech expert Professor Trevor Walker.

Since then he has worked with experts around the world, including leading figures from Aberystwyth, Cardiff and Bangor universities.

The 51-year-old, who is now the managing director of bioresearch firm Agroceutical, said: “I bumped into a professor working in an abandoned hospital in Talgarth. It was really gothic, the ideal place for a horror film. He just called it the Black Mountain effect, where daffodils grown above 1,000 feet produce a lot more galantamine than daffodils grown anywhere else.”

From there, discussion and trials began in earnest to find the perfect type of flower and equipment for the venture. Dad of two Kevin said: “We had to work out which daffodils to grow. There’s about 30,000 varieties of daffodil and we found about a dozen that had the right genetics. I took a genetics course to find out what they were all banging on about.

“Then the first daffodils we planted I managed to get the planter machine about 50 yards into the field before I had to take it back to weld it together again. It wasn’t built for this land with all the stones, let alone the rocks.”

After months of patience, Kevin and his three-man company have now perfected the way to maintain their acres of flowers without any impact on the environment.

The result is beautifully simple, with no interference needed between planting and harvesting the leaves used to produce the drug.

“We now plant our daffodils directly into the hill paths so we don’t plough the land first,” Kevin said.

“We just zip it open, put the bulb in and zip it back up again. We aren’t releasing greenhouse gases, we aren’t taking land from food production and we have a much lower carbon footprint. The idea has got to be sustainable. If we dug up the bulbs each time we would end up eating away at the world’s production of daffodil bulbs. The way we harvest means we have crop year after year after year.”

He added: “It’s genuinely simple but it has been complicated to make it that simple. When we first started we had five boys and four big machines for the harvest. This time I did it by myself.”

As well as growing daffodils, Kevin’s biggest venture has also let his son Mark fulfil his ambition of farming sheep. This spring, the pair lambed 550 sheep, all using the same ground on which the daffodils are grown.

Kevin said: “Up in Aberystwyth Research Centre they have measured sheep performance. It makes no difference to the sheep if daffodils are on the land. We’re also talking quite exposed farmland, so when the daffodils grow from December to March it’s too cold and exposed for the sheep to be there anyway.”

Once harvested, galantamine is stored in crystal form to be diluted and stabilised in the form of tablets. So far, Kevin has a licence to produce enough of the chemical to help 9,000 Alzheimer’s patients per year.

However, for his company to start production properly, the backing of big pharmaceutical companies remains essential.

“We know we can make it cheaper than China and more sustainable but we can’t get to that point where we can produce thousands of kilos,” the entrepreneur said.

“We’re in this death valley type of thing because we can’t get contracts until we show we can make that much but to make that much galantamine you need a contract.”

Currently there are more than 500,000 dementia patients in the UK, with Alzheimer’s remaining the biggest form of the disease. By 2025 this figure is expected to rise to one million, doubling to two million by 2050.

Kevin said: “One of the really exciting developments for us so far is that we are working with a Canadian company to make a natural health product. The view is to making it available before people get to the point where they are Alzheimic.

“The way Alzheimer’s works is that there is an enzyme imbalance which causes something like the furring in a kettle and galantamine causes the opposite enzyme imbalance to stop the furring. You can’t stop this fur building if it’s been in place for years. The best thing would be to stop it furring in the first place.”

According to the Alzheimer’s Society, businesses like Kevin’s are playing a small but important fight in managing the disease.

Dr Aoife Kiely, research communications officer at Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Someone develops dementia every three minutes in the UK – but with no current treatment to cure, prevent or slow it down. It’s fantastic to see people like Kevin doing what they can to unite in the fight against dementia.

“To date, research has found the effect of galantamine on the brain to be small but positive in treating Alzheimer’s by easing symptoms. Sadly though, like other drugs currently available for dementia, galantamine does not cure or slow down the condition.”

It makes no difference to the sheep if daffodils are on the land KEVIN STEPHENS