STRAWBERRIES could be growing a treat in Wyre Forest next summer thanks to a far-sighted farmer and hundreds of thousands of African seabirds.

Chaddesley Corbett farmer, Richard Tate, is celebrating news from Reading University laboratories that a new fertiliser he wants to bring over from the Namibian coast is organic.

The test results do not surprise him because the fertiliser is composed entirely of the droppings of seagulls and cormorants.

But it has given him the signal he needs to go ahead with plans to set up an import business in time for next summer's horticultural crops.

Mr Tate, who works 150 acres at Winterfold Farm, said the idea had come from his son and friends in South Africa.

They had visited Ichaboe Island off the Namibian coast where Africans were already harvesting deposits up to four-foot deep of seabird guano from areas where the birds roost.

He said: "The advantage of using this as a fertiliser is because it has to be organic.

"The birds don't eat anything but fish they find in the sea. It should be wonderful stuff for horticultural gardeners and especially strawberries."

He said he was hoping to organise pelleting and packaging in Africa and hoped to be able to start importing in the spring.