Low input farming: diversity the key

martian · Jan 27, 2014

Never mind whether they want to or not...we will make them.

Although, I don't think that is what is being argued here, there are a lot of people who quite fancy getting back in touch with food production and as an industry I'd say we need enthusiastic newcomers to keep the show on the road. I think bringing Pol Pot into the discussion is overdoing it.

SilliamWhale · Jan 27, 2014

Fred said:
I am or was a a believer in the 3rd way of Agriculture, a way of producing Nutrionally dense food , using less agri chemicals , this is article is a load sanctimonious clap trap,

Read it carefully , it almost equates a. Pol. Pot agarian fantasy of retuning people back to the land ,

As long as people like this, write this drivel , organic and and alternative agriculture in Europe and the rest of the first world will remain as a niche product, when will they learn , the majority of people do not want to work on the land ,

There is something of a counter argument though. There is an awful lot of people who would rather work on farms/smallholdings/permaculture/ city gardens etc. than they would in offices doing the daily commute. People in high powered or well paid jobs even. The difference may be is that the pol pot peasant had no choice but we have more choice, and that is a progressive step.

It doesn't mean we're necessarily rolling back the years to a peasant lifestyle because that would not be the progressive step. But there is something entirely natural about people wanting to become more in touch with food production and nature beyond a visit to the local farm park.

Vandana Shiva articulates it quite powerfully. I'm not saying its about going back to being peasants in rags docking swedes but equally I'm not sure it has to be either large agribusiness farms or lots of small backward peasant farms either. Technology may allow the peasant or small farm to compete and educate themselves in a way we thought unlikely 30 years ago.

Maybe....

Fred · Jan 27, 2014

Ok maybe I used the wrong simile , however as much as the middle class would love to be more in touch with the production of food , it will be agribusiness that supplies the majority of food in the future. , we cannot escape that fact,

As much as the idea of feeding Nutritionally dense food ,we cannot force the consumer to eat it, or pay for it

We don't get paid on nutritional density,

Surely we would be much better to include GMOs which can or maybe can intercept sunlight and nutrients . So we can produce better crops with higher yield quantity / nutrition using less agrochemical/petrochemicals ,

Someone once said modern /conventional agriculture is an expensive way of eating oil, maybe we should use more science to start moving towards the alternative way ,

SilliamWhale · Jan 28, 2014

Fred said:
Ok maybe I used the wrong simile , however as much as the middle class would love to be more in touch with the production of food , it will be agribusiness that supplies the majority of food in the future. , we cannot escape that fact,

As much as the idea of feeding Nutritionally dense food ,we cannot force the consumer to eat it, or pay for it

We don't get paid on nutritional density,

Surely we would be much better to include GMOs which can or maybe can intercept sunlight and nutrients . So we can produce better crops with higher yield quantity / nutrition using less agrochemical/petrochemicals ,

Someone once said modern /conventional agriculture is an expensive way of eating oil, maybe we should use more science to start moving towards the alternative way ,

Yes to be honest as far as is forseeable it will be agribusiness supplying a lot of the food. That said I included a quote from a bbc podcast somewhere a while back where they said how surprisingly small amounts of food was produced by agribusiness in terms of people actually fed. The majority of the world is still fed by gardens and peasants. I'm not saying a peasants life is a good one, I'm not actually certain either way.

Its a complicated one is food production. Agribusiness is clearly successful in some ways but startlingly unsucessful in others. To take an extreme and lazy example but hopefully you get my gist but America contains about 300 odd million people and something like 2/3 are overweight and a many countless millions obese in the most progressive agribusiness country in the world.

I know one doesn't directly equal the other but we know where the relationships but strangely they seem to put in two separate spheres. ie foodstuff commodity production is one thing and people eating healthy food is another. Why have they become so separated?

Why for example would an organisation like the NFU for example never say much about food/diet/nutrition but talk a lot about increasing production? Is it not their or a farmers remit beyond what leaves the gate?

martian · Jan 28, 2014

You're right there Will, and, getting back to the OP, we are all being taken for a bit of a high input ride by nearly everyone who advises us. Coupled with the business of growing commodities rather than food for actual people, we perhaps need reminding what it's all about sometimes

Fred · Jan 28, 2014

Diet , empty calories , too much sugar, lack of exercise, I totally agree with Will,

The reason we never talk about nutrition etc is because we are not paid that way

martian said:
You're right there Will, and, getting back to the OP, we are all being taken for a bit of a high input ride by nearly everyone who advises us. Coupled with the business of growing commodities rather than food for actual people, we perhaps need reminding what it's all about sometimes

Are we on a cost plus exercise that we haven't signed up to,

Surely with better science we could move away from this roller coaster
But to go back to my original argument returning people back to the land won't work

SilliamWhale · Jan 29, 2014

Fred said:
Diet , empty calories , too much sugar, lack of exercise, I totally agree with Will,

Fred said:
The reason we never talk about nutrition etc is because we are not paid that way

Are we on a cost plus exercise that we haven't signed up to,

Surely with better science we could move away from this roller coaster
But to go back to my original argument returning people back to the land won't work

True, but isn't this part of what the likes of the OFRC and other lobbyists is trying to change? Not easy I'd agree.

I agree with better science, its also worth remembering that science works for us we don't work for science. So just because we can do something and the science says we can do it, does it mean we should? Difficult one to answer I suppose - we probably wouldn't have put a man in space with that attitude but possibly would never have used a nuclear bomb either!

awkward · Feb 9, 2014

Low input farming or even organic farming may deliver more nutrient rich food for public but what understanding have average joe of what he is eating. When farmer cost his production cost does he take into account value of micro nutrients ,value of nutrient density of his product . These are alien concepts to normal farming practices ,and to average joe ,his concern is to fill shopping basket for as little as possible .public will not be concerned with such things until they are educated to the fact of improved health and well being ,farmers need to act together if this goal is to be achieved. This is not in the interest of the multiples ,they require farmers to pump out large volume of empty nutrients to achieve volume sales. To produce these empty nutrients we need chemical sprays,fertiliser etc so to perpetuate the merry go round .low input farming can deliver an income,and it is farmers themselves have the answers ,discussion groups are essential to achieve this.

awkward · Feb 9, 2014

Fred said:
Diet , empty calories , too much sugar, lack of exercise, I totally agree with Will,

The reason we never talk about nutrition etc is because we are not paid that way

Are we on a cost plus exercise that we haven't signed up to,

Surely with better science we could move away from this roller coaster
But to go back to my original argument returning people back to the land won't work

I may be mistaken, but from a conversation with soil microbiologist some years ago, he led me to believe much research had been done on crop nutrient requirements and micro nutrient in Victorian times, which is still very relevant to cropping today ,problem is this information is difficult to access . This would all be based on organic and natural inputs .

warksfarmer · Feb 11, 2014

ORFC said:
A piece by Colin Tudge and Graham Harvey at http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_a...5/low_input_farming_diversity_is_the_key.html

That article is mainly bo****ks with a handful of good points.

For starters low input farming is not complex - it makes life easier because your not trying to make decisions to use expensive chemicals, or which seed variety to buy, or fill your sprayer with snake oil, or talk to your crops whilst hugging trees and eating weeds.

Did it last year and its as simple as this for milling wheat:

Don't buy new seed and farm save it instead - might even not bother dressing it.

No autumn herbicides - plough and/or hit it hard with glyphosate (got ryegrass and brome here but not blackgrass though)

No P & K - use your indices up

Reduce spring N to 220kg/ha - lower again to 200kg/ha to see.

No preventative insecticides - apply only if required.

No snake oil mixes - just don't bother with these things.

No expensive 4 or 5 pass fungicide program - cheapest fungicides available

Make use of glyphosate before planting, even after planting, before harvest and after harvest.

Widen rotation.

Baling Hay · Feb 11, 2014

warksfarmer said:
That article is mainly bo****ks with a handful of good points.

For starters low input farming is not complex - it makes life easier because your not trying to make decisions to use expensive chemicals, or which seed variety to buy, or fill your sprayer with snake oil, or talk to your crops whilst hugging trees and eating weeds.

Did it last year and its as simple as this for milling wheat:

Don't buy new seed and farm save it instead - might even not bother dressing it.

No autumn herbicides - plough and/or hit it hard with glyphosate (got ryegrass and brome here but not blackgrass though)

No P & K - use your indices up

Reduce spring N to 220kg/ha - lower again to 200kg/ha to see.

No preventative insecticides - apply only if required.

No snake oil mixes - just don't bother with these things.

No expensive 4 or 5 pass fungicide program - cheapest fungicides available

Make use of glyphosate before planting, even after planting, before harvest and after harvest.

Widen rotation.

Although I agree with everything else you said, it sounds like you will have trouble with glyphosate resistant crops in the future!

warksfarmer · Feb 11, 2014

Steakeater said:
Although I agree with everything else you said, it sounds like you will have trouble with glyphosate resistant crops in the future!

yes it does read like that but the idea is utilise it now and alter the management to suit later which means spring crops.

Pasty · Jan 7, 2015

I don't see anything wrong with 'organic' as a brand. It gives people a set of standards which they know their food was produced to. A guy in central London buying a box of eggs from Cornwall has no real way of knowing how the hens which laid them exist apart from 'labels' and the standards which those farmers have to abide by. I buy SA organic meat because I don't really have the time to visit all the farms who supply my bacon and am happy to pay a premium for someone else to do it. If someone could sell me a better product, certified or not, I would buy that.

There are lots of labels such as free range, barn eggs or whatever and they all mean something that you can research and be disappointed by. The problem is that the big food companies use clever branding to fool people. They use words like 'free', 'happy', nature','heritage' and so on which mean nothing. So as long as they are happy to subliminally con people into feeling better about what they are buying, we need to maintain actual standards, whether it be 'organic' or 'red tractor' or whatever so that people who care can actually view the set of principles that their food is produced to and decide what they want to buy.

martian · Jan 10, 2015

Thanks for resurrecting this thread Pasty, interesting to read through it again...

glasshouse · Feb 3, 2015

i have a field of maris widgeon wheat in this year on next door organic farm.

spin cycle · Feb 3, 2015

free range isn't a 'natural state' for chickens....being descendants of jungle fowl their natural environment is a litter floor with a canopy above......a large steel frame building and min 8 sqft/bird (???) would be far more appropriate IMO

have you noticed all the free range bods running round planting trees

glasshouse · Feb 3, 2015

i used to park my old scrap trailers in the hen field for them to hide under.

Low input farming: diversity the key

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