"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..

foobar

Member
Location
South Wales
Hard to know who to believe though - he spoke of the "cancer alley" in the US, but that alley also contains hundreds of petrochemical/chemical factories, and the glyphosate breast milk thing is also contested because I don't think there has been successful repeats of that test with the same findings. Dr Bush's website also makes him look like just another slick-sleeze-bag trying to make as much money as possible from his particular miracle cure. :scratchhead:
 

Agrispeed

Member
Location
Cornwall
Agroforestry paddock for the cows tomorrow. Trees doing ok given the dry. Chicory doing very well! Don't mind the wire, hadn't put the standards on yet.:whistle:
IMG_2712.JPG

The clouds blew past :mad:

This year is really showing the benefit of deep rooting plants and less common grasses - Cocksfoot hasn't stopped growing (although slowly) since Jan, Ryegrass did very well in May but thats about it.
 

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Agroforestry paddock for the cows tomorrow. Trees doing ok given the dry. Chicory doing very well! Don't mind the wire, hadn't put the standards on yet.:whistle:
View attachment 702728
The clouds blew past :mad:

This year is really showing the benefit of deep rooting plants and less common grasses - Cocksfoot hasn't stopped growing (although slowly) since Jan, Ryegrass did very well in May but thats about it.

Tell us more about your agroforestry set up. What trees have you put in? Have you put more than one row in etc?
 

Samcowman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Willow, because its free. Its a trial really, 14ac field, row every 100', trees 30' apart, makes 24hr paddocks per row, put them in this spring, they haven't done that well this summer but should survive.
When bigger you can top branches off for feed as well on a dry summer. I have been giving one of our groups of cows hay and there’s a old willow tree that needs topping that a grab a branch off with the loader each time. They love it.
 
Forgot to say did our 100 day weight the otherday - so itll be interesting to see how they compare to anyone elses data...
avg weight of the 75 lil buggers. is 24kg - top 13 are all clear of 30 and best few are 35kg.. couple of tiny trips bringing down the averages.
most seemingly (as im not hugely proficient at BCS) scoring above 3.5 which is nice.

main issue im ruinnning into now is the grass measuring due to the duff/matter that was put down first time - as ive got a sward stick but its measured for "normal" sheep styles.
 

bitwrx

Member
Hard to know who to believe though - he spoke of the "cancer alley" in the US, but that alley also contains hundreds of petrochemical/chemical factories, and the glyphosate breast milk thing is also contested because I don't think there has been successful repeats of that test with the same findings. Dr Bush's website also makes him look like just another slick-sleeze-bag trying to make as much money as possible from his particular miracle cure. :scratchhead:

Amen to that brother.

As someone who considers themself a rational being - who grew up on a farm of the '90s, run by a farmer trained in all the best techniques of the green revolution - I'm really having my preconceptions challenged by all this stuff.

These are all very attractive ideas (in the same way other people want to believe GM will lead to magically increased yields, for example), but it really is a leap of faith to believe them. Because we're only human, we can only test for very simple relationships between cause and effect. Nothing is as simple as that, and our simplistic approach (is this what @Kiwi Pete means by reductionist?) masks the inherent complexity.

I look at videos like these and still struggle not to think 'crackpot' or 'cynical manipulator of people's insecurities'. But then it is an attractive notion - that one wonder chemical is the root cause of all society's ills, and agriculture was great before we started using it, and everyone was happy and healthy and lived longer.

I was having dinner with some mates the other day, and started telling them about soil degradation and the way agriculture has developed over the last 70 years, and realised I sounded like a conspiracy theorist. Corporations this, treadmill that. I was taken aback at myself.

I've never been a believer in anything before that I can't 'prove', but I think I might be seriously considering acting on a hunch.

(Four only tangentially related thoughts there. They say if you can't write it down clearly, you don't understand it. Clearly I don't understand my own views on agriculture any more.)
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
I have been a zero till & synthetic input user all of my farming career, since the early 90's.
However, the basis behind that was ALWAYS with a focus on the soil, conserving moisture, preserving groundcover, growing legumes & having a diverse rotation - so none of that is new . . .

however, I am having a real crisis of faith in 'modern industrial' agriculture & the fact my whole system is so dependent on one chemical group. In our dry environment it is very difficult to see how any cropping system other than zero till can be viable, it is also very difficult to see how this can be possible without glyphosate. These are the paradigms I work within

however, I am also increasingly concerned about possible negative impacts on my soils & their biology ( & therefore their 'resilience'. Resilience is a BIG theme for me ) from the use of pesticides & synthetic fertilisers. I have virtually eliminated fungicides ( even though I grow chickpeas. 2 seasons ago most growers had 6 or 7 fungicide applications - I had none :eek: ), have really cut back on artificial N in particular & am very wary about any insecticide applications, although to be fair I always was.

however, glypho is the big one. Even if you disregard any potential negative health or environmental impacts ( which I think are still open to debate ), I was already becoming increasingly uncomfortable with such a high reliance on a single chemistry, the potential for resistance ( we have big issues with glypho resistance in Australia, as we've had a 30 + year history of use & zero till is the default farming system in most areas. I'm not going to bother to explain our cropping systems here, how diverse they can be & how they differ so extraordinarily from the UK ), the fact it is an external $$ input & is reliant on petro chemical & energy inputs which may not always be available in the future

im maybe sounding like an old hippy here & like the above post, I probably don't understand my own views on agriculture anymore either

at times I feel like a priest who after 30 years of devotion starts allowing that tiny nagging doubt in the back of the mind to suddenly come out & ask ' does God even exist ? ' :eek: :scratchhead:

I do know however, the answer is in the soil, in the biology & within nature - not within agri industrial synthetic reductionist prescription thinking

I never said it was easy :rolleyes::rolleyes:;):cool::whistle:(y)
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Few things are really very straightforward - the trouble with agriculture is striking that balance between nature and business.

Most of the common endorsements seem as much of a conspiracy as theory, shall I list some? Apparently what we need to do:

Increase scale
Increase production (to feed the world)
Be more efficient (by what measure?)
Invest in labour saving technologies
Specislise, yet diversify...

I may have missed some but I really don't pay much attention to what your government/supermarket/corporate "powers that be" tell you, because the meaning seems common: accept lower margins per unit sold, keep chasing the carrot that things will soon be better...

However, there are real gains to be made by persuing value, not volume. NZ has long been "giving away" lamb and beef simply because it doesn't cost much to produce; yet pasture fed meat is a top-end product, basically a health food, and capturing the value is priority - not simply bulking it out and selling more, but marketing it to potential.

We don't have 10 billion people to feed so why are we listening, why are people starving yet livestock and energy plants consuming food, why are soils being degraded and lost simply because the food supply model needs work?

Fairly simply, bribery helps the system operators turn the other cheek.

No theory in this, it is fairly evident that by the time we need to produce more food, the ability to do so will be lost.

The fact remains that the wealthy nations have affluent, aging populations that are capable of researching what they feed themselves, and the tide is slowly turning from short term thinking (trying to swim harder against the current) to a more long term view (going with the flow) but the sad point is as you describe: common sense food production is still a minority. Only poor nations behave in accordance with nature, wealthier countries seem to think they can buy success.

I had a friend from north America come to shoot some ducks this year, he had about $10000 worth of camouflage and hunting aids, but couldn't keep quiet or still...... so success was limited.

The basics are important, yet many farmers are wrapped up in the details.
 

awkward

Member
Location
kerry ireland
the one obvious detail for me is year on year I'm producing more incurring more cost to do so and less margin than the year before. the only people making more all exist outside my farm gate. funny because of the dry spell this year one of my merchants arrived in my yard trying to find out why I wasn't putting out more fertiliser. now his true concern was to shift the product for his benefit not mine
 

CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
the only people making more all exist outside my farm gate. funny because of the dry spell this year one of my merchants arrived in my yard trying to find out why I wasn't putting out more fertiliser. now his true concern was to shift the product for his benefit not mine

I’ve been on that side of the conversation and it’s a sh!t place to be. Spent a few months as a fert rep for a well known merchant in the SW. I didn’t stick it for long!

There is tremendous pressure to sell at all costs, which leads to unscrupulous practices. They’ll tell you it doesn’t, but by f**k it does! 95% of dedicated fertiliser salesmen are little more than used car or double glazing salesmen with very limited technical knowledge of their product. I did my FACTS course with a whole bunch of them just after uni and it was just a joke to them. They had zero interest in learning or using the knowledge. They just had to pass so they could carry on selling. They just have to get as much stuff out the door as quickly as possible, and some of them are very, very good at it.

I made the mistake of trying to do the job right, get to know the customer and their situation and offer the correct advice and product, only to be undermined by the next guy who is 50p/t cheaper, has no understanding of the product, just made a phone call and read from a price list. It’s at that point that you realise what you’re worth to the farmer who’s taken your advice but given his custom to someone else, so why bother. Just flog the sh!t to whoever will buy it! Well that vicious circle didn’t, and has never, sat right with me. Unfortunately, some farmers are their own worst enemy in this respect. You get what, or who, you pay for!

Luckily I passed my BASIS crop protection certificate fairly soon and told them to shove it! Went to work for a very good little company where selling the correct technical solution was more important. But that’s another story.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Hard to know who to believe though - he spoke of the "cancer alley" in the US, but that alley also contains hundreds of petrochemical/chemical factories, and the glyphosate breast milk thing is also contested because I don't think there has been successful repeats of that test with the same findings. Dr Bush's website also makes him look like just another slick-sleeze-bag trying to make as much money as possible from his particular miracle cure. :scratchhead:
Everyone has an angle on things, whether they declare it or not. It doesn't mean you can't learn from them. We should all background check what we read these days anyway as there's so much false information about, not least from the big corporations.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Fwiw I find the regen Ag idea convincing based, as it is, on the fact that nature does it that way very successfully where we humans don't push in. I just need to learn to listen to and read the environment much better. :rolleyes:

It does feel like I've been living a lie for 40 years though, even though it's one I was taught. :confused:

I do love Pete's mention of the "hunter" with his "all the gear, no idea" issues though. That's a lovely analogy for what "conventional" farming is doing.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.8%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,289
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top