ollie989898
Member
Mind, some of that land around Poole and Bournemouth would be a PITA to access in summer and would not be the best land you could find about.
Looming food crisis,what can uk ag industry do?
- Thread starter Pilatus
- Start date
Mind, some of that land around Poole and Bournemouth would be a PITA to access in summer and would not be the best land you could find about.
glasshouse
Member
- Location
- lothians
Need to build cars without electronicsIt's like telling car manufacturers to build more cars when they can't get the electronic chips and wiring harnesses.
Politicians need to learn when something is out of stock, it's out of stock, you just can't magic things.
ollie989898
Member
It's like telling car manufacturers to build more cars when they can't get the electronic chips and wiring harnesses.
Politicians need to learn when something is out of stock, it's out of stock, you just can't magic things.
My main objection is that it is just nuts. You've a shortage of some raw materials, a shortage of labour, the pig and poultry industries are in a bad way due to their prices, dairy and beef are seeing massive increases in feed prices and here you have the NFU saying 'produce more'. WTF? Who exactly is the NFU supposedly advocating this for? Who benefits? In the current circumstances giving out such a message is only going to encourage people to take huge commercial risks and probably bankrupt people along the line too, not least because there is little an individual can do right now to increase output without big capital costs and they won't see the benefit from it for many months or even years depending on their activities.
Tarw Coch
Member
- Location
- Bottom of Wats Dyke
As he will know, god created man and he gave us canine teeth so obviously he intended for us to eat meat
- Location
- somerset
they tell us, man finding fire, and cooking meat, the resulting protein, began our growth, to modern man.As he will know, god created man and he gave us canine teeth so obviously he intended for us to eat meat
if vegans don't eat any animal product, does that mean evolution, for them, goes backwards, if correct, answers a few questions as to why they are so fanatical. So should we pity them, and offer our 'help' because they are evolving backwards. Now that would really pee them off.
Vegetarians are somewhere between the two.
- Location
- somerset
one things for certain, if they start dropping our price, to fund their ego price cuts, they may find a difficulty with supply, they have cut us to the bone, now.
In years to come, it could be that people start suing s/mkts and processors, for including all the crap, in processed food, because, 1 or more, of the mix, is identified as causing a major health problem.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Leaving aside whether farmers should risk their businesses buying expensive inputs, what people don't seem to understand is that if there is no or very limited nitrogen fertiliser available, then we just cannot produce very much at all however much we want to.
If I can't secure a supply of ammonium nitrate then it isn't worth me sowing anything other than grass.
It's pointless drilling wheat here without nitrogen. I'd be down to sub 1 ton per acre and that won't pay for fungicides, herbicides and growing and harvesting costs. And the quality of that ton in terms of protein levels and bushelweight will be so low it probably won't even pass for chicken feed. It will be unsaleable.
I really don't know what planet the NFU and government are on. Speak to the buying groups. Speak to farmers if you want to know the possible size of the crisis looming. The solution isn't really in the hands of farmers in the short term. It needs government action to ensure the adequate supply of raw materials that underpin farming in its present form.
The ag industry can only work with the resources available. If the resources aren't available we can't do a lot.
And I do hear the arguments in favour of weaning ourselves off fossil fuel derived inputs. I get that. But it's not going to happen over a period of 12 months without a food supply disaster. We will need decades to reduce reliance on fossil fuels in fertiliser production.
I really cannot believe how complacent the government is on these matters. It will bite them seriously if they don't start waking up.
If I can't secure a supply of ammonium nitrate then it isn't worth me sowing anything other than grass.
It's pointless drilling wheat here without nitrogen. I'd be down to sub 1 ton per acre and that won't pay for fungicides, herbicides and growing and harvesting costs. And the quality of that ton in terms of protein levels and bushelweight will be so low it probably won't even pass for chicken feed. It will be unsaleable.
I really don't know what planet the NFU and government are on. Speak to the buying groups. Speak to farmers if you want to know the possible size of the crisis looming. The solution isn't really in the hands of farmers in the short term. It needs government action to ensure the adequate supply of raw materials that underpin farming in its present form.
The ag industry can only work with the resources available. If the resources aren't available we can't do a lot.
And I do hear the arguments in favour of weaning ourselves off fossil fuel derived inputs. I get that. But it's not going to happen over a period of 12 months without a food supply disaster. We will need decades to reduce reliance on fossil fuels in fertiliser production.
I really cannot believe how complacent the government is on these matters. It will bite them seriously if they don't start waking up.
- Location
- somerset
my opinion on the NFU is not printable
availability of products to enable a decent crop, is a political problem, outside of our control.
Looking at today's politicians, they are 'career' people, which means they have little knowledge of business, all types, including ag.
take that one step further, virtually all our politicians have lived through a period, where food has been cheap, huge range of products, no longer seasonal, exotic fruits etc, all readily available, and cheap. For them to realise anything wrong with the food supply chain, it would need a massive brain reversal change, not sure they are capable of coping with that, their degree never figured that in.
So, at present, there will be no policy change, why should there be ? They don't have a clue, about the coming food inflation bombshell, food has been cheap, their whole lives, they presume it always will be cheap and plentiful.
When the penny finally drops, it will be panic stations, and knee jerk policies will appear, and those policies are never ideal.
All we can do, is run our farms, as a business, and make sensible decisions, based on what we know, and what we think might happen, all farming has a degree of gambling in it.
That’ll be a late harvest
Cowabunga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion,Wales
Indonesia, the world’s largest exporter of palm oil with 50% of the total market, has just put a complete export ban on all palm oil products. Together with Ukraine, which itself makes up 40% of the world trade in sunflower oil, we will soon be cooking fish and chips in used engine oil.
Joking aside, it is coming home to roost now and the World Bank is starting to panic. For each 1% increase increase in food price in middle income countries, it will result in 10 million extra people thrown into extreme poverty. This is already happening and likely to accelerate greatly. The WB is warning of a global catastrophe with around a 37% food price rise relative to income.
Joking aside, it is coming home to roost now and the World Bank is starting to panic. For each 1% increase increase in food price in middle income countries, it will result in 10 million extra people thrown into extreme poverty. This is already happening and likely to accelerate greatly. The WB is warning of a global catastrophe with around a 37% food price rise relative to income.
More sunshine hours and longer days up Scotland though.
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
The only way, I can see to produce more (without artificial fertliser) is to :
a. take all the land out of environmental schemes/tree planting schemes and crop it.
b. institute rotational grazing, maybe that could be undertaken by grants for water infrastructure and fencing or fenceless technology.
c. give anyone who wants one an allotment.
d. eat more meat, as we need to go back to mixed farming with animals to build up fertility, to be used in the arable part of the cycle.
e. knock on the head any ideas about rewilding or reintroducing extinct animals.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
We do (or did and probably will again) use rotational grazed clover leys.
First year after ploughing down they maybe return 50kgN, second year maybe 100 kgN then a steady decline back to 70, 40 etc.
A crop of winter wheat needs about 180 kg here to achieve reasonable potential.
So if we return to 100% reliance on clover/grazing I’d say we will see at best a halving of wheat yields. It will be lower protein as well. Certainly won’t make modern bread making spec.
First year after ploughing down they maybe return 50kgN, second year maybe 100 kgN then a steady decline back to 70, 40 etc.
A crop of winter wheat needs about 180 kg here to achieve reasonable potential.
So if we return to 100% reliance on clover/grazing I’d say we will see at best a halving of wheat yields. It will be lower protein as well. Certainly won’t make modern bread making spec.
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
is that because the Chorleywood process requires high protein? When I worked on arable farms I seem to remember them talking about Habberg and Hectolitre weight, no idea what they are, guess Hectolitre weight is density? I wonder if artisan baking can utilise poorer quality wheat?
What most people don’t seem to grasp, meaning most politicians and the general public, is that their lifestyle of never-ending consumerism and disposable income to spend on Chinese tat has largely been funded on the back of cheap, readily available food. The growth of multinational corporations and western lifestyles throughout the 20th century has been facilitated by the way primary producers of the most necessary and basic foodstuffs have been expected to deliver come what may, and take less and less for producing more and more.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Industrial baking processes need high protein high hagberg wheats.
No doubt lower spec wheat could and indeed was used but it would need a complete change in the baking industry.
We could move to less intensive lower output agriculture but there will be shortfall, and the rest of the down stream chain will have big adjustments to make. The EUROP grid for example is based on high input lean continental grain fed beef cattle. My buyer didn’t even want the yellower fat associated with grass or forage fed animals! That’s what we are up against.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Pork, chicken etc relies on plentiful supplies of reasonably priced grain. Pork and chicken feed the masses affordably. Not easy for them to switch to low intensity systems and still deliver the huge volumes required.
Anyway, shifts to lower intensity more sustainable systems are a long term project.
What we are facing is an immediate fertiliser supply crisis.
Those nitrate plants in the U.K. need to be up and running sharpish. It’s a criminal waste that they are lying idle.
How many times do I have to say this?
Anyway, shifts to lower intensity more sustainable systems are a long term project.
What we are facing is an immediate fertiliser supply crisis.
Those nitrate plants in the U.K. need to be up and running sharpish. It’s a criminal waste that they are lying idle.
How many times do I have to say this?
- Location
- somerset
in other words, go back to pre fert/sprays, take any sensible grants.
worked when rotation and animals worked together, there wasn't a choice
the principles, with modern tools/ideas, might have to work again !
as for fert plants, that's a political decision, and the green zealots shout louder than we can, and l don't think todays politicians have a clue, what will happen as food inflation takes off, so l don't think fert production will increase, any time soon. How long can those plants stay dormant, not producing fert, before major up keep is required.
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Now that would be fantastic. But why do you think they’re so desperate to hide where the science has always been pointing? Tbf they’ve done an amazing job of telling everyone black is white.