how long before we're all organic?

egbert · Feb 19, 2019

Cowcorn said:
Be

Better start buying the Irish farmers journal for the better farm drystock pages and advice on getting profit out of sucklers!! Not sure if it will get you a 10 per cent return though?

Hi Cowcorn, hows your winter going? Been easy here, and although it might turn nasty yet....they can't take away what you've already had.

My problem with chasing at profit from sucklers is that it would be so marginal that really focusing on it would-by comparison to any other way of spending my time- be piddling diminishing returns.
Since FMD I've kept it as a hobby in my mind, and farmed to lose as little as possible....and I enjoy my livestock so much more.

As a reminder, and mental exercise, I sometimes imagine farming a mythical 100 lowland sucklers, which i manage really well, and sell 100 yearlings off, each at £1000.
Goodness what a clever cow farmer I'd be.
But i'd be tying up land worth -maybe- most of a million quid, plus all the infrastructure and deadstock. I'd be managing an operation not without risk, to a fairly high degree of competence, relying on a fickle market and a fair amount of bought in creep feed (the'ye pretty bulgy, these mythical calves),
......and all to gross £100k?

Not for me I'm afraid.

I do get a return on my investment, but the farming element is....er....barely nil. (i suppose there's the potential for capital growth, should the world suddenly run short of hairy arse Galloway cows)

CornishTone · Feb 19, 2019

glasshouse said:
But he doesnt believe in livestock or rotations?

How can you not “believe in livestock”? I see them everyday! Are my eyes deceiving me?

glasshouse · Feb 19, 2019

CornishTone said:
How can you not “believe in livestock”? I see them everyday! Are my eyes deceiving me?

Grazing livestock

Tim W · Feb 20, 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ow-green-and-still-be-able-to-feed-population

''How long before we're all organic?'' --- maybe not that long

delilah · Feb 20, 2019

Tim W said:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ow-green-and-still-be-able-to-feed-population

''How long before we're all organic?'' --- maybe not that long

Just lifted the below from that. This is the thing that narks me with all the current vegan propaganda, it's all about cows and sheep. One of the reasons an urban population doesn't think about poultry, I believe, is that they have subconciously decided that chicken isn't actually derived from a sentient being.

away from grain-fed white meat. More than half the EU’s cereals and oilseed crops are fed to animals. The study models a future in which European meat production has been cut by 40%, with the greatest reductions in grain-fed pork and poultry.

egbert · Feb 20, 2019

Tim W said:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ow-green-and-still-be-able-to-feed-population

''How long before we're all organic?'' --- maybe not that long

with the new head of NE being a long time greenie....here it comes

hendrebc · Feb 20, 2019

Tim W said:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ow-green-and-still-be-able-to-feed-population

''How long before we're all organic?'' --- maybe not that long

“The idea of an entirely agroecological Europe is often considered unrealistic in terms of food security because agroecology sometimes means lower yields,” said Percival. “But this new research shows that by refocusing diets around plant-based proteins and pasture-fed livestock, a fully agroecological Europe is possible.”
That would be us then

egbert · Feb 20, 2019

hendrebc said:
“The idea of an entirely agroecological Europe is often considered unrealistic in terms of food security because agroecology sometimes means lower yields,” said Percival. “But this new research shows that by refocusing diets around plant-based proteins and pasture-fed livestock, a fully agroecological Europe is possible.”
That would be us then

I'm confused...are we villains, or heroes?

hendrebc · Feb 20, 2019

egbert said:
I'm confused...are we villains, or heroes?

Future heroes I think. Sounded to me like intensive indoor pork and chicken was he bad guy. But it does say pasture fed livestock so probably feeding cake to anything will he bad. Time to start pasturesd poultry and pork to go with our sheep and beef maybe?
But maybe I've read it wrong?

egbert · Feb 20, 2019

hendrebc said:
Future heroes I think. Sounded to me like intensive indoor pork and chicken was he bad guy. But it does say pasture fed livestock so probably feeding cake to anything will he bad. Time to start pasturesd poultry and pork to go with our sheep and beef maybe?
But maybe I've read it wrong?

we soddin well ought to be.
a bit of cake is fine, s'long as it isn't human grade ingredients...I'd have thought

Poorbuthappy · Feb 20, 2019

hendrebc said:
Future heroes I think. Sounded to me like intensive indoor pork and chicken was he bad guy. But it does say pasture fed livestock so probably feeding cake to anything will he bad. Time to start pasturesd poultry and pork to go with our sheep and beef maybe?
But maybe I've read it wrong?

Already working on it

Poorbuthappy · Feb 20, 2019

egbert said:
we soddin well ought to be.
a bit of cake is fine, s'long as it isn't human grade ingredients...I'd have thought

It might take a while for them to twig that

davieh3350 · Feb 20, 2019

egbert said:
Hmm.
Yes, maybe.
The global element of the cycle is seldom seen, and less understood.
The Pacific NW 'salmon trees' are a good example, if for the wrong reason.
Taken as a snapshot, the soil in those valleys should be 20-30' thick, more maybe. But it isn't.
I couldn't find any that was much different to what i see around me at home. The rocks still poke through in some old growth i meandered.
Clearly it is being taken somewhere else, by....well, something.

A snippet I read backalong suggested that ocean systems are still missing the bonanza of both whale fall (dead whales ending up on the bottom -sometimes the very deep and dark bottom), and also the huge amount of whale poop still absent. And the jury is now out as to whether the population can go back, seeing as we've effed up so much of the oceans contents.

Back to your soils, I mow 2-3 blocks which haven't been 'fed' for decades...many decades. Yields stabilise around 4-6 round bales per acre.
The value of the fodder is different, as although it doesn't have much of a score in what is generally measured, and some looks more like baled sticks, the cattle just about lick the feeders clean.
I give the cattle no mineral supplement at all, but hardly ever see cal/mag problems....and suspect it is connected.

In the end -my end anyway- I'll continue to measure the cost of bagged NPK against the cost of bought in bales, and both wieghed against the potential value of keeping that extra cow.
With cows not paying per se, I don't buy much fert.

Also, how much of the fish that is lifted from the sea gets back to the sea? Certainly not much will be useable feed for other life down there. Just like the tons of feed that's grown on the land that doesn't go back to where it was harvested. It goes to a sewerage works somewhere many miles away.
Rome collapsed because they stripped their land and sent the food away to feed their armies.
They invented sewers that are carrying away all of what should be going back from where it came.
Too many people in cities and not enough in the country.

hendrebc · Feb 20, 2019

Poorbuthappy said:
Already working on it

The pigs and poultry bit? Because that's really interesting. There will be a little experiment with a Joel salatin style chicken tractor here this summer with half a dozen hens and a couple of ducks maybe. Meant as something different for the little girl to have an interest in as she grows up but really it's for me

And I've had to pay money for eggs since our last visit from a fox to the hens in the yard

we don't eat much eggs anymore

Poorbuthappy · Feb 20, 2019

hendrebc said:
The pigs and poultry bit? Because that's really interesting. There will be a little experiment with a Joel salatin style chicken tractor here this summer with half a dozen hens and a couple of ducks maybe. Meant as something different for the little girl to have an interest in as she grows up but really it's for me
And I've had to pay money for eggs since our last visit from a fox to the hens in the yard we don't eat much eggs anymore

Similar here. Though my daughter is 18. She has a sow and is after another. She's been running a couple dozen laying hens selling to friends but we're working on chicken tractor type approach for them plus get some fattening birds to run on same system - enough for ourselves and a few to sell and see where it takes us.

The pigs is the hard bit - needs a fair bit of room to move them around on a long enough rotation to enable recovery time. And they'll have to be winter housed mostly I think.

davieh3350 · Feb 20, 2019

Poorbuthappy said:
Similar here. Though my daughter is 18. She has a sow and is after another. She's been running a couple dozen laying hens selling to friends but we're working on chicken tractor type approach for them plus get some fattening birds to run on same system - enough for ourselves and a few to sell and see where it takes us.

The pigs is the hard bit - needs a fair bit of room to move them around on a long enough rotation to enable recovery time. And they'll have to be winter housed mostly I think.

It's quite interesting, pigs in the winter. After a few cold nights/days,
you can't even get the point of an electric fence post into the ground where they have bared it to the elements, solid as a rock, but where there's an inch or two of grass, hardly enough to stop the freezing I would have thought, it's quite soft, soft enough to stick a post in easily.

Tim W · Feb 20, 2019

Poorbuthappy said:
Similar here. Though my daughter is 18. She has a sow and is after another. She's been running a couple dozen laying hens selling to friends but we're working on chicken tractor type approach for them plus get some fattening birds to run on same system - enough for ourselves and a few to sell and see where it takes us.

The pigs is the hard bit - needs a fair bit of room to move them around on a long enough rotation to enable recovery time. And they'll have to be winter housed mostly I think.

FAI Farms, Oxford did some stuff looking towards less grain reliant pig systems years ago
We tried running dry sows with silage ---they still needed some grain but it reduced intake quite a bit
'Course it's a lot easier on the chalk but keeping grass/clover ahead of fattening pigs helped reduce grain intake and i am sure aided digestion----hardly any grain in the faeces
Did Elm Farm Research Centre look at alternative poultry systems too ????

ollie989898 · Feb 20, 2019

davieh3350 said:
Also, how much of the fish that is lifted from the sea gets back to the sea? Certainly not much will be useable feed for other life down there. Just like the tons of feed that's grown on the land that doesn't go back to where it was harvested. It goes to a sewerage works somewhere many miles away.
Rome collapsed because they stripped their land and sent the food away to feed their armies.
They invented sewers that are carrying away all of what should be going back from where it came.
Too many people in cities and not enough in the country.

The sea has minerals being dumped or dissolved in it all of the time, and there are a floating 'raft' of photosynthetic organisms floating around to fix carbon into something. The point being the Oceans are already self sustaining, irrespective of how much humans can remove, provided we don't wipe out a particular population or segment of the food chain entirely.

davieh3350 · Feb 20, 2019

ollie989898 said:
The sea has minerals being dumped or dissolved in it all of the time, and there are a floating 'raft' of photosynthetic organisms floating around to fix carbon into something. The point being the Oceans are already self sustaining, irrespective of how much humans can remove, provided we don't wipe out a particular population or segment of the food chain entirely.

Considerably less protein for those that feed on decaying fish though.
Or does nothing eat the dead fish?

ollie989898 · Feb 20, 2019

davieh3350 said:
Considerably less protein for those that feed on decaying fish though.
Or does nothing eat the dead fish?

The loss of tonnes of fish will have an impact, undoubtedly, but that material is being returned in another form. Of course fish stocks and total catches need to be managed, many countries recognise that and are fully supportive of many projects to protect their stocks. New Zealand did it very successfully and there are other efforts to create new areas where fish can successfully thrive and reproduce (artificial wrecks/reefs etc).

how long before we're all organic?

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0 %

Up to 25%

25-50%

50-75%

75-100%

100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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