- Location
- Lincolnshire
Well, I laughed.
Big announcement tonight!
- Thread starter Banana Bar
- Start date
Well, I laughed.
- Location
- West Wales
Ironic that the public who are hell bent on banning glyphosate are the ones most against the plough and pushing DD/Min till which without glyphosate the system will fail very quickly!
Organic here ploughing 3 years (green crop, barley, oats then undersown) then 5-7 year of grass ley. I’ve done mintill and DD when working on conventional high input/output farms and would never dream of doing it on any scale organically unless running a system like John Pawsey on CTF organic drilling then doing an offset and cutting the weeds between the planted rows throughout the year.
Steevo
Member
- Location
- Gloucestershire
It's rather rich to be accused by the government of being inefficient!
Steevo
Member
- Location
- Gloucestershire
It's rather rich to be accused by the government of being inefficient!
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Put the wheat into small pots (biodegradable, of course) and sell to the GP to feed the birds? You could even provide a feeding site for them to chuck it out too.
I wonder how many £1 pots you could fill from an artic load?
Dave6170
Member
- Location
- Watten, caithness
Wonder what we ll get in scotland?
- Location
- somerset
climate change, and carbon footprint, are the 'BIG' thing at the moment, so the act will tend to follow this trend. Whether we think climate change, has been influenced by human activity, or is part of a natural pattern, does not matter, vast amounts of people do, and due to some very clever people manipulating the details, we are seen as the culprits, worse, in the public eye, than flying, diesel etc. So, we will all have to alter our farms, if we want to take advantage of subs/grants. This might well be to our advantage, for the last 70/80 yrs, increased production has been the aim for farmers, and it cannot be argued that a lot of intensive practices, are not good for soil, eg maize and run-off. If by paying us to farm the 'enviroment' means we become less focused on max produce, rather than 'good practice', and by doing so, rebuild soil condition, our imputs could be lower, but yields may not, and, if it gets us off the current treadmill, of balancing the books, and giving us an easier life, i'm all for it. in any case, what we do here in the UK to reduce carbon, will be miniscule, compared to worldwide efforts.
farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
a lump sum isn't going to be very appealing if it incurs a 40% tax rate...
Dave6170
Member
- Location
- Watten, caithness
Wonder what we ll get in scotland?
Slightly off-topic, but nice to Cold-War Steve's work. Has anyone found Cilla yet?
PS. she is in the window behind Sam Allardyce
Goweresque
Member
- Location
- North Wilts
Yes the plan is to phase out BPS over 7 years, as ELMS is phased in, but at some point in those 7 years they might remove the requirement to apply every year for the BPS payment, and just give the payment to whoever had the land in years 1,2 and 3 (say), no questions asked. So you could retire and rent your farm out but still get the slowly reducing BPS payments until they're gone. While your new tenant could be part of ELMS. Or farm it yourself and get BPS and ELMS. There was a suggestion that people could take a capital sum in one hit rather than the payments over the 7 years, that doesn't seem to be mentioned now, doesn't mean it might not be an option though.
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
The Bill will allow us to move away from the EU’s bureaucratic Common Agricultural Policy, to our own unique UK bureaucratic UK Agricultural Policy.
Steevo
Member
- Location
- Gloucestershire
It does make you wonder whether there will be two sets of paperwork......one for BPS and a separate one for ELMS. 
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Agreed, but imagine you dont crop any headlands, just turn on them, dont bother with any more hedge cutting, only crop the good bits of the field, possibly leave wheel track strips permanent grass instead of cropped tramlines and then use very wide sprayers etc. In short just farm the good bits well and let the rest go wild which should get you all the environmental stuff by default, and make more money as there will be lower total production to keep prices up.... hopefully!.
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
A few places (Holkham if I recall) did do similar when set-aside was compulsory. Holkham again if I recall orientated the tramlines within each field to maximise efficiency, so not necessarily up and down a field but at an angle. I presume ended when compulsory set-aside ended. In the 1990's, following introduction of set-aside, quite a bit of research at ADAS research farms on the profitability of field edged. If I recall full and maximum profitability not achieved until 12 - 24metres out into field, especially if a woodland to south side of field.
ifindoubtflatout
Member
mid never thought of grassing/fallowing the tramlines. That’s a pretty cool idea actually
Have to use liquid fert though
But switch off the tramline nozzles
SilliamWhale
Member
Which bit didn't work? Without BPS, rural employment would be far less if we'd been thrown to market forces. Are you the offspring of a farmer? No subs and you'd be living in a town right now, looking at jobs in McDonalds. Please explain how environmental stewardship doesn't work. Plenty of innovative organic farmers like John Pawsey are making a good living out of hard work and seeing an opportunity. Look him up and visit his farm or those belonging to other entrepreneurs.
Plenty of successful rural businesses adding value to everything from wool to farm gyms to artisan foods. If you want to add value to wheat, stop just growing a generic commodity on price alone and turn it into whisky, beer, sourdough bread, microwavable pocket warmers etc.
I suggest you look up what regenerative agriculture actually is - read Dirt To Soil by Gabe Brown for a start. Just read books - they might give you ideas of your own instead of relying on others to provide them for you. Please start with one that teaches you spelling, punctuation and where to use capital letters in a sentence. You should try hard work and seizing opportunities, instead of moaning that you just see the same old clichés. The sum of work and opportunity is something called "luck" that happens to successful people. Otherwise, do something else!
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I look at our patch here, 200 acres mixed farm, presently 40% grass with breeding ewes and sometimes cattle. The rest oilseed rape, wheat, barley sugar beet.
All underdrained but coming to end if the systems life.
So what's the future hold?
Maybe there will be a grant to redrain it as drained land holds back more water by soaking it up in a wet time and releasing slowly.
Or maybe they will want us to stop farming it and leave it as semi flooded heathland. How do we re establish all the Heath land plants, do we get a few quid per plant, write reports, have it inspected, open access, input from the parish council as to what they want to see?
Do we plant woodland then find we can't use it in the log burner because the emissions are are too high so we are stuck with a strictly controlled wood forever, with income if any at the whim of successive governments.
Do we get a grant to buy a direct drill to reduce diesel usage and conserve soil carbon, but wait a minute we have been doing that for a decade now where we can.
Sometimes we have to plough where trailers have left ruts after beet, so what then , fill in a form to gain an exemption for inverting the soil and get DEFRA approval. Root crops always leave a bit of mess, but they are essential right? Or not?
Will they want us to keep sheep and if not what do we do with the grass and bang goes the OM it builds and the low chemical usage on the grass compared to combinables and all the insect life it encourages.
It will be a burgers muddle if you ask me. An almighty cluster feck. Trying to prescribe an all singing and dancing carbon capturing habitat creating vegan pleasing system will end up contradicting itself and disappearing up its own rear end, but that never stopped them before did it.
All underdrained but coming to end if the systems life.
So what's the future hold?
Maybe there will be a grant to redrain it as drained land holds back more water by soaking it up in a wet time and releasing slowly.
Or maybe they will want us to stop farming it and leave it as semi flooded heathland. How do we re establish all the Heath land plants, do we get a few quid per plant, write reports, have it inspected, open access, input from the parish council as to what they want to see?
Do we plant woodland then find we can't use it in the log burner because the emissions are are too high so we are stuck with a strictly controlled wood forever, with income if any at the whim of successive governments.
Do we get a grant to buy a direct drill to reduce diesel usage and conserve soil carbon, but wait a minute we have been doing that for a decade now where we can.
Sometimes we have to plough where trailers have left ruts after beet, so what then , fill in a form to gain an exemption for inverting the soil and get DEFRA approval. Root crops always leave a bit of mess, but they are essential right? Or not?
Will they want us to keep sheep and if not what do we do with the grass and bang goes the OM it builds and the low chemical usage on the grass compared to combinables and all the insect life it encourages.
It will be a burgers muddle if you ask me. An almighty cluster feck. Trying to prescribe an all singing and dancing carbon capturing habitat creating vegan pleasing system will end up contradicting itself and disappearing up its own rear end, but that never stopped them before did it.
I went to a talk by Michael Horsch - one of his customers planted wild flowers in his CTF tramlines. No sprayer ruts but I hope he didn't drift any herbicides into it...