Arable producers reverting to a mixed farming

Are you looking to put introduce or have introduced a mixed system on your farm?

  • Yes suckler cows

    Votes: 14 12.8%
  • Yes finishing cattle

    Votes: 19 17.4%
  • Yes breeding ewes

    Votes: 20 18.3%
  • Yes finishing lambs

    Votes: 15 13.8%
  • Yes a digester

    Votes: 3 2.8%
  • Yes pigs

    Votes: 10 9.2%
  • Yes poultry

    Votes: 5 4.6%
  • No

    Votes: 48 44.0%

  • Total voters
    109

capfits

Member
Evening,
With various issues on our horizons, soil sustainability, less available chemicals, low organic matters etc etc are some presently pure arable operators thinking of introducing livestock back into there enterprises.
There has been some muttering about arable enterprises here in Northeast Scotland looking to get back into cattle and even suckler cows. Some of these places have no had a cleat on them for more than a generation!
So wee survey
 

capfits

Member
You really need opinions for sheep and no.
Yes it sent by accident sorted now though.
I am interested also in whether you would want ownership or some kind of partnership or shared business, as I would personally think the lack of skillsets could cause issues. Also the capital requirements to say fencing water and teh livestock themselves?
 

B'o'B

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Rutland
I’m thinking of over year fertility building cover crops to feed underground livestock. Over ground livestock, sheep would be my first call, but will wait until Brexit has some certainty about the outcome and effects before getting too excited on that front.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
We introduced sheep 15 years ago. I have to say there can be some serious erosion issues with the sheep in a wet winter grazing forage crops and the 4 year grass leys only seem to help the soil for about 3 years of subsequent arable cropping, but it's better than nothing. Modern ryegrass leys don't actually seem to root that deeply or build much organic matter. Anything more fancy doesn't really have the output.

We have dabbled in cattle as well. Putting the straw through a cattle yard and spreading the FYM has made noticeable improvements in the arable cropping. The sheep tend to leave the soil quite poor if you don't keep up with liming and potash inputs in particular here on sand. It tends to revert to acid Heath if left down to grass for much longer than 4 years without keeping up the inputs. Hardly a suprise really but worth stating just in case anybody thinks it is too easy an option. The clover builds N. This reaches peak availability in the second year after ploughing out then decays so that by year 4 after ploughing out you are back to square one.

Mixed farming is like going to church. You feel like you are doing some good and you are probably are, but it can be hard work and an act of faith with seemingly a reward in heaven rather than riches here on earth now.

It makes for variety and you don't have all your eggs in one basket from a commodity price perspective. Usually something is up when everything else is down. That's actually cushioned us quite well from commodity price fluctuations and extreme weather events.

We have tried direct drilling into grass leys. Worked well for OSR and stubble turnips. Not very well for cereals.

We keep trying.
 

Goffer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorkshire
We have brought cattle back in but still import a lot of muck as always have even when it lost fashion and everyone got rid of stores overwinter to keep staff busy . Thing is when a lot of land was ploughed out from grass it had never seen a plough , fert or chemical and the people who ploughed it out are disappearing like the generation it was done in . It took hundreds of years to build that biomass and soil biology and it’s been destroyed in 60-70 years . Covercrop / muck / drainage no matter what you do it takes an age and this is what’s wrong with some big farm business. Can’t adapt to seasons or weather as they have one systems and it’s all worked out on cost not , get rid of staff to the bare minimum, 20t sprayer, 22t quadtrac etc it may have 6 psi footprint but 22 t is 22t and gravity takes no prisoners. Wet and it’ll paddle or sink .soil is a living organism in itself abuse it and it’ll soon become concrete somewhere between 3inch to 3 ft Osr has now been overdone and we are ourselves paying the price as black grass and crop failure her and there already and we’ve only grown it for 20 years . In 1982 an old college lecturer who seen it all he often told us ,you need 3 things to farm properly - rotation,variety and luck and in his book you made 2 of them the third was there for free .
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
We're looking at reintroducing cattle here. This is for the benefit of the soil and biodiversity rather than for the bottom line. I'm happy I can build soil health with conservation agriculture in arable only at less cost because we have no infrastructure for livestock - decent housing, water and fencing. Lowland cattle are marginal with BPS - unless we do something radically different we're going to lose a lot of money & require serious capital investment in that infrastructure with no BPS. At least arable is profitable at the moment and cover crops cost less than fences. There's a reason there are less livestock on the chalk downs - last year we ran out of grass in June due to the drought. The deeper rooted herbs & legumes kept growing but not enough.

We can get around the housing problem by running 365 day holistic grazing and catch crops on our light land, but the fencing and water are more serious. The animals themselves are "variable costs" not unlike seed, fertiliser & sprays. Does that really alter the thinking?? Since the livestock husbandry skill set is lacking as we've specialised in arable & conservation, it would be likely that we would seek a partner to run the grazing as their own.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Cattle are a lot easier to fence than sheep. A single electric wire will do and they will trim the grass from under it.

Sheep and lambs need at least 2 wires and and then you have miles of strimming to do as you can't spray off underneath it near a hedge for cross compliance and the sheep don't trim under the fence. Sheep ruin hedges if they get at them but cattle don't. Permanent fencing with netting is the only hassle free option with sheep but its expensive and difficult to rotate. The stakes rot during the arable phase of the field while they doing nothing.
 

Pilatus

Member
Location
cotswolds
[QUOTE="Brisel

Since the livestock husbandry skill set is lacking .[/QUOTE]
I think the above should not be underestimated,when thinking about reintroducing a livestock enterprise on to a farm. Also I think that you are born with the skill of being stockman,you need to have a connection with your animals to know
instinctively that they are off colour before they are seriously ill.
A bit like someone said to me (before GPS auto-steer) “you can either drive a straight line all day or you can’t” , and I would say “you are a good stockman or your not”, even more true these days. Easy enough to loose money with livestock due to low prices,yet alone having dead stock due to poor stockmanship.
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
The problem with a few cattle on a big arable estate is the a lost eartag or lax movement record can cost you £000s in BPS penalties. Need to separate enterprises and do land swaps and entitlement transfers to minimise risk.

This.

The second problem is that of skills. I'm not a stock farmer. I don't really want the paperwork disaster, and likely loss maker of a shed of cows I know nothing about.

Better to find some kind of share farm arrangement - I've got an empty shed and want grass in the rotation. You want to have cattle and would provide the cows, work and muck back. I would provide X acres of 2yr leys for five years initially and enough straw. Almost like sharing the farm.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
For a mixed farm, stirks or stores bought in suit us. Growers and fatteners in the shed using the straw and grain. Putting them out onto grass isn't very profitable in our experience. Can't manage intakes. Worms heat stress flies, compaction etc. Sheds are very good value compared to land.

Won't suit others though.
 

jh.

Member
Location
fife
Rather stack supermarket shelves than go back into livestock . Came out cattle about a dozen years ago as sheds needed re-roofed due to lugs eroded on pan tiles , all passageways too small and floors past it , we had a old water wheel mill here before with underground tunnels to drive it which the handler had dropped through occasionally , also saved us a wage as imo it's just not safe to expect anyone to be at cattle by themselves .

Now we realise just how much time they take up , with all the silage making , fencing , mucking etc etc etc

Would be different if i had a farm that couldn't be as good as all cropped , with decent sheds and fences . Thankfully don't
 
Could it work if the arable farmer had an existing shed which was half sensible, perhaps a grain store that was past its best, and you just did bed and breakfast cattle over winter for someone else?

You would already have the labour and machinery (loader etc) to sort them, owner to sort paperwork?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 81 42.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 68 35.4%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.6%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 7 3.6%

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

  • 1,294
  • 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/
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