Farmer Roy's Random Thoughts - I never said it was easy.

[glasshouse]

Yes, I had a look after I wrote that
UK is MUCH further north . . .
As you say, it is the warm ocean currents that keep a large part of the UK a green & pleasant land, not a frozen arctic wasteland
Ocean currents are changing as a result of human intervention & climate change
The beast from the east was only an indication of what is to come . . .

i am gussing gunnedah would be about the latitude of morocco in the northern hemisphere?
not many people realise that australia would stretch from the sahara desert all the way to florida if it was up this end.

 

[glasshouse]

This was only the second id ever been in. The last one was when i was about 19 and it was 3am and nowere else would let us in so i say in the corner on my own while my friends spent a fortune
Like you say a very sad place

best stag i ever went to was mud wrestling where the barmaids joined in.
nearly died laughing

 

[Farmer Roy]

Scale just makes EVERYTHING bigger: rewards, problems, workload, crises.

Maybe someone should let the Farming Boss know, apparently scale is EVERYTHING

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Quite a contrast between the hemispheres, really. Nothing is easily comparable?

in a literal sense, I am on the Swiss border
in a more realistic sense, we are 10 or 12 degrees closer to the arctic, more like northern ireland for grass growing @glasshouse?
"It has that more coastal feel" is what folk from abroad say about south Otago, while looking for shelter of some description
Southland is different again.

It is however quite a bit brighter, I like it here, although I don't know much different that doesn't bother me a great deal if I never left the south again

it gets you down, but it doesn't let you down very often.
Humans are the weakest link on farms anywhere

 

[cows sh#t me to tears]

Quite a contrast between the hemispheres, really. Nothing is easily comparable?

View attachment 685938 in a literal sense, I am on the Swiss border
in a more realistic sense, we are 10 or 12 degrees closer to the arctic, more like northern ireland for grass growing @glasshouse?
"It has that more coastal feel" is what folk from abroad say about south Otago, while looking for shelter of some description
Southland is different again.

It is however quite a bit brighter, I like it here, although I don't know much different that doesn't bother me a great deal if I never left the south again

it gets you down, but it doesn't let you down very often.
Humans are the weakest link on farms anywhere

That must put gunnedah smack in the middle of the Sahara desert

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

You forgot the big one: lack of adaptability
and large scale investment; which brings sentiment to "business"
If oats suddenly looked more profitable and less risk than livestock, I would be an oats farmer in 3 months!

That's one of the things we like about that land at TeAnau, it's a blank canvas with so many options and in a reasonably reliable rainfall area


Oh, and views to make your heart sing every day

 

[Yale]

Yep.

Several folk whose job it is to understand climate change say it's possible that ice cap melting may "switch off" the mechanism that drives the Gulf Steam.

Perhaps then UK folk will stop belly-aching about a bit of snow as they'll get so much they'll be properly prepared for it




See, I'm already thinking of myself as an expat

Funny you should say about sea temps.

At the moment we have a cooler north east Atlantic and this is why we are having settled dryer weather at the moment.

If there is less energy in the North Atlantic because of lack of current we may end up with a continental bias to the weather rather than maritime.

Cold,dry winters and hot dry summers.

 

[Yale]

Neighbouring farm getting some lime on today.

Not sure if you can see it from yours @hendrebc ,Bacheirig.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Increasing food production through intensive farming will not necessarily end world hunger

By Thin Lei Win

ROME, June 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Increasing food production through intensive farming will not necessarily end world hunger, experts said on Thursday in a finding that flies in the face of established policy.

The United Nations has said countries must double the productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers by 2030 to eliminate hunger and ensure all people have access to food.

"The underlying assumption is that this creates food security on one hand and also improves the livelihoods of smallholders. But we really need to question that," said Adrian Martin, a professor at Britain's University of East Anglia.

One in nine people already do not have enough food and the world population is expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050.

Martin, and a team of international researchers, reviewed 53 studies on intensive farming in low- and middle-income countries and found few benefits for poor farmers and the environment.

Intensive farming increases productivity through chemical fertilisers and pesticides, among other activities.

The group's research, published in Nature Sustainability, found "scant evidence" of success and said such methods "rarely" lead to positive results.

"It surprised me how few examples we found that were really positive," Martin told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.

Poor farmers instead face a "double whammy" - least likely to afford new crops and most likely to suffer from environmental damage, he said.

In Bangladesh, investors and large landowners profit from salt-water shrimp production but poorer farmers suffer from soil salinisation that undermines their rice production, he said.

Rwandan smallholders had to switch to government-regulated crops but could not then afford extras such as fertiliser, the paper said.

Intensive farming might increase production in the short-term but reduce it in the long run because intensification often undermines vital underlying conditions for growth, Martin said.

It also replaces complex local knowledge with "a one-size-fits-all" approach, advocacy group Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa said in a statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"Experience in Africa shows this path leads to poverty, poor health, a degraded environment, high-risk business ventures, loss of biodiversity, and weakened resilience," it added.

The latest research "identifies the importance of seeing the bigger picture," said Phil Stevenson, a professor at the University of Greenwich's Natural Resources Institute in Britain who was not involved in the research.

"(It showed) that it isn't just about producing more food… especially if you don't consider what the fallout of that could be," he said by phone.

Both Martin and Stevenson suggest instead "an ecological intensification of agriculture" that has fewer chemical inputs and relies more on natural processes, such as pollination.

"The approaches we've used up to now, which have largely relied on, for instance, fungicide and pesticides, we've reached a point where they're no longer delivering," said Stevenson.

"We need to change the way we produce food."

(Reporting By Thin Lei Win @thinink, Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)

 

[hendrebc]

Neighbouring farm getting some lime on today.

View attachment 685956

Not sure if you can see it from yours @hendrebc ,Bacheirig.

I recognise the name of the place might have seen it from the top ffriddoedd this morning but im down the yard again now so probably wont see it. Looks pretty steep up there

 

[glasshouse]

Quite a contrast between the hemispheres, really. Nothing is easily comparable?

View attachment 685938 in a literal sense, I am on the Swiss border
in a more realistic sense, we are 10 or 12 degrees closer to the arctic, more like northern ireland for grass growing @glasshouse?
"It has that more coastal feel" is what folk from abroad say about south Otago, while looking for shelter of some description
Southland is different again.

It is however quite a bit brighter, I like it here, although I don't know much different that doesn't bother me a great deal if I never left the south again

it gets you down, but it doesn't let you down very often.
Humans are the weakest link on farms anywhere

Has new zealand moved, my school atlas had the sntipodes in the atlantic streting ftom near cornwall to algeria ?

 

[glasshouse]

That must put gunnedah smack in the middle of the Sahara desert

What are co ordinates for gunneda?

 

[Yale]

What are co ordinates for gunneda?

Try this.

https://what3words.com/

 

[Farmer Roy]

What are co ordinates for gunneda?

About 31 150

 

[Blaithin]

Yes, I had a look after I wrote that
UK is MUCH further north . . .
As you say, it is the warm ocean currents that keep a large part of the UK a green & pleasant land, not a frozen arctic wasteland
Ocean currents are changing as a result of human intervention & climate change
The beast from the east was only an indication of what is to come . . .

Try this for a thought.

Edmonton is on a similar latitude to London. I’m two hours south of Edmonton so I’m closer to the equator than the majority of this forum. Yet I’m the place nobody wants to move to because of winter.

How’s that for ocean current effect

 

[cows sh#t me to tears]

Suppose to be negative 4 here this morning

 

[glasshouse]

ca

Quite a contrast between the hemispheres, really. Nothing is easily comparable?

View attachment 685938 in a literal sense, I am on the Swiss border
in a more realistic sense, we are 10 or 12 degrees closer to the arctic, more like northern ireland for grass growing @glasshouse?
"It has that more coastal feel" is what folk from abroad say about south Otago, while looking for shelter of some description
Southland is different again.

It is however quite a bit brighter, I like it here, although I don't know much different that doesn't bother me a great deal if I never left the south again

it gets you down, but it doesn't let you down very often.
Humans are the weakest link on farms anywhere

nz and italy, a pair of boots!

 

[CornishTone]

Suppose to be negative 4 here this morning

-4 here this morning!:brr:

 

[cows sh#t me to tears]

Had a truck here at 8.30 yesterday morning. He'd come 250kms from West Wyalong. The ice was an inch thick on the mirrors. The intakes were covered in ice, even his lights had ice on the lenses

 

[CornishTone]

This is gonna end up like the drought thread if we’re not careful, except @Blaithin will be saying “You lot don’t know what cold is ya bunch of whinging, whining pansies!”