Farmers blamed for pollution on a "huge scale"

[Henarar]

It really doesn't matter how many one carries. The important figure is 5 gallons per mile.

that's quite a lot its true

All of you on here that jet of on holiday should be ashamed of yourselves, no need for it at all

 

[milkloss]

that's quite a lot its true

All of you on here that jet of on holiday should be ashamed of yourselves, no need for it at all

Beggar that! I'm off to find some sun in a couple of weeks and when I get back I'm gonna dig the plough out

 

[Clive]

Often it is the ONLY possible use of land in food production terms. Meat production per se is not bad for the environment, I would argue that SOME production systems are, and that applies to both plant and animal production systems. If your looking for the least environmentally damaging farming system for your ground Clive I would think you would be hard pressed to find one better than an extensive 100% grass fed lamb or beef system.
It won't be the most profitable though....
The holier than thou finger pointing does need to stop though, it leaves a very sour taste and is more than a little hypocritical.

look I'm a farmer juts like you - I damage the environment while farming, its unavoidable if people want food to eat. The only difference between us seems to be that I am prepared to accept that inconvenient truth and not make a fool of myself arguing against established science

I am not "holier than thou" I do the best I can to minimise the impact of my farming as thats what customers want and is the right thing to do. Despite that its still a damaging process in lots of ways.

If profit and personal preference was not a consideration and the world was farmed in the way that minimised environmental damage then I'm afraid it would probably wouldn't not involve livestock / eat production and it certainly wouldn't involve farming any marginal land. As a farmer and great lover of meat that is certainly not the world I want to see but them is the facts ! and no point pretending otherwise

I also fly on planes and drive cars, I accept that also has environmental consequence, land juts like farming it would be silly to present otherwise

I'm afraid that fundamentally speaking mankind is just not good for the environment, we just have to accept that and get as long out of the planet as we can or find solutions that reverse the damage we do

 

[Clive]

Permanent grassland is a better carbon sink than trees and has a low environmental cost to grow because it just grows so just as well have a few cooows wandering about the place while I am doing the environment such a good turn

as long as you can stop them breathing and farting yes

 

[Henarar]

as long as you can stop them breathing and farting yes

don't need to. animals have been doing that for millennia just cos these get eaten in the end makes no odds, I see no problem as I said before

 

[Clive]

don't need to. animals have been doing that for millennia just cos these get eaten in the end makes no odds, I see no problem as I said before

our desire to eat them means there are a lot more of them - how many cows would you keep for fun ?

BTW I have no desire to be a veggie ! just demonstrating how pointless it is to claim farming doesn't damage the environment at climate level, we of course do massive amounts to improve our immediate local environments however as farmers

 

[Steevo]

our desire to eat them means there are a lot more of them - how many cows would you keep for fun ?

BTW I have no desire to be a veggie ! just demonstrating how pointless it is to claim farming doesn't damage the environment at climate level, we of course do massive amounts to improve our immediate local environments however as farmers

Good comment that. Farmers are probably more carbon neutral than most humans/industries.

 

[ollie989898]

Livestock can utilise large volumes of products which would otherwise be incinerated or landfilled. This was done since doomsday when every man jack kept pigs and chickens that were fed left overs.

Livestock can also survive where no wheat plant, maize plant, potato plant or banana plant can. They can live on the barest of means, clinging to a Scottish hillside so wet and minging you would never dare try to grow anything else there.

So it is not a simple livestock vs arable argument.

It is correct that you use a heck of a lot of calories, water and crude oil to fatten a beast if you do it using a corn based system. This is not environmentally friendly but it is done on a huge scale because humans like meat/eggs and dairy and pay a premium for it, and also because the world is very good at producing a huge volume of cheap basic carbohydrates in the form of feed grains that the world otherwise would not be able to consume.

Of course animals also produce a lot of valuable by-product themselves besides meat. The entire chain relies on by products from other steps in the process.

I do not think people ploughing the odd field to reseed it or put maize in or whatever are killing the planet, the carbon will be recycled anyway later in the growing season.

Much is also made of the loss of top soil into the sea. Humans of course participate in practices that encourage this. But it is true that nature herself does plenty of this- watch the coastlines of many countries shift and move as it is eroded and deposited somewhere else.

Long term it is obvious to me that a lot less cultivations will be done in the main-stream arable areas, the cost of it will only increase, and the mould board plough is not used widely across the worlds bread baskets because it is slow and leaves the soil in a very precarious condition, or is otherwise simply not required. It will have it's place, but the adoption of very low tillage or even direct drilling systems to my mind is a no-brainer, it will be interesting to see how much physical improvement the adopters can get, but the jury is out on whether it is suddenly going to create some kind of ultimate carbon sink in our soils. Some of them are rich in organic matter anyway, others struggle to retain it unless it is kept covered by a perennial crop of some kind.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

its still not the most efficient use of land by a VERY long chalk, an acre of meat production can generate way less Kcal of food than an acre of crop, plants absorb CO2 yet livestock crete it (along with methane etc) - I hate to say it but a veggie diet is far more environmentally friendly !

just because facts don't suit our agenda and preferences as farmers its pointless trying to prove we are right ...............when we are not !


of course we could all deny that climate change due to man is a myth .............. but that's another thread !

so, I farm in the wet uplands of west wales, five foot four inches of rain in a normal year, between 650 and 1050 feet above sea level, how am I going to produce food if not animals? would it be more environmentally friendly for me to try to grow wheat?

 

[Clive]

so, I farm in the wet uplands of west wales, five foot four inches of rain in a normal year, between 650 and 1050 feet above sea level, how am I going to produce food if not animals? would it be more environmentally friendly for me to try to grow wheat?

If we are considering what's best for the environment globally then not all land should be farmed, anything marginal (my own land included)

It would be more environmentally friendly if we grew trees and left food production to land that can produce big yields - there is plenty good land in the world

Trouble is of course we all (quite understandably) put our own needs ahead of the environment

 

[ollie989898]

so, I farm in the wet uplands of west wales, five foot four inches of rain in a normal year, between 650 and 1050 feet above sea level, how am I going to produce food if not animals? would it be more environmentally friendly for me to try to grow wheat?

Of course not. In reality the environmental footprint of what you do is likely to be very low, even if you were buying in a lot of feed, using bagged fertiliser or even growing various forage crops- anything you do is invariably offset by the huge amount of carbon the rest of your farm is busily absorbing over time.

The crux of it is simply this; arable farming, at least in Europe, relies heavily on livestock production to make it worthwhile. As a source of carbohydrates, wheat is a poor second compared to potatoes, and this was recognised probably 500 years ago because an acre of spuds produced a hell of a lot more product than an acre of wheat. Likewise, corn and rice found favour in their respective regions because of the climatic conditions- the yields of rice in Asia also would raise eyebrows because parts of it will grow 20 tonne/hectare with very little input...

Therefore if no pig, cattle or poultry production existed, the vast amounts of low quality feed grains being produced virtually worldwide would have no home and sure as eggs are eggs not every tonne produced by the arable world would ever find it's way into bread- the UK doesn't eat that much of it!

You can also consider the cultivation of sugar beet and OSR in Europe- both of which begin to look very dubious if you compare them to their competitor crops abroad.

Where livestock farming really scores is in the ability to convert low end by products and just about any kind of biomass into a product that is highly valued. Ruminants were designed from the boots up to survive on virtually any old scrub, fermentation isn't hugely efficient but it was never designed to be, it's not like the world is going to run out of grassland any time soon.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Good comment that. Farmers are probably more carbon neutral than most humans/industries.

Some are even carbon positive... largely offsetting the cost to said environment.

I suggest there is far more carbon being sequestered on my property than burnt in all my vehicles - if 1% SOM increase means it can hold an extra 60,000 gallons of water per acre- than that's a lot of carbon going into the soil per year.
And the goal is less than one engine hour per acre per year, most of that will be the tractor.
Half an hour per day over winter and stuff all else.
Certainly enough to negate methane production from the ruminants IMO.
There aren't that many more ruminants on the globe than any time in history, really, just much less diverse - like most other things that mankind "improves".

 

[Farmer Roy]

err, there is a reason I made a conscious business decision to try & only grow products for direct human consumption, not low quality feed grains . . .
but that has also been discussed elsewhere

 

[Farmer Roy]

talking of numbers of ruminants on the earth . . .
are we forgetting the VAST grazing herds of North America & Africa before they were virtually wiped out ?

as for methane production, comparisons between grazing animals eating grasses, herbs, roughage, shrubs etc, to one housed in intensive livestock situations eating high energy grain based diets ?

 

[Farmer Roy]

on my 100 % arable operation, Id be lucky to get 1 engine hour to HECTARE, let alone acre. ( of farm machinery hours that is )
On an annual basis, more fuel goes through my road vehicles than the farm itself uses . . .

 

[Farmer Roy]

I know some people who converted their whole arable operation to mob grazing, or high density grazing moving mobs every day. They use the cattle to manage their pastures, to trample excess growth, to spread plant seeds etc etc. Their only machine & only fuel use on farm, is a Honda quad. I am talking several thousand acres here to . .

 

[Farmer Roy]

Livestock can utilise large volumes of products which would otherwise be incinerated or landfilled. This was done since doomsday when every man jack kept pigs and chickens that were fed left overs.

Livestock can also survive where no wheat plant, maize plant, potato plant or banana plant can. They can live on the barest of means, clinging to a Scottish hillside so wet and minging you would never dare try to grow anything else there.

So it is not a simple livestock vs arable argument.

It is correct that you use a heck of a lot of calories, water and crude oil to fatten a beast if you do it using a corn based system. This is not environmentally friendly but it is done on a huge scale because humans like meat/eggs and dairy and pay a premium for it, and also because the world is very good at producing a huge volume of cheap basic carbohydrates in the form of feed grains that the world otherwise would not be able to consume.

Of course animals also produce a lot of valuable by-product themselves besides meat. The entire chain relies on by products from other steps in the process.

I do not think people ploughing the odd field to reseed it or put maize in or whatever are killing the planet, the carbon will be recycled anyway later in the growing season.

Much is also made of the loss of top soil into the sea. Humans of course participate in practices that encourage this. But it is true that nature herself does plenty of this- watch the coastlines of many countries shift and move as it is eroded and deposited somewhere else.

Long term it is obvious to me that a lot less cultivations will be done in the main-stream arable areas, the cost of it will only increase, and the mould board plough is not used widely across the worlds bread baskets because it is slow and leaves the soil in a very precarious condition, or is otherwise simply not required. It will have it's place, but the adoption of very low tillage or even direct drilling systems to my mind is a no-brainer, it will be interesting to see how much physical improvement the adopters can get, but the jury is out on whether it is suddenly going to create some kind of ultimate carbon sink in our soils. Some of them are rich in organic matter anyway, others struggle to retain it unless it is kept covered by a perennial crop of some kind.

in this country we were early adopters of min / zero till cropping systems.
it is obvious that this system is not a magic bullet or the ultimate cropping system, but a stepping stone to the next one . . .
it might be the best system we have, but it still has its shortcomings. The reliance on herbicides is one of the greatyest

 

[Kiwi Pete]

on my 100 % arable operation, Id be lucky to get 1 engine hour to HECTARE, let alone acre. ( of farm machinery hours that is )
On an annual basis, more fuel goes through my road vehicles than the farm itself uses . . .

That's the end goal for me too, one hour per hectare, all for silage production and the feeding of. I did more in a couple of weeks contract seeding for the neighbour than a whole year on my farm. It is what it is, and I still have ryegrass here... I will need to
rid myself of that weed before I hang up the keys.
Begs the question, how much can you cover in an hour with your big no-till gear?

 

[Farmer Roy]

12 m x 10km/hr = 12ha / hr, at 3 - 5 l/ha fuel use when planting

harvesting / picking is the greatest fuel use
cotton is the highest fuel & engine hour crop due to requirements of mulching & pupae destruction,

spray rigs ( contractor ) 36m x 15 - 20km = 50 - 70 ha / hr

 

[Henarar]

There aren't that many more ruminants on the globe than any time in history, really, just much less diverse - like most other things that mankind "improves".

this is what I was trying to get across

those trying to save the planet work so hard at it they need a few breaks from it each year so they jet off and forget about the planet
when these selfish idiots stop doing this I may just may go and ask my girls if they would mind not farting as much