Februdairy

O'Reilly

Member
Grass sequesters carbon faster when growing, grazing, crapping and trampling builds soil too, which means there is more 'sponge' to capture carbon, as soon as you plough or cultivate soil you start to burn Organic matter which means less sequestration. I would quite like to see a comparison of vegan and 'normal' diet and the carbon footprints.


I like to ponder the statement 'Organic Vegan' occasionally. Organic Agriculture relies on animals, so any crops grown organically relies on animal inputs in one way or another, unless you are really buggering the soil.
The last paragraph sums up a big part of the problem in my mind. We're supposed to stop keeping animals, yet use less chemicals, or ideally be organic, and stop damaging soils when the best method of improving soil is growing grass. Its all contradictory. And then most of the ingredients for vegan meals are imported from places with a high reliance on irrigation or bigger soil degradation issues than us, and in some cases like quinoa pushing up prices for locals so that they can't afford their own food.
If someone can show me how to grow a balanced vegan diet in this country on a variety of soils I'll go along with it, but until then I'm not changing.
 

Agrispeed

Member
Location
Cornwall
The last paragraph sums up a big part of the problem in my mind. We're supposed to stop keeping animals, yet use less chemicals, or ideally be organic, and stop damaging soils when the best method of improving soil is growing grass. Its all contradictory. And then most of the ingredients for vegan meals are imported from places with a high reliance on irrigation or bigger soil degradation issues than us, and in some cases like quinoa pushing up prices for locals so that they can't afford their own food.
If someone can show me how to grow a balanced vegan diet in this country on a variety of soils I'll go along with it, but until then I'm not changing.

The planet and soil biology have evolved to co-exist and thrive with grazing mammals present. To remove them would be to destroy a whole ecosystem.

I seem to remember Joel Salatin (I think) throwing around a statistic that total ruminate numbers have remained relatively stable for millions of years, its the domestication and breed that has changed, There were herds of over 5 million animals on the prairies.
 
The planet and soil biology have evolved to co-exist and thrive with grazing mammals present. To remove them would be to destroy a whole ecosystem.

I seem to remember Joel Salatin (I think) throwing around a statistic that total ruminate numbers have remained relatively stable for millions of years, its the domestication and breed that has changed, There were herds of over 5 million animals on the prairies.
:eek::eek::eek:
 

honeyend

Member
The role of real food in our diet.
This talk show how important animal fats are in our diet. The lady giving it used to be a vegetarion. One of the slides at the start shows the misinformation about fats, so hang on. This was part of a health conference for GP's
 
Last edited:

Dalos

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Shropshire
I think @Chips probably help create the above, so may expand further. but yes I think grass removes more.
Chips is very good at putting across the arguments for UK pasture based dairy, any vegan would struggle to pick holes in his arguments. Just wind him up and let him go on that subject is great fun
 

kfpben

Member
Location
Mid Hampshire
Saw a stat from the Kantar dairy market analysts in the FW saying that UK milk consumption rose last year and cheese was bought by 98.6% of consumers! That is a staggeringly high number.

I don’t think we need to get overly concerned by a few vegan nut jobs just yet.

I’m not a big Twitter user but I’ve tweeted a few times during Februdairy. I haven’t seemed to have riled any militant vegans yet...almost feel like I’m missing out!
 

Col555

Member
Location
Cumbria
Lets all go stand outside hurls abuse about being plant murders , taking food away from innocent animals such as rabbits and deer.

I think we should be in the car park covering their cars with post-it stickers pointing to every dead fly, moth & midge on their car bumpers that they’ve murdered just so they can get to their animal loving veggie convention. Them flies had families and loved ones, why did they deserve to die in such a gruesome way????
Get some tabloids their, and get the hypocritical bunny huggers a taste of their own medicine
Shame it’s not summer time, then there would of been butterflies, bee’s or maybe even a bird or rabbit splattered across their cars.
 

Chips

Member
Location
Shropshire
I think @Chips probably help create the above, so may expand further. but yes I think grass removes more.
No that one wasn't me , this is the one I tend to post , produced by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research .
NIWA Carbon Cycle.jpg

Also like this one based on figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , showing grassland soils in temperate climates contains as much stored Carbon as Forest where as cropland only has one third , given that there is more Carbon in our soil than all of the plants,animals and Atmosphere combined , to plough it up to produce crops instead would cause climate change like never seen before !
IGPCC SOC.png

I sat in an NFU Dairy Enviromental Issues Group meeting this week at Stoneleigh , which had some very interesting presentations from Defra, ADAS and most interestingly of all John Gilliland of Devenish . They had figures to show unmanaged land stores less Carbon than managed , the higher the clay content the higher the carbon storage too along with PH as well , seemingly lime is really important here . Fallow land is by far the worst !
 
Last edited:

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 43.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 34.4%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.7%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

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

  • 1,286
  • 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/
Top