Future of the Sheep Industry

sheepwise

Member
Location
SW Scotland
That is not farming, its mining. If produce exported off the farm is removing more nutrients than the soil is capable of maintaining, it is a vortex of destruction, irrespective of what system they call their management.
Agreed but if you are shifting tonnes of grain,lamb,beef or milk off farm then these nutrients have to be replaced from somewhere. Buying in feed on a livestock farm helps with this.
My father used to say that his father told him,when he was a boy, that it paid to trough feed the sheep in the spring as it was very evident that doing so led to better pasture growth. I never knew my grandfather and we are probably talking about 100 years ago when modern methods of fertilising land were not available. However, i am a great believer that these old boys knew what they were talking about.
 
Agreed but if you are shifting tonnes of grain,lamb,beef or milk off farm then these nutrients have to be replaced from somewhere. Buying in feed on a livestock farm helps with this.
My father used to say that his father told him,when he was a boy, that it paid to trough feed the sheep in the spring as it was very evident that doing so led to better pasture growth. I never knew my grandfather and we are probably talking about 100 years ago when modern methods of fertilising land were not available. However, i am a great believer that these old boys knew what they were talking about.


Maintenance fertiliser is essential and has the highest rate of return of all expenditure. Unfortunately it is often the first item of discretionary expenditure reduced or eliminated in periods of low prices, but it stuffs future years when better prices return. Farming is a long game that needs thought about the future as well as the current season.Hence it pays to know the fertility levels of macro elements (P, K, Mg and S) within a farm so any cut backs are only applied to those areas already topped up.
It is more difficult for organic farms as their fertiliser options are more limiting and costly to achieve the same level of nutrient availability.
A kilo of pasture DM in NZ on offer to sheep and cattle has about a third of its potential value in replacement fertiliser. Expensive stuff, but the cheapest feed of all.
 

digger64

Member
OTE="Global ovine, post: 5974230, member: 493"]Maintenance fertiliser is essential and has the highest rate of return of all expenditure. Unfortunately it is often the first item of discretionary expenditure reduced or eliminated in periods of low prices, but it stuffs future years when better prices return. Farming is a long game that needs thought about the future as well as the current season.Hence it pays to know the fertility levels of macro elements (P, K, Mg and S) within a farm so any cut backs are only applied to those areas already topped up.
It is more difficult for organic farms as their fertiliser options are more limiting and costly to achieve the same level of nutrient availability.
A kilo of pasture DM in NZ on offer to sheep and cattle has about a third of its potential value in replacement fertiliser. Expensive stuff, but the cheapest feed of all.[/QUOTE]

I have been reading your thoughts and experiences with great interest and they seem to make alot of sense . What perplexes me is how uk grassland farmers could use your good advice when the industry appears to wish to go down the route of accepting payments for not applying the very basic inputs of lime , maintaining drainage ,maintenance fert ,seeds etc etc and see this as a way forward , my experience is that you cant have it both ways and with these payments you are working with one arm tied behind your back before you have even started . I am not sure wether this is laziness , habit ,lack of imagination ,lack of confidence in their own product , safeguarding income or just acceptance of the status quo re the powers that be .
 
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OTE="Global ovine, post: 5974230, member: 493"]Maintenance fertiliser is essential and has the highest rate of return of all expenditure. Unfortunately it is often the first item of discretionary expenditure reduced or eliminated in periods of low prices, but it stuffs future years when better prices return. Farming is a long game that needs thought about the future as well as the current season.Hence it pays to know the fertility levels of macro elements (P, K, Mg and S) within a farm so any cut backs are only applied to those areas already topped up.
It is more difficult for organic farms as their fertiliser options are more limiting and costly to achieve the same level of nutrient availability.
A kilo of pasture DM in NZ on offer to sheep and cattle has about a third of its potential value in replacement fertiliser. Expensive stuff, but the cheapest feed of all.

I have been reading your thoughts and experiences with great interest and they seem to make alot of sense . What perplexes me is how uk grassland farmers could use your good advice when the industry appears to wish to go down the route of accepting payments for not applying the very basic inputs of lime , maintaining drainage ,maintenance fert ,seeds etc etc and see this as a way forward , my experience is that you cant have it both ways and with these payments you are working with one arm tied behind your back before you have even started .[/QUOTE]
It was around 2001 the stewardship agreement offerings appeared shedding a whole new light on hill farming in the area I’m in. Only 20 years earlier grants were available for land improvement and lime then came the complete reversal schemes not allowing lime
 

digger64

Member
livestock 1schemes : 5974284 said:
I have been reading your thoughts and experiences with great interest and they seem to make alot of sense . What perplexes me is how uk grassland farmers could use your good advice when the industry appears to wish to go down the route of accepting payments for not applying the very basic inputs of lime , maintaining drainage ,maintenance fert ,seeds etc etc and see this as a way forward , my experience is that you cant have it both ways and with these payments you are working with one arm tied behind your back before you have even started .
It was around 2001 the stewardship agreement offerings appeared shedding a whole new light on hill farming in the area I’m in. Only 20 years earlier grants were available for land improvement and lime then came the complete reversal schemes not allowing lime[/QUOTE]
I have had to tolerate schemes since the mid 90's with no benefit , NGO s and Mr Gove's plan appears to suggest this is the way farm support is going on a much bigger scale . "If you get thrown of the boat into the sea how are you going to swim to the shore if you are in a straight jacket even if your pockets are full of cash ? ""
 
@livestock 1 and @digger64 I also find the situation you find yourself in rather perplexing, especially for farmers who really want to farm, not park keep. However anyone who accepts a payment from wherever must also accept the conditions under which it is given.
What I also find disturbing is the lack of a long term strategy for domestic UK food production. It looks very much (from far off) that UK farming is a political football kicked about by many factions with very self centred agendas. The range of environmental classifications and their limitations has me flummoxed. I am all for environment protection and encouragement to achieve productivity without environmental degradation. From what I see between international policies, is giving farmers freedom to farm and the tools to measure their environmental footprint works well. But farmers need a resilient business to fund the expectations of the general public. If that business cannot make a competitive profit with its capital, as UK farm profitability data strongly indicates across most land uses, the public will have to compensate. Unfortunately such a long history of this has occurred that UK farmers have to march to the tune of the piper. Farming is a long game and therefore cannot march to different pipers playing different tunes every ten minutes.
 
A big part of this is geological location.
If land improvement or fertility maintenance doesn’t pay back any return via livestock then it will go. This is evident in one of the valleys I farm where there is a line of non farmed land which is getting lower
 

digger64

Member
This is all a bit black & white.

Isn't it best to farm most of the land well but accept money for some rewilding areas?

Improving fencing,walls & hedges is good farming & grant aided.

Money to be made from farm cottages, coversions etc.
It is black and white , fencing walls and hedges not really the issue and converting property to "urban type "
Use is another business but is an opportunity made availiable by the destruction of the core rural industry .
For example, giving hill farmers money to destock and not grow their feed means that they put economic pressure on lowland farmers particularly tenants who find their viable, sustainable and producing what the market wants business suddenly doesn't stack up due to inflated costs from competition for inputs .There are many more similar situations nation wide . Is destroying assets for a fast buck really good business for the nation ?
 
It is black and white , fencing walls and hedges not really the issue and converting property to "urban type "
Use is another business but is an opportunity made availiable by the destruction of the core rural industry .
For example, giving hill farmers money to destock and not grow their feed means that they put economic pressure on lowland farmers particularly tenants who find their viable, sustainable and producing what the market wants business suddenly doesn't stack up due to inflated costs from competition for inputs .There are many more similar situations nation wide . Is destroying assets for a fast buck really good business for the nation ?

Sorry I don't agree.

Lowland farmers are not put out of business, competing for inputs. That is a weather problem & less lambs should mean higher prices. Many of those lower ground farmers will also sell fodder.


Grips on the higher moors, have contributed to flooding good arable land around say York. So I see sense in compensating hill farmers to block grips or better still have leaky dams.

The high moors have done well out of subsidies & rightly so because they produce so much more than lambs, Exercise towniew walking, produce drinking water, habitat for wildlife & carbon capture.

I'm with you when it comes to predators, lynx,wolk, eagles whatever.

I also think the grants for drystone walls have been a wonderful investment of public money & a good boundary is what makes land mangeable or not with livestock. Fencing is a very high cost on extensive areas, walls are so much more helping with shelter & soil erosion.
 

digger64

Member
Sorry I don't agree.

Lowland farmers are not put out of business, competing for inputs. That is a weather problem & less lambs should mean higher prices. Many of those lower ground farmers will also sell fodder.


Grips on the higher moors, have contributed to flooding good arable land around say York. So I see sense in compensating hill farmers to block grips or better still have leaky dams.

The high moors have done well out of subsidies & rightly so because they produce so much more than lambs, Exercise towniew walking, produce drinking water, habitat for wildlife & carbon capture.

I'm with you when it comes to predators, lynx,wolk, eagles whatever.

I also think the grants for drystone walls have been a wonderful investment of public money & a good boundary is what makes land mangeable or not with livestock. Fencing is a very high cost on extensive areas, walls are so much more helping with shelter & soil erosion.
How is it a weather problem ? - this year 2018 yes
did I mention predators ?
I already agreed with you about walls etc .leisure values etc
My point was giving subsidy to destock means those animals move somewhere else usually someone else's stock is already there they don't just disappear ,
Giving subsidy to destroy productive land that could be grazed or used for winter feed means it has to come from somewhere else this means these farms are less resilient and have to enter the market place someone will have to give up or go without eventually when the price becomes unsustainable ( yes this would advantage
the seller in the short term and that is where the sub will end up ) .
Less lambs - sometimes but I doubt it
Higher costs - guaranteed for all
demand for store and breeding stock reduced .
I guess eventually those farms will become scrub or just summer pasture and you will get all the property development opportunities you crave as no one will live there .
 

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

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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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