How do you define an “intensive” dairy?

[Bald Rick]

Hearing the climate bods telling the world that we need to eat less meat and that intensive systems are bad for Climate Change, I set to wondering how you define intensive especially in light of a growing world population

Discuss

 

[lazy farmer]

Any more than a stocking rate of a cow per acre is mining carbon from the soil let alone the amount of fert used.

 

[lazy farmer]

Plus I guess the amount land under the plough and the amount of food fed whether pitted of concentrate that comes from ploughed land.

 

[Will Blackburn]

I think non forage feed rate would be a decent guide.

 

[spin cycle]

cows that never go out or see straw?

 

[dowcow]

Food miles on the cows ration. Diesel and fertiliser inputs per litre of milk.

 

[More to life]

More than a house cow, were all intensive kiwi style is every bit as intensive as 365 days housed let’s not pretend otherwise.

 

[More to life]

In reaction to the bbc today there report was disgusting. Fossil fuel is the problem everyone knows this, farm bashing is pissing in the wind.

 

[Beef farmer]

In reaction to the bbc today there report was disgusting. Fossil fuel is the problem everyone knows this, farm bashing is pissing in the wind.

No, the problem is 7bn people. 3bn would be sustainable

 

[Grassman247]

More than a house cow, were all intensive kiwi style is every bit as intensive as 365 days housed let’s not pretend otherwise.

Rubbish! Grazing cows need the acres around them for the system to work, the OP not so long ago had a thread about buying wagons and ferrying food from one end of the island to the other. The food miles on that is unreal.

 

[More to life]

No, the problem is 7bn people. 3bn would be sustainable

Genocide has thankfully gone out of fashion.

 

[More to life]

Rubbish! Grazing cows need the acres around them for the system to work, the OP not so long ago had a thread about buying wagons and ferrying food from one end of the island to the other. The food miles on that is unreal.

It’s all about Methane and Cambridge University did a detailed study that concluded low input had the highest carbon footprint.

 

[Beef farmer]

It’s all about Methane and Cambridge University did a detailed study that concluded low input had the highest carbon footprint.

Link?

 

[More to life]

Link?

What me do a link try googling

 

[pappuller]

No, the problem is 7bn people. 3bn would be sustainable

A little guy with a tache had a go in the 40s, didn't end well [emoji23]

 

[Agrispeed]

What me do a link try googling

Only if you conveniently forget about cultivations and soils sequester carbon.

Livestock farming, off grass actually is really the only farming that is not only sustainable, but has the ability to actually reduce atmospheric carbon. Some arable units can manage it but it is more difficult and I doubt that any horticultural farming can be carbon negative.

 

[I thats it]

I can't see a way of producing the food people like to eat in a way that "the experts" call environmentally sustainable or carbon neutral without pushing up prices. With an ever increasing population society has to realise at some point lots more people are likely to starve than already are!

 

[pappuller]

Genocide has thankfully gone out of fashion.

Thankfully so, but every so often some little dictator unfortunately has a go, bit like self feed, always someone trying it.............

 

[More to life]

Only if you conveniently forget about cultivations and soils sequester carbon.

Livestock farming, off grass actually is really the only farming that is not only sustainable, but has the ability to actually reduce atmospheric carbon. Some arable units can manage it but it is more difficult and I doubt that any horticultural farming can be carbon negative.

I’m fairly confident the clever boffins thought of that. It comes down to maximum output from current farm land and let’s not rip up anymore virgin land.

 

[Grassman247]

I’m fairly confident the clever boffins thought of that. It comes down to maximum output from current farm land and let’s not rip up anymore virgin land.

Let’s face it most cows will probably end up in sheds eating the foods we don’t eat and all land will be used to fuel digesters or bio fuel