how long before we're all organic?

Agrispeed

Member
Location
Cornwall

Oh for f**ksake. Why am I even bothering...

I am organic and I don not see a need for production to drop. I currently produce per hectare, more grass than is grown on average on conventional farms. Except I capture 3kg of carbon per L of milk I produce too. Oh, and my Cost of production is close to half the average. :whistle:

But we've known for years that organic farming has a higher carbon footprint than sound conventional farming.

No. Don't be silly.
 

bobk

Member
Location
stafford
Oh for fudgesake. Why am I even bothering...

I am organic and I don not see a need for production to drop. I currently produce per hectare, more grass than is grown on average on conventional farms. Except I capture 3kg of carbon per L of milk I produce too. Oh, and my Cost of production is close to half the average. :whistle:



No. Don't be silly.


How much is carbon / ton ?
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Oh for fudgesake. Why am I even bothering...

I am organic and I don not see a need for production to drop. I currently produce per hectare, more grass than is grown on average on conventional farms. Except I capture 3kg of carbon per L of milk I produce too. Oh, and my Cost of production is close to half the average. :whistle:



No. Don't be silly.
And does your wheat / barley / potato crop match conventional yields ?
 

rob1

Member
Location
wiltshire
I used to do some mowing on an organic farm, yes he had good yields BUT he ploughed upland every three years for new clover leys and apart from the clover ryegrass and docks there was nothing, no herbs no different grasses, he used a lot of slurry to make the grass grow but then so do many conventional farms, compare him to one of my other customers who had mostly perm pasture with a large range of grasses etc but on a low input system, far more bio diversity but not classed as organic. He went organic and for a couple of years his yelds were good but then when years of fertility was used up yields fell off a cliff and he went back to his old system.
f**king idiots are taking over the asylum, thank God im nearing retirement and apart from a bit of grain everything I sell is direct to the final buyer
 

2tractors

Member
Location
Cornwall
I am not sure about all going organic it's more about how much food UK will produce in the future, currently 53% of food is eaten away from the home. I suspect the vast majority is fast food with no clear indication of the provenance of the raw materials and this will only increase with free trade deals.

Yes a few high end restaurants will seek UK high provenance raw materials but it won't be that high a % and not all these will be seeking organic.
 

bitwrx

Member
Oh for fudgesake. Why am I even bothering...

I am organic and I don not see a need for production to drop. I currently produce per hectare, more grass than is grown on average on conventional farms. Except I capture 3kg of carbon per L of milk I produce too. Oh, and my Cost of production is close to half the average.
3kg/l is higher than I was expecting. Are the official numbers out yet?
 

Agrispeed

Member
Location
Cornwall
And does your wheat / barley / potato crop match conventional yields ?

Don't grow any arable crops, apart from some arable silage as part of a reseeding program. We used to get reasonable crops of triticale and oats, but quality was always disappointing, being in an area with 1200mm of rain, and the same rainfall in August as December and I don't like the idea of growing cereals to feed to animals.

After reading Game Brown's book I would like to grow cereals again as part of a rotation with cover crops for our beef/youngstock, but it would have to be in a companion cropping/nurse crop scenario as I want to capture carbon, rather than produce it, and I'm not a massive fan of bare fields, Currently I am buying in 65t+ of straw a year, which does make growing my own quite appealing.

3kg/l is higher than I was expecting. Are the official numbers out yet?

Not yet - There is a a meeting with a group of farmers here tomorrow. I am hoping I can get some preliminary figures from the sciencey people who are coming. The main project with zone mapping etc ends in a year or so, which should provide some better data, especially on what areas and management captures carbon best.

The 3kg/L will drop in the next audit (march-march) as we have laid quite a lot of concrete and increased output significantly. I expect it to end up at around 1.5kg-2kg, but that is mainly due to being more productive than expected. I have some ideas in the pipeline that might make us a bit better, but it's just stuff I'm playing with so I don't know what will happen.
 
Didn’t the whole world used to be organic?
Somewhere along the way the population exceeded the ability of traditionally organic farmers to provide for them - and world wars happened which sparked the need to produce more at home - which led to increased use of ‘bag muck’ and wider adoption of chemical sprays.
And now we are where we are as regards the wealthy segments of society demanding (?) organic for all and the loony left and greens suggesting that everyone should have an interest in their own bit of land to grow their own lettuces and lentils.
All I can say is that there are going to be an awful lot of hungry people in the world.
Incidentally, Glyphosate is an invaluable product used sensibly, as a tool to grow an RR crop not more than one year in four or for weed control at the beginning or end of the season in DD systems. Only the terminally naive would recommend its use more frequently than that.
 

bitwrx

Member
Not yet - There is a a meeting with a group of farmers here tomorrow. I am hoping I can get some preliminary figures from the sciencey people who are coming. The main project with zone mapping etc ends in a year or so, which should provide some better data, especially on what areas and management captures carbon best.

The 3kg/L will drop in the next audit (march-march) as we have laid quite a lot of concrete and increased output significantly. I expect it to end up at around 1.5kg-2kg, but that is mainly due to being more productive than expected. I have some ideas in the pipeline that might make us a bit better, but it's just stuff I'm playing with so I don't know what will happen.
Thanks for the update. Sounds exciting.

Do you know what your CO2 equivalent balance is? Are you completely negating the effect of all that methane the girls burp out?
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
And does your wheat / barley / potato crop match conventional yields ?
I’m organic, @Poorbuthappy came around the farm for a visit back in August.
Extremely minut amounts of sheep muck are spread on the farm, 1/3 of the organic farm is under HLS equivalent so can’t plough/reseed/muck.
Selling a similar number of lambs than when we were conventional. Prices are a tad better organic at the moment but last week sold 60odd conventionally due to how they’d grade and weigh as the organic grid is very small.
SB last year did 2.7t/acre and 6.5bales/acre of straw. SOats were disappointing, under-sown like always and yielded 1.3t/acre. The 10 year average on undersown Oats would be nearer 1.7t/acre.

Organic doesn’t fit many farms, I wouldn’t want to have to do it with a lazy neighbour who didn’t dig their thistles etc. I spend roughly 1 man hour/acre digging thistles by hand, that’s without topping a few times a year.

It’s all well these environmentalists/lobbyists/vegans shouting from the rooftops we all need to be ........ but when the country starts starving people will start swinging!
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
:facepalm:


The real question is, how long can land degeneration continue before something goes bang :)

You can be regenerative degenerative organic or non-organic , holistic altruistic or sopsolistic - I really can't see you "all" being anything, as there is an obvious surplus of farmers and only so much money to go around.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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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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