I can't believe what I just read! BBC

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
In a good way........

Brothers Mark and John Snell, in their 30s, used to have a dairy herd, now they rear turkeys and pigs for Pipers Farm. Mark says most would like to farm regeneratively if they could, but warns there isn't "a hope in hell" of feeding the world on it.

I disagree with the statement that regenerative agriculture can't feed the world, so that fellow is saying that a system that destroys the soil (and the UN thinks will only give 60 more harvests before the topsoil has been lost) is a better system to feed the world than an agricultural system then cares for and improves the top soil? The comments I have highlighted really annoy me.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
The plough has been the primary cultivation tool throughout the world for millennia. The BBC seem to think it a modern invention!!
well, they do live in never never land.
Have kept stock for him in the past nice guy . 20 years ago when went organic and stayed a traditional farm doing most of those things he mentioned .Nice to be ahead for once .
sons ideal would be 120 cows, growing everything on farm, not a bad idea.
 

delilah

Member
From their website, the bit that matters:

Every week Pipers Farm delivers around 9,000 orders of sustainably produced food to homes around the UK.

Selling direct. The article doesn't talk about that, which is a shame because I would imagine that it is that which makes it work. The article does have this line shoehorned in among the stuff about the farming system.

Companies such as Nestle, McCain, Unilever, PepsiCo and Danone are publicly backing the approach.

And there is the rub. There are 10 companies - those above are in there - processing the bulk of the food sold by the cartel.
How does the need for scale, for a minimum number of suppliers, for each food item to ideally come from one farm, fit into the view of a farming future presented in that article ?
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Everyone conveniently forgets all the chicken produced in big sheds.
How do farms that are going all no till and regen etc, but still have a big chicken shed, explain their reasoning , or does it matter.
Regen Ag is not Organic where there are rules about having animals in buildings, rather it is farming with the following rules

* Diversity
* Livestock integration
* Minimise soil disturbance
* Maintain Living Roots
* Protect Soil Surface

All to look after the soil
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
The plough has been the primary cultivation tool throughout the world for millennia. The BBC seem to think it a modern invention!!
There was a sea change with the invention of the steel plough and tractors, and just because something has been done for millennia does not mean it is necessarily a good idea, we have been destroying soil for millennia and creating deserts, people like Alan Savory are just looking at how we have been doing things and not blindly following dogma and creating new systems that look after soil as well as produce food, rather than exploit soil to produce food.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
that's the good thing about regen, there are no set rules, it's all about working your farm, the way it likes to farmed, and every farm is different. I much prefer the term, intelligent farming, once you have started, things begin to work again, quite quickly sometimes. One thing is very obvious, you cannot beat nature, and you cannot turn the clock, back in time, yet you can learn from the past systems, mix and match, with modern 'tools', and let nature help you, to help it.
I dread the thought of a rule book, or even having it classed as a subsidy 'type' of farming. It's not about working to a rule book, with 'jobsworths' running around with clip boards, ticking boxes.
As l see it, it's jumping off the hamster wheel, and getting along a path, that provides a living, with less costs, a great amount of personal satisfaction, and the farmers dream, leaving it for the next generation, in a better place, than you found it. It's just another fact of life, that we cannot continue drowning the place, with more and more chemicals.
 
Brothers Mark and John Snell, in their 30s, used to have a dairy herd, now they rear turkeys and pigs for Pipers Farm. Mark says most would like to farm regeneratively if they could, but warns there isn't "a hope in hell" of feeding the world on it.

I disagree with the statement that regenerative agriculture can't feed the world, so that fellow is saying that a system that destroys the soil (and the UN thinks will only give 60 more harvests before the topsoil has been lost) is a better system to feed the world than an agricultural system then cares for and improves the top soil? The comments I have highlighted really annoy me.

It can feed the world if 75% of the worlds population dies.
Without fertiliser inputs crop yields will plumit.
Manures will work where they are available, but most farm nutrients go to cities and very little human sh!t is used in developed countries. Without the return of those nutrients we can not continue to keep our cur current yields without fertiliser.
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
That's the they farmed their dairy herd, robots inside 365, we have purchased Fodder beet off them, which i think they still do grow.
It's just another fact of life, that we cannot continue drowning the place, with more and more chemicals.

How do they manage the regen farming whilst growing as much beet as they do?

Ploughing and spraying would be fundamental in the growing process.
That beet then tends to goto intensive housed herds.
 

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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