"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..

[Fenwick]

We had a certain AA scheme contract come through the post this year and I haven’t signed up. For exactly the reasons mentioned by Pete and others above. Started out as a nice bonus on top. Then the bonus split to certain production targets.

Now its very much aiming For the intensive ‘efficiency’ model, using various metrics pulling the bonus back and asking for all your information. Very much a not in my interest scheme now.

very interested in organics though. Basically doing it now anyway, would require a audit but thats not the end of the world…..

So yeah, stay in the scheme if it suits you and leave when it doesn't. Makes sense.

The organic audit I have always found really easy. It makes financial sense for me too. But if there was no organic certification tomorrow, I would continue farming without the bottled poisons and artificial fert anyway.

A lot of people are questioning the future of organics over here right now.

 

[Henarar]

The organic audit I have always found really easy. It makes financial sense for me too. But if there was no organic certification tomorrow, I would continue farming without the bottled poisons and artificial fert anyway.

Lots of non organic farmers farm without fert and spray anyway

 

[Bowland Bob]

We had a certain AA scheme contract come through the post this year and I haven’t signed up. For exactly the reasons mentioned by Pete and others above. Started out as a nice bonus on top. Then the bonus split to certain production targets.

Now its very much aiming For the intensive ‘efficiency’ model, using various metrics pulling the bonus back and asking for all your information. Very much a not in my interest scheme now.

very interested in organics though. Basically doing it now anyway, would require a audit but thats not the end of the world…..

Same here. Quite a premium on organic beef especially.

 

[Jonny B88]

So yeah, stay in the scheme if it suits you and leave when it doesn't. Makes sense.

The organic audit I have always found really easy. It makes financial sense for me too. But if there was no organic certification tomorrow, I would continue farming without the bottled poisons and artificial fert anyway.

A lot of people are questioning the future of organics over here right now.

As in questioning if there is a market or the conventional organic systems failing?

 

[Jonny B88]

Lots of non organic farmers farm without fert and spray anyway

Yea well thats why it interests me to get a little more, why wouldn’t you enter it? Too much hassle? Can’t be bothered with the audit? I wasn’t too bothered until a guy who is farming similar to me said I should go for it??

 

[som farmer]

We had a certain AA scheme contract come through the post this year and I haven’t signed up. For exactly the reasons mentioned by Pete and others above. Started out as a nice bonus on top. Then the bonus split to certain production targets.

Now its very much aiming For the intensive ‘efficiency’ model, using various metrics pulling the bonus back and asking for all your information. Very much a not in my interest scheme now.

very interested in organics though. Basically doing it now anyway, would require a audit but thats not the end of the world…..

know a few gone into schemes like that, most have come out.

the money is there, if you meet every standard, and nothing goes 'wrong', disease is a big risk.

As in questioning if there is a market or the conventional organic systems failing?

if the cost of living crisis, which l think is going to be more the normal, now. Organic is an obvious item to cut out.

You have the dedicated customer, which will continue, but the trendy life style ones could well drop out. The question is, how many are the dedicated, and how many are just the trendy.

 

[Fenwick]

As in questioning if there is a market or the conventional organic systems failing?

questioning the market.

know a few gone into schemes like that, most have come out.

the money is there, if you meet every standard, and nothing goes 'wrong', disease is a big risk.

if the cost of living crisis, which l think is going to be more the normal, now. Organic is an obvious item to cut out.

You have the dedicated customer, which will continue, but the trendy life style ones could well drop out. The question is, how many are the dedicated, and how many are just the trendy.

I think you've answered that pretty well!

Of course, if you are already 'organic' but without the certification. then you may as well be certified. you can sell into both the organic and convenional markets. the only extra cots being certification.

I have sold into the conventional market in 2023 when the price went up. Now thing have calmed down I sell into the organic market which tends to be a bit more stable.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I think you would need to work it out as per any other financially motivated venture - do the sums over a ten year period and assume a worst case scenario

If you had 1000 cattle then that's 10,000 head or 3000 tonnes of meat over 10 years, say a 15cpk bonus, $45,000 extra per annum in your hand.

Seems a no-brainer .. ? At $45 per hour that pays 1000 hours of my time and I reckon I can do the paperwork in 10 hours.

Question time.. why isn't everyone doing this?

Now say everyone jumps in and there is no premium, it's the new normal way of beefing beefs. Now we have to put our herd down a road because the calves need clean grazing and the roads been graded, 30% get footrot from hoof damage and we can't help them with antibiotics because the rules say so.

Of the 300 affected cows half improve, half do not and are wasted. Can't be trucked off the farm so euthanised on farm, $300,000 down the pan. 150 calves that don't make spec by wintertime sold store or fed supplement, organic of course because the rules say so.

Now we've got a loss equal to or greater than the calculated benefits over ten years, in one year.

Now, I fully appreciate that in european systems organic certification bodies allow dispensations and derogations and you can use conventional antibiotics and medicines and it doesn't affect organic status of the herd or farm, which is lovely for everyone involved and most especially the livestock.

But that is what you would need to consider if you were doing it down here, it's far too idealistic before we even entertain cultivating being a righter way than no-till because "chemicals=bad"

Great choice for hobbyists and extensive farms that would be unprofitable without the bonuses on offer, using the above wasteage scenario but scaled down to 30 cows, a lightning strike could take out as many and insurance should cover that.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

But here there would be an MPI enquiry into why this was allowed to happen, and the fines would be enough to end your farming aspirations.

"Shoot, shovel, shush" only works to an extent in NZ despite what the tourists have to say when they get home

 

[som farmer]

2 kinds of organic farmers, those that do it because they believe in it, and them that do it for the money only.

we have 2 farms in the parish that are organic, one dedicated one not.
and perhaps us, a halfway house!

to be very honest, how both of them work, l cannot really 'approve'. l might have approved 5/6 yrs ago, not now. Both of them are continually ploughing, some fields x2 a year, if green manure. But l do approve of the clover one grows !

l am pretty passionate about looking after the soil, 'seen the light', some might say. But l cannot reconcile all that ploughing, just to damaging to the soil and its micro biology. Perhaps l am wrong

there is another organic farmer local, certified, who has never ploughed a field, or used fert/sprays, in my knowledge, so is the other end of the spectrum ! And l wouldn't want/able to live off his grassland. The old boys would call it 'weedage', rather than herbage, some less polite would refer to it as pure rubbish.

again they don't rely on the farm totally, they make farmhouse organic cider - they have property income as well.

so two dedicated, one for the money, the latter sold up last year, when the 'price' got high enough, they couldn't say no. And probably before they were caught using a large amount of glyphosate

so two dedicated, each at the opposite ends of the system. Whatever happens to organic price, one won't change, he has no need to. The other, if the milk price differential shrinks, will be, openly admitted.

brings us back to the halfway house, cropping without much ploughing, fert/sprays allowed, but vastly reduced, and drugs for the cattle when they need them - never will understand not fluking cattle, grazing damper areas.

who is the most resilient, or sustainable, in a rapidly changing time ?

l don't think anybody can really say, truthfully, what the market will do in the next 12 to 24 months. Politicians are running about like headless chicken. Talk of war, climate change, and escalating costs of living.

and we rely on headless chicken, to avoid it all, that's the most scariest part of it. The only positive, every body needs to eat, and to eat, they need farmers.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Comes back to what I have always said

I don’t want to be tied into any one system or a strict set of inflexible rules.

soil health is a huge priority, but so is trying to stay profitable

I like having a range of options in my toolbox to choose from, but every decision is basically governed by my golden rule of “doing the least amount of harm” . . .

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Surely by this stage we can be smarter than all that ..?

Not sure.. some refuse to examine their beliefs, hopefully life can be sustained on pine-needles and cognitive dissonance

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Comes back to what I have always said

I don’t want to be tied into any one system or a strict set of inflexible rules.

soil health is a huge priority, but so is trying to stay profitable

I like having a range of options in my toolbox to choose from, but every decision is basically governed by my golden rule of “doing the least amount of harm” . . .

Me neither !

But you're just jealous LMFAO you'd take a 'subsidy' if there was one 🫠

 

[Kiwi Pete]

My subsidy is that my brain makes the ranch big enough that I get to play farmers over the wintertime, and make a few bob on the side.

Have 1300 or so arriving next week; 1000 calves and a few hundred lighter cows to finish. That'll test things, once rain arrives we will be back on holiday but I don't know if the dam will last until that day

We shall see

 

[Henarar]

Yea well thats why it interests me to get a little more, why wouldn’t you enter it? Too much hassle? Can’t be bothered with the audit? I wasn’t too bothered until a guy who is farming similar to me said I should go for it??

We sell store cattle, a few years ago organic wouldnt make any more money in market now they do seem to make a few more quid, not sure if the few extra quid is worth the hassle and rules.

 

[Fenwick]

Here is a translation from th FB post of our two day reunion here in france.

For those who may be interested.

Hello everyone!
Last week saw the first-ever national meeting on regenerative grazing.
And what a day it was!
Sixteen of us gathered in Vendée, from all over France, to share, present and discuss strategies and techniques for all things regenerative grazing.
A group of farmers, scientists and holistic practitioners.

Day one
After introducing our various farms, we launched into the day's presentations.
Grazing planning, calculations and application.
Holistic pest management in relation to biodiversity.
Regenerative overseeding, innovations and trials.
Multi-species and multi-production management in a high value-added symbiotic system.
Regenerative grazing - yes, it's possible with dairy cows!
The holistic approach. - It's all about planning!
A scientific approach to regeneration, an introduction - the possibilities are endless!

Day Two
Visit to the holistic GAEC farm.
With a presentation of their regenerative grazing system. Planning, trials, land survey, and field analysis of meadows, attempts and suggestions linking cause and effect.

Two fantastic days. Full of motivation and inspiration. I know I came home full of ideas and energy. The possibilities are immense!
The most amazing thing about these two days is that they were the result of farmers finding a common need to work together towards a common goal. Without the support of a third party. Everything, from start to finish, was organized by the members themselves. Organization, lodging, meals, topics, speeches, invitations. It was an extraordinary feeling of enormous optimism. We focused on the possibilities within our sphere of control, not on the negativity outside.
A big thank you to everyone who attended, and a special thank you to @Sebastien Champion who came up with the original idea, and took on the role of overseeing the smooth running of the two days.
Thanks to our speakers @Lennart Klassen @Anthony Born @JULIEN Darridou, @Ton Kodden, @Jonathan Costes @Vincent Pereyre @Cedric Cabrol,
Thanks also to @Yoann Moreau and @Vincent Remaud who graciously hosted us.
I haven't listed the names of everyone who attended. They can do so in the comments if they wish.

Will there be a second edition? The resounding answer was yes!

We're also hoping to find a way for more people to get involved in some way - it's a work in progress. So if you're interested, get in touch! (most of us don't bite)
The name of this group? "The regenerative pasturers". It's simple and effective, just like our farms. Oh Yeah!

 

[som farmer]

We sell store cattle, a few years ago organic wouldnt make any more money in market now they do seem to make a few more quid, not sure if the few extra quid is worth the hassle and rules.

been to mkt, first time for a year. The price of store cattle, of all sizes, is amazing, or stunning. I cannot see there can be much difference between organic and normal.

if you do it for the money, you really have to cost it out, right down to not worming, extra expense on very expensive feed, does the growth rate suffer ? But the important bit, does the difference cover the extra costs.

because at the end of the day, unless we have another income stream, we have to earn enough to live on. That's not saying it cannot be done, but you have to get everything right, and l always think nobody is that lucky. And you have a rule book to boot.

l am being told abattoirs are offering strong future contracts, don't know how much -yet, but being told substantial. So cattle must be short, if they were not, they wouldn't be offering strong forward contracts, l distrust the meat trade.

those higher prices will reflect on organic price, which in turn is calculated by demand, will demand shrink further, if price increases

and farming used to be so simple ............. One positive, if cattle/lamb are short, FART an abbreviated letters for Farm Assurance/ Red Tractor, can increasingly go feck itself.

lamb price has rocketed, sons mate had £176/head, and Sedge topped £180 l think, and a cull ewe topped £305.

Makes me wonder what the hells going on, especially as we are told food inflation has been curbed. Not so sure what we do now, looking forward, a roller coaster of a ride. My gut feeling, is to push the beef cattle numbers up. Traditionally calf price drops, as the spring dairies flood the mkt, worthwhile buying those smaller calves, and aim for the mince mkt rather than prime.

@Farmer Roy is perfectly correct, we are not tied into any contract/system, and in these variable times, we have loads of options, instead of just one.

@Fenwick lucky to have a like minded group to bounce ideas about, we are learning by experience, and unlike some of the meat contracts, eg AA schemes, we can afford to make a few mistakes, along the way, not sure you can on some schemes.

 

[Henarar]

if you do it for the money, you really have to cost it out, right down to not worming, extra expense on very expensive feed, does the growth rate suffer ? But the important bit, does the difference cover the extra costs.

We don't feed hard feed and we haven't wormed the cattle for a couple years FEC test was fine

 

[som farmer]

We don't feed hard feed and we haven't wormed the cattle for a couple years FEC test was fine

fluke ?
a lot of cattle are wormed regularly, on a just in case basis, ours includedbut we ought to do worm counts.

first year grazers, we use cydectin, which seems to sort the husk out, and worms them for the season. We have suffered with husk outbreaks over the years, despite treating with dictol.

l will say, since we started using cydectin, we appear to get better growth rates from those young cattle, as has our neighbour, he just 'tried' it, like we did, and both of us were impressed, and used it every year since, 15/16yrs ?

we do tend to hard feed, calves first year 2kg, 2nd year 0.5kg, the latter perhaps more a management tool, lots of footpaths, gates on our away ground, if they are inadvertently let out, not deliberately, they are really quiet, and rattle a bag, they will follow, and our quiet with people walking.

1st year, keeps them growing, as well as docility. Keeps the local walkers happy, and as they ring and/or help if out, keeping them happy is quite important !

but l do think we use to many routine medicines. The big worry is resistance.

 

[Jonny B88]

Here is a translation from th FB post of our two day reunion here in france.

For those who may be interested.

Hello everyone!
Last week saw the first-ever national meeting on regenerative grazing.
And what a day it was!
Sixteen of us gathered in Vendée, from all over France, to share, present and discuss strategies and techniques for all things regenerative grazing.
A group of farmers, scientists and holistic practitioners.

Day one
After introducing our various farms, we launched into the day's presentations.
Grazing planning, calculations and application.
Holistic pest management in relation to biodiversity.
Regenerative overseeding, innovations and trials.
Multi-species and multi-production management in a high value-added symbiotic system.
Regenerative grazing - yes, it's possible with dairy cows!
The holistic approach. - It's all about planning!
A scientific approach to regeneration, an introduction - the possibilities are endless!

Day Two
Visit to the holistic GAEC farm.
With a presentation of their regenerative grazing system. Planning, trials, land survey, and field analysis of meadows, attempts and suggestions linking cause and effect.

Two fantastic days. Full of motivation and inspiration. I know I came home full of ideas and energy. The possibilities are immense!
The most amazing thing about these two days is that they were the result of farmers finding a common need to work together towards a common goal. Without the support of a third party. Everything, from start to finish, was organized by the members themselves. Organization, lodging, meals, topics, speeches, invitations. It was an extraordinary feeling of enormous optimism. We focused on the possibilities within our sphere of control, not on the negativity outside.
A big thank you to everyone who attended, and a special thank you to @Sebastien Champion who came up with the original idea, and took on the role of overseeing the smooth running of the two days.
Thanks to our speakers @Lennart Klassen @Anthony Born @JULIEN Darridou, @Ton Kodden, @Jonathan Costes @Vincent Pereyre @Cedric Cabrol,
Thanks also to @Yoann Moreau and @Vincent Remaud who graciously hosted us.
I haven't listed the names of everyone who attended. They can do so in the comments if they wish.

Will there be a second edition? The resounding answer was yes!

We're also hoping to find a way for more people to get involved in some way - it's a work in progress. So if you're interested, get in touch! (most of us don't bite)
The name of this group? "The regenerative pasturers". It's simple and effective, just like our farms. Oh Yeah!

Whereabouts in the vendee did you all meet up? We holiday near st gilles croix de ville and it would be interesting to see something in the vendee other than maize and sandy paddocks with hay in them!!

that sounds like a bloody awesome group well done to all