Is the answer to UK livestock sustainability

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Cattle and sheep raised on pasture that's unsuitable for sustainable cultivation are already sustainable, more so if their grazing management is fully adaptive.

They are increasingly likely to be thrown under the bus though to buy a short window of opportunity (about 10 years) to de-carbonise society which will almost certainly be wasted.

Their pasture will then be planted with trees which will take far too long to sequester enough carbon to recover even that which is released in the process of planting them, let alone make a difference to the atmospheric carbon excess from fossil fuel burning.

I hope I'm proved wrong..... 😞
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Oats and beans and barley grow.

edit: Anyway, we don't feed soya, we feed soya meal. Nothing wrong our side of the farm gate. 'the answer to UK livestock sustainable' is relocalization in the food chain.
You're still buying a soya product. The grower and deforester both benefit from your purchase.

We should grow more peas and beans, use less carbon intensive n fert and export less feed barley.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Brewers grains, Trafford Gold, citrus pulp, bread, potatoes, soya meal.
I though you were all in favour of a local food system???
This is another issue that the "get rid of all cattle and sheep" crowd conveniently overlook: all of those are byproducts of a human food (or drink) product which are given an economic value by feeding them to livestock. What would happen to them without livestock? AD? What would their value be then? What impact would that have on the human food product they are derived from?
 
Last edited:

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
This is another issue that the "get rid of all cattle and sheep" crowd conveniently overlook: all of those are byproducts of a human food (or drink) product which are given an economic value by feeding them to livestock. What would happen to them without livestock? AD? What would that their value be then? What impact would that have on the human food product they are derived from?
Worst case I suppose they would be spread back on the fields.
 

Yale

Member
Livestock Farmer
Worst case I suppose they would be spread back on the fields.
Which would use as much fossil fuels as feeding to livestock so that element is neutral.

Its like saying driving around in a car in winter with the heating on full blast and the windows open is OK because you’re not getting warm from it.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

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

  • 1,286
  • 1
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/
Top