Livestock farmers- views on climate and ruminants

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Are you suggesting that ruminant livestock IS responsible for climate change?
No in itself no.

One cause of more co2 in the atmosphere is human activity, including farming, but only because it allows other specialists to burn carbon (like airline pilots or mums on the school run).

Some farm systems emit more carbon than others and some absorb more.

I don't go along with the claim that all ruminant systems are good. Overgrazing causes desertification which leads to soil degradation. And feeding animals crops which aren't grass is probably harmful.

Which is why I suspect we might not all be singing from the same hymnsheet.
 

Vader

Member
Mixed Farmer
No in itself no.

One cause of more co2 in the atmosphere is human activity, including farming, but only because it allows other specialists to burn carbon (like airline pilots or mums on the school run).

Some farm systems emit more carbon than others and some absorb more.

I don't go along with the claim that all ruminant systems are good. Overgrazing causes desertification which leads to soil degradation. And feeding animals crops which aren't grass is probably harmful.

Which is why I suspect we might not all be singing from the same hymnsheet.
Pretty sure farming carried on as normal during lockdown.
Planes and car use nearly stopped.
Seem to remember air being cleaner....
 
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Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Are you suggesting that ruminant livestock IS responsible for climate change?
I think climate change is caused by:-
*fossil fuel use
*carbon being liberated from soil (ploughing, Nitrogen fertliser use, possibly overgrazing)
*disrupting the natural water cycles.

some of the above is caused by agriculture or it's input supply. The agricultural issues are generally being looked at by regen ag, so agriculture is not in the clear, but the issues from ag are predominantly from plant based mono cultures. Cutting down tree cover is also implicated, so again some ag issues there, but blindly covering everywhere with trees does nothing accept make politicians/public feel good while actually making things worse, cutting down existing forests another matter entirely.

my two penneth worth
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
I don't go along with the claim that all ruminant systems are good. Overgrazing causes desertification which leads to soil degradation.
I think you have over simplified things with that answer. It is not overgrazing per say, rather, set stocking which leads to overgrazing and undergrazing at the same time, while selecting for unproductive species, and at the same time allowing undergrazed grass to die and senescence then inhibit further growth of fresh grass, which leads to lack of soil cover and erosion. It is grazing in a way that does not build soil organic matter that is the problem, and actually what the world needs is far more ruminants.
 

Vader

Member
Mixed Farmer
Pretty sure farming carried on as normal during lockdown.
Planes and car use nearly stopped.
Seem to remember air being cleaner....
And Arctic ice up to end of January this year had one of its best winter recoveries in both extent and volume this century as we lost the brown insulating ring of pollution from the edge of earths atmosphere which allowed more heat to radiate to space above the Arctic after almost two years of very reduced aircraft movement due to the pandemic.
It happened on a much smaller scale just after 9/11 when photographs taken from satellites showed the brown ring at the edge of earths atmosphere turn white within a matter of days.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I think you have over simplified things with that answer. It is not overgrazing per say, rather, set stocking which leads to overgrazing and undergrazing at the same time, while selecting for unproductive species, and at the same time allowing undergrazed grass to die and senescence then inhibit further growth of fresh grass, which leads to lack of soil cover and erosion. It is grazing in a way that does not build soil organic matter that is the problem, and actually what the world needs is far more ruminants.

Semantics. I am on board that some agronomical practices may be better than others as regards carbon, but the fact is that ruminant grazing, however it is done, is NOT the climate change bogeyman.

Surely we are all ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’ on that one, once you holistic guys stop your point scoring?🤐
 

Muddyroads

Member
NFFN Member
Location
Exeter, Devon
The trouble with this survey and other similar things is that it has already been accepted that livestock are the cause for climate change without proof. Question why that is before asking farmers for their opinion on a global lie.
The Guardian this morning reports that the global oil business has turned a 2.3 billion pound profit every day for the last 50 years. It wouldn’t have taken much of this to buy a lot of influence and deflect blame.
 

DrDunc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Dunsyre
The Guardian this morning reports that the global oil business has turned a 2.3 billion pound profit every day for the last 50 years. It wouldn’t have taken much of this to buy a lot of influence and deflect blame.
You mean they were making £2.3 billion a day 50 years ago, and their profits haven't kept up with inflation?

Don't believe that for a second 🤣

You got the nail on the head with your post about livestock numbers not changing since the start of the industrial revolution, but use of the hundreds of million years old plankton has 👍

What's also changed since the start of the industrial revolution is the size of the human population:

Billions more people living in concrete jungles needing fed while now doing feck all but flying for foreign holidays

Suspect they have a fair bit more environmental impact than cow farts🤔
 

Vader

Member
Mixed Farmer
Humans breath out co2.
How much more co2 is being produced just by breathing by extra humans arriving daily..?

Btw, saw on bbc science site that co2 from beathing does not add to the climate problem as its a natural process that gets soaked up by plants

But seems cows methane cycle is not natural...
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Humans breath out co2.
How much more co2 is being produced just by breathing by extra humans arriving daily..?

Btw, saw on bbc science site that co2 from beathing does not add to the climate problem as its a natural process that gets soaked up by plants

But seems cows methane cycle is not natural...
but don't people eat plants! (just having a joke by the way!)
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Semantics. I am on board that some agronomical practices may be better than others as regards carbon, but the fact is that ruminant grazing, however it is done, is NOT the climate change bogeyman.

Surely we are all ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’ on that one, once you holistic guys stop your point scoring?🤐
Unfortunately there's a big world of desertification out there and it's mainly but not entirely caused by overgrazing. Persistently putting the same sheep or goats on the same bit of dry round a village leads to bare ground. This bare ground is then unable to absorb water and so floods and erodes eventually or blows off in the wind.

Once you have completed your desertification programme. Sit back and watch the sand radiate heat from the sun which could have been fuelling photosynthesis.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Humans breath out co2.
How much more co2 is being produced just by breathing by extra humans arriving daily..?

Btw, saw on bbc science site that co2 from beathing does not add to the climate problem as its a natural process that gets soaked up by plants

But seems cows methane cycle is not natural...
cows don't give off methane, plants do.
if we got rid of all the plants then we would get rid of this problem :unsure:
 

puppet

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
sw scotland
Humans breath out co2.
How much more co2 is being produced just by breathing by extra humans arriving daily..?
Co2 in at 0.04% and out at 5% equivalent to 1kg per day for each of us. We have an extra 5 billion people since 1900. So 5 billion extra kg of co2 per day.
Btw, saw on bbc science site that co2 from beathing does not add to the climate problem as its a natural process that gets soaked up by plants
As it does for any ruminant
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Unfortunately there's a big world of desertification out there and it's mainly but not entirely caused by overgrazing. Persistently putting the same sheep or goats on the same bit of dry round a village leads to bare ground. This bare ground is then unable to absorb water and so floods and erodes eventually or blows off in the wind.

Once you have completed your desertification programme. Sit back and watch the sand radiate heat from the sun which could have been fuelling photosynthesis.

More point scoring? It’s not ruminant livestock that causes overgrazing, but the way they’re being managed near your village.
I say again, ruminant livestock are not the cause of climate change.

I can’t say that I’ve seen overgrazing that’s led to ‘desertification’, resulting in sand that blows away, but then I’ve never farmed near sand. More usually the land becomes colonised by short, dense, relatively unproductive, grasses and small leaved wild white clover. The grazing management changes the dominant species in the same way that long resting periods do, although of course, those short unproductive grasses don’t pose a wildfire risk.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 7 3.7%

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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