Moonboot on R2 no more livestock or farming!

Mark Hatton

Staff Member
Media
Location
Yorkshire
You see this is the issue: overzealous onlookers who think entire towns and cities can be fed from about 3 black bins worth of woodchip in some niche little dream of Olde Englande. Just some British veg and fruit for the masses. I see. So all the food waste stocks, all the green pasture land across the world, all the scrub and mountains, all that should just be left alone whilst everyone forks out £15 for an apple to feed the kids once a day. I guess the legions of brewers grains, sugar beet pulp, rapemeal, citrus pulp and the like should just be tipped in the sea for all the good it does.

He is a fudging dreamer and a waste of my time.
Yep. pretty good summary, although he touched on it in the chapter on Ian Tolhurst, he's massively overlooked the biggest issue for commercial fruit and veg production, labour, there isn't enough to deal with whats grown now, the utopian idea of lots of little growers, creating lots of labour opportunities shows the naivety in all this, we've come a society of lazy feckers when it comes to hard physical work, very few want it!
 

Mark Hatton

Staff Member
Media
Location
Yorkshire
Just listened to a podcast whilst doing a bit of spraying of his new book promotion.

I feel its all a little lightweight not so much in its research but in his thinking and conclusions. Some of his case studies are peppered with international references which are just not on the agenda in the UK.

He's trashed all of the good things that a reliable meat industry (and its associated industries and benefits) can provide for people both from a nutritional and food security point of view, and gone full bore into saying his mate Tolly (who happens to be in Oxfordshire like George - what a nice coincidence he didn't have to travel too far to find his "solution" ;)) has the worldwide template from which we should extrapolate. Which is going to be woodchip on top of soil and peasant style vegetable production and heritage fruit from his community orchard. Its just a very big leap to accept

What if Tolley didn't actually have the solution George suggests he does? And that is not me being negative about Tolhurst Organic as there is definitely a place for them and all other small organic market gardens, but I'm not sure its a mature example to say "this is the way to do things".
Its a shame he constantly refers to Ian Tolhurst in all of his interviews, who I'm sure is doing a great job, when he has examples of much more appropriate larger scale farming techniques a couple of chapter further in, I suppose commercial zero till isn't as a romantic a proposition for readers as a fruit and veg grower on a few Ha in the south of England.
 
Its a shame he constantly refers to Ian Tolhurst in all of his interviews, who I'm sure is doing a great job, when he has examples of much more appropriate larger scale farming techniques a couple of chapter further in, I suppose commercial zero till isn't as a romantic a proposition for readers as a fruit and veg grower on a few Ha in the south of England.

Maybe his conclusions aren't as strong as all that and is why he only has one example to fit his narrative...
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
His agenda, and he has one, is to rid the world of livestock farming.
Which has been obvious for some time. This is his primary aim and he thinks that the advent of novel protein production on an industrial scale will facilitate this and be beneficial in regards to his re-wilding and tree planting agenda. I do suspect that re-wilding is only an excuse for getting rid of animal farming for him though and he actually couldn’t care less about any animal, not just animals reared for food.

Never mind the food security and safety implications of centralising and proper industrialising of production by a few massive corporations for the population. The ordinary man and woman and child and their welfare is of no more consequence to these people than the farm animals they so despise.
 

Mark Hatton

Staff Member
Media
Location
Yorkshire
Maybe his conclusions aren't as strong as all that and is why he only has one example to fit his narrative...
I also think its very blinkered from his perspective, we all know the work thats been going for years with min till, Direct Drilling, cover crops etc, I'm not sure whether it ignorance or arrogance on his part just how hard farmers are trying change the way they impact the environment, reduce inputs, improve soil structure, all the stuff and more that he mentions, because that wouldn't suit his narrative as you point out, his message seems to be that farmers get up in the morning and decide that they are going to destroy everything thats natural!
 

Swarfmonkey

Member
Location
Hampshire
Just listened to a podcast whilst doing a bit of spraying of his new book promotion.

I feel its all a little lightweight not so much in its research but in his thinking and conclusions. Some of his case studies are peppered with international references which are just not on the agenda in the UK.

He's trashed all of the good things that a reliable meat industry (and its associated industries and benefits) can provide for people both from a nutritional and food security point of view, and gone full bore into saying his mate Tolly (who happens to be in Oxfordshire like George - what a nice coincidence he didn't have to travel too far to find his "solution" ;)) has the worldwide template from which we should extrapolate. Which is going to be woodchip on top of soil and peasant style vegetable production and heritage fruit from his community orchard. Its just a very big leap to accept

What if Tolley didn't actually have the solution George suggests he does? And that is not me being negative about Tolhurst Organic as there is definitely a place for them and all other small organic market gardens, but I'm not sure its a mature example to say "this is the way to do things".

If it wasn't for the free labour, aka "volunteers", that it's reliant upon, plus the large amount of woodchip that gets shipped in, Tolhurst simply wouldn't exist. It'd have gone bust years ago.

Moonbat's books are all the same. He starts with the conclusion that suits his narrative then works backwards, cherry picking what supports his argument and either ignoring or taking out of context anything that does not.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued, many decades ago, that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. You cannot reason with stupid people and stupidity is a sociological more than a psychological problem in humans. The often stubborn stupid individual tends to gather other like-minded stupid people who are impressed by illogical stupidity. This is a highly dangerous issue because in the end and without stern limitation, the lunatics almost certainly will take over the asylum. We can already see this with climate alarmists and their effect on energy policies and the emerging massive issue of energy poverty. Another issue similarly effected by the congregation of stupid people’s power is that of Brexit where stupid people, even those that would demonstrably and certainly be adversely effected from removing ourselves from our biggest markets with most favoured status, which pretty much covers all of us, were persuaded to make ourselves poorer and much inconvenienced.
By far the biggest issue likely to change the face of our beautiful nurtured landscape and rural culture is the stupid people that persuade equally stupid consumers that farming is detrimental to nature and humanity rather than its feeder and saviour and skilled custodians and managers of the lovely landscape which they value so highly but which they are being led blindly to profoundly change for the worse for future generations. Trees and scrub, fertiliser and farm animal-free, basically back to subsistence farming with most products being imported, because the stupid do not want anything actually produced in their backyard after moving into their new house built on a Greenfield site with wide access roads and parking for three cars per household. Certainly not more new houses! Now that is stupidity. You wait ‘till all the badgers start digging their small gardens up at night, the wolf eat their cat and maim one of their several pet dogs and see their attitude about cuddly sweet furry creatures change overnight. ‘Not in my back garden mate!'
 
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued, many decades ago, that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. You cannot reason with stupid people and stupidity is a sociological more than a psychological problem in humans. The often stubborn stupid individual tends to gather other like-minded stupid people who are impressed by illogical stupidity.

Also, stupid people are more likely to out-breed non-stupid people, which is Darwinism but in reverse (n)
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
Also, stupid people are more likely to out-breed non-stupid people, which is Darwinism but in reverse (n)
That’s not quite true. The least intelligent and most religious tend to outbreed sensible people. The categories may overlap but they are not the same.
On that topic, Elon Musk, of whom I am a great admirer, is undoubtedly one of the most intelligent and driven non-stupid but rather volatile people on the planet currently. He has six children. Not only that, he is warning of the dangers of low birthrates in most areas outside Africa which will result in the slowing down of human endeavour and achievement by the end of this Century, when the world population will have passed its peak and be in decline. The thing I’m getting at is that both stupid and rational people are not breeding enough to maintain population numbers and future labour availability/taxpayers over most of the world. He and many others are particularly worried about Japan and China, but particularly Japan in this regard, with a particularly rough patch quite soon as baby-boomers born in the late 50’s and early 60’s become old and dependent on others. Who is going to be there to tend to their needs in old age? Who is going to be able to pay for it? There are relatively few non-stupid reasonably intelligent and able [or otherwise] youngsters born and being born to maintain living standards and wealth.
Just look at the UK currently. Record low unemployment percentage of the population, yet also a significantly declining workforce [less actual people in work]. That’s due to depopulation. This is a massive issue because it limits production and national wealth creation. It may also eventually result in more mechanisation being introduced to increase productivity of course, as long as we have markets for stuff.

Let’s not go further off-topic and down this rabbit hole though.
 
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JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued, many decades ago, that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. You cannot reason with stupid people and stupidity is a sociological more than a psychological problem in humans. The often stubborn stupid individual tends to gather other like-minded stupid people who are impressed by illogical stupidity. This is a highly dangerous issue because in the end and without stern limitation, the lunatics almost certainly will take over the asylum. We can already see this with climate alarmists and their effect on energy policies and the emerging massive issue of energy poverty. Another issue similarly effected by the congregation of stupid people’s power is that of Brexit where stupid people, even those that would demonstrably and certainly be adversely effected from removing ourselves from our biggest markets with most favoured status, which pretty much covers all of us, were persuaded to make ourselves poorer and much inconvenienced.
By far the biggest issue likely to change the face of our beautiful nurtured landscape and rural culture is the stupid people that persuade equally stupid consumers that farming is detrimental to nature and humanity rather than its feeder and saviour and skilled custodians and managers of the lovely landscape which they value so highly but which they are being led blindly to profoundly change for the worse for future generations. Trees and scrub, fertiliser and farm animal-free, basically back to subsistence farming with most products being imported, because the stupid do not want anything actually produced in their backyard after moving into their new house built on a Greenfield site with wide access roads and parking for three cars per household. Certainly not more new houses! Now that is stupidity. You wait ‘till all the badgers start digging their small gardens up at night and see many of their views of cuddly sweet creatures change overnight. ‘Not in my back garden mate!'
2016
 
That’s not quite true. The least intelligent and most religious tend to outbreed sensible people. The categories may overlap but they are not the same.
On that topic, Elon Musk, of whom I am a great admirer, is undoubtedly one of the most intelligent and driven non-stupid but rather volatile people on the planet currently. He has six children. Not only that, he is warning of the dangers of low birthrates in most areas outside Africa which will result in the slowing down of human endeavour and achievement by the end of this Century, when the world population will have passed its peak and be in decline. The thing I’m getting at is that both stupid and rational people are not breeding enough to maintain population numbers and future labour availability/taxpayers over most of the world. He and many others are particularly worried about Japan and China, but particularly Japan in this regard, with a particularly rough patch quite soon as baby-boomers born in the late 50’s and early 60’s become old and dependent on others. Who is going to be there to tend to their needs in old age? Who is going to be able to pay for it? There are relatively few non-stupid reasonably intelligent and able [or otherwise] youngsters born and being born to maintain living standards and wealth.
Just look at the UK currently. Record low unemployment percentage of the population, yet also a significantly declining workforce [less actual people in work]. That’s due to depopulation. This is a massive issue because it limits production and national wealth creation. It may also eventually result in more mechanisation being introduced to increase productivity of course, as long as we have markets for stuff.

Let’s not go further off-topic and down this rabbit hole though.

Who is worried about the UK population?

Need to think bigger than that- a few million Britons are of no consequence. Lets make the least wealthy 4 billion on planet Earth wealthy enough to afford products and then sell them to them.

The world's population will hit 9 billion before it starts to sort itself and the poorest countries become wealthy enough to stop having children. Make people richer and you will see less conflict, less famine and more productivity.
 
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Swarfmonkey

Member
Location
Hampshire
Just an illustration of what happens when stupid people run the asylum, look no further than Russia and, more relevant to agriculture, what has happened to Sri Lanka so soon after and as a result of the banning of chemical fertiliser. Let stupid people, and I put Monbiot way up the list, have their way and disaster inevitably follows.

Sri Lanka got a double dose of government stupidity (all because it listened to some fringe lunatics). Along with going organic-only it also embraced MMT. The latter contributed to what was already a serious food shortage, as it led directly to a crash in the value of the Sri Lankan rupee which made food imports much more expensive.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
Who is worried about the UK population?

Need to think bigger than that- a few million Britons are of no consequence. Lets make the least wealthy 4 billion on planet Earth wealthy enough to afford products and then sell them to them.

The world's population will hit 90 billion before it starts to sort itself and the poorest countries become wealthy enough to stop having children. Make people richer and you will see less conflict, less famine and more productivity.
It’s not as simple as that, because most of the reason it will hit [and peak] at 90 million is not because of excess new births but due to those already here now today getting old.
However, making populations relatively richer and less catholic but educating more women does indeed result in fewer children per woman of childbearing age.
The adjustment to a lower population in developed countries is going to be seriously troublesome though and countries like Japan are likely to see their gross domestic product and living standards decline very substantially. In the UK we can already see this, where migrant labour has left [which has a near identical effect on output] and there is a shortage of labour to actually fill job vacancies, thus limiting output and wealth creation.
 

Muddyroads

Member
NFFN Member
Location
Exeter, Devon
If it wasn't for the free labour, aka "volunteers", that it's reliant upon, plus the large amount of woodchip that gets shipped in, Tolhurst simply wouldn't exist. It'd have gone bust years ago.

Moonbat's books are all the same. He starts with the conclusion that suits his narrative then works backwards, cherry picking what supports his argument and either ignoring or taking out of context anything that does not.
Presumably wood chip is produced without any carbon emissions and it breaks down without producing any co2, methane or nitrous oxide? 🤔
 

Mark Hatton

Staff Member
Media
Location
Yorkshire
Sri Lanka got a double dose of government stupidity (all because it listened to some fringe lunatics). Along with going organic-only it also embraced MMT. The latter contributed to what was already a serious food shortage, as it led directly to a crash in the value of the Sri Lankan rupee which made food imports much more expensive.
He's made a real thing about global food supply chains, how fragile they are, how interlinked they are, how one kink in the chain can cause massive impacts elsewhere, written prior to the Ukraine situation, but is still advocating taking land out of production to re-wilding.
 

Muddyroads

Member
NFFN Member
Location
Exeter, Devon
He's made a real thing about global food supply chains, how fragile they are, how interlinked they are, how one kink in the chain can cause massive impacts elsewhere, written prior to the Ukraine situation, but is still advocating taking land out of production to re-wilding.
So how does ultra processed food fit into his thinking!
 

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

  • 1,285
  • 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/
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