Need Advice, Indian Farm land, noobs to farming!

[infiniteConciously]

Some interesting views in here, talking about the expansion of agriculture...

 

[Treg]

Some interesting views in here, talking about the expansion of agriculture...

Brilliant video, balanced views

 

[Treg]

Brilliant video, balanced views

Although it did say 70% of soya is grown for livestock which I'm pretty sure isn't right as Soya is grown for it's oil which is used in human foods & the waste , which probably is 70%, is then fed to livestock , this is being said in most reports & does need correcting.
Also it said 70% of land is used for livestock production , again but of a half truth as crops that don't meet the grade for human consumption are fed to livestock, so instead of being wasted they are used for food for livestock which in turn feed us. Also waste food produces more methane than cattle so in theory if waste food is fed to cattle there is a cut in methane emissions
Another thing that was missed out is livestock produce 60% of the world's fertilisers...Naturally
So the piece was well balanced but still missing some of the truths that need to be told.

 

[infiniteConciously]

Brilliant video, balanced views

Deffo an insightful thought provoking piece! Need to watch with a few pinches of salt I think. As everything is the fault of farming apparently. but deffo thought provoking!

We hear loads about biodiversity, carbon, soil health, plant/crop health etc but we don't really hear that much about monocrop or even multicrop farming.

I think the transition from large scale tractors to smaller human sized alternatives that are AI powered with less human oversight provide us in agriculture a chance to rethink how we farm and what impacts we have on nature.

For example, when we think about soil health, the industry is considering things from the perspective of monocrop farming... BUT if they were to adjust the thinking slightly from a seed sowing perspective... maybe they need to tinker with the soil differently!! anyway... just a couple of thoughts out loud.

 

[infiniteConciously]

Although it did say 70% of soya is grown for livestock which I'm pretty sure isn't right as Soya is grown for it's oil which is used in human foods & the waste , which probably is 70%, is then fed to livestock , this is being said in most reports & does need correcting.
Also it said 70% of land is used for livestock production , again but of a half truth as crops that don't meet the grade for human consumption are fed to livestock, so instead of being wasted they are used for food for livestock which in turn feed us. Also waste food produces more methane than cattle so in theory if waste food is fed to cattle there is a cut in methane emissions
Another thing that was missed out is livestock produce 60% of the world's fertilisers...Naturally
So the piece was well balanced but still missing some of the truths that need to be told.

Yep - totally agree... they forgot to add about the rampant building of housing everywhere and the impact that has had on world as well. But yeah pinches of saltwater needed but deffo something to think about.

Its soo strange how we are digitising EVERYTHING... us humans are def a weird bunch if you ask me!

 

[Treg]

Deffo an insightful thought provoking piece! Need to watch with a few pinches of salt I think. As everything is the fault of farming apparently. but deffo thought provoking!

We hear loads about biodiversity, carbon, soil health, plant/crop health etc but we don't really hear that much about monocrop or even multicrop farming.

I think the transition from large scale tractors to smaller human sized alternatives that are AI powered with less human oversight provide us in agriculture to rethink how we farm and impacts we have on nature.

For example, when we think about soil health, the industry is considering things from the perspective of monocrop farming... BUT if they were to adjust the thinking slightly from a seed sowing perspective... maybe they need to tinker with the soil differently!! anyway... just a couple of thoughts out loud.

I think your right & the opposite effect probably did the damage ( moving from horses/ small tractors to large tractors & machinery ).
So actually yes transferring back to smaller robots may bring its advantages.
I often picked up in the wizard of oz ( early 1950s film ) that the crops were grown in mixed rows ( 3 or 4 crops grown in one field in individual rows) , recently learnt this was a native American practice & that science is now catching up & saying that is the way we should grow things but machinery now has to catch up the science as its been designed to plant one crop at a time.

 

[Treg]

Yep - totally agree... they forgot to add about the rampant building of housing everywhere and the impact that has had on world as well. But yeah pinches of saltwater needed but deffo something to think about.

Its soo strange how we are digitising EVERYTHING... us humans are def a weird bunch if you ask me!

Yes a river down here has been polluted and their blaming the amout of run off from the large amounts of housing developments along the river.
They gave now banned further building near the river.

 

[infiniteConciously]

Yep,

I think your right & the opposite effect probably did the damage ( moving from horses/ small tractors to large tractors & machinery ).
So actually yes transferring back to smaller robots may bring its advantages.
I often picked up in the wizard of oz ( early 1950s film ) that the crops were grown in mixed rows ( 3 or 4 crops grown in one field in individual rows) , recently learnt this was a native American practice & that science is now catching up & saying that is the way we should grow things but machinery now has to catch up the science as its been designed to plant one crop at a time.

I've never noticed that before! Will have to watch it with the kids and point it out... lol

Yes a river down here has been polluted and their blaming the amout of run off from the large amounts of housing developments along the river.
They gave now banned further building near the river.

A video I saved from a few years back.

farm bot is a good example of how ai can farm differently to monocrop farming... the roots on the soil are affected differently as well... and the impact this has on biodiversity should be considered also. Instead of just mammothly feeding one bunch of species, we can let nature do what she does best and put the food chain to competition for food! anyway.. thats enough of all that! lol

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Oh and I love the way everything starts with....

1) the current system is broke
2) give me all of your the monies!!! (sic)

 

[primmiemoo]

Any help to anyone? I wonder if the misinformation about soya is because of noticing big numbers, but not noticing their context. Processing soya is to extract that small amount of oil from it.

 

[Treg]

Brilliant video, I've seen agroforestry on a small scale that hadn't worked & couldn't see what they were trying to achieve but it was being done in a mature wood sobI guess probably to dark?
There is someone in Devon that is multilayer farmering you've now sparked my interest to look into it further

Any help to anyone? I wonder if the misinformation about soya is because of noticing big numbers, but not noticing their context. Processing soya is to extract that small amount of oil from it.

Wow look how much beef & dairy use! And yet those 2 livestock industries get 99% of the blame

 

[Exfarmer]

Brilliant video, I've seen agroforestry on a small scale that hadn't worked & couldn't see what they were trying to achieve but it was being done in a mature wood sobI guess probably to dark?
There is someone in Devon that is multilayer farmering you've now sparked my interest to look into it further

Wow look how much beef & dairy use! And yet those 2 livestock industries get 99% of the blame

Sadly you misunderstand the figures
Those figure are 44 and 35% of the 6% of whole soya which goes for food use.
7% of whole soya goes direct for animal feed
Of the rest, the oil is 19% of which 99% goes for human use and fuel
Of the remaining cake which is 81% of 87% , 99% goes for animal use less than 1%of which is for beef production
82% for pig and poultry ( approximately 60% of the whole crop)
A further 2% of cake goes into dairy

 

[primmiemoo]

Sadly you misunderstand the figures
Those figure are 44 and 35% of the 6% of whole soya which goes for food use.
7% of whole soya goes direct for animal feed
Of the rest, the oil is 19% of which 99% goes for human use and fuel
Of the remaining cake which is 81% of 87% , 99% goes for animal use less than 1%of which is for beef production
82% for pig and poultry ( approximately 60% of the whole crop)
A further 2% of cake goes into dairy

Buzz! You are a statistician, and I claim my £5

 

[Treg]

Sadly you misunderstand the figures
Those figure are 44 and 35% of the 6% of whole soya which goes for food use.
7% of whole soya goes direct for animal feed
Of the rest, the oil is 19% of which 99% goes for human use and fuel
Of the remaining cake which is 81% of 87% , 99% goes for animal use less than 1%of which is for beef production
82% for pig and poultry ( approximately 60% of the whole crop)
A further 2% of cake goes into dairy

Yes that's the way I read it & yet Beef mainly getting the blame for Soya being grown. ( it was a sarcastic Wow )
What would be interesting would be the value/ return on the various percentages .

 

[Crofter64]

Sadly you misunderstand the figures
Those figure are 44 and 35% of the 6% of whole soya which goes for food use.
7% of whole soya goes direct for animal feed
Of the rest, the oil is 19% of which 99% goes for human use and fuel
Of the remaining cake which is 81% of 87% , 99% goes for animal use less than 1%of which is for beef production
82% for pig and poultry ( approximately 60% of the whole crop)
A further 2% of cake goes into dairy

Shouldn’t the cake(81% of which goes to feed animals) be rather a bi-product of oil production?Is it not made of the ‘ left-overs’?

 

[Exfarmer]

Shouldn’t the cake(81% of which goes to feed animals) be rather a bi-product of oil production?Is it not made of the ‘ left-overs’?

Yes and another factor is the moisture in the unprocessed beans will all be left in the residue.
So if you start with 100 tonnes of beans at 15% moisture
This will produce
19 tonnes of oil
And actually only 66 tones of cake plus the water fraction

 

[infiniteConciously]

Cheers guys really informative information for an IT nutter like me with not much hands on farming experience. Love the experience you guys bring to this!

Its really insightful how everything, literally everything farming does, is getting recorded and digitised.... and then someone can misinterpret the overall numbers and produce a piece of work like that video that doesn't quite reflect things as accurately as they could be.

I think this is where blockchain and smart contracts will really make things interesting. I'm super looking forward to merging data, blockchain, farming produce. And geeking out on the numbers.

Irrigation, Wells and Droughts?
So I need to ask some questions on water supply in UK farming, how does it work when the skies don't comply and there's a drought??? Do you guys just get all your water from the water companies? How much water can you store and how long for etc? Anyone still operating traditional wells? I know UK irrigation systems are top draw but just curious as to what happens when there's a drought.

So if there's a drought back where I am from, your right up the creek, erm without any water! Due to locality and weather system, we farm based on the monsoon season.

Wells like the below are what we use, most of which have been hand dug. We've been using drip irrigation now for quite a while. We currently have one well... approx diameter 12-15ft, and goes 45ft down. Anyway, its about 70years old and collapsing inwards (slightly), these wells can be quite dangerous too... as they are usually only a couple of breeze blocks above walking height. So if we get it sorted - there's lots to think about in terms of the traditional way of doing things and potential better options. Where we don't farm the land ourselves and let relatives manage things, we have to be quite open to listening to how they would like do things also.

If anyone has any advise, suggestive reading/resources - please share!! I love storing data in this thread for future reference

Stubble burning...
Anyone have any views on stubble burning and the affect it would have on top soil? Anyone know of any interesting research or papers worth a read?

Air quality: Delhi records worst November air in years

Residents of the Indian capital didn't breathe "good" air even for one day in November, official data says.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Exfarmer]

in the UK all public water supply is potable and very expensive to use for irrigation so except for watering small gardens etc. is normally drawn from a private bore.
these tend to be about 18 inches diameter and 2-400 feet deep. Most traditional wells in the UK are too shallow with too low a yield to be much use although we did have one which had been built in the 1800's by forced labour to supply a workhouse which did have the necessary yield but it was unusual
There is some drawn from rivers but due to the risk to the environment of drawing too much that is tightly regulated. Even bore water requires a licence and proof that you are not drawing more than the local aquifers can supply. We are lucky across most of our Vegetable growing areas that we are overlying limestone which normally has aquifers running underneath.
irrigation then tends to be run into large lagoons / reservoirs / or Tanks As I think they are referred to, in India.
These can often be several hundred million litres in size. Water is then pumped to rain guns on self retracting hose reels. An average gun will deliver about 50,000 litres an hour at 10 bar through a 25mm nozzle covering about 72metres .
This will cover about 8 acres in a 12 hour period.
Flood irrigation as I saw practised in India, is not practised at all in this country
A typical Irrigator in the UK

Another this time from New Zealand

and a wintry scene from the reservoir I built only quite a small one holding about 45 million litres

 

[Treg]

I'm all livestock so no irrigation here, build up grazing in front the cows so I have grazing in front of them for July / August.
Mains water here plus have a reserve of a couple of days in large troughs if water goes off.
The farm we had before was very wet & only had spring water , basically a pipe pushed back in to the slope , water ran out the pipe in to a sunken tank , then pumped to a small concrete reservoir which supplied the farm....never ran dry & we even supplied Neighbours in a couple of dry summers. That farm was unusual in that it had a in door well as well, we never used it though. Lots of farms have bore holes which would be a safer way of doing it for you but you would need to find someone with drilling equipment
I think to get a better idea maybe ask in cropping or Agricultural matters threads, you will get loads of different answers, especially about stubble burning.

 

[infiniteConciously]

That’s brilliant lads, thanks.
Bit of reading and digesting to do here!!!!!! Lol

We have a few bores on the land and 4 wells in total that spread across adajacent farms which are run by my uncles.

Need to understand laws over there on aquifers/if any! And compare to laws over here….which will be interesting!
Thanks chaps. I’ll do some
Digging and post an update soon!

 

[infiniteConciously]

Ok so looking into aquifers is scaring the life out off me, lol. Needs an entire thread/forum website of its own.

No Idea where to start, no laws in India as far as I can tell. Plus I'm in a monsoon region over there. so bit different to uk, still trying to read/learn about them every day at the moment and then ask annoying questions that no one has asked of the cosmos recently given . just cos im weird like that.

Anyway, here's a really interesting video on natural multi layering simulating over a 1000 years in a forest. I Love this Chanel and their thirst for knowledge/sharing it and respect for those in pursuit of knowledge. Anyway, tallyhoe... back soon!