No-tillers should be paid for their services to society

[DRC]

Cover crops are nothing new, just being re-marketed to large , all arable farms who forgot what good a rotation including catch crops for livestock did.
I have always grown stubble turnips or some form of fodder crop , sown after winter barley and grazed off before spring sowing.
Maybe the small mixed farms should be the ones payed more, rather than the barley barons who ripped out all the hedges in the 70s and 80s and depleted their soils due to monoculture.
Don't believe your re- inventing the wheel!

 

[Feldspar]

Cover crops are nothing new, just being re-marketed to large , all arable farms who forgot what good a rotation including catch crops for livestock did.
I have always grown stubble turnips or some form of fodder crop , sown after winter barley and grazed off before spring sowing.
Maybe the small mixed farms should be the ones payed more, rather than the barley barons who ripped out all the hedges in the 70s and 80s and depleted their soils due to monoculture.
Don't believe your re- inventing the wheel!

As I said I don't know very much about livestock and can only admit personal culpability - extractive (rather than sustainable or regenerative) barley (well wheat mainly) barons as charged.

You're right it would seem wrong to pay the farms, like ours, who have behaved in an unsustainable manner and not reward those who have been responsible all along. Maybe Chewdles payment for SOM %s above a certain level would work in this respect. You would get paid immediately and I would have an incentive to behave better in the hope of getting paid eventually once my soils repair.

 

[DrWazzock]

It's just good farming is it not?

Raise your SOM and it will reward you anyway.

 

[Feldspar]

It's just good farming is it not?

Raise your SOM and it will reward you anyway.

True on both counts. Problem is in the very short term (e.g. in the case of short tenancies) the payback time is too long.

 

[DRC]

True on both counts. Problem is in the very short term (e.g. in the case of short tenancies) the payback time is too long.

That's where AHA tenancies had the advantage over FBT lets.Three generations of succession here, hopefully meant that the land was farmed in a sustainable way, but if you only know you've got land for one or two years and are paying a high rent , then growing a less profitable but soil beneficial crop , may not happen.

 

[JD-Kid]

Intresting thing is the cropping guys cropping for years and years now want payments for lifting SOM ... ummm bit like a fatory thats been dumping in to streams getting payed to clean up .. sorry i'm out too not buying in to the save the world idea's when mono croppers have been wrecking to soils for years

no point haveing payments

maybe the topic should have been cropping farms owe society for wrecking there land over the years the spin doctors would have a field day

 

[Feldspar]

Intresting thing is the cropping guys cropping for years and years now want payments for lifting SOM ... ummm bit like a fatory thats been dumping in to streams getting payed to clean up .. sorry i'm out too not buying in to the save the world idea's when mono croppers have been wrecking to soils for years

no point haveing payments

maybe the topic should have been cropping farms owe society for wrecking there land over the years the spin doctors would have a field day

So how would you work things then given free reign? Would you survey all the land that is cropped and impose some sort of fine or levy on a sliding scale depending on the condition of the soils that are found? Should the penalty fall upon the current landowner or the people who historically presided over the decline in soil quality? Not quite sure that new entrants to farming / new landowners will be very enthusiastic about paying for a problem they didn't create, in the same way that mixed farmers who may have acted more responsibly should not lose out because others have been irresponsible. Just to clarify, I've only been in farming for under a year and so it's hardly fair to say that I've been wrecking the soil for years; I therefore shouldn't be condemned as a hypocrite for wanting to act responsibly.

I suppose my line of thought was bounded by the facts of the current situation rather than a limitless exercise in idealistic thought. The facts are, firstly, irrespective of your normative judgement, that large arable farmers in my area (including our farm) are causing a decline in soil quality and the value judgement is that this is undesirable. Second fact, which constrains the limit of debate for those wishing to discuss realistic and practical solutions, is that there will be payments to EU farmers and that part of the CAP budget will be dedicated to these so-called 'greening measures' which are designed to decrease the environmental impact of agriculture. So, in summary, you have working practices which are environmentally negative and which it is desirable to change and also you have money which will be allocated for the purpose of reducing environmentally damaging practices.

In light of these facts my main wish was that money allocated for 'greening' should actually be used to fulfil the intended purpose rather than being spent in a counter-productive way. I don't insist that money be given to the worst offenders in the form of a carrot. It might be that money be given to best performers as a reward for good practice and which would, at the same time, persuade the offenders to do better. Or you might want to spend money on education rather than simply cash payments; a lot of this is happening at the moment through the Catchment Sensitive Farming in the areas of pesticide handling, for example.

I think, however, that if you look at the way the British government has addressed issues like this in the past, you might find that often the former approach is adopted. Take the recent RDPE and FFIS grants for nutrient management and pesticide handling. In both cases it was the late adopters and the worst offenders who received maximum points and maximum grant funding; I know this because our farm fell into this category in both cases and I filled out the forms. In response to this behaviour you would probably say that this is the wrong approach and I don't disagree with you. I just wonder what the reasoning is for acting in the way that they have.

 

[multi power]

how or why is direct drilling better for the soil?

 

[Feldspar]

Would just add that, given that 'mono croppers' - actually no-one near us actually just grows one crop but I understand the point - have degraded agricultural soils, that is all the more reason to not save the whole world but rather act positively over the area of land that you have control of. That's what I intend to do anyway.

Also, probably, I think that, if your advice was followed and payments were abolished, the sort of conversion to no-till that I was talking about would probably happen more quickly. My point was that this isn't a realistic option given the politics of today.

 

[Feldspar]

how or why is direct drilling better for the soil?

I'm not completely sure this is the talk I think it is but hopefully this talk might give you food for thought:

 

[JD-Kid]

we have got trees on the carbon sink program it's a total crock only ones that will make any thing are the ticket clickers on the go round

the only way if the end user is going to use it as a marketing too IE green wheat that is growen with in a tight guide line soil and crop health etc etc not organic but yer know what i mean .. if that happened then the growers would be rewarded in better returns BUT only if marketed clever and could demand a higher price in the shops

might be a good idea but i would be saying carefully what people wish for there could be a payment now but removed in years to come or do you pay it back if you do a year of spuds etc etc farmers are too good at building 3 legged chairs for them selfs while the public puts ropes around there necks

being proactive and getting in frist with farmer programs works better as we all know govts screw the face of farming and food

 

[Feldspar]

we have got trees on the carbon sink program it's a total crock only ones that will make any thing are the ticket clickers on the go round

the only way if the end user is going to use it as a marketing too IE green wheat that is growen with in a tight guide line soil and crop health etc etc not organic but yer know what i mean .. if that happened then the growers would be rewarded in better returns BUT only if marketed clever and could demand a higher price in the shops

might be a good idea but i would be saying carefully what people wish for there could be a payment now but removed in years to come or do you pay it back if you do a year of spuds etc etc farmers are too good at building 3 legged chairs for them selfs while the public puts ropes around there necks

being proactive and getting in frist with farmer programs works better as we all know govts screw the face of farming and food

I think you're right, if the consumer cared about the nutritional content of their food and really understood what regenerative farming practices actually (rather than some wooly and arguably misguided idea about organic food) then producers might actually be rewarded for doing the right thing. Whilst the consumer continues to be ignorant / not give a damn the status quo will continue.

The fact remains though that our govt. will have this cash which they have to spend in this sort of area; I just want them to do it effectively and with a proper understanding of good agricultural practice. At the moment there seems to be the idea that set-aside is somehow good for the soil because it gets 'a rest'.

 

[JD-Kid]

ummmm yes and no joe public will not give a flying fork about so called green ideas if robed 3 times kid's not learning at schools and waiting for 10 months to get health care .. they are also more intrested in walkways parks etc farmers are just the people that live out of town and thats about there standing

with that we tend to be fire fighters instead of being proactive .. there was a land mangerment group we belonged to years ago they had the right idea trying to put in place ideas workable to farmers before ideas from shiney arses become rule

that was cover crops on market gardens DD hills better types of grasses lowering animal costs etc etc etc etc heap of things

there has to be a better return for any thing done we see some d**kheaded ideas being put in to place here end of the day if the rules are too high people don't play the game simple as that not makeing money they leave farming or the country .. healthy farms end up with healthy local areas not just meaning use of chems etc but more incomes life styles etc

MP
like yerself we are live stock i was a DD contractor before coming here .. for the live stock sector 80% of what you read about DD is total crap you are not going to lower chem use fert use cheep way of doing things or build up SOM ..in most cases Vs the plow DD can and is offen higher by the time you add in slug baits starter ferts sprays etc etc i can plow power harrow and seed cheeper .. some areas DD is the only way of reseeding due to hills etc the costs need to be worked out carefullys as it's not cheep out of native captal fert applyed etc not alot of change out of 1000 dollars a HA thats a one off cost tho
i would also go as far as saying guys doing mixed animal /cropping or grass seed clover and grains system may not see the gains spoken about

 

[JD-Kid]

heres a good case in point ... of fire fighting

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/farming/265261/greens-want-firm-compliance

for a start she used to be with Ecan and got the arse HAHAHA govt took them over as they were pi55ing about i kid you not she needs a burning broom jamed up her ar5e a total witch

in NZ each area has an enviromental out fit to do things like water permits fire permits clean air waste discharge land clearing etc etc etc each area has there own rules etc

http://www.orc.govt.nz/News-and-Not...mers-join-together-to-improve-water-quality-/

the no tillers need to act as one get a group and work with the rule makers in the area get funding for programs and be seen in good light in the press etc etc

 

[Feldspar]

heres a good case in point ... of fire fighting

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/farming/265261/greens-want-firm-compliance

for a start she used to be with Ecan and got the arse HAHAHA govt took them over as they were pi55ing about i kid you not she needs a burning broom jamed up her ar5e a total witch

in NZ each area has an enviromental out fit to do things like water permits fire permits clean air waste discharge land clearing etc etc etc each area has there own rules etc

http://www.orc.govt.nz/News-and-Not...mers-join-together-to-improve-water-quality-/

the no tillers need to act as one get a group and work with the rule makers in the area get funding for programs and be seen in good light in the press etc etc

Good posts JD. I'm thinking about your point about the benefits of DD for mixed farms. Again I don't know much about this but from my reading it seemed like introducing livestock into a no-till system with lots of cover crops was pretty much the ultimate set up as you get even more efficient nutrient cycling. I'm thinking particularly of people like Gabe Brown in the US where they have reduced their fert and chemical spend almost completely. Why is introducing no-till into a mixed system going to be less profitable than in a purely arable case?

 

[Feldspar]

One of my reactions to the video was that the difference in the wider impact of a farmer who is destroying their soil and one is who actually improving it is really quite large. OK the differing levels of humus in the soil will impact on the individual farmer by directly affecting their profitability (as claimed in the video) but the destructive farmer does not pay the price for the wider impact she / he causes - that is, the effect on waterways, decline in nutritional quality of food, impact upon the climate, biodiversity and the usage of chemicals which adversely affect human health et cetera.

The above sounds like something an organic farmer would claim.


How can you say chemicals we are using adversely affect human health?

Didn't notice this bit. I can say that mainly because it's manifestly true that certain chemicals do adversely affect human health. Have you ever read the label on a spray can? Ever heard of anti-cholinesterase inhibitors, just to give one example. What about Vydate granules? Case I know of where a farm worker had some go down his T shirt; result being serious intestinal damage and the guy will probably not work again.

As far as wider health implications go the list is endless. Here's just one:

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/20/7871.short

 

[Chae1]

Its obvious you have been in farming for under a year by your comments.

As Clive said earlier its about bottom line. Any decent farmer isn't going to rape the land. He wouldn't be in business for long if he did. The profit margins aren't their to sustain this type of farming.

As for safety of chemicals I handle tons of the stuff every year. No ill affects.

 

[martian]

Its obvious you have been in farming for under a year by your comments.

As Clive said earlier its about bottom line. Any decent farmer isn't going to rape the land. He wouldn't be in business for long if he did. The profit margins aren't their to sustain this type of farming.

As for safety of chemicals I handle tons of the stuff every year. No ill affects.

Things may be a bit different up North, but round here landlords are being persuaded by agents (insert adjective greedy where appropriate) to let arable land out for three year FBT's at outlandishly high rents. The bottom line dictates the tenant rapes the soil for what they can get, selling straw, no FYM/compost, no cover crops etc, burn SOM for short term gain. Agents get a percentage, landlord gets few years of decent rent, soil gets stuffed.

And there's nothing cuddly about chemicals, they are designed to kill things on the whole, whether they be plant, insect, fungus or whatever

 

[Chae1]

Go organic if you don t like them.

 

[The Ruminant]

Fieldspar that's a good post but may I suggest that CAP money could be linked to humus/OM % in soil. over a certain threshold gets full payment, under a certain threshold gets nothing and everything in between gets different grades of payment.Then it doesn't matter what type of farming system you are in- you just have to work in a way that sustains or improves humus levels on your farm to get full payment or is that too simple a way of looking at things.

It's a great idea in principle but falls down because of different soil types. I'm thinking particularly of the peat soils of Lincs etc where SOM levels are in excess of 20%. It's very difficult to measure accurately and so much easier to farm in a way that depletes OM without it being noticeable - a 2% drop from 26% to 24% is nothing like a drop from 3.5% to 1.5%.

I visited a farm in the fens recently and it was eye opening. An organic farm can get away with ploughing and releasing soil nutrients because of the high SOM levels and it will be many, many years before the natural fertility runs out. Under a SOM-payment system he would qualify for a long time for the highest payments!