Organic farming

[delilah]

Money? Greed? Capitalism? Ambition? Pride?

Feel free to pick your own bogeyman.

Market forces. All meaningful change is demand driven. It's the marketplace that needs meddling with, not how we farm.

 

[glasshouse]

what's wrong with a couple of chicken sheds on 140 acres ? (I know what you mean, just teasing it out) .
Concentration of units of production in ever smaller areas.
Why is that ?

Plus 500 cows

 

[neilo]

Market forces. All meaningful change is demand driven. It's the marketplace that needs meddling with, not how we farm.

I disagree. Some elements of both are causing issues.

Another big arable and dairy farm locally is telling everyone that he’s worked out that he’ll need another 1000ac to spread slurry on in order to meet the N-Max limit for the new Welsh NVZ regs. That’s a problem of intensification, not of whether he sells his milk to your beloved supermarkets, or a thousand corner shops (he’s not on a supermarket contract either btw).

 

[jondear]

Most important advice for organic conversion you'll ever hear: give the fields a damn good nuking with chems beforehand. If they're full of docks you're organic adventure won't last long (or you'll need a shed that doesn't exist, you know, the one the sprayer's kept in )

What a load of tosh.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Can't really beat visiting other farmers that are already doing it. Is there a market for what you want to produce ? Books are just written by folks who want to sell books......

Books have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The ending is the problem, as you know life goes on - most of the "how to farm proper, like" books don't mention how crucial it is to keep testing doing this against doing that, or indeed testing it against doing nothing at all.

I agree 100% that one of the best courses of action is to just get out there and see what people do to make things work out, conventional became conventional for a reason

 

[glasshouse]

What a load of tosh.

Its quite correct

 

[delilah]

That’s a problem of intensification, not of whether he sells his milk to your beloved supermarkets,

Yes it's a problem of intensification, but not of intensification by any individual business but of intensification of units of production into specific areas of the UK. That intensification is demand led, both in terms of where the processing capacity now is, and in terms of the gross margin per litre or bird.

 

[Sid]

Most important advice for organic conversion you'll ever hear: give the fields a damn good nuking with chems beforehand. If they're full of docks you're organic adventure won't last long (or you'll need a shed that doesn't exist, you know, the one the sprayer's kept in )

So firstly I'd question the person giving out that advice. Seemly they know very little about organic farming.
Secondly if your farming conventionally and looking to convert you have had the plethora of a cocktail of agrochemicals at your disposal that are supposedly brilliant at controlling weeds if you cross their hands with your hard earned cash. But yet the first thing you have to do is as you so eloquently put it, if I used that term I would be accused of being anti conventional farming, "give the field a dam good nuking with chemicals".
Is that any old chemicals you want to use up that have failed to control the weeds in the previous decades of conventional farming, or some new ones that a sales rep has given you a free waistcoat so you'll give them a try?

Of course the final point on the shed for the sprayer, I of course have my PA1 and 2 qualification that I had the opportunity to take 32 years ago and in all those 32 years I have not once used a crop sprayer hidden in a shed or not.

As a late wise old very respected good local farmer said to me once in front of a group walking my farm.
"Hats off to you boy for farming organically. I couldn't do it I'm not a good enough farmer "

Perhaps you are in the same position as him?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

So firstly I'd question the person giving out that advice. Seemly they know very little about organic farming.
Secondly if your farming conventionally and looking to convert you have had the plethora of a cocktail of agrochemicals at your disposal that are supposedly brilliant at controlling weeds if you cross their hands with your hard earned cash. But yet the first thing you have to do is as you so eloquently put it, if I used that term I would be accused of being anti conventional farming, "give the field a dam good nuking with chemicals".
Is that any old chemicals you want to use up that have failed to control the weeds in the previous decades of conventional farming, or some new ones that a sales rep has given you a free waistcoat so you'll give them a try?

Of course the final point on the shed for the sprayer, I of course have my PA1 and 2 qualification that I had the opportunity to take 32 years ago and in all those 32 years I have not once used a crop sprayer hidden in a shed or not.

As a late wise old very respected good local farmer said to me once in front of a group walking my farm.
"Hats off to you boy for farming organically. I couldn't do it I'm not a good enough farmer "

Perhaps you are in the same position as him?

Why you would do "that" to the microbiome is anyone's guess!
Set your soil back another decade?

 

[7610 super q]

We still don't know what type of farming the OP does. I'm guessing livestock. I'm sure the likes of Farming Connect could find some organic farms in Wales to visit. Preferably ones that have been doing it 20+ years. You'll learn far more taking to a farmer for 20 minutes than reading a book from someone who's never done it....

 

[GeorgeK]

So firstly I'd question the person giving out that advice. Seemly they know very little about organic farming.
Secondly if your farming conventionally and looking to convert you have had the plethora of a cocktail of agrochemicals at your disposal that are supposedly brilliant at controlling weeds if you cross their hands with your hard earned cash. But yet the first thing you have to do is as you so eloquently put it, if I used that term I would be accused of being anti conventional farming, "give the field a dam good nuking with chemicals".
Is that any old chemicals you want to use up that have failed to control the weeds in the previous decades of conventional farming, or some new ones that a sales rep has given you a free waistcoat so you'll give them a try?

Of course the final point on the shed for the sprayer, I of course have my PA1 and 2 qualification that I had the opportunity to take 32 years ago and in all those 32 years I have not once used a crop sprayer hidden in a shed or not.

As a late wise old very respected good local farmer said to me once in front of a group walking my farm.
"Hats off to you boy for farming organically. I couldn't do it I'm not a good enough farmer "

Perhaps you are in the same position as him?

I am certainly not good enough to farm organically, it is far harder than conventional and you have my respect. My wording was too strong, that is my mistake and I apologise. What I should have said is it may be worth examining the land carefully for its present and past history of weeds that can present challenges in an organic system to help form your weed control strategy. In the event of a high weed pressure situation as one of many options perhaps consider establishing the grass/crops conventionally before conversion. This is just a point for consideration and no more.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Yee gods man as if farming isn’t complicated enough now you want us to start counting calories?

no, I am using that measure as a reply to the comment that organic farming is not efficient

 

[Ffermer Bach]

There is a happy medium which would work far better, having farmed conventionally on super high input systems and organic too a mix between the 2 would be the ideal world if carbon was counted etc.
One dose of roundup and min till would be far better than plough, roll, power Harrow etc, by the time you count the diesel used to do those jobs a single dose of roundup would be a lot more worthwhile. Maybe I should call it “BoB-Ag” (Best of Both)

I agree, I think what you are describing is regenerative agriculture, it is possible to be regenerative and not organic, and also organic and not regenerative. As I believe the majority of the farmers in the world don't really have access to conventional chemical inputs, it makes sense to me to try to improve "organic" systems and certainly convert all farming to regenerative. After all, what is so bad about trying to improve the biology of the soil? And leave the soil, which after all is the capital we use to farm with, in a better condition after we leave than it was when we inherited it? After all, civilisation exists because of 9" of soil covering the earth! Science hasn't yet really caught up with all the biology of the living soil, which is why we treat it so badly.

 

[Scholsey]

More misinformation from the Organic Evangelists-"Quickest way of getting rid of clover is artificial N like most know"

Artificial N only adversely affects clover content of a sward if the N responsive grasses are allowed to shade out or smother the clover. Lots of leys receive a couple hundred units of N and still show a good stand of clover.

The organic lobby make it sound like Nitrogen kills clover, whereas it's actually played a major part in increasing crop production and feeding the World.

Would say our clover tripled once stopped using artificial N, even in the existing leys the clover % increased and still grow as much grass silage without a artic and a half of Nitram every year.

no, I am using that measure as a reply to the comment that organic farming is not efficient

If we only did things that were only ever calorie negative we would all be hunter gatherers, think the more ‘westernised’ we are become the more calories we waste.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

As I said above, Best of Both would be by far the best, a bit of sugar to wake things up to extend grazing seasons and the odd herbicide where desperately needed would help reduce carbon (diesel) useage for example etc… I farm Organically and Low input Conventional which is run as a Best of Both situation but with conventional prices etc….

just did a grazing course at Gelli Aur this week, and Rhys the instructor said in NZ they call Nitrogen a grass "supplement", used to extend the grazing as the shoulders of the year.

 

[betweenthelines]

So firstly I'd question the person giving out that advice. Seemly they know very little about organic farming.
Secondly if your farming conventionally and looking to convert you have had the plethora of a cocktail of agrochemicals at your disposal that are supposedly brilliant at controlling weeds if you cross their hands with your hard earned cash. But yet the first thing you have to do is as you so eloquently put it, if I used that term I would be accused of being anti conventional farming, "give the field a dam good nuking with chemicals".
Is that any old chemicals you want to use up that have failed to control the weeds in the previous decades of conventional farming, or some new ones that a sales rep has given you a free waistcoat so you'll give them a try?

Of course the final point on the shed for the sprayer, I of course have my PA1 and 2 qualification that I had the opportunity to take 32 years ago and in all those 32 years I have not once used a crop sprayer hidden in a shed or not.

As a late wise old very respected good local farmer said to me once in front of a group walking my farm.
"Hats off to you boy for farming organically. I couldn't do it I'm not a good enough farmer "

Perhaps you are in the same position as him?

It was well documented at the time that the day before Price Charles' farm went into "organic conversion" the whole place was sprayed with Roundup.

As for your quote from a "respected local farmer" are you saying that every modern day "organic" farmer is better than every 19th Century farmer? Or just yourself?

Actually I take back my comment at Organic farming being akin to a Religion-it's more like a Cult

 

[Al R]

just did a grazing course at Gelli Aur this week, and Rhys the instructor said in NZ they call Nitrogen a grass "supplement", used to extend the grazing as the shoulders of the year.

I did the same course a few years ago

 

[Sid]

It was well documented at the time that the day before Price Charles' farm went into "organic conversion" the whole place was sprayed with Roundup.

As for your quote from a "respected local farmer" are you saying that every modern day "organic" farmer is better than every 19th Century farmer? Or just yourself?

Actually I take back my comment at Organic farming being akin to a Religion-it's more like a Cult

So your saying that before Prince Charles took control of Sandringham from Prince Philip the whole estate was sprayed with round up. Tenants farms as well as inhand land?
Wow you do like to make big accusations about things. Yesterday you accused a fallen stock company of polluting a river in Cornwall based on zero evidence!

I quoted what he said not what I said. That was his opinion, which we are all allowed to have , whether you like it or not.

I think your a clipboard wielding cult.

Dam this auto correct

Your cult is that you believe that sprays and ABs are fantastic and should be used.
Fact is these myths that you have been "sold" are based on flawed science. The cult you believe in is getting smaller and smaller.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Nitrogen biggest hit on Clover is in the seedbed , so just small amounts until it gets established , it wont have a massive effect early and late in the season when clover is mainly dormant

 

[Scholsey]

It was well documented at the time that the day before Price Charles' farm went into "organic conversion" the whole place was sprayed with Roundup.

As for your quote from a "respected local farmer" are you saying that every modern day "organic" farmer is better than every 19th Century farmer? Or just yourself?

Actually I take back my comment at Organic farming being akin to a Religion-it's more like a Cult

Bet they regretted that, if they did it a month before they could have used conventional seed to replant it all instead of having to use far more expensive organic seed.


Of the dozen or so ‘commercial’ organic farmers I know personally would say 3/4 of them are doing it because of the extra money whether it was the conversion payment and OHLS or milk price including myself.

Rightly or wrongly chemicals and artificial fertilisers won’t be around for much longer. Just have to look at the use of guided hoes in conventional situations to see that people are looking else where.

I know a number of conventional dairy farmers who no longer use AN because they can still grow exactly the same amount. 95% of what I do is exactly the same as 5 years ago when we weren’t organic, just got more docks and a more stable milk price. Filled in the forms to convert when we were paid 16ppl for 3 months in a row in 2016!

I must admit @Sid i think the PWAB thing is borderline cultist as it’s being pushed on people whether they like it or not, if I have a cow have a nightmare calving and torn every which way I still want to be able to use cheap and cheerful broadspectrum ABs without there being a financial incentive to compromise her health by not doing so.

If I could use glyphosate 1 year in 7 I would as it would save me ploughing and I think it would probably be better for the environment if I did but rules are rules so ploughing it is, would say 1 pass of roundup to burn off old grass and established docks would save me 12-14 passes with ploughs/powerharrows/hoes/ scuffles over the next 3 crops.

So your saying that before Prince Charles took control of Sandringham from Prince Philip the whole estate was sprayed with round up. Tenants farms as well as inhand land?
Wow you do like to make big accusations about things. Yesterday you accused a fallen stock company of polluting a river in Cornwall based on zero evidence!

I quoted what he said not what I said. That was his opinion, which we are all allowed to have , whether you like it or not.

I think your a clipboard wielding cult.

Dam this auto correct

Your cult is that you believe that sprays and ABs are fantastic and should be used.
Fact is these myths that you have been "sold" are based on flawed science. The cult you believe in is getting smaller and smaller.

(sorry edited some horrendous grammar, took me 20 mins to write that whilst moving fences in the rain)