- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
"Gotta feed the world" remember
It's all about producing "food", fück increasing landscape function so it can support human life in 2-500 years time.
It's all about "today" and this is why dinosaurs still roam the Earth
Pasture-For-Life beef
- Thread starter Agrivator
- Start date
It's all about producing "food", fück increasing landscape function so it can support human life in 2-500 years time.
It's all about "today" and this is why dinosaurs still roam the Earth
- Location
- Fife
Fück the world. I gotta feed my family and my bank balance.
It seems a bit blunt to ban anything not grass, even if it's just used as a supplement in small amounts to enable utilising the energy in the grass.
If you're outdoors 365 days a year on grass and bales, but sometimes use a touch of molasses or protein to maximise performance on grass, you're outside the rules.
If you're outdoors 365 days a year on grass and bales, but sometimes use a touch of molasses or protein to maximise performance on grass, you're outside the rules.
MDL POWERUP
Member
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Not nearly as well. Agriculture is 9/10ths desperation. Our grazing really isn't agricultural, as is being discussed on this thread, but to increase landscape function.
Bone testing shows quite clearly the drop in human health upon the advent of agriculture, as our diets became more limited and we sat on our asses more.
So I really don't care if tubby has to lose a few pounds over winter as much as I do care about the scrap of land we manage.
Modern man seems incapable of thinking holistically
Bone testing shows quite clearly the drop in human health upon the advent of agriculture, as our diets became more limited and we sat on our asses more.
So I really don't care if tubby has to lose a few pounds over winter as much as I do care about the scrap of land we manage.
Modern man seems incapable of thinking holistically
MDL POWERUP
Member
So using grain not good enough for bread beer etc is bad even if it is going to be wasted?
Why not become a hunter gatherer instead and rewild your land and eat nuts and berries?
I watch a lot on holistic type farming but there is holes in some of what's being preached. But no one seems to be able to accept it.
Why not become a hunter gatherer instead and rewild your land and eat nuts and berries?
I watch a lot on holistic type farming but there is holes in some of what's being preached. But no one seems to be able to accept it.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Using grain that fails spec is just being sensible. What we should best use it for is debateable (stock feed? AD feedstock? Bioethanol production? Etc).
Growing grain intentionally as animal feed is getting harder to justify in the face of intense scrutiny though.
On our very average grade 3 land we struggled to consistently reach milling grade for wheat and rarely achieved malting for barley. We've produced much more human food since giving up cereals and going all cattle.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
It does if the rest has to come from a feedlot operation.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Stuffed if I know why "rotational grazing" must mean "messing about with electric fences" and "eating up your time"
I guess it's just two more reasons why it can't be done. As you point out, necessity compels you to open and shut the odd gate sometimes.
Here's 96 pasture-only steers away from our place today and I'd love to know which ones are the welfare cases, putting them off feed for 24 hours is as close as they've been to hungry in their short and happy livesView attachment 943726
Your system would never work for the Limousins that are so popular over here.
The penning is far too low.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
- Location
- Fife
Will that affect the production of your land or your operation's profit?
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
You've not read that Pete recommends "high velocity lead therapy" for those animals that refuse to respect the fences then....Your system would never work for the Limousins that are so popular over here.
The penning is far too low.
Under that regime even Limmys would eventually be selected for compliance.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
No, but it makes a bit of a mockery of the ‘save the planet’ holistic argument.
Like you, I rotationally graze where I can, and run a predominantly forage system, for my own benefit. Most of the holistic cult followers on SM claim to be sorting the planet out.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
You've not read that Pete recommends "high velocity lead therapy" for those animals that refuse to respect the fences then....
Under that regime even Limmys would eventually be selected for compliance.
There might not be as many in the loading pen to leave though, apart from those that couldn’t jump where he’d winged them perhaps?
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Even if holistically managed it still carries the same flaws as any agriculture.
Still an open loop system....
Your idea of nuts and berries is certainly a lot more sustainable than anything planted annually, quite cheap to strike a couple of hundred cuttings and get to it. I'm not propagating blackberry though.
- Location
- Fife
The planet doesn’t need saving or sorting. Properly managed grazing can increase SOM and sink carbon, but needs doing across a huge area. Too much human greed and big business self interest (see the mockery of cattle operations being the root of all evil, and simultaneously being paid to sell carbon credits).
I’ll worry about me and mine. The others can worry about themselves.
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
I’m not sure what your getting at ?Like Butchers’ shops in the South East perhaps?
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Needs to be a pretty good grazing system to keep up with all that oil, steel, cement... what about potash and phosphates we take from the soil to pee into the oceans?
But as Alex says you can certainly look after your own business interests, I wonder how "necessary" all this grain would be if it involved it being sown, reaped, threshed by the farmer to feed to The Unfeasibly Large Cattle With The Nice Heads?
Would we still throw bread to the ducks?
I have my doubts, somehow.
Apart from any welfare issues, together with its inflexibility, PFL beef must have a significantly higher ''carbon footprint'' that beef produced mainly from forage, but where concentrate supplements are used tactically to eke out or enhance forage supplies, or if necessary to accelerate the finishing process to reduce age at slaughter.
And that difference is likely to apply even when both systems are compared under the same level of management - although it is unlikely that a competent, honest and experienced farmer would contemplate embarking on such an inflexible and inefficient system whereby the sensible use of concentrate supplements is denied.
And that difference is likely to apply even when both systems are compared under the same level of management - although it is unlikely that a competent, honest and experienced farmer would contemplate embarking on such an inflexible and inefficient system whereby the sensible use of concentrate supplements is denied.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Your argument is just as inflexible as what you bray on about
still keeps happening though, doesn't it?
still keeps happening though, doesn't it?