Pasture-For-Life beef

[Hilly]

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.

Closed mind , just go away .

 

[Agrivator]

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.

In the UK, it would be a disaster for Arable farmers if their poorer quality grain wasn't in demand by livestock farmers and compounders.

And the productive capacity of thousands of acres of hill vegetation is enhanced by being able to offer concentrates to both hill sheep and hill cattle or their offspring at opportune times in their production cycle. We could of course knock one of a pair of twin lambs on the head at lambing time to improve the chances of its mother surviving.

 

[Woolless]

In the UK, it would be a disaster for Arable farmers if their poorer quality grain wasn't in demand by livestock farmers and compounders.

And the productive capacity of thousands of acres of hill vegetation is enhanced by being able to offer concentrates to both hill sheep and hill cattle or their offspring at opportune times in their production cycle. We could of course knock one of a pair of twin lambs on the head at lambing time to improve the chances of its mother surviving.

It's not forking compulsory!

 

[Bury the Trash]

It's not forking compulsory!

Nor is it superior.

 

[unlacedgecko]

In the UK, it would be a disaster for Arable farmers if their poorer quality grain wasn't in demand by livestock farmers and compounders.

And the productive capacity of thousands of acres of hill vegetation is enhanced by being able to offer concentrates to both hill sheep and hill cattle or their offspring at opportune times in their production cycle. We could of course knock one of a pair of twin lambs on the head at lambing time to improve the chances of its mother surviving.

Productivity of hill land be improved a lot more by subdivision and proper grazing management.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Nor is it superior.

It's just beef

Maybe beef that has been fed ingredients "deemed unfit for human consumption" should say so on the packet like food-food has to declare what went into it ?

The real reason for the reverse rule, I assume, is that it further divides farmers and growers.

 

[Guleesh]

Productivity of hill land be improved a lot more by subdivision and proper grazing management.

Yes

In the UK, it would be a disaster for Arable farmers if their poorer quality grain wasn't in demand by livestock farmers and compounders.

And the productive capacity of thousands of acres of hill vegetation is enhanced by being able to offer concentrates to both hill sheep and hill cattle or their offspring at opportune times in their production cycle. We could of course knock one of a pair of twin lambs on the head at lambing time to improve the chances of its mother surviving.

Using concentrates as a tool to enable you overgraze hill vegetation with animals bred to be unfit for their environment.

Plain stupid.

 

[martian]

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.

I'm assuming that you honestly believe this twaddle and that you're not just trying to wind us all up, so I'll say what got us involved with the PfLA. I'm a fairly competent, honest and experienced farmer who changed our suckler cattle operation from a low input system (a few kilos of N fertiliser, wormers, originally keeping the bulls entire and finishing them on ad-lib concentrates, then segueing into by-product fed youngstock finishing at 20 months or so) into a no input, 100% pasture fed mob-grazed outfit. Why? Because I didn't like how badly the cattle did. The low input method wasn't an expensive way of carrying on, but we were producing cattle that the market didn't appreciate enough and it wasn't profitable. And their health wasn't that good. Now we use no fertiliser, no wormers and no concentrate and the animals are much happier, as am I.

A year or two into the new way of doing things I became aware of the PfLA and joined up. I thought it would be a good thing if we could get a premium for doing what we were doing anyway. I've met a lot of sensible and motivated farmers through the organisation, most of whom, like me, changed to this way because they like how well their animals do on it. I practically have to explain who I am when I ring the vet. We've got 120 cows and they don't go wrong. Weaned and weighed the calves this week, some of them were over 500kg...

 

[egbert]

Calm it down fellas.

There is no 'right way'.
Each extremity has its pros and cons.

I'm nearer the pfl end, but not any kind of purist about it. I'll feed where I want to.
I've fattened cattle outdoors on nought but what they pick...it just takes more time.
I sold an 8y/o homebred bull t'other day who'd never slept indoors, and had only ever had a mouthful of corn as bait to get him to move.

I don't know that I buy the 'clever hill grazing management' would somehow raise the ph, drain the bogs, or lower the extremities of climate locally.
A lot of the hill is common anyway, so we can neither improve/fence, nor feed much on it.

 

[egbert]

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.

or suffer an extinction level event

 

[NZDan]

Who supplies beef the other six months of the year?

The fairly standard model is to bring them in as yearlings in the early spring, mob garze them over the summer and then in the fall they go to be finished. Grassland LLC (part owned by the Savoury Institute) which has a farm in NZ and a number of farms in the US do that on many of their US farms. It is a system that suits the environment well

 

[NZDan]

I’m not sure that’s correct, certainly not on all of his farms. He has a large herd of South Poll breeding cows and turns the bulls out with them to breed, en masse, yearlings, two yr olds etc

Yes that is correct he does have a breeding herd, I watched a training video of his last year and he had two large herds of summering cattle on.
Turning bulls out with cows to breed them is nothing new, it is what most people do, turning more than one bull out is generally what happens as well in most herds around the world.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

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.

I worked with a fellow in Suffolk, he had been working in the South American rain forests (with the Indians) and I remember him telling me, that they hunted/gathered for a few hours a day, then spent the rest of the day sitting about, chatting, socialising, and I can remember David saying "who are backward ones", when we have, mortgages, stress, etc, etc!

 

[egbert]

I worked with a fellow in Suffolk, he had been working in the South American rain forests (with the Indians) and I remember him telling me, that they hunted/gathered for a few hours a day, then spent the rest of the day sitting about, chatting, socialising, and I can remember David saying "who are backward ones", when we have, mortgages, stress, etc, etc!

same with the pre-european Australians i recall

 

[Bury the Trash]

It's just beef

Maybe beef that has been fed ingredients "deemed unfit for human consumption" should say so on the packet like food-food has to declare what went into it ?

The real reason for the reverse rule, I assume, is that it further divides farmers and growers.

No idea and currently enjoying the complimentary flavours of a chunk of 'slightly sharp' cheddar and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps having been self diagnosed with a 'tired mind' ...
....and wishing I was more Stig of the dump or Catweazle instead of noodles in ouatiA

 

[NZDan]

It does if the rest has to come from a feedlot operation.

What is wrong with a feedlot? Most people live in Human feedlots, plenty of good uses for feedlots in livestock production as well. In some areas feedlots are used on regenerative farms so that all animals can be removed from the pasture so as not to damage the pasture and the soil under it. Winter housing of livestock in the UK is a classic example of wise use of a feedlot.

 

[NZDan]

Productivity of hill land be improved a lot more by subdivision and proper grazing management.

Now now hush, We've already been told that can't be done.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

What is wrong with a feedlot? Most people live in Human feedlots, plenty of good uses for feedlots in livestock production as well. In some areas feedlots are used on regenerative farms so that all animals can be removed from the pasture so as not to damage the pasture and the soil under it. Winter housing of livestock in the UK is a classic example of wise use of a feedlot.

Depends also on why a beef cut needs to be so big,

I had it explained to me on TFF that the EU beef spec is so large because then the right number of meat trays fit the supermarket shelves.
If true, then that's a weak-as-p!ss excuse to force producers into running stock that don't fit the landscape and ramp up COP for control purposes.

Judging by the US over the past 40 years, weaning weight goes up, ranch profitability goes down... and this is a huge continent, not a wee wet island group.

Oh well. Guess there'll be another "beef job's fùcked" thread along soon and they'll all go around it another 94 times....

 

[NZDan]

Depends also on why a beef cut needs to be so big,

I had it explained to me on TFF that the EU beef spec is so large because then the right number of meat trays fit the supermarket shelves.
If true, then that's a weak-as-p!ss excuse to force producers into running stock that don't fit the landscape and ramp up COP for control purposes.

Judging by the US over the past 40 years, weaning weight goes up, ranch profitability goes down... and this is a huge continent, not a wee wet island group.

Oh well. Guess there'll be another "beef job's fùcked" thread along soon and they'll all go around it another 94 times....

Having eaten beef in the UK the steaks are huge!!! but very thin and never cooked well. The US the steaks are at least cut thick enough but often still big. All the evidence points towards that moderate sized 1000lb cow being more profitable, better for the environment, easier kept and produce a product that the end user likes. But god damn it's hard to go past that big bull...............................

 

[Hilly]

Having eaten beef in the UK the steaks are huge!!! but very thin and never cooked well. The US the steaks are at least cut thick enough but often still big. All the evidence points towards that moderate sized 1000lb cow being more profitable, better for the environment, easier kept and produce a product that the end user likes. But god damn it's hard to go past that big bull...............................

Trouble is them cows just keep growing tiny bit tiny bit by time they are 13 years old they are 750kilo plus .