Plastic free farming - somebody needs to do something.

Selectamatic

Member
Location
North Wales
I've been wondering about switching to sisal but have never even seen it used.

We do hay for the equine market in small bales mostly....what would be the disadvantages I may not be aware of with the sisal Vs normal twine?

We bake anywhere between 6000 to 10000 little bales a year and have never used anything else.

Pros
Kinder on your hands, which some of the horsey people like
Kinder on the baler, which is why we insist on it, I refuse to use plastic string.

Cons
More expensive, by approx 1.5 to 2 times per bale
It’s not as easy to get good quality stuff these days
It rots, eich is brilliant from an environmental point of view, but not always ideal in a stack!!

Hairy string! It’s the future!!
 

Veryfruity

Member
That?

Plastic is too cheap.

Our post war economy is based on a resource that is plentiful. Capitalism falls down on assigning value to things, if it’s plentiful it’s cheep, if it’s rare it’s expensive. Oil/Coal is plentiful.

Plastic as a material is quite frankly magic, but because it’s ubiquitious it’s undervalued, so we make throwaway stuff from it. We’ve done the same with antibiotics, they are magic, but we frittered them away on cheap intensive agriculture because they were/are cheap.

This is why it’s so difficult to cut back. Plastic is a cheap solution to our needs.

Still we can all improve, help.
 

beardface

Member
Location
East Yorkshire
M
We bake anywhere between 6000 to 10000 little bales a year and have never used anything else.

Pros
Kinder on your hands, which some of the horsey people like
Kinder on the baler, which is why we insist on it, I refuse to use plastic string.

Cons
More expensive, by approx 1.5 to 2 times per bale
It’s not as easy to get good quality stuff these days
It rots, eich is brilliant from an environmental point of view, but not always ideal in a stack!!

Hairy string! It’s the future!!

Must be a fair oven, certainly one way to dry it out!
 

Farma Parma

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Northumberlandia
Tin Hat on but the only true way to eliminate plastic silage rap is do away with it.
Iam sure some 25years ago it didn't even exist?
What did folks do before then you wonder?
Just made Hay or Pit Silage i presume
Netwrap be a bugger tho coz there is nowt else suitable
My Major two forms of plastic waste are seed & fert Bags neither is there any other option but too have them & Agchem Containers
the lot all gets recycled tho. apart from the lid caps which i still think there must be something you can do with them ?
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
Tin Hat on but the only true way to eliminate plastic silage rap is do away with it.
Iam sure some 25years ago it didn't even exist?
What did folks do before then you wonder?
Just made Hay or Pit Silage i presume
Netwrap be a bugger tho coz there is nowt else suitable
My Major two forms of plastic waste are seed & fert Bags neither is there any other option but too have them & Agchem Containers
the lot all gets recycled tho. apart from the lid caps which i still think there must be something you can do with them ?
After bad summers*, the livestock went to sh*t, and we died young of farmers lung.

*'famine' doesn't always mean dry desiccated landscapes...historically, it followed wet washed out european summers
 

Farma Parma

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Northumberlandia
After bad summers, the livestock went to sh*t, and we died young of farmers lung.
I know making good hay has become more difficult over the last 10years that i cant disagree with
so i get the point of wrapped silage bales at that point.
Surely all that Bale wrap & silage wrap has to be made from a bio-degradable product tho.
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
OK. Update. 2 suppliers have come back, one lucidly, the other not really grasping what I'm asking.

Both have promised to come back with further info, one has already shared link to overseas supplier he deals with. (which is a huge no-no for a business to do...introduce customer to supplier...but hey ho)

Has Selectamatic got a supplier he'd share?

Those asking for big squares...... I would worry the risks are huge...cos the integrity of the bale is absolutely dependant on string integrity.
If I left round bales out to sweat, for instance, and the string failed, they would still somehow end up in the shed.
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
I know making good hay has become more difficult over the last 10years that i cant disagree with
so i get the point of wrapped silage bales at that point.
Surely all that Bale wrap & silage wrap has to be made from a bio-degradable product tho.
Thats the answer if we're to continue with wrapping bales.
Clamping is potentially much better, but anything that involves a 900bhp machine to pick up grass for cows will hardly pass the 'Greta test'.

I was, incidentally, abroad in the alps last summer, and saw all manner of small forage pick up wagons, down to demountable and 12' long.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Just catching up here. Plastic is a problem which can be reduced with a few simple management tweaks and industry changes.
With regards to having to have animals on your farm all year round, there is no need to. There is already a system in place in the UK where hill farmers send their sheep away on tack for the winter or part of to somewhere which is more suited to having them.
With cattle it is more tricky due to TB considerations but could be done locally. I would love to be able to send the cows away for the winter and bring them home for calving.
Finishing cattle is a harder one but also doable with some sideways thinking.
If silage sheets were more expensive there would be a lot more getting reused for future years rather than thrown away.
Fertiliser and seed bags are a big problem that needs sorting. I can’t see the problem with reusing seed bags but there needs to be an incentive from the rest of the supply chain to send them back. Like a deposit scheme!!
I remember 23 years ago, when you got a big bag of sand from Jewson, there was a deposit on the bag and the bag was returned, I wonder when that stopped? Guessing, it would be to do with health and safety and lifting?
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
the 'Greta test'.

Will the test run something like this...? ??


22cd3ed80b1344fd996e1cd74bc1310d.jpg
 

theboytheboy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Portsmouth
We bake anywhere between 6000 to 10000 little bales a year and have never used anything else.

Pros
Kinder on your hands, which some of the horsey people like
Kinder on the baler, which is why we insist on it, I refuse to use plastic string.

Cons
More expensive, by approx 1.5 to 2 times per bale
It’s not as easy to get good quality stuff these days
It rots, eich is brilliant from an environmental point of view, but not always ideal in a stack!!

Hairy string! It’s the future!!
where do you get your sisal from?
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
I've said this before, produce enough of something, cheap enough, and someone will find a use for it. Make the process of converting waste plastic cheap enough and make it expensive to buy new (tax?), and it will be re-used.

They had that problem with bark off timber going for processing. Then someone pointed out that bark chips spread around plants in the garden suppress weeds. Go to the garden centre and buy a bag of bark chips and you will know all about it. That's what used to be a waste product and was expensive to get rid of.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
We get blend in half ton dumpy bags, at on time they would take them back for a re fill and it would be a little bit cheaper but foor and mouth stopped that
We don't use it fast enough to get bulk as min order is 3 ton it would be going off before we used it so there is not much we can do.
I gave away some bags on here a few years ago
 

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
It's annoying when you have filled a bag with logs and the damn thing rips and you have to pick up all the logs again :mad:
I met @Selectamatic when he came here and had a pile of used bags off me not that long ago. Seems a waste to dispose of them after one use so I had almost all of the ones we have ever bought hidden in an old hayloft.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.2%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.3%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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