Please explain what this means.
- Thread starter Green oak
- Start date
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Plant the whole place up with fruit trees and nut bushes then leave it be for a decade. Thereafter live on fruit and nuts and squirrel meat.
The simplistic cynic in me would suggest it is no more than reinventing the wheel or the modern way to describe good whole farm management. This is what our forefathers had to do before the advent of modern chemistry and technology.
Don't misunderstand me here, we will probably all have to go this way at some time in the future, and this can only be good.
My only problem is the title 'holistic', I just hate that word, but that's my problem. It won't stop me trying to adopt this 'new' technique as best I can.
Going to listen to Frederic Thomas speak tomorrow so that should get the ball rolling.
Don't misunderstand me here, we will probably all have to go this way at some time in the future, and this can only be good.
My only problem is the title 'holistic', I just hate that word, but that's my problem. It won't stop me trying to adopt this 'new' technique as best I can.
Going to listen to Frederic Thomas speak tomorrow so that should get the ball rolling.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Anything that breaks the cycle of more and more expensive and destructive inputs for static or declining output must be a good idea.
Seriously, I am all in favour of it and I am trying to do my bit with hardier less intensive livestock and hopefully crops to suit. For me wheat and rape are non starters on our land. Barley, grass, livestock and forage crops could just about be grown without any chemical inputs, much as it was 200 years ago. Maybe not huge yields but not huge expense and risk either.
Seriously, I am all in favour of it and I am trying to do my bit with hardier less intensive livestock and hopefully crops to suit. For me wheat and rape are non starters on our land. Barley, grass, livestock and forage crops could just about be grown without any chemical inputs, much as it was 200 years ago. Maybe not huge yields but not huge expense and risk either.
SilliamWhale
Member
I think it would be about mindset. Ie open to concepts involving wholes and how wholes operate within wholes which helps us understand how best to enhance the resilience of the business and basically giving a sh!t about what happens up and downstream of our production system. Trying to think in the round rather than linearly.
(Holism as promoted by Jan Smuts and Allan Savoury has been for me a very enlightening subject)
Haw he haw
(Holism as promoted by Jan Smuts and Allan Savoury has been for me a very enlightening subject)
Haw he haw
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Tim May
Member
- Location
- Basingstoke
- Location
- Bedfordshire
Why is this in the Direct Drilling section
- Location
- Hertfordshire
It's a different mindset. Traditionally, the money side has been the be-all and end-all of the job. With holistic management you have to consider the economic element, yes, as that remains vitally important. But you are also encouraged to consider the social element and environmental element.
When I first heard about it, I thought yeah, yeah, yeah, I farm in an environmentally sympathetic way, I look after my staff etc etc. However, holistic thinking pushes you much further. As @willscale says, you have to think through a problem four or five times, or more, wrestling with it to try to come up with the optimal solution.
Solution to what? Well, holistic management also encourages you to write a mission statement that encompasses all your goals and covers all three strands mentioned above - the economic, environmental and social. Any decision you are making has to be held up against your mission statement to see that it fits and is moving your business in the right direction. I was sceptical but (even though I'm a novice) it works.
As an example, when they started discussing the social element of my business, I thought it meant my employees. However, the business has a much wider impact than this: it also impacts on your family - wife, kids, parents; it impacts on your employees' families; it impacts on your customers; and on your neighbours and the people in your village. It impacts on your suppliers. All of these, to a greater or lesser extent, are affected by your decisions about your business . Try writing a mission statement that encompasses all of these different interested parties! Get it right, though and it becomes a powerful tool.
It's fascinating when you get in to it, though as I said I'm still very much a novice [emoji3]
When I first heard about it, I thought yeah, yeah, yeah, I farm in an environmentally sympathetic way, I look after my staff etc etc. However, holistic thinking pushes you much further. As @willscale says, you have to think through a problem four or five times, or more, wrestling with it to try to come up with the optimal solution.
Solution to what? Well, holistic management also encourages you to write a mission statement that encompasses all your goals and covers all three strands mentioned above - the economic, environmental and social. Any decision you are making has to be held up against your mission statement to see that it fits and is moving your business in the right direction. I was sceptical but (even though I'm a novice) it works.
As an example, when they started discussing the social element of my business, I thought it meant my employees. However, the business has a much wider impact than this: it also impacts on your family - wife, kids, parents; it impacts on your employees' families; it impacts on your customers; and on your neighbours and the people in your village. It impacts on your suppliers. All of these, to a greater or lesser extent, are affected by your decisions about your business . Try writing a mission statement that encompasses all of these different interested parties! Get it right, though and it becomes a powerful tool.
It's fascinating when you get in to it, though as I said I'm still very much a novice [emoji3]
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- Location
- Hampshire
I agree. This section is an excellent addition to the forums, but should be in the main block, not DD.
Hartwig
Member
- Location
- Scheggerott, Germany
Because I think that many of these more holistic issues are closely related to DDing or even that DDing is the presupposition to a more holistic arable aproach.
Hartwig
Member
- Location
- Scheggerott, Germany
Hmmm, hadn`t thought that farmers would like to see and discuss "holistic farming" that deep and that far off topic from our daily dirty-boots-decisions like The Ruminant has expanded..... But maybe I also misunderstand sometimes as a foreigner.
The name of this forum is not written in stone, so if it fits better, I could think about "Regenerative Farming" to discuss our goal and interest in regenerating our soils, health (and that of our animals) and our standing in society and environement as farmers !?
What drives me is the fact that I`m actually in something like my personal mid-term-review of my farming life. I`m now 25 years involved in active farming from the beginning of my apprenticeship and have left maybe the same years for me if god leaves me. It really scares me to see how things have changed in these 25 years : back then we drilled up autumn crops, sprayed one herbicide in early october and came back in march with the spreader. No slugs, no virus, no fungal deseases, no blackgrass, no micronutrient deficiencies (all in the autumn) - and we didn`t harvest much less than today.
Last year the Kerb-spray pre christmas was my 6th pass over my osr after drilling, that really made me think....
Also our farm-animals : back when I started we had maybe a handful of deseases that could hit them - today every few years a new "desease" comes from anywhere and is named just with a few letters which describe the symtoms without knowing the cause really (BSE, PED, MRSA, CIRCO, etc.).
So something has changed against us and I don`t have the fantasy that we will go on with ongoing changes for the next 25 years like we`ve done the last 25 years. That`s the reason I want to discuss ideas and approaches "outside the box" in this forum whatever it is named and wherever it is located. .....but I still think the DDing forums are good as there are already many farmers that think outside the box, discuss strange ideas and have big enough balls to try out weird things.....
The name of this forum is not written in stone, so if it fits better, I could think about "Regenerative Farming" to discuss our goal and interest in regenerating our soils, health (and that of our animals) and our standing in society and environement as farmers !?
What drives me is the fact that I`m actually in something like my personal mid-term-review of my farming life. I`m now 25 years involved in active farming from the beginning of my apprenticeship and have left maybe the same years for me if god leaves me. It really scares me to see how things have changed in these 25 years : back then we drilled up autumn crops, sprayed one herbicide in early october and came back in march with the spreader. No slugs, no virus, no fungal deseases, no blackgrass, no micronutrient deficiencies (all in the autumn) - and we didn`t harvest much less than today.
Last year the Kerb-spray pre christmas was my 6th pass over my osr after drilling, that really made me think....
Also our farm-animals : back when I started we had maybe a handful of deseases that could hit them - today every few years a new "desease" comes from anywhere and is named just with a few letters which describe the symtoms without knowing the cause really (BSE, PED, MRSA, CIRCO, etc.).
So something has changed against us and I don`t have the fantasy that we will go on with ongoing changes for the next 25 years like we`ve done the last 25 years. That`s the reason I want to discuss ideas and approaches "outside the box" in this forum whatever it is named and wherever it is located. .....but I still think the DDing forums are good as there are already many farmers that think outside the box, discuss strange ideas and have big enough balls to try out weird things.....
shakerator
Member
- Location
- LINCS
High bohemian syndrome ?
These terms remind me of when IPCC etc try to put dollar values on rainforest destruction etc, when it is the petrodollar causing said destruction !
Does the modern commoditiesed financial system limit our capacity to price and market quality decentralised food where scale becomes a problem and parasitic externalities of cost increase exponentially?
Like the notion of no till, very few in the industry bar practitioners / specialist advisors want it to work as many dependent on status quo.
These terms remind me of when IPCC etc try to put dollar values on rainforest destruction etc, when it is the petrodollar causing said destruction !
Does the modern commoditiesed financial system limit our capacity to price and market quality decentralised food where scale becomes a problem and parasitic externalities of cost increase exponentially?
Like the notion of no till, very few in the industry bar practitioners / specialist advisors want it to work as many dependent on status quo.
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damaged
Member
- Location
- Gloucestershire
Having farmed in a traditional way, whole farm dairy beef corn sheep all organic closed loop, I finally folded organic. Size and scale needed increasing due to basically office demands- red tape paperwork on so many small enterprises including farm assurances. So renting more land made me realise I couldn't support whole farm organic approach at current rental rates. So now only dairy organic, beef and corn conventional.
We do not live in the past nor can we supply an over regulated market from a traditional sustainable system. This is obviously not a good place to find myself in. I have a system that works but only on rent "free" land. No chems nor slugs nor black grass but rather like others on the Direct Drilling forum I have found looking after the earth seems to cost the earth.
We do not live in the past nor can we supply an over regulated market from a traditional sustainable system. This is obviously not a good place to find myself in. I have a system that works but only on rent "free" land. No chems nor slugs nor black grass but rather like others on the Direct Drilling forum I have found looking after the earth seems to cost the earth.
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Very interesting man Jan Smuts. I'd always taken a rather parochial view of him as being on the wrong side, ie a Boer who fought against the British and someone who supported racial segregation. In fact he had the most extraordinary life- his wikipedia entry reads like a boys own adventure story- and he topped it off with a lifelong interest in philosophy and the creation of the concept of holism. He defined it thus: the tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts, through creative evolution.I think it would be about mindset. Ie open to concepts involving wholes and how wholes operate within wholes which helps us understand how best to enhance the resilience of the business and basically giving a sh!t about what happens up and downstream of our production system. Trying to think in the round rather than linearly.
(Holism as promoted by Jan Smuts and Allan Savoury has been for me a very enlightening subject)
Haw he haw
It's a very useful way to look at farming, or even your own farm. We are surrounded by advisors and scientists who have an extremely narrow focus, but we all know that everything is interconnected and nothing is that straightforward. I was lucky enough to study (well, maybe study is a bit strong, more like attend lectures with a hangover) under the late great Prof Colin Spedding at Reading in the early '80's. His great thing was Agricultural Systems: the application of Systems theory to agriculture, which no-one else had really thought of before.
Sorry, got off the subject a bit, but Holistic Farming isn't a bad title and it's not some hippy nonsense. Regenerative Ag would work well too. As Gabe Brown is always saying, sustainability isn't enough...we don't want to sustain a system that is broken, we want to regenerate our soils and improve the quality, as well as the quantity, of what we grow.
SilliamWhale
Member
Can't beat a bit of smut I say!
Probably get lots of it this year, didn't dress any of our wheat seed...
- Location
- Bedfordshire
oops, it is shaping up to be more of a year for bunt.......and you really don't want that !!
SilliamWhale
Member
I see on Amazon there is a fairly new biography of Jan Smuts that has been published @martian. It's called "Unafraid of Greatness". This is quite ironic as this was the title of the biography I was going to use about about your good self as well...