Production Based Subsidies

[Kiwi Pete]

Thanks for an interesting post with pics. That soil looks good - no layers or 'rust' marks.

What lays are you using?

What rotation lengths are you finding work best - guess it depends on stock density? What about parasites - we find a problem with mobs is an increased worm burden.

Interesting comment ref sheep going lame. Are you saying that if the grass is long enough, so their feet don't touch the soil, they won't go lame?

An inch/yr soil growth is truly impressive.

Thanks but it's not me doing anything- I do far less of everything than everyone around me does.
And have much more reliable growth, if it gets hot, cold, wet, dry, it keeps on a truckin' where the other's grass stops and slows down. That is a combination of OM and structure, high OM soils warm up faster, hold nutrients better, let air and water into the subsoil......

Regards scald - any lame lambs simply go in front onto the longest possible cover to recover. Into this.

Re fert- well there's better ones than others. Too much N creates a poor state just as not enough. But sulphur and lime, MAP, are very gentle and encourage good soils.
Round length is variable and whatever works - but "wasteage" is a foolish notion IMO. Because of the commercial aspects of farming "waste" is frowned upon - but consider the recycling aspect for a minute and that speaks volumes. You can't waste very much in a pastoral system.
My main issue here is lack of diversity in the sward and I'm aiming to introduce many more herbs and deep rooted species as they all contribute to something.
I have PRG clovers Cocksfoot Timothy and plantain mainly - aiming to introduce even more legumes and plantain, chicory, sheeps parsley, lotus etc. Sainfoin is unavailable here but working on that
And then will aim to get chickens following the mobs to chainharrow for me..
Few pigs to turn the compost, etc
Then I don't have worm issues as the cycle is broken.
Borderline insanity

Still generates a lot more food per acre than a forest.

 

[glasshouse]

Your fields look the exact opposite of most in nz, grazed absolutely bare

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Your fields look the exact opposite of most in nz, grazed absolutely bare

I know - but think of they quality they'd have if they had some!!

That's fine, if you like the grass to only be growing for half the year, I'd go bust!
Biomass above is relative to biomass below - how do modern varieties persist with constant pruning? They don't, and all the old crap soon comes back.
More input required

I never ever graze more than half the cover at a time. That's the only rule on this farm (other than our "shut the gate" policy)
Hence, it doesn't ever stop.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

All the current system does is maintain control and squash the farmer into a box.

Sooner or later that paradigm will be shown for the farce that it is, hopefully your Brexit will be the best thing for UK AG since Adolf. It will have casualties.

Dead right.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Perhaps someone like Neilo would like to comment on the benefits of non-inversion farming in Wales - from what I've seen and read he is an extremely progressive and well respected farmer, and should be building topsoil hand over fist with his current management practices. As so many probably are!
I.e. a bit of fert or glyphosate is not the end of the world - it's that end goal that is significant, not the details.
And that's where Brand-Organic farming falls down, HLS cuts it's own throat etc.
Too many rules.
Make soil and money should be everyone's goal.

 

[Walterp]

What's to stop the UK going back to production based subsidies for livestock, or anything else? I've heard mention of WTO rules but nothing specific. Any ideas?

The WTO have a protocol about agricultural subsidies, including limits (not an absolute ban) on production-linked incentives and how environmental schemes must work ( that's why they are based on profit foregone) and what is effectively a quota system with each country or trade bloc.

The EU has its own agreement registered with the WTO as a result of the last but one Round - that is why the CAP was re-designed around area payments.

Any particularly interested (in truth, everyone should already know this, at least in broad outline) can look it up online. It's helpful to realise how the CAP works, and what the UK would have to do if it ever wanted its own system.

The point I would make is how dishonest DEFRA has been in 'inviting ideas' about a UK specific system when it knows perfectly well that room to manoeuvre is quite limited - it is estimating that farmers know very little about how the system must be run. I suppose that they do not wish to draw attention to the hard time the UK would get in seeking approval of any departure from the principles of the CAP.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=htt...uq3OZBRP9t7hoq_WLUYQRXhXJBEQOGXBu4riygxFg&s=1
Thankyou Facebook

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Since I've led your thread astray, OT, and into the depths of insanity...

Happy Birthday @Macsky many happy returns of the day

 

[Woolly]

Biomass above is relative to biomass below - how do modern varieties persist with constant pruning? They don't, and all the old crap soon comes back.
........
I never ever graze more than half the cover at a time. That's the only rule on this farm (other than our "shut the gate" policy)
Hence, it doesn't ever stop.

Interesting.
I thought the current wisdom on mob grazing was to put stock in when the grass is about 8" long and take them out when it's down to golf ball height, ~ 2"?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Interesting.
I thought the current wisdom on mob grazing was to put stock in when the grass is about 8" long and take them out when it's down to golf ball height, ~ 2"?

Possibly, if you only had one mob, but I have 4 over summer all playing follow the leader. Honestly there is that more feed around with this type of method that stocking level gets hard to judge, whereas the more conventional methods try to achieve a low residual and clean fresh sward- I try to achieve everything having the opportunity to select what they want and the rest can go fish.
Most paddocks here are around 6 ac
Would put 250 lambs in for a day, then the next 200, then all the calves, give it a rest for a week and put about 300 scrubby lambs in to eat the piddled on grass.
Then shut up for a month and let it go again.
It all gets a chance to drop its seed so it is a perpetual pasture cycle too.
Last year I made the silage so this year I'll focus on the seedbank, as I still have 2 winter's supplement left!!
Didn't have enough cattle at all last year but have just over 1 per acre this season so will run about 4.5 lambs instead of 7 per acre.
Like glasshouse said, it's not what my neighbours all do!
Grazing low means the roots get used to make the new leaf but I leave plenty for photosynthesis.
It still looks all normal by winter though, it all rots in and then we get supreme early growth - possibly akin to having underfloor slurry tanks? Darker soil soon warms up too.
This system suits a trading operation possibly easier than a breeding operation, as I can buy in heaps more big stores when it gets away and sell them on fast for not much margin.

Hence the profit off a 100 acre block- not doing what every other Tom Dick and Michelle can do focus on making other's weakness into your strength..
their weakness is:
Patchy growth over the year
Worm burdens
Input costs -worming, minerals, fert
No winter growth, due to no leaf and no roots
Flooding, pugging, drought
Lame lambs
Need to either plough or use herbicide

This system just lets you get on, without those other issues clouding the issue of making money (and soil)

I knew buying into farming at 36 needed to be bloody robust and as future-proof and cheap as possible as possible - again a slight contrast to some!
Future plans involve making 'pasture cropping' work for me, in our climate, and more herbs and diversity in the sward

 

[neilo]

Perhaps someone like Neilo would like to comment on the benefits of non-inversion farming in Wales - from what I've seen and read he is an extremely progressive and well respected farmer, and should be building topsoil hand over fist with his current management practices. As so many probably are!
I.e. a bit of fert or glyphosate is not the end of the world - it's that end goal that is significant, not the details.
And that's where Brand-Organic farming falls down, HLS cuts it's own throat etc.
Too many rules.
Make soil and money should be everyone's goal.

But I am a heathen. I also grow cereals and beet, with straw, grain and roots being removed. My system produces very little manure to put back in, and I don't intend buying in blackgrass & dock seed with imported muck, even if I could could get any. My cereals and beet are grown after cultivating (just with tines, not a plough), as I'm not convinced that true DD works that well for cereals on these soils.

However, I do rotate through grazed forage crops on the arable land, which obviously helps to reduce OM losses and has increases soil (K) indices quite dramatically it seems.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

But I am a heathen. I also grow cereals and beet, with straw, grain and roots being removed. My system produces very little manure to put back in, and I don't intend buying in blackgrass & dock seed with imported muck, even if I could could get any. My cereals and beet are grown after cultivating (just with tines, not a plough), as I'm not convinced that true DD works that well for cereals on these soils.

However, I do rotate through grazed forage crops on the arable land, which obviously helps to reduce OM losses and has increases soil (K) indices quite dramatically it seems.

I wouldn't imagine you'd be losing very much at all, I exported 2.8 bales/ac (good hard ones too) so I join you in the circle of shame.. SOM still went up by a whacking amount despite that being quite a lot of exported carbon/fertility, only imported 80 bales and 70 cube of chip, and that's in a heap still.
A little bit of anything doesnt hurt, it would possibly be more of an issue if you ploughed and ploughed and mushed it all up with a rotavator everytime - you'd be noticing if it was going backwards I'd suggest!

 

[neilo]

I wouldn't imagine you'd be losing very much at all, I exported 2.8 bales/ac (good hard ones too) so I join you in the circle of shame.. SOM still went up by a whacking amount despite that being quite a lot of exported carbon/fertility, only imported 80 bales and 70 cube of chip, and that's in a heap still.
A little bit of anything doesnt hurt, it would possibly be more of an issue if you ploughed and ploughed and mushed it all up with a rotavator everytime - you'd be noticing if it was going backwards I'd suggest!

The past history of the arable land here, has indeed been ploughing & power harrowing every year, all straw removed, little fert or muck put on, etc. Soil OM, structure, indices and worm counts are all improving.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

The past history of the arable land here, has indeed been ploughing & power harrowing every year, all straw removed, little fert or muck put on, etc. Soil OM, structure, indices and worm counts are all improving.

That's the ticket.
I reckon if you can improve the land then that's what you should be getting paid for, not what sounds good around a desk via committee .. environment can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people I guess.
It's one of the election issues over here at the moment
are we doing good?
are we wrecking the land?
BOTH!

 

[Hindsight]

Some useful background reading.

https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/agric_e/agric_e.htm

 

[D14]

What's to stop the UK going back to production based subsidies for livestock, or anything else? I've heard mention of WTO rules but nothing specific. Any ideas?

I don't beleive we have ever stepped away from production based subsidies have we? You get basically £80/acre as a cereal farmer so its clearly connected to the land.

A livestock farmer now gets a single payment with includes hedge payments and area payments assuming they have land so again its the same thing just worded differently.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I don't beleive we have ever stepped away from production based subsidies have we? You get basically £80/acre as a cereal farmer so its clearly connected to the land.

A livestock farmer now gets a single payment with includes hedge payments and area payments assuming they have land so again its the same thing just worded differently.

Hedge payments?

 

[Hindsight]

Hedge payments?

headage

 

[glasshouse]

I don't beleive we have ever stepped away from production based subsidies have we? You get basically £80/acre as a cereal farmer so its clearly connected to the land.

A livestock farmer now gets a single payment with includes hedge payments and area payments assuming they have land so again its the same thing just worded differently.

Its a long way from production subsidies.
You get paid whether you produce or not, that is the problem and it has spawned a whole industry of parasites syphoning the money away from genuine farm folk.

 

[neilo]

I don't beleive we have ever stepped away from production based subsidies have we? You get basically £80/acre as a cereal farmer so its clearly connected to the land.

A livestock farmer now gets a single payment with includes hedge payments and area payments assuming they have land so again its the same thing just worded differently.

We (Wales) certainly don't get headage (which I assume you meant by 'hedge') payments, and we didn't in England either. Just a set payment per acre in England for a good few years now, and Wales (at a lower rate on productive farms 'cos of being Fooked by the Uplands) coming into line by 2019.