Regenerative Agriculture

[Farmer Roy]

Presumably you’d need a field that’s 365 times bigger than the one you’ve currently got, to keep all the donkeys in....

why have 365 donkeys sitting around doing nothing 364 days ?

nah, donkeys would be like trucks ( HGV ) - someone else owns them & keeps busy doing contract hauling work, you just get them in for your days work every year

or use your donkeys to cart someone elses water

 

[Farmer Roy]

a bit like a farmers view of having a $500,000 combine sitting around doing nothing for 11 months of the year

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It is doing something: using up capital and depreciating

That's two things

Depends who funds it's replacement, I would be so brave as to say that those who fund it via reduced tax revenue are really grateful that it sits parked up for 11 months.

Where's your spare helmet?


I was going to comment earlier about use of the donkeys - use them to pull in a pipe to carry water indefinitely and then they can be donkeys 365 days after that - rare to catch you thinking like an employee, Roy!

Pipelines are business tools IMO it is bucket-carrying that sums up agriculture worldwide: wealthy folk with a scarcity mentality that justifies more buckets, bigger buckets, newer buckets, but a pipeline is not cool

@Clive has a pipeline or two, and cops plenty of sh!t for them, I see that as good business

 

[CornishTone]

a bit like a farmers view of having a $500,000 combine sitting around doing nothing for 11 months of the year

With the best will in the world you can’t use a combine for anything other than the purpose for which it was designed, and that is for harvest, and that only happens for 6-8 weeks a year. They just have to build their business around that inevitability, which many seem to do.

 

[Farmer Roy]

I suppose my view on that is a bit different as we have 2 cropping seasons & most blokes who own newish headers either have a lot of their own work, or also use them for contracting. Not that common here for modern machines to only do a few weeks a year, but i'll admit that may not be the same everywhere.
very common here to use contractors - spraying, planting, harvesting, freight - rather than having a lot of money tied up in rusty iron . . .

 

[Kiwi Pete]

You need to account for the fact that we have a much different mentality down here where supply/demand relationship isn't as static as the synthetic version - we have an abundance mentality and our reality is that if the supply falls the prices go up eventually - this is not the case when socialism prevails, it just means every other fecker gets ahead, hence the high cost high output approach isn't tolerant of loss (not loss as we know it, Jim)

 

[Kiwi Pete]

With the best will in the world you can’t use a combine for anything other than the purpose for which it was designed, and that is for harvest, and that only happens for 6-8 weeks a year. They just have to build their business around that inevitability, which many seem to do.

Great for keeping the mice out of the grainstore if nart else

 

[CornishTone]

I suppose my view on that is a bit different as we have 2 cropping seasons & most blokes who own newish headers either have a lot of their own work, or also use them for contracting. Not that common here for modern machines to only do a few weeks a year, but i'll admit that may not be the same everywhere.
very common here to use contractors - spraying, planting, harvesting, freight - rather than having a lot of money tied up in rusty iron . . .

And that’s the key, workload.

In my opinion, if the cost can be justified, there are two functions within an arable enterprise which are too critical to be left to contractors 1) spraying (having made a holistic decision to of course) and 2) harvest. The rest can be left to contractors.

For cultivating, (if that’s your poison), sowing, fert spreading etc, if it’s conducted a few days either side of proper it’s not the end of the world, but, for UK farmers probably more so than Australian ones, if the rain is coming and the contractors combine or sprayer is next door, it can cost big bucks.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Donkey Days 2.0

When farmers do the job of animals for them, they then don't have time or labour to allow for ecosystem processes to work?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

For cultivating, (if that’s your poison), sowing, fert spreading etc, if it’s conducted a few days either side of proper it’s not the end of the world.

But then you can't wave your Quadtrack/Fendt willy in front of everyone

for UK farmers probably more so than Australian ones, if the rain is coming and the contractors combine or sprayer is next door, it can cost big bucks.

plenty have lost or ruined good crops here for exactly that reason.

Edit to add: Our combine cost us £4500 in 1984 and still does the job (I gave up on cereals completely 3 years ago). It did 140 acres per year for 20+ years which a contractor would have charged us £25/acre to cut. Having spent virtually nothing on parts over that time I think it paid to own it

 

[New Puritan]

This is a good book, if anyone is interested in organic lentils:*

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lentil-Und...1527446051&sr=1-1&keywords=lentil+underground

It's more than just organic lentils however, lots of interesting stuff in there about how some Montana based farmers worked together, dealt with various issues, started using cover drops / green manures etc.

*I'm not unmindful of being an organic lentil farmer myself, before anyone accuses me of confirmation bias...

 

[Farmer Roy]

 

[Farmer Roy]

 

[Nick Adams]

Hi guys I've posted a couple of pics of the legacy of cultivation over on my thread, a combination of soil movement due to cultivation and erosion has left a drop of about 1.5 metres from one side of the fence to the other. It's not the worst I've seen, in one paddock the soil level on the top side of the fence was eye level, while sitting in a 7720 JD! Irreparable damage.

Dislike. I’ve got numerous fields that have ‘terraced’ on the hedgerows. I can only conclude it was sheet erosion in the late nineteenth century from excessive cultivation. Over cropped due to the corn laws. Bloody meddling pollys again.

 

[Nick Adams]

I see the same thing often, on here;
..... why I can't try rotational grazing because I don't have enough grass,
.....why I can't put away the plough because the soil gets so wet...

All these reasons why things cannot be any different to yesterday, in short many farmers have tried ' one new thing too many, ' and have learnt that trying brings no new results so they stop looking.

Perhaps they cannot see the problem because it is inside them, behind their eyes and between their ears lies the only real obstacle?

When you convert to Organic the hardest thing is converting your head. After that you start learning and moving forward. Getting closer here to permaculture but I think biodynamic might be a step too far!

 

[New Puritan]

Interesting article here on someone who is using various techniques that are not mainstream at present (and they're not organic, despite the site it's published on):

http://www.organicresearchcentre.com/?i=articles.php&art_id=1010&go=Information and publications.

 

[Chae1]

a bit like a farmers view of having a $500,000 combine sitting around doing nothing for 11 months of the year

A combine in Europe could start harvest in Spain and work its way north. Eventually ending up in Shetland
@scholland s.

@melted welly s grandfather ran combines from South of England north to maximise workload.

 

[hendrebc]

@Crofter64

 

[CornishTone]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...-attracts-solid-backing-amid-success/10871130

 

[hendrebc]

Interesting article here on someone who is using various techniques that are not mainstream at present (and they're not organic, despite the site it's published on):

http://www.organicresearchcentre.com/?i=articles.php&art_id=1010&go=Information and publications.

I'm pretty sure he is on here but I can't remember his name to tag him in if anyone wanted to ask some questions