Remember when i was ridiculed for "Food Security" claims?

[ajd132]

Haha! Well I was actually with you on most of that, as a upland farmer using a reasonable bit of electric fencing.
Where you went wrong was the insinuation that moorland/ common could be subdivided.
Practically, at a very push maybe.

Politically, absolutely not- open access and SSSI regs.


I hate to say it but your "subsidised sheep" mantra has been said on quite a few threads now.... i notice these things! ?

It’s not just subsidised sheep. There’s plenty of grain grown on crap land propped up by subs, that would probably be better with sheep on!

 

[lloyd]

It’s not just subsidised sheep. There’s plenty of grain grown on crap land propped up by subs, that would probably be better with sheep on!

Lot of grade 3 heavy land in Suffolk?
How many sheep do you want to buy ?

 

[glasshouse]

Send the sheep down to east anglia then and we can integrate them into our farming systems rather than leaving to eat rocks on a mountain whilst being subsidised.

You best stick to playing with big toys on subsidised acres

 

[SteveHants]

If you want true food security you won't be producing beef and lamb it'll be cabbage and potatoes and intensive chicken

Dunno - I always thought that food security involved a lot of mutton and turnips.....

 

[ajd132]

You best stick to playing with big toys on subsidised acres

Subsidies I’m sure have helped my parents by some land over the years, after all they started with a little 70 acre farm 30 years ago.

 

[Lowland1]

Dunno - I always thought that food security involved a lot of mutton and turnips.....

It's got to be maximum possible tonnage per acre so if you can get more tonnes of lamb per acre on some land than turnips that's what you grow if you are talking about food security.

 

[ajd132]

Lot of grade 3 heavy land in Suffolk?
How many sheep do you want to buy ?

Yep. I don’t want sheep although we are going to try and mob graze cover crops with the local sheep farmer, neighbour did it and it worked ok aslong as they only take 1/3rd off rather than create slop

 

[Blaithin]

As you probably already know bulk grain is typically shipped loose - loading and discharge really don't need much in the way of human input - mainly a bobcat / bulldozer and half a dozen wharfies to sweep out.

There are a couple of complete harbour areas in Rotterdam devoted to handling whole and processed grain and there are not a lot of people - any port delays are generally due to a downstream blockage or slowdown.

Mind you I still recall discharging 25000t of wheat in Madras using 2 gallon buckets - there really was a lot of people involved there but things have hopefully moved along a bit since then.

One of the nice things about containers is that it is easy to stack them tidy and track them

https://www.producer.com/2020/03/covid-19-sinks-ag-containerized-shipments/?fbclid=IwAR1dczJeQV3sbuyFbkWcC73Ki3liKtaiHkf9xzs0pHmvhABfE06k_YoDkqY

Your head is in the sand if you think it's not going to affect the ships.

Not only is a portion of our grain exported in container ships, wheat, barley, canola, peas, lentils, it's also a way that it's trucked to those ships. Pulses are especially prone to being on containers since they aren't always ordered in the high tonnage that the bulk carriers take. 40,000 mt up to 100,000+

Here's a quote from that article just in case you didn't want to read two paragraphs in.

There have been 33 “blank sailings” from Asia to the Port of Vancouver since the beginning of January.

That is 33 container vessels that have been cancelled and 33 fewer ships sailing back to Asia loaded with Canadian products.

The same principles can be applied to bulk carriers, even if they aren't quite as reliant on labour for unloading. It's not usually about the ship, it's about where the product on the ship is going (the processing).

What about other containerized food. Any meat or produce exported goes on containers. How much of that does the UK import?

There are two slaughterhouses in Western Canada, both a couple hours from me. Both with the capacity to do thousands of head a day. Yes the cattle are here to get butchered and the trucks are running them, but what happens when those slaughter facilities get taken out by Covid, if they do? Last I heard Cargill had moved in camp trailers and all staff had to stay on site so nobody was at risk of leaving and bringing in the virus. If their staff gets sick, it could be presumed a large cut in beef slaughtering is going to occur. I can't imagine the small town butchers being able to pick up the 4000 head a day or whatever it is. Then you get places like NZ where it sounds like their small town butchers have been labelled Non-Essential and ordered to close.

Depending how much meat the UK imports could it handle that cut to not only container shipments but supply to those shipments? Is freight going to increase to pay for the half of a ship that can be loaded to get to where it's got to go while the product isn't there for the other half. What about if and when your own slaughter facilities get hit?

The shipping is vulnerable however the main weak link between farmer and supermarket is going to be the processors. Mills, slaughterhouses, cracker factories, etc. If ADM or whomever your main miller in the UK is all of a sudden goes to short shifts or something because their staff is half in self isolation or sick, then are they going to order in as much wheat when they can't handle it. If the processors can't handle the orders, they try and get out of them, hence the cancellation of ships.

Isn't it something like 80% of UK wheat isn't food grade milling and is either blended in with higher quality or fed to animals. So your higher quality imports aren't making it for blending ability now. You can mill your lower quality grains, but how short is that going to cut producers who are relying on that grain for their livestock.

It's a viscous cycle once you pen it out. Take one cog out for too long and it can be scary how big of a ripple it makes.

 

[Hilly]

It’s still logistical distribution problem not supply. Grand scheme of things not many farmers will get it , distribution workers etc will it’s going to be awkward to get things in the right place right time but no problem producing .

 

[ajd132]

It’s still logistical distribution problem not supply. Grand scheme of things not many farmers will get it , distribution workers etc will it’s going to be awkward to get things in the right place right time but no problem producing .

The supermarkets are having to react to supplying 65% of food to 95% of it. That’s the crux of it

 

[som farmer]

perhaps we should look at food security from a different angle, secure food is what we produce at home, everything else, is what someone allows us to buy, and that bit is really not secure. We have had, one nasty little bug, unexpectedly jump out of somewhere, and 2/3 months later, the global economy is f######d. Can anyone tell me, who was prepared for that. Scary, and, dependant on the scientists, and how long it will take to produce a vaccine, before it ends. All normal rules, have gone, it is rapidly turning countries towards isolationist policies, if you think c19, is scary, that is much worse. But there will be supplies for us to import, but at what price, will it be, I will buy your xxxmachine, if you buy our ag produce, or, this will cost you x amount more than last time. The state we will be in, after c19, is that the 47 % of food, we import, will not be under our control, the world will be a very different place after this, even if it is only for a short time, it will be a case, of how much will you pay, from countries that are desperate to recover from this, and basically have us over a barrel. Or everything could be absolutely fine, no problem. But, it is no longer under our control.

 

[Two Tone]

https://www.producer.com/2020/03/covid-19-sinks-ag-containerized-shipments/?fbclid=IwAR1dczJeQV3sbuyFbkWcC73Ki3liKtaiHkf9xzs0pHmvhABfE06k_YoDkqY

Your head is in the sand if you think it's not going to affect the ships.

Not only is a portion of our grain exported in container ships, wheat, barley, canola, peas, lentils, it's also a way that it's trucked to those ships. Pulses are especially prone to being on containers since they aren't always ordered in the high tonnage that the bulk carriers take. 40,000 mt up to 100,000+

Here's a quote from that article just in case you didn't want to read two paragraphs in.



The same principles can be applied to bulk carriers, even if they aren't quite as reliant on labour for unloading. It's not usually about the ship, it's about where the product on the ship is going (the processing).

What about other containerized food. Any meat or produce exported goes on containers. How much of that does the UK import?

There are two slaughterhouses in Western Canada, both a couple hours from me. Both with the capacity to do thousands of head a day. Yes the cattle are here to get butchered and the trucks are running them, but what happens when those slaughter facilities get taken out by Covid, if they do? Last I heard Cargill had moved in camp trailers and all staff had to stay on site so nobody was at risk of leaving and bringing in the virus. If their staff gets sick, it could be presumed a large cut in beef slaughtering is going to occur. I can't imagine the small town butchers being able to pick up the 4000 head a day or whatever it is. Then you get places like NZ where it sounds like their small town butchers have been labelled Non-Essential and ordered to close.

Depending how much meat the UK imports could it handle that cut to not only container shipments but supply to those shipments? Is freight going to increase to pay for the half of a ship that can be loaded to get to where it's got to go while the product isn't there for the other half. What about if and when your own slaughter facilities get hit?

The shipping is vulnerable however the main weak link between farmer and supermarket is going to be the processors. Mills, slaughterhouses, cracker factories, etc. If ADM or whomever your main miller in the UK is all of a sudden goes to short shifts or something because their staff is half in self isolation or sick, then are they going to order in as much wheat when they can't handle it. If the processors can't handle the orders, they try and get out of them, hence the cancellation of ships.

Isn't it something like 80% of UK wheat isn't food grade milling and is either blended in with higher quality or fed to animals. So your higher quality imports aren't making it for blending ability now. You can mill your lower quality grains, but how short is that going to cut producers who are relying on that grain for their livestock.

It's a viscous cycle once you pen it out. Take one cog out for too long and it can be scary how big of a ripple it makes.

Unfortunately @Blaithin , we can't open that newsletter link because it is purged to anyone located within the EU.
Could somebody tell whoever it is that we in the UK are no longer in it?

Until then, was there anything else in that article that you think will be of interest to us that you can quote?

 

[Lowland1]

Thank you for this post. I did wonder what would be happening as I presume air cargo freight now is getting difficult. My heart goes out to those poor folk as I appreciate there is less support than here. Hope you and all keep safe and well.

We can get it to Amsterdam then it's trucked from there. So far so good but we now have a 7pm to 5 a.m. curfew we can only carry half the people on our transport and have to follow distancing rules so it's very stressful

 

[Blaithin]

Unfortunately @Blaithin , we can't open that newsletter link because it is purged to anyone located within the EU.
Could somebody tell whoever it is that we in the UK are no longer in it?

Until then, was there anything else in that article that you think will be of interest to us that you can quote?

No wonder the idea that containers backing up is foreign to some. You aren't allowed to know about it! ?

Here's the main bit about ship delays.

COVID-19 is having a profound impact on containerized shipments of Canadian agricultural products, say industry officials.

There have been 33 “blank sailings” from Asia to the Port of Vancouver since the beginning of January.

That is 33 container vessels that have been cancelled and 33 fewer ships sailing back to Asia loaded with Canadian products.

“The transloader yards right now are completely full of containers, probably double what you’d see under normal circumstances,” said Greg Cherewyk, president of Pulse Canada.

The “unprecedented” level of loaded containers sitting at ports is preventing transloaders from receiving any more rail cars and causing a backlog in containerized grain movement.

“At this point, we’re looking at delays (of) five to six weeks for sure and from what I understand, we’ll be facing these kinds of challenges well into May,” he said.

About 15 percent of Canada’s pulse exports move by container.

Chris White, president of the Canadian Meat Council, said it is an issue for meat exporters as well.

“The challenge is lots of containers stuck at ports,” he said in an email.

“Hopefully (it) will loosen with China increasingly coming back on line.”

Mark Hemmes, president of Quorum Corporation, said the other problem is the lack of empty containers available for loading at inland elevator facilities.

Canadian agricultural exporters are completely reliant on inbound container traffic from Asia.

China ships containers full of what he called “Canadian Tire” goods to Canada such as electronics, clothing and furniture items. Many Canadian agricultural goods are shipped back to China as backhaul products.

COVID-19 has “trashed” the supply of inbound containers with 70 percent of the cancelled ships listing the disease as the reason behind the cancellation. A number of others are citing reduced demand as the reason, which is likely related to COVID-19.

“It has really hit the container business really hard,” said Hemmes.

Exporters were already facing a myriad of difficulties shipping grain this year. There where 41 vessels waiting to be loaded at the Port of Vancouver late last week and another 11 at Prince Rupert.

“We’re double what we normally are,” said Hemmes.

 

[ollie989898]

I know bps is area paid and not related to production at all. I was just playing devils advocate. I have no issues with it. What I do have issues with is demands for area payments so people can carry on over producing unwanted stuff.

The same can be said of patches of land irrespective of the landscape they are in. Subsidies made it possible to farm certain pieces of land that you just know make no sense in agricultural terms.

The loss of livestock/forage crops from large tracts of arable land, along with farming out of a bag or can could even have been facilitated or driven by subsidies.

Look where we have got to: topsoil loss, N and P issues in watercourses or ground water. Collapsed drains, loss of organic matter over time, huge rises in resistant pests, diseases and weeds. How much of this was derived from the impact of subsidies?

 

[le bon paysan]

Bloomburg reporting that Russia looks to stop exports to conserve Wheat for the home market.

 

[Farmer_Joe]

im not reading the whole thread but the government in its new subsidy documents did mention food security quite alot, and constantly checking it. In light of current events im sure it will play an even bigger role.

 

[ajd132]

The same can be said of patches of land irrespective of the landscape they are in. Subsidies made it possible to farm certain pieces of land that you just know make no sense in agricultural terms.

The loss of livestock/forage crops from large tracts of arable land, along with farming out of a bag or can could even have been facilitated or driven by subsidies.

Look where we have got to: topsoil loss, N and P issues in watercourses or ground water. Collapsed drains, loss of organic matter over time, huge rises in resistant pests, diseases and weeds. How much of this was derived from the impact of subsidies?

You are spot on.

 

[Blaithin]

Here's an article from yesterday that's talking about the beef processing here.

COVID-19: Packing plants a top priority as Alberta looks to keep food supply chain running

The Alberta government is calling on Ottawa to designate the entire agriculture industry an "essential service" in an effort to keep the province's food supply…

calgaryherald.com

Of top concern for many in the agriculture sector is the continued uninterrupted operation of the province’s meat-packing facilities. Alberta is home to two of Canada’s three major beef processing plants — the JBS plant at Brooks and the Cargill plant at High River. These two plants, plus the smaller Harmony Beef plant at Balzac, are capable of processing more than 50,000 head per week, accounting for more than three-quarters of beef production in Canada.

“Shutting down one of those plants would compromise the food security of many Canadians,” said Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of the agri-food analytics lab at Dalhousie University. “You’re talking about thousands and thousands of kilos a day. You cut that out and it becomes an issue.”

Your processing is going to be more important than your supply.

 

[Bossfarmer]

It’s still logistical distribution problem not supply. Grand scheme of things not many farmers will get it , distribution workers etc will it’s going to be awkward to get things in the right place right time but no problem producing .

"Grand scheme of things not many farmers will get it "

we will return to this thread in a few months time, i fully expect most of us to get it i just hope its after the spring work