M-J-G
Member
And raped of any nutrients due to the dung being removed on a daily basis.
Rewilding horse pastures?
- Thread starter Chris F
- Start date
- Location
- Hammerwich
So basically - horses have a massive carbon footprint, and use more than just the land they are on. Plus aren't essential. Sounds like a vegan's wet-dream. Why are they hassling livestock farmers then.
- Location
- DD9.
Probably because, the vegans have found “horse people” even more irrational than they are.
lloyd
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
M-J-G
Member
Don't get me wrong I have no issue with horses or dogs, as a household we have both, although the dog does work.
I have also supplied a reasonable amount of hay and haylage to equine establishments.
I do however know some horse owners who drive quite a distance to visit their equine friend give him a brush and then drive home again, I'm guessing that horse will have more of a carbon footprint on fuel alone than any cow would in total.
paul&mandy
Member
- Location
- surrey/west sussex
Thats 8tons of rugs,haynets, rubber matting,grooming kit and plastic. Then 1 ton of manure.
Spencer
Member
- Location
- North West
Isn’t all the carbon in horses locked up though in the soil, as they’re all buried as pets in corner of said pony paddock 
I remember when the original SFP payments came out and golf courses were claiming. I distinctly reading a list of SFP claimants, which were published
then, and was gobsmacked when i found that Swansea Golf Club's SFP was higher than any of the local farmers. Thinking now, this means they should
be subject to this "10% of land to be planted with trees", nonsense that the Welsh Senedd is proposing.
Make the game a real challenge with Wolves lying in wait, just off the fairway...
More like 9 tonnes of woodchip, mixed with a smidge of actual dung, IME.
warksfarmer
Member
We spray horse paddocks and basically they are all s**t. Massively over grazed due to the number rammed into per acre. If we didn’t spray them you couldn’t call it ‘re-wilding’ because it would literally just be dock leaves, thistles, nettles and ragwort. Generally horse paddock people don’t give a crap about them.
On a slight tangent, has anyone ever managed to get grazing on a golf course? There's a whopper I drive past near us, looks prime for some Belties or similar on all that rough stuff. Or is that part of the golf pitch?
kfpben
Member
- Location
- Mid Hampshire
My old boss’s Herefords grazed a golf course a couple of times. Can’t say it was asked for though!
kfpben
Member
- Location
- Mid Hampshire
Because we don’t eat horses.
We let the foxhounds eat them instead!
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
What we will probably end up with is a new war ag when the food crisis finally combines with the energy crisis, at that point all this rewilding stuff will end up being kicked into touch
the penny has dropped, to late? farmers guardian mentioned that prime farmland about 13,000 acres a year is lost to development, that is, was land that could have grown food gone, while the UKs population grows by the highest rate ever, a perfect storm soon will come, not nearly enough land to produce food to feed the population ?
Goweresque
Member
- Location
- North Wilts
There's a discussion on the point here:
Apparently the figure was arrived at by a housing consultant using some back of an envelope calculations. The consensus of the article is that 2% was pushing it, but that a quite surprising amount of land is indeed taken over by golf courses and gold related activities.
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
That's for England, not the UK. There's a huge difference between the two in terms of urban/rual mix. Have a look at how much grouse moor is owned by Anders Povlsen on his own.There's a discussion on the point here:
Apparently the figure was arrived at by a housing consultant using some back of an envelope calculations. The consensus of the article is that 2% was pushing it, but that a quite surprising amount of land is indeed taken over by golf courses and gold related activities.
ollie989898
Member
But but but, have you thought about rewilding?
ollie989898
Member
So basically we need to do the same as the French and then they
will all take notice.
The French people have a much closer connection with nature than anyone in the UK. And they eat virtually anything. Anything that moves or grows is usually eaten with gusto. They also know how to tell their government to fudge off and rethink plans they don't agree with. We could learn a lot from them.
Their relationship with agriculture and food is also very different to here.
In France, how it grows, where it grows, is as important to eating it as the cooking and eating.
Here, more and more, it feels like agriculture is the 'dirty secret' of food- farmers are the embarrassing family member no-one wants to talk about..