Switch to organic farming causes chaos in Sri Lanka

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
No, I'm not. I wasn't including fertiliser because there are plenty of non-organic farms that don't use it.


Agreed, and something I have advocated for a while. Focussing on pesticides (trivial energy for production compared to manual picking or burning of weeds) seemed an easy way of differentiating between the two.

I haven't advocated any such thing. My own farm is carbon negative, including the effects of external factors and complete chain energy.
There are plenty that do, so it still should be counted.
Proof to prove the energy use is trivial.
Carbon negative, these measuring tools only give a snap shot of the true carbon footprint of anything.
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
There are plenty that do, so it still should be counted.
You either don't understand or are being deliberately obtuse. The difference between an organic and a 'regenerative' farmer boils down to little apart from the use of pesticides.
Proof to prove the energy use is trivial.
Quite intuitive if you understand the principles of chemistry and entropy. As a general rule of thummb, if something is cheap to make and you only need a trivially small amount of it, then it doesn't use a lot of energy to make it.
Carbon negative, these measuring tools only give a snap shot of the true carbon footprint of anything.
I wasn't basing it on tools, but on fundamentals. Hill farm with trivial inputs and carbon sequestering soils.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Does your 25% reduction include all the land that would be need to grow the biodiesel, or is that allowed to be non-organic?

My own impression of organic is that the yield is lower per acre and the fossil fuel (or perhaps biodiesel and fossil fuel) use is far higher per acre and even more so when you take into account the reduced yield. Is that fair? Certainly the organic carrot growers seem to use a load more fuel when weeding - including a lot of very unsustainable propane to physically burn off the weeds.
Yield per area really only matters if you're a commodity producer, because you're on a skinny margin.
"Organic" despite being prescriptive is also quite a big blanket.

A vegetable garden will still keep producing for generations without buying anything other than seeds, and our heifer B&B is pretty much the same, in terms of fuel usage - diesel goes in the truck that brings the calves, diesel goes in the truck that takes them home to calve.

Obviously, it is a different story with carrots or most any other annual crop grown at commercial scale, but that's a lot like the "but people are starving" argument - it's not a production problem and never was
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
You either don't understand or are being deliberately obtuse. The difference between an organic and a 'regenerative' farmer boils down to little apart from the use of pesticides.

Quite intuitive if you understand the principles of chemistry and entropy. As a general rule of thummb, if something is cheap to make and you only need a trivially small amount of it, then it doesn't use a lot of energy to make it.

I wasn't basing it on tools, but on fundamentals. Hill farm with trivial inputs and carbon sequestering soils.
And regen ag uses artificial fertiliser.

If its cheap to make then it can be causing untold damage, fast food is cheap but highly damaging to its consumers

By selecting one part of re gen, as in your case hill farming, is not a broad picture of what " re gen farming" (and that's another broad brush topic) is.
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
And regen ag uses artificial fertiliser.

If its cheap to make then it can be causing untold damage, fast food is cheap but highly damaging to its consumers

By selecting one part of re gen, as in your case hill farming, is not a broad picture of what " re gen farming" (and that's another broad brush topic) is.
Regen is indeed a broad church, and perhaps I used the term out of context. Would it help if I just said 'I think it is a horrid waste of resources not to make responsible use of pesticides'?
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
On its own, agreed. But it's one half of the sum that ends with yield per input energy. My observation is that the other half is higher too, not lower, such that the overall balance is heavily against organic as an eco-friendly farming method.
But don't count the true full chain energy costs or costs to the environment from extraction.
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
Regen is indeed a broad church, and perhaps I used the term out of context. Would it help if I just said 'I think it is a horrid waste of resources not to make responsible use of pesticides'?
I was always told prevention is better than cure.
These magic cures seem to need repeating every year, like straw stiffners etc
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
I am not repeating the previous post , or are you deliberately ignoring some parts?

I'm not ignoring any parts. I genuinely don't know if you're referencing oil extraction (of which organic scores lower based on higher use), crop harvesting (where organic scores lower based on lower yields per area) or something else.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
You either don't understand or are being deliberately obtuse. The difference between an organic and a 'regenerative' farmer boils down to little apart from the use of pesticides.

Quite intuitive if you understand the principles of chemistry and entropy. As a general rule of thummb, if something is cheap to make and you only need a trivially small amount of it, then it doesn't use a lot of energy to make it.

I wasn't basing it on tools, but on fundamentals. Hill farm with trivial inputs and carbon sequestering soils.
The difference between an organic and a 'regenerative' farmer boils down to little apart from the use of pesticides. I would disagree, the difference is if the farming system looks after the soil. You can be organic, and re seed with ploughing every 3 or 4 years, and be a good organic farmer, however, you would not be farming regeneratively. Likewise a regenerative farmer may
* Maintain diversity (broad rotation, companion cropping, rotational leys)
*Integrate Livestock (high impact mob grazing, long recovery periods, mimic nature)
*Minimise soil disturbance (no till ag)
*Maintain living roots
*Protect the soil surface (over winter cover crops, maintain soil Mycorrhiza)
and use artificial inputs/sprays where necessary but not be organic.
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
The guys I know are using those methods less and less.
Employment in the local economy is a great news story.

Having to work in a hazmat suit doing a daily chemistry experiment less so.

I go on what I see too, and they seem to waste an awful lot of energy to avoid using a small amount of salt solution. As for your hyperbole about hazmat suits, I'll pass on that.
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
The difference between an organic and a 'regenerative' farmer boils down to little apart from the use of pesticides. I would disagree, the difference is if the farming system looks after the soil. You can be organic, and re seed with ploughing every 3 or 4 years, and be a good organic farmer, however, you would not be farming regeneratively. Likewise a regenerative farmer may
* Maintain diversity (broad rotation, companion cropping, rotational leys)
*Integrate Livestock (high impact mob grazing, long recovery periods, mimic nature)
*Minimise soil disturbance (no till ag)
*Maintain living roots
*Protect the soil surface (over winter cover crops, maintain soil Mycorrhiza)
and use artificial inputs/sprays where necessary but not be organic.

It's a broad church, I agree, and there is little formal definiton for regen.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
The difference between an organic and a 'regenerative' farmer boils down to little apart from the use of pesticides.
This part is really quite wrong. I'm a relatively regenerative grazier and the closest thing to pesticides here is what we wash our dishes and bodies with
On its own, agreed. But it's one half of the sum that ends with yield per input energy. My observation is that the other half is higher too, not lower, such that the overall balance is heavily against organic as an eco-friendly farming method.
Neither is feeding urea to cows, when you could just put the sh!t directly into processed foodstuffs and save the animals' liver.

I'm actually not convinced that the energy difference on a whole systems basis is as different as the nitrogen junkies and their suppliers actually account for, but again it's that basic fact that more is not better.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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