The conflict of growing crops for biomass or food.

Y Fan Wen

Member
Location
N W Snowdonia
I think govt during ww2 was wise enough not to ration beer
They also exported lots of whisky to get dollars (whisky galore)
Not often remembered that bread and potatoes were never on ration during ww2. That means your calorie intake was never restricted. On the continent I believe the ration for everyday folks was about 2,000 kcals which is pretty dire.
 

Grass And Grain

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Yorks
Not individual farmer's job to feed the world. That's Gov's responsibility. If we want demand and a fair price we should be pleased of other land demands. Easy to say, but if you're a dairy farmer looking for maize ground, don't suppose it's fun if the AD plant offers more rent.

Job's just messy when we're currently seeing price inflation, particularly for livestock industry.
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Think that figure would have dropped. AD plants that run purely on food waste are struggling for material to keep them going since cost of food rising.

Heard it on Grassmen so must be true!🤦‍♂️🤣
Someone posted a couple of weeks ago that they’d heard from their local bin men that the amount of food waste they’d been collecting from domestic homes had almost halved in the last couple of months. Sounds like quite a drop and it was only an anecdote really but hearing the same thing from various sources points to a theme developing. Good thing imo.
 

Jonny B88

Member
Location
ballykelly. NI
Given that most food waste - via human bottoms - gets dumped in the Sea, I don't agree at all.

AD is recycling in action, pure and simple. It also processes waste that would otherwise be dumped. The waste from the AD is fertiliser which can be used to grow more food or Biomass. It's a fantastic resource IMHO.

Shame the "Government" don't have their head shoved firmly up their backsides - Government Policy is cretinous.
Yes a digester is a great idea for recycling waste into a useable product, energy. However growing crops to feed said digesters is stupid, why, because the crops are not waste. They are a valuable commodity with multiple uses. Skipping all of those uses to the recycling stage is a waste.

You are essentially expending energy to create energy, i honestly can’t see how it adds up from an energy in to energy out ratio.

Not to mention all the other uses of the land which could be carried out.
For instance grassing it out for livestock production would have the potential to capture more carbon than than a digester would help offset in my opinion….only my opinion.

If all the food waste, garden waste even slurries or fym if deemed useful enough would be a decent job because its adding value to those wastes.
 
Yes a digester is a great idea for recycling waste into a useable product, energy. However growing crops to feed said digesters is stupid, why, because the crops are not waste. They are a valuable commodity with multiple uses. Skipping all of those uses to the recycling stage is a waste.

You are essentially expending energy to create energy, i honestly can’t see how it adds up from an energy in to energy out ratio.

Not to mention all the other uses of the land which could be carried out.
For instance grassing it out for livestock production would have the potential to capture more carbon than than a digester would help offset in my opinion….only my opinion.

If all the food waste, garden waste even slurries or fym if deemed useful enough would be a decent job because its adding value to those wastes.


How are you putting on energy to grow AD crops ? Fertiliser for the next crop comes from the previous crop. There is no loss into the sewerage system - unlike all other farm food systems.

I don't run an AD myself. However, I suspect that Nitrogen is accumilated within the system as Nitrogen is fixed from the air & rain in each season - without that Nitrogen being lost to the sewerage system.

Energy gets added by the sun & Photosynthesis. Pretty straight forward.

Plants capture Carbon at the same rate regardless of having cows on or not. TBH I think the whole Carbon Dioxide creates "Global Warming" is BullPoo so personally couldn't give a rat's bum about that scam.
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
How are you putting on energy to grow AD crops ? Fertiliser for the next crop comes from the previous crop. There is no loss into the sewerage system - unlike all other farm food systems.

I don't run an AD myself. However, I suspect that Nitrogen is accumilated within the system as Nitrogen is fixed from the air & rain in each season - without that Nitrogen being lost to the sewerage system.

Energy gets added by the sun & Photosynthesis. Pretty straight forward.

Plants capture Carbon at the same rate regardless of having cows on or not. TBH I think the whole Carbon Dioxide creates "Global Warming" is BullPoo so personally couldn't give a rat's bum about that scam.
You're still using food producing land to grow your fuel for the AD plant though. It doesn't matter how efficient the system itself is, its still using arable land.
 

Jonny B88

Member
Location
ballykelly. NI
How are you putting on energy to grow AD crops ? Fertiliser for the next crop comes from the previous crop. There is no loss into the sewerage system - unlike all other farm food systems.

I don't run an AD myself. However, I suspect that Nitrogen is accumilated within the system as Nitrogen is fixed from the air & rain in each season - without that Nitrogen being lost to the sewerage system.

Energy gets added by the sun & Photosynthesis. Pretty straight forward.

Plants capture Carbon at the same rate regardless of having cows on or not. TBH I think the whole Carbon Dioxide creates "Global Warming" is BullPoo so personally couldn't give a rat's bum about that scam.
As said the crop grown could be used for food production or other commodity production, so you would lose out on that utilisation first of all as opposed to using an actual waste product of another process.

The fossil fuel used to produce said product is a form of energy. I have no connection to a digester or their systems but i would imagine a large proportion of the crops grown for digesters will use synthetic nitrogen of some sort. That is a form of energy.

I am sure there is a massive difference in the ability of land to sequester carbon depending upon the management of that land. Land that has been intensively cropped to the extent of losing OM willnot sequester anywhere near the same as long term well managed pasture with decent periods of rest to allow to grow and allow roots and micro organisms to form their symbiotic processes. In fact land losing OM is by definition not sequestering but leaching.

Sorry what do you mean by loss to the sewerage system by farm food systems?
 

le bon paysan

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin, France
Unfortunately French nuclear power is really struggling at the moment. At one time 80% of French electric power derived from nuclear now it struggles to supply 50%.
Because they found cracks in our local reactor and advanced checks in all others of that type. The enhanced program has seen more reactors off line than scheduled.
We also have low river levels due to drought and reactors inland are ticking over as they're only allowed to dump a certain % of hot water into the river as too much kills fish!
By Winter they should be back at normal production.
 

le bon paysan

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin, France
Not often remembered that bread and potatoes were never on ration during ww2. That means your calorie intake was never restricted. On the continent I believe the ration for everyday folks was about 2,000 kcals which is pretty dire.
1180 calories for an adult in France in WW2
 
The fossil fuel used to produce said product is a form of energy. I have no connection to a digester or their systems but i would imagine a large proportion of the crops grown for digesters will use synthetic nitrogen of some sort. That is a form of energy.


Why would you use Chemical Nitrogen when you have digestate full of Nitrogen, PK and all the trace minerals which was in the original crop ?
 
I am sure there is a massive difference in the ability of land to sequester carbon depending upon the management of that land. Land that has been intensively cropped to the extent of losing OM willnot sequester anywhere near the same as long term well managed pasture with decent periods of rest to allow to grow and allow roots and micro organisms to form their symbiotic processes. In fact land losing OM is by definition not sequestering but leaching.


The point of AD is to use Carbon from the Air to create Methane - so the process is Carbon Zero. You can sequester as much Carbon as you like but it will generate no energy.

There is no difference between a crop grown for an AD or Humans as regards Carbon. Given crops have been grown for 100s if not 1000s of years there is no net loss or gain of Carbon.
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.1%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.2%

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

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  • 1
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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