The conflict of growing crops for biomass or food.

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
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.
It’s an endless discussion isn’t it? As far as the waste is concerned, surely the more important area to take action on is cutting out or reducing the waste in the first place. How much waste is created by supermarkets for instance? Mountains of it just because they decide that consumers won’t eat slightly misshapen veg etc even when they’re hungry and got no money. How much food is wasted as a byproduct of something that isn’t in any way an essential item? What’s to happen for instance to all the 70 odd % of the soya crop that the vegans don’t want fed to chickens or pigs?
 
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The looming world tight supply of cereals/ maize(corn), makes me question the growing of crops , worldwide, for biomass to feed AD facilities , versus using the same amount of ha’s to grow cereals for human /animal consumption.
Worldwide I wonder how many ha’s of biomass crops are grown to feed AD facilities.If those ha’s were growing combinable cereals , worldwide,would it make any significant difference to the situation that the tight worldwide grain supplies are heading towards, by the end of this year?
Awful lot of farms with AD plants invested in it because of grass weed issues. Basically they’ve no choice as they can’t effectively produce combinables every year without having such a diverse rotation.

Governments around the world should be looking at grass weeds because they could stall farming as they can easily halve yields.
 

thesilentone

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
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.
Or, we are using perfectly good land that could be used to grow feed-stock to produce energy, we need both food and energy, we can't survive without either of them.

AD is the only flexible renewable that re-cycles all the nutrient AND produces base load energy. No other source of renewable energy comes anywhere close on efficiency.

...and for the umpteenth time:


As many know, Germany (and France) has 000's of AD Plants, and this debate is a non-event.

In m3 per ton/£ of CH4/ha, nothing can compete with Maize, hence it's the crop of choice.

However, we must do much more with waste, which should be legislated that it must go to AD.

The AD plants should be designed and located where the gas can be upgraded and injected into the gas grid, and any surplus heat utilised on-site.

It should also be regulated that all the by-product should be returned to whence it came - the land/soil on a pro-rata basis.
 

le bon paysan

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Limousin, France
It’s an endless discussion isn’t it? As far as the waste is concerned, surely the more important area to take action on is cutting out or reducing the waste in the first place. How much waste us created by supermarkets for instance? Mountains of it just because they decide that consumers won’t eat slightly misshapen veg etc even when they’re hungry and got no money. How much food is wasted as a byproduct of something that isn’t in any way an essential item? What’s to happen for instnce to all the 70 odd % of the soya crop that the vegans don’t want fed to chickens or pigs?
The vegans are idiots. Soya is grown for human consumption, oil is its highest value and Americans cook with it. Soya/Tofu is eaten and in lots of products. Animals eat the by product.
 

Still Farming

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Wales UK
I see that Centrica are having 72 acres of solar panels installed, to produce18MWs on Joss Stratton's land in South Wiltshire. Any idea about the exact location @Boysground ?
Hundreds of acres of good quality land due to go under solar around here again ,they won't put on crap, mountain common land that wont grow FA?
Too easy for them?
Still they complain food land V energy arguments ?
 

thesilentone

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
I see that Centrica are having 72 acres of solar panels installed, to produce18MWs on Joss Stratton's land in South Wiltshire. Any idea about the exact location @Boysground ?
Installed capacity !!

With the ability to produce 18MW's @ 100% efficiency.

They will be lucky to achieve a 35% average.....

AD injecting CH4 to the grid over 95% !!
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
The vegans are idiots. Soya is grown for human consumption, oil is its highest value and Americans cook with it. Soya/Tofu is eaten and in lots of products. Animals eat the by product.
Yup. Been covered many many times on here by many of us. More soy goes into soy milk than goes into cattle feed, not that the media have any intention of listening to facts.
 

Dead Rabbits

Member
Location
'Merica
There is no commodity shortage.

Using biomass to produce energy is a result of really stupid government policy. It has not been nor will it ever be a cost effective means of energy production with very few special exceptions. Ethanol from grain being at the very top of stupid policy
 

thesilentone

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Perhaps we should be looking at utilising human waste in digesters? Is that even possible? 🤷‍♂️
That is exactly what happens at the sewage treatment plant, where the solids are separated and used as fertilizer. The treatment is to kill pathogens in the solids, the liquid is treated by varying methods and returned to the water course.
 

thesilentone

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Perhaps I’m wrong but i was of the opinion that digestate, although highly variable depending on whats feeding it, is high in p and k not so much nitrogen
The nutrient in Digestate is exactly what was in the feed-stock (well almost), and you are correct it varies greatly depending what you put in.

eg: Maize is not to high in N (about half that of grass) however poultry manure is high in N.

Food waste is fairly good in N P and K.

So, the ideal is carry out a soil analyses and get digestate (or feed-stock) to match your requirements.
 

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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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