The Drought

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Haha
“Make a business case to re introduce livestock”
You could never make that case to landowners who are used to the extractive industry of arable farming.
Hell would freeze over first
You are so presumptive with a chip on you’re shoulder about other people farming peoples land for them. Not everyone who rents out their land or has a contract farmer is in it to rape the land. Infact the people I rent land off farm themselves elsewhere in the country and are further down the regenerative path than me and have lots of livestock! Other people we contract farm for have actively encouraged me to do mob grazing of cover crops.
You need to stop generalising that every single contract farmer and every single customer/landlord is the devil trying to rape the land for everything it’s worth. This simply isn’t true. I would honestly not farm for someone who expected us to do that, it’s not in anyone’s interests.
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
too much rain would be his problem here
9 years out of 10, yes. Usually it's a case drilling between downpours, leaving it as late as possible in the spring to minimize the number of downpours on the seedbed after sowing.
Yes, I did cultivate to dry the ground up. If I'd known we were in for a dry month, I'd have done things differently. Anyway, the crops are emerging and look good so far. A drop of rain now would be perfect. If we get none, so be it. Hindsight is a marvelous thing. I know some folks are worse off, but our little mini dry spells affect the bottom line in Blighty. If this upsets Aussies, then maybe they could start their own forum ?
Both no-till, and conventional drillers have been ripping up crops, and re drilling around here BTW. No one is exempt.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
on u tube, there has been some very interesting videos, from Australia, on people altering the 'environment', and water retention, in drought areas, looked quite impressive, and long lasting, but again, it is man that baggered it up, with overgrazing, and overcropping, man has a lot to answer for.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
No worries mate... ;) :LOL:

'76 barely qualifies as a proper drought either. It only lasted one summer. ;)
Yes we know
our droughts are not long enough or hot enough
our lorrys are not long enough
our drills are not wide enough
our fields are not big enough
and we are stupid enough to move farm animals in trailers pulled by pickups because our roads are not big enough to get a fecking great road train up and our farms don't have enough animals to fill the fecker even if they could get there.
and it would be no good for us to send them any hats cos they would be nowhere near fecking big enough
 

CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
Yes we know
our droughts are not long enough or hot enough
our lorrys are not long enough
our drills are not wide enough
our fields are not big enough
and we are stupid enough to move farm animals in trailers pulled by pickups because our roads are not big enough to get a fecking great road train up and our farms don't have enough animals to fill the fecker even if they could get there.
and it would be no good for us to send them any hats cos they would be nowhere near fecking big enough

Careful, you and glasshouse will be able to compare chips at this rate.[emoji6]
 

Sharpy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Yes we know
our droughts are not long enough or hot enough
our lorrys are not long enough
our drills are not wide enough
our fields are not big enough
and we are stupid enough to move farm animals in trailers pulled by pickups because our roads are not big enough to get a fecking great road train up and our farms don't have enough animals to fill the fecker even if they could get there.
and it would be no good for us to send them any hats cos they would be nowhere near fecking big enough
To be fair, when you produce food for local use, low food miles etc etc instead of trucking then shipping then trucking it again over thousands of miles you can probably stand to be a little less "transport efficient".
 

Bogweevil

Member
So we can no longer use the word drought
Most people know i posted tongue in cheek , im sorry if some are offended
I will now refer to 1976 as a short spell without rain [emoji40]

'76, that wasn't a drought man, 1921, you youngsters think you know it all, 9 inches in East Kent all year, that was a real drought, OK it is drier in the antipodes but hardly anyone lives there compared to 67 million Britons crammed into a sma!! Island plus a bit we pinched from that other island.
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
You are so presumptive with a chip on you’re shoulder about other people farming peoples land for them. Not everyone who rents out their land or has a contract farmer is in it to rape the land. Infact the people I rent land off farm themselves elsewhere in the country and are further down the regenerative path than me and have lots of livestock! Other people we contract farm for have actively encouraged me to do mob grazing of cover crops.
You need to stop generalising that every single contract farmer and every single customer/landlord is the devil trying to rape the land for everything it’s worth. This simply isn’t true. I would honestly not farm for someone who expected us to do that, it’s not in anyone’s interests.
Well all the contract farmers i know are just
Milking the land dry
They have to in order to make a profit to satisfy their fetish for shiny big tin.
Sadly the CAP and hmrc fiscal regime underwrite this sort of lunacy to the detriment of the rural land and population
How many farms do you “farm”?
 

DeeGee

Member
Location
North East Wales
'76, that wasn't a drought man, 1921, you youngsters think you know it all, 9 inches in East Kent all year, that was a real drought, OK it is drier in the antipodes but hardly anyone lives there compared to 67 million Britons crammed into a sma!! Island plus a bit we pinched from that other island.

1921! You think that was bad! Bogweevil mate, you hadn’t even been thought of back in 1881 when we had the Great Drought!!

Even the cacti were dying off here in North Wales. Camels were lying out on the sand in a comatose state for weeks on end, and the blazing sun was so relentless that all the air conditioning units packed in at Les Harker’s amusement arcade on Rhyl promenade!

Well, not exactly packed in, so much as having been half inched the night before. But anyway, it was pretty damn hot and all the Sheilas were going around topless and then just lying there spreadeagled on the beach waiting for some relief. Okay, so maybe nothing new there; but jeez Bogweevil it was as sweaty as a stoker’s armpit after a twelve hour shift in the boiler house!

Even yer Nancy boy poofter Aussies ain’t seen nothing like I saw in 1881 mate and no mistake!
 

Longlowdog

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Aberdeenshire
I would say the biggest disaster with this drought is that I turned pretty white lambs out and now they are dust coloured. How am I supposed to flood Facebook with pictures if the lambs look off white?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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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