Traditional mixed Farming

[Bury the Trash]

electric fencing, revolutionised stock farming,

yes agree and especially modern high power energisers imo.

 

[Kevtherev]

yes agree and especially modern high power energisers imo.

Yes especially if attached to a parked bicycle

 

[Jsmith2211]

cheap l hope, if you have to clear it up.

in the past, l have farmed land adjacent to housing estates, just piled the rubbish back over their fence, they wouldn't be told, but soon learnt.

we have taken on some land, 3rd year now, houses all along one side. No rubbish been chucked over fences, and no gates from garden to field, amazing. More so, when the villagers are 'friendly'.

I just gave up with it and now just leave a 3ft strip along where the houses are. Not like much is going to grow there anyway and if the eco lot are right should do good if anything

 

[Bossfarmer]

Imo straw is effall, roots is where its at for om and fungi, i wouldn't be to fussed about the straw.

The most hypocritical thing ive ever seen is germany bio fuel, then drag a mouldboard plough through the field...saving the planet 1 worn out tractor at a time.

Im going down the roadof fungal dominated soil as i believer fert and fuel will be restricted, so it keeps me close to the organic edge, then if animal production gets restricted ss i believe maybe in my retirement it will, i hope not but i want the farm to be able to switch into protein products without being up sh*t creek with poor soil, grow some protein cheap and that will be me done.

Finding a lab to test soil for bacteria and fungi will be the challenge.

Ant...

interesting, ive been listening to podcasts about Mycorrhizal fungi lately is everyone aware of the benefits from this?

 

[Cab-over Pete]

Loving hearing about old techniques used, some are really fascinating! I have some questions and I feel like the people on this thread are going to be the most equipped to help answer them.

1) What are the barriers to taking a more traditional/mixed farming approach? Is it financial? Labour? No time or money to take a break to make changes?
2) Is there any interest in making changes to combat potential issues arising in the future; for example tighter reins from DEFRA and wholesalers, or destruction of soil due to a monocrop culture overriding the farming methods in the UK?
3) Do the accreditation systems benefit you (Red Tractor, Soil Association, Organic Association, etc)? How? Is there the space for a low cost, common sense accreditation built on the foundations of working with the farmers rather than challenging them and ticking boxes for the sake of it?
4) How does the SFI impact farmers? Are the financial benefits too high to consider something else?

Thank you for any clarity you can offer me! I am currently looking into how to bring back a more mixed farming approach to the UK and bring power back to the people so hearing directly from farmers is very important to me.

Crikey.

There’s a lot to get through there!!

Any farmers care to comment?

 

[Kevtherev]

Crikey.

There’s a lot to get through there!!

Any farmers care to comment?

You know who be along in a minute with 3000 sheep

 

[DrWazzock]

Loving hearing about old techniques used, some are really fascinating! I have some questions and I feel like the people on this thread are going to be the most equipped to help answer them.

1) What are the barriers to taking a more traditional/mixed farming approach? Is it financial? Labour? No time or money to take a break to make changes?
2) Is there any interest in making changes to combat potential issues arising in the future; for example tighter reins from DEFRA and wholesalers, or destruction of soil due to a monocrop culture overriding the farming methods in the UK?
3) Do the accreditation systems benefit you (Red Tractor, Soil Association, Organic Association, etc)? How? Is there the space for a low cost, common sense accreditation built on the foundations of working with the farmers rather than challenging them and ticking boxes for the sake of it?
4) How does the SFI impact farmers? Are the financial benefits too high to consider something else?

Thank you for any clarity you can offer me! I am currently looking into how to bring back a more mixed farming approach to the UK and bring power back to the people so hearing directly from farmers is very important to me.

Difficult to know where to start but I think it’s coming to the point were we need a lighter touch assurance scheme for small producers and perhaps a lighter touch from regulatory bodies. Some help at providing this basic assurance would be good. For example if you’ve no employees I can’t see why a much cut down HSE template couldn’t be produced rather than us having to start from scratch producing our own risk assessments. Much of this is carried in our heads anyway. And do we as small producers realty need to do a full blown environmental impact assessment for things like rat poisoning when we probably use no more than your average householder per annum and /or have our grain in central storage. I’d say there’s much to be gained by going through the standards and cutting them back to a “lite” version for small producers with extensive rather than intensive livestock, with low input systems etc. The same applies to NVZ recording requirements. If you only buy 20 tonnes of nitrate a year on 200 acres then unless you are severely bonkers you are never going to exceed Nmax limits and so why should you need to do pages of prescribed calculations to prove it? As a starting point I’d exemptions from certain regulations for low input low impact farmers, or a kind of de minimis exemption. Sometimes this approach is actually taken by more pragmatic inspectors but it’s not a given.

 

[som farmer]

interesting, ive been listening to podcasts about Mycorrhizal fungi lately is everyone aware of the benefits from this?

microbial expertise, is lacking by me.
but l do believe they are fundamentally important to maintaining soil health, along with worms etc. Ploughing is meant to kill off 50% of worms, so logic would say it affects microbial action as well.

l don't think we will start adding microbes to the soil, seems a bit 'snake oil' to me. But some would swear by it. We have concentrated on non inversion tillage, soils seem to be improving, more worm casts, and, alas, moles are coming back, as are mushrooms. So something has changed.

Its easy to say, not ploughing, saves the 'goodies' in the soil, and it must help. Whether that improves soils, is perhaps dependant on a few more years yet, to confirm. Being a mixed farm, and a former lover of ploughing, it has altered my opinion. Mixed, ploughing every 4-6 yrs, is very different to ploughing every year, for cereals.

We think it will help soil to become more resilient, and perhaps fertile. I also think its better to try some of these regen ideas, before they are inflicted upon us, by a bigotted nerd, in defra.

 

[som farmer]

Difficult to know where to start but I think it’s coming to the point were we need a lighter touch assurance scheme for small producers and perhaps a lighter touch from regulatory bodies. Some help at providing this basic assurance would be good. For example if you’ve no employees I can’t see why a much cut down HSE template couldn’t be produced rather than us having to start from scratch producing our own risk assessments. Much of this is carried in our heads anyway. And do we as small producers realty need to do a full blown environmental impact assessment for things like rat poisoning when we probably use no more than your average householder per annum and /or have our grain in central storage. I’d say there’s much to be gained by going through the standards and cutting them back to a “lite” version for small producers with extensive rather than intensive livestock, with low input systems etc. The same applies to NVZ recording requirements. If you only buy 20 tonnes of nitrate a year on 200 acres then unless you are severely bonkers you are never going to exceed Nmax limits and so why should you need to do pages of prescribed calculations to prove it? As a starting point I’d exemptions from certain regulations for low input low impact farmers, or a kind of de minimis exemption. Sometimes this approach is actually taken by more pragmatic inspectors but it’s not a given.

brilliant idea.
would it be allowed, unfortunately there is to much vested interest, to allow it to happen.

 

[DrWazzock]

I think there needs to be a debate around whether smaller producers need to be safeguarded from the full force of bureaucracy designed for corporate business. I don’t really see how we can carry on with a one size fits all assurance scheme as for small businesses such schemes are an unnecessarily large overhead to carry. SFI is going the same way. The overhead for small farmers makes it hardly worth the cost. We don’t have the time or staff to do the extra work required.

 

[DrWazzock]

And I know I keep going back to that old chestnut about sprayer testing but does my sprayer really need testing every year on 200 acres as required by RT when the law says 3 years is fine? I’m not a contractor.
As a 54 year old operator do I really still need to build CPD points to carry on driving it. If I’m not doing it right now then will I ever? My machine hasn’t changed in 40 years and NROSO doesn’t provide machine specific training so frankly what’s the point? A cut off age age for requirement for further training might be appropriate as what you know will carry you through. The whole thing could be made a little less over zealous and respectful of the knowledge that comes with experience rather than a one day course.

 

[DrWazzock]

It’s about respect, trust and keeping risk in perspective in my view.

 

[Kevtherev]

It’s about respect, trust and keeping risk in perspective in my view.

Trouble is regulations and new chems keep changing all the time.

 

[ollie989898]

There’s a 27 acre field here that was originally in 11 fields
Father pushed all the hedges out on the grants in late 70s

I know of a field back from my estate working days that was 27 acres and it had 27 corners. It was basically created around the war or just after- they bulldozed the centre of a wood to make the field.

A more awkward piece of land you could not find. Quite heavy and really didn't want to play ball during cultivations.

That field would be far better put back into trees.

 

[Kevtherev]

I know of a field back from my estate working days that was 27 acres and it had 27 corners. It was basically created around the war or just after- they bulldozed the centre of a wood to make the field.

A more awkward piece of land you could not find. Quite heavy and really didn't want to play ball during cultivations.

That field would be far better put back into trees.

This one in parts would be better planted some of it is very steep and some of it is very heavy yellow clay but it’s fantastic grazing land on a dry summer like last.

 

[Bossfarmer]

microbial expertise, is lacking by me.
but l do believe they are fundamentally important to maintaining soil health, along with worms etc. Ploughing is meant to kill off 50% of worms, so logic would say it affects microbial action as well.

l don't think we will start adding microbes to the soil, seems a bit 'snake oil' to me. But some would swear by it. We have concentrated on non inversion tillage, soils seem to be improving, more worm casts, and, alas, moles are coming back, as are mushrooms. So something has changed.

Its easy to say, not ploughing, saves the 'goodies' in the soil, and it must help. Whether that improves soils, is perhaps dependant on a few more years yet, to confirm. Being a mixed farm, and a former lover of ploughing, it has altered my opinion. Mixed, ploughing every 4-6 yrs, is very different to ploughing every year, for cereals.

We think it will help soil to become more resilient, and perhaps fertile. I also think its better to try some of these regen ideas, before they are inflicted upon us, by a bigotted nerd, in defra.

its what knits the soil flow of nutrients together i.e water, p, k , n etc all transfer through this fungi, cattle are the way to increase it, its like increasing wires between neurones in the brain but in soil

 

[bumkin]

Loving hearing about old techniques used, some are really fascinating! I have some questions and I feel like the people on this thread are going to be the most equipped to help answer them.

1) What are the barriers to taking a more traditional/mixed farming approach? Is it financial? Labour? No time or money to take a break to make changes?
2) Is there any interest in making changes to combat potential issues arising in the future; for example tighter reins from DEFRA and wholesalers, or destruction of soil due to a monocrop culture overriding the farming methods in the UK?
3) Do the accreditation systems benefit you (Red Tractor, Soil Association, Organic Association, etc)? How? Is there the space for a low cost, common sense accreditation built on the foundations of working with the farmers rather than challenging them and ticking boxes for the sake of it?
4) How does the SFI impact farmers? Are the financial benefits too high to consider something else?

Thank you for any clarity you can offer me! I am currently looking into how to bring back a more mixed farming approach to the UK and bring power back to the people so hearing directly from farmers is very important to me.

its a job to know where to start, most enterprises on farms these days are highly mechanized and the machinery is specialized and expensive so most farms specialize to keep overheads down, also to be cost-efficient each enterprise needs to be on a scale large enough to be economic so if you want to keep sheep you need at least 500 ewes then that's a family affair because at lambing time you need extra labor and there won't be enough money to pay people to work nights, the other thing is you need a lot of knowledge on sheep keeping or you will soon be up sh!t creek without a paddle, one could have beef cattle there is also a lot of knowledge required for that and a lot of capital with weaned calves at £900 pounds each, so if an arable farmer wants to get into mixed farming he needs to be sure he has the skills and mindset to farm livestock and the courage to borrow the extra capital needed on question three you have touched on a very good point in the old days a buyer would know the vendor and know if his product was good grain buyers woul come and spear the crop on farm and test it he could also see if the store was clean and tidy these days its sold over the phone

 

[TelesnaAg]

interesting, ive been listening to podcasts about Mycorrhizal fungi lately is everyone aware of the benefits from this?

Next month i will be building a few johnson su bio reactors,see youtube.

I will still use some fert but hope to be at 30% of normal usage.

If your arable its easy, but permanent pastures? I have to try get some info on how to get into soil? Do i drip spray or do i need a single disc seeder and just run it through pasturesand pump in liquid?

The aim is to build micrornhizal fungi, try and get a balance where im not sprayi g for crickets and baiting slugs etc.

I find it interesting amd something i can control.

Ant...

 

[som farmer]

its a job to know where to start, most enterprises on farms these days are highly mechanized and the machinery is specialized and expensive so most farms specialize to keep overheads down, also to be cost-efficient each enterprise needs to be on a scale large enough to be economic so if you want to keep sheep you need at least 500 ewes then that's a family affair because at lambing time you need extra labor and there won't be enough money to pay people to work nights, the other thing is you need a lot of knowledge on sheep keeping or you will soon be up sh!t creek without a paddle, one could have beef cattle there is also a lot of knowledge required for that and a lot of capital with weaned calves at £900 pounds each, so if an arable farmer wants to get into mixed farming he needs to be sure he has the skills and mindset to farm livestock and the courage to borrow the extra capital needed on question three you have touched on a very good point in the old days a buyer would know the vendor and know if his product was good grain buyers woul come and spear the crop on farm and test it he could also see if the store was clean and tidy these days its sold over the phone

not sure we have had to specialise, and intensify, to pay for the highly mechanized, expensive and technical machinery.

 

[Bossfarmer]

Next month i will be building a few johnson su bio reactors,see youtube.

I will still use some fert but hope to be at 30% of normal usage.

If your arable its easy, but permanent pastures? I have to try get some info on how to get into soil? Do i drip spray or do i need a single disc seeder and just run it through pasturesand pump in liquid?

The aim is to build micrornhizal fungi, try and get a balance where im not sprayi g for crickets and baiting slugs etc.

I find it interesting amd something i can control.

Ant...

Not sure exactly how the science of it all works, they said though the best way to keep levels up was through livestock? Mainly cattle