"Waddling inside ... to be squeezed dry"

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
Completely agree with this, and it’s my experience also. However, the people I tend to engage with either live locally or have chosen to come here on holiday. The much larger number are city and estate dwelling individuals who have far less knowledge or interest in where their food comes from and are therefore far more easily influenced either on price or misinformation.
last summer I went camping in Snowdonia, and camped on the NT farm that is part of Snowdon, I saw the farm manager in the yard and went over to have a chat, and he told me that most of the visitors who camp on the farm have no interest at all in what is happening on the farm
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Isn't that part of the problem? Many farms seem to maximise production when they would be better off if they optimised it?

The "we must feed the world" fallacy has been destructive to UK farm sustainability.

Also your idea of a "smallish area of land" is a country estate to a townie and probably 20 big farms to a horticultural grower.
Good question about maximisation/optimisation.
But generally I’ll push the crop to the economic optimum rather than maximum physical output. Water is the limiting factor here. I don’t think I’d cut back inputs to allow in more weeds or disease though. We are in a situation where we have to have zero tolerance of for example black grass as any resurgence soon pushes you very rapidly into making an unsustainable loss. I think you have to be in it to win it. There’s no room here to say I’ll just back off on the chemicals a bit and leave some Fat hen for the birds in the crop or it’s soon an overwhelming influx that smothers the crop. I have similar views on unimproved grassland and slow growing old breeds. Fair enough subsidise it as a public goods but it just flies in the face of a century of agricultural progress and just doesn’t feel like the right way to be going. No other industry is being encouraged to go backwards.
I agree with nature reserves, and woodland large scale but I don’t think we do farming any favours by doing a halfarsed job of it in the name of letting nature in, sustainability or whatever they might call it. Keep the nature reserves apart from farming. There is plenty of wildlife on an efficient farm anyway without needing to do much to encourage it.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
I hope no one tells her what farmers do to get a chocolate milk from cows. And that cottage cheese comes from bulls. This industry should keep their secrets safe from people like her
The secrets that should be aired are what is in, and happens to the ingredients in Ultra Processed Food and how they effect the Micro Biome of people who eat them and thus people!
 

roscoe erf

Member
Livestock Farmer
Isn't that part of the problem? Many farms seem to maximise production when they would be better off if they optimised it?

The "we must feed the world" fallacy has been destructive to UK farm sustainability.

Also your idea of a "smallish area of land" is a country estate to a townie and probably 20 big farms to a horticultural grower.
but who's fault is that for years we have been brow Beaton into squeezing every last ounce out of all our products whilst taking a pay cut, the more we produce the less we get payed .
 

thesilentone

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
Somebody’s probably told her that you nasty dairy farmers us cattle crushes.😲 It’s pretty obvious you would be using them to squeeze the milk out of the poor old girls.


Yes, we never really thought about PR when naming things like ' Crush ' and the long-term implications.
 
Yes, we never really thought about PR when naming things like ' Crush ' and the long-term implications.
I see where you’re coming from, so what should it be called, don’t really like the idea of some long winded descriptive title, just a short simple word.

Does it really matter that it’s called a crush? Surely the vast majority of people have the common sense to realise that farmers don’t “crush” cows.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
I see where you’re coming from, so what should it be called, don’t really like the idea of some long winded descriptive title, just a short simple word.

Does it really matter that it’s called a crush? Surely the vast majority of people have the common sense to realise that farmers don’t “crush” cows.
Have you seen the comments on the "the world is not PC enough" FB page? :rolleyes:
 
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Agrivator

Member
"... the milking cows in the field next door must waddle inside each night to be squeezed dry."

So runs a sentence in an opinion piece by Alice Thomson in yesterday's Times, buried in an article that was challenging the governments agenda by prioritising bills to protect pets (The Animal Welfare [Kept Animals] Bill) and the forthcoming trade agreement with Australia, a lead that is likely to allow USA & Brazil etc to carbon copy.

She makes very valid points vis:

"If we really care about animals and the environment we need to reinforce the trend that occurred naturally during lockdowns of eating more locally sourced produce, as well as eating less of it.

The big winners (of the push for rewilding) will be the rich donors (to the Tory Party) with expensive consultants reintroducing lynx and wolves on large estates and importing fillet steaks for the London clubs from thousands of miles away
"

The above we can all get behind but why that highly emotive sentence? Are farmers really perceived by Joe Public as scallies who squeeze dry everything at every opportunity?

Discuss

I've seen broken-down Holstein cows who would be quite happy if they could get more than a few yards from the gate after being let out.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.2%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.3%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 6 3.3%

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

  • 1,287
  • 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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