When is the time to confront the elephant in the room ?

[delilah]

Agreed, what happens on the other side of the gate in supply chain, food processing, etc., is not something we can influence but that is for someone else to tackle.

Yes we can. We can work with our allies in the environmental and social justice movement to bring about the necessary changes in the food chain. They can't achieve what they want to see - less pollution, stronger communities, blah blah - without farmers being on board. We can't achieve what we want - a job that pays, presumably - without them being on our side.
All this navel gazing, worrying about what the carbon footprint of your tractor is, it's completely and utterly pointless. No-one will pay you more for your food. Has RT taught the industry nothing ?

 

[thesilentone]

Spot the odd one out there. Agriculture. The rest are a cartel, of 4 to 10 businesses dominating each sector. They run the country. As the banking crisis and corona showed, what they want they get. Too big to fail.

You really think that farming's best tactic is to stick its hand in the air and say "guilty as charged" ? That's what we are doing now, and look where it is getting us, the rest of the food chain is wetting itself laughing at our acquiescence.

Where do you get that idea ?

My point is about being proactive instead of reactive and wait for some tree hugging guru to take a blast at us with both barrels.

It would be the easiest job in the world to photo a tractor on a machine which it is way to big for, then use it against us based on emissions, "farmers don't give a damn", "farmers killing the planet". We know who they are, why be cannon fodder ?

However, more importantly we do need to think more about how we allocate power relative to what it is used for.

 

[delilah]

Where do you get that idea ?

My point is about being proactive instead of reactive and wait for some tree hugging guru to take a blast at us with both barrels.

It would be the easiest job in the world to photo a tractor on a machine which it is way to big for, then use it against us based on emissions, "farmers don't give a damn", "farmers killing the planet". We know who they are, why be cannon fodder ?

However, more importantly we do need to think more about how we allocate power relative to what what it is used for.

You really think AR know or care whether a tractor is 'too big' to do a job ? The extremists will have a pop come what may, nothing you can do about it.
Of far more importance is how we present ourselves to the mainstream. I don't sense that continually apologizing is working.

 

[thesilentone]

You really think AR know or care whether a tractor is 'too big' to do a job ? The extremists will have a pop come what may, nothing you can do about it.
Of far more importance is how we present ourselves to the mainstream. I don't sense that continually apologizing is working.

Who is apologizing ? and for what ?

 

[delilah]

Specifically on this tractor HP thing, what are you saying, that I need to own sufficient number of tractors that each operation I carry out has the power unit most closely allied to its requirements ? I would need about 20 tractors. How is that green ?

 

[delilah]

Who is apologizing ? and for what ?

Our national representative bodies. For farmings impact on the environment.

 

[andybk]

Think they need to look at the plastic sh1t thats imported from china before they look at agriculture , and all the lorries/ shipping dragging it about , most of it ,one use , unfixable disposable rubbish sold in poundland , bm bargins homeland and all the other tat shops , agriculture is minor user compared and at least there is a healthy product at the end of the line .I would say we are pretty carbon neutral by the time we have sequested carbon in wool wood soil etc

 

[spin cycle]

i worked out my little farms co2 emissions are far outweighed by it's hedge,tree and grassland sequestration.....so until a boeing 747 can say the same the powers that be can ...whats the expression i'm looking for ....oh yeah......FECK ORFF

 

[Bald Rick]

@thesilentone ..... I posted recently that the 46 cruise liners owed by Carnival Cruises emit morepollutants than all the cars in Europe.

Until that sort of thing is addressed, I will carry on using the horsepower at my disposal to achieve my aim of making high quality forage for my girls.
They deserve the best

(& I have to battle the weather over which I have no control so I’m not going to mess around)

 

[Spud]

The post is not to bring out hostility, it's in advance of what will come.

We have to change or be left behind by those that do.

At the moment, I get the feeling no one can give a bench-mark figure of what fuel/ton in used for the respective tasks, not a great start is it ?

Can you demonstrate how you've harvested or established the same crop using less fuel from one year to the next? There are so many variables between farms, from field size to how many cuts, distance from base, size of kit and a whole lot of others.

I don't make silage (just a bit of hay), but I can say I've reduced cultivation and fuel use planting potatoes over the last few years.

10yrs ago we ploughed with two 5f on 150hp tractors, then dragged it twice with bomford superflows on the same, ridged with a 2bed ridger on 200hp, tilled with the same (some of it twice), destoned with 160&120hp & planted.

Now, we establish a cover with an 8m tine drill on 200hp (mostly because that's the drill tractor), drag it with a Simba TL on150hp, plough with 7*18"furrows on 200hp, drag it again, and ridge with a 4 bed ridger on 200hp. Destoner on 180hp (one replaced two) and plant.

Roughly a 30% decrease in fuel use with no drop in output, soil gets less of a hammering, so potatoes are better and harvesting easier.

We're not all backwards buggers!

Next step is regenerative potatoes - trial in progress.

 

[Yale]

Two contrasts today.

Neighbouring farmer off to ted with 4 basket tedder on a Fendt 818 and my other near neighbour,small holder on this.

 

[Bald Rick]

Two contrasts today.

Neighbouring farmer off to ted with 4 basket tedder on a Fendt 818 and my other near neighbour,small holder on this.

View attachment 974131

Probably going to get heat stroke now....

 

[Ffermer Bach]

The first thing we need to do is put ourselves in a place where we can defend the argument.

At the moment, we are happy to bury our heads and blame every dog and his brother, however we need to be seen to be doing something.

My example was a simple question, that we seem unable to answer. Why do we need a 150hp to operate a machine that needs about 40 ?

How do you argue that away and justify the level of emissions ?

you use the tractor that you have, more emissions/embedded energy costs in getting another machine or tractor

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Wrong, by far and away the biggest volume sellers Worldwide are small, maybe not in the UK, we like big, why ? because it's big.

The manufacturers will produce what the market demands, up to now big has been beautiful. However, things will change, and we need to anticipate it, and at least be up to speed.

But their again, how we justify things may mean big remains. it's how we plan and allocate things relative to what we get in return.

Do you think it would have a massive impact on our output's if we all downgraded the power of our equipment by 30% ?

far bigger difference in my opinion, is the size cars have got bigger, compare a mini 850 (my first car), with the size of the equivalent now!

 

[MRT]

.

My example was a simple question, that we seem unable to answer. Why do we need a 150hp to operate a machine that needs about 40 ?

How do you argue that away and justify the level of emissions ?

Is it more environmentally friendly to work out the minimum power requirement of each bit of kit and own 20 tractors or is it actually better to run one?

 

[yellowbelly]

Probably going to get heat stroke now....

Nah, he just didn't want to be recognised on TFF.

 

[MRT]

Specifically on this tractor HP thing, what are you saying, that I need to own sufficient number of tractors that each operation I carry out has the power unit most closely allied to its requirements ? I would need about 20 tractors. How is that green ?

Sorry, x posted, same guess of 20 tractors though! Could Lewis Hamilton get around with a little fiesta or something? Everyone loves that bloke

 

[CopperBeech]

Wrong, by far and away the biggest volume sellers Worldwide are small, maybe not in the UK, we like big, why ? because it's big.

The manufacturers will produce what the market demands, up to now big has been beautiful. However, things will change, and we need to anticipate it, and at least be up to speed.

But their again, how we justify things may mean big remains. it's how we plan and allocate things relative to what we get in return.

Do you think it would have a massive impact on our output's if we all downgraded the power of our equipment by 30% ?

do you actually have a handle on where world wide ag is / is going ? Just looo at South America, USA, China and Russia. Go look up miratorg, this is the future.

 

[oil barron]

Sorry, x posted, same guess of 20 tractors though! Could Lewis Hamilton get around with a little fiesta or something? Everyone loves that bloke

No. From the BBC this week, it wouldn’t be fair to make F1 go battery powered because they don’t make enough noise. It’s ok though they will be using “High Quality” Offsets to go carbon neutral.

So after everyone goes carbon neutral:

F1 carry’s on as normal
Flying carry’s on as normal
Clive continues to farm they same way he has for the last 5 years producing feed grains for livestock.
Clive sells “high quality” offsets to F1
The Scottish beef herd has to be reduced by 30% because it’s killing the planet
Clive sells his feed grain to Johnny Foreigner to make beef and chicken.
The foreign beef and chicken gets imported back to the UK because it’s ok because it’s foreign and cheep.
F1, The Airlines, The biomass energy industry and Clives carbon credits have a monster pile of ISO paper work.

This ISO paperwork must soak up a hoor of a carbon.

 

[Bald Rick]

No. From the BBC this week, it wouldn’t be fair to make F1 go battery powered because they don’t make enough noise. It’s ok though they will be using “High Quality” Offsets to go carbon neutral.

So after everyone goes carbon neutral:

F1 carry’s on as normal
Flying carry’s on as normal
Clive continues to farm they same way he has for the last 5 years producing feed grains for livestock.
Clive sells “high quality” offsets to F1
The Scottish beef herd has to be reduced by 30% because it’s killing the planet
Clive sells his feed grain to Johnny Foreigner to make beef and chicken.
The foreign beef and chicken gets imported back to the UK because it’s ok because it’s foreign and cheep.
F1, The Airlines, The biomass energy industry and Clives carbon credits have a monster pile of ISO paper work.

This ISO paperwork must soak up a hoor of a carbon.

I believe F1 are looking at hydrogen power.

Formula 1 boss Ross Brawn says hydrogen could be future fuel

Hydrogen-powered cars could be the future of Formula 1 according to Ross Brawn, the F1 managing director for motorsports.

www.bbc.com

Which is great as it will trickle down to us plebs