Yara says food crisis coming

[farmerm]

The fertiliser manufacturers are worried. The price goes up and people will use less and probably find their yields won’t go down especially not in the first year. So then people will start to think about whether they’ve been using more than neccesary.

Yeah, not sure I hold with your "and find yields wont go" down theory... If I have a cockup up with an application of N it has a pretty obvious negative effect on the yield where it occurred!

 

[steveR]

Genuinely don't know the answer but before artificial fertiliser were farms soil health rapidly declining as they were always taking from the land?

Yes. Lots of land had become less productive, and Pre-war during the massive depression of the late 20 and early 30's, this land was abandoned, or dog and sticked, at a low stocking rate. Come wartime, vast areas were ploughed and the slow build up of fertility of "fallow" for 10-15 years then paid huge dividends in feeding the Country.

A lot of land that was in production and in a mixed rotation was buying in lots of imported feedstuffs, which helped with keeping quality muck, and reduced the offtake a bit.

 

[glasshouse]

Yes. Lots of land had become less productive, and Pre-war during the massive depression of the late 20 and early 30's, thgis land was abandoned, or dog and sticked, at a low stocking rate. Come wartime, vast areas were ploughed and the slow build up of fertility of "fallow" for 10-15 years then paid huge dividends in feeding the Country.

Uk Arable farms depended on human sewage till thry started pumping it out to sea 150yr ago, then they switched to south american guano, but after that ran out, arsble farming was abandoned about 1890.
Thats when tumble down farmland started, with a brief respite from 1916-21 when the wheat price was guaranteed by govt.
That was reinstated in 1932 as politicians woke up to reality
W

 

[Yale]

Yes. Lots of land had become less productive, and Pre-war during the massive depression of the late 20 and early 30's, this land was abandoned, or dog and sticked, at a low stocking rate. Come wartime, vast areas were ploughed and the slow build up of fertility of "fallow" for 10-15 years then paid huge dividends in feeding the Country.

A lot of land that was in production and in a mixed rotation was buying in lots of imported feedstuffs, which helped with keeping quality muck, and reduced the offtake a bit.

I like that perspective.

Hadn‘t thought about the low input and fallow gain from the pre war era,this is in stark contrast to the ploughed,pummelled,subsoiled,destoned degraded soil which makes up the vast majority of arable land in the UK currently.

If the government want a home production boost they may find the soil is simply not able to deliver.

 

[Lowland1]

Yeah, not sure I hold with your "and find yields wont go" down theory... If I have a cockup up with an application of N it has a pretty obvious negative effect on the yield where it occurred!

i don't know your farm so i can't disagree with you but on our farm we've found that there is a law of diminishing returns with fertiliser application. Last year we used 130 tonnes of artificial fertiliser on 4000 acres of crops including baby corn, french beans ,broccoli and potatoes. We've found that often artificial fertilisers will reduce not increase yields. We only use muck on potato land so that's not the reason.

 

[glasshouse]

i don't know your farm so i can't disagree with you but on our farm we've found that there is a law of diminishing returns with fertiliser application. Last year we used 130 tonnes of artificial fertiliser on 4000 acres of crops including baby corn, french beans ,broccoli and potatoes. We've found that often artificial fertilisers will reduce not increase yields. We only use muck on potato land so that's not the reason.

You cant compare african soils and climate with the cold and wet uk
By thr time our natural nittogen cycle gets going its autumn already

 

[glasshouse]

I like that perspective.

Hadn‘t thought about the low input and fallow gain from the pre war era,this is in stark contrast to the ploughed,pummelled,subsoiled,destoned degraded soil which makes up the vast majority of arable land in the UK currently.

If the government want a home production boost they may find the soil is simply not able to deliver.

Theres plenty land doing nothing

 

[manhill]

Fattening cattle on grain has been the perfect relief-valve for the surplus produced. However, it then became main stream as the cattle lots developed.

In real terms, it makes no sense to give perfectly good human food to cattle, who by nature give a very poor return in the form of conversion ratio.

could just burn it for heat though.

 

[som farmer]

I like that perspective.

Hadn‘t thought about the low input and fallow gain from the pre war era,this is in stark contrast to the ploughed,pummelled,subsoiled,destoned degraded soil which makes up the vast majority of arable land in the UK currently.

If the government want a home production boost they may find the soil is simply not able to deliver.

since the desperate need for food, in ww2, to which we responded, that was the 'start' of 'modern farming', and the introduction of chemical fixes, in the 75/80 years since then, farming has gone through massive changes, many of the chemicals, have been withdrawn, simply because they were to dangerous, an ongoing problem. But those chemicals, allowed the production of food, that was desperately needed, that need, is still there, only it's for CHEAP food, and guv, is probably quite desperate, to keep it cheap. The long term effect, has never been really considered, never really has been a problem, cheap food is still produced, but, especially on the lighter, or shallow soils, fertility has basically gone, replaced by chemical fixes, without those fixes, how many crops, are left in them ?
And l'm not a zealot, just realistic, and we all know what happens, if you 'miss' a strip.
The sad truth is, without those fixes, production will fall, well sad for some, anyway, not sure l see a problem, from the farming side, less food, means better prices.
We need/have to rebuild the natural fertility of our soils, without, or reduced amounts of NPK, there is little other choice, unless science finds another way. The really stupid bit, is it's quite simple to do, we have tweaked bit's about, and seen a rapid soil response, spending virtually nothing, it's a mind set thing, l am not organic, or a 'green', you simply have to start thinking about, what's under the ground, not the bit of crop that shows, above ground, look at research, how farmers cope in semi desert etc, it's all on the 'web', as told by practical farmers, not pink trousered blood suckers, trying to sell you 'something'.

 

[som farmer]

Theres plenty land doing nothing

cousin cropped some bits, he has left fallow, for years, to awkward to do, for the yield return, the spring barley went down, well above av yield, of straw, and corn, wonder why ?

 

[gatepost]

I've got security fencing round my muck heap.

 

[Llmmm]

Unfortunately its not the wealthy who will suffer its poor countries.Look at covid vaccination the rich looked after themselves

 

[Lowland1]

You cant compare african soils and climate with the cold and wet uk
By thr time our natural nittogen cycle gets going its autumn already

Again it depends on your farm. On our farm in UK which is black fen land we stopped fertilizing wheat in our rotation because it grew to tall and fell over. We put plenty of pig muck on potatoes but the following crops benefited for several years after not just because of the fertiliser component but because of the soil conditioning affect. African soils generally have very low organic matter as it breaks down very quickly in the warmer conditions which you don't get in the UK so there's pluses and minuses. Rotation is the key from getting the most out of your soil I reckon. Farming has a lot in common throughout the world the reason I have been successful here is by using methods cobbled together from everywhere I have been rather than following common practice.

 

[DrWazzock]

cousin cropped some bits, he has left fallow, for years, to awkward to do, for the yield return, the spring barley went down, well above av yield, of straw, and corn, wonder why ?

30 kg N annual deposition from rainfall?

 

[DrWazzock]

I do wonder though, if a load of bread doubled in price, would anybody in the U.K. notice or experience real hardship because of it. The higher fert price could be “soaked up” by the retailers without too much of a problem, I’d imagine. Wheat at £300 a ton being the new normal. Carry on.

 

[wanton dwarf]

Actually the exhaust from Adblue catalytically reduced diesel exhaust consists of C02, water vapour and nitrogen gas, not ammonia. Nitrogen makes up 78% of our air and I seriously doubt whether that emitted by 'clean' exhausts make even a tiny jot of difference.
If cities were polluted by ammonia you would smell it and stuff like sandstone buildings would be bleached, as opposed to the historic corrosion and blackness that used to be caused by a combination of sulphur, soot and acid rain. All of which has gone away in recent decades of course, along with ozone holes.

So we have actually made a difference since about 1990 and that's without even touching on lead fumes in the air when petrol was heavily fortified with it.

TBH I don't totally trust Adblue.

Had a vehicle buildup residue in the exhaust - looked like soap but was very brittle. Needed ethanol to remove it.

Regardless the article was blaming Ammonia combining to particles in cities - can't see how Cows bottoms are the polluter.

 

[wanton dwarf]

I do wonder though, if a load of bread doubled in price, would anybody in the U.K. notice or experience real hardship because of it. The higher fert price could be “soaked up” by the retailers without too much of a problem, I’d imagine. Wheat at £300 a ton being the new normal. Carry on.

I think £500 a tonne is not unreasonable in a world short of Wheat. We'll know that in the coming Spring.

For those who are aghast - we need an alternative supply of Fertiliser and that will not come about unless Farming and Food is priced higher than mobile phones and cars - £500+/t is cheap.

 

[DrWazzock]

The gas is still there though. It’s just more expensive. Maybe shopper and retailers will just have to suck it up. Fertiliser suppliers raise prices to cover costs of gas. Wheat price goes up to cover farmers costs. That’s how markets work. Bread doubles in price would easily cover it. Sorry Mr Tesco, that’s how it works.

 

[wanton dwarf]

The gas is still there though. It’s just more expensive. Maybe shopper and retailers will just have to suck it up. Fertiliser suppliers raise prices to cover costs of gas. Wheat price goes up to cover farmers costs. That’s how markets work. Bread doubles in price would easily cover it. Sorry Mr Tesco, that’s how it works.

Would small scale AD work to create fert - both as digestate and make fertiliser ?

Or would we need farms to form Co-ops and build larger ones ?

 

[dowcow]

In real terms, it makes no sense to give perfectly good human food to cattle, who by nature give a very poor return in the form of conversion ratio.

If we were starving you would have a point, but for almost everyone in the developed world if offered 10 slices of bread or 2 slices of bread with a slice of beef between them, they are going to chose the latter.