Can't they just harvest the bracken for making good peat-free compost? Or am I missing something?
Bee x
Harvested mechanically you get too much woody heather, bilberry, saplings etc. Harvesting by hand is hard work and seriously expensive. And then you add that bracken spores are carcinogenic. Sheep, however, will eat it (cloven hoofed locusts that they are).
Can't they just harvest the bracken for making good peat-free compost? Or am I missing something?
Bee x
Dalefoot already do this in combination with excess wool which the farmers can't make money on anymore, but though it's great stuff it's expensive and production is relatively small scale.
How much mutton biriyani do you really need tho ? Sheep are basically everywhere you look. The UK both exports and imports them in one form or another. I've also noticed that young people starting in farming quite often plump for sheep as opposed to other livestock or arable. World trade is obviously a factor but sending live or processed animals half way round the world only to receive the same in kind seems not only pointless but madly expensive in terms of environmental costs. I quite like Sheep altho I don't eat them in any form but there is ( or should be ) a limit on their ever increasing spread.
Even on somewhere like Hampstead Heath in North London (320 hectares / 900 acres) there has been a devasting drop in wildlife. It has ancient woodland on it and very diverse habitats. There used to be reed warblers, barn owls, cuckoos and larks in my lifetime but now - no more. Around half the species there have beem lost in my lifetime.
There were 15 million visitors to the Heath in 2020 - which is more than the Peak District or the New Forest. There are 10 million dog walks every year.
Posts
You're right though, it makes good compost
I've also noticed that young people starting in farming quite often plump for sheep as opposed to other livestock or arable.
World trade is obviously a factor but sending live or processed animals half way round the world only to receive the same in kind seems not only pointless but madly expensive in terms of environmental costs.
I quite like Sheep altho I don't eat them in any form but there is ( or should be ) a limit on their ever increasing spread.