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Talkback: Wildlife

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  • DorsetUKDorsetUK Posts: 441

    Grain doesn't always go to animal feed.  If you have the right crop in the right condition it can go to alcohol production. Maize round here goes to a heat conversion establishment.  Wagonload after wagonload roars through the villages carrying what looks like maize for silage but that's not what it is used for at all. There was a bit of an uproar when they were hurtling up and down a very narrow steep road here.  They had to wait on the main road at the bottom as there was no chance of passing each other on the hill.  Unfortunately, the main road isn't exactly the M1 so they waited on the grass verges.  Some time later the culprits were seen tipping wagonloads of soil and sprinkling grass seed around to repair the damageimage (only after official complaints were made though)image

  • GemmaJFGemmaJF Posts: 2,286

    Does anyone know if there is a current subsidy for storing straw? We've noticed tons and tons of it being moved around the back roads this year. The harvest was ages ago, but still there are dozens of lorries and tractors hauling bails of straw around. It seems it keeps disappearing from one store, only to return again a few days later, then be moved again. I'm suspicious!

     

  • The fact that we can feed 2/3rds of our 64million population from our relatively crowded and small landmass, when much of those imports ( bananas for example) can't be grown here anyway, is a fantastic achievement, by the tiny percentage of our population who work in the agricultural sector. It's all down to intensive farming by increasingly large agribusinesses, backed by science.

    The bucolic image of the  farmer leaning on the gate, straw in mouth, has been replaced by satnav guided combines working at night.  (Even my neighbour with a few sheep has them scanned to decide how to feed them when in lamb)

    The result, cheap food for all.

    P.s. Is the 2/3rds. figure an absolute amount or should we add the agricultural exports we sell oversees too? 

  • GemmaJF wrote (see)

    Does anyone know if there is a current subsidy for storing straw? We've noticed tons and tons of it being moved around the back roads this year. The harvest was ages ago, but still there are dozens of lorries and tractors hauling bails of straw around. It seems it keeps disappearing from one store, only to return again a few days later, then be moved again. I'm suspicious!

     

    Although harvest was a while ago, now is the time of year that more dairy cattle are being housed rather than being outside, so the arable farmers who grew the straw will be selling it to the dairy farmers who need it.

    Also you may have a straw-burning power plant near you, there are several here in East Anglia - this will cause a lot of haulier traffic in the area moving straw about - sometimes it's accumulated and stored in a holding area then moved on.  Not sure how energy-efficient that all is, but there you go .... image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • GemmaJFGemmaJF Posts: 2,286

    Odd thing is Dovefromabove, it keeps going out of the local open barns, then they seem to fill up again? Perhaps they are being used as distribution centers? I don't know of a straw burning power plant locally and we have hardly any dairy left around here. Just seems odd as though I'm use to straw moving about on the roads, this years it seems to have increased dramatically.

    Woodgreen Wonderboy, I still know a few bucolic farmers, they even enjoy the wildlife on their farms and even occasionally get out of their Sat Nav guided machinery to enjoy it and even that rare thing these days a 'conversation' with another person.

    I've already figured modern farming is a way to produce cheep food. In fact if one looks into the economics of it, it may be very much that fact that will be the final undoing of farming in the UK..

    Don't get me wrong, I am not in anyway anti-farmers and can and do often talk to farmers directly about the issues. They are not all happy with the way things are either. 

    The big question is, 'is it sustainable'. Can the huge agribusinesses continue to produce cheep food indefinitely for an ever growing population without the petrochemical industry? 

     

     

     

  • Gemma, you may not have many dairy farmers in your area, but straw is transported a very long way to farmers who need it.  Here in the east we have mainly arable farms and and in the west of England there are far more dairy farms.  Earlier this year straw was being donated by Norfolk farmers and taken down to the West Country to the dairy farms there who had to use it for forage as well as bedding because their land was flooded.

    Also, because of the recent high cost of grain-based feed for cattle, other forage systems are being introduced, including reverting to the old way of feeding chopped barley straw to dairy and beef cattle. 

    We produce it over here and transport it to where it's needed.


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • GemmaJFGemmaJF Posts: 2,286

    I knew it got moved about a fair bit  Dovefromabove, the farmer up the road from us sent his straw to his brother's farm in Dorset for years. What seems weird is it just seems to be doing the rounds constantly on the back roads this year. Perhaps it is just increased demand for it again that I'm seeing. image

  • Very possible Gemma - it's also possible that the wonderfully mild and dry (until recently) weather that we've had in the east has allowed the farmers to get on with cultivating jobs on the land and other jobs have been left until the weather had made the fields too wet and sticky to work on. image


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Hello Mike, Brig. John is remembered by some friends I was with tonight, fondly I might add. I understand he lived near the common/cricket pitch? PM me when you are next in the area. I can think of a garden I could show you, and a pub. I started rereading " Children of the NF" only the other day.

  • Mike, I'm not sure if youi're aware of this site http://www.genewatch.org/sub-568547 but thought you may find the links to some of the reports etc interesting.


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





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