Since Man settled down from being a Hunter Gatherer
The Radical
14th Dec 2017
GM
He has been Genetically Modifying plants and animals.
It is just that we are better at it now but it is in the hands of the
Agricultural Conglomerates and only for Profit.
GM FOOD NEVER KILLED ANYONE.
Improvements in plants and animals have saved the world from starving.
At least in the Western world.
It is politicians who allow people to starve not the effects of GM food.
India exported wheat while millions there starved to death.
Food mountains are there because of climatic conditions as much as are scarcities
Surpluses give the opportunity to give to those
according to their need, not ability to pay.
“ORGANIC” FOOD
Organic is a myth unless you have ever seen in-organic food.
The Soil Association which promote it are in it for profit.
All food is organic however it is produced
It just tastes better if it is grown using only farmyard manure
and not produced intensively with fertilizers and pesticides.
Or so it is claimed – Can you tell the difference ?
At least the early potatoes I grow in my garden do,
because they are grown on a very much smaller scale.
If all farming went that way we should, as a World starve.
Millions used to starve in China when the Rice crop failed
now the Communist Government feeds all the Nation.
UP HORN DOWN CORN
A traditional British Farming expression
The reason for Mixed farming – mostly obsolete today
As is the Family farm that practiced it.
It means that farming is all according to the weather
Some years plant crops do better than Livestock.
But both depend on the other.
And it is the market that determines the price
When beef or lamb is in short supply, up goes the price
and down goes the price of corn as less is needed to feed less animals.
Corn grown in the east as as its by product, is straw.
Some is good for eating some for bedding and it goes from the East of the UK to the West
Coming back in the opposite direction are livestock to graze on winter crops grown
in rotation in the East.
Farmers call this the Golden hoof.- the by product of livestock.
Because as the livestock eat the crop they urinate and their dung fertilizes fields
that otherwise would only get fertilized out of a bag.
In Mixed farming this occurs by good management.
GRASS
Grass land covers 80% of the land farmed in England
and 98% of the land farmed in Scotland and Wales
Only RUMINANTS EAT grass unless the vegetarians can tell me different
Ruminants are Cattle and Sheep but geese, turkeys ducks and pigs do eat some grass
In order to extract the best from the grass livestock have several stomach
and their food is regurgitated and re-chewed before the goodness it in is extracted.
Poor grass produces poorer doing animals who need supplements
of either good conserved grass as silage or hay or they go into a “store” condition over
winter, effectively starved to lose weight because when a new flush of grass grows in the
spring they regain that weight loss and more.
Before crops were conserved animals were killed before winter set in
whatever their age or condition.
Grassland Farmers spend a large part of their spring, summer and autumn conserving
enough feed for the winter so their stock don’t starve.
There is alot right and wrong about UK farming.
Waste is a problem, be it in land or management
The Family Farm, enough for one family to manage has been replaced by
absent land owners ever larger holdings, with farm workers employed to
operate huge earth damaging machines all for profit.
You talk about sustainability.
That is not the way farming land is going.
But intensive farming does have its place.
Management of scale is important.
On my farm I only contracted out hedge cutting
Now the farming contractor is king and there lies the story of farming
It has become impersonal and a rat race.
We can recover Farming in Britain after Brexit
Because Brexit allows us to be independent.
Farming had a great tradition in the UK until Farmers left in their droves
Small is no longer Beautiful
Smallholdings a thing of the past
Lets re-introduce Home Grown, build 500000 smallholdings
and make allotments market friendly
From cultivating the garden for food and encouraging urban people back to the land
A much more healthier lifestyle
No more Couch Potatoes ?