the future for food, farming and the environment

[Peasgood]

Take farmers out of those hills and you'll be left with an unmanaged thatch of brambles and a pile of dog s***.

I think they will leave of their own accord before long.

 

ps. I think you'll find the most aggressive lobbyists in that debate are the RSPCA rather than NFU.

[Mull]

Snot a thicket

Oh, apologies.
Not thick enough?.(tbh I was just trying to make the pic sound unattractive[emoji6])

[Billhook]

The whole thing will be like Groundhog Day.

 

Before WW2 nobody bothered too much about farming as we had all the imports coming in from the Commonwealth and elsewhere.  Then WW2 happened, which of course could not happen as WW1 was the war to end all wars.

U boats managed to stop the imports and then it was dig for Britain, bread queues and rations.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

I was born when my parents were on rations still eight years after the war.

Then the reaction, we have all this land why can't we feed ourselves?  My father was growing about one and a half tons of wheat an acre just after the war.

Next thing plant breeding program,  herbicide and pesticide program, fertiliser program, machinery program and education program of which I and many others were the beneficiaries.

Result over four tons an acre of wheat by the 1980s and vast improvements in many other crops.  There were problems such as DDT and mountains of grain and wine but these were addressed and the environment is in pretty good order now in spite of the nay sayers.

However the changes to farming in the last thirty years have meant that a lot of land has been taken out of production for greening, housing, maize for digesters and fallow so again we are back to a 1930s scenario where a lot of food is imported to feed a rising population.  This together with lack of innovation, education, pesticide bans and decline of many institutions through lack of support, together with very few young people wanting to become involved.  ( No farmer's sons that I know)

The first bread queues after the next crisis will start the whole process again but it will take forty years to put right.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

14 minutes ago, Billhook said:

The whole thing will be like Groundhog Day.

 

Before WW2 nobody bothered too much about farming as we had all the imports coming in from the Commonwealth and elsewhere.  Then WW2 happened, which of course could not happen as WW1 was the war to end all wars.

U boats managed to stop the imports and then it was dig for Britain, bread queues and rations.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

I was born when my parents were on rations still eight years after the war.

Then the reaction, we have all this land why can't we feed ourselves?  My father was growing about one and a half tons of wheat an acre just after the war.

Next thing plant breeding program,  herbicide and pesticide program, fertiliser program, machinery program and education program of which I and many others were the beneficiaries.

Result over four tons an acre of wheat by the 1980s and vast improvements in many other crops.  There were problems such as DDT and mountains of grain and wine but these were addressed and the environment is in pretty good order now in spite of the nay sayers.

However the changes to farming in the last thirty years have meant that a lot of land has been taken out of production for greening, housing, maize for digesters and fallow so again we are back to a 1930s scenario where a lot of food is imported to feed a rising population.  This together with lack of innovation, education, pesticide bans and decline of many institutions through lack of support, together with very few young people wanting to become involved.  ( No farmer's sons that I know)

The first bread queues after the next crisis will start the whole process again but it will take forty years to put right.

That's a thoughtful post 

 

How would we best correlate (if we even should) the current health, cultural and environmental implications of the agriculture sector with the recent past, dramatic changes, to farming techniques, output and historical, socio-economic influence that you accurately highlight?

 

Can we assume that sedentary lifestyles, increasing cancer rates, obesity, respiratory conditions, soil erosion and flash flooding, methane release, reduction in wild bird population, pollinating insects and bees, bTB etc, etc, have absolutely no relationship with the changes to agricultural processes over the past half decade?

 

Perhaps a return to the hardship and rationing is EXACTLY what is required to haul us back onto some form of sustainable pathway...

 

Too heavy for this time of day, I'm off to McDonalds for breakfast....

 

 

[Stere]

Sounds like you want to intensively farm every last strip of land and  no mention of enviroment impact.

 

I don't think the enviroment is "pretty good" loads of species in decline, bird & insects, soil degradation, unsustainable fertillizer inputs, river pollution....

 

 

Actually the report mentions some of this.

 

 

I don't know that there are solutions for theese issues but I think things could be alot better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, Mull said:

Oh, apologies.
Not thick enough?.(tbh I was just trying to make the pic sound unattractive)

It's pole stage or post pole stage, one cannot walk through a thicket

2 hours ago, Billhook said:

The whole thing will be like Groundhog Day.

 

Before WW2 nobody bothered too much about farming as we had all the imports coming in from the Commonwealth and elsewhere.  Then WW2 happened, which of course could not happen as WW1 was the war to end all wars.

U boats managed to stop the imports and then it was dig for Britain, bread queues and rations.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

I was born when my parents were on rations still eight years after the war.

 

You're a tiny bit younger than I then

Quote

Then the reaction, we have all this land why can't we feed ourselves?  My father was growing about one and a half tons of wheat an acre just after the war.

Next thing plant breeding program,  herbicide and pesticide program, fertiliser program, machinery program and education program of which I and many others were the beneficiaries.

Yes but fertiliser is either mined or very energy intensive, think why Norsk Hydro appears on nitrogenous fertilisers

Quote

Result over four tons an acre of wheat by the 1980s and vast improvements in many other crops.  There were problems such as DDT and mountains of grain and wine but these were addressed and the environment is in pretty good order now in spite of the nay sayers.

A stere says they were never addressed and as a result insect mass in Europe has dropped to 30% of what it was 30 years ago. People on here have even remarked on how clear headlights and windscreens remain now.

Quote

However the changes to farming in the last thirty years have meant that a lot of land has been taken out of production for greening, housing, maize for digesters and fallow so again we are back to a 1930s scenario where a lot of food is imported to feed a rising population.  This together with lack of innovation, education, pesticide bans and decline of many institutions through lack of support, together with very few young people wanting to become involved.  ( No farmer's sons that I know)

The first bread queues after the next crisis will start the whole process again but it will take forty years to put right.

Don't get me wrong, in a world where only 5% of the cereals grown are traded it seems unwise to depend on imports and given only 0.5ha or less of farmland for each person it seems daft to waste it for energy. Especially even with imported wood pellets biomass has never exceeded 3% of our energy wants whereas wind has contributed up to 30%

Edited May 3, 2018 by openspaceman
Missed out reply to Mull

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Can we assume that sedentary lifestyles, increasing cancer rates, obesity, respiratory conditions, soil erosion and flash flooding, methane release, reduction in wild bird population, pollinating insects and bees, bTB etc, etc, have absolutely no relationship with the changes to agricultural processes over the past half decade?

I would have thought the increases in cancers diagnosed is mostly related to growing older, many people would previously succumbed to bacterial disease before cancers developed. We may well see a big return to that as the antibiotic age comes to an end and our naive population becomes exposed to what the third world has adapted to.

1 hour ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

 

Perhaps a return to the hardship and rationing is EXACTLY what is required to haul us back onto some form of sustainable pathway...

Well there is little doubt my parent's generation were fitter in their late teens and early adulthood than mine, from my microcosm of the world so far they have also outlived us on current trends.. A reduced meat and dairy product diet with more high fibre food leads also to a more sustainable form of agriculture. As an aside an Indian bureaucrat I converse with , who worked for the FAO, estimates that if animals were not fed food that humans could eat the world could support a population of 12 billion,

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

4 hours ago, openspaceman said:

I would have thought the increases in cancers diagnosed is mostly related to growing older, many people would previously succumbed to bacterial disease before cancers developed. We may well see a big return to that as the antibiotic age comes to an end and our naive population becomes exposed to what the third world has adapted to.

Well there is little doubt my parent's generation were fitter in their late teens and early adulthood than mine, from my microcosm of the world so far they have also outlived us on current trends.. A reduced meat and dairy product diet with more high fibre food leads also to a more sustainable form of agriculture. As an aside an Indian bureaucrat I converse with , who worked for the FAO, estimates that if animals were not fed food that humans could eat the world could support a population of 12 billion,

Interesting points.

 

Certainly would make sense that longevity and advances in med science can be credited for diagnosing the cause of death whereas decades ago folks would simply have “got ill and passed.”  That certainly has an influence on older years cancer rates.  Would be interesting to compare mid / older age cancer instances with younger years. 

 

Your diplomat friend has has an interesting angle! There was a thread a while back which exposed the gross inefficiencies in terms of energy lost at each stage of growing feed for stock animals, stock animals converting that input into growth output which in turn was eaten by us and again converted into growth output - wish I’d taken note of the reference (if there was one.)

 

Im not available for a no meat diet, and certainly not excited by lab-meat, but a reduced meat diet makes a whole lot of sense on many levels. 

[drinksloe]

Farming is 1 of those things its very easy to cast wide sweeping statements or cherry pick certain things and compare them with something entirely diferent..

 

Supermarkets ahve a big influence of farming and not a positive 1 with the constantly chasing cheaper produce no matte rthe cost to animals or environment.

And the british public doesn't help either, not just with farming but all industry/products too many residents would rather something was cheap and imported (not caring about standrds of the product or the workers) than slightly dearer made in the UK so supporting jobs etc

 

Also politicain's never help matters either, yes plenty folk moan about the susbidies, but forestry also relies on subsidies as does a lot of boifuels industry too.

The things gpoing on in the renewable sector the now are a disgrace with boidegesters and boi fuel plants as well as RHI scheme

 

So far in the thread u have had hill farms mentioned nd then comparing them to intensvely worked farms, chemical/pesticides or habitat loss, all very different things.

Hill farms probably haven't changed in hundreds of years apart from the quad bike.

Even as recently as the 1980's the  sheeps fleece's used to cover the rent of the farm as well as shepherd wages, nowadays it costs money to clip the sheep as often wool won't cover the clipping costs.

I'm sure further south and east on better lower land they're has been a lot of changes and some habitat loss but when u get over 150m or so very little has changed as the ground just isn't good enough.

So any loss in bird/animal life is not down to habitat loss or modern farming practices

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, drinksloe said:

Even as recently as the 1980's the  sheeps fleece's used to cover the rent of the farm as well as shepherd wages, nowadays it costs money to clip the sheep as often wool won't cover the clipping costs.

That may change with the recent outcry about plastics in the ocean as much of the smaller fibrils are from our washing machines.

2 hours ago, drinksloe said:

I'm sure further south and east on better lower land they're has been a lot of changes and some habitat loss but when u get over 150m or so very little has changed as the ground just isn't good enough.

So any loss in bird/animal life is not down to habitat loss or modern farming practices

This last is a non sequitur; if you remove any element from the food chain the loss affects those further up, our wildlife biodiversity evolved because species inhabited every little habitat niche and had become dependent on that.  Disruption can come from polluting rivers, controlling watercourses with weirs, pesticides removing insects or weed competition or simply reducing the size of meta populations with roads plus many others I haven't the imagination to consider. Consider population death happens way before the last individual death.

 

With only 10% of England having been developed the vast  bulk of the land remains under agriculture, so whilst I don't blame farmers I do believe farming practices lie at the heart of the problem.