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Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
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 Posted: Sun Aug 16, 15 8:14 am Post subject: |
 
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Rob no one is denying everyone should have access to a healthy balanced diet.
Although it's perfectly possible to have a balanced vegetarian diet, & vegan. Meat isn't essential for good health.
But your idea, & one you continually push in various threads is we should eat more red meat.
I know the facts regarding grass fed meat being healthier than corn reared. & I agree.
But we already consume more than is healthy, & not enough vegetable or fibre in the diet, so how eating more will make us healthier I fail to see.
It's been proven that the British population was at it's healthiest during the rationing years when we ate very little meat & dairy at all & lots of wholemeal bread & vegetables.
& as I've said earlier & previously, it's proven how increased livestock production, which is ongoing at an alarming rate is adding to greenhouse gas emissions. CO2, NO & CH4.
This thread was primarily about pesticides & I know you don't use many, & unlike most beef farmers you aren't feeding your stock cereal or vegetable protein which has had a variety of pesticides added to finish your animals. So that's admirable, & I'm supportive of you & others like you for that reason.
But there are good & bad in all walks of life, & my neighbour at first glance isn't very different to you.
But as I said earlier his land is far from species rich, rather very depleted.
& this is where registration systems like organic come to play.
I know if I buy 'organic' beef it will contain zero pesticides, & wont have been fed anything that has been treated with pesticides.
That's a big selling point for someone like me, who is fully aware of the damage pesticides do to the natural environment. |
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4565
Location: Lampeter
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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York
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| Posted: Sun Aug 16, 15 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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It occurred to me last night that we may be talking at crossed purposes. We're talking about eating 'more' or eating 'less', but can you quantify those figures? How much less & more? And the higher price, what level are we proposing for that?
If we cut out all the grain fed meat overnight that would be a significant reduction in meat consumption. I may seem like I'm defending more conventional farmers when I point out that a significant proportion of animal feed is actually a by-product of the human food chain - soya isn't fed whole to livestock so it's misleading to say that the increase in it's production is down to livestock, I'd say the proliferation of intensive livestock is down to the availability of soybean meal. That doesn't mean it's "ok" - I also think we should be cutting down on our vegetable oil consumption, having been sold the idea that it's healthier than animal fats, then the revenues generated by the crop for livestock would halve. I personally can't see intensive livestock being as viable with soya doubled in price.
The reason I push for more grassfed meat is, primarily, because we have lost in the region of 99% of our unfertilised, unsprayed, undrained wildflower meadows, and with all the will in the world, turning vegan isn't going to address that (thought it's surprising how many vegans and vegetarians think it is).
The figures speak for themselves in my local area. Growing up I didn't appreciate what we have here - I thought it was normal to see more Brown Hares than rabbits, and I thought everyone had Kestrels. I now realise just how important pollinators are to crops, and how important the grasslands are to pollinators. We're not a livestock area by any stretch - it's predominately an eastern arable landscape, but if we are to keep what we have, maintaining the grassland buffer along the waterways & the heathlands, grassland and woodland all benefits the arable side and mitigates, to a degree, against the pollution & erosion it causes.
We go on a lot about the effect of pesticides and fertilisers, but all too often we never mention drainage which is, I believe, the bigger problem with regards to pollution & climate change. Woodlands get all the fanfare, but acre for acre, peatlands store 20 times the carbon of woodlands. Livestock get the blame for a lot of GHG emissions but they are just a tool in land use change. The report you posted, a reputable organisation the UN may be, completely failed to mention undergrazing as a problem, yet overgrazing was certainly mentioned.
Regarding health, well, the evidence is far from universal. People who eat a lot of red meat tend to lead more unhealthy lifestyles so the figures are bound to appear skewed. The more comprehensive studies, such as EPIC, do not show a clear meat based health risk. If you want to draw such conclusions then why not blame the increased amount of fruit & veg that we in the West now eat?
We had less of everything in the war, and had to work harder, as Ty says, so it is disingenuous to blame the lack of meat & dairy alone for improved health. The figures (form the Nat Geo link) show that we're eating (35%) less of the meats I advocate eating today (or at least 2011) than in 1961 (we're also eating slightly less dairy).
Last edited by Rob R on Sun Aug 16, 15 9:46 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45532
Location: yes
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4565
Location: Lampeter
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45532
Location: yes
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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York
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Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
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Mistress Rose
Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15605
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 15 6:54 am Post subject: |
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I would agree with you about woodland Rob. Traditionally, the area close to the river, unless it meandered and changed course frequently, was often pasture, not woodland. That pasture was far too valuable for mere woodland, which tended to be on the less useful places.
Although my main interest is woodland, and I know very little about farming, I don't agree with putting trees all over the place at the expense of good farming land. There are some places that ought to have trees, but all uplands, and all water courses are not necessarily the right places. Each small area needs to be looked at separately but as part of a larger landscape.
I think that one of the reasons our health was good during rationing was because we took more natural exercise like walking and gardening. We now know that some of the things that were used for food, like high trans fat margarine, were possibly bad for us. One thing that will be of interest to future generations will also be what sort of age people that went through rationing died at, and what they died of. For instance there is a marked increase in Alzhiemers at present, and this is quite significantly among the generation that went through rationing during their childhood and young adult life. It may or may not be linked, but it will be interesting to find out if it reduces in the future. I am sure that there will be studies in the future about how this affected diseases that generation may have suffered more, but most of them will be starting in my very old age.  |
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4565
Location: Lampeter
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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York
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Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 15 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Rob R wrote: |
| Tavascarow wrote: |
Yes Rob if we did away with intensive corn fed meat it would solve the problem of over production in the livestock sector & the arable.
I leaves us with the problem of what those farmers are going to grow to make a living which is a big problem.
As the UN report says the answer to the problem lies with small, mixed organic farms. Tell that to your 5,000 hectare cereal baron & see what he says. |
Could you address exactly what you mean by eat less and pay more? I want to work out exactly how that would work, as I must get told many times each year that I should charge more and we should eat less. I always point out that my prices are only a minimum. To date noone has ever paid more.
At the moment the cereal baron is saying 'please graze my heathy grassland with your Dexters', but I'm limited by what people eat so it's difficult. This runaway consumption of meat is a myth - people want ever cheaper food, and no matter which way you cut it, meat isn't cheap, and the easiest way to get cheaper food is to cut out meat & dairy. Economics are stacked against meat & dairy. |
I don't disagree with you but overproduction is damaging the environment.
You say there isn't an over supply but if you look at historic consumption levels, they are increasing per capita. There are more people & they want more.
If production was limited to what a farm could grow itself, as you do, stocking rates would be a lot lower. If you heavily fertilize your pastures & feed clamp maize silage all winter (again a heavy fertilizer user), & also finished your bullocks on corn & soya your land could carry more stock. That IMHO is overproduction & what the majority are still doing.
Add to that the cheap imports from abroad & IMHO there's a lot more meat on the market shelves now than ever before.
I'm not saying I've got the answers I'm just saying agriculture as it stands is very damaging to the environment & needs to change.
I think it will have to change for pure economic reasons & hopefully before to many farmland species become extinct. |
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Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 15 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Tavascarow wrote: |
| Rob R wrote: |
| Tavascarow wrote: |
Yes Rob if we did away with intensive corn fed meat it would solve the problem of over production in the livestock sector & the arable.
I leaves us with the problem of what those farmers are going to grow to make a living which is a big problem.
As the UN report says the answer to the problem lies with small, mixed organic farms. Tell that to your 5,000 hectare cereal baron & see what he says. |
Could you address exactly what you mean by eat less and pay more? I want to work out exactly how that would work, as I must get told many times each year that I should charge more and we should eat less. I always point out that my prices are only a minimum. To date noone has ever paid more.
At the moment the cereal baron is saying 'please graze my heathy grassland with your Dexters', but I'm limited by what people eat so it's difficult. This runaway consumption of meat is a myth - people want ever cheaper food, and no matter which way you cut it, meat isn't cheap, and the easiest way to get cheaper food is to cut out meat & dairy. Economics are stacked against meat & dairy. |
I don't disagree with you but overproduction is damaging the environment.
You say there isn't an over supply but if you look at historic consumption levels, they are increasing per capita. There are more people & they want more.
If production was limited to what a farm could grow itself, as you do, stocking rates would be a lot lower. If you heavily fertilize your pastures & feed clamp maize silage all winter (again a heavy fertilizer user), & also finished your bullocks on corn & soya your land could carry more stock. That IMHO is overproduction & what the majority are still doing.
Add to that the cheap imports from abroad & IMHO there's a lot more meat on the market shelves now than ever before.
I'm not saying I've got the answers I'm just saying agriculture as it stands is very damaging to the environment & needs to change.
I think it will have to change for pure economic reasons & hopefully before to many farmland species become extinct. |
You seem to be using a lot of adjectives to avoid facing the figures. I don't think we will address this if you can't do that. For the model you proposed to work, the figures need to show that it is viable.
We had fertiliser applied to the farm in 2002, before we moved here, and we had to pay for it. We worked out that the added bulk barely covered the fert bill and the crop was poorer as a result of challenging weather conditions. So yes, I do agree that farmers need to stop producing more than we need and force some prices up by restricting supply but you said that we were consuming too much - if consumption also drops then the price will fall further.
Small farms are productive places, as the UN agrees, and can produce a lot of food, but that food is only useful to the equation if people will eat it. Constantly encouraging them not to consume the food we can produce sustainably is damaging the environment as well as the viability of sustainable farming. |
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Mistress Rose
Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15605
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