Always assumed that would be treated as a rolling 3. No experience of this myself, obviously.
Lapwing nest predation
- Thread starter crow killer
- Start date
Bloody hell, another Warwickshire man of similar age, must be something in the water that keept us alive.
Curing pork, done an awful lot of that in my youth. Salt pork,ham,gammon, bacon, chitterlings etc. All a lot more good for you than Evangelical conservationists with a doctorate.
And then you break the law
If you get caught you get prosecuted
Lose certificates
Get a record
Bring shooting again in to disprepute
Far better to invite your MPS - Wildlife trusts - show them the issues
Maths was never my strong point!
There's your 'get out of jail' free card right there.
DEFRA however can count perfectly well
Plenty plenty of way we can all do our bit and more lawfully
We have issues with buzzards - gos - odd raven -gulls- badgers - maybe - but they are all off the list - So i try and make sure the stuff we can control gets properly controlled . We can all try and make sure habitats are better giving some of the ground nesters a chance - I get its hard with lapwing and Curlew - Goldies that are so out in the open - But many of us can make sure we have nesting cover and food for many species too
BenBhoy
Well-Known Member
Well, really they are the big feckin issue, agrochemical green revolution
. And now some politicians talking wanting to make uk farms even more "efficient"
UK farms need to be more efficient, Ben.Well, really they are the big feckin issue, agrochemical green revolution
We've got to produce more food off a smaller acreage.
But "efficient" these days doesn't mean chemicals or factory farming. It means things like better livestock genetics, integrated cropping, reduced inputs, water recycling, less waste, etc.
Ultimately it's a win for both farming and wildlife, but the change won't happen overnight.
BenBhoy
Well-Known Member
I think THAT will remain to be seen my friend. It will depend on who is making & for what reason they're making the policy & decisions. Obviously I hope you're right but if it means bigger fields, bigger machinery, better crop genetics meaning more cuts/faster rotation, eveb less stubble time then I'm not so confident.
kevtherev
Well-Known Member
Ideally it would be back to 1950s style farming low bought in inputs but production would be a lot lower than it is now.
Everyone wants cheaper food and that comes at a cost be it to wildlife or farmed animals.
Read somewhere other day about huge tract of arable land Cambridgeshire I think being put down entirely to solar.
Times are changing and not for the better.
kevtherev
Well-Known Member
Early multi cuts of silage with early heading grasses has played a major role in the curlew struggle.
In grandads era no one cut hay or silage til July.
Was common to see a flock of peeweets on the meadows at home long gone now due to predation and changes in farming practices.
In grandads era no one cut hay or silage til July.
Was common to see a flock of peeweets on the meadows at home long gone now due to predation and changes in farming practices.
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
One of my customers was approached anout solar, £1000 per acre per year, will be fully deer fenced plus can graze hornless sheep and stay organic. Guarenteed for 25 years.
With the shocking price for arable crops its a no brainer
kevtherev
Well-Known Member
There will be food shortages on the current path we are headed
People forget Britain is an island…
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
Yeah but farmers need to make enough, we pay too little for food
No, going back to a 1950s style farming wouldn't solve anything.
We've got to maintain high outputs from reduced inputs.
Land availability for food production is coming under increasing pressure from other interests, such as solar, housing, road infrastructures, warehousing, etc.
Not least of these other pressures is land taken out of production for rewilding, tree planting and conservation projects. Worthy projects such as the work carried out by @jall55 generally don't produce much food. His land could probably more profitably and productively be commercially farmed.
But that's not what you want to see.
And although our human population in the UK is high, which puts pressure on resources, immigration is not a significant factor with regards to food availability in the UK, despite what you might choose to believe. Net migration is falling.
In a nutshell, we need to farm more efficiently and more productively on certain areas of land that are suited to it, thus freeing up other land for other purposes, including conservation. And the type of efficient farming that's carried out has to be environmentally sustainable. And that is the direction in which agriculture is heading in the UK.
1950's farming was on small blocks of land (postage stamp) which simply will not work also the climate has changed so the ploughed land is not broken down by frosts which in-turn killed off what was needed.
1 farm I shoot is 500 acres which was 3 farms who all went to the wall in the end, the other end of the scale a 200 acre poor soil farm sold for houses.
The farm I spent most of my youth on as it had a pond for fishing in rabbits with the ferret and air rifle pigs/cattle was 180 acres sold and is a sea of black grass as the "new" owner wanted the lucerne on more year and that is the result of it...
Im with you
You took my comment out of context - what i meant was for lapwing / Curlew these monocultures are not such as issue as the improved grassland priduces - waist high grass - therefore not habitat really for Curlew or lapwing - and therefore "maybe" when cutting for silage - certainly in my experience the birds and animals killed in there are smaller than if the habitat was better
But i agree - some of modern farming is just like factories sadly
You took my comment out of context - what i meant was for lapwing / Curlew these monocultures are not such as issue as the improved grassland priduces - waist high grass - therefore not habitat really for Curlew or lapwing - and therefore "maybe" when cutting for silage - certainly in my experience the birds and animals killed in there are smaller than if the habitat was better
But i agree - some of modern farming is just like factories sadly
Well, really they are the big feckin issue, agrochemical green revolution
Because it is more efficient.
Less inputs required per litre of milk produced. Less land required per litre of milk produced. Better cow genetics resulting in more milk produced from forage produced on farm rather than from bought-in feed.
That's just a few examples of the type of things that result in a lower environmental impact overall.
Plus, a lot of the big dairy farms have biodigesters to process their effluent, which produce the power required to run the place, making them self-sufficient in "green energy".
One of the problems that the farming industry faces is that critics of intensification still have a mental image in their minds of the "factory farms" of the late 70s and 80s. But I'm pleased to say that the industry has moved on since then, and we're talking about "sustainable intensification" these days.
(And, just as an aside, but I can't resist chucking it in here: Productive smallholdings are generally the most intensive form of agriculture (in terms of things like stocking densities etc), despite most often being run by people who have opted for that lifestyle because they want to produce their own food as an "escape" from being reliant on intensively produced food! Small-scale farming is something I am 100% in favour of, and have spent much of my life promoting, but no-one should be under the illusion that small-scale production is less intensive).
Last edited:
Similar threads
