Making your farm more environmentally friendly

Tableman

I want to make my farm more environementally friendly. I have thought of some ways but they are fairly obvious. Can posters here suggest some ways to make your farm more environmentally friendly.

djmc

Join REPs and organic farming and keep wild habitat

lemon125

I've been reading this board for years and it took this thread to make me register!

i'm not a farmer but I spent my childhood on farms and live in a rural area. One of the areas I'd like to see farmers do is install a rainwater harvester. This water could then be used for washing milking parlour, sheds etc. I dont know of any farms that use rain water yet they have the ideal situation where they have lots of sheds. Mostly the water goes into their slatted shed which reduces their capacity. And do farmers pay for their water?? If they dont its certainly on the way so its better get in quick before the demand drives up the price of the rainwater harvesters. Thats one way.

Occidental

Yep. Farms are now on meters.

Tableman

lemon125 wrote: »

I've been reading this board for years and it took this thread to make me register!

i'm not a farmer but I spent my childhood on farms and live in a rural area. One of the areas I'd like to see farmers do is install a rainwater harvester. This water could then be used for washing milking parlour, sheds etc. I dont know of any farms that use rain water yet they have the ideal situation where they have lots of sheds. Mostly the water goes into their slatted shed which reduces their capacity. And do farmers pay for their water?? If they dont its certainly on the way so its better get in quick before the demand drives up the price of the rainwater harvesters. Thats one way.

Yeah, a lot of people are beginning to look into this now. I think you will see more of these popping up in the next 10 years

rliston

lemon125 wrote: »

One of the areas I'd like to see farmers do is install a rainwater harvester. This water could then be used for washing milking parlour, sheds etc. I dont know of any farms that use rain water yet they have the ideal situation where they have lots of sheds.

we've being doing that for years, as have most of the farmers around. we've a concrete tank above ground at the back of the sheds with all rainwater from the sheds going into it. water was used to wash out the palour til we sold the cows!

OP- Reps is your best bet, get money towards planting hedges and creating habitats

nilhg

Tableman wrote: »

I want to make my farm more environementally friendly. I have thought of some ways but they are fairly obvious. Can posters here suggest some ways to make your farm more environmentally friendly.

I think the main emphasis nowadays is on habitat conservation/creation, the best thing to start with is to preserve what you already have then look to improve with new areas.

Maybe you can take in one of the Teagasc biodiversity demos,

http://www.teagasc.ie/events/2008/20080115.htm

Definitely give REPS a look (when they get it sorted out, its a bit of a disaster area at the moment)

emaherx

Tableman wrote: »

I want to make my farm more environementally friendly. I have thought of some ways but they are fairly obvious. Can posters here suggest some ways to make your farm more environmentally friendly.

What kind of Farming are you into?
May be you should mention some of your own obvious methods that you are implementing. You could be surprised how things one person thinks are obvious create those duh! moments for others.

Nitrate's Directive compliance is the first thing you should look at, as it is a requirement any way. I have to say this is the one area that has a major change on my own farm.

Plastics, I collect and sort Plastic and nets off bales as they are removed for recycling.

Water Collection. This is something which we had done for years although most of these were setup for outdoor water drinkers that are now redundant thanks to the nitrates directive as we no longer winter cattle outside on concrete yards. Hopefully this summer I plan to build a new header thank to feed the drinkers in the sheds. I have one gutter where the roofs of four sheds converge which would be ideal for this. I plan to set it up so that the bottom quarter of the thank is filled by the mains water supply and once the rain causes the water to rise above this point the mains water will be cut off.

Farmers are historically good at reusing stuff, like pallets, buckets, twine from bales and if your handy with the old welder then there is always scrap steel and old machines around yards to be recycled into something more useful.

Reps would be a good start at least you will get advise on what you really need to do.

Fix those oil leaks on tractors and machinery, good for the environment and will save you a fortune in oil.

Elstemed

harvesting water from a roof to put in drinkers maybe enviromentaly friendly but a big no no for animal husbandry. think of all the bird droppings that are in the gutters and on the roof of some of your sheds. birds are major carriers of disease. Dont do it!!! Its funny how many enviromental friendly projects are actually disadvantageous to animal welfare. Others include housing of cattle in certain area where natural outwintering fields and outcrops of rocks are available. look at the balls the enviromentalists have made in the burren since the removal of the cattle during the winter