organic farming

endainoz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121659054#Comment_121659054

Carbon farming will definitely be a thing in the future, I'm looking forward to the meltdown on these threads when it eventually does come in the next CAP. I'd safely say there will be quite a bit of opposition to such an idea.

blue5000

If anyone is thinking about going organic and having hens or chickens, don’t bother. Dept of aggravation seem to be hell bent on closing that sector down. Luckily I don’t have them but one of the farmers in our group is being crucified by them.

Beef and sheep suits organic fine, grass based suits the green image etc.

Water John

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121660017#Comment_121660017

Is it the mobile units that they have problems with?

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121659108#Comment_121659108

There's already a quasi system of carbon "farming" except the farming is gone out of it as are the farmers.

Didn't dublin county council sell land or the carbon rights of Mountain land to a Web based multinational.

Farmers and farming will left aside in the carbon bs. Multinationals will simply buy land with the sole purpose of abandonment to nature. People and farmers are being wound that this is a positive. Naturalists are rubbing their hands at glee for consultancy jobs from the Multinationals. To sit in vans on site and claim an income.

For 'farmers' to welcome this leads me to believe they haven't much experience in the carbon side of farming.

Question to all.

What is the preferred level % of Organic matter in soil to farm while having peak production in grass, cereals or veg?

What is a higher level % of Organic matter that production drops off?

What is the mathematical conversion rate that laboratories use for soil Organic matter to carbon?

n1st

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121660155#Comment_121660155

I have no answers. As a part time farmer I do not care about feeding the world and highest yields.

I believe that one of the reasons that farmers are interested in high yields is because they have been taught that by orgs such as Teagasc under the instruction of DAFM under the instruction of big pharma, big meat factories, big exporters.

If we all try to push the yields up and up, which is exactly what has been going on for the past 50 years, then the return gets less and less and the dependencies on inputs becomes more and more, farmers are then caught in the cycle and the only winners are the big pharma, big meat factories, big exporters.

Not to mention the land and minds suffering.

Water John

With 35/40% of the food production of the land not ending up being consumed, there is plenty room to feed many million more. Producing more doesn't increase the farmer margin, but uses a lot extra inputs.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121660435#Comment_121660435

To be blunt and I'd say you'd agree.

As a part time farmer you've no need for 2 gallons of milk instead of 1, 2 tons of barley instead of 1, 2 sheep instead of 1, 2 cabbages instead of 1. You won't be feeding your parish let alone the world. The financial side is of less interest to you from production due to your off farm job. It's suits to have money coming in from everything other than what your farm produces. This leaves you less exposed to the vagaries of weather, labour, inputs be they electricity to fertiliser. Agree?

However is it people's wish that farmers become blase about the technical efficiency of farming and ignorant to all that can be done to improve profitability through increasing or maintaining output while increasing the health and viability of their soils? The most enthusiastic posters here on carbon and soil health don't know what the organic matter % levels are what you should be looking for? What does this say of their own practices? Do they not soil test themselves for carbon and have found out which fields are their most profitable? Or is it just virtue signalling to the world that carbon is good but I don't really know enough and I don't care as I have the off farm job?

n1st

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121661014#Comment_121661014

I don't believe the organics are encouraging high yields or increasing productivity. I believe it's a different way of looking at things.

Possibly we should look at what we need to get out of our farms and see which process fits. For myself it's biodiversity, soil health , animal health, no chemicals, less pollution, less machinery, less risk, better wildlife, healthier animals and humans. I don't feel that I need to calculate the percentage of organic matter in the soil to achieve that,I should see it with my eyes.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121661328#Comment_121661328

How many years are you organic?

blue5000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121661014#Comment_121661014

I posted mine over in the soil sampling thread, 10 Million euro Soil Sampling Programme. - Page 11 — boards.ie - Now Ye're Talkin'

you are welcome to have a look. Like everyone else, including yourself the peaty soils were the highest, and a rough conversion of organic matter to carbon is 58% It's a long time since I was in school but I think the atomic weight of C is 12g per mole and O is 16g per mole. Now to be honest I don't know how the boffins calculated the carbon from OM% perhaps you could help us out here?

As I said the peaty soils were highest and fields that have been ploughed in the last 10 years tend to be lower, also sandy fields here are low too. As for producing 2 cabbages instead of 1 or two tons of barley instead of 1, what's the point if the net profit from one organic ton is better than the net profit of two produced conventionally? Teagasc have a trial on spring oats, showing conventional oats yielding 7.2 ton /ha vs 4.0 ton of organic oats. Bottom line is GM/ha of 373/ha vs 1025/ha. I will let you figure out which is which.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121661689#Comment_121661689

58% of OM. I have no idea how it was worked out bar over trial work. But then some will be slightly different with bulk density I suppose. But for now that's how they do it is measure the Organic Matter and then apply 58% for Carbon.

Maybe the peat soils are different to mineral soils. But 8 - 9% Organic Matter is good. When it goes higher it slows down plant growth. Your total nutrients level will be high but the ground will be too wet and claggy and the plants won't be accessing these nutrients.

As for soil tests and what use are they in an organic situation in Ireland as was mentioned further up. Organics in Ireland has access to dung, slurry from other farms and digestate from digestors. One could have all the soundbites like reduced antibiotics, sprays, saving the environment, yet be officially allowed import dung and slurry from farms where antibiotics and sprays are used, imported in that way and human antibiotics imported via digestate. Soil tests would be required for those imports I believe? Maybe stocking rate may negate soil tests required?

Base price

Ah jaysus is this thread going to deteriorate into something akin to the dairy chit chat thread where there is constant sniping back and forth over which type of cow/system is better. Can people accept that a particular system may suit them but not a different one and just move on.

We are not in organics as it's too restrictive for our system but I appreciate other farmers converting to Organic status if that suits their system and posting their experiences. We should all learn from reading posts on F&F and take bits out to suit our own enterprises.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121660077#Comment_121660077

It's the various different licences required and denying access from wild birds and grazing animals mixing and packing and processing facilities. I'd bet. @blue5000

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121661897#Comment_121661897

How do you learn Base. But by asking questions. It's the same in the dairy thread. They all learn from one another. You don't learn if you think your system is 100% with no feedback on the system or don't think it needs explaining.

I asked a poster how long they were organic as they seemed all the joys of spring being a new entrant from their entrant course. I never got an answer how long they were either way. It's their choice to answer or not. But we're all posters here and we can still ask questions. It's not sniping to ask. It is a forum.

blue5000

As for soil tests and what use are they in an organic situation in Ireland as was mentioned further up. Organics in Ireland has access to dung, slurry from other farms and digestate from digestors.

One could have all the soundbites like reduced antibiotics, sprays, saving the environment, yet be officially allowed import dung and slurry from farms where antibiotics and sprays are used, imported in that way and human antibiotics imported via digestate. Soil tests would be required for those imports I believe? Maybe stocking rate may negate soil tests required?

Only thing I've noticed is with bought in straw which we are allowed use. Winter wheat straw seems to take a lot longer to break down when composting FYM. I suspect it could be the strobs it was sprayed with as a fungicide, stopping the fungus breaking down the straw in the compost pile. It was easier to break down the straw from the previous year. Are you talking about digestate from sewage? AFAIK organic farms can't use human sewage sludge, only dairy processing sludge. At a walk on a farm where that was used they thought it kills the field mushrooms, but I think field mushrooms only appear when the fungus underground is stressed and needs to come to the surface to produce spores and re-produce. The reason I think no mushrooms appeared where the dairy sludge was spread was because the mushrooms weren't stressed because of all the extra nutrients in the sludge. I honestly don't know.

Yes I agree with you on the 8-9% OM being the optimum level. Peaty soils are high because they are acidic and the OM simply hasn't broken down, if you think about it peat OM isn't very stable. If it dries out it gets oxidised and goes to the atmosphere. But properly sequestered carbon in soil is very stable and can stay there for a long time.

Sorry WJ, they are just on this man's case, the mobile hen houses that are imported from Germany are savage money, like 10-15k to hold 2-300 hens. Wooden perches aren't allowed because of mites, fresh water freezing last week was another issue too.

Base price

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121660017#Comment_121660017

Are you sure about that?

A farmer friend who had a commercial calf/beef farm along with three or four poultry rearing houses has converted to organics recently. He quit the cattle and focused on the poultry side of the farm.

blue5000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121662735#Comment_121662735

100% sure, this man isn't a huge operator, maybe 200 laying hens max. How many has your neighbour? Perhaps they have a better setup.

Water John

Some interesting contributions. I'm officially organic since 2019. However I was farming part of my farm organically for many years before that, not that it matters, we are all equal in my view. It's a pity if the small scale egg producers are under pressure. I understand the bird flu lockdown, all free range egg producers are affected by this.

The majority of increased production has been down to genetic improvement not artificial inputs. Of course all the cos supplying those products claim its their product. One is always looking for an extra margin. For those who do cereals, heritage crops are in demand by bakeries. Lower yield, higher margin.

Jjameson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121658380#Comment_121658380

You are an exceptional player in terms of profit, but given that it would allow you to drop 20 cattle straight away on. 60 acre farm and be as well off, (30 cattle for a mortal at €200 rather than €300 profit per head which is where I’m at) with possibly more a lot more days on grass with a low stocking rate.

if we could farm conventional stock organically it couldn’t be shirked, but having to buy from such a small pool of stock and such a small market to sell to makes a cod of it.

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121661328#Comment_121661328

Best of luck with it all. But you'll find a lot of those things on farms that aren't certified organic too.

To my naive eyes, there's a spectrum of farming/land from old forestry - scrub - mountain - naturally organic with 40 years - organic - technically/certified organic - mostly organic but not certified - conventional - intensive - whatever. And this doesn't cover the half of it.

Apart from the certification, I would see little difference in practise between farms in the middle of that spectrum.

Base price

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121662799#Comment_121662799

I don't know how many he has.

blue5000

Anyone doing the annual paperwork for OT this week or month? It's online this year but Jesus it's still some dose. Tried doing some of it on excel and transferring it over, but lost it all, now trying it on jotform. I think I'll have to go to specsavers for new glasses.

trabpc

I certainly wouldn't be near a margain of 300 a year per animal. But have averaged 260 head past 5 years. But agree biggest issue i have now is sourcing stock. Feed,bedding, sheds all ok but such a small market makes it difficult to get stock. Look at ads on DD already looking for stock. Have 2 yrs left in my contract and its the above reason i may have to leave..

Water John

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121664957#Comment_121664957

It's just having to enter 0 in every box not applicable to you which makes it a bit odd.

endainoz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121664957#Comment_121664957

Google sheets might easier to use than excel blue, it saves everything automatically and I found it a bit easier to use than excel myself.

massey 265

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121664957#Comment_121664957

I had such work with the on line bord bia quality assurance pre inspection section that i coudnt face into the annual OT stuff on line as well so i requested a paper format and filled thet up in 10 mins,photocopied it as always and sent it off.Still old school here but i find it has worked out ok last 23 years so thatl do me.

endainoz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121663873#Comment_121663873

Conventional stock can absolutely be farmed organically, though they won't get certified, all of their progeny will be though once the farm is out of conversion.

So say a herd of 20 conventional cows with one bull go into conversion, all going well they'll all have 20 fully organic calves so no need to buy anything.

In terms of selling, organic farmers have access to a wider market than conventional farmers simply because they have access to both markets.

Now in saying all that, the lad looking for the easy money that wants to buy in a few bits of organic stock to graze for the summer will likely struggle to source stock.

Water John

Iv'e seen conventional farmers at organic sales. If most of the stock remained within the organic system, there would no be a shortage. But the same is true of the Angus and Hereford schemes.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121663873#Comment_121663873

There is two main problems for any finisher even grass based. Access to stock is the biggest. There is virtually no options. If you could take conventional cal es at sub 4-6 weeks and evennifbit was two years before they were fully organic I could operate that. I think in Germany they allow something like that.

The second issue is housing. Most lads finishing have mostly slatted accommodation. It's not allowed. Straw bedded is getting too expensive.

As well if finishing you would probably want to be growing some of your own grain. So a decent size land base required.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121664278#Comment_121664278

Ya but a badly run conventional farm will be a badly run organic farm. Most lads that struggle with conventional will probably really struggle with the paperwork side of organics.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121667331#Comment_121667331

In a way you are indicating that a certain amount of organic are struggling to make conventional beef prices. So it indicates the producers are not getting an organic premium.

You might not have a problem a cess organic stock in 3-5 years time. A lot of suclker farmers transferring over may cause a glut in the organics market.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121666558#Comment_121666558

If an organic farmer is not getting a premium over conventional he is worse off than being conventional.

older by the day

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/news/news/net-loss-of-173-ha-through-use-of-supersoil-fertiliser-teagasc-802064https://www.farmersjournal.ie/news/news/net-loss-of-173-ha-through-use-of-supersoil-fertiliser-teagasc-802064

That came up on my feed, I thought that was supposed to be great stuff by the adds I have seen