Successful plant farming -VS- Successful animal ag

cormie

Hey folks,
I stumbled across this video and thought it was interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5IE6lYKXRw

This farm is based in New York, so climate wise it would be similar enough to Ireland/UK.

Taking say 1.5 acres as an example, how would the most successful/profitable animal agricultural farming practices compare to something like this?

Disclaimer: I have no clue of farming in general, but I'm interested in the viability of a farmer transitioning from animal agriculture to plant foods in terms of using their land and resources to turn a profit and make a decent living for themselves and their employees and how practical it would be.

Any feedback would be great

Dakota Dan

The farm is based in New York, try doing this in the arse end of Kerry and see how much you make.

Waffletraktor

cormie wrote: »

Hey folks,
I stumbled across this video and thought it was interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5IE6lYKXRw

This farm is based in New York, so climate wise it would be similar enough to Ireland/UK.

Taking say 1.5 acres as an example, how would the most successful/profitable animal agricultural farming practices compare to something like this?

Disclaimer: I have no clue of farming in general, but I'm interested in the viability of a farmer transitioning from animal agriculture to plant foods in terms of using their land and resources to turn a profit and make a decent living for themselves and their employees and how practical it would be.

Any feedback would be great

Reads more like vegan propaganda via the back door.
Most of the high value herbs/veg are done in increasingly sterile automated greenhouses in The Netherlands and Spain in Europe. They would manipulate the air co2 content, use grow lamps, air temp etc... The plants are in trays handled by robotic cranes so as to fit more in with nutrients fed via fertigation.
Lower value stuff like tomatoes capsicums would be Still by hand in greenhouses. The veg farms also tend to be on liight soils that are free draining and can be worked regularly to stay on schedual as each generation of a crop must fill in around the rotation on field and a slot in the order books for lettuce/scallions esq crops. Veg farms that grow more annual crops will be a little different to the stuff that only takes a few weeks.
The farm in the video will eventualy suffer a breakdown to some of their plants due to pests and disease using the same soil for similar crops constantly and lake of rotation.

Mooooo

Cl8mate wise not quite the same, warmer summers colder winters, and possibly less rain also. First thing I picked up on when the two lads were talking in the beginning was they mentioned 12 staff in passing, 12 fulltime staff in Ireland would cost a minimum of 360k euros. Labour costs here would knock that on the head straight off the bat. Differences between there and here is larger population centres. Supermarkets here use veg as loss leaders often and put pressure on farms to produce more for less. Some of the best land in the country is in north county Dublin with a higher concentration of veg farms.
Edit
Waffle explains things way better on practical front also