Mass Protest in the Netherlands by Farmers.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119344948#Comment_119344948

That won't be the outcome. Nearly all societies in Western Europe are committed to ever cheaper food.

People have no interest in agriculture surviving as economically sustainable in Europe. Especially small players.

Consumers do not put up when it comes to Organic or sustainable.

Russia for pork, grain, veg, Brazil for Beef, New Zealand for lamb.

That's how it will end up and no one will want them to regulate or be sustainable.

The refusal of the govt to end below cost selling was just the latest in showing how little interest there is in sustainable farming or a viable agriculture sector in Europe.

Thelonious Monk

So if the current Dutch model is destroying their land, what is the solution? Producing less food? If they carry on as is maybe the land wont be able to produce anything eventually.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119345089#Comment_119345089

You don't want them to produce anything in the first place

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119345121#Comment_119345121

More f*cking nonsense...

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119344517#Comment_119344517

Green ideology is no chemical fertilisers or pesticides, and the maths is really very simple.

Without chemical fertilisers the scientific research shows that Sri Lanka would need to plant anywhere between 21.5% and 33% more acreage to be self sufficient in staple foods and have a surplus to sell allowing them to buy other commodities.

At one stage you had an imaginary solution that they could produce themselves that would achieve that without the use of chemical fertilisers but when repeatedly asked what that solution is, nada.

Very much like green ideology in that regard. Lots of imaginary thinking, but no answers to practical problems.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119344948#Comment_119344948

But is it sustainable to import food from places where slash and burn is the policy?

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119345462#Comment_119345462

If we change how we eat, E.g. less beef, this won’t be needed.

I’m going to go on a pro vegan lecture, but eating less meat is about the best thing we can do right now. Kills me to say it though.

It’s forecast to be over 30 in Ireland next week. Over 40 in the UK. People are fighting wild fires across Europe. This is not ok.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119345639#Comment_119345639

I'm having a hard time believing that

Wouldn't drastically reducing the number of flights taken rank up there

Wouldn't educating women (and indeed men) in developing nations help reduce birth rates and population pressure

Wouldn't addressing the way countries are run with neverending growth (economically etc) being the goal...leading to increased consumption and waste be something to think about

If meat were cut out would that not result in land being repurposed and even more being taken for crops.....crops which will require pesticides to provide the kinds of yields required...........if we are talking about growing in a controlled environment/vertical farms etc...would that not consume huge amounts of electricity and water diverted from natural sources to provide the volume required

Like I said I'm finding it real hard to believe cutting out meat is the single best thing we can do......especially cutting production in the West, if we do that it will be supplied in a much more environmentally destructive way from Brazil........even if we do reduce demand won't that area being destroyed continue to be destroyed for palm oil plantations etc

All I can see is shooting ourselves in the foot even more and not solving the issue.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119345639#Comment_119345639

Burning fossil fuels is the issue. Not farmers.

Vegans are just useful idiots filled up with propaganda from the billion dollar food industries.

SeanW

Veganism is not the answer. Many of the people telling us "we must do this, that and the third" are causing not just needless CO2 emissions and massive needless destruction of the natural world. By objecting to the use of nuclear energy (which has usually meant burning fossil fuels instead for electricity - 100% needlessly) and supporting the extermination of large birds (e.g. eagles) and bats to extinction by carpet bombing the countryside with windmills which are absolutely lethal to flying wildlife. Literally, windmills are more of an existential threat to bats than White Note Syndrome, which is itself an extinction-level threat.

Unless someone is willing to repudiate and oppose these insane policies, I don't care what else they favour or oppose.

Like Eamon Ryan who wants to simultaneously "re-wild" the countryside by introducing killer wolves while simultaneously carpet bombing it with windmills. Same for the vegan brigade. Your policies are contradictory, self-defeating and insane and I have no interest in changing my life according to them. Zero. Nada. Squat. Zip.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119345340#Comment_119345340

12th time. They cannot get or afford imported fertiliser.

That means 0% per acreage.

#maths

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119348182#Comment_119348182

So that`s the alternative you have that they could produce themselves to solve the problem, malnutrition and starvation ?

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119348505#Comment_119348505

That's actually your alternative.

The reality is they will have to decrease their dependence on a commodity they cannot produce. The exact thing I stated in my first post you responded to.

Plenty of published studies on how that can be achieved. Maybe the new governance may introduce a plan to get to food sovereignty, I wouldn't have much hope though. Hopefully I'm wrong.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119348594#Comment_119348594

Not at all. I have shown you what the alternatives are from Sri Lanka`s own agricultural research studies over 22 growing seasons, and this has been borne out from this years crop yields.

You have been on about some alternative they could use themselves to change that, but when repeatedly asked what this alternative is you just keep ignoring. Now you come up with yet another vague reply about published studies on how it can be achieved. So what are these alternatives, either your own, or from these published studies ?

It really is a simple question and I cannot see why the constant evasion attempts to not answer.

dasdog

Love the Anti-EU gammon hate from the beneficiaries of the Common Agricultural Policy on this thread. One of the best life lessons I had was working on a farm in the Netherlands, everything grown in sand sprayed with fertiliser, planting tulips. Horrible work but we enjoyed the weekends. That's when you make decisions about ability or being a spa.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119349182#Comment_119349182

Obviously you chose to be a spa. 😉

cezanne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119306849#Comment_119306849

I agree with you having worked in the food industry i have witnessed the intensive farming in person its cruel and horrible and to be honest if the green agenda reduces the wanton killing of young animals for consumption than it has achieved something IMHO. As to the beef form Brazill total mafia beef funding criminals. I met all the beef producers from around the world at various industry food shows the big one in Germany in Cologne. The handsome brazillians would cut your throat and there is no traceabiliy there.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119349532#Comment_119349532

The EU imports 540 million worth of beef with poor or none existing traceability from the slash and burn merchants in Brazil and have it shipped half way around the world. The EU imports 845 million worth of beef from Ireland a member state.

The EU Commissioner for Agriculture was in town a few weeks ago and said the EU had no interest in cutting herd number, that their concern was food security. Yet the Irish Green Party want to cut our herd by at least 30%.

Am I missing something, or is this the contradictory madness it appears ?

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119338177#Comment_119338177

So true farmers are the real land custodians of the land, that has probably being passed down through generations.

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119346101#Comment_119346101

Here here well said, the vegan agenda is just astonishing people who know nothing about farming or food production making decisions and pushing agendas

Labaik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119345639#Comment_119345639

A few days of sunshine and its Armageddon. What about the other 340 odd days a year that its raining.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119346139#Comment_119346139

They think everyone produces meat via the USA model. Tonnes of water. Ireland does not.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119351660#Comment_119351660

They have that covered. Rain is due to climate change also. Fires in Aus.. Tones of plants there need fire to grow burst seed pods alike clear area for new growth. Problem is when you move houses into these areas not the fires. 2 odd hours from sydney you can go skiing ffs.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119351660#Comment_119351660

A few days of sunshine aren’t the problem. The rise in average global temperature is. Blind ignorance let’s you validate whatever opinion you want.

Labaik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119351916#Comment_119351916

Sorry but the earths temperature has risen every decade since the 1800's. One of the hottest years ever recorded in the U.S was in 1934.

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119351916#Comment_119351916

I would love to know your opinion on the following.

Myself and my father are part time farmers in the west of Ireland, non intensive farmers or beef finnishing store cattle and sheep production.

We have roughly 60 acres grassland, 80 acres forestry and 120 acres bogland of which is rich in sphagnum moss.

We have not got our land surveyed for carbon sequestration, but due to us being in reps scheme for years we planted all our fields with hedgerows, use little fertiliser as clover swards established using tight grazing with sheep, I know we are sequestering way more carbon than we are emitting, by using rough estimates from field studies. The forestry and sphagnum moss especially are huge carbon sinks but why on earth are we not allowed to claim credits for them, this is a joke, yet big buisness like Google and meta can blaken ireland with data centres buy up forestry land in Lietrim using shell companies and offset the credits against them and Ireland has no problem as it helps our 'GDP'. Farmers like me feel we are being sold out because of this.

We run an extremely sustainable farm and as do most farmers in Ireland especially if the farmers own bogland, so why are some people condemning our farm and saying we are destroying the environment when it's quite the opposite.

I would like to here your thoughts from a person who is on the opposite side of the fence.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119352595#Comment_119352595

I say fair play to you, why are you asking my opinion? I’m definitely not anti farmer.

I replied in this thread because I don’t think there’s a media cover up of the protests and I believe climate change is real and will force us to change how we live. We need to change, or we will have to change later.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119352212#Comment_119352212

I’m not going to argue climate science with you. It’s settled and real.

Marcos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119350975#Comment_119350975

Just take a look at how much water almonds use in order to create their beloved almond milk.

https://www.mashed.com/225543/the-real-reason-almonds-are-destroying-california/

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119352621#Comment_119352621

Respect that climate change is a huge issue, but what are your thoughts on Irish famers like myself who are clearly a net carbon absorber not being able to claim carbon credits and in turn sell them at market value to more intensive famers in the dairy sector, instead of big multinational companies. If this was done it would really help the marginalized farmer in the West of Ireland and also help intensive farmers in the East offset their carbon emissions.

My thoughts are any carbon sequestered in the farming/agriculture/land areas and privately owned bogland showed be used only in the agricultural sector, and should not be sold to multinational companies. Our farmers in Ireland are the biggest private owners of bogland, forestry and agricultural land this carbon being sequestered should be used only for this sector.

What do you think, should a pro active regenerative farmer like myself and my father, who are farming are land down through generations, should we be allowed to claim our excess carbon credits and sell them to a more intensive dairy farmer that is a net emitter of carbon?, or should we be made forfeit them to big Energy consuming Multinationals in order to keep money flowing into Ireland and keep the 'GPD' gravy train going.