Mass Protest in the Netherlands by Farmers.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119352629#Comment_119352629

I may not disagree on that

But you do think not eating meat is the single best thing we could do to mitigate?..........

I was having trouble with that given other human activities that produce carbon etc

Jonnyc135

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

Would you eat Beef and Lamb produced on my sustainable farm, and would you pay a premium for it?

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119352965#Comment_119352965

I would absolutely. I pay extra for local organic pork and beef already.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119352863#Comment_119352863

I don't know enough about it. Why is this directed at me exactly?

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119353368#Comment_119353368

Good to hear u would buy sustainably produced meat products.....not so much aimed at you but if farming is to more forward we need full scale conversations about carbon credits, the fact that people don't know shows the lack of engagement or 'want' to talk about it.

This is lack of conversation about carbon credits is purely down to big companies with the help of governments wanting to redirect these credits into their pockets this is what we should be talking about really.

This is why when I farm sustainably like my past generations, and I see a full scale attack on the farming community whilst secretly and quietly engaging with big corporate tax rich companies to steal carbon credits out of the agri sector its shameful, disgusting and wrong. Yet nobody is talking about it.

My point is there pitting us all against each other with nonsensical arguments over veganism and intensive farming, while really pulling all the strings by undermining the farmers and redirecting credits out of the agri sector towards big corporations - This is what infuriates me and makes me feel like my hard work means nothing because there just selling us out.

Definitely worth checking out the carbon credits and trading system, only companies allowed trade at the minute, but they will be worth big money down the line, that's why I'm afraid the top people know this.

smallbeef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119353355#Comment_119353355

If you do buy local organic produce, you represent only about 2% of the world who 1- can afford to do so and 2- actually give a **** about what they are eating.

I wanted to farm organically and looked into the figures a few years back. The prices offered for organic produce are only marginally above conventional. I would be worse off going organic. This downward pressure on organic prices is because the consumer will choose the cheapest alternative 98% of the time. Governments the world over are being propped up by cheap food. Revolutions happen when people don't have enough to eat. Feed them plenty cheap crap food and beam Love Island into their TVs nightly and the population will stay nice and quiet.

The EU have decided to outsource food production to Russia, Brazil, USA and anywhere else food can be got CHEAPER than subsidizing EU farmers, because the public cannot be asked to pay higher prices - it WILL make the climate far worse, but it will reduce the EU's carbon figures, we are idiots for tolerating these accounting tricks. The greens can't see the wood from the trees and push these ideologies, but they are so far off mark it’s frightening. 'Dont Look Up' was a pretty crap film but it hit the nail on the head when depicting how governments/big business just think with greed and make things worse.

Veganism is a joke but big business are involved now so it will be shoved on everyone, it will increase the pace of the planets resource depletion. The world will be too dependent on a few monocrops that are detrimental to soil health. Fertilizer and pesticides will need to increase to compensate for nutrient depletion. A few decades down the line many of the plains responsible for human consumption wheat will be deserts. People are being brainwashed down the vegan route and this is our 'Dont Look Up’ moment.

The real answer is organic. Organic mixed farming is a completely sustainable model. Trouble is an organic world will only support about 3-4 billion people, so erm no business model wants that. There is no answer that allows infinite growth and prosperity from a finite pool of natural resources. Food needs to become expensive, and people need to be thought to only have kids if you have the resources to do so. The model of infinite growth targets propped up by cheap food and fossil fuels has us where we are today.

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119354137#Comment_119354137

Well said, all Economies want is the beloved GDP and growth at the detriment of everything else. Food has been way to cheap for far too long and I think things are about to change. You are so correct in terms of monocropping grains and plants for Vegan based foods. In fact this would lead to lower soil carbon and microbial life in the soil and in turn reduce its ability to sequester carbon.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119356386#Comment_119356386

Yeah we should let Africa starve then ? They have to get food from somewhere a lot of places in Africa do.

Jonnyc135

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119356682#Comment_119356682

I never said that, I said people in the western developed society will have to live with paying a lot more for food, instead of governments and the general society now with abundance of cheap food leaving disposable income that in turn chases and creates this sacred GDP.

conorhal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119353550#Comment_119353550

I applaud your efforts and I too find it depressing that the one size fits all EU policies around emissions makes no differenciation between you (and many Irish producers) and the Dutch levels of intensive factory farming.

I don't know what the solution is to make sustainable farming more profitable, perhaps doing the added value part youself and processing the raw materials into high value products in house? A lot of farms have started their own cheese making businesses selling craft product. I hear it's actually hard to get cattle to slaughter locally but if it were possible selling your own cured meats or steaks locally would offer a substantial mark up on selling on the hoof.

Danzy

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

Europe could still produce a large food surplus by Organic Farming, because it has the quality soil and suitable climate.

Most of Africa and Asia are all out to do that even with flogging their largely poor soil hard with chemicals.

It is as they imagine that productive soil like we have in Europe is the norm.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119354137#Comment_119354137

This book published back in 1992: https://www.lilliputpress.ie/product/the-growth-illusion-how-economic-growth-has-enriched-the-few-impoverished-the-many-and-endangered-the-planet

was written by a Green when Greens were really Greens and not industrialists wedded to some new Green Technological pact.

What you wrote in your last paragraph/ sentence, this books covers again & again with numerous examples.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119361125#Comment_119361125

I would very much doubt there would be a large food surplus by Organic Farming, or even if there would be any food surplus in Europe.

Sri Lanka`s Agricultural Research Center over 22 seasons found that crop yields were lower by 21.5% to 33%. Practically the identical statistics that Agroscope and the University of Zurich reported from a 12 year study on Organic Farming where their study showed crop yields of between 22% and 34% lower.

From that it would appears that the soil quality in Sri Lanka is no different from European soils, but there are areas of the world where soil quality is much lower, so attempting to grow crops organically in those areas will give even lower yields, so if all the world was farming organically, even with the present world population, you would be looking at famine in large areas of the world.

Worldwide organic farming would be a global disaster. It`s a green/environmentalist ideological wet dream, and one that is extremely dangerous and disingenuous of them to be even advocating let alone be attempting to impose.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119361635#Comment_119361635

Somewhere between 3 and 4 billion depend on artificial fertilizer for food.

There are vast stretches of France not being worked, they alone can vastly increase output.

Such a change is only theoretical.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119361668#Comment_119361668

I have been in France and I do not recall large areas not being productive and it would not be just France that would have to increase it`s acreage under tillage by between 22% and 34%. All of Europe would have to increase by that level just to produce the present yields farming organically. For the rest of those countries with poorer soils that percentage would be even higher with the production costs rising even proportionally higher. It`s a green wet dream that has no basis in reality.

Such a change is not just theoretical. It is already happening thanks to green ideology. We have already seen what it has caused just from the 2019 EU ban on a few pesticides with no alternatives being allowed with a drop in certain crops being sown in Europe because of farmers identifying the lack of financial return due to lower yields.