Climate Bolloxolgy.

Well that just proves the whole stupidity of the irish government self flagellating themselves over climate change and handing over the agricultural sector as the sacrificial lamb. Why are we being so stupid . Lets see how the heavily industrialised countries like Germany are going to reduce their emmisions first.

I will say I've seen benefits of micronutrients being applied. My thinking is coming around that you need a balanced soil. Hopefully this new soil test from the dept is on a par with others out there atm.

The original Avonmore Creamery was based in either Carlow or Kilkenny and it along with other creamery's merged throughout the East part of the country and formed what we know as Glanbia. I remember as a child that Merville Dairies was our local creamery which then became Premier Dairies. Glanbia still sell milk in Premier Dairies cartons in NCD supermarkets and it is the only milk/cream that I buy when I'm home.

Add link:

https://premierdairies.ie/

Basalt basically. And probably dolerite at that.

I've used that. There was another poster here too from across the country used basalt as well.

You have to be careful of the sodium content and aluminium obviously. But I'd consider my experiment fairly successful. I learned anyway. So success in my eyes.

If you're on a dryish farm don't spread unless mixed with fym beforehand.

I want to get paid for what I produce . The reliance on subsidies to partially fill the gap between what should be paid for food and what has been paid has been a disaster for Irish farmers .

Do you honestly want more needless regulation and red tape ? The price of food needs to increase significantly to where it should be .Now is the time for society to have that discussion .

1 acre takes in about 4 ton of carbon/year. That acre of ground is used to feed the cow so all the 4 ton is released back into the atmosphere again via the breakdown of the grass Biomass when the cow eats it. Some of the Carbon goes into muscle production, milk, sugars, Co2 from respiration etc. The bottom line is all that is extracted from the atmosphere is returned. So everything is in balance?

No, because there is extra Carbon used in the burning of fossil fuel to make fertilizer, run the tractor, jeep van, manufacture medicines, transport the animals, the list is huge but all this extra Carbon is being added to the atmosphere and not part of the natural Carbon cycle. This is the extra Carbon that agriculture is producing.

idk what the issue is understanding the subject, I remember this being taught for leaving cert Ag Science over 30 years ago when I sat the leaving

Almonds are fooking terrible. They are ruining California, the biggest producer in the world.

California produces 80% of the world's almonds — 2 billion pounds a year — at a staggering cost of 2,000 gallons of water per pound of almonds

Actually this could be true of big chunks of the States where they are just doing continous crops of the same thing year after year.

Those prairies were never meant for wheat every year.

There is very good chance huge chunks of US could be a dust bowl once again.

Ah but sure we will fook the Irish farmers first and let the yanks and the Aussies with their rice and cotton keep on truckin.

Agriculture = food & drink

Try livin without it.

Or maybe you want to go Chinese and start eating all sorts like birds, rats, snakes, cats, dogs, etc.

BTW how many of you devout greens own dogs and cats ?

Come on lets be having you.

How environmentally unfriendly is that household doggy you have ?

Feeding a lump of an animal that does SFA.

Hell the bible of lots of greenies, the Guardian published a review of a book, backed up by findings from the New Scientist that pets are bad for the environment.

According to the authors . . . it takes 0.84 hectares [2.07 acres] of land to keep a medium-sized dog fed. In contrast, running a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser, including the energy required to construct the thing and drive it 10,000km a year, requires 0.41 hectares. Dogs are not the only environmental sinners. The eco-footprint of a cat equates to that of a Volkswagen Golf.

So to help save the environment you should shoot your neighbours dogs and eat them.

I think Eamon Ryan has a black lab.

How fooking inconsiderate of the environment.

I think the term runoff is a misconception. The problem from slurry comes from spreading it too heavy or when ground conditions do not suit i.e the ground is sapping wet. It's not the thick slurry that gets to the rivers it's the dissolved nutrients mainly nitrates (NO3). Reason being that the ground (the plants/grass) do not get a chance to use these nutrients. So instead of the slurry being used by the plant it get dissolved and soaks away into the water courses.

Look at the label on a bottle of Mineral water and you'll see a listing for Nitrate concentration. Have a look at the level in the Ballygowan water and draw your own conclusions

So you found another source, good for you !

Oh it wasn't news to me.

I once worked with a Professor who consulted in industry on water treatment plant design. He told me that back in the 1980's the government commissioned a major report on the emerging water pollution issue in Ireland, it eventually produced its report which went to the Minister for approval. Unfortunately its major conclusion was that Agriculture was the primary cause, inconvenient at the time and the report never saw the light of day. That was at the very start of the problem.

It's more than than just the price of food. The price of everything needs to increase to combat climate change and pollution. The world is awash with cheap crap, especially cheap plastic crap. Food at least is essential for human life. It's a sad fact but most of items, clothing etc are cheaper to dispose of than they are to get repaired. There's a fairly seedy underbelly to consumerism and what most developed economies have become. Most are propped up by cheap labour, and substandard living condition for workers. Most of the clothing we wear is manufactured in conditions close to slavery.

I take your point with regards to food. I'm only 30 years old and I remember steak being a serious luxury when I was growing up in the 90s. I could walk into any supermarket tomorrow and buy 2 very high quality steaks for €10-12. Not to mind what you could get at a good butchers for a few euro more. The issue is that the farmer who reared the animal is struggling to get by and the foreign national workers who processed the meat can't earn a living wage and live in squalor. But someone somewhere is making big money, and cheap imported labour is their fuel.

If we're serious about saving the planet there is no way the consumerism we're used to can continue. These 2 things are simply not compatible. But we in the Western world have gotten used to quality meat for half nothing, cheap shite from amazon and clothing made by slaves in Bangladesh that we can throw out after 1 wear. It's likely that we'll plod along adjusting little bits around the edges and not addressing climate change with a health dollop of virtue signalling thrown in and eventually crises will begin to strike and we'll be in a mad panic to return to subsistence living!

You do realise that they haven't really increased

Irish farmers being lumbered with methane nonsense while Russia and others carry on this sort of thing: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/russia-europe-gas-pipeline-climate-impact-2021/?srnd=premium-europe

"Gazprom says it released enough methane to trap the same amount of heat as 25.5 million tons of CO₂ last year. But that only takes into account the warming impact over a century. Methane is much more dangerous in its first two decades in the atmosphere, during which Gazprom’s 2020 emissions would exceed the annual carbon footprint of the entire city of Paris or the Chinese industrial hub of Tianjin."