Synthetic fertlisers and clover

I have written a couple of articles recently which people may find interesting. The first one was on the importance of clover, (read more), this led to another article about synthetic fertilisers. The more I researched and wrote the more I realised how utterly dependent we are on our soils and how we have and are neglecting them (read more). It seems to me that, just like the clover having a symbiotic relationship with rhizobia, we have a symbiotic relationship with soil. Soil cannot exist without life, just as life cannot exist without soil; the two are interwined.

If you are a farmer there is another article about introducing clover into an existing sward, (read more).

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As long as you leave it intact and do not alter it in anyway. All links must remain in the article. No textual amendments permitted.  Only exception is Twitter

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About the author

Stephen Merritt is a partner in The Welsh Poultry Centre and an accredited advisor and board member of The Institute of Organic Training and Advice and has spent over 30 years working in sustainable agriculture in developing countries, England and Wales.  In the last 8 years Steve has specialised in free range and organic poultry production and now offers on farm advice and training to this sector.

Can you save money by milling and mixing your own food for your poultry enterprise?

Can you save money by milling and mixing your own food for your poultry enterprise?

I have been asked by a couple of people recently, given the rising cost of feed, whether it is worth milling your own feed and what the savings are likely to be.

Do you want to match like for like?

The bought in feed you currently buy is likely to be in a pellet form. If you are considering milling and mixing your own, you will need to consider the pros and cons of producing pelleted feed or a mash. Read More

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The Importance of Light

The Importance of Light for Laying Hens

Light stimulation affects more than just the number of eggs that a hen lays. It also affects the reproductive function, the physical activity and will alter the laying’s hen behaviour. The affect of light is not primarily through the eyes of a chicken, but through part of the brain. In very much the same way that a photovoltaic cell works, the sun’s energy hits the chicken as photons. These photons penetrate the feathers, skin and skull to hit a part of the brain called the extraretinal receptor. The ability of light to affect this part of the brain is to do with the light intensity and wavelength. Read More

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How do you know if your site is suitable for outdoor poultry?

How do you know if your site is suitable for outdoor poultry?

Getting the site right is crucial to the success of your poultry enterprise.  If you are looking at a new site then you need to consider:

1.    Legal position

2.    Soil structure/site orientation

3.    Housing Position

4.    Range design

read more

Wouldn’t you love to get regular information on production, processing and marketing organic or free range meat and eggs which looks at the latest ideas and cost saving methods to help  you get the most from your poultry enterprise?

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Are Organic Sector Bodies relevant anymore?

The Organic sector bodies have ended up defining organic. They have become the gate way to organic premiums and they have defined, through their standards, what organic is. In many cases this has been no more than lines in the sand, but as a farmer you had to prove you where the right side of this arbitrary line to carry on using the term organic.

Now, there is no or little premium and organic feed costs are high. Farmers are beginning to wonder why they are paying the sector body fees and why they are having to go to great lengths to prove that they are the right side of that arbitrary line. While many, or maybe most wont forsake the organic principle, (they work, they always have worked and now, more than ever the world needs those principles), they are having to question remaining registered with the sector bodies. Have the sector bodies lost their relevance?

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How to save money on your feed bills

We assume that the birds derive nothing from the range and is getting all its needs from the bag. However, with ever increasing feed costs it would make much more sense to start looking at the range to provide significant amounts of nutrients and make up the difference from the bag. read more

Wouldn’t you love to get regular information on production, processing and marketing organic or free range meat and eggs which looks at the latest ideas and cost saving methods to help  you get the most from your poultry enterprise?

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Regulations

I have just finished an article about the Egg Marketing Inspectorate. This is the body you have to register with if you are intending to sell eggs, for details read more. More and more of my time seems to be spent trying to keep up-to-date with new regulations. It appears that the more sophisticated a society gets the more it attempts to tie up in knots any activity that takes place. Is this a conscious decision to replace production with office bound bureaucrats? Is it a necessary means of ensuring equity within our society? Is it a means of protecting self interest? Is it, as it purports to be, protecting us?

So often it appears that the regulations are trying to bring us all down to the lowest common denominator. For instance I, and anyone else who is prepared to learn, are capable of wiring a house if needs be. The decision then is do I have the inclination and have I got the time. No longer. Today it is illegal to wire a house, even your own house, unless you are a qualified electrician. Many would suggest that this is good. It stops the idiot who put a plug on a lighting circuit for instance. Thats got to be good hasn’t it? Well no. It also stops the person quite capable of learning a new skill and doing it themselves. For the sake of a safer society we become a more mechanical society. The term mechanical means that we are increasingly specialised; knowing our own skills and relying on others for different skills. It would appear to me that in following this path we will be safer as a society but much less flexible.

Is safer good? Well I am not so sure. It would at first appear a desirable goal to be safe from crime, safe from injury, have safer cars, safer houses, safe from fraud and exploitation. Safe is good, until it gets to the point of not allowing risk. Risk is an essential element of human existence. It is because, throughout our history, we have taken risks, that we are able to live such a safe life now.

Oddly, in my own field, poultry production, the same argument is used by the intensive producers. Cherry Valley, who produce most of the ducks consumed in this country use this argument as a justification for keeping thousands of ducks in temperature controlled sheds. This means of production, they argue, keeps the birds safe from the weather, it keeps them safe from predation and it keeps them safe from potential disease. You cant argue with that, it does keep them safe from all these potential dangers; but at what cost to their natural behavior. The individual becomes safer but the whole becomes more susceptible.

Wouldn’t you love to get regular information on production, processing and marketing organic or free range meat and eggs which looks at the latest ideas and cost saving methods to help  you get the most from your poultry enterprise?

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Is there any point in being organic?

There does seem little point in being organic. The recession has depressed the demand for organic fruit and veg to such a level that there is little or no premium available. The weakness of the pound has also meant that beef and sheep can be sold for more to the conventional market, so again no premium is available. Much the same is true for the dairy sector while organic pigs and poultry appear to have priced themselves out of the market altogether. So not a good time for organic; or is it?

Government policy looks to the biotech industry

Recently Hilary Benn has been outlining future Government policy at the Oxford Agricultural Conference. Obviously, given the problems of climate change, peak oil and food security there were lots of words such as sustainable, environmentally friendly, low carbon footprint, healthy ect. Now it is obvious to me that organic principles have much to offer if the objectives are sustainable, environmentally friendly, low carbon foot print, and healthy. Unfortunately the Government don’t see it that way. They prefer to believe that technology alone holds the answers and with this in mind have increased the research budget for the biotech industry. Even Government policy is therefore not encouraging anyone to consider organic.

Organic principles are shown to be more profitable for farms

It would therefore appear a complete non-starter to be considering organic. However, an interesting fact is that Farm Income surveys suggest that organic farms can still be more profitable than conventional. Generally this is because the variable costs tend to be lower. To understand why, you need to understand what the organic principles really are.

Many people think that it is not doing things, such as using fertilisers, sprays, GMs, in food medication, growth promoters etc. However, it is rather a system of farming that doesn’t need to use such things. It all starts with clover and its ability (along with other legumes) to fix nitrogen. A good clover ley can be fixing in excess of 150kg of nitrogen (N) per year. While it is doing this it also provides a high protein forage, improves soil structure and contains high mineral content, which may reduce health problems in livestock.

However, if you also apply N you suppress the clovers ability to fix N from the air. Around this, basically free input, an appropriate rotation can be established allowing other crops to exploit the N. You don’t get the very high yields that you could expect from applying bagged N, but you also don’t get many of the problems that high yielders, be it livestock or crops, display. Basically the more you push, the more problems you get, and the pushing all starts with the use of bagged N.

Lower inputs equal lower costs

Of course, while getting smaller yields you are also getting smaller variable costs; saving on fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides. Farming to organic principles will create a low input farming system that works incredibly well.

The future appears very unpredictable at the moment. As a farmer you need to be considering future trends and trying to plan your farm accordingly. It would appear to me pretty certain that input costs are going to rise. Making bagged Nitrogen is very energy intensive; it requires high levels of oil. Even if you suppose, as the oil companies claim, that peak oil will not arrive until 2035, it is certain that oil prices will continue to rise just because of the increasing demand, driven mainly be China and India.

When looking at the future it maybe worth your while taking another look at a successful low input farming system; organic. If you do want to consider this option there is still free Government advice that can be had. The Organic Conversion Information Service, (OCIS), will provide, in Wales, up to three visits to your farm by an organic adviser to allow you to find out how an organic system could work on your farm and discuss the options.

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A future for organics?

Juliet Fay has provided a guest blog post looking at the future of organic food sales.  For all those involved in organic poultry production or thinking of setting up or converting to organic egg or table bird production, healthy demand for your produce is key.

What’s the future for organic food sales?

The Soil Association’s Organic Market Report for 2009 would suggest the future for organic food sales is not as bleak as the media may have led us to believe.  This report looks at the performance of different organic foods over a 12 month period.

Undoubtedly farmers and growers who supply the large multiple retailers have been hit hard, not least by Tesco’s decision to pull many organic lines from their shelves when the recession was only a credit crunch.  They have since admitted that this was the wrong decision and are now once again pledging support for organic farmers in the UK.

Read More

Wouldn’t you love to get regular information on production, processing and marketing organic or free range meat and eggs which looks at the latest ideas and cost saving methods to help  you get the most from your poultry enterprise?

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New salmonella regulations for turkeys

On the Welsh Poultry Centre web site you will find a new article about the new EU regulation regarding turkeys. These will come into effect next year, (2010). The article gives you the low down on what you may have to do next year; (read article) this blog questions the premise on which the new regulations appear to be laid. Apparently there are some 50,000 reported cases of salmonella food poisoning in the UK every year. It is estimated that there are four times this number of cases; the rest not being reported. Of that 50,000, 2000 result in time in a hospital, normally because there are some complications.

The EUs answer to this problem is to attempt to remove salmonella from poultry altogether. In 2010 the EU will be concentrating on two particular strains (in total there are between 2500-3000 strains of salmonella) but over time it is thought that this will be increased.

To put this problem into perspective, 9,000 people die in NHS hospitals every year from MRSA and C.difficile. It should also be remembered that meat properly cooked, (core temp reaches 75c) is safe.

There are two points here:
1. The only way to potentially eradicate salmonella in poultry is within the intensive, high security systems. Within this factory method of production all inputs can be controlled. Outside influences, such as wild birds and rodents can be stopped, access by poeple can be monitored and sterilised. If, as has been suggested, birds with salmonella are removed from the food chain then the organic and free-range systems are going to be hit very hard. It is therefore apparent that new regulations are effectively going to penalise free range and organic systems and encourage intensive production systems.
2. Our kids no longer get domestic science taught as a matter of course. Surely it is desirable during an education process that food science is covered because the simple fact is that poultry cooked properly is safe. It is odd that two of the most fundamental aspects of our survival, food production, and child care, are two areas of our society given very low status. Infact with BSE, foot and mouth, salmonella in eggs (it is estimated that one in every 20,000 eggs may contain salmonella) and lately ecoli on pet farms, avian flu and swine flu agriculture is almost demonised.

Why therefore, when the EU decided it needed to tackle the problem of salmonella in poultry did they decide that the best way would be through eradication. When doing the sums; the cost of salmonella to society compared with the cost of eradicating salmonella, why did they also not consider the cost of educating society to cook poultry properly?

Wouldn’t you love to get regular information on production, processing and marketing organic or free range meat and eggs which looks at the latest ideas and cost saving methods to help  you get the most from your poultry enterprise?

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