Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
No ethanol, no survival.
GrowingDeer.TV, neonics, and Lundgren
- Thread starter SD51555
- Start date
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
SAD - but probably correct.
I'm 1 1/2 years into being totally organic on my farm. 20 years organic for produce. Crop diversity. Intensive rotational grazing. Feeding the microbiology of the soil. Regenerative practices. haven't had a GMO crop on farm in...cant remember. Totally excited about the direction farm is moving. Feels healthier in every way.
Spike_Horn_Shooter
5 year old buck +
Government could not figure out how to conspire there way out of a wet paper bag.
Working for government is like peeling an onion-the deeper you go, the more you want to cry.
Now - the private companies that basically wrote the laws, prioritize where funding goes, push programs. Those guys could pull the wool over our eyes with lobbying, kickbacks and advertising.
Working for government is like peeling an onion-the deeper you go, the more you want to cry.
Now - the private companies that basically wrote the laws, prioritize where funding goes, push programs. Those guys could pull the wool over our eyes with lobbying, kickbacks and advertising.
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
I was checking out Dr Lundgren's Blue Dasher farm. Why do you think he has bare soil under all his mast trees when he is supposedly a 100% no-till/ organic/ regenerative farm? Hopefully it's just part of his research and is a control. In this thread, a linked video title questions why he became a farmer, and I see in his bio that he's received $3,400,000 in grants so far. To me, that partly explains why he became a farmer. I spent some time today reading a research paper on the nic insecticides in MN's waters. They're definitely there, for varying reasons, and I agree it's noteworthy. Was hard for me to process it all, but seemed the levels were all still below thresholds, even for aquatic life. Maybe the thresholds are too high, I get it. Going to keep looking at this stuff. We as conventional farmers are told the nic treatments do wonders (help control a number of the bad bugs) and are absolutely a good thing, but I see the opposing side says we barely get any use out of them and they pollute nearly everything and kill too many of the good bugs. I see the Ag PHD guys are being praised on another thread right now for no-till etc, but know they're advocates of this chemical as well.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Excellent ....... very cool, Baker!! I like buying organic produce for sure, and so does my wife.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
I agree with your last sentence, Spike_Horn_Shooter. BIG money rules everything - and the vast majority of Americans get the shaft in what goes down. If we took the amounts of money spent on corporate lobbying - for corporate bottom lines' benefit, regardless of negative environmental / health impacts - we could help lots of homeless & wounded veterans, improve our crumbling infrastructure, etc. We live in a corporate oligarchy - big money interests have laws custom-tailored to suit THEM - not what's good for the bulk of our population .... or our country. There are laws being written that have clauses in them to immunize and prevent any lawsuits against them. (And those clauses aren't a secret. They're spelled out publicly.) Sound like a fair & just thing to you guys?? Try to sue a corporation that polluted your wells, or made baby food with heavy metals in it ........... see how far you get with that. YOU will be out the $$$$$$$ trying to sue the company, plus having to pay the company's legal costs for making your "frivolous" claim for their pollution / lack of safety. Then ......... you also get to shoulder the expensive costs of any medical bills from health problems for you and your family, caused by corporate pollution of water, food, soil, air.
Now ........ who enacts laws like that with such legal immunity for corporate "America" ?? Who calls such little-guy-initiated lawsuits "frivolous and meritless" ??
I'm a starry eyed dreamer. Quick to admit it. Always try to see the opportunity in everything and without question in my mind believe everything always works out as it should. Can simply be a question of how chaotic.
That said I believe money ...economics... are exactly why the current system will fail along and there is a slow but growing transition to healthier growing practices. I believe the existing ag model which has mostly only been around since WW2 is unsustainable financially. The destruction of soil fertility, the loss of nutrient density in foods, the ever increasing reliance on synthetic mostly petroleum based inputs which work counter to nature and are destructive to soil health, increasing costs of GMO seeds along with increasing cost of herbicide pesticide, fungicide synthetic inputs which offer no long term value to the health of anything and, the dysfunction of subsidies simply to make the current model work....I could go on...simply is not sustainable. Nature never tolerates dysfunction for long.
Interestingly, the pioneers who are lighting the path to regenerative practices are improving soil fertility, greatly reducing costs, learning to be more profitable than conventional practices and many are not reliant on govt subsidies. This is a rapidly emerging trend in ag today. To me it's just intuitive. Do we want to farm produce and animals with a constant barrage of poisons designed to destroy and kill or do we want to work symbiotically with nature to collaborate, enhance and use life to expand life.
That said I believe money ...economics... are exactly why the current system will fail along and there is a slow but growing transition to healthier growing practices. I believe the existing ag model which has mostly only been around since WW2 is unsustainable financially. The destruction of soil fertility, the loss of nutrient density in foods, the ever increasing reliance on synthetic mostly petroleum based inputs which work counter to nature and are destructive to soil health, increasing costs of GMO seeds along with increasing cost of herbicide pesticide, fungicide synthetic inputs which offer no long term value to the health of anything and, the dysfunction of subsidies simply to make the current model work....I could go on...simply is not sustainable. Nature never tolerates dysfunction for long.
Interestingly, the pioneers who are lighting the path to regenerative practices are improving soil fertility, greatly reducing costs, learning to be more profitable than conventional practices and many are not reliant on govt subsidies. This is a rapidly emerging trend in ag today. To me it's just intuitive. Do we want to farm produce and animals with a constant barrage of poisons designed to destroy and kill or do we want to work symbiotically with nature to collaborate, enhance and use life to expand life.
Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
The stuff i read based on input from this forum makes regenerative ag seem like such an obvious choice but it can't be that simple? Most of the "regenerative" farmers ive seen covered don't seem to be at what i'd consider large scale for the upper midwest. Is it a timing thing I.E. are the processes required are more sensitive to getting done at the right time and doing so with say 5k+ acres is tough because you cant cover it all at the same time?
SD51555
5 year old buck +
The bottleneck is in the divide between growing skills and business skills. There are tons of great growers out there. Tons of great business people. Very few possess both skills, but they are quickly finding their way to the nutrition business.
The guys that are really successful have complete vertical integration and almost no need for or exposure to patented life support products like chems, drugs, seeds, equipment, buildings, debt, etc.
I don't think every consumer has to switch for this to work. Once enough people get on the other side of the seesaw, big business will be forced to compete. Maybe that's 5% or 10% of the market, but eventually, the demand will be unavoidable, and you'll get Tyson and Cargill in on it, and it'll be done in the United States. Until then, I'm happy having my growers' personal cell numbers and being able to see where and how my critters lived.
The economics are there. Grazers can make thousands per acre with no capital. Beats the hell out of hundreds per acre with tens of millions in capital. And this is how you revitalize rural America. Let the bankers work second jobs, and the grazers drive the corvettes.
#Skoogman/Simons2024
Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
The bottleneck is in the divide between growing skills and business skills. There are tons of great growers out there. Tons of great business people. Very few possess both skills, but they are quickly finding their way to the nutrition business.
The guys that are really successful have complete vertical integration and almost no need for or exposure to patented life support products like chems, drugs, seeds, equipment, buildings, debt, etc.
I don't think every consumer has to switch for this to work. Once enough people get on the other side of the seesaw, big business will be forced to compete. Maybe that's 5% or 10% of the market, but eventually, the demand will be unavoidable, and you'll get Tyson and Cargill in on it, and it'll be done in the United States. Until then, I'm happy having my growers' personal cell numbers and being able to see where and how my critters lived.
The economics are there. Grazers can make thousands per acre with no capital. Beats the hell out of hundreds per acre with tens of millions in capital. And this is how you revitalize rural America. Let the bankers work second jobs, and the grazers drive the corvettes.
#Skoogman/Simons2024
To make sure I understand in relation to my question - For an operation that is say 10k acres, are you saying there is comparatively less additional challenge to go regenerative vs conventional ag practices in relation to work (planning, purchasing, insuring, planting, weed/pest mitigating, maintaining, harvesting, etc) than the challenge of selling that amount of crops in non-traditional markets for a higher price?
FarmerDan
5 year old buck +
I once saw a sign that said, "I've read so much about the (fill in the blank(s))....) bad effects of smoking, drinking, eating that I've decided to give up reading. There are some great perspectives here in this forum, but there's no certainty, only hope. Look, the current systems for producing food and fiber work, sorta' - for now. There are many problems, no doubt. With all production there are costs. In the current scheme there are direct costs like the cost of seed and fuel and fertilizer and herbicides. There are also external costs. These are paid for by all of us. Heck, everytime you - or a real prodution farmer - moves dirt some of it washes away. Who pays for that cost?
When I was a kid and deciding on a vocation the ag challenge was to keep yields increasing faster than the exponential increase in world population. Now, it's different. In 20-years it will be different again.
If you're in production ag you're selling bushels and tons - yields-per-acre. Your cost of production is everthing. If the cost of production goes up a penny a bushel and the price recieved goes down a penny you might be out of business. So, if you've got this current post WWII production system figured out, the one whereyou don't pay all the costs, why would you change it just because someone else says regenerative ag is more profitable and more sustainable? Might be, but are you going to risk the farm? Risk it simply based on what you might read?
Or if you do agree to change you're going slowly. You need to prove to yourself (and your banker) this is going to work. And at the first signof backslide you're back into traditional production. Just becasue someone says you don't need fertilzier or herbicides doesn't mean you don't or won't. Read the Noble Foundations description of regenerative ag. They say its a journey and not a end. What if you don't like travelling even though there is no end!
It took amerian ag a long time to fully switch to high yielding hybrid corn varities.
You may think the pace of change is unfounded and unacceptable, but it's usually the rule everywhere.
To illustrate how slow change comes - who would argue about the superior yields of hybred corn! Yet look how long it took for full implementation. Farmers then and farmers now are much more savy about business and survival than you may want to believe.
You may want to argue, but it won't be about this!
Spike_Horn_Shooter
5 year old buck +
It’s interesting to note - Dave Brant and Rick Clark - who collectively farm about 15,000 acres in Ohio and Indiana gave up on crop insurance - maybe they didn’t need it, maybe the requirements for crop insurance and cover crops were too cumbersome.
I’d also mention - I fell down the regen ag rabbit hole when I was about 25. Rotational Grazing between 5-15 head of cattle, 100 chickens, honey bees, breading pigs. It kicked my ass. I was young, poor, working on the road, with a young family. It kicked my ass.
At least with deer I don’t have to go out and move them once a day! But I still get the satisfaction of growing something.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
They're definitely two different paths.
(1) Regen is easier chore-wise, but I have no idea how to convert from chemical soil to biological soil without missing a season or losing the farm. It's really the genius of the system. Once everything is dead, all solutions must be purchased from the germans or the chinese to get a crop. If that conversion were easy, big agribusiness would be toast overnight.
(2) Those crops don't need to go to specialty markets. The shift to regen isn't about raising a better product. It's about making money. Most often it starts with financial survival because record breaking yields don't always mean profit.
That's two questions.
(1) Regen is easier chore-wise, but I have no idea how to convert from chemical soil to biological soil without missing a season or losing the farm. It's really the genius of the system. Once everything is dead, all solutions must be purchased from the germans or the chinese to get a crop. If that conversion were easy, big agribusiness would be toast overnight.
(2) Those crops don't need to go to specialty markets. The shift to regen isn't about raising a better product. It's about making money. Most often it starts with financial survival because record breaking yields don't always mean profit.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Aside from soil health / natural / chemically-aided AG ......
I've said for YEARS .......... Farmers do the work, and middle-men / women make the money off them. In an all-out catastrophe - natural or man-made - another "smart-phone" / "smart-gadget", or fancy loafers, jewelry, sports car .......... won't have value. But food, clean water, and shelter sure will. Just look at Ukraine for an example of what could be .......... ANYWHERE.
I've said for YEARS .......... Farmers do the work, and middle-men / women make the money off them. In an all-out catastrophe - natural or man-made - another "smart-phone" / "smart-gadget", or fancy loafers, jewelry, sports car .......... won't have value. But food, clean water, and shelter sure will. Just look at Ukraine for an example of what could be .......... ANYWHERE.
Wind Gypsy
5 year old buck +
Seems like something farmers could dip their toe in with field or portion here and there til they get comfort? A buddy of mine said he was unable to plant 10k acres this spring (out of 60k) in ND due to how wet fields were this spring. Didn't seem all that catastrophic to him with insurance. I'm sure a guy like him could dabble a bit without worry of losing the farm.
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
What put you over the top on the Alexapure? I've been debating getting a Berkey for a couple years now. Quick glance shows them being similar, but appears the Alexa also filters flouride. Berkey would need separate, additional filters for that.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
I never came across Berkey when I was looking. Alexapure was the only one I found even claiming to be able to get flouride, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and the bro's (water treatment chems) out. I would love to send that water off for testing to see just how effective it really is. Even so, a single Alexapure filter is good for like 5000 gallons, so the cost is almost nothing once you have it, maybe 1.3 cents/gallon.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
This is where my knowledge of farming starts to fall apart. There are endless amounts of chemicals used to kill the unkillable weeds, and some of them have some wicked residuals. Some of those residuals are 2 full growing seasons. I don't know if a guy can farm with those harsh residual chems to keep the weeds down, and still be able to get a cover crop up after.
Some of the cover crop books from Milborn and Green Cover used to have those herbicide use charts with the rotation restrictions due to residuals. it's been a while since I've seen one. There are some big swings in research I don't think have been tested very much, but here's what I'd like to see:
*Quit with the early planting that requires neonics and fungicide to prevent seed rot in cold soil
*Shorten maturities to enable warm soil planting in spring, and cover cropping in fall.
Question is, will their be a profit per acre hit, or increase? Is there a value to having a soil that will withstand shocks better in a season when there is no shock like drought, flood, heat, cold, fungus, bugs, etc? Is there value to being able to get the crop out when it's wet when your conventional neighbors are burying equipment up to the axels? Seems like something a land grant university juiced full of corporate money should be researching, or perhaps ensuring doesn't get researched. My favorite questions when it comes to deciding whether there is value to this or not, are these: What happens if it doesn't rain? What if it pours and won't quit? How will your system hold up to those conditions?
We had the driest year on record in my county in 2021. My plots got to looking a little stressed by July, but they made it through and yielded full strength in September. Lots of guys weren't so lucky in MN that year. My shallow well still hasn't recovered from 2021.
