How woud you you retrofit the cattle industry?

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by MonteGoulding, Nov 28, 2006.

  1. MonteGoulding

    MonteGoulding Junior Member

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    Hi

    I'm wondering if anyone had any ideas for retrofitting the cattle industry? I have a relative heavily invested there although I'm unsure anything I have to say would be listened to. I was thinking of something like stock yards defined by tagasaste hedges to reduce the need to buy feed and composting/worm farming secondary business for manure.

    Cheers

    Monte
     
  2. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Monte,

    Many farmers & graziers are adopting strategies for things like this. Planting shade/fodder round their stockyards etc. It is fairly widespread but alas there are still a fair number of 'cowboys' in that industry. All of the big corporate landowners are into this and many of them employ environmental consultants, sadly I dont know of any permaculturists who have broken into this field but I believe there is pent-up demand.

    A lot of inland stationowners are very much aware of natural fodder stocks and many of them have 'insurance' paddocks. Paddocks that are locked up nearly indefinitely to maintain biodiversity and be available in times of drought.

    cheers

    floot
     
  3. mossbackfarm

    mossbackfarm Junior Member

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    A great resource is Allan Savory's book Holistic Resource Management. He has lots of experience with cattle, and brings an ecological perspective to ranching that encompasses both the landscape and the finances of making it work.

    Rich
     
  4. Jana

    Jana Junior Member

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    Back around 1989 I did a workshop with Bill Mollison on Waiheke Island NZ, at the time I recognized permaculture as being the new wave of land management. My father had worked for the lands and survey managing government farms for many years, so I asked Bill how to get permaculture into the conservative mainstream of Uni's and Gov. In typical survivalist fashion Bill was not interested in "missionary" missions into changing the thought systems of the culture at large.
    Perhaps if one is going to build Rome, one should do that so the people will come, rather than racing over to try to save Venice.
    It is happening anyway, the Permaculturalization of landuse, simply because it is the sensible moral thing to do once new information is at hand. The local Buddhist university here in Boulder has a Permaculture unit and course.
     
  5. MonteGoulding

    MonteGoulding Junior Member

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    I'm not sure if mission is the right word for what I was thinking. I might go and visit them and take an interest in their opperation and if I happened to say "hey I grow this tree as fodder for my chooks, they hedge it through the chicken wire and I think cows eat it too. I'll get you some seeds if you want"

    Or

    "Hey I've got a worm farm at home and they eat their body weight in a day so if you had a heap of them and a that heap of manure you've got there you could have a secondary business".
     
  6. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Australians really need to cut beef out of their diet. There, I said it.
    Plenty of roo's and camel's to go around though.
     
  7. Cornonthecob

    Cornonthecob Junior Member

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    I'm with you Richard. I have to admit I don't think much of cattle farmers....maybe I've only known ones who don't really look after their land.

    Camel is quite nice if cooked properly.
     
  8. Anastasia

    Anastasia Junior Member

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    My granddad was a cattle farmer a long time ago, fairly sure he didn't look after his land properly. Still a nice guy though. Just didn't know any other way to do it.

    Australians, give up their steak and cow's milk? HA!
     
  9. Jana

    Jana Junior Member

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    I think meat eating is a dying art anyway...and with stepping up the education things will change faster. I grew up on farms, and as a 5 year old I had dreams of sheep walking down the roads with meat hanging out of their mouth. The intelligence against meat eating came to me organically through dreaming about a more universal biology than man is presently engaged in. One could say we only still eat meat because of ignorance...as the vibration rises meat eating will drop away except in warlike societies and warlike individuals.
     
  10. Cornonthecob

    Cornonthecob Junior Member

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    You have some interesting dreams Jana :)

    Stacey.....it will happen one day. Probably be the same day that thongs (for ya feet) stop being a fashion accessory!

    :)
     
  11. MonteGoulding

    MonteGoulding Junior Member

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    I was hoping for a bit more than "don't eat meat as a response"
     
  12. Cornonthecob

    Cornonthecob Junior Member

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    As much as Ilove a nice T-bone I'm not a fan of the cattle industry.

    I recently saw on TV a story about a cattle farmer who was knocking over the local shrubs to feed his cattle during this 'never ending drought'. The story was written to show this bloke to be a bit of an innovator (though I doubt he is the first to do so) in doing this. The thing I pickd up on was that nothing was said about planting more shrubs for the future.

    Someone, it might have been Richard?, mentioned in another thread about just how mnay different types of plants cattle will eat. The number, which I can't remember, was high.

    So without doubt farmers need to start thinking more, planning better.

    It would be interesting to see if anyone has any info from the various DPI's about the info they're giving in regards to these sorts of things.
     
  13. mossbackfarm

    mossbackfarm Junior Member

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    Hahaha. I wonder why?

    Rotational grazing, as opposed to the feedlot mentality, does wonders for landscapes, on the hydrological and biological levels. Just putting in a cross fence on my friend's South Dakota ranch increased his cattle gains by 10%. More cross fences, more gains; thus more profit, which is often the only language understood by the cowboy mentality.

    Once you get them on something they understand, edible hedges & buffer strips (call them windbreaks), composting operations, etc will be easier to pitch

    Good luck

    Rich
    Grassfed, free range beef grower.
     
  14. MonteGoulding

    MonteGoulding Junior Member

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    Yeah... that's the kind of stuff I was after. While it's nice to allow free range I can't imagine it being embraced by the industry. Think of how Aquaponics allows high stocking rates of fish but, reuses waste and provides secondary business/benefits (rapid plant growth). You need to talk about how to make extra money or reduce expenses to these kinds of people. Infact the majority of people respond positively to that.
     
  15. Cornonthecob

    Cornonthecob Junior Member

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    A woman I was talking to the other day owns 800acres, and keeps 100 head of cattle. Have just rememebered talking to her.

    She explained how she replants her paddocks after the cows have been on them for a while. Mainly just grasses. She's the only person around here who has cattle that does that. the rest, I'm sure, will give their separate paddocks a rest from the cows but they don't actually replant/feed or any other kind of maintenance.

    I tried talking one bloke into trying comfrey or arrowroot but he wasn't really interested.

    That's a good idea Monte...if they could start to develope using 'all' their resources, and setting up a system so that it 'feeds' itself they'd defiantely be better off.

    It's just a matter of reteaching or retraining, however you want to call it.
     
  16. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Hey, notice that I didn't say, don't eat meat, I said don't eat beef. Roo's, camel's, croc's, possum's, hell even koala in certain situations, are all certainly "fair game" so to speak. Humans are certainly designed to eat meat, we have canine teeth after all, and it makes good ecological sense if we manage the thoughtfully designed cultivated ecology well.
    As a general rule, anything with hooves is maladapted for Australian soils. They cause compaction and erosion and those two factors are the opposite of what good land management seeks to do.
    I don't necessarily have a problem with small scale dairy animals who are rotated through small, well planted, well managed, perennial forage systems, but broadscale grazing in Australia in 2006 and beyond amounts to rigorously applied stupidity (evil).
     
  17. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    There seems to be an assumption floating here that aussie farmers are unaware of permaculture. This is off QLD's DPI site.
    Farmers are as aware as any other sector of society. Large tracts of Queensland's rangeland grazing systems are organic and aimed at sustainability of all of its biodiversity & eco-systems.

    Landline, a popular rural TV show has pieces on weekly along the lines of sustainability and organic.

    I only used Queensland as an example because of personal research, climatically Queensland shares many similarities with the Northern Territory.

    Biodynamics, permaculture and organic farming are all widespread in the bush. As yet they are not all encompassing but it is happening.

    As a young man I helped a farmer clear mallee off his land. It was the government policy of the day - the farmer explained to me why it was very bad practise to do this but he was forced to comply.

    Lastly, farmers are collectively wary of change. The 'gubmint' has sent dozens of advisors over the years telling farmers what to do this year and next year the same advisors can turn up and contradict themselves. Farmers are also skeptical - how many people went broke over emus, aloe vera, avocardos, grapes etc etc etc. So if you meet a crusty old farmer who takes your advice with a pinch of salt - understand why.

    Remember that rabbits, foxes, cane toads, prickly pear and blackberries were all 'good ideas' once.

    cheers

    floot
     
  18. Anastasia

    Anastasia Junior Member

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    Good point. It would make sense that farmers would be wary of the "gubmint" (hehe) and its advice. As for your question about how many people went broke over emus etc... no idea! Of course you can go broke in any venture if you haven't researched it properly and your land/climate whatever isn't suitable.

    OT bit...

    Richard, as for humans being designed to eat meat... designed by whom? Intelligent design? LOL Hippos have canine teeth too... bigger than ours. I am not philosophically opposed to meat eating but you can find the biological argument on both sides of the fence. It really comes down to personal need, preference and personal ethics, not a biology argument (for that matter I grew a nice big healthy baby without eating meat, and successfully breastfed her and still am - if we were biologically designed to eat meat logically she and I would be very sick or dead). ;)
     
  19. gnoll110

    gnoll110 Junior Member

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    How do you stop roos from jumping the fences? The other issues is that roos are worth nothing at the moment. Would trying to farm a protected animal be legal anyway?

    If you can't farm them, then your into exploiting a wild population (currently using a culling system), see whale and passenge pigeons

    The green movement has spent the last 30 years telling the rest of the world that roos are either endangered or too cute to kill for meat or fur/leather. Why would a farmer move to a product that has no export trade from one that does?

    Personally I eat a kg or 2 weekly. But I don't think the trade would scale up & remain sustainable.

    As far a cattle go, it all comes down to stocking rates!

    I know one farmer who systematically ensure that the native Queensland Blue Grass gets to seed on a regular basis. So I would disagree that good management must involve systematic replanting, could systematic replanting of non annual mean over grazing?


    Gnoll110
     
  20. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Right, it comes down to stocking rates. You can get much more roo meat or camel meat than beef from the same amount of land without causing soil or water degradation. And you probably don't need to fence the land. I think you are making my argument for me.

    I'm sure that lots of cattle farmers out there are trying to be as sensitive to the land as possible, but the maxim is horses for courses. There weren't any hooved animals here (I mean there) a long time before us white fellows showed up.

    I don't see anything wrong with exploiting (managing) wild populations, in fact I see it to be better in many ways than farming domestic ones. I think it far more likely that we will cause roo extinctions by farming cattle (and destroying the soil) than by managing roo habitat for sustainable harvest.

    Anastasia, you are right. Design was probably a poor choice of words. Adapted might be more better. I am glad your baby is healthy! I'm not saying that we need meat to survive, just that it can make sense, both biologically and ecologically.

    Corn on the Cob, Geoff Lawton used to say that cows can eat 40, 000 different types of plant, whereas humans can eat somethoing like 4000. Something like that. I don't know where he got his information!
     

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