Mossback Farm » conservation

Allan Savory on climate change

rich — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:35:43 +0000

Allan Savory of the Holistic Management Institute spoke recently in Ireland…the full video sat in my browser for a couple of weeks until the holiday madness subsided. Things have calmed down a bit, finally. Here’s an exerpted version

Allan Savory – EXTRACTS – Keeping Cattle: cause or cure for climate crisis? from Feasta on Vimeo.

Some thoughts and observations on it….

Improving our pastures could be a very fast, energy intensive, and expensive proposition, or we could take the gradual, improvement of management approach. Being fundamentally frugal when having to deal with a decent-sized acreage, we’ve gone the gradual approach. In our tenure here, we’ve seen a large increase in the presence of “good” forage grasses, along with vetch and subclover (soil building legumes), with a decline in the weedy annuals that dominated the pastures when we got here.

Marks & Spencer (a high-end UK retailer) spent £200million to take 100,000 cars off the road…in order to reach that level of effect, a 12acre grass fire burning for 15mins will offset all of those cars and money (1.5 acre fire puts out more pollutants than 4000 cars per second). Our seasonally dry climate evolved to burn every few years, and I’d like to include fire in our management at some point, but notwithstanding the conflagration danger, the pollution that it will spew, along with the volatilization of so much of our soil nutrients, makes me think that it’ll be something that we’ll have to pass on.

For the folks who really want to geek out on Holistic Management from the mouth of the prophet, click here for the hour long lecture. It’s a bit dry at the start, but totally worth the time.

(via)

Carbon farms

rich — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:30:40 +0000

With the Copenhagen climate talks stuttering along, it seems like past time to throw in some quick comments

The effect of livestock on greenhouse gas emissions are often overrated, if not entirely exaggerated

Pasture is part of the solution to the carbon issue

Some farms are doing it right

And the systems exist to fix the problem

OK, seriously, I need to post more often.

Interviews

rich — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:40:57 +0000

Our friend Clare was interviewed on KBOO recently along with Joel Salatin…quite a coup. I found it especially interesting to hear Joel talk about the massive gullies that were on his land when his family arrived there, since we are dealing with similar legacies of past land abuses.

They talk about land, farm cooperation, and meat processing, as well as our favorite advice to meat buyers – meet the meat…Check it out.

GIS, farming, and subsidies

rich — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 20:53:05 +0000

Here’s a pretty interesting article from the European Space Agency: Satellite images aid implementation of agricultural reforms

This is one of those applications of remote sensing and GIS that I have mixed feelings about. As a guy sitting at a computer, it’s pretty cool, being able to get so much information about a location with just a few mouse clicks.

As a guy with the responsibility of managing 33-odd acres on a shoestring*, as well as complying with several conservation grant programs, there could be a little bit of Big Brother going on. While compliance with the terms of the grant aren’t difficult for me (I enjoy working with our local county office), there’s always the fear of a bureaucrat with too much time on his hands throwing paperwork at me from the comfort of his desk.

All that said, though, in a time of dwindling conservation budgets, this would be a real time saver for agencies…relying on ArcMap and aerial photos. Keeps them from spending time in the field, though, which for many of them is their favorite part.

(via eurekalert)

*old farmer’s joke: “If I had a million dollars, I’d farm until it was all gone”