8 Stockers per Acre in Texas High Pasture

Under irrigated, fertilized, planted stand of cold tolerant Bermudagrass in Northern Texas. Glenn Reagan, retired rangeland consultant for the Forest Service makes small acreage stockers ranch (120 acres) economically competitive with irrigated corn. High grass growth during spring allows for high stocking rates irregardless of irrigation (rains). This makes me wonder about Kastel's criticism of the Natural Prairie stocking rates in the Cornucopia article quoted earlier (as in it is hard to be a purist without be a zealot).


Obviously there are real problems with irrigation and the 800 lbs of N applied per acre on the Reagan ranch. However, when considering that the alternative to irrigated pasture is irrigated corn production then grass pasturing would seem to be the more responsible land use. On a social level, it is hard to dismiss the profits seen on the Regan ranch. Apparently net yield on the Reagan ranch are 120$ per acre as compared to barely 50$ per acre as seen with corn. Corn that would likely be shipped off to be fed to bovines anyway.

Thinking again on Cornucopia article- Is it possible for all dairy production to be grass fed. Is it possible for them all to be grass fed, unirrigated, and organic? Very likely not, at least not under our current production expectations. I remember reading that the recent droughts in Australia allowed Americans to overtake the international dairy market in powdered milk. I wonder how many tons of powdered milk wait in storage for another favorable market turn? Whatever the case, the solution is going to require an incorporation of organic wisdom into industrial ag to the benefit of producers; as opposed to the market of consumers and agribuisnesses, who have no interest in locally sensible and frugal organic practices.

clipped from www.stockmangrassfarmer.net "For most dryland ranchers getting their minds to realize that too much grass can be a very bad thing is a difficult task," he said. Over the whole season starting in early May, he said he averaged eight stockers per acre. He said the bermudagrass should not be allowed to get over six inches in height. With the extremely fast-growing, sod-forming grass, he said fewer paddocks were better than more.

June 08 Food Crisis Summit

clipped from www.grain.org The 10 people involved in the action carried posters contrasting the record profits of agribusiness corporations during the latest reporting financial quarter of 2008 with the estimated 100 million people in the world who now, alongside 800 million or so others, are hungry because they cannot afford to eat. Profits for Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, were up 108 per cent, while Cargill and Archer Daniel Midlands, the world's largest food traders, registered profit increases of 86 and 42 per cent respectively. Profits for Mosaic, one of the world's largest fertiliser companies, rose 1,134 per cent.

Resistence to AGRA

Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa funded by the Gates and Rockafeller foundation

http://www.gnn.tv/print/3718/Food_Crisis_Which_Crisis

The second version wells up from peasant organizations such as Via Campesina, and is represented by a clutch of eloquent NGOs such as Practical Action, Food First, GRAIN, Movement for the Global South and the World Development Movement. Its diagnosis of the current crisis is far deeper. Rather than being a short term rise in food and oil prices, this version tends to see the crisis as rooted in the longer-term neoliberal project. Food prices in poor countries have been allowed to rocket by the system in which consumers are now embedded – with government run distribution networks dismantled, grain stores abandoned, large corporations dictating prices and highly indebted nations and farmers converting to export crops to earn highly prized foreign currency.

Organic Pasture ends deal with Texas dairy

Organic Pasture coop members voted to stop purchasing milk from the largest organic dairy in the US, Natural Prairie, following Cornucopia's investigation into the deal. The industrial scale operation in Texas purchases replacement heifers as yearlings from conventional dairies. Under organic regulations it would be very difficult to maintain a calf crop under such high stocking rates without antibiotics and careful treatment.

Unlike Aurora and Dean Foods, Natural Prairie at least observes 'access to pasture' though I am still curious to their pasture management plan with such high stocking rates. Though the real measure is residual so I would assume that maintaining pasture health would be fairly important to an operation which likely owns its own land as opposed to leasing. I can't imagine mowing after grazing would lead to stratospheric harm especially if the forage has already gone to seed and is otherwise dormant.

Accounts of Natural Prairie are third party. Two descriptions of their capacity vary between 4000 to 7200 head with no description to what they are counting exactly.

clipped from www.cornucopia.org Dean Foods, the $12 billion dairy giant and owner of the Horizon Organic label, and the Aurora Organic Dairy, whose factory farms produce private-label store-brand milk for Wal-Mart, Target, Safeway, Costco, and other chains Natural Prairie were as high as 7.2 cows per acre. Further adding to the serious questions about the legitimacy of grazing at the giant operation was the fact that they actually mow and harvest hay from the same fields grazed by their herd, increasing the already bloated, effective, stocking rates to a stratospheric level

Agave blooms at Berkeley

15 years to bloom, otherwise 40-60 years. 18 ft tall flowering stalk and dies after blooming.

clipped from botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu

Cuban Agricultural Revolution

Happened to pick up an issue of the spring '08 Small Farmer's Journal and found an article about the Cuban agricultural revolution that occurred following the 'special period' of the early nineties. With the fall of the bloc states and the US embargoes, Cuba found itself without oil, farm inputs, pesticides, herbicides, and particularly staple foods. Instead of collapsing as the US must have intended, the regime there reversed their decades of agricultural modernization and sought a pragmatic solution: grow their own food using animal power, animal manure, green manure, and organic farming practices.

"Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB), in which researchers work directly with farmers, has steered Cuban national agricultural practice away from high dependency upon unsustainable elements..."

"In 2003, the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture was using less than 50% of the diesel fuel it used in 1989, less than 10% of the chemical fertilisers and less than 7% of the synthetic insecticides. A chain of 220 bio-pesticide centres provided safe alternatives for pest control. The ongoing National Program for Soil Improvement and Preservation benefited 475,000 hectares of land in 2004, up 23,000 hectares in 2003. The annual production of 5 million tonnes of composted soil by a network of worm farms is part of this process." (http://www.cubaagriculture.com/cuba-agriculture-history.htm)

1. Agroecology
   
2. Right to farm (free lease on state land to all)
   
3. Fair wages to farmers (3x more than average worker)
4. Local production
5. Farmer-to-farmer training
6. Communal intellectual property
7. Oxen schools

Some things to look into:

1. Deere, C.D. (1996). The evolution of Cuba's agricultural sector: Debates, controversies and research issues (International working paper series, IW96-3). Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Food and Resource Economics Department, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
2. Funes, F., Garcia, L., Bourque, M., Perez, N., & Rosset, P. (Eds.) (2002). Sustainable agriculture and resistance: Transforming food production in Cuba. Oakland, CA: Food First Books.
3. Sinclair, M., & Thomson, M. (2001). Cuba: Going against the grain: Agricultural crisis and transformation. Boston, MA: Oxfam America.

Amish Revitalize Rural Community

I was gifted an Acres subscription from my boss and there was a great article in the July ('08) issue on rural development. Here's the blurb from the Acres' website:

Rebuilding Community Through Small Farm Infrastructure
A growing Amish community in rural Ohio is proving that the economic "multiplier effect" works and providing an invaluable model for a renewed, grassroots-driven economy.

A community impoverished by market economics is given new life by the influx of Amish farmers who, buying livestock, feed, and seed, provides a renewed base for the local, rural economy. It is amazing how land, which has agricultural and communal value, can so easily fall by the wayside through neglect and stagnation. It is even more amazing to realize that the health of this land is also an impetus to a healthy community.