What most midwest farmers should be producing, of course, is that which people actually want - meat - not the soy, not the corn, just the animals, grazed on grass, upon healthy soil, in a flourishing, biodiverse, native prairie ecosystem. That. #corn #soy #meat #soil #prairie #farming #biodiversity
Erm - not all of us want meat. I and my family don’t eat beef much, chicken, gammon and pork are staples and mostly they don’t feed on prairie grass … …
100% agree, we import the vast majority of our lamb as a nation, seems unnecessary... What we need is more sheep and sheep under solar makes double sense, the land owners get much more for the land, consumers get a better value than ethanol (100x more efficient) and as a rancher we get paid to feed our animals (vegetation management fee) otherwise they hire lawnmowers, did I mention that with solar panels our stocking density almost doubles so the land is more valuable, o... And it's not an ecological dead zone with just corn and stripped soil, grazing under solar its helping soils, more wildlife,ore ground nesting birds, more native plants more pollinators, o... And it's secureing our energy infrastructure and we are less decent on foreign energy... It's a real win and best case scenario for many farmers and ranchers in my opinion
When the Ag industry battles and bad mouths itself it only hurts all involved it’s not helpful.
Amen, we can't grow livestock on acres and acres of solar panels. Stop the govt. scam of "green diversity" we need to go green make no mistake, but today's solar industry is not it. Look what Italy has done post 10+ years of solar. Solar by Federal law is no longer allowed in green space. You cannot convert the land back once solar panels have been in place 5+ years. New technology is coming out for solar film which is less caustic, does not need acres and acres, and more efficient in converting to electricity. China and India are trying to push this soon to be antiquated technology on us as fast as possible. Stop the take over of farm land.
We need to decentralize butchering & processing to give more farmers a shot to making livestock production feasible on their land. But remove subsidies and many transformations would happen quickly.
#1 End the grain subsidies #2 deregulate small scale slaughter and butcher
It's the Midwest, not high desert. A wide variety of human food - including cattle, grain, and vegetables - would be better than the soy / corn rotation.
Recently I oversaw a video shoot on four conventional row crop farms in the Midwest. Each was a family-owned, generational farm, and each used to be diversified with beef cattle. All of them talked about how they would have loved to keep their beef side of the business, but the big processors continued to centralize and they lost their markets. Couple of them even tried to go direct to consumer, but that proved difficult in large states where miles on the road are a lot more to contend with where I live in New England, where there are dozens of diversified farms offering pastured-based beef, pork, lamb, and poultry within a 30-mile drive.
Oh, Seth! I like vegetables with my steak or chops.
Agriculture Advocate | Marketing Innovator | Crop-Livestock-Ecosystem Scientist
1moWhat research is available on pigs and chicken eating grass? Painting all of agriculture under one brush is misleading. It would work better if farmers and their trusted local advisors decide how they farm based on local rainfall, results, and agricultural markets — and the United Nations fights malnutrition. That strategy would spark a truly green revolution.