alternatives in land use

Dreaming about Stig is a little weird! I can't imagine that the Bolivians need help growing potatos. That just sounds ludicris. What would a danish person know about growing potatos at 15,000 feet? Haven't they been doing it for the last several thousand Years. They also grow a hell of a lot more than potatoes

I disagree with the notion that buffalo are better to than cows. Buffalo were a managed crop and were in many ways domesticated as modern cows are. Ranching dI'd not start in america with Europeans.

Th
 
How were buffalo a managed crop? Afaik, the indians used but didn't abuse the resource, so the buffalo survived long term until whitey showed up. But I wouldn't say they 'managed' them.Where they were able, injuns used to stampede them off of a cliff to obtain the harvest.
 
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  • #53
...The guy says systematic grazing by livestock is the only way to reverse desertificatio.... most of that vast world-area of marginal land at risk of desertification can basically only yield meat food for humans, it's not land that can be farmed for crops.

Wrong on both counts. The dynamic cycles created from intense grazing of roaming herds is well known and has been proven on many continents. Like the ocean and its waves they transport, pummel and redistribute unbelievable amounts of mineral and organic compounds. It is a system that works incredibly well in the maintenance of open savannahs and grasslands. It is not the only way to stop desertification or the only possible use for that type of land. In typical scientific style he came up with " the " answer while at the same time leaving out some important points. Like how do you graze 25,000 animals in a desertifying area that is unable to support 25 with the currently available resources? Unless you are really good at the whole "God thing" you are going to need more than rain to get grass and their below ground support organisms growing.
 
Dreaming about Stig is a little weird! I can't imagine that the Bolivians need help growing potatos. That just sounds ludicris. What would a danish person know about growing potatos at 15,000 feet? Haven't they been doing it for the last several thousand Years. They also grow a hell of a lot more than potatoes



Th

That was my reaction, too.
Seems they have become "modernized" and lost some of the old ways, crop rotation being one. With a more modern market economy farmers apparently tend to grow only that which is saleable in the market.
As anyone who have grown potatoes knows, they tend to go to shit if you don't rotate.

He wasn't directly involved in that part of it, but had a mid level management position.

The year after, he went on a kayaking trip to Greenland to sail around huge bluish icebergs.

Some people know how to live.
 
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  • #55
In regards to bison versus cattle is like Jim said, it is less about the animal and more about how they are managed. Free range grass fed beef is as nutritious and tasty as anything you can get. The problem is us. In all things, we expect 100% success in birth rates or propagation rates and maturation and are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve it. That is not the way the world works and it doesn't matter if you are talking about trees, grass, corn, cows or people, the more we try and alter and fight against how the world works, the more we will lose.
 
How were buffalo a managed crop? Afaik, the indians used but didn't abuse the resource, so the buffalo survived long term until whitey showed up. But I wouldn't say they 'managed' them.Where they were able, injuns used to stampede them off of a cliff to obtain the harvest.
I think as we have learned more about native people the more we learn that they weren't simply hunter gatherers or wild savage animals. They were highly sofisticated land managers.

There were also a lot more people than we tend to think. By the time Europeans made it to the mississippi, small pox and disease had been through years earlier. The relationship between Indian and buffalo was a lot more iintentional than what we learn in schooL. The forest as well had a huge amount of human involvement. That is why I disagree that we should wall nature apart from humans. But we do need to think beyond the bottom line and into the future.

I think the problems we are facing today stem from people making decisions that are not connected to the land. When you have a guy from texas buy a huge chunk of land in California and decide he is going to capitalize and cut down all his big trees, does he care about the salmon? The economy is not in dialogue with the land at all. when farmers and d ranchers and loggers are beholden to the international commodity market and the bankers and not to their great grandchildren, the land gets destroyed.
 
Dave, the guy In your original video had attended allan savory's workshop on holistic resource management. I think Allan Savory teaches a system of problem solving rather than "how to end desertification"
His books are fantastic. There is an excelent litle newspaper called the "stockman grass farmer" edited by Allan Nation. It has weekly article about everything from money management to efficient chicken watering. I highly recomend subscribing. I live in the heart of Detroit and I find the teachings of allan savory and allan nation to be very applicable to both my life and business. It's a way of thinking.
 
wow, I read some articles in the stockman grass farmer, it seems those folks are all about proper soil treatment by letting various animals onto the land at specific times for a specific duration to keep the soil productive. Im not a farmer but still I wasn't aware that was such a prevalent way of doing things.

Another guy wrote about making pasture out of freshly cleared woods by letting pigs in there to start the pasture-building process. Traveling around, one sees lots of pastures that were woods over a century earlier, I always wondered how the farmers did all that work without motorized machinery etc. What'd they do about all the stumps? Well maybe they too let pigs in there to do a lot of the work, and 10 years later the stumps were rotted and gone too, problem solved.
 
I don't think it is a very prevalent way of doing things. Pretty fringe still. But it strikes me as the way to go. I love reading the grass farmer and it really makes it seem like it's all a big puzzle your trying to work out. Useing the interconnectedness of everything to your advantage.
 
In Italy, back in the woods outside of this coastal resort town, I met some kids who were goat herders. Their goats would wander thru the woods, munching on the brush, clinging to hillsides and cliffs like you wouldn't believe. And the kids plus a big white german shepard-type dog would go along with them. It was fairly evident that the goats would trim up the woods periodically and never stop moving to do it. And these kids were living full time out in the woods, it was quite impressive me.
 
I know what you mean about it being a puzzle.

Also, in Switzerland, we met a guy, basically a cow shepard I would call him, walking with his cows as they free-range grazed on the land surrounding the Matterhorn. It kinda blew my mind to see that in this day and age.

In SGF, I clicked on "articles", I'm sure there must be much more in print.
 
It is a lifestyle that is disappearing, Cory.Unfortunately.
And with it go the great vultures who used to live off of the occasional goat or sheep that would die and get left behind. The lammergeier is almost gone from Europe and the Black and griffon vultures are only just hanging on ( Sorry, I'm a birder)
I think the only animals that will continue to be "free grazed" are the famous Pato Negro pigs, that feed on acorn and deliver the famous air dried hams of Spain.
Simply because the price of those keep going up, so it'll still be lucrative to do it the old way.
One can only hope that Manchego cheese will become priced likewise, so they'll still be free grazing sheep and goats in the future.

In Schweiz the situation is different. The Swiss as a nation are rich from banking and industry and have simply decided that they want to keep their bucolic paradise. So they subsidize heavily, to make that form of agriculture possible. You must have seen their farms in the villages, with their little plots of land, and wondered how that works out, economically.
The answer is massive subsidizing.

I have a cheesemaker friend down there, who goes on the Alp every year with 22 cows and a few goats.
He has 3 cabins, one above the other. So grazing starts at the bottom, and goes upwards as the snow melts.
No electricity, so milking is done from hand and he only has a great wood fired copper pot for making cheese.
I spent part of a summer up there, once.
The raclette cheese, he makes, is to die for.

My wife used to spend summers as a sheep herd in the alps when I first met her.
Traipsing all over the mountains with a bunch of sheep.
She says that in autumn when she came down, being around other people was eal hard, after being alone all the time.
 
Maybe if the Danes took to raising buffalo instead of pigs, it would curtail some of their unsavory habits.
 
Where's Butch in all this? All this animal talk might have him shivering in the corner with a machine gun locked and loaded.
 
In Schweiz the situation is different. The Swiss as a nation are rich from banking and industry and have simply decided that they want to keep their bucolic paradise. So they subsidize heavily, to make that form of agriculture possible. You must have seen their farms in the villages, with their little plots of land, and wondered how that works out, economically.
The answer is massive subsidizing.

Wow, you hit the nail on the head. I definitely thought it was fascinating to see how they grew hay on every bit of land that had soil, no matter how steep. They use all terrain machines to cut the hay, and custom built 4wd trucks to load the hay. The steepest, trickiest slopes would be done manually. And their houses, on little stacked-stone stilts, and their perfectly cut, split, and stacked firewood piles were all fascinating. I should post some pics.



My wife used to spend summers as a sheep herd in the alps when I first met her.
Traipsing all over the mountains with a bunch of sheep.
She says that in autumn when she came down, being around other people was eal hard, after being alone all the time.

Is that as overall cool as it sounds??
 
Still on the fringes? Land management a new concept?

What do you think Con Agra owns everything? Young Richard is the Fifth Generation Conrad out here, we have had no incentive to ruin the land and move to the city.

The plains Indian managed the buffalo as one might manage the waves on an ocean. About as well as I can manage the weather. The great buffalo herds were a force of nature. It was a good relationship for the Indian thats for sure, but out here they did not do much management. Other areas were home to tribes that had permanent dwellings, forms of government, and a great agricultural knowledge.
 
This farm is run by a good friend of mine. He used to make cheese and take it to the Green Markets in NYC. The best cheese I have ever had. I have not tried any of his beef yet. Hopefully will soon.

He is really into sustainable farming and has been for decades. It seems to be working for him quite well. It looks like the NYC people are willing to pay a good price. $8.00 / lb. for hamburg.


http://kezialain.com/index.html
 
Still on the fringes? Land management a new concept?

What do you think Con Agra owns everything? Young Richard is the Fifth Generation Conrad out here, we have had no incentive to ruin the land and move to the city.

The plains Indian managed the buffalo as one might manage the waves on an ocean. About as well as I can manage the weather. The great buffalo herds were a force of nature. It was a good relationship for the Indian thats for sure, but out here they did not do much management. Other areas were home to tribes that had permanent dwellings, forms of government, and a great agricultural knowledge.
I guess regarding the plains Indians there is a lot we will never know. By the time Europeans met them small pox had met them several hundred years earlier. Their use of fire in managing grasslands is well documented. The lack of their fire management after their removal from the land and it's detrimental effect on the grasslands is also well documented. There is some that theorize that the buffalo were greatly overpopulated by the time lewis and Clark came through. As far as land management being on the fringes, most of our food is produced in the most un savory methods. I don't have much love for the miles and miles of monoculture soy and corn that is fed to the feedlot cows. granted that there are many operations that are creative and awesome but the system as a whole is thoroughly unsustainable. Look how dependent we are on california and whats going to happen as it ceases to rain there? i would say that ranchers like the good folks in the original post are not mainstream. Otherwise why would they make a video about them?
 
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  • #71
... $8.00 / lb. for hamburg...

This is something I would like to better understand. This farm has been owned by the same family for a long time, should be paid off. No fertilisers, pesticides or grain costs. Why should it cost more to buy food grown this way?
 
Small volume, niche market. People from New York City have lots of money and don't mind spending it, I guess. When he sold cheese back in the 80's it was double the store price. Some people think it is worth it to know where their food comes from and how it was raised.
 
With rice grown in Asia, of which I have friends involved in that activity, when you compare the yield from paddies that have been chemically fertilised, and those organically, the chemicals put more money in the pocket of farmers by a long shot with the greater productivity. You are looking at a difference in the amount of labor as well. The color of the rice plants with the chemicals, it's like an iridescent green, no color like that in natural greenery that I have ever seen.
 
Okay, someone should now decide what sustainable means. A hard and fast definition that we can get behind. Just saying "like, sustainable, man, like for the future and stuff" means noting.

Sustainable means that this melon cost double. Tyson can call its chicken pieces sustainable. The USDA has a guideline for its organic label and I like that.

Unsavory as it may be, how are you going to feed the inner city folks? Not talking about the Africans here, Americans that live MILES away from a garden. It no longer becomes a question of feeding the "world" as so many find cliched.

So how is the sustainable industry going to produce the same amount of food? Just calling me and others like me unsavory and "non-sustainable" while not being in farm country or knowing the people who do the work does not lend well to the conversation. I never hear what our options are. I just see bumper stickers.

They must be the only ones because the made a video about them? Nonsense. IT was a great video, and a great method and I appreciate it very much.

You must realize, Kevin, that the people working on the land are not Swift, Con Agra, or Cargil, right?
 
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