Some very good questions and answers there! Your AD plant answers were spot on! There's a big AD plant close to my area, which is a non farming businessman who bought up many farms, probably getting rid of some pocket money to him. No genuine farmer could come close to the price he would pay for land. The biggest joke is that his AD plant will be about 30 miles from his furthest away land/farms, and that could be at least 5-600 acres there.
@@roberthiggins6401solar and wind hardly is taking up land from farmers? If someone wants to invest in renewable energy is that not fair enough? Same way as some people decide to invest in the stock market, property, etc etc
@SimonStevensonJD6810 To show you the tip of the iceberg, have a look at Crawford farms about 3 minute vid from a couple of days ago. Kent County Council are paying for a solar farm in Somerset and I think you'll find there are plans for tens of thousands of acres to be covered in solar alone. 1 reducing food production area. 2 relying on imports from who knows where. Co2 is only 420ppm approx which is low in comparison to hundreds of years ago and co2 is taken in by plant life. Please open your eyes and mind to the bigger picture of, shutting farmers down, shutting down RELIABLE power generation to one's relying on wind and sun but not to much wind because they have to shut them down because they spin to fast and break. When do we need the most electricity? Winter, when there's little sun. Batteries. Look into those? Where and who mine these especially when councils have a no slavery policy. Its up to you and all of us to learn that we're being lied to.
@@roberthiggins6401 fair enough it’s not what I would do with my land, and I don’t think it’s right if a council is removing land from farmers for solar also not saying it’s a very reliable source of electricity & I understand batteries mean mining and all the things that surround that don’t maybe match up with what some eco warriors want us to think. I’m just making the point solar is very different to AD in that when it’s installed it doesn’t need land other than where they’re placed. I still think if a landowner wants to put solar on that’s their choice but the land should be taxed differently to farm land because it’s commercial and not farmed. I’ve seen hundreds of acres in Germany covered in solar along some of the motorways over there, not what I would do but I’d consider them on a roof simply if I thought I could save money on my electricity bill. The one thing about it is even if people think they can’t live without electricity, they’ll find even if it’s ‘green’ electricity they can’t eat it, we’re in a supply vs demand market so less supply more demand. Can only be a good thing for farmers still producing food. .
@SimonStevensonJD6810 Thanks for listening.. Re supply vs demand in farm produce, low supply means high prices but i don't see farmers getting more for their produce in the main. Low supply in electric etc means higher prices also and my gripe is the sheer profit these companies make a it is. Fine if you can afford it, buggered if you can't. Green energy is a misnomer tree electric cars as he's your car when you get it isn't noticeably emitting emissions but much more emissions in the production of that car with the batteries and we see by the second hand maker for elective cars that they're struggling to sell because that batteries life is much less than when it was me and the sheer cost of fertilising that battery in a year or two is vast and makes the car not worth buying. Plus the recycling is difficult, dangerous and expensive. I liken battery cars to putting a smaller and smaller fuel tank on a petrol, or diesel car then paying thousands to put the original size fuel tank back on. Solar is expensive to recycle to and the efficiency reduces test on year too but I grant you putting them on roofs is the best place for them, I had a small array put on my house before I realised they're not a good as I thought, that's why companies pay the feed in tariff. If all this was as good as were told, it would stand on its own legs without incentives and grants, other than perhaps to get them off the ground. I suppose its horses for courses. I worry that normal power stations are being demolished before there is sufficient, constant, reliable, replacement and where the infrastructure is already in place. Don't be misled that co2 is a problem here when China is producing vast amounts and it gets blown around the world anyway. Thankfully otherwise our trees and crops will fail. I think I've gone off on one... apologise.
Really interesting and very valid points made , everyone seems to forget we are here to produce food , but Governments seem to want to make it all so difficult and blame us for everything wrong with the environment when all we have done is use products approved by Governments like certain sprays for crops is a example , wish people understood we were encouraged to take out hedge row and got paid to do it because we needed more food , then along came Quotas , I could go on but I will shut up now , Good vid as always
Andrew, you're opinions are very similar to mine. Keep up the good work in the union. It's all we have. I also agree that the staff in the UFU are great people and work really hard to get the right outcomes. They just have to learn to sometimes say "No, enough is enough".
Yep - i agree with everything you said about AD plants. We have the same issue near us - rents for maize land have gone up loads in the last few years because of AD plants 😞
Really enjoyed the video agree 💯 on the subject of AD plants we are surrounded by them and to be fair they seem very successful but it's difficult for us ordinary farmers to compete for conacre plus the amount of diesel they use to produce the electric doesn't seem green to me but this is what Joe public and thee government want
Fair point on people slating the UFU but aren’t involved, without contributing anything they’re basically freeloading when the Union does anything representing all farmers within politics etc. Agreed that with a wider membership the Unions would be able to achieve a lot more…
Agree on AD plants (it’s what government want because they print the money!) Unions (trying to pacify farmers is nigh on impossible because they to f**kin independent ) good on you to get involved 👏. Somewhat disagree with artificial fertiliser ,there’s good and not so good ie SOP vs MOP which has a high chloride content that can be problematic for some soils . Are your soil potash levels good or no ? Also the in thing organic matter / carbon levels ? I’m guessing high because your mainly grass. Good video covered a lot of Q 👌 Now it’s catch up time after a short break 😉
Definitely catch up time. 😂 Almost all soil index 3 for K and I have used a lot of MOP because it's cheaper. As with everything there are always edge cases such as chlorine build up, but these are small details, regen farming wants to change everything at once
Here's a challenge(you like challenges) and a question. Re NPK from a bag the claim is the the OTHER ingredients, ie, man made acids or preservatives are foreigners in the soil habitat and are eroding the organic matter humus and glomalin. Ring the number on the bag and ask the manufacturer to prove that they dont damage the soil. Question;we can agree surely that the function of farming is food, have you ever had ANY meal from your own fields
I just googled it, in urea for example there is essentially no EXTRA ingredients. The compound urea is CH4N2O which is why it's 46% N, it doesn't have 54% of added ingredients
Most farmers can’t go anywhere near a protest because there farming on their own so they have to work all day and sleep at night don’t have anytime to be going to a protests
I agree, that is a big issue. There are other ways to exert pressure without having to stand somewhere, the hard part of now the practice action, it's the ability of a group to act together
Your not wrong about Unions - They are really on effective with everyone in them - Hence the name. The one downside is that the interests of all can make you uncompetitive when it comes to operating costs - its a fine line
Biggest drawback to farming is the capital needed to get into it, Land, livestock, buildings, equipment, machinery. Count it all up and then estimate the ROI on that money, there is likely much more money to be made in other sectors,
I've never been a big fan of AD plants either, but have never given it to much thought! My main dislike has always been the fact they take land out of food production and out compete farmers for itike u said! But I'd never considered about the environmental argument and about being green energy and now after listening to your very good point it is annoying me! I've always been told that a AD plant is like a big cows stomach producing methan to then run generators! So saying that an AD plant is green by taking feed and turn it into energy, where as cows take feed and turn it into milk and are being blamed for emissions! Ok so cows release Methan into the atmosphere, but like u have said in a previous video, that is just part of a natural cycle and no new additional emissions are created above what is absorbed and used in the first place!! Don't know if I make any sense there, but I agree with u anyway!👍
Ad plants are the best con that the renewable energy sector have ever come up with. I have been absolutely shocked by how little actual knowledge either environmentalists or politicians have about how ad plants actually operate and what they digest.
@@roberthiggins6401 well actually due to where we are ( island in the Atlantic) they are reasonably productive the major problem being what do you do when the wind don’t blow although it’s very rare that the wind isn’t blowing somewhere on the island.
@FarmTheoryNI From what I gather, even if the wind is blowing, many turnings are not turning due to there being enough electric produced mainly in the old way and not easily, quickly turned down, as it were. Turbine companies are paid not to produce a lot of the time. How can it make sense to pay a company NOT to produce? That's how I understand it. I've seen many instances of turbines not working when you would think they should be. In au they're proposing turbines so remote that hundreds of miles of new lines need to be installed across farmland, where they're imposing non farming within quite a distance either side of these power lines and they're forcing farmers into compulsory purchase, not really consulting them or considering their plight. I can't understand why, when farmers in England farm under pylons?
We have a couple of AD plants and always struck me as odd growing crop and not going into food then importing more. One now produces compost. Problem with AD it's like solar it encourages cooperate types that either use it as a cash grab or to offset carbon uses else where
@@FarmTheoryNI Yes!! So so true!! 😂 Same here but I out cold water in first then a splash of milk at the end 😂 Glad I’m not the only one that does this 😂
We're in a similar situation down south, with some IFA members too complacent / lazy to attend meetings and then wonder why new governmental rulings are trusted upon them / us, A Union is Only as good as it's members want it to be, 🤔 'Activate, Obliterate' You Decide 👍
The problem with Farm unions is that the type of people that get involved in farming politics come from farms that are well developed operations probably have teenage to early twenties children. Lots of family labour. The people we need are at a stage in life where they have very young children. Which means that the young future leaders are not there and positions get filled by default without competition. The big problem is getting people your age more involved.
@@FarmTheoryNI Not at all. Just being a tad sarcastic on the farming climate crisis. It's going to be rough being hit by the real climate and the climate police at the same time.
@@FarmTheoryNI I asked what other farming activity would you engage in if you weren’t milking cows…devastated is not a dramatic enough word to sum up my disappointment 😂😂
Disagree on AD - growing crops is renewable therefore the energy from burning those crops is renewable - wether or not its "green" or low emission energy is another issue, especially when considering land use and diesel consumption. I also think AD provides an extra market and increased demand for grass/agricultural feedstocks which can only increase prices and be good for farmers.
It's good for farmers with land to sell or feedstock to sell! But absolutely no others. You can't hardly even get draff/brewers grains now because they're just going into AD plants. It's energy industry money that farmers just can't compete with. I'll give you one positive point though, the loss of land producing food will only help tighten the supply on food, and therefore help drive prices up.
I agree with your logic, it's more the disparity between ad and cows. Ad cycles carbon, cows emit carbon? Ad gets subsidies to a much higher level than cows, meaning the land market is now out of reach for farmers.
