December 2008 - Posts
'Tis the season to be jolly, even when others make silly suggestions like we should be eating kangeroo burgers instead of beef this Christmas. That's the proposal from Australian scientists who want us to consider switching to a marsupial diet after researching ways to combat climate change. There's some logic in the idea.
Apparently, eating kangeroo meat makes sense because they don't emit much methane. Their dominant gut flora are acetogens, not methanogens like cows and these convert hydrogen into acetate, a fatty acid used as an energy source. According to an article in FW's sister publication New Scientist, a cow is said to emit up to 600 times as much greenhouse gas as a kangeroo. The differences between species are pretty alarming:
* kangeroo 2635g CO2 equivalent per head per year
* sheep 141,540g CO2 equivalent per head per year
* beef 1,670,340g CO2 equivalent per head per year
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026873.100-how-kangaroo-burgers-could-save-the-planet.html
Concern for the climate isn't the only reason behind the research. Eight per cent of the energy spent by a ruminant's metabolism goes on creating methane. If livestock stopped making the gas, the energy saved could be diverted into making more meat and producing healthier animals. .
In New Zealand, boffins have decoded the genetic sequence of one of the main methane producing microbes in sheep and cow stomachs. By understanding the genes, they hope to find a way of knocking out the microbes that cause methane. It's clever stuff and we're likely to see more results on the work later next year.
Eating kangeroos isn't that mad. Australian Wildlife Services in Canberra calculate that replacing one third of their country's sheep and cattle with kangeroos would cut cattle emissions and reduce Australia's entire greenhouse gas output by three per cent. Kangeroo products are widely on sale in Australian supermakets and the market is said to be worth something like AU$250 million. Has anyone tried it - what does it taste like?
Anyway, enjoy your beef, lamb and turkey this Christmas.....
Farmers Weekly would like to wish all web users, readers and advertisers a very merry Christmas and prosperous 2009.
The FW team are busy completing the combined Christmas issue for this Friday December 19. We've pulled out all the stops to deliver a great festive experience for magazine readers. There's something for all members of the family including:
* One of the biggest ever tractor tests
* A review of 2008
* A family Christmas quiz
* A look at how four farm businesses have changed in 10 years
* Seven pages of winning pictures from our www.fwi.co.uk photo competition. www.fwi.co.uk/community/photos/shortlist2008/default.aspx
* An EID special for the livestock sector
* Plus lots of news and views from our columnists
As always, we want to hear from readers about how we can continue to make the magazine useful to you for the challenges you face in 2009. Your comments on our content and ideas for future coverage are always welcome. Simply let me know by replying to this blog and I'll let you know how we can respond..
The arrival of single payments in the bank accounts of Scottish and Welsh farmers this week must have been a huge relief. But there’s no early Christmas present for the vast majority of English farmers, who will have to wait for weeks for their money.
While the later timetable for English payments was predicted and planned, it still feels like an unlevel playing field in which the English are put at a distinct disadvantage.
The RPA has promised to handle 75% of English applications by the end of January and 90% by the end of March. Yet 80% of Welsh farmers should have had their payment this week, with £183m of claims being processed. The Scottish Government should have paid out £223m this week, covering most producers in the region, and it has pledged to handle 95% of applications by the end of December.
The timing just before Christmas is good for confidence building and planning, as cash flows are tight and there are still many farmers with serious business concerns as they look ahead to 2009.
But the legacy of past RPA misdemeanours still haunts the English system. Few can forget the real pain of 2005/6 when the introduction of new IT and a more complicated payment scheme caused chaos and brought in tens of thousands of new applicants.
Three years on and the RPA still seems to be catching up, despite all the promises. The situation this year certainly looks better than last, but let’s not tempt fate simply because farmers have got such low expectations from the whole process.
No sector should be treated like a second-class citizen and it’s time the RPA raised its game and found a way to match the performance of the Scottish and Welsh.
Gordon Brown has had a lot to say about government doing the right things for small business in times of adversity by paying promptly. His daring rescue plan for the banking sector required fresh, innovative intervention – exactly the kind of response that’s required to inject new vigour into government agencies, too.
The RPA describes its mission as "to be a customer-focused organisation delivering high-quality services". That’s a bold statement for an agency that since its inception has struggled to deliver anything to deadline and in a way that suits the customer.
Belief in the RPA remains woefully low, so some effort to restore faith in the system has to be a priority. Hopefully, the agency will pull out all the stops to honour its pledges and prove us all wrong this time.
We've always been in favour of voluntary measures by Government to get farmers to co-operate? For us, it's about the industry taking charge of its own destiny and keeping regulation as a last resort. Certainly, that has been the FW message on bluetongue vaccination. Our focus has been to get farmers to see the seriousness of the risk, encourage them to take responsibility by vaccinating and avoid the disease without Government having to force mandatory action.
At first, it looked as if this approach was working. From East Anglia, along the south east and right into the west country, farmers have shown great judgement in comprehensively vaccinating to create a strong firewall against bluetongue coming in from mainland Europe. But elsewhere there has been a very different picture with large areas of Wales and the north not acting collectively and prepared to take ridiculous risks with their own and other livelihoods. The reasons given range from farmers completely convinced the virus won't hit their area, through to fears that vaccinating animals puts them at risk of adverse reactions and abortions.
This week, the question is raised again - should the English and Welsh Governments follow Scotland's lead and make vaccination compulsory?
One of the arguments in favour of voluntary arrangements has always been that Government has historically got more co-operation from farmers when it is less heavy handed. Too much regulation with stiff penalties if you don't comply simply winds many farmers up.
There have been worries that there are not enough Government vets in the UK to help deliver a swift and efficient nationwide vaccination programme and the thought of Government vets turning up on farm uninvited troubles many. In France, there has been terrible spread of the disease because they have not been able to administer the vaccine quickly enough and that's in a country where action has been obligatory.
The Germans think we are crazy not to protect our livestock.
They argue that annual vaccination must be vigorously maintained for several years before anyone can talk about possible eradication and that anything less than 80 per cent of livestock protected against bluetongue means we will not control the disease.
So what do you think? Has the softer voluntary approach failed? Is mandatory vaccinating the answer in the long run? How can we get more farmers to embrace vaccination? All ideas welcome please.
Tomorrow we are expecting to hear more from the EU on whether there will be a tightening of controls against bluetongue. Read more here http://www.fwi.co.uk//Articles/2008/12/01/113320/eu-vets-set-to-decide-on-bluetongue-controls.html