Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
8
T
HE
G
OLDEN
H
OOF AND
G
REEN
M
ANURE
Three leaved grass soon yields a threefold profit.
Three volumes may be writ in praise of it.
Andrew Yarraton, 1663
U
ntil now, I haven't mentioned organic farming. The feed conversion ratios, and the
ensuing land-take ratios given in preceding chapters, are all based upon chemical agricul-
ture. The product per hectare of the livestock farmer has so far been assessed against yields
of wheat in the order of eight tonnes per hectare, which were completely unachievable 30
years ago. Such yields are dependent upon pumping the land year in year out with artificial
nitrogen fertilizers whose manufacture requires heavy use of fossil fuels.
Every farming system stands somewhere along two separate axes, one of which runs
between chemical farming at one pole and organic at the other, while the second runs
between livestock-based and stockfree (or vegan) farming. This means we can identify four
separate types of farming method: chemical livestock, organic livestock, chemical stockfree
and organic stockfree. There is plenty of room in the middle for various kinds of mixed
farming, but because the issue of food production is now so highly charged, many farmers
willingly position themselves at a polar extremity: indeed to label your food as 'organic' or
'stock free' you are obliged to.
Any attempt to assess the full nature of livestock's contribution to the agricultural eco-
nomy has to compare each of these four systems, and it is by making such a comparison that
an assessment can best be arrived at. They are distinguished in particular by the different
methods they employ to acquire and store fertility, and so before making this comparison, it
seems prudent to provide an overview of the history of nitrogen, which starts with the his-
tory of manure.
A Serendipitous Revolution
Organic farmers, defending meat production, often cite the necessity stock farmers, de-
fending meat production, often cite the necessity for manure to fertilize organic arable pro-
duction. Without it, they claim, organic farming couldn't survive, and hence stockrearing is
