Carbon Footprint

Top chef Raymond Blanc blasts super-dairy plans over milk quality and animal welfare

'CELEBRITY chef Raymond Blanc has criticised plans to create a super-dairy near Lincoln.'

http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/news/Raymond-blasts-super-dairy-plans/article-2947168-detail/article.html

Farmers urged to review on-farm energy needs

'Industry experts have warned that the long term trend for energy prices looks set to rise by as much as 10 per cent over coming years.'

http://www.farminguk.com/news/Farmers-urged-to-review-on-farm-energy-needs_19286.html

Stossel and Fox in the Sustainable Henhouse

'... the reality is that to keep the planet healthy and fed we will need to employ a wide range of solutions. Sadly, the last 40 years of "big ag's" version of the solution has shown chronic failure in the form of antibiotic resistance, tainted water and some of the largest food recalls in history. Too bad Stossel doesn't recognize that we have to stop using the planet -- a finite resource -- as "big ag's" test tube.'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-gunther/stossel-and-fox-in-the-su_b_788205.html


Now I know we can't always believe everything we read online, but surely it makes sense that when looking at the full environmental footprint of a development, it is important to examine every aspect of its inputs and outputs, with all their incumbent processes, to see the 'whole picture'.

So why is it that Nocton Dairies have left out some aspects?

I quote from their Environmental Assessment:

"This methodology excludes some offsite inputs and outputs from the farm system that would be of relevance to the projected 3,770 cow dairy scenario. These exclude allowances for emissions associated with:
- non-domestic and domestic straights (for feed).
- manure or slurry transported offsite;
- excess renewable energy produced on site and exported onto the national grid; and
- private water abstraction."

Unfortunately I do not have the technical expertise to understand why certain aspects should be omitted from the calculations.  Perhaps this aspect needs to be examined in more detail before accepting the claims and figures at face value. Only then will we see if the development is truly destined to be as squeaky clean as it purports to be.

To conclude with another extract from the Huffington article:

'In reality, the vast majority of scientists who are working on climate related issues contend that it is intensive agriculture -- with its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and other damaging environmental practices -- that is the real climate culprit.'

Carbon Trust

For more information on carbon footprinting, see here:

http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/cut-carbon-reduce-costs/calculate/carbon-footprinting/pages/carbon-footprinting.aspx

Paice to ‘bang heads together’ over milk crisis

NFU president Peter Kendall, lobbying support from Jim Paice - Farming Minister:

“Milk processors are carving each other up - at the expense of all dairy farmers - by making increasingly reckless undercuts in the market.

“At the same time, supermarkets and other liquid milk customers are being extremely short-sighted by paying a milk price so low that some farmers aren’t even meeting their own costs of production.”

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/business/business-news/paice-to-‘bang-heads-together’-over-milk-crisis/35921.article


As I've mentioned before in my blog, the dairy industry must look within for the solution to their own crisis, before importing flawed ideas from the USA which will bring other unique problems to the UK.

It is also shortsighted to perceive that the intensive dairy is the 'golden arrow' to heal the dairy industry's own manifest problems, where producing more and more milk at lower and lower margins, is clearly quite flawed.