Leaving the EU means the UK is leaving the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

The Agriculture Act 2020 Bill provides the legislative framework for replacement agricultural support schemes. It provides a range of powers to implement new approaches to farm payments and land management.

In England, farmers will be paid to produce ‘public goods’ such as environmental or animal welfare improvements. The Bill also includes wider measures, including on the agricultural supply chain and on the operation of agricultural markets.

UK soil contains about 10 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly equal to 80 years of annual
greenhouse gas emissions. Intensive agriculture has caused arable soils to lose 40 to
60% of their organic carbon, and the impacts of climate change pose further risks.

Worldwide, each year, an estimated 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil are lost due to erosion. That's 3.4 tonnes lost every year for every person on the planet.

If any of this concerns or interests you, a great place to start looking for positive answers is to view this call that I took part in yesterday. It is genuinely fascinating and covers a range of topics including your personal gut microbiome.

And by the way, encouraging certain gut bacteria will help you lose weight. Red wine can be a part of that process! You need to eat 30 different types of fruit and vegetables a week too though.

[Link]

I should warn you, the YouTube vid is over an hour long. It is absolutely brilliant if you care about your health, farming, the environment or just plain innovation.

Edited by Mapletree (08 Dec 2020 4.16pm)

More likely laying some mighty logs my friend.

Does he farm around here? If so we likely know him.

This stuff is really important but nobody seems to be picking up on it at the moment. If we don't deal with soil erosion soon we is all fooked.

If we continue to degrade the soil at the rate we are now, the world could run out of topsoil in about 60 years, according to Maria-Helena Semedo of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. We need topsoil to produce 95% of our food.

I'll have a piece of leg please.

Pity Charlton Heston, spoilt everything

I'm a blind man, i'm a blind man, now my room is cold,
When a blind man cries, Lord, he feels it from his soul.
[Link]

We seemed to do ok with crop rotation for hundreds of years so I will watch that programme. I know oil seed reap has destroyed a lot of soil but I’ll wait to see what it has to say.

My mate is Woldingham area, but he grazes animals rather than growing crops. You have no idea how bad veg is for my stomach. Not recommended for me that’s for sure! I’ll have a go at more fruit though.

Croydon 'haylage' 25 quid a bag.

Red and Blue Army!