"Jim Webster" wrote in message ...
"pearl" wrote in message
...
"Jim Webster" wrote in message
not such things as grazing land
I remember the summer of '95 in Essex. Grass all burned up.
yes, and did you see any irrigation of grassland because I travelled
pretty well right round the country that year and never
No.
Any idea why England is experiencing this extended drought?
what extended drought, there is some shortage in some regions but talk
about extended drought in the west and you'd be laughed at
'This is what has happened in south-east England. Two dry years
have reduced the amount of water available to both people and the
environment. You can see from the diagrams on the right that since
October 2004, south-east England has only had a few months of
average or above average.
then they will have to cut domestic water consumption
Don't forget vegetables.. but it's all worth it.. even the heart disease, etc.
And what about remaining native flora and fauna.. Who cares, eh, jim.
yep, and large areas in the UK, because that is where we produce our
livestock here, is permanent pasture because it is unsuitable for arable
cultivation
Arable land is, but a significant percentage is being used for feedcrops.
in the UK a lot of arable land is incapable of growing bread making wheat
and can only grow feed wheat, but as global warming increases we'll probably
be able to grow bread making wheat
'WHETHER you're an avid baker or know next to nothing about
making bread, visiting the Watermill in Little Salkeld, Cumbria,
will make you want to get stuck in.
...
In the early days there were four farmers within ten miles of Little
Salkeld who supplied the wheat, ..
...'
http://www.nw-enquirer.co.uk/weekend...607211107.html
'Arable crops grown in the UK
The UK is the fourth largest producer of cereal and oilseed crops
in the EU (after France, Germany and Poland) accounting for about
8% of total EU production. [....]
Within UK agriculture, arable crops account for about 16% of
total output. Cereals (and/or oilseeds) are grown on around 70,000
holdings across the country, the majority in the eastern part of
England, some in Scotland and a few in Wales and Northern Ireland.
This accounts for about 70% of all cropping on agricultural land,
though in terms of overall use, grass, rough grazing and forestry
between them take around 75% of the total available area. [..]
Wheat and barley are the most important cereal crops grown in the
United Kingdom. Production of oats and rye has declined drastically
whilst a new cross of rye and wheat, called triticale, has been
introduced. All these cereals are well suited to the UK's temperate
climate. [..]
Wheat
Wheat is the most widely grown arable crop in the UK covering
around 2 million hectares and producing about 15.5 million tonnes
each year. Wheat is a versatile crop and is found in thousands of
food products e.g. bread, cakes, biscuits and breakfast cereals.
Barley
Barley is grown on around 1.1 million hectares and produces an
output of around 6 million tonnes. About 2 million tonnes are used
in the production of malt, a key ingredient in beer and whisky. The
balance is largely used in animal feeds.
Oil seed rape
The bright yellow flowers of oil seed rape cover 0.5 million hectares
each year producing around 1.5 million tonnes of seed. The seed is
crushed to extract oil used in the food and animal feed industries,
with the residue being used as a high protein animal feed ingredient.
Oats
Oats represent around 3% of the total UK cereals area and are mostly
sown in the autumn months. About half of the oat crop is milled and
used for human consumption (e.g. breakfast cereals, cheese biscuits
and haggis), the balance being used for animal feed.
...
http://www.defra.gov.uk/farm/crops/index.htm
And what's wrong with the UK soil, that it's 'unsuitable' as you claim?
Remember that Britain used to be almost entirely woodland. Will you
also say that "permanent pasture" is unable to support fruit orchards?
indeed and the grazing of livestock and feeding of pigs in orchards has a
long history. A lot of work has been done in New Zealand on interspersing
timber and grazing never mind orchards and grazing
Tsk... if only they'd thought of that much sooner....
'New Zealand, world-renowned for its sheep. With about
100,000 square miles, 80 million sheep, and 8 million cattle,
New Zealand has the world's highest livestock density -
equivalent to about 1200 sheep per square mile. Much of the
island nation is steep, rugged, densely forested, or otherwise
unproductive for livestock, so density in areas actually grazed
approaches 2000 sheep per square mile!
Were New Zealand not well-watered and lushly vegetated, it
could not support even a fraction of these animals. However,
environmental damage here can only be described as extreme.
About half of the country now resembles an immense golf
course covered chiefly with exotic vegetation. Forests that once
blanketed most of the islands have been reduced to 5% of their
original coverage. In large portions of the North Island "slips" --
or huge sections of topsoil -- are sliding off the overgrazed hills.
In the worst areas, former subtropical and temperate forest is
now virtual desert. Most of New Zealand's unique animal life is
gone, and some species are extinct or in danger of extinction,
due largely to livestock grazing and ranching practices.
...'
http://www.wasteofthewest.com/Chapter6.html
'The planet's mantle of trees has already declined by a third
relative to preagricultural times, and much of that remaining
is damaged or deteriorating. Historically, the demand for
grazing land is a major cause of worldwide clearing of forest
of most types. Currently, livestock production, fuel wood
gathering, lumbering, and clearing for crops are denuding a
conservatively estimated 40 million acres of the Earth's
forestland each year.
...
From woodland to grassland to desert, throughout most of
the inhabited globe, livestock production is a primary cause
of environmental deterioration and sustained degradation
that is, prevention of recovery. Many ancient civilizations in
southern Europe, North Africa, Arabia, the Indus Valley, India,
central Asia and elsewhere -declined under its impact, and the
vast majority of countries have serious livestock problems now.
....'
http://www.wasteofthewest.com/Chapter6.html
Another illustration of the effects of livestock grazing:
'The Forest Service defines range as "land that provides or is
capable of providing forage for grazing or browsing animals
[read: 'livestock']." By this definition more than 80% of the
West qualifies as range, including a complex array of more than
40 major ecosystem types, all of which have been significantly
degraded by ranching. ..
...
Numerous historical accounts do confirm drastic, detrimental
changes in plant and animal life, soil, water, and fire conditions
throughout most of the West. These reports progressively
establish livestock grazing as the biggest single perpetrator of
these changes, particularly considering that it was the only
significant land use over most of the West.
One of the most useful and informative descriptions of the early
West was that of Meriweather Lewis and William Clark on their
famous expedition across the northern Midwest, Rockies, and
Pacific Northwest from 1804 to 1806 (Thwaites 1959). Their
descriptions of the unconquered West are of a world we can
scarcely imagine: landscapes filled with wildlife; great diversities
of lush vegetation; highly productive, free-flowing rivers, creeks,
and springs; abundant, dark, fertile soil; unaltered, unimpeded fire
and other natural processes. Of the Montana plains, one excerpt
from Clark reads, "we observe in every direction Buffalow, Elk
Antelopes & Mule Deer inumerable and so jintle that we could
approach them near with great ease." Another states, We saw a
great number of buffaloe, Elk, common and Black tailed deer,
goats [pronghorn] beaver and wolves. ..
In the West today only ungrazed Yellowstone National Park
supports nearly this variety and density of large wild animals. ..
Lewis and Clark's and other historic journals attest that buffalo,
elk, deer, bighorns, pronghorn, mountain goats, moose, horses,
grizzly and black bears, wolves, foxes, cougars, bobcats,
beaver, muskrats, river otters, fish, porcupines, wild turkeys
and other "game" birds, waterfowl, snakes, prairie dogs and
other rodents, most insects, and the vast majority of wild
animals were all many times more abundant then than now. So
too were native plants; the journals describe a great abundance
and diversity of grasses and herbaceous vegetation, willows
and deciduous trees, cattails, rushes, sedges, wild grapes,
chokecherries, currants, wild cherries and plums, gooseberries,
"red" and "yellow" berries, service berries, flax, dock, wild
garlic and onions, sunflowers, wild roses, tansy, honeysuckle,
mints, and more, a large number being edible. Most of these
plants have been depleted through the many effects of livestock
grazing for 100 years and are today comparatively scarce.
...'
http://www.wasteofthewest.com/Chapter3.html