Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Having read through this thread, it's dealing with symptoms. The underlying cause of the problem is too many people, and stupid people at that. OK so maybe that's not PC, uneducated people.

Back to the FAO and its reports. One of the millions of FAO reports (I have the link somewhere) says that in 2005 there was enough food being produced to feed 12.1 billion people on this planet. So the problem is not one of a lack of food (and water to produce it) but one of inefficient and inappropriate use and distribution. The classic example is corn being fed to ruminants (cattle) 8kg of corn to produce 1kg of live weight steer. But wait it gets worse; a 400kg live weight steer = a 200kg carcass, and after boning and trimming = $120kg saleable meat. So that 8kg of corn = 1 x 50% x 60% which equals 300grams of saleable meat, or roughly 24kg of corn to produce 1kg of beef mince (ground beef). So a 24 to 1 inefficiency ratio is something industrial agriculture can be really proud of?? And they have the gall to tell us that without this industrial inefficiency the world would starve!

Before you think this is a vegan rant, I raise cattle for meat on pasture. And here's another interesting fact. There are approximately 54 million cattle in the USA, the majority of which are in feedlots (CAFO) eating corn. This is touted by industrial agriculture as the only way Americans can consume the quantity of ground beef that they do. BUT, before European settlement of the USA there were 90 million Bison wandering the plains eating grass as nature intended. So doing it naturally produced more, 80% more, ruminant meat on the hoof than doing it industrially, AND the ruminants were eating grass which is something humans have trouble digesting, AND they were sequestering vast amounts of carbon in the topsoil, AND they produced less methane. You can only feed the world industrially with the aid of giant industrial mega corporations - please spare me the lies.

OK rant over.

+1

Incrementally working towards being a localvore is part of my families future food planning and eating less commercially farmed meat, more locally farmed or hunted meat.

An interesting thing about farming bison and elk, is that in our very cold winters up here in Canada, bison and elk actually reduce their feed intake where cattle eat a more in winter.

Do y'all down in Oz still have a roo overpopulation problem? How about feral pigs and rabbits? Is there still open season on any or all three?

mcfarm

Have you seen food inc?
Google it (torrent it because its not on hire in most DVD shops)

American food is overly subsidised and its costing the nation its health. When you see how its produced and the lobbying that goes on in your republic (plutocracy) and how the 'big boys' make laws that forces the little green clean guy out....

I wonder how many people here raise cattle? Maybe a poll is in order?

I have 128 acres but almost no pasture (all woodland). I fenced off 1/2 an acre and got 2 mini Belted Galloways, and a small full sized one. They're good at foraging & will help clear the land. You can fit 3 minis to an acre vs 1 full sized cow. Food for thought - so to speak.

That photo is 18 months ago and she's grown quite a bit since then, 8" at least.
Had my first calf a few weeks ago.

So those are the Belties (that Breed Better Beef).
For the poll, I don't raise cattle. I can't even have chickens legally (without more room or a note from the doctor - seriously!) but those Belteds look fun and yummy to me...

Rick

Belties are my breed, and I have been direct marketing them at farmers markets for 8 years now. They do produce better beef too

cjinVT, keep those cattle tight and moving, you'll have pasture in no time. If you haven't already, check out the holistic management stuff on cattle. Train them to a single hot wire and then fencing is a breeze.

Yep have seen Food Inc and the follow up Fresh, great films. Am planning a viewing of both for people in Canberra at the Dendy cinema since it doesn't appear that they will be released in Oz anytime soon.

Not too hot down under for Belties? Mine seem to have extra long hair - maybe a reaction to the cold. They have a 3 sided shelter & that's it.

Do you have any links on holistic cattle management? When you say "tight and moving" do you mean like MIG?

We gave up on electric fencing. We're off grid so I'm not sure we had enough juice to make them respect the fence. We also got them right around hunting season so we didn't want to mess around & put up woven wire in the 1st paddock. The second paddock is barbed wire and when I let the hay get a little too low the minis got out in March I think. The little bull decided to see if the frozen pond would hold his weight. It did but the ice was completely melted a week or so later.

Not trying to hijack the thread. Raising grass-fed beef is part of the "sustainable solution." As far as water, a creek flows thru both paddocks so in 2 years I've had to supply water maybe 3 or 4 times.

Here's one link to start with http://www.holisticmanagement.org/

We live down south on the foothills of the ranges, so the temperatures are OK. I've found that the double coat insulates against the heat as well as the cold.

Tight and moving basically small paddocks and move every few days. This way the hooves break up the soil and provide a seed bed, the dung and urine is concentrated to fertilize, and if they don't come back for 90 - 180 days, the sunlight kills off the various intestinal parasites they might get and the pasture gets established. If there is no seed bank in the soil you can broadcast the local grasses and legumes after the cattle move. But you need more cattle to make this work, or with 3 the paddocks would need to be 1/4 acre or less depending on the season. One way to reduce the sizes of the paddocks would be to run fences parallel and run two hot wires, one in front to the move and one following. A solar energizer with battery backup is what I use in the back blocks and is sufficient when they are trained. I've found it's not the fencing that's the issue but getting water to the paddock.

Yep - but they're basically a resource going to waste.

I regularly eat kangaroo, but I only know one other person that does. There's an Italian butcher down in Midland who sometimes has goat, which I love - don't know why others don't eat it.

I loooooove goat......

Like a cross between lamb and beef, just wish it was more widely available. There a great little Italian restaurant in Freo on South Terrace that does a beautiful roast capretto.

I think goat is a cross between beef & pork. We had goats a few years ago, till I learned that only crazy people raise goats! We put our young buck in the freezer and donated the girls to the local 4H goat club.

People always make a funny face when I mention eating goat tho. Not sure where the bad rep comes from. Most of the non-Anglo world eats tons of it.

OK. Maybe the bad rep comes from the fact that only crazy people raise goats!

Yes goat is nice. Very lean. The indian restaurant we visit usually has a goat dish on the buffet (does not really count as curry makes anything taste good) and there is a korean restaurant we go to that has a really nice goat soup! There is only one place I know of in houston to get goat meat though...Pete's Fine Meats. They have quite a few exotics even kangaroo.

Goat is awesome!
I love it in curry base stews..yum!
The meat just flakes away the same a prime cut of beef would.

If I ever get some decent land I will have a couple of dairy cows and goats and call them all victa.
Found 5 acres near Korumburra but it had a Monterey pine plantation on the south hill, not good!

80k
(sigh)

The movie 'Fresh' looks good. Hope it comes to Nova.

When I drove over to Perth in 2001, I promptly got a job in Karratha and had to drive up there. On both legs I was told that there had been a recent kull/harvest of the feral goat populations. Well on the trip north, I think they missed some!!

I wonder if consumers are a little too precious about what they eat these days or is it more producers that don't want to open the can of worms that may be having a market place full of food options that they are not tooled up to supply? I know that I'd rather you all started hooking back into the Chardonnay and Shiraz and not get too much of a taste for some Spanish concoction with a name that wont fit in the box on the weighbridge docket. I wonder if the goat/roo thing is the same?