TC's farm thread.

[The Y-man]

nice report from Tassy TC. regarding vegetables, do you have any insight into Snowpeas? My local shop prices jump all over the place. One week they are $17 a kg, then $30. Reckon if I was going to grow something, it would be snowpeas.

Very easy to grow here in Melbourne We get a tub a fortnight during winter from our plants in the back yard. Unfortunately, in QLD, you'll need to grow it in a fridge.... they need cold crisp days (relatively low humidity and water - they rot)

Cheers,

The Y-man

 

[pursefattener]

It was running beef cattle and dairy, with massive amounts of irrigation. There were 14 individual dairy units, and some were leased to other farmers. I counted 40 of these wind turbines. The turbines had a 60 metre span! The farm is owned by New Zealand interests.

I think it's called Tasman farms , the entity who own this property... Must have been a great trip eh ? I have known people who have applied for work on some of the units .

The free fall of the aussie dollar has to be worth many millions to agriculture and I think you could do a lot worse than owning a good commercial farm just now .

We are close to full production on our dairy farm and set for a great year again . Only trouble is we have workers planning strike action next week at our Murray Goulburn factory in spite of a generous offer , Joy .

Keep up the thread TC .

 

[WinstonWolfe]

Very easy to grow here in Melbourne We get a tub a fortnight during winter from our plants in the back yard. Unfortunately, in QLD, you'll need to grow it in a fridge.... they need cold crisp days (relatively low humidity and water - they rot)

Cheers,

The Y-man

had always thought snow peas were sub tropical cos I always relate them to Thai Curries.....but suppose they're called SNOW peas for a reason....

 

[topcropper]

TC. regarding vegetables, do you have any insight into Snowpeas? .

Nope. Not a thing.

See ya's.

 

[WinstonWolfe]

TC, what do you know about Chinese agriculture?
If all their farmers are heading down the big smoke, are their soils, terrain, and rainfall partial to large scale farming with low labour?

Seems they might have growing trouble meeting their food needs very soon.

 

[topcropper]

TC, what do you know about Chinese agriculture?
If all their farmers are heading down the big smoke, are their soils, terrain, and rainfall partial to large scale farming with low labour?

Seems they might have growing trouble meeting their food needs very soon.

Never been to China Winston. But industrialising their agriculture won't lead to reduced total production. Me and dad grew 8,000 tonnes of grain last year, and I don't reckon we worked any harder than anyone else. I couldn't spend so much time on somersoft forums if I was flat out all day, every day.

According to the world fact book,.....

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html#Econ

........43% of China's workforce are still employed in agriculture. This figure was 50% just 5 years ago. So lets say half China's population are of working age. So 43% of half of 1.3 billion is still nearly 300 million farm workers.

It will take generations, but there is no need to have so many people working the soil and tending the livestock. The tiny few acre plots will get joined up, the fences will get pulled out, machinery will replace the men, and the ex farm workers will get jobs doing more meaningfull tasks, and the Chinese economy will grow even stronger.

The farmers who survive will build a little land empire and live well, and so they deserve to. The ones who don't, go and do something else, and maybe still build a fortune, or maybe not.



I think they will have trouble feeding themselves in the future, but it will be from increased wealth and eating further up the food chain, and reduced water, and reduced arable land, but it won't be from industrialising their agriculture.



I really dunno Winston. I must get over there some day and have a look around.

See ya's.

 

[WinstonWolfe]

I suppose the big issue is terrain TC. If they don't have km's of flatish broadacre, hard to see how they can do it large scale like Australia. Then you have to consider their winter temp...

 

[topcropper]

Probably look to western economy agriculture, non subsidised of course, in more intensive areas. Like northern Tasmania where I just was and intensive mechanised vegetables. Macadamia's on the NSW north coast. I just heard today on rural ABC radio that one man can tend to thousands of trees. Dairy farmers milking hundreds of cows. Poultry farms with tens of thousands of chooks. The models are all there that work.

See ya's.


ps, and the Bronco's go in again.

 

[WinstonWolfe]

well, I suppose as they industrialize more core work, and therefore do less manual work, they won't need the same number of Calories......so a dwindling need for broadacre grains like rice and wheat.

 

[topcropper]

well, I suppose as they industrialize more core work, and therefore do less manual work, they won't need the same number of Calories......so a dwindling need for broadacre grains like rice and wheat.

I reckon what happens is this,....

As they industrialise agriculture, most of the ex farm workers move to the cities and get jobs that pay 6 times as much as what they made on the farm. This allows them to eat meat and milk and eggs and bread, buy heaps of beer, and have a wine, instead of mainly rice and water. This means the total requirment for food is much, much higher.......
.....Thus increasing the need for grains, as grain will then be needed to feed animals instead of going direct to humans.

See ya's.

 

[WinstonWolfe]

will be interesting to see how the Chinese diet evolves.
I'll revise my earlier point that grain production wouldn't be as important, because as you say, their intake of protein will probably increase, and livestock will probably be fed grain.

Though I should imagine their livestock health standards will be low for a decade, and they'll probably be quite vulnerable to mad cow disease, etc.

All this might mean a healthy future for Aussie grain and livestock producers.

Makes me wonder how far out an obesity epidemic in China is.....as it continues its economic 'development'.

 

[Mooze]

Don't know much about Aussie farming (read your thread all the time though TC and trying to become more informed)
Have learnt a fair bit about Chinese farming over the last couple of months from an investment POV. Starting to be a few large companies, such as ChaoDo and China Green.
Biggest issue is that the land is controlled by the local councils - each "worker" has a specific plot size, only once these workers leave for the city can the plots be amalgamated, and only at the invitation of the local council. So gotta find an area the co' wants to farm (good soils, decent terrain, available workers) and then get in better with the local council than any other co'.
A lot of what is being grown on these farms is vegetables - the Chinese are increasingly wanting better quality and fresher vegetables - what they had on the farm but from the grocery store.
Means a lot of grain imports, especially as the demand for Pork increases, as their amount of grain per pig is massively over what the more developed methods use.
These guys are still incredibly ineffecient in regards to Water use and feed/fertiliser use, although this should change fairly quickly given they can just pick off western research. Other issue is actually finding out much about them - still very secretive, very much hard to pick through their information and find out what is accurate and what is embelishment.
Sorry couldn't be of more help
Mooze

 

[pendo]

TC, what do you know about Chinese agriculture?
If all their farmers are heading down the big smoke, are their soils, terrain, and rainfall partial to large scale farming with low labour?

Seems they might have growing trouble meeting their food needs very soon.

Hey there WW

I was reading Bill Bonner(always).

Anyway he was saying that a very large percentage of China's GDP comes from agriculture still. The challenge the Govt. faces there is to keep farmer's on the land, because if there was a flood of falm folk into urban areas, it would be catastrophic to their economy.

I don't have any figures on the AG side of GDP, but I remember that a city worker earns approx $2k pa, and a farm worker earns approx $600 pa.

Will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

Cheers
pendo

 

[WinstonWolfe]

Hey there WW

I was reading Bill Bonner(always).

yeah, been reading BB a bit recently. A lot of people say he is a bear, but I reckon he is a rational bear.

Anyway he was saying that a very large percentage of China's GDP comes from agriculture still. The challenge the Govt. faces there is to keep farmer's on the land, because if there was a flood of falm folk into urban areas, it would be catastrophic to their economy.

I don't have any figures on the AG side of GDP, but I remember that a city worker earns approx $2k pa, and a farm worker earns approx $600 pa.

Will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

Cheers
pendo

makes a lot of sense that China could not be urbanized rapidly. why bother importing massive amounts of farm machinery when you have cheap labour anyways. doubt they'll ever become significant food exporters.....well not grains, maybe some veges....and garlic which Australia seems to get heaps of.

whichever way you look at it, seems they will have to bring their population down. I doubt the planet could support another 1.3 billion middle class consumers.

 

[topcropper]

a very large percentage of China's GDP comes from agriculture still. The challenge the Govt. faces there is to keep farmer's on the land, because if there was a flood of farm folk into urban areas, it would be catastrophic to their economy.

I don't agree with that at all. An efficient economy needs an efficient agricultural sector that has a small contribution to GDP.

GDP contribution is almost meaningless when it comes to agriculture. In fact, you want agricultures GDP contribution to be as small as possible to have a well run economy. The lower agricultures GDP contribution, the less labour it requires. [GDP is after all a measure of goods and SERVICES, as in labour]. The less farm workers, the more people are available to do other jobs, [namely services and manufacturing] and the stronger will be the economy.

It's almost humerous now every time I read some dumb city journalist attempting to denigrate Australian agriculture by pointing out it's ever falling contribution to GDP. They are too silly to realise that as agriculture becomes more efficient, it's GDP contribution drops.
Perhaps that's why they are journalists?



Look at 3 countries. Australia, China, and Ethiopia.


Country......................Ag GDP contribution......%farm workers.

Ethiopia.......................47%..........................80%
China..........................11%..........................43%
Australia.......................3%...........................3.6%


Ethiopia is a basket case economy. Almost the entire workforce is required to feed itself. And it can't even do that, as Ethiopia depends on food aid. In effect, it takes the work of one farmer to supply enough food for two people.

China grows enough food to feed itself. Population 1300 million. Workforce 800 million, times by 43%, so there are 344 million farm workers feeding 1300 million people. So each Chinese farm worker is feeding nearly 4 people.

Australia grows enough food to feed itself and export the other two thirds, so enough for 60 million people. Population, 21 million people. Workforce 11 million people, times by 3.6%, so there are 396,000 farm workers feeding 60 million people, so one Australian farm worker is feeding 150 people.



So we have each Chinese farm worker feeding 4 people,
compared to each Australian farm worker feeding 150 people.



The sooner China fixes up it's grossly inefficient farm sector, the sooner the whole country can start to enjoy the chance of a higher standard of living enjoyed by other countries with an efficient ag sector. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, and the US.



See ya's.

 

[kph]

I was in China in May.
It feels and looks like any other asian country, except...
Its still communist.
I think you will find that the country folk don't necessarily have the choice to relocate to the city without permission.
Centralised control will determine the movement of people from country to city.
If too many move and too soon, they will be moved back to where they came from.

And if they need to build a dam where these people live then they will get moved somewhere else.
Its not quite the same as we take for granted over here.

Kp

 

[topcropper]

Its not quite the same as we take for granted over here.

Kp

You might be right Kp.

In that case then, I can't see China developing as far as some think then, if you have nearly half the workforce in such a low paid industry, with such a miniscule output.

See ya's.

 

[sailor]

ILook at 3 countries. Australia, China, and Ethiopia.

Country......................Ag GDP contribution......%farm workers.

Ethiopia.......................47%..........................80%
China..........................11%..........................43%
Australia.......................3%...........................3.6%
So we have each Chinese farm worker feeding 4 people,
compared to each Australian farm worker feeding 150 people.

I didn't know that before.
Tis time to say, Thanks for the tucker TC.

 

[topcropper]

Stripe Rust disease is very bad this year. Farmers are having to spray wheat crops with fungicide up to 2 times if they have susceptible varieties. And sometimes when a variety is resistant, the rust strain will mutate so that it will then attack the once resistant varieties. Plant breeders are having to bring out new wheat varieties all the time to stay ahead of the rust disease.

I'm checking my crops twice a day. The 3 wheat varieties I have planted are all moderately resistant to current rust strains. This doesn't mean they won't get the rust disease though.





This is a photo of a patch of my wheat crop that I deliberately left the nitrogen fertilizer off. The light green patch of crop to the right of the photo had no urea applied at planting.

It is seriously nitrogen deficient. It will be lucky to yield 1 tonne per hectare.

The rest of the wheat that had urea applied at planting should yield 4 tonnes per hectare.

Soil tests before planting showed us that we only had 30 kgs of nitrogen in the soil which is not much. There was not much N left in the soil because of the big previous sorghum crop that was harvested in April.

We added 250 kgs/h of urea at planting, which is 120 kgs of pure nitrogen. There was also 10 kgs/h of N in the starter fertilizer NPSZ. So we have 30 + 120 + 10 kgs of N, equals 160 kgs of N. This is not enough for the crop to yield 5 tonnes per hectare or better, so we will probably fly another 100 kgs/h more urea [46 kgs N] on via the local ag pilot.

Once the urea is on the crop, it will need a bit of rain to wash it into the soil, and the plants will take it up immediately. I'm hoping the added urea could increase the final yield by an extra 1 tonne per hectare.

See ya's.

 

[WinstonWolfe]

We added 250 kgs of urea at planting, which is 120 kgs of pure nitrogen. There was also 10 kgs of N in the starter fertilizer NPSZ. So we have 30 + 120 + 10 kgs of N, equals 160 kgs of N. This is not enough for the crop to yield 5 tonnes per hectare or better, so we will probably fly another 100 kgs more urea [46 kgs N] on via the local ag pilot.


See ya's.

Good stuff TC. like the pictorial evidence.
Do you reckon peeing on the nitrogen deficient stuff will help.
Didn't they used to cycle a crop of legumes to put back nitrogen?