Global Harvests, Food and Water Security - 2012

As we enter the first few weeks of September, I have been gleefully informed that Christmas is only one hundred days away. We know that this is a period for global gobbling with the American Thanksgiving feast and Christmas Day. But dare we ask the question, how have the global harvests fared this year?

The Farmer's Weekly harvest round up page notes that, as of today (12th of September 2012):

• The harvest is between 70-80% complete in the South West and has only just started (07/09/12) in Caithness, Scotland.
• This year's conditions have been summarised here and entail droughts in Spring, one of the wettest summers in 100 years and decreased sunshine hours has led to "a poor grain fill" and increased susceptibility to attacks from aphids in autumn 2011 and spring 2012 to disease infestations of brown rust, late fusarium, septoria and yellow rust.
• The Farmer's Weekly reports (11/09/12) that drilling has already started in some parts of the country.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported on the 27th of July 2012 that the global harvest predictions would be reduced due to the droughts in the Black Sea region and in the United States of America - the worst since 1956 in the USA - and the export market projections were not looking good for the aforementioned regions but it may spell opportunities for the grain producers who have done well. ABC reported that the world grain harvest for 2012/13 has been reduced to 1,640 million tonnes.

The International Grains Council published a report in August will tell you more.

So what has the global harvest of food got to do with water security? The Stockholm Water Initiative Water Week, that ended on the 31st of August 2012, helped to remind readers that "one third of the world's food is lost or wasted (1.3 billion tonnes per year), which equates to one quarter of global water use for irrigation".

• One litre of milk thrown away is 1,000 litres of water consumed by a cow to produce that milk.
• The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that $1 trillion is needed for investment in irrigation technologies by 2050.

How has the harvest been with you and how are you dealing with either a lack or an excess of water?

Livestock 2012 - Day Two (updated)

Livestock 2012 - Day Two

EBLEX (The organisation for the English Beef and Sheep Industry) in their blog, Beef and Lamb Matters, describe their two days at Livestock 2012 on this page and highlights two of their publications - Better Returns from Pure-Dairy bred Male Calves (BRP 10) and Balancing the Market.

Farmer's Weekly have released a statement from Jim Paice MP at losing his position as the Minister of Agriculture and Food, this statement can be found here. The last sentence of the statement is very poignant. "As I have said repeatedly to farmers change should be seen as an opportunity – that applies to me now!"

The Farmer's Weekly highlights a list of top tips for livestock handlers published by NFU Mutual. These are two of the top tips:

• Keep your mobile phone in a chest pocket so you can call for help.
• Always take a moment to consider the risks of a task.

The Farmer's Weekly has published a summary of the Livestock 2012 event with links to the FWi articles under News & Business, Technical and Machinery News

New Defra Secretary of State & Livestock 2012

 

News hot off of the press from the Defra Twitter account - Owen Paterson MP has been confirmed as the new Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Livestock 2012 is the leading livestock show for the Great British Farmer and follow the Twitter feed on #livestock2012

The Farmer's Guardian reporter Olivia Midgley has published news of the Cattle Health and Welfare Group (CHAWG) report here. The report is said to cover such diverse issues as Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD), bovine fertility, Johne's Disease to name but a few and the full report can be downloaded at the EBLEX site here.

According to this Farmer's Guardian web page the gentleman, Jim Paice MP, who talked to the dairy farmers earlier this year has been let go with today's cabinet reshuffle. The dairy coalition has said that it will continue to work with Paice's successor. David Heath MP is, thought, to be the new farming minister.

Natural England has highlighted the five entry level and organic entry level stewardship schemes that will make environmental stewardship more effective (this page was originally published on 10th of August 2012) included hedgerow restoration; supplement to add wildflowers to buffer strips and field corners; ryegrass seed-set as winter/spring food for birds; legume and herb rich swards; and supplementary feeding in winter for farmland birds.

A leaflet that provides the funding and support for dairy farmers (NE345) has been published by Natural England and is available to download from this page.

More will be added in the next two days on this page.

ABCs - Alien Big Cats - part two

Last time, this blog explained briefly why people (from a king to an actress) used to have big cats and exotic animals - one of the main reasons was so that they could use it as a status symbol. But it was deemed in 1976 that the keeping of specific dangerous and wild animals was to be regulated through the provision of a license. This Defra website expresses that the details of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 (DWAA) are to ensure that the "private individuals who keep dangerous wild animals...do so in ways that create no risk to the public". The DWAA also regulates the keeping of the dangerous wild animals through a licensing regime from the local authority.

It is curious to note some of the animals that are listed on the DWAA 1976 (modification) (no. 2) Order 2007 including from the Marsupial family three types of kangaroo, a walleroo and the Tasmanian Devil; members from six families of the primate group; armadillos and anteaters; members of the Canidae, Felidae, Hyaenidae, Mustelidae, Ursidae, Viverridae of the Carnivore group; members of the Odobenidae, Otariidae and Phocidae families of the Pinnipede group (these include some of the heavier weight seals) to name but a few - the whole list can be found here.

Even before the modification to the list in 2007, landowners and animal hoarders had to find a dispose of the animals that ended up on the list. Even for the curious have a look, the aardwolf (see below) is excepted from the Hyaenidae family, and see what other animals made or missed the list.

Aardwolf - Proteles cristatus

Source: Britannica.com

So what did the animal hoarders and landowners do after the DWAA came into existence in 1976 - it would be thought that some were licensed, killed, sold to wildlife parks or zoological gardens and some may have been let loose - although it should be said that these are only potential answers.

There is quite a comprehensive web page about the Alien Big Cats and the UK Government on Kithra's Alternate Miscellany with over 15 web links. I will come back to this page and other similar pages when I revisit this subject sometime soon, but how has your land or activity been hampered by alien, dangerous, invasive or wild species?

ABCs - Alien Big Cats - part one

A BBC website stated in late August 2012 that "A couple who claimed to have seen an animal which looked like a lion in an Essex field have said they believe the creature is still at large. A search for the "very large animal" seen near Earl Hall Drive in St Osyth, near Clacton-on-Sea, at about 19:00 BST on Sunday was called off on Monday".

Earlier this year, a similar search for a big cat in Southampton was called off when the supposed feline was a life size cuddly toy tiger that was blown over from the down draft of the helicopter.

But is there any truth to big cats wandering around the British Isles?

Alien or Anomalous Big Cats, or ABCs, is the term given to the members of the Felidae family that do not originate in the British Isles but are thought to inhabit the British Isles. These ABCs may include lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, pumas and black cats. Why are there here? Is it because they are the remnants of fauna from before the last ice age or have they have escaped from private collections?

Having a big cat or a collection of wild animals was thought to be a huge status symbol in the past; there were lions kept in the Royal Menagerie at The Tower of London from 1235 to the private zoos of the aristocracy. Phyllis Gordon taking her pet cheetah for a walk in 1939.

So why are there, potentially, cats of a larger persuasion out in the countryside of the United Kingdom, see part two of Alien Big Cats (coming soon).

Senecio jacobaea - part three

Apologies for the delay, but as suggested on the last post - here is the third post.

Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) in its first year stage creates an immature ragwort plant that resembles a small rosette of between 5 and 15 centimetres across with no flowers. In the second year, it pushes forth a green stem that can reach up and over 1.5 metres high (I know the blasted plants are higher than I am) with the yellow flowers at the top. The photo below shows a recently extricated plant. 

The third photo of this blog (see below) will show the scale of the plant, however it is possible to see how the plant in its second year develops most of its energy budget to create the huge stem with frond-like leaves.

The root is considerably small compared to the length of the stem. You don't have to imagine these plants as sails as you can see them from late July along the sides of single and dual carriageways - the shallow roots help the stem tot sway but not snap. This plant's anatomy reminds me of the huge trees in the tropical rainforests as they also have tall trunks and relatively short roots. This may be due to the fact that both plants exploit poor soils to create huge plants to increase the chance of their progeny surviving; Senecio jacobaea is a natural plant of semi-natural grasslands and colonise well drained and sandy soils. The plant can be an indicator of where sandy soils exist in a field. The small root is also useful in the plant's downfall, the ragwort fork has small tines, and when inserted at the bast of the plant, can act as a pivot for felling the large stem.

Senecio jacobaea has other tricks in its biological arsenal. The flower heads and vegetative parts of Senecio jacobaea have an allelopathic effect on the surrounding vegetation by suppressing the competition from other plants - so that the Common Ragwort can colonise an area. This can be seen by the creation of stands or swathes of Common Ragwort. As seen in the photograph below, the ragwork fork is shown for scale.

With various studies, it has seen that the seeds can travel from the parent plant of under a metre to over five metres. A plant can hold from 4,760 to 174,230 of seeds per plant. After flowering, the plant dies relying on the seeds to increase the invasion and the potential seed bank. The seed bank, the soil below the plant, can be affected by animals, failed germination, fire, mechanical, pathogens, physiological death, predation, rainfall dispersal, above ground and sub-soil water flow and wind.

Yes, it can be said that Senecio jacobaea or Common Ragwort can reduce the quality of a pasture through allelopathy and the decomposition of the leaf litter; it has the potential to kill many agricultural and pastoral animals; and finally it has a crucial part in providing a suitable food source and habitat for many invertebrates...as the Defra document states "It should be expected that some common ragwort will continue to occur in such swards and will fulfill its role in the ecological dynamics of well-drained grassland ecosystems."

If anyone is interested, please either email or add a comment, I can provide sources of the reports quoted in the blog entry above.

Senecio jacobaea - part two

On the last post, I said that Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) "can be dangerous to livestock" and yes it can be if not properly managed. However, as also stated in the first post of this series, I did write that the plant supported both the caterpillar and the moths stages of the Cinnabar moth (Tyria jacobaea) as well as a host of invertebrates.

A recently published web page by The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales notes that Common Ragwort has "done really well this summer" due to the inconsistent weather of this year and the flowers, leaves and plants have acted as an invaluable source for "at least thirty species of invertebrate". These include one form of aphid, 12 fly species, 7 leaf beetle species, 1 macro moth, 7 micro moths, 1 form of mite and 1 type of thrip. The article states that other invertebrates use it as a nectar source, especially if other flowers haven't survived as well, and these include 2 bee species, various butterflies, Conopid flies, hoverflies, at least 40 species of Noctuid moths, a minimum of 30 species of solitary bees and a minimum of 18 solitary wasp species. (Please note, that some of these details are repeated from the last post).

The reason for the larger than normal image is so that you will be able to see the bee, the beetle and the butterfly, any ideas on what they might be?

It is tiresome and back-breaking work, once in a while you get a wonderful view - I have been accompanied by some kestrels and possibly a buzzard. If you look at the photograph below, you may even seen one of the avian accompanists to my ragworticidal acivities.

Unfortunately the camera on a phone is not the most ideal at trying to take long distance shots of hovering kestrels. I will say that as I left last night, I looked back to see that my work hadn't disturbed the birds. I saw one, two and then to the left another pair - there were four kestrels hovering across the length of the field, if any more had turned up I would have thought that they may have been auditioning for Alfred Hitchcock's film "The Birds'.

The above photograph isn't a complete waste of time - it shows a loose stand of Common Ragwort. Next time, I will explain more about the stands tomorrow. I bet you can't wait?