Land sharing and Land sparing

As day two of the South of England Show opened the winds are up and the going underfoot is slightly damp, although it was heartening to see yesterday that a worm was making its way across the floor of the International Pavilion aided by the water that had seeped through the floor material as had a solitary three leaf clover.

On listening to Farming Today as I drove along the road towards Ardingly I heard the reporter, Caz Graham, in discussion with a man, Ben Phalan from the University of Cambridge, on the potential that intensive farming could help floral and faunal biodiversity in the developing world. An article published in Science on the 2nd of September (Volume 333 no. 6047 - pp.1289-1291) examined the concepts of both land sharing and land sparing.

Land sharing integrates both the desire to meet rising food demands and the need to have less impact on the ecosystem's biodiversity whereas land sparing is where "high-yield farming is combined with protecting natural habitats from conversion to agriculture". The paper's abstract continues to state that the writers "compared crop yields and densities of bird and tree species across gradients of agricultural intensity" in two regions one in the south west of Ghana and in northern India.

The abstract concludes that "more species were negatively affected by agriculture than benefited from it, particularly among species with small global ranges. For both taxa in both countries, land sparing is a more promising strategy for minimizing negative impacts of food production, at both current and anticipated future levels of production".The full article can be read here on a subscription site.

An article found in last year's Guardian, see here, written by Damian Carrington gives us a bit more information. Land sharing is where "all the land in a region is farmed, but using wildlife friendly techniques which may dent yields a little". An example of this occurs in Europe under the premise of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that "rewards farmers for giving a helping hand to animals, birds and plants that share their land, by protecting hedgerows, leaving some trees and strips for flowers and beetles". Whereas Land sparing is "some land is farmed intensively to maximise yields while other land is left entirely alone and protected as a nature reserve".

Both Damian Carrington and Ben Phelan, with his colleagues, ask the question - "Would the CAP's vast budget for land sharing schemes - €34.5bn from 2007-13 - be better spent on reserves, under the reforms now being discussed?"

Carrington answers this question by writing "The answer is we don't know, because the balance of costs and benefits between land sparing or sharing will depend on location, and the situation in the tropics and subtropics is likely to be quite different to that at higher latitudes".

But the concept of land sharing and land sparing is certainly a topic to look at greater detail in the future. Does anyone else have any thoughts or experience?

South of England Show Post 2

So as the afternoon passes on, the rain has started to fall but still there is a procession of both carriage drivers followed by various packs of hounds.

On talking to one of the members of Eurolink, I have learnt some more on the benefits of honey. He was telling more of the use of honey - one of them was to preserve biopsy samples from patients in villages in lesser developed countries as they are taken from the village to the city. On returning the message from the city to the village clinic, it is often transferred through satellite phone. So from a prehistoric medium to a twenty first century form of communication.

The propolis, a brown sticky substance, that the bees collect from various trees and plants and combine with their own enzymes are used as a form of protection, within the hive, against bacterial and viral infection. One website states that there are "much higher levels of a substance...called Caffeic Acid Phenethyl Ester...and very many dihydroflavonoid compounds...pinocembrin and pinobanksin". These compounds, no doubt, help to combat "a wide range of infections including" burns, sinus infections, sore throats, ulcers and wounds". It is also just as important that as it is a natural antibiotic, the micro-organisms are unable to to develop a resistance to the Propolis.

There is, of course, a bee and honey pavilion at the South of England Show where you will be able to gain more information.

South of England Show post 1

So as we enter the first day of the South of England show at Ardingly, Eurolink and International Farmlink is situated at one of the corners of the show ground. It gives us the opportunity to talk about, well alright type about, the current agricultural and rural affairs.

A recent article in the New Scientist (2nd of June 2012) states that traces ofradioactive caesium, from the leak in Fukushima Daiichi plant, has been found in Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) in low enough doses so that it won't harm humans. But it is thought by Daniel Madigan of Stanford University in California that the levels of the caesium may aid the tracking of other marine life such as Salmon Sharks, turtles and seabirds.

A post that I found on the twitter feed of Eurolink (@eurolinkseas) also described the decline of farmbirds. Richard D. Gregory reports for the New Scientist on the 6th of June 2012 that the losses of some "European bird populations are in precipitous decline"..."with a downward trend of 36 specialist farmland birds for the last 30 years equates to an estimated loss of 297 million farmbirds in Europe during that period".

Gregory continues to state that "European agricultural policy needs substantial reform so that it delivers measures to help birds and other wildlife across the continent's farmed landscape...nesting habitats and food in the summer and winter...policies must also support low-intensity farming systems that deliver a range of ecosystem benefits in addition to wonderful biodiversity".

More information can be found here as well as the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme and TEEB.org

 

European Pig Production Congress

The European Pig Production Congress, held in Lithuania, running for three days has gained almost 300 delegates from 19 countries and is tackling the challenges created by the new pig housing regulations that is now 7 months away.

An article by Jackie Linden continues to list the topics tackled by the EPP Congress that include the difficulty in obtaining loans during this period of global recession; the behaviour of the consumer in paying higher prices for the production of pig meat; will cheaper imported meat from less economically developed countries be the choice of the consumer; as well as a focus on pig production in the Baltic Region. 

More information can be found here, this page also has a link to related stories on the right hand side of the linked page.

More information on pigs and pig meat production can, of course, can be found at the BPEX homepage.

The Shipbourne Pound

Following on from a past posting about Farmers' Markets. Let me ask you a question, how does a farmers' market cope if the community has no cash point and poor signal for the reception of wireless credit and debit card readers? It could be said that some communities would not have held that farmers' market.

Shipbourne, a village in Kent, had different thoughts and they introduced "The Shipbourne Pound" in denominations of £2 and £5 from the idea of the market manager, Bob Taylor.

The idea is that if customers run out of money they can buy the Shipbourne pounds with a debit card from the nearby pub "The Chaser Inn". This reduces the thought of potential customers leaving Shipbourne in order to find money due to the problems listed above. 

The Shipbourne pound depicts the village's church, St. Giles, both in summer and winter as well as Sir Henry Vane - a knighted parliamentarian under Cromwell. The manager of The Chaser Inn, Darren Somerton, talks of the Shipbourne Pound, on the website thisiskent.co.uk, that "We are delighted to work with the market on this new project, offering a new service to the local community, and a further boost to local food producers."

Do you know of any other schemes like this that your local market or farmers' market use to entice customers? I have heard of a scheme in Hawick, Lewes and Totnes, it was even discussed on Ambridge but never implemented. 

Farmers' Markets

As the South of England Agricultural Show gets closer, I aim to add a post a day, please find below a post on how to gain a foothold in the Farmers' Markets. Once again, please feel free to comment.

One of our Eurolink members wrote an article for the Kent Farmers' Markets for potential stallholders. The article warns that the farmers' markets are a competitive environment and that it is worth a visit to a couple of markets to see what is being sold and how you can make your product different from the other products for sale. 

The author, Benjamin Dent, continues to state that customers want value for money,  but they are also interested in the producer and what added value they can provide - be it recipes or contributions to the local community. 

There are, of course, a variety of farmer's markets in Kent (43 at the last count) and are listed here; there are other farmer's markets in Sussex - East and West as well as the whole of England.

The author continues to give advice on how to draw up a business plan with costs, income and cash flow with suggested start-up costs, running costs, income, product price, the commitments as well as what regulations you need to study and pass. As he concludes, Benjamin asks, "Can you remain enthusiastic about telling a shopper about your product for the thirtieth time that morning? Can you encourage people to buy without making them feel uncomfortably pressured? Can you be cheerful at 9am on a cold and wet January morning?"

Yan, Tan, Tether - Sheep Counting

It is said that counting sheep is one way to fall asleep but there is more than to counting sheep than seeing them jump over a gate in your head. There is an article on Wikipedia that describes the sheep counting rhyme that has been used all over the British Isles and was in constant use before the early twentieth century:

Yan, Tan Tether, Mether, Pip, Azer, Sezar, Akker, Conter, Dick, Yannadick, Tannadick, Tetheradick, Metheradick, Bumfit, Yanabum, Tanabum, Tetherabum, Metherabum, Jigget is the Swaledale version of the sheep counting rhyme.

It is said that this form of pre-Industrial Revolution counting and is based on the Brythonic Celtic language (the language shared by the Bretons, the Cornish and the Welsh).

Despite this form of counting falling out of fashion in the early twentieth century; it has been embraced into the cultural sphere with composers, singers and writers alike all using it in their work - including Joan Aiken, Harrison Birtwhistle, Bernard Cornwell, Adrian Edmondson, James Joyce, Terry Pratchett and Jake Thackerary.The latter example gives a brief and comprehensive method of the sheep counting system and then weaves a story in it.

Why was it necessary to count the sheep? It is said that between the 5th and the 15th centuries, and still continuing in some areas today, certain farms were given fell rights - the permission to graze livestock on the common ground. But to reduce the potential for overgrazing, an accurate method of counting was needed as was the prevention of straying livestock. It is suggested that sheep are counted first thing in the morning and at the end of the day as well as when the flock is moved from one pasture to the other and after any sheep handling exercise that may include foot-trimming, dipping, mulesing or shearing.

This form of counting is based on base 20 (also known as vigesimal) and led to the recording of sets of twenty by either making a mark on the shepherd's crook or moving a pebble or piece of wood  from one pocket to another.  Does anyone know why 20 was the key number?

Wikipedia records a minimum of 14 counting systems for Cumberland, Cumbria, the Dales, Derbyshire, County Durham, the Lake District, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Scotland, Southern England, Wales, West Country, West Morland and Wiltshire. Although there will often be regional variants of the same counting system. Wikipedia also shows a table of comparable Brythonic Celtic languages.

This form of counting has been used to count stitches in knitting, I guess there is more than one connection to sheep and knitting.