During the week I have came across the issue twice of the’ Grass Verge’ problem. One person was delighted, coming from a farming background, to see someone on a small tractor cutting the grass. And even more delighted, when they spotted someone driving behind, on an equally small baler, baling the grass so it could be used as silage no doubt. No waste there then.
Now the other proponent of the ‘Grass Verge’ problem was a botanist saying that if the grass verge was cut less and later in the year, wildlife, mainly the butterflies and bees could still feed as the grass would be full of later blooming flowers.
OOOhh!! Competitive market farmer looking to increase his profit margin versus the Save the Planet from Horrible Men who don’t treat it right. Why does it always seem to be ‘business’ against ‘conservation’?? When will these two elements in the world find a way to work together??
This problem really hit home this week as I have been trying to catch up on the story in the news about the problem in the Republic of Ireland where farmers realise they cannot achieve a sustainable price for their cattle from slaughter houses. If no solution to this problem is found then farmers could go out of business and we’d end up with empty fields where grass grows aplenty and beef is imported from Brazil or equally far away. The obvious damage this does to the environment is cow crazy for sure!
If governments were truthful about how much it was costing to import and export properly in Co2 terms and properly taxed this then and only then would we see the true cost of our food.
xPC2019
Ps Google words of the day were ‘Cow free image’
