Netherlands

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Grassfarmers buddy, Darrin Qualman wrote and article about this very recently:
https://www.darrinqualman.com/nitrogen-crisis/ https://www.darrinqualman.com/nitrogen-crisis/

I do like to read most of what he puts out, However, this one started off on the wrong foot right in the first sentence:

If there was no climate crisis we’d all be talking about the nitrogen crisis.

At least he does offer some solutions, among them is this:

Funding agronomic research into low-input, organic, and agro-ecological production systems

Realistically, does it really make sense to import feed grain for intensive livestock operations in a country without enough land to even spread the resulting manure responsibly, instead of value adding to our grain by feeding livestock when we have unlimited space to spread the manure, and a dire need for it in many cases.

[furrowtickler]

Some of you don’t realize that even the super awesome Gabe Brown way of farming is in complete jeopardy right ??? The wave of environmental whack jobs hate animal farming period . They want strictly plant based foods .
That makes Gabes whole system worthless without the animal equation to make it all work .

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Some of you don’t realize that even the super awesome Gabe Brown way of farming is in complete jeopardy right ??? The wave of environmental whack jobs hate animal farming period . They want strictly plant based foods .
That makes Gabes whole system worthless without the animal equation to make it all work .

Yes, the closest method we have to sustainable farming is mixed farming with enough livestock to consume what is grown. These movements have nothing to do with sustainability, or the environment.

[grassfarmer]

....Realistically, does it really make sense to import feed grain for intensive livestock operations in a country without enough land to even spread the resulting manure responsibly, instead of value adding to our grain by feeding livestock when we have unlimited space to spread the manure, and a dire need for it in many cases.

In an ideal world no, but in the world we operate in it's not so clear cut. It's really only a pig expansion we are talking about in the case of the Netherlands as their other livestock numbers are stable or in decline. The option you offer of expanding pig numbers here to add value to the grain isn't what is happening - sure pig numbers are expanding around here but it's all raised on US corn and the end product, like the Dutch one, is all for export. Whose pork products are closest/cheapest/least emission producing distance from final consumers? In theory we are retaining the fertilizer value on the prairies but due to the volumes and concentrations produced with CFOs it can present risks to water sources too - so maybe we aren't that much smarter than the Dutch given that we don't live in a coastal region.