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Established once, the crop yields for over 10 years, without replanting. BICAL have developed efficient and profitable systems for all aspects of crop production and onward processing. For more, e-mail Bical at sales@bical.co.uk or find out more at Bical.

Solar Farms?

Surprising as it may seem, most food and fibre is not "solar-grown". Agriculture is a big user of fossil energy, and as David Coley at Exeter University says, "we all eat oil", because 6 calories of fossil energy are used to make one calorie of food. This energy is used by tractors, fertilizer manufacture, food processing, chilling, storage and distribution.

A farm that used biodiesel or bioethanol tractors and only sold its produce locally would be significantly better than an identical farm selling to conventional channels. It's even possible to use pure rapeseed oil like in this tractor converted by VEG-tuning in Sweden.

Better Use of Manure

Manure is to farmers what compost is to gardeners. Farmers stand to save money (and reduce pollution) by making better use of their farm manures: used efficiently, the slurry off a typical 150-cow dairy herd is worth £3,000 to £4,000.

Fertilise a crop with Fibrophos: a dried and treated chicken manure. Pig muck also works well.

Hedgerows

Hedgerows play an important role on farms: apart from helping to prevent soil erosion and water run-off, providing shelter, controling livestock and protecting crops from the wind, they also provide an important habitat for wildlife. Find out more about funding, legal issues and maintenance here.

Create grassy field margins adjacent to hedgerows. In arable fields, sow a 2 or 6 metre-wide field-edge margin with perennial, tussock-forming grasses (eg cocksfoot and timothy).

Lined Biobeds

Pesticide pollution originating from the farmyard can be reduced by as much as 99% when biobed based handling areas are used. A biobed is a lined structure filled with biomix, a mixture of topsoil, peat (preferably a peat free substitute) and straw.

Install lined biobeds according to the Environment Agency (EA)’s guidelines.

Organic Farming

Find out more from ukagriculture.com.

• Set up Beetle Banks: tussocky-grass strips dividing large fields and sow with tussock-forming grasses (eg cocksfoot and timothy).
• Replace fences with hedgerows.
• Reduce use of pesticides and fertilisers; increase use of manure.
• Encourage wildlife (see above).

Agro-Ecology and Greener Pastures

Recently published (2008) "The Carbon Fields" by Graham Harvey is a book promoting the return to better grasslands, pastures and meadows, grass-fed food and free-range milk.

QUOTE: The global trading of grains will lead to catastrophe. It’s robbing everyday foods of the health-protecting nutrients we need, while insidiously damaging our farmland so it’ll be incapable of feeding future generations. As if this weren’t bad enough, it’s adding to our climate change woes. Who would believe our food supply could be responsible for 18% of our greenhouse gas emissions?

Find out more from Grass Roots website.

Soil Improvement

Create Carbon-Negative Soils

Burning agricultural wastes (biomass) in the absence of air leaves a charcoal composed of almost pure carbon, which can then be crushed and dug into the soil. As a soil amendment, Biochar