The Circle of Life…or if I wanted to be more controversial: ‘MEAT; it’s in your bread’. Today we are spreading CalPhos - a fertiliser product with phosphate and calcium, as our soils are very low phosphate. It’s a great, organic fertiliser. And it’s derived from meat processing. In butchers and meat processors, anything that can’t be used, sold, or exported (like chicken feet!) has to be incinerated. The resulting grey dust is ‘CalPhos’ which will support our arable crops for the next 2-3 years. We spread it ahead of our milling wheats which will be sown in the autumn as they have a high demand. Nature is a carbon cycle of life, death, and seasons of thriving and just surviving. As a ‘largely’ arable farmer I rely on other sectors in a big way. • if my wheat doesn’t make human consumption grade it can go for chicken or pig feed rather than being wasted. • I could sell wheat to produce biofuels (although the remaining bioethanol plant has just closed with just as big an impact as the steel furnace except @10DowningStreet didn’t want to save that one (massively affecting wheat prices and farm profitability here in the UK). • I exchange straw with neighbouring beef farmers for the manure that comes from their cattle yards providing the best natural fertiliser you can get. • when the price of wheat is poor, I can grow other crops such as barley, beans, rapeseed, oats, or grass to keep the farm profitable So you see how we need each other in farming? We are one sector, one industry, and we also steward 71% of the UK’s land area! So, ‘meat…it’s in your bread*!’ #plantnutrients #farming #ukgrowers #sustainable #tractor #fertiliser #nutrients #plantfood #regenerative #regenag #regen *#vegan disclaimer - this post is not meant to antagonise vegans or vegetarians; it’s an educational post about sustainable UK regenerative farming.