natural wonders and cow breeds.

[Guest guest]

I think you will find that the max a yoke of oxen can plow in a day is one

acre.

 

When Paul starkey visited the Manor last year he mentioned the main reason

that small scale farmers went to tractors was for prestige. Tractors were

subsidised in different ways to enable them to be bought but unless there

was 200 acres (I think that is what he said) it was not economic to have a

tractor.

 

Interestingly we heard recently on this conference that the price of deisel

in west Bengal is making the farmers look once again at working the oxen.

 

I agree fully with Madhava Gosh (gourdmad) that in effect you have to have

higher value crops to make ox farming realistically work unless it can be

heavily subsidized in some way. An example: Wheat is selling at about £70

per tonne in this country. You can expect a yield per acre of about 2

tonnes. Just to plow the field (assuming you do it in eight hours) will cost

a minimum salary of £40 (using UK minimum wage). Now the field has to be

harrowed, the seeds sown, harrowed again, rolled and maybe harrowed again

later for weeds. Once the grain has grown it has to be harvested. By hand it

will take one person 40 hours (£200), by reaper (although I think the

gearing is not suited for ox speed) would take a lot less but you would need

lots of people to help. Once it is harvested it needs threshing and

winnowing (vast amounts of time for an acres worth of grain). In a nutshell

what I am showing is that you cannot grow wheat and market it in the same

way as your tractor neighbours and expect to make a living.

 

ys syam