Guest guest Posted October 22, 2003 Report Share Posted October 22, 2003 ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Letter PAMHO:7379334 (78 lines) [W1] Vraj Eco Vill 20-Oct-03 14:30 (16:30 +0200) "Glovesco General Members" <members (AT) glovesco (DOT) org> UK Dustbowl --------------------------- Dustbowl farmers fear harvest catastrophe By Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent (Filed: 20/10/2003) The driest autumn in more than 30 years has turned large parts of Britain's prime farmland into a dustbowl, with disastrous consequences for next year's harvest. England's best arable land, a belt stretching from Oxfordshire through the Midlands to East Anglia and Lincolnshire, is so dry that seeds planted more than two months ago have not germinated. Fields that by now should be flecked with a few inches' green growth are bare. Those few seedlings that have broken through the parched soil are being picked off by hungry birds. Below the surface, the seeds are rotting. Paul Warburton, 61, farms 500 acres near Wallingford in the Thames valley. He said drought had turned his usually green and pleasant land into a "biblical" panorama. Standing in his bare fields beneath a clear blue sky, with a strong easterly wind drying his arid soil even more, Mr Warburton said next year's harvest could be "disastrous". "Oilseed rape sown in August should have come up in five days, but still there is no sign. What little wheat is showing is very vulnerable to pigeons because it is so small," he said. "There is a big chance of the crops failing altogether, forcing me to reseed in spring. It's looking frightful and if we have another dry spring like this year, we could get totally clobbered." The lack of rain has been a leading theme in harvest service sermons throughout southern and eastern England. "All the farmers I know attended harvest festival. We all sank to our knees and prayed," Mr Warburton said. "My family has been farming here since the 1920s and I have never known anything like it. It was dry in 1996, but nothing like this. We have had hotter years, like 1976, but never anything quite as dry." Mr Warburton's neighbour, a sheep farmer, has had to buy in straw and cake to feed sheep that in a normal year would still be eating grass, but there has been no fresh growth since June. The price for a bale of hay has shot up from £1.50 to £5, while straw is £2 a bale - three times the price last year. With losses already of thousands of pounds in seed, fertiliser and herbicides, farmers now face the prospect of buying dearer seed and chemicals in spring and sowing again. Peter Kendall, the chairman of the National Farmers' Union's combinable crops board, was reseeding his oilseed rape fields with beans yesterday because beans need less water. "East Anglia is a desert. They are redrilling wheat in Wiltshire because the first sowing failed and at least a third of next year's oilseed rape crop is at risk," he said. Mr Kendall, who farms near Biggleswade, Beds, has seen only 15mm of rain in two and a half months, less than a sixth of the normal rainfall. "It is like a dustbowl all around me," he said. According to the Met Office, August, September and October, so far, have been the driest since 1972. But relief could be in sight. "By early next week it should be much cooler with some rain, albeit mostly in central and northern England and Scotland," a spokesman said. With the rain, colder weather will come. "Away from the coast, we expect quite a widespread frost because the cloud will clear at night." Although the rain will be welcome, colder weather is exactly what farmers such as Mr Warburton fear. "The soil temperature will drop and it will be too cold for the seeds to germinate, however wet it gets," he said. "We are on an absolute knife edge." © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. Terms & Conditions of reading. Commercial information. Privacy Policy. (Text PAMHO:7379334) ------ ------- End of Forwarded Message ------ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 22, 2003 Report Share Posted October 22, 2003 This is a very sobering article. Am I reading your underlying motivation correctly? -- "If *only* we could get them to just chant Hare Krsna, then the rains would come as describe in the Bhagavad-gita." If so, I can't help agreeing wth you... I remember that my Uncle Mike, the hog farmer, came to pick up our family from Gita-nagari for a family reunion in 1988. That was the year of a very bad drought. Uncle Mike commented, "Gosh, everyone else's farms around here are all dried up -- but your corn looks pretty good. Maybe that chanting Hare Krsna does work after all." In fact, Gita-nagari was also suffering to some extent. But it was true that our crops were much better than our neighbors. That was due in large part to two aspects of our practice of cow protection. First of all, all our fields were well manured, which improved the soil structure and helped them hold whatever moisture there was. Secondly, it had been a very rainy spring. Farmers could not plant their crops because their tractors would sink into the mud. However, this was the year we decided to plant most of our acreage using the oxen. Because of the oxen, we were able to plow and plant our crops before the other farmers could even get into their fields. With all the rain, the seeds sprouted and shot up right away. Then after a few weeks, the rains finally stopped, and the other farmers could get their tractors in the fields and plant. But, it scarcely rained any more after that. So their crops did not grow. The government declared Pennsylvania a federal disaster area, but we still had crops we could harvest, even if somewhat less that usual. So, because chanting Hare Krsna made us want to protect Krsna's cows and oxen, we were able to grow crops when the other farmers couldn't. So I guess my Uncle Mike was right. your servant, Hare Krsna dasi Vraj Eco Vill wrote: >---------- Forwarded Message ---------- > >Letter PAMHO:7379334 (78 lines) [W1] > Vraj Eco Vill > 20-Oct-03 14:30 (16:30 +0200) > "Glovesco General Members" <members (AT) glovesco (DOT) org> > UK Dustbowl >--------------------------- >Dustbowl farmers fear harvest catastrophe >By Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent >(Filed: 20/10/2003) > >The driest autumn in more than 30 years has turned large parts of Britain's >prime farmland into a dustbowl, with disastrous consequences for next year's >harvest. > >England's best arable land, a belt stretching from Oxfordshire through the >Midlands to East Anglia and Lincolnshire, is so dry that seeds planted more >than two months ago have not germinated. > >Fields that by now should be flecked with a few inches' green growth are >bare. Those few seedlings that have broken through the parched soil are >being picked off by hungry birds. Below the surface, the seeds are rotting. > >Paul Warburton, 61, farms 500 acres near Wallingford in the Thames valley. >He said drought had turned his usually green and pleasant land into a >"biblical" panorama. > >Standing in his bare fields beneath a clear blue sky, with a strong easterly >wind drying his arid soil even more, Mr Warburton said next year's harvest >could be "disastrous". > >"Oilseed rape sown in August should have come up in five days, but still >there is no sign. What little wheat is showing is very vulnerable to pigeons >because it is so small," he said. > >"There is a big chance of the crops failing altogether, forcing me to reseed >in spring. It's looking frightful and if we have another dry spring like >this year, we could get totally clobbered." > >The lack of rain has been a leading theme in harvest service sermons >throughout southern and eastern England. "All the farmers I know attended >harvest festival. We all sank to our knees and prayed," Mr Warburton said. > >"My family has been farming here since the 1920s and I have never known >anything like it. It was dry in 1996, but nothing like this. We have had >hotter years, like 1976, but never anything quite as dry." > >Mr Warburton's neighbour, a sheep farmer, has had to buy in straw and cake >to feed sheep that in a normal year would still be eating grass, but there >has been no fresh growth since June. The price for a bale of hay has shot up >from £1.50 to £5, while straw is £2 a bale - three times the price last >year. > >With losses already of thousands of pounds in seed, fertiliser and >herbicides, farmers now face the prospect of buying dearer seed and >chemicals in spring and sowing again. > >Peter Kendall, the chairman of the National Farmers' Union's combinable >crops board, was reseeding his oilseed rape fields with beans yesterday >because beans need less water. "East Anglia is a desert. They are redrilling >wheat in Wiltshire because the first sowing failed and at least a third of >next year's oilseed rape crop is at risk," he said. > >Mr Kendall, who farms near Biggleswade, Beds, has seen only 15mm of rain in >two and a half months, less than a sixth of the normal rainfall. "It is like >a dustbowl all around me," he said. According to the Met Office, August, >September and October, so far, have been the driest since 1972. > >But relief could be in sight. "By early next week it should be much cooler >with some rain, albeit mostly in central and northern England and Scotland," >a spokesman said. > >With the rain, colder weather will come. "Away from the coast, we expect >quite a widespread frost because the cloud will clear at night." > >Although the rain will be welcome, colder weather is exactly what farmers >such as Mr Warburton fear. > >"The soil temperature will drop and it will be too cold for the seeds to >germinate, however wet it gets," he said. "We are on an absolute knife >edge." > > >© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. Terms & Conditions of reading. >Commercial information. Privacy Policy. >(Text PAMHO:7379334) ------ > >------- End of Forwarded Message ------ > >----------------------- >To from this mailing list, send an email to: >Cow-Owner (AT) pamho (DOT) net > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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