FARM Minister announces plans to import fodder - Ireland (feed shortages due to weather)

[Melodi]

Just a few days ago the government was saying that it was the "farmer's problem" but now that we are in for another night of "severe cold weather and rain warning" I gather they have realized that starving live stock is a national food security issue-farmers are unable to plant crops too - going down to get husband to get to the stove going; looks like we will need it tonight! Melodi

Minister announces plans to import fodder
Updated / Wednesday, 4 Apr 2018 17:21
Shipments of fodder from the UK are due to begin to arrive in the country tomorrow

The Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has confirmed that his officials are now actively developing a scheme to support the importation of fodder in response to the serious fodder crisis caused by the long and cold winter.

The announcement came after the minister convened a meeting with the farm advisory body Teagasc and other stake holders including dairy co-operatives in Fermoy in Co Cork today.

Earlier, one of the country’s biggest Co-Op’s, Dairygold announced that it has already sourced two and a half thousand tonnes of haylage and hay from the UK and that shipments will start arriving in the country from tomorrow onwards.

Dairygold will distribute the imported fodder through its member network at cost to farmers but called on the Government to assist with the transportation expenses involved.

Minister Creed said there is no easy solution to the current shortage, and that it will require a collaborative effort from all stakeholders to support affected farmers and ensure adequate feed is available until livestock can be turned out to graze.

The last time fodder was imported in such circumstances was four years ago and on that occasion it required as much as 140,000 tonnes to address the shortage that had developed.

The announcement from the minister came as Met Éireann issued a new status yellow weather warning forecasting low temperatures over the entire country with temperatures dropping as low as minus four degrees overnight and heavy rain for at least eight counties.

Minister Creed said he was also aware of challenges in the arable sector and he has been in touch with EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan in that regard.

Officials are also looking at the Fodder Transport Scheme subsidy, which was introduced for farmers in the northwest in January, to ensure it addresses all areas experiencing shortages.

The scheme provides support for hay, silage and straw being transported over 100 kilometres/

However, the Irish Farmers' Association said that only 15 farmers applied to that scheme as "it was overly bureaucratic".

IFA President Joe Healy said: "Practical, workable measures must be developed and implemented quickly to have a real impact at farm level."

Read more:

Status Yellow weather warnings in place as heavy rain and freezing temperatures forecast

Lakeland Dairies has also said a dedicated helpline has been set up for supplies on 042-9394341.

They have said that farmers should measure their fodder stocks and budget requirements until 1 May before contacting the helpline and report any shortfall or surplus.

The Irish Co-operative Organisation Society has also said it will support farmers through the current crisis.

The president of the ICOS said executives from several co-operatives across the country are in the process of sourcing fodder.

Speaking on RTÉ's News At One, Martin Keane said that co-operatives are checking the availability, saying time is of the essence.

Mr Keane said it is his understanding there will be announcements in the next 24 hours.

He called on the Government to extend transport subsidies to cover imported fodder that will arrive at ports and have to be distributed across the country.

"The Department has a role to play here. Finance is a big issue, but as one farmer recently told me, he said, 'I'd much prefer to be short of money than short of fodder'. And, I suppose, that demonstrates the stress that's out there in the farming community that they would cope better with being short of funds, rather than short of fodder. That's the magnitude of what a fodder crisis is."

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0404/952081-fodder/

 

[von Koehler]

This, of course, assumes they can get the needed fodder from other areas. Prices?

Has anyone priced subtropical and tropical fruits, nuts, and spices lately?

A quarter pound [4 ounces] of real vanilla beans now cost US$160! Brazil nuts have doubled in price compared to last year.

The Grand Solar Minimum has affected weather planet wide. I wonder how the cold has treated the American winter wheat crop?

von Koehler

 

[Doomer Doug]

I am starting to take all this GSM, Grand Solar Minimum stuff more seriously.

Here is a link to the daily GSM update.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YU8-750eR8

GSM Update 4/4/18 - Record Snow - Record Cold - Piton de la Fournaise - Antarctic Update

Check out our WEBSITE!!

https://www.3canyons.org/ https://www.oppenheimerranch.org/

 

[Doomer Doug]

Mangos in India?

I did see something on the Internet saying that the Mango crop in India had suffered significant damage due to heavy rain storms.

"Diamond," the guy who does the above show is pointing out that so far NO WHEAT HAS BEEN PLANTED IN EITHER CANADA OR THE NORTHERN MIDWEST and it is the first week of April.

We may, repeat may, be looking at a repeat of the famous 1816 "Year of no Summer." The GSM plus all the volcanic eruptions may trigger it. I know I am seriously upping my game on personal food storage.

 

[von Koehler]

By 2024, nearly everyone will be taking it seriously. For most, it will be too late to prepare.

I quit posting about it here because like old saying goes it was like "...casting pearls before swine."

Most here have elected to swallow the blue pill, and some are gulping down handfuls.

von Koehler

 

[Doomer Doug]

I'm aware of the GSM situation, but really I can't possibly prepare for it, unless I win a $400 million lottery. he he he

I'm 64, and ya know, what is going to happen is going to happen. We all gotta die something, amigo, and I plan to just enjoy the ride. Personally, I'm thinking we may be in the 1816, "Year of No Summer," this summer due to GSM and all the volcanic eruptions.

It will be next year when Ireland can't grow any fodder and nobody can, and nobody can import it at all. I don't know when they plant the wheat in Canada, but if the Canada wheat crop fails, people are going to die in large numbers.

 

[homecanner1]

We awoke to 6 inches of snow here in Wisc, which is not unheard of for one last April squall, but we need some serious daytime warming now for the maple sap to rise and groundfrost to melt back. January was too mild, not enough snow but we don't want it in April~! I anticipate a cool, slow spring this year and am planning indoor herb garden for that reason to compensate and supplement greens in the diet. The younger fruit tree leaves all appeared to be showing some kind of Fukushima damage last year, maybe from the rainfall. Good year for kale and brussel sprouts if it stays chilly.

 

[LC]

Southern high p!wins wheat is in serious drought trouble. It is so bad that getting decent seed wheat this fall may be a problem. We are in serious trouble out here.

 

[Melodi]

If this were just Ireland, or even just the UK and Ireland I would not be that concerned but the weird, cold and wet weather is affecting the entire Northern Hemisphere just like it did during the early 14th century (and other time Minimum time periods).

On its own, you only have to look at the old farming annals of the 5th through 12 century (apx) to know that Irish "weather" can be anything; that is what happens when you live on an Island on the edge of the Atlantic that is further North than Nova Scotia; whose weather is determined by a combination of ocean currents (I call it "The Summer Isle Effect") the Jet Stream and Tradewinds from Africa (as well as Siberia and Scandinavia).

They clash, things get weird and you have years with no Winter, no Summer, really wet, really dry just about anything except really-really hot (80 to 85 is about tops and it is rare but does happen on occasion).

But ALL of Northern Europe is having weird weather as is most of the Northern Areas of North America and Asia; that isn't a good thing, especially because farmers can't just decide in the Spring to "plant something else," as the seed is already ordered and the fields supposed to be ready; when they are not, and it happens in too many places at once; shortages will happen at best and real hunger at worst.

 

[Red Baron]

Much below normal temperatures forecast over much of the U.S.

SE WI will have high's only in the 30's for the rest of this week. About 3 -4" inches of snow fell here yesterday.

Historically, we can get a hard frost well into the third or fourth week of May.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/threats/hazards_d3_7_contours.png

 

[Red Baron]

The last time fodder was imported in such circumstances was four years ago and on that occasion it required as much as 140,000 tonnes to address the shortage that had developed.

Timely transportation and distribution are going to be real issues.

Throwing money at an issue is easy for all governments.

Making a plan actually work, within budget, is very difficult for agencies that tend to bloat their staffs and drag out the time a project takes so they can exploit a crisis for maximum self benefit.

 

[Cardinal]

This, of course, assumes they can get the needed fodder from other areas. Prices?

Has anyone priced subtropical and tropical fruits, nuts, and spices lately?

A quarter pound [4 ounces] of real vanilla beans now cost US$160! Brazil nuts have doubled in price compared to last year.

The Grand Solar Minimum has affected weather planet wide. I wonder how the cold has treated the American winter wheat crop?

von Koehler

I noticed yesterday when I bought Vanilla extract from Walmart that the price had gone way up.

 

[von Koehler]

I noticed yesterday when I bought Vanilla extract from Walmart that the price had gone way up.

Was it real vanilla [made from beans] or artificial? I believe that most is from petroleum derived chemistry.

QUOTE:

The demand for vanilla flavoring has long exceeded the supply of vanilla beans. As of 2001, the annual demand for vanillin was 12,000 tons, but only 1,800 tons of natural vanillin were produced.[29] The remainder was produced by chemical synthesis. Vanillin was first synthesized from eugenol (found in oil of clove) in 1874–75, less than 20 years after it was first identified and isolated. Vanillin was commercially produced from eugenol until the 1920s.[30] Later it was synthesized from lignin-containing "brown liquor", a byproduct of the sulfite process for making wood pulp.[9] Counterintuitively, though it uses waste materials, the lignin process is no longer popular because of environmental concerns, and today most vanillin is produced from the petrochemical raw material guaiacol.[9] Several routes exist for synthesizing vanillin from guaiacol.[31]

At present, the most significant of these is the two-step process practiced by Rhodia since the 1970s, in which guaiacol (1) reacts with glyoxylic acid by electrophilic aromatic substitution.[32] The resulting vanillylmandelic acid (2) is then converted via 4-Hydroxy-3-methoxyphenylglyoxylic acid (3) to vanillin (4) by oxidative decarboxylation.[4]

UNQUOTE.

von Koehler

 

[Melodi]

The Irish response to just about any crises is: do nothing and hope it goes away then panic and overspend/react when it suddenly becomes a disaster.

That is happening right now with the homeless crises (long story but trust me on that one) and it happens in farming; when it comes to weather (or diseases) sometimes they do nothing; things become a mess and then they overreact the next time.

For a small country, you think they could learn better but they never do - and I have suspected for a number of years now that what the newspapers call an "Orish Solution" goes way-way back into the mists of history.

Near as I can tell an "Orish Solution" is mostly about ignoring something, then jury-rigging some sort of response like letting someone else deal with it.

Recent examples would be continuing to outlaw abortion under almost any circumstances but allow women to either travel to the UK and/or purchase technically illegal abortion pills through the mail.

Another example would be simply not bothering to update the quarantine laws on pet passports even after the EU wanted this to happen until the UK did, and then they still didn't bother (so you never knew if you pet would be OK coming in on a pet passport or not) until is started to affect the racing industry when horses started to become regulated.

People knew that if they came into Northern Ireland, they could just drive their pet across into the Republic without an issue, but if they flew in they might still face three months of expensive quarantines.

The farming issue is another that has been kicked down the road for nearly two generations now; as a lifestyle, it no longer generates enough income for most family to make it on the "open" market (with some exceptions) so the as a small Island nation, there will have to be a formal or informal decision as to continuing farming under some sort of subsidy (as a national food security issue) or going the way of a lot of other countries that have almost no local agriculture to speak of and depend nearly totally on imports.

The weather issues may just help speed up the actual forcing of such a decision rather than letting it simply slip away by default....

 

[Melodi]

Was it real vanilla [made from beans] or artificial? I believe that most is from petroleum derived chemistry.

von Koehler

Real vanilla is what is affected, I buy organic and it is way-way up; it happened a few years ago as well.

 

[von Koehler]

If this were just Ireland, or even just the UK and Ireland I would not be that concerned but the weird, cold and wet weather is affecting the entire Northern Hemisphere just like it did during the early 14th century (and other time Minimum time periods).

On its own, you only have to look at the old farming annals of the 5th through 12 century (apx) to know that Irish "weather" can be anything; that is what happens when you live on an Island on the edge of the Atlantic that is further North than Nova Scotia; whose weather is determined by a combination of ocean currents (I call it "The Summer Isle Effect") the Jet Stream and Tradewinds from Africa (as well as Siberia and Scandinavia).

They clash, things get weird and you have years with no Winter, no Summer, really wet, really dry just about anything except really-really hot (80 to 85 is about tops and it is rare but does happen on occasion).

But ALL of Northern Europe is having weird weather as is most of the Northern Areas of North America and Asia; that isn't a good thing, especially because farmers can't just decide in the Spring to "plant something else," as the seed is already ordered and the fields supposed to be ready; when they are not, and it happens in too many places at once; shortages will happen at best and real hunger at worst.

I think Melodi has has a good point. It's very understandable to focus on bitter cold and snow during Winter but the weather during growing season is what is crucial. The Southern hemisphere has been suffering through droughts, floods, erratic frosts; there have been hailstones of massive size dropping out of the sky.

This gives some indications for what is in store for the USA this summer.

von Koehler

 

[summerthyme]

Real vanilla is what is affected, I buy organic and it is way-way up; it happened a few years ago as well.

Yep, and I have 3# of vanilla beans vacuum sealed in the cellar! When rumors of crop problems began to surface 6 years ago or so, I decided to bite the bullet and stock up.

I paid $44 a pound at the time, and I thought that was outrageous!

Combined with some vodka or even a nice brandy, and we should be set for real vanilla flavoring for life!

Summerthyme

 

[summerthyme]

Annnnd... the power just went off. We went from 57 degrees with wind and rain to 34 degrees right now, hail, sleet, and snow so heavy at times visibility suffers. Wind gusting over 55 mph here in the hills. Lovely...

I've got plants under lights, an incubator full of eggs, and baby chicks in the mud room, sigh... guess we have to haul the generator out and get it running. And it's *miserable* out there!

Summerthyme

 

[von Koehler]

Interesting; I read an article claiming that if it wasn't for coal powered power plants, the New England power grid would have gone down under this Winter's demands.

Not a word on MSM about this.

von Koehler

 

[Melodi]

High of 48 today, predicted low of 24 with wind and heavy rain tomorrow; anything planted out that is cold or sensitive to freezing is now toast; I expect we may have to get more hay and/or horse nuts, but we only have one elderly horse whose mostly a pet.

He's an Icelandic and chooses to sleep outside beside his stable during the moonlit snow storm but he had a stable full of warm hay bales if he wanted them.

I think Spring Lamb is about to go way up in price; it got warm the last few days (by that I mean in the 40's) and a lot of farmers already let the penned up sheep to graze so they are no longer protected.

At least my handyman hadn't brought over his mare and foal yet to keep my elderly gelding company, or we'd be out there even now trying to get Momma and Baby into shelter.

 

[Displaced hillbilly]

MY mom in south western Ohio has had worse weather than us up in NH this year.

I heard from "ice age farmer", another great resource for the grand solar minimum that Australia has lost 70% of its wheat crop this year due to weather. There are big losses this year world wide. I'm waiting for prices to jump significantly.

 

[Melodi]

MY mom in south western Ohio has had worse weather than us up in NH this year.

I heard from "ice age farmer", another great resource for the grand solar minimum that Australia has lost 70% of its wheat crop this year due to weather. There are big losses this year world wide. I'm waiting for prices to jump significantly.

Thank you for the head's up, I may order extra organic bread flour; I still have some wheat from 1999 that so far is OK, I just keep not getting around to having someone with a better shoulder grind it for me.

 

[Windy Ridge]

Winter wheat can be killed by sub-zero weather if it is NOT covered by a nice snow blanket. This winter, in my area of Montana, It had a VERY thick blanket. It was so thick that it kept the ground unusually warm and when warmer weather came in March it melted on both the top and at ground level. Most was absorbed by the ground. If the weather continues to be moist the winter crop should be good.

Dryland hayfields might also have an unusually good yield. The spring wheat growers are going to be seeding their fields rather late but might still get a good crop. Montana weather is difficult to predict.

Windy Ridge

 

[Faroe]

We had a winter without a winter here in NM.

No precipitation, either, and the first scheduled ditch water last week was skimpy. Normally, we can flood the yard - we only got enough to dampen it. (I had to water some of the trees with a hose later, slipped in the mud, and badly sliced open my foot.) Temps already feeling like summer.

Not the direction I wanted this area to go for the GSM - hope it turns around.

 

[Stanb999]

Check my treads in the garden section. The info is available to have fresh veggies in nearly any season. Our tech is much better than the last starving time. If you do... It's on you. I will be posting a tread on a simple homestead greenhouse design that can withstand heavy winds and deep snow. The best part is it's cheap and will pay back in produce in a single crop cycle. I'm currently building three new ones so the post will include lots of pictures.

 

[Yogizorch]

Great!! Just sell Ireland the wheat and other commodities that China is going to put a tariff on.

 

[Melodi]

We had a winter without a winter here in NM.

No precipitation, either, and the first scheduled ditch water last week was skimpy. Normally, we can flood the yard - we only got enough to dampen it. (I had to water some of the trees with a hose later, slipped in the mud, and badly sliced open my foot.) Temps already feeling like summer.

Not the direction I wanted this area to go for the GSM - hope it turns around.

Actual Dates for official Maunder Minimum

1645 to 1715

And I found this:
Researchers Find Evidence Of 16th Century Epic Drought Over North America
Date:
February 8, 2000
Source:
University Of Arkansas
Summary:
A group of researchers who study tree ring records have found evidence of a "mega-drought" in the 16th century that wreaked havoc for decades in the lives of the early Spanish and English settlers and American Indians throughout Mexico and North America. A drought of these proportions in modern-day America could cause a catastrophe unless water resources are wisely conserved, a University of Arkansas researcher says.

However this dating from Wiki is more what I am going by which starts it out around 1300 (early 14th century) which is when the weather really goes to heck in Northern and Southern Europe; and things are so bad people though "God had left the earth to Satan" (that's a paraphrase from the book A Distant Mirror). I am looking but I think there was an earlier drought in the US South West that was around the same time period; you may have easier access to local records but I seem to recall a series of severe droughts and dry spells (with some wetter periods inbetween) from about 1300 to 1800.

From Wiki
It has been conventionally defined as a period extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries,[3][4][5] but some experts prefer an alternative timespan from about 1300[6] to about 1850.[7][8][9] Climatologists and historians working with local records no longer expect to agree on either the start or end dates of the period, which varied according to local conditions.

The NASA Earth Observatory notes three particularly cold intervals: one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850, all separated by intervals of slight warming.[5] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report considered the timing and areas affected by the Little Ice Age suggested largely-independent regional climate changes rather than a globally-synchronous increased glaciation. At most, there was modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during the period.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

 

[Melodi]

OK looks like the "Mega Drought" may have been during the previous warming period of the 9th through 12 centuries (especially the 12 century) and the other severe drought during the later period of the Maunder Minimum (16th century) so hopefully this was just a bad Non Winter/drought, not a super one but it is weird weather.

 

[Melodi]

Great!! Just sell Ireland the wheat and other commodities that China is going to put a tariff on.

Europe is really picky about North American crops; wheat is still imported but corn isn't very much, GMO's have to be labeled and people won't buy them (corn) and people are starting to realize how over-sprayed North American wheat is (which is why I try to always get Organic, I don't get sick).

If the US would switch back to non-GMO corn, sugar, and soybeans they could sell tons of grains back to Europe; as it is Romania of all places is now a hotbed of GMO-free and Organic agriculture (which over here means something, it takes five years to qualify for that label).

There is a lot of soy and corn imported for animal feed (which the public outside of rural areas usually doesn't realize) but the labels have kept it out of the people food chain except for the "American section" of the grocery store where it has labels on it and some parts of Southern Europe where people are too poor to really care.

 

[Stanb999]

OK looks like the "Mega Drought" may have been during the previous warming period of the 9th through 12 centuries (especially the 12 century) and the other severe drought during the later period of the Maunder Minimum (16th century) so hopefully this was just a bad Non Winter/drought, not a super one but it is weird weather.

The south west gets dry. Very dry. It's why the Pueblo Indians left their cliff dwellings. In fact anyone west of the Mississippi and east of the mountains are in for a rude awakening. People can't live on scrub brush alone. Nor can their cattle.

 

[Stanb999]

Europe is really picky about North American crops; wheat is still imported but corn isn't very much, GMO's have to be labeled and people won't buy them (corn) and people are starting to realize how over-sprayed North American wheat is (which is why I try to always get Organic, I don't get sick).

If the US would switch back to non-GMO corn, sugar, and soybeans they could sell tons of grains back to Europe; as it is Romania of all places is now a hotbed of GMO-free and Organic agriculture (which over here means something, it takes five years to qualify for that label).

There is a lot of soy and corn imported for animal feed (which the public outside of rural areas usually doesn't realize) but the labels have kept it out of the people food chain except for the "American section" of the grocery store where it has labels on it and some parts of Southern Europe where people are too poor to really care.

First world issue... Have you seen the pictures of the hungry Irish? Nice to be so prosperous. No?

 

[Melodi]

The south west gets dry. Very dry. It's why the Pueblo Indians left their cliff dwellings. In fact anyone west of the Mississippi and east of the mountains are in for a rude awakening. People can't live on scrub brush alone. Nor can their cattle.

I know I lived in Denver for six years and we had friends in New Mexico and Utah; but I couldn't remember the exact dates of the "Mega-Drought" that cause the Pueblo's to move etc and it looks like it was actually during the centuries just before the Little Ice Age in Europe, though the second drought was during a later stage of it.

 

[Stanb999]

I know I lived in Denver for six years and we had friends in New Mexico and Utah; but I couldn't remember the exact dates of the "Mega-Drought" that cause the Pueblo's to move etc and it looks like it was actually during the centuries just before the Little Ice Age in Europe, though the second drought was during a later stage of it.

If you look at the studies, it's been very wet in the last 200 years southwest. With nearly 2 times as much rain the last 1000 years. It's still very "wet".

P.S. Look at the pinion pine growth studies. They go back 2000 years.

 

[Faroe]

First world issue... Have you seen the pictures of the hungry Irish? Nice to be so prosperous. No?

Gluten intolerance is prevalent in Celtic genes, esp. those from Ireland. Not a First World problem when one's gut is destroyed, or one can't hold down a job because of being sick all the time. GMO, or no (and I think GMO's have exacerbated this problem for people in the US), for many in the UK, the wheat would be best fed to the chickens.

I don't know if Northern Europe has summer bugs like the black soldier fly, but cultivating them (and it is easy) outside can provide a useful amt. of feed for chickens.

 

[Faroe]

The south west gets dry. Very dry. It's why the Pueblo Indians left their cliff dwellings. In fact anyone west of the Mississippi and east of the mountains are in for a rude awakening. People can't live on scrub brush alone. Nor can their cattle.

I remember reading about the Hohokham and Anasazi (spell??), who seem to have just up and left all at once. Was hoping that the weather patterns might be different this time around. Ignorant and wishful thinking on my part. We are not attached to where we are - if further research proves discouraging, BF could be easily persuaded to move while there is still some time.

 

[WalknTrot]

What usually works best for emergency feed here in the U.S. is farmer to farmer. The farmers in regions who have hay arrange shipment to those who don't. Keeping the .gov out of the picture helps. Of course, the U.S. land-base is so much larger, there is almost always some area here who got a huge crop and can help out somebody a couple of states away. It's arranging transport that's the kicker, but communication is so much better these days, so people can co-ordinate. Also, the auction houses from afflicted areas will send trucks off to regions with a surplus. I've sold hay to truckers several years when there was a shortage out west.

Gads - the weather is surely confounding. I took off to Iowa early this morning to a spring draft horse and carriage sale. Apparently S. Minnesota and N.Iowa got a good snow/ice storm last night that scooted south of here. As I was driving down at 0-dark-thirty (about 3:30am) I watched the temp drop from about 20 up North, to around 5 degrees in Iowa. And turns out, they had more snow than we do at home. Ack. I made the trip partially in search of spring...!!

 

[Stanb999]

Gluten intolerance is prevalent in Celtic genes, esp. those from Ireland. Not a First World problem when one's gut is destroyed, or one can't hold down a job because of being sick all the time. GMO, or no (and I think GMO's have exacerbated this problem for people in the US), for many in the UK, the wheat would be best fed to the chickens.

I don't know if Northern Europe has summer bugs like the black soldier fly, but cultivating them (and it is easy) outside can provide a useful amt. of feed for chickens.

For most picking a non gmo is a first world issue. As far as gluten. Wheat isn't GMO... Corn yes. Wheat No.

 

[summerthyme]

Gluten intolerance is prevalent in Celtic genes, esp. those from Ireland. Not a First World problem when one's gut is destroyed, or one can't hold down a job because of being sick all the time. GMO, or no (and I think GMO's have exacerbated this problem for people in the US), for many in the UK, the wheat would be best fed to the chickens.

I don't know if Northern Europe has summer bugs like the black soldier fly, but cultivating them (and it is easy) outside can provide a useful amt. of feed for chickens.

Actually, Melodi's issue seems to be glyphosate intolerance, thanks to the ubiquitous (and stupid, although I do understand the financial pressures and incentives which drives it) spraying of the chemical on ripe grain crops in the US to spied uniform drydown of the grain. They're using it on dry beans too.

And given the dire label warnings I remember clearly from when it was introduced ( I was a licensed pesticide applicator at the time) which forbade spraying it anywhere near food crops, and which required an 18 month waiting period before planting potatoes or other root crops in a field which had been sprayed with glyohosate, the current practice of indiscriminately spraying it directly on ripening food crops which are not washed (can't be, in many cases) before grinding or preparing for eating boggles my mind.

I absolutely believe that the current "epidemic" of "gluten intolerance" (much of which can't be confirmed with medical tests for celiac disease) is instead chronic, low level poisoning by glyohosate.

I absolutely will admit that even those who struggle with the symptoms may end up having to choose between starving or eating "poisoned" grain, if they don't have the ability to grow their own, or if they haven't prepped in advance by storing clean grains, because this Grand Solar Minimum will make it ever more difficult to grow many grains to full, dry maturity in shorter, wetter and possibly colder summers, and natural gas and propane which might be used to dry the crop may be needed to keep people from freezing to death.

Summerthyme

 

[von Koehler]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5GotmgsenY&feature=push-u-sub&attr_tag=LF8qabZQTzTfpDqh-6

10:32 minutes

Synopsis: world-wide effects of GSM on food production, and mentions Irish fodder problem.

von Koehler

 

[Melodi]

Sidenote: Ireland does have a population full of people with ACTUAL gluten intolerance (genetic drift when for 500 years potatoes are the main carb/food for the majority of people) but Summetyme is right that isn't my problem; and given what happen (was/is happening) when I was in the USA and to many people I know; the problem for me is glyphosate intolerance.

I've written before how I got horribly sick after about 3 days in the US with symptoms that mimic celiac disease pretty well and/or as my husband said "acted exactly like a slow poison if you came into the clinic with them."

After 24 to 48 hours of eating mostly organic food (including wheat) they went away; if I had stayed in the US I would be "sure" like a lot of my friends believe, that I had suddenly become allergic to wheat but I can eat organic home-made bread until the cows come home with no issues; but these days with a lot of imported sprayed wheat coming in from Canada there are only some things I can still buy at the grocery store, it is a crapshoot.

This isn't about spraying a bit to get thick weeds out of your garden or even regular spraying during plant growth the "new" method in the US and Canada which has grains and beans sprayed directly BEFORE harvest to "dry" them out.

Even though if you buy the stuff at the garden center the label says "do not use two weeks before harvesting foods for human or animal consumption," ....

Anyway, that's a side note as for GMO's being a "First World Problem" you could argue that (although increasingly third world countries are banning them because of costs and they don't perform for their small scales farmers as promised) but it is an export/consumer problem for the USA if they want new markets.

Europeans for the most part, won't buy them and they won't eat them; the same companies that insist they can't afford "not" to use them or label make the same cereals and provide labels over here; I've actually had American friends shocked thinking "their food" back home doesn't have any GMO's because it "isn't on the label." I'd find that level of ignorance stunning except it shows the MSM propaganda on the topic is working.

Be that as it may, Europeans won't buy it so companies are not going to buy it either; farmers who can provide non GMO corn, soybeans etc will do much better in THIS market; the spraying issue hasn't caught consumer attention here yet (much) it just gets hidden by the whole "gluten-free" gravy train and of course if a person does that, they are much less likely to have a reaction (but they pay premium prices for their food).

Back to the main topic, the weather was 24 degrees last night and expected to hit 50 this afternoon with washout rain warnings for this evening; I'm off to a shopping trip in another area hopefully before things get too wet.

Farmers here do help each other out but it is a small Island and this year, no one has hay to share around...that is why it has to come from elsewhere; if the world went boom, we'd be eating a lot of meat for a few weeks, followed by nothing (except salted beef and lamb) for a couple of years.