Info, news & debate
Food
Feeding the Human Power Plant: can calories be carbon-neutral?
We take a look at the food it may take to fuel the great Human Power Plant, an experiment in the making where students of Utrecht University in the Netherlands will power their very own carbon-neutral accommodation block.
Want to help set up a community-supported agriculture scheme, Jan-Apr, and stay in a yurt next to a river?
Are you feeling like you need a change of scenery for a little while? Feel like you would like to be out in the countryside more? Well how about staying in a cosy yurt with a log burner by the river Avon
The Ecological Land Co-op are currently recruiting for two new roles
The Ecological Land Cooperative (ELC) is a social enterprise based in Brighton, East Sussex. They exist to create affordable access to land for new entrants to ecological agriculture and mixed farming.
Cow-calf dairying part 7: introducing milking without the calf suckling
When a lamb or calf suckles, they bunt their mum’s udder with their heads to stimulate release of more milk. If you are share-milking, as a calf grows this bunting can quickly become so strong that it can easily knock the cluster off the other three teats.
It can’t possibly be a bad thing to live in the wild and to harvest both plants and animals for food – can it?
A group of us are attempting to have a debate about the sustainability of meat production, but I’ve realised that our differences are much deeper.
Does the sustainability of meat production depend on the size of a holding and the number of animals kept on it?
I want to investigate at what size meat production becomes unsustainable (in terms of acreage, number of animals etc.) – i.e. whether it can be sustainable at all, and if so, whether there’s an upper limit, above which it can’t be sustainable
Cow-calf dairying part 6: share milking
I have found that the first few days after a heifer has calved are critical when it comes to creating a positive association with feeding her calf and being milked by machine.
GM is about corporate control of our food, not ‘feeding the world’: learn more at an event this saturday
Are you eating GM food? The fact that you are mostly* not is down to 20 years of inspiring direct action and pressure by anti-GM activists.
Join our new online community Living Low Impact
We’re excited to introduce our new Facebook group Living Low Impact – and you’re invited!
Cow-calf dairying part 5: creating a bond and first milking
This is where we get to the nitty-gritty of cow-calf dairying, looking at creating a bond and the first milking; but it’s important that you have understood the whole series so far (see right or click here) before reading on, as much of what is covered here relates to points made before.
Cow-calf dairying part 4: udder development
Welcome to part 4 of this series on cow-calf dairying, focusing on udder development. By now you will be starting to understand that keeping calves on dairy cows is a fine art; that it is a case of balancing the emotional and physical needs of both cow and calf; and why there are no set …
Cow-calf dairying part 3: calf rumen development
Here, in part 3 of our series on dairying without removing calves from their mothers, we look at the importance of managing a calf’s nutrition in order to support the effective calf rumen development, essential to her long-term health and productivity.
Omelettes, sticky ribs and Scotch eggs at the Midlands vegan festival next weekend
The 10th annual West Midlands Vegan Festival is set to be a feast for your palette as well as your eyes. Taking place in Wolverhampton on 28th and 29th October, the event will feature a wide range of global vegan foods, the latest innovations in alternatives for dairy lovers plus the hottest vegan fashion, footwear …
Is it ethical to eat meat, or to keep animals for meat or dairy?
This is a very important question for us here at Lowimpact.org, because we have courses, books, magazines, links etc on keeping animals and on game. We also have vegetarianism and veganism as topics – because we recognise the environmental benefits of eating less meat.
A natural building bookshelf with Jeffrey the Natural Builder
In this post, Jeffrey the Natural Builder shares his top reading recommendations based on an original natural building books post on his blog. It’s over to him from here. Please note that this article contains affiliate links to bookshop.org – if you purchase we receive a small percentage. Thanks!
Cow-calf dairying part 2: how cows produce and give milk, and why they need their calves
In this second post in the series from the Smiling Tree cow-calf dairy we focus on how milk is synthesised and, importantly for cow-calf dairying, what triggers the release or ‘let down’ process.
Cow-calf dairying part 1: the difference between conventional and humanely-produced milk
This is the first in a series of articles looking at the practicalities of producing ethical, cruelty-free milk by allowing dairy cows to keep their calves. In this post we cover why conventional dairy cows don’t keep their calves and why humanely-produced milk using cow-calf dairying is rare and costs much more to produce.
The Trump administration is going to attack us if we try to restrict the imports of US genetically-modified food in any way
Linda Kaucher of Stop TTIP UK recently alerted us to the fact that the US government is determined to go into battle with any country that tries to restrict imports of its genetically-modified food.
Should we be reliant on cheap foreign labour to work on our farms, or is there a better way to feed ourselves?
Recently The Guardian ran an article by John Harris called “They say after Brexit there’ll be food rotting in the fields. It’s already started.” To summarise, John is saying Brexit has made the UK look an unfriendly place to our European neighbours and with the increasing financial fortunes of eastern European nations, farm workers are …
So you want to be a farmer? Thirteen words of wisdom from me to myself
In this post based on an original at Small Farm Future, farmer Chris Smaje relates words of wisdom curated as part of a talk he gave at the Oxford Real Farming Conference in 2016.