Cycling at work

I saw on television awhile ago an advertisement* stating that the livestock industry (cattle, sheep, goats) is the third largest producer (13% of the total) of global warming gases in Australia. I wont dispute that animals produce methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) so they are inevitably part of the problem. I also wont argue with those that say that animals drink water!

What does irritate me is that the sheep on Daramalan have only the water that falls as rain and eat only grass from the property and are given no supplemental feed nor are they kept in large sheds and factory farmed. Grass fed lamb and wool if you like.

The advertisement made it sound as if farm animals (somehow) produce CH4 and CO2 from nothing. In fact they are doing it from (thin) air!! Farm animals are part of the Carbon cycle as carbon is continually cycled from the atmosphere, through the grass the animal eats, through the animal itself and then back into the atmosphere. What goes in goes back out and I accept that they contribute in some small way to global warming issues.

One might even stretch the truth and say that animals are a short term carbon sink as carbon is locked up in the biomass and as the animals reproduce so the carbon sink’s longevity is increased. Not quite on a (tax free) woodlot investment scale where one thirteen year woodlot sequesters 400mt/ha CO2 equivalent to running a car for 100 years.

Atmospheric methane levels are now indisputably higher than ever before. Ice core data indicates that from year 1000 until 1850, the start of the Industrial Revolution, methane levels were fairly stable at 320-790 parts per billion. Since 1850 however, levels have risen sharply to 1732 ppb in the early 1990s and 1774 ppb in 2005.

There is no question that ruminant animal agribusiness does produce methane but to routinely blame it for the whole problem is misleading. Industry and cars are much more to blame. I will have more comments on the Emission Trading Scheme and the whole debate but will save them for a later date. At least until the politicians have some coherent strategy and policy!!

I have asked all the sheep in our flock to breathe half as often to help reduce their carbon emissions. If only the politicians could do the same....

*The advertisement was based on CSIRO research :http://www.climatechange.gov.au/agriculture/publications/pubs/methane_emissions.pdf

Shearing Tales...

Just like with taxation a statesman shears sheep and a politician skins them. Whether it is a bush ballad, Banjo Paterson or Tom Robert’s art, shearing is part of Aussie folklore and psyche.

In mid September we sheared our 490 first cross ewes – 7 bales of Daramalan branded AAA FX, 2 of AAA BKN (broken) and one of dirty bits and pieces – and the 89 Sylvia Vale rams that will be sold in December. The ewes took two shearers (admittedly Boozer and T-Bone were gold medalists at Condobolin Show) ten hours and the rams took Butch (no mean shearer himself) two days.

The artist Tom Roberts described shearing as “noble and worthy enough if I could express its meaning and spirit”. He enjoyed the “quick running..subdued hum of fast working… the rhythmic click..lit warm with the reflection of the Australian sunlight”.

There is an amazing feeling of mateship in the shed and I can identify with the feeling of rhythm as shorn fleeces fly onto the table, are sorted and cleaned, thrown to the bins and then pressed into 180kilogram bales. It’s hard work and high energy but really worthwhile and demands full participation.

My favourite shearing tale (that I can tell here) is of the shearer who bet a city visitor to the shed that he could shear a sheep blindfolded. Bet taken the shearer tied an old cloth around the sheep’s eyes and sheared it. Later, just to prove the point, the shearer did shear a sheep with the blindfold on him.

So, here are some figures from the Daramalan shed this year. At $2.35 a sheep it will take 14 years for our shearers to make their next million. At 3 metres from the catching pen to the stand each shearer will have walked about 1500 kilometres on their trip to a million bucks. That’s near enough the distance from Sydney to Adelaide and half of that is walking backwards with a 60 kilogram sheep in your hands. A shearer will have lifted 26,000 MT and 430,000 sheep, which if put end to end would stretch 400 km or Sydney to Dubbo. Of the 14 years the shearer will have spent about 8 of them bent double with shears in hand. No wonder they do such an amazing and skilled job!!

(The first image is the Tom Robert's Shearing the Rams from the National Gallery of Victoria collection. The second is of Butch shearing a Sylvia Vale ram and the third and last is an oil by Roy Dalgarno - amazing similarities!)

The Butterfly Effect

No, not Pernille Rygg’s disturbing and unconventional detective novel set in modern day Oslo but the equally fascinating effects of chaos theory. The suggestion is that an Amazonian butterfly flapping its wings causes a chain reaction of vibrating molecules that eventuates in the Indian monsoon arriving late. It’s what makes weather forecasting so difficult on a daily basis and long term predictions an arcane and dark art.

Recently, researchers at Purdue University have put forward an interesting new proposition that suggests if it’s already raining then it’s going to pour and if it is dry then it will probably stay that way.

The scientists analysed 30 years of Indian monsoon data showing that levels of ground moisture where the ocean originating storm makes landfall is a major indicator of how the storm will behave and where the rain will fall. If the ground is wet the storm is likely to sustain and if the ground is dry ten the storm will calm and subsequently fizzle (a technical term apparently) out.

Sounds too simple but their model’s predictions were proven when compared to the 125 actual Indian monsoon events over the 33 years studied.

Perhaps we need to flood everything east of the Dividing Ranges to 500 metres above sea level to guarantee rain at Daramalan? Then I could buy that boat I have always wanted to get to the farmhouse.

A nice cup of tea

Recently I have been researching some alternative crops to trial at Daramalan to try and diversify a little. We don’t have enough land or the perfect climate to plant wheat or barley commercially so have been looking in left field as it were. We will plant Lucerne in the River paddock for finishing the sheep and will continue with Graza oats and turnips in the eastern boundary paddocks.

One obvious contender is garlic and more on that later. Others are in the alternative grains – amaranth, buckwheat and quinoa, particularly if they are grown organically. Finally, the drink of many nations - tea. We are perhaps too far south for commercial production yields but at 800 metres above sea level it is possible to grow enough for ourselves and some left over. There are viable producers on the NSW Central coast where conditions are similar to the Shizuoka region in Japan.

Tea, Camellia sinensis, is full of antioxidants, cancer busting polyphenols and metabolism boosting agents. Tea can help to promote health, fight stress, lose weight and prevent ageing.

Daily cups of tea can help you recover more quickly from the stresses of everyday life, according to a study by UCL (University College London) researchers, which found that people who drank tea were able to de-stress more quickly than those who drank a fake tea substitute. The tea drinkers were found to have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their blood after a stressful event, compared with a control group who drank the fake or placebo tea for the same period of time.

Both groups were subjected to challenging tasks, while their cortisol, blood pressure, blood platelet and self-rated levels of stress were measured. In one task, volunteers were exposed to one of three stressful situations (threat of unemployment, a shop lifting accusation or an incident in a nursing home), where they had to prepare a verbal response and argue their case in front of a camera.

The tasks triggered substantial increases in blood pressure, heart rate and subjective stress ratings in both of the groups. In other words, similar stress levels were induced in both groups. However, 50 minutes after the task, cortisol levels had dropped by an average of 47 per cent in the tea-drinking group compared with 27 per cent in the fake tea group.

UCL researchers also found that blood platelet activation – linked to blood clotting and the risk of heart attacks – was lower in the tea drinkers, and that this group reported a greater degree of relaxation in the recovery period after the task.

Professor Andrew Steptoe, UCL Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, says: “We do not know what ingredients of tea were responsible for these effects on stress recovery and relaxation. Tea is chemically very complex, with many different ingredients. Ingredients such as catechins, polyphenols, flavonoids and amino acids have been found to have effects on neurotransmitters in the brain, but we cannot tell from this research which ones produced the differences.

“Nevertheless, our study suggests that drinking black tea may speed up our recovery from the daily stresses in life. Although it does not appear to reduce the actual levels of stress we experience, tea does seem to have a greater effect in bringing stress hormone levels back to normal. This has important health implications, because slow recovery following acute stress has been associated with a greater risk of chronic illnesses such as coronary heart disease.”

Black tea is good, green tea better and white tea best of all. A Chinese herb, jiao gu lau, is also said to promote longevity and help lose weight. Another Chinese brew, kombochu, made from fermented sweetened black and green tea is packed with antioxidants and is a great detox tea. Herbal teas like chamomile, lemon balm, dandelion, peppermint, rosehip, ginseng and rooibos can all help distress and enhance sleep.

Whatever your brew a regular intake will help. I’ll just go and pick some leaves from the house paddock while you put the kettle on..