Farming next to the big boys

Two days, two farms. The largest first ‘El Descanso’ 12,000 acres - a mere minnow compared to it’s neighbour ‘La Catalina’ a 100,000 acre farm. These land masses all in one lump are so hard to get your head around – ‘’it goes on for 10km in that direction, and 5 in that’’ I won’t even try!

El Descanso has the few (250) suckler cattle that the farm owns. All the land would once have been cattle land, the fund have removed all the fences on the farms – the only signs remaining of the cattle are the massive water tanks and troughs that stand at the corner of four fields. The boundaries are now dictated by soil type and rotations by what crops they can grow on the soil types.

At the main holding we saw a contractor waiting to start soyabean seeding. A 10m drill with only a 220hp tractor on the front – such a low requirement because of both the topography and the extremely shallow depth the machine is working at.

Neither of these farms had irrigation with El Descanso receiving 950mm of rain a year.
The farms don’t have tramlines as they stop running through the crop at any early stage (because of the roundup and few fungicides programme). The contractors use GPS for the early spray and fertiliser applications and the crop can close back over and compensate later. Wheat is the exception –non GM and sprayed later so tram lining may come in here in time.

GM soyabean is the key to the system here. It is a legume – so fixing N. It’s roundup ready – so cleans weeds out. It’s a short growing season – so 3 crops in 2 years. It’ll grow in very poor soil types. In rotation with conventional wheat, and triple stacked GM corn and the possibilities of sunflower, linseed, lucerne… the system –the rotation works. Crops that encourage plenty of soil life and trash return that acts as moisture saving mulch, crops with excellent financial returns (without yields like ours).

Argentina has turned my perspective on GM – a bit. The system the US are using is frightening and extremely unsustainable – here in Argentina it is a well placed tool. If we could just have roundup ready OSR my god life would be different. Just one total cleaning crop, in conjunction with conventional cropping to ‘save’ the soil life.

We have been extremley fortunate during our stay to sample the beef from the farm on both nights. The first cooked for us by their Gaucho on a traditional barbeque and the second with a simple pasta dish which was absolutely to die for - bigger clothes are going to be needed all round! We can't establish what they do to their beef over here but it is by far the best I have ever tasted in the world - accompanied off course by copious amounts of Malbec red wine.

We've learnt so many things over these three days about so many aspects of farming and business I can't begin to list them all. The main themes, people, education and drive. I know this trip will have a huge effect on me and the way I farm / run my business. So about 1400km's later, a ridiculous number of empty bottles, copious mossy bites and three road kill dogs (observed), it's back to Buenos Aires now and reality -firstly in the shape of a youth hostel, secondly in the shape of burger and chips for tea, thirdly in the shape of booking a 20hour bus journey!

All aboard RyanAir

Today saw the culmination of a trip I have been planning for over eight months -to Jim McCarthy's farm. We are not being lucky enough just to see one farm however! Last niht before Jim flew he rung us to say, guys hire a car -so we did, well we tried when we turned up it transpired my hiring on a Spanish website hadn't gone so well, hey ho it was OK. We have by now met up with Julian Hughes an Irish scholar and his partner Val, so we packed the four of us and all of our luggage into a Peugot 207 -at least we had air con this time!

(above - rice in the newly contoured fields)

We got to Jims office in Buenos Aires and sitting on the step had to be an Aussie - shades on, tanned and brown R. M. Wiliams. - Murray, and he was to join us with Jim. 5 minutes later a very pastey looking gentleman approaches who Julian immediately greets - Thomas an irish Nuffield, also joining the tour, and last but by no means least a taxi arrives and out jumps the ever charismatic irishman, Mr Jim McCarthy.

Quick change of clothes for Jim, tour of his office for us and on the road to farm number one. We will be visiting 3 in 3 days, several hundred miles apart. The farm is 3000ha and immaculate. Growing soyabeans, maize, wheat and now rice in rotation the farm has recently been contoured (gently graded with the natural slopes) to allow water management primarily for the rice but also the soyabeans. The maize is mostly centre point irrigated. No livestock which is unusual for Argentina. They are generally achieving three crops every two years with warmth, sunshine and adequate water this place appears to be 'the' perfect farm. Jim has an excellent manager - Hogey who's job it is to organise the running of the farm. They own only two tractors -all operations are carried out by specialist contractors. A central database allows information to move between Buenos aires, the investors and the farms.

The soil was fantastic. About 1.5m of topsoil, a little phosphate deficient with about 3% OM. Everything (Julian and I check out the rooting)

was direct drilled to combat wind and water erosion

(when it rains it really lets rip) and in fairness we didn't see and signs of compaction except for the occasional headland. GM maize and soyabean in the rotation is obviously a help for now but we will see how it affects them in the future. -This is a very much more sustainable use of GM than I saw in the states.

South Ameri Belli

Top tip whenst travelling South America –don’t eat it unless a) it’s been cooked, b) you were really looking to lose weight on a god awful diet or c) you have a constitution to match my very fortunate husbands! Enough said on that subject today except to say that looking round farms in the sun didn’t help –to pass out or not to pass out that was the question!

Anyway, we have seen plenty of gaucho’s now –Luke doesn’t have to stop to look at everyone anymore and we’ve even seen a lady gaucho –not sure of the correct terminology? We’ve visited a feed mill, where the grain from the south is bagged for cattle feed for the centre of the country.
The north is largely sustainable forests which are used to feed their industry. -They seem to have a very sustainable set up where internal trade is key. The arable lands of the south rotate around wheat which is min tilled in -quite mixed really, soyabeans, drilled direct into wheat stubbles and maize where cattle feature, there are also oats and barley grown in some localities as beer and whiskey are big!

The arable farmers biggest problems are wild oats and flooding -which can cause some significant soil erosion. Spraying here is a relaxed affair! -this pick up is full of full maize fungicide and starane just filling up at the pumps!

We have seen trials of a Dow wild oat product out here which has resulted in clean wheat fields -they seem to wait for the roundup in the rotation to deal with them.

Farming is clearly important to this country, over breakfast yesterday there was a TV channel on dedicated to showing footage of the cattle lots to go through the market. There is also an agri TV channel-which I know many countries have and the best communitcation system I have left till last!

Yes that is a car battery

he is sitting on! Only wish we knew what he was saying!

We return our independance tomorow (non air con'd, non power steering, non central locking, not even a clock!) basic and reliable car and return to Buenos Aires to meet a 'fixer' for some more farm visits and hopefully Mr McCarthy.

p.s. sorry to hear it's so cold at home, 30 today! (won't be laughing in Brasil I feel!).

Montevideo, Uruguay... or is it?

We decided to take a trip over to Uruguay for a few days to see some agriculture -it's close to Buenos Aires -just a ferry ride away and the roads are good so hiring a car and having a drive round seemed a good idea. Task 1, check out of hotel without them finding out Luke washed his feet in the sink, the whole thing fell off the wall and water had been flooding throught the room since last night -accomplished -I did sugest to the Hotelier in my pigeon spanish that 'the sink is leaking' which may have been a slight underestimation! Task 2- find ferry port -accomplished, un-eventful. Task 3 -get ferry tickets, get on ferry, arrive in Montevideo - accomplised. Task 4- hire car... all seemed to be going well, we had the keys in our hands and then on parting we said so we're returning it to Colonia? 10 minutes more dodgy and confused Spanglish later and we discovered we were in Colonia already, not Montevideo where we thought we were! (?) -and we thought the language barrier had not been too bad -how wrong we were!

No harm done, they're not too far apart so we set off on the left, no the right, no left, no definitly right side of the road. We have driven about 200kms to Trinidad, passing 'Fray Bentos' and 'Mercedes' on the way (I wonder if they dreamed these place names up whilst watching only fools and horses?). We've had a few good stops on the way, one with a 'second'? hand machinery dealer who is kean for us to help him export old tractors from the UK and the second with a farmer who had just started cutting his wheat at 'tooth breaking %'.

There's been lots of dairy farming, various herd sizes from 2-200, a lot of wheat and oats grown, some barley and plenty of forage. Soyabeans just going in to the wheat stubbles and we've just started to come through beef cattle country. We hope to head up to obne of the worlds largest hydrodam's tomorrow.

I've saved the best for last -we've seen real life Gaucho's along the road, complete with thick sheep skin rugs on their saddles and some really beautiful horses! -very exciting.

Bag? - check!, Luke?..erm... Luke?

When I was packing I was careful to follow Aussie Nuffields advice and mix the bags up a bit so if one got lost on route Luke and I would still have some clothes etc each. What I didn’t bank on was my bag coming through to Buenos Aires… but not my husband! –I had to book him a last minute flight after my original travel partner dropped out at last minute –so Luke was flying via Frankfurt to Buenos Aires, however a delayed flight at Heathrow set it all into a spin.

So my main reason for wanting to arrive in South America with someone went down the pan and I found myself at Buenos Aires airport with no money, hotel, transport etc after all. However my concerns were unjustified – if you’ve landed in Johannesburg, Buenos Aires looks like toy town – no hawkers, no whistling, no staring, just an empty cash machine and some very helpful, welcoming people.

So I found a hotel the ‘Grand Hotel Espana’ and headed off on the random bus system (maybe makes more sense if you speak Spanish?) into town and then sat about at the bus station waiting for the ‘conductor of operations’ to forward me on to my chosen hotel. So two and a half hours after arriving I check into my hotel which reminds me of the hotel we stayed in on our school trip to the Isle of Wight in 1991, but it’s clean and quite spacious.

After freshening up (16hours on a plane) I ventured into town, very cautiously –following all the travel guide, friends and families advice –no flashy jewellery, no phone or camera (that’s in Lukes bag) on show, virtually no money on me and my cash card (still in need or Argentinian bargaining currency) wedged in my pocket, firmly under my hand –I decided the long list of rules about carrying bags meant it was simplest not to bother.

Trip 1-Ok on the whole, checking into the secure bank area to use the cash machine was daunting, had a lovely meal where the waiters were very friendly –eating out on your own seems perfectly normal here, even on a Saturday - the only phasing bit was the group of youths sitting drinking in a pile of cardboard boxes –I crossed the street – probably just being a wimp but I did have £80 -400 pesos wedged down my bra by this point! –Surely when you get mugged that’s a safe place? Anyway didn’t stay out late as I was already brimming with that self pride you get when you’ve negotiated basic everyday tasks in a language you don’t speak and the travelling had left me very sleepy.

354 days of sweating

Just got back at the weekend from the Nuffield 2010 conference in Edinburgh to check out the 2009 scholars making their presentations of their papers and wow the standard was high - spent the whole two days panicking about the dogs dinner I'm going to make of mine next year -but I'll be Ok I've been promised by my BOGS sponsors -they'll be there with 'we're sponsoring Jo' T-shirts and score cards so nothing to worry about there then!

A mostly varied conference -bar the first day which was 'dairy day' - I stopped being able to find useful, transferable messages after about the third milkman to address us - with the best will in the world death by dairy is nothing but slow and boring. -Sorry dairy boys you're going to have to work harder than that to keep the audience awake. The variety included a paper on the effect of cropping on the moon - not the first time I have come across this phenomenon, however a lack of real farm data let this scholar down. The winner of bestest presentation went to a thoroughly deserved wind turbine enthusiast -if he can convince a whole community to get on board with a turbine then a room full of scholars must have been a walk in the park!

So back home to the wild winds and rain -not a very inspiring week, however plenty to do as a pick up was stolen two nights ago, we have a new employee start today, grain flying out the door, dad on holiday for two weeks, a whole company to change trading title, flights to book, injections to get to mention a few -all so I can depart in three weeks - really only three weeks S**t better get going!