tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33244618.post9182158867423520943..comments2023-12-16T00:39:47.007-08:00Comments on Lassie, Get Help: Noted - good eats, good readsLuisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04042236324318156854noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33244618.post-320079228480756472007-08-14T20:52:00.000-07:002007-08-14T20:52:00.000-07:00Bill, thanks for UK/NZ reality check.Mediterranean...Bill, thanks for UK/NZ reality check.<BR/><BR/>Mediterranean rather than desert climate where I live, but that's a moot point, since my sheep aren't out grazing on the [sparse in summer] hillsides. And no grazing the farm pastures in winter, either, with the drought we've been having. <BR/><BR/>Big commercial flocks used to be common on the mesas and in the canyons, but you don't see those flocks around here now: a lot of the open space has been converted to housing tracts, dammit. Guess I'll have to start trading carbon credits.Luisahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04042236324318156854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33244618.post-24452970175211240102007-08-14T14:57:00.000-07:002007-08-14T14:57:00.000-07:00Hi Luisa,I'd want to run that claim about Britian'...Hi Luisa,<BR/><BR/>I'd want to run that claim about Britian's poor pastures through the BS detector. Five or 10 years ago, the UK's pastures were certainly overstocked -- a problem being gradually corrected as per-head subsidies are replaced by per-acre subsidies -- but the quality of feed on them rivals anything in New Zealand. At least if you compare the sheep producing ground in both nations. As with agriculature everywhere, the dairy cows get the really good ground.<BR/><BR/>With so many claims about carbon being thrown around, I think it's going to start to be important to look at underlying assumptions and statistics that go into these claims. Sheep in New Zealand are fed in both pasture and feedlots; the same is true in the UK.<BR/><BR/>But the point about growing food close to home if it can't really be grown close to home without lots of inputs is a valid one; the lamb you produce has not only the carbon of their burps and berries to account for, but that of the tractors that tilled the land that grew your alfalfa, those that harvested it, and the truck that brought it to your desert climate. Not to mention that you're buying it from a desert that is irrigated, which means a larger environmental impact than lambs raised in climates more hospitable to grassland ruminants.Bill Fosherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14187927183252273258noreply@blogger.com