Sue Lord is a Norfolk based agronomist with an
interest in environmental schemes as well as mainstream farming.
She kindly agreed to talk to the non
farmers amongst us at ‘Walk The Pork’ about the topology of land in The Brecks
and also briefly explain the benefits of outdoor pig farming to the area.
Fen Farm has a typical Brecks soil type of
sand over chalk. With light land and no irrigation anything that will improve
soil quality is a bonus and as such pigs are an important part of the crop
rotation on this 150 acre farm.
Rob rents about a third of the farm on a
two year rotation which means the pigs are moved onto a different bit of land
on the farm every two years. The pigs usually follow a cereal crop and are
succeeded by fodder beet.
Growing
some form of beet on land recently vacated by pigs is quite common in The Breck
as it means that the amount of nitrogen input (fertilizer) required is reduced. The soil fertility is greatly improved by
rotted pig muck as well as the housing straw which is spread onto the land and
helps to increase organic matter in the soil. This is a great improvement to
Breckland soil which is naturally very low in organic matter. Having a high
organic matter is important on all farms as it improves the water holding capacity
of the soil & so improves drought tolerance – on Fen Farm it is even more
so as there are no irrigation facilities.
Organic matter also improves the general health of the soil by increasing
friendly microbes & so enhancing the soil ecosystem.
So the pigs in the rotation improve the
quality of the soil which increases crop yields and at a lower production cost
through the reduced fertilizer use. Nitrogen fertilizer is one of the largest
input costs because it comes from oil; it is also a big contributor to
greenhouse gases. Reducing the use of nitrogen is beneficial to the farm’s
profitability & reduces its carbon footprint.
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