Organic Dairy Farming

The technical guide addresses the issues relevant to the organic dairy sector sector, acknowledging the questions that are frequently directed to the technical ‘Helpline’ of Organic Centre Wales. It is intended as a guide document for those with an interest in organic dairy production and points the way to those who wish to look in greater depth at the issues raised. This guide is in three interrelated parts. The first part, written principally by Richard Weller of IGER, deals primarily with technical issues of grassland and dairy herd management, and provides practical information for dairy farmers on key factors influencing the performance of the system and also provides options for changing to alternative strategies. It draws heavily on studies at carried out at IGER’s organic dairy farm, Ty Gwyn, which have been conducted over a number of years and funded by a number of awards. Ty Gwyn is a Farming Connect Organic Development Farm and is frequently used to demonstrate good practice. Part 2 is a review of the financial performance of dairy farming in Wales is provided by Andrew Jackson, of the Institute of Rural Sciences, University of Wales Aberystwyth. It is based mainly on two DEFRA funded studies: • Data for organic farms extracted from the main Farm Business Survey in Wales • A four year project focusing specifically on organic farms, drawing on all Farm Business Survey data collected for organic farms across England and Wales as well as independently collected data. From these data, it is possible to derive whole farm income data, gross margin and cost of production data to give an overview of the economics of organic dairy farming in Wales for the latest recorded financial periods (2004/05). The third and final part consists of 2 farmer case studies, which put many of the issues discussed in parts 1 and 2 in the context of individual farm businesses. We are grateful for the co-operation of the Fordham and Ridge families

Organic farm incomes in England and Wales 2003/04 (OF0189)

This report is the third from a series of four economic reports on organic farm incomes from 2001/02 through to 2004/05. The work was carried out by Organic Research Group at the Institute of Rural Sciences, UWA on the economic performance of organic farms in 2003/04 on behalf of DEFRA Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. A fundamental aim of this work is to assess the financial performance of organic farms differentiated by farm type, in order to inform DEFRA policy-making with respect to economics of organic farming, and to provide a basis for assessments by farmers, advisers and other interested parties of the farm-level implications of conversion to and continued organic farming. This research area builds on previous economics work on organic farming carried out by Institute of Rural Sciences, UWA (Project OF0190, covering 1995/96 to 1998/99). Here, time series data are shown using an identical farm analysis technique for the 2002/03 and 2003/04 financial years covering the economic performance of seven organic farm types including cropping, horticulture, lowland and LFA dairy, lowland and LFA cattle and sheep and mixed farming systems. The identical farm samples comprise farms that are present in both 2002/03 and 2003/04. The total number of organic farms for 2003/04, also referred to as the full farm sample data, is shown alongside the identical datasets for 2003/04. Summarised and detailed financial input, output, income, returns to labour and capital, liabilities and assets and some physical performance measures are presented based on current Farm Business Survey (FBS) data collection and collation guidelines. The full samples of organic farms per robust farm type are sufficiently large to give some reasonable level of confidence in the data; however, it should be noted that the organic farm samples are not statistically representative of their type, although they can be seen as a reasonable indication of farm income levels for comparable organic and conventional farms. Smaller identical farm samples should be treated more cautiously as there is a possibility for outliers (especially larger farms) to have some influence on the average results. An additional element of this work is the inclusion of comparable conventional farm data for the farm types shown. Each organic farm within this study was matched with an appropriate cluster of conventional farms based on the resource endowment identifiers/variables of individual organic farms. Broadly speaking, the identifiers/variables included farm type, FBS region, Less Favoured Area (LFA) status, utilisable agricultural area (UAA), milk quota holding (where applicable) and farm business size. The cluster farm data were averaged for each farm type to derive the comparable conventional farm (CCF) data based on the organic farms from the identical and full farm samples. Overall, the identical sample of organic farms showed a similar or higher level of net farm income for all farm types in 2003/04 than in 2002/03. On comparing the organic data with the comparable conventional data, the greatest differences in performance were seen in the LFA dairy and lowland cattle and sheep farm types where organic farms performed significantly better in 2003/04. LFA cattle and sheep farm types performed similarly to the comparable conventional farm samples. The full sample datasets compared similarly to the identical datasets for both organic and conventional farms in 2002/03. Gross margin data are presented for organic dairy herds on a herd size and top five performing herd basis. Cattle and sheep gross margins are shown for lowland and LFA farm types. Crops shown include winter and spring wheat, triticale, spring barley, spring and winter oats, beans, ware potatoes, sugar beet, leeks, early potatoes, winter broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage crops. Where applicable, 2002/03 gross margin data are shown alongside the 2003/04 data. Benchmarking data are shown for milk, suckler store, finishing beef and lamb production enterprises

Organic farm incomes in England and Wales 2002/03

Results from research work carried out for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) by the Organic Research Group at the Institute of Rural Sciences, UWA on the economic performance of organic farms in 2002/03 are presented in this report. This report is the second from the OF0189 series of three economic reports on organic farm incomes from 2001/02 through to 2003/04. A fundamental aim of this work is to assess the financial performance of organic farms differentiated by farm type, in order to inform DEFRA policy-making with respect to economics of organic farming, and to provide a basis for assessments by farmers, advisers and other interested parties of the farm-level implications of conversion to and continued organic farming. This research area builds on previous economics work on organic farming carried out by Institute of Rural Sciences, UWA (Project OF0190, covering 1995/962 to 1998/99). Here, time series data is shown using an identical farm analysis technique for the 2001/02 and 2002/03 financial years covering the economic performance of seven organic farm types including cropping, horticulture, lowland and LFA dairy, lowland and LFA cattle and sheep and mixed farming systems. The identical farm samples comprise farms that are present in both 2001/02 and 2002/03. The total number of organic farms for 2002/03, also referred to as the full farm sample data, is shown alongside the identical datasets for 2002/03. Summarised and detailed financial input, output, income, returns to labour and capital, liabilities and assets and some physical performance measures are presented based on current Farm Business Survey data collection and collation guidelines. The full samples of organic farms per robust farm type are sufficiently large to give some reasonable level of confidence in the data; however, it should be noted that the organic farm samples are not statistically representative of their type, although they can be seen as a reasonable indication of farm income levels between organic and conventional data. Smaller identical farm samples should be treated more cautiously as there is a possibility for outliers (especially larger farms) to have some influence on the average results. An additional element of this work is the inclusion of comparable conventional farm data for the farm types shown. Each organic farm within this study was matched with an appropriate cluster of conventional farms based on the resource endowment identifiers/variables of individual organic farms. Broadly speaking, the identifiers/variables included farm type, FBS region, LFA status, utilisable agricultural area, milk quota holding (where applicable) and farm business size. The cluster farm data was averaged for each farm type to derive the comparable conventional farm (CCF) data based on the organic farms from the identical and full farm samples. Overall, the identical sample of organic farms showed a similar or higher level of net farm income for all farm types in 2002/03 than in 2001/02 with the exception of the identical sample of cropping farms, which decreased. On comparing the organic data with the comparable conventional data, the greatest differences in performance were seen in the lowland dairy and lowland cattle and sheep farm types where organic farms performed significantly better in 2002/03. Horticultural and LFA cattle and sheep farm types performed similarly to the comparable conventional farm samples. The organic mixed identical farm sample achieved lower net farm incomes than the conventional farm sample, but the full sample of mixed organic farms in 2002/03 showed a higher net farm income than the conventional farm sample. Gross margin data is presented for organic dairy herds on a herd size and top five performing herd basis. Cattle and sheep gross margins are shown for lowland and LFA farm types in addition to breeding pig and layer gross margins. Crops shown include winter and spring wheat, spring barley, spring and winter oats, triticale, beans, ware potatoes, sugar beet and leek crops. Where applicable, 2001/02 gross margin data is shown alongside the 2002/03 data. Benchmarking data is shown for milk, beef and lamb production enterprises

Salvaging Pascal’s Wager

Many think that Pascal’s Wager is a hopeless failure. A primary reason for this is because a number of challenging objections have been raised to the wager, including the “many gods” objection and the “mixed strategy” objection. We argue that both objections are formal, but not substantive, problems for the wager, and that they both fail for the same reason. We then respond to additional objections to the wager. We show how a version of Pascalian reasoning succeeds, giving us a reason to pay special attention to the infinite consequences of our actions

Credence: A Belief-First Approach

This paper explains and defends a belief-first view of the relationship between belief and credence. On this view, credences are a species of beliefs, and the degree of credence is determined by the content of what is believed. We begin by developing what we take to be the most plausible belief-first view. Then, we offer several arguments for it. Finally, we show how it can resist objections that have been raised to belief-first views. We conclude that the belief-first view is more plausible than many have previously supposed

Organic farm incomes in England and Wales 2005/06 (OF 0373)

Results from research work carried out for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) by the Organic Research Group at the Institute of Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University on the economic performance of organic farms in 2005/06 are presented in this report. The main aim of this work is to assess the financial performance of organic farms differentiated by farm type, in order to inform Defra policy-making with respect to economics of organic farming, and to provide a basis for assessments by farmers, advisers and other interested parties of the farm-level implications of conversion to and continued organic farming. This research builds on previous work on the economics of organic farming carried out by the Institute of Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth University (Projects OF0190, covering 1995/96 to 1998/99 and OF0189, covering 1999/00 to 2004/05). In this report, time series financial data are shown for an identical farm sample for the 2004/05 and 2005/06 financial years, covering seven organic farm types including cropping, horticulture, lowland and LFA dairy, lowland and LFA cattle and sheep and mixed farming systems. The identical farm samples comprise farms that are present in both 2004/05 and 2005/06. The total number of organic farms for 2005/06, also referred to as the full farm sample data, is shown alongside the identical datasets. Summarised and detailed financial input, output, income, returns to labour and capital, liabilities and assets and some physical performance measures are presented based on current Farm Business Survey (FBS) data collection and collation guidelines1. The full samples of organic farms per robust farm type are sufficiently large to give some reasonable level of confidence in the data; however, it should be noted that the organic farm samples are not statistically representative of their type, although the results can be seen as a reasonable indication of farm income levels for comparable organic and conventional farms. Smaller identical farm samples should be treated more cautiously as there is a possibility for outliers (especially larger farms) to have some influence on he average results. An additional element of this work is the inclusion of comparable conventional farm data (obtained from the main FBS sample) for the farm types shown. Each organic farm within this study was matched with an appropriate cluster of conventional farms based on the resource endowment indicators for individual organic farms. Broadly speaking, the indicators included farm type, FBS region, Less Favoured Area (LFA) status, utilisable agricultural area (UAA), milk quota holding (where applicable) and farm business size. The cluster farm data were averaged for each farm type to derive the comparable conventional farm (CCF) data based on the organic farms from the identical and full farm samples. Overall, the identical samples of organic farms showed similar or lower levels of net farm incomes for all farm types in 2005/06 than in 2004/05, with the exception of cropping farms and arable farms with field vegetables, which increased over the period. Although market conditions were starting to improve for many enterprises during this period, cost increases cancelled out many of the gains. However, compared with similar conventional farms, organic farms performed as well or better on average, and bstantially better for the cropping and mixed farm types

Organic farm incomes in England and Wales 2001/02

Financial results from research work carried out for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) by the Organic Farming Research Unit at the IRS, UWA on the economic performance of organic farms in 2001/02 are presented in this report. A fundamental aim of this work is to assess the financial performance of organic farms differentiated by farm type, in order to inform DEFRA policy-making with respect to economics of organic farming, and to provide a basis for assessments by farmers, advisers and other interested parties of the farm-level implications of conversion to and continued organic farming. This research area builds on previous economics work on organic farming carried out by IRS, UWA (Project OF0190, covering 1995/961 to 1998/992). Here, data is shown for the 2001/02 financial year, which is the first of a series of three reports covering the financial performance of organic farm types including cropping, horticulture, lowland and LFA dairy, lowland and LFA cattle and sheep and mixed farming systems for 2001/02 up to 2003/04. In comparison with the earlier reports, there has been a significant improvement in the numbers of farms for which data have been obtained. Summarised and detailed financial input, output, income, liabilities and assets and some physical performance measures are presented based on current Farm Business Survey data collection and collation guidelines. The samples of organic farms per robust farm type are sufficiently large to give a reasonable level of confidence in the data; however, it should be noted that the organic farm samples are not statistically representative of their type, although the results can be seen as a reasonable indication of farm income levels for organic farms. An additional element of this work is the inclusion of comparable conventional farm data for the farm types shown. Each organic farm within this study was matched with the averaged results for a comparable cluster of conventional farms based on the resource endowment of individual organic farms. Broadly speaking, the parameters used to select comparable farm clusters included farm type, FBS region, LFA status, utilisable agricultural area, milk quota holding (where applicable) and farm business size. For each farm type, the results for each cluster were averaged and compared with the average for the individual organic farms. Overall, organic farms showed a similar or higher level of net farm income for all farm types compared to the conventional farms. The greatest differences were seen in the cropping, horticulture, LFA dairy and mixed farm types. Both organic and conventional lowland dairy types performed similarly. For management and investment income, only the organic lowland and LFA cattle and sheep farms showed a negative value. Conversely, the comparable conventional farm types showed a negative value with the exception of the lowland dairy farms. Gross margin data is presented for organic dairy herds including the top and bottom 5 performing herds. Cattle and sheep gross margins are shown for lowland and LFA farm types in addition to breeding pig gross margins. Crops shown include winter and spring wheat and barley, spring oats, beans and potatoes and a further five horticultural crops