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Women in farming -- the issues

 It seems that our farm is the exception, as such a high percentage of our labour force is women.  We examined many of the historical tasks, and I will say with a great deal of confidence that mechanization is at the root of this change.  An example is a classic hay bale weighing between 35 and 65 kg.  We never used such baling equipment, we use round balers that produce half-ton bales that are handled by tractors.   In the UK, most feed gains were delivered in 55kg bags, but we have it delivered in mini silos by the ton.  The difference is that commercial farming requires less physical strength.  The only part of the farm that requires brut strength is the meat processing plant. Granted, our initial labour pool was dominated by women, as picking is the most important activity on the farm,  but as the farm grew, almost all our new jobs were first offered to our current employees, the two idiots we recently fired proved that hiring outside our usual labour pool was a mistake!   I have a
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Forest grown pigs

 Just so that I am clear, pigs need a good diet,  I got many comments that a forest does not provide pigs with a proper alimentation.   While this is true if you are seeking to create a sustainable pig farm, and it does lead to a lower growth rate, pigs on our farm do not principally breed for the rapidity at which they gain weight. However, we are fully aware that protein has to constitute about 25% of their diet, and that there are essential vitamins and other nutrients that they have to access.  Guess what, our ecologist and biologist goal is to ensure that they have access to these in the correct proportion.   In a nutshell, we watch our pigs, we provide certain supplements and our pigs are healthy.  The four bruisers we culled were removed because of their difficult disposition.  Forest-grown pigs have longer life cycles than pigs raised on grains.  It was always the compromise we were willing to make because their primary duty is clearing the forests.   We had 28 on the old farm,

When political parties desintegrate

Obviously, most of what I write here is about the US conservative movement, embodied by the Republican party (aka GOP or RNC).   Here in the UK, Mr Sunak will make it to the next election, which the conservatives will lose and Mr Senak will probably resign and return to private life.  Being the ex-leader of the Conservatives where they may even be the second opposition may not be much fun.  But only time and the election outcome will tell.   In the US things are more public and far more interesting.  Obviously, the big news is that Trump is now the nominee for the GOP, and as well Biden is the nominee for the Democrats.  Robert Kennedy, of the Kennedy family, tried to mount a campaign against Biden, but first, it was financed by GOP donors and he's crazy, so that went nowhere. Plus many members of this family campaigned against him... In addition, the head of the Republican party resigned a few weeks ago and has been replaced by Trump's daughter-in-law, who announced that 100%

High Tunnels Vs Vertical farms

Our farm shares many characteristics with vertical farms bar one produce variety.  We employ red and blue light, we add CO2 to our high tunnels and we heat them.  However, the biggest difference is in the type of vegetable we produce, we do everything from courgette to eggplants to some types of cabbages, what we do not produce are herbs and salads, the margins are too thin, and the competition too intense, and guess what that is 80% of what is produced in vertical farms.  There's a clue there.  90% of our vegetable and fruit production are heirlooms, more difficult to transport but far more flavour.  Our tomatoes are a perfect example, they taste as good in February as they do in July, but they are expensive (we don't produce tomatoes in the late summer). The conversation came about because my visitors Bernard and Peter who are here for the weekend, were visiting our high tunnels and telling me about all these vertical farms going bankrupt.    I only know what they produce in

Sailboat Purchase: Peter the nerd!

As I wrote earlier friends are up for the weekend from London, and one of the conversations we had was about sailboats, neither my wife nor I are sailors, I can say with a great deal of certitude that the last time I was on a sailboat was 40 years ago, on an Optimist.   Peter is a big-time sailor, he has owned sailboats his whole life and one of his life goals is to retire soon and go sailing for a while!  Peter has no interest in going around the world, rather he wants to explore places that are not easily accessible.   Peter had this whole thing fully thought out, he has actually bought a 55-foot aluminum catamaran (delivery Q3/24).  As he says it's built for comfort first and speed second because he did his research, (actually some sailors did the research) and over the past 5 years he compared Atlantic crossing times by different catamarans, from the sedate Lagoon to the high-performance Gunboat.  The determinant factor for the duration of crossing was boat length.  The differe

Milk & Chickens

Today was the first day that the new milk parlour was fully operational, the cows are now firmly established on the new farm.  Milking went well, and the cows were comfortable with the new system, milk production is still only about 90% of what it was two weeks ago, but we anticipated that stressed cows produce less milk.  Our foreman is confident that within a few days, everything will be back to normal.  The new space was purpose-built and therefore easier to manage.  Our herd is growing to meet our butter needs, as I indicated before, we easily sell out our butter production, and our objective is to meet between 90% and 95% of demand, as we expect that percentage to rise a bit this year as the economy slows down.  In addition, our subsidiaries can easily use more buttermilk in the pie crust. Our staff likes the new setup, the weekend crew, which operates today and tomorrow, got some training on Thursday, and they all said that it is far more efficient, and the cows seem to find the

Buying Vix calls & $13 trillion Chinese bond market

This weekend we are having a few of my City friends over for three days.  I do this every three or four months just for the sheer pleasure of talking finance and investment again.  This weekend my broker and his wife, as well as Peter (aka China Peter) and his wife are staying with us.   Two stories first that a very influential American broker has been recommending that its client buy VIX calls, the second that 80% of bonds in the Shanghai bond market are in default. Now the VIX is a derived index, because it's an index on the volatility of the S&P500, now buying a call means you think the index is going to rise:   That stock prices are going to move more quickly and by greater margins.  Effectively, this is an instrument that allows investors to either seek protection or profit from a fall in the S&P500.  The broker is anticipating a general market correction.  The problem with that call is that the US market indicators are positive.  Buying calls or puts on the VIX are s