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Environmental and Land-based production, systems and services - Level 1 Unit 2

Products from Animals

Farmed or Domestic Animals.

Domestic basically means "tame". Thousands of years ago man began to encourage, keep and use wild animals within the villages where they lived. As these wild animals became tame man was able to selectively breed these animals and select breeding animals which exhibited the traits they desired. These selected traits included: fast growth, stable temperament and the ability to breed easily in captivity.

Why did humans begin to domesticate animals?

There are many reasons why human domesticated animals:

• To supply a regular source of fresh meat. Animals raised and kept in a village could be slaughtered at any time. This meant villagers did not have to embark on a hunt to get meat, hunts where time consuming and were not always successful.

• Companionship, protection and work - probably the reason why wolves where domesticated and breed, giving us all today's breeds of dog.

• Dung was used to fertilize crops.

• Skins, fur and wool were used to make clothing articles. Horns and bones were carved into weapons such as arrows. Fat was used for candles and hooves for glue.

When did humans begin to domesticate animals?

The table below give some approximate dates and locations of domestication of the main animals.

Date for domestication of farm animals.
Source Yorkshire Wildlife Park

Sheep and Goats where the first animals to be domesticated as a source of food. They were originally farmed by nomadic pastorlists, these early farmers keep their flocks moving as they follow available sources of grazing. A practice still followed in parts of the world, unlike most flock in this country which are largely confined within fields.

Cattle and pigs were domesticated later when communities became more settled. Cattle and pigs are generally harder to herd than sheep and goats which could be the reason they needed more settled communities for domestication.

Products from Animals.

Products from animals can be categorised as follows:

• Animals for Food – dairy and meat products

• Animals for Clothing/fibre – wool/hair, hides/leather

• Animals for Fertiliser and Land Management - Clean up 'derelict' land, use land not able to grow crops on.

• Animals for Labour – draught, protection, hunting
  Video coming soon for this....

Animals for Food

The video above gives a 'taster' of the main food animals kept in this country. For further details about each production systems see the relevant Livestock pages - listed below or access from the Livestock Menu (Use the red teachers menu if you want to play the videos full screen for a class)

The main animals we use for food (milk & meat) in this country are:

Cattle - go to

Dairy - go to

Sheep - go to

Pigs - go to

Animals for Clothing / Fibre

The use of animals in this role is probably as long lived as that for food! It must not have been long before man realised that the skins and fleeces of the first animals hunted for food could also be used to keep them warm - the original recycling!

This recycling is still sometimes the case today especially with the hides of cattle initially slaughtered for meat, the hides are also used to make leather goods.

The use of wool from sheep could also be considered a by-product since in recent years the wool clipped has not even paid for the cost of shearing a ewe. During the industrial revolution empires where built on the wool clip and the goods produced from it. The wool price has however had a welcome rise in recent months and once again should realise the farmer a small income after paying the clippers.

For more details on shearing sheep see the dedicated shearing page - go to

Animals for Fertiliser and Land Management

Whilst many crops are grown specifically for livestock, like grass, clover, lucerne for forage and cereals for feed. Livestock contribute to this growth by providing essential nutrients in their dung to the plants. This is done either directly if the animals are kept in fields or by collecting and spreading their manure on the fields when they are kept in doors.

Farm Yard Manure (FYM)

Farmers view FYM as a valuable commodity; they always have even when it's spreading was hard back breaking work done by hand.

FYM is spread on the land and then worked in. Over several years the FYM decomposes and releases it's nutrients for the following crops. FYM provides varying mixes of the main plant nutrients: Nitrogen (N), Phosphate (P), Potash (K), some of the minor nutrients and organic matter. A typical analysis of the amounts in different types of FYM is given in the table below:

Available nutrient in farmyard manure & slurries
Source 'Crop Nutrition & Fertiliser Use' J Archer Farming Press 1988

Using this table can calculate how much of each nutrient they are applying to a field when spreading 'muck' (FYM)

Farmers can also calculate the nutrients removed when a crop is harvested.

Amounts of major nutrients removed in crops (kg / t fresh material)
Source 'Crop Nutrition & Fertiliser Use' J Archer Farming Press 1988

Farmers also regularly carry out soil test on their fields to give then a score or index for the main nutrients available in particular fields.

Some typical soil sample results for different fields.

Farmers also regularly carry out soil test on their fields to give then a score or index for the main nutrients available in particular fields.

Combing this data then allows farmers to keep a balance sheet of field nutrients which accounts for

• What a previous crop has removed.

• How much of a nutrient has been applied in FYM.

• What nutrients are available in the soil.

Using all this information allows them how much, if any, artificial fertiliser needs to be applied.

Under new European rules data must now be kept on FYM applications, but most farmers did this any way for the reasons outlined here.

Knowing how much fertiliser to apply to apply is very important as artificial fertiliser is very expensive typically (Nitrogen £240 / t; Compound 20:10:10(contains NPK) £270 / t - April 2010)

Excessive use can be bad for the environment and is now against EU rules.

This is a far cry from the image often portrayed by the media of farmers spreading fertiliser without a second thought and polluting the environment. Farmers also care about the environment and fertiliser is too expensive to waste!!

Animals for land management.

Whilst animals are obviously kept to produce food and an important part of the human omnivore diet they also serve another very important role - one which is not often fully appreciated by people who do not understand the integrated nature of UK Agriculture.

 

Of the land which is classed as agricultural only a third is able to grow crops (6.2 million hectares) - the rest is too wet, dry, hilly, stony.....

The largest proportion of agricultural land (63% - 11.4 million hectares) is rough grazing or permanent grass. A large proportion of this is utilised by livestock, making otherwise unproductive land, in terms of products from animals used by humans, productive. This use of livestock on un-cropped agricultural land is also important as it allows livestock to be integrated into mixed farming systems, providing benefits from rotations of short term grass or ley and manure for crops which would otherwise need more artificial fertiliser which is very energy demanding in it's production.

Why do some people say we should not farm livestock?

Aside from the views of vegetarians and vegans who morally disagree with keeping animals only to humans to eat and use their products, some people advocate that the world could feed itself if we simply eat crops and did not feed them to livestock which we then ate. This is because only 10% of the energy consumed by an animal is transferred to its body which man then eats, again only transferring 10% of the livestock - effectively 1% of the energy originally available in the crop eaten by the livestock. This stance however does not take account of the integration of livestock farming in to UK Agriculture nor the fact that without livestock 11.4 million hectares of UK land would otherwise be virtually unproductive for food etc.

Details and video coming soon.....

Animals for Labour.

Animals are use for various jobs.

• Dogs for: eyes or ears for people with visual or hearing impairments, guarding, capturing fugitives, sniffing out drugs, explosives firearms, hunting.

• Transport & Draft - oxen, cattle, camels, donkeys, horses are all used in various parts of the world.

Very few transport and draft jobs are now done by animals in this country, they tend to be used as an attraction in leisure and entertainment. There are some forestry jobs still done by horses and a few farms still use horses.

It is amazing to think how quickly horses have been replaced by the tractor on UK farms when you consider that tractors only began to be used during World War II - just a generation or 60 years ago. The video shows some footage of horses being used to harvest cereals around this time.

There is a lot of debate now about growing crops for fuel such as Oilseed rape for biofuel or wheat for bioethanol, and how this will take land away from being used to grow food. When horses where the farmers power then he had to grow field of oats to fuel them - is growing Oilseed Rape to fuel today's tractor any differ net?