The Great Grazing Guide
Make the most of muck and pep up your pastures – money-saving tips for livestock farmers
We have produced The Great Grazing Guide in response to requests from farmers participating in our resilience programmes who expressed real concerns at the huge increase in their input costs. Not only will the ideas contained in this guide help save money at this very difficult time, but they will also enable farmers to work with nature on their farm by focusing on the importance of healthy soil.
Keith Halstead, Executive Director of The Royal Countryside Fund
Written by pasture experts Precision Grazing, The Great Grazing Guide has been created in response to the high increase in input costs, notably fertiliser prices, that the UK farming industry has experienced over the past year, and looks at a range of techniques and methods, including those from regenerative and grazing management techniques. The Great Grazing Guide follows on from A-Zero: A farmer’s guide to breaking free from environmental jargon which was published in 2021, and forms part of the PCF and McDonald’s wider support for UK farming families.
The Great Grazing Guide looks at a number of activities and techniques that farmers can adopt to help save money, including:
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How healthy soil
can improve pasture and forage, and how famer’s can improve their soil.
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How to make the most of farmyard manure
and slurry to improve grazing and save money on concentrate feed, and how to most effectively use artificial fertiliser.
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How to get the most out of pasture
through the use of herbal leys and techniques such as rotational grazing.
McDonald’s and The Royal Countryside Fund are working together as part of a three-year partnership to support the future of the farming industry. This includes the ‘Ready for Change’ workshops, a series of events to help support the economic resilience of farming families. The workshops support livestock farmers in making informed decisions about change management on family farms, as well as helping on environment-related challenges. Our research also found that 72% of farmers do not currently measure their environmental impact on their farm, making these workshops more relevant than ever.
We’re delighted to be supporting The [Royal] Countryside Fund to launch this guide that will help farmers during this challenging time. We hope that the practical actions in this guide will help to increase resilience in the farming community and support the transition to a low carbon future. McDonald’s is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2040 – including across our supply chain – and this guide is a small, but important step on that journey.”
Alistair Macrow, CEO of McDonald’s UK and Ireland
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