MEXICAN graingrowers attempting to run their farms under conservation farming practices are none too happy about a traditional right of the country's herdsmen to run their stock on farmers' crop stubble country.
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Under the long-standing statute, Mexican stockmen - known as vaquero - are allowed to graze their sheep and cattle herds on privately-owned stubble paddocks or irrigation banks without requiring the permission of the farm owners.
While the herdsmen are obliged to prevent their stock straying onto the fields where crops are growing, they have open slather on fallow and stubble country.
Farmer groups have been lobbying to have the right rescinded, but so far to no avail.
For those trying to run conservation agriculture or zero till systems where they want to leave crop residues on the ground, the problem is that the grazing mobs move in and remove the crop residues.
In addition to compaction issues caused by the stock trampling the ground, another problem is that the manure they bring in often contains weed seeds that germinate in the fields.
Neil Lyon
National machinery writer for Fairfax Agricultural Media.
National machinery writer for Fairfax Agricultural Media.
