Latest / Merryn Talks Money / Regenerative Farming’s Promise for the Planet with Peter Byck

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Regenerative Farming’s Promise for the Planet with Peter Byck · Merryn Talks Money

0:00
Speaker 1: John, ma'am, You're always going to listen to the monetarists, now,
0:03
Speaker 1: aren't you.
0:04
Speaker 2: Actually, I even though, as I said earlier this morn,
0:08
Speaker 2: that's going to be unbearable for the next kind of
0:11
Speaker 2: like year and a half at.
0:12
Speaker 1: Least, they are going to be unbearable, But there are
0:15
Speaker 1: they were right, And we talked about this before and
0:16
Speaker 1: we have. Actually, this is one of the few things
0:19
Speaker 1: that we've got very right on this podcast is we
0:21
Speaker 1: have been talking to people all year who have been
0:24
Speaker 1: saying inflation is going to fall. It's going to fall fast.
0:27
Speaker 1: Look at the money supply numbers. The bank or the
0:29
Speaker 1: central banks have been unbelievably stupid. They didn't watch money
0:32
Speaker 1: supply on the way up, even though it was perfectly
0:34
Speaker 1: obvious that the sharp rise in money supply would lead
0:37
Speaker 1: to inflation with the normal twelve to eighteen month lag
0:39
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And it's also been perfectly obvious this
0:42
Speaker 1: year that the fall in money supply would lead us
0:45
Speaker 1: into sharply falling inflation, possibly even deflation by the beginning
0:50
Speaker 1: of next year. We've had a couple of guests on
0:51
Speaker 1: who've talked about that, and lo and behold, there are
0:55
Speaker 1: absolutely right. So this week's inflation numbers came in very low,
0:59
Speaker 1: much lower than next.
1:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, dropped to three point nine percent year on year,
1:04
Speaker 2: And that's the that's CPI, which is the thing that
1:06
Speaker 2: the Bank England's meant to target. But every every other
1:09
Speaker 2: measure now that I mean, there's about five of them
1:11
Speaker 2: now all fell and they all fell by more than expected.
1:15
Speaker 1: And everyone.
1:19
Speaker 2: Ex yeah, and it's I mean, it's good news obviously.
1:27
Speaker 2: The one tricky thing, of course, is you know, is
1:32
Speaker 2: this happening because the ecordomy is actually slowing down and
1:36
Speaker 2: it's much worse out there than anyone thinks, and there
1:39
Speaker 2: for twenty twenty four is going to be horrible recessionary
1:43
Speaker 2: and we'll see a series of panicky rate cuts spiral
1:46
Speaker 2: downwards from the Bank of England and it'll be too
1:48
Speaker 2: late to do anything.
1:50
Speaker 1: Oh.
1:52
Speaker 2: Actually, we're going to see real incomes rise slightly more
1:55
Speaker 2: significantly than we thought next year. The pain they can have,
2:00
Speaker 2: like the wage squeeze will come off. The state pension
2:03
Speaker 2: is set to rocket along with a minimum wage, so
2:06
Speaker 2: actually people are probably going to have quite a bit
2:08
Speaker 2: more spending power come the spring. And also what's his name,
2:13
Speaker 2: Jeremy Hunt is going to have quite a bit more
2:15
Speaker 2: leeway in the budget because the notional you know, kind
2:21
Speaker 2: of amount of interest that we owe on our national
2:24
Speaker 2: debt will fall, and so you know, the OBR will
2:27
Speaker 2: be able to say, actually, he's got to say eleven
2:30
Speaker 2: billion headroop, so that'll go up. And I mean, obviously
2:34
Speaker 2: all of this stuff is just made up anyway, but
2:36
Speaker 2: it gives them something.
2:37
Speaker 1: That is made up. Numbers made.
2:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's but the point is that we've got to
2:44
Speaker 2: this point where we kind of have to make all
2:47
Speaker 2: these things up because the national debt is so high anyway,
2:49
Speaker 2: And so Jeremy will be able to say, oh, yeah,
2:51
Speaker 2: I'm still being physically responsible even as eye cut income
2:54
Speaker 2: tax by x y z amount or whatever giveaway he
2:57
Speaker 2: decides to do ahead of the election.
2:59
Speaker 3: So oh yes.
3:01
Speaker 2: So so basically, yeah, is it going to go? Is
3:03
Speaker 2: it going to go with the negative way or the
3:04
Speaker 2: positive way? I'm not sure?
3:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I suppose that the takeaway from all this
3:08
Speaker 1: is that the blank of England really is absolutely useless.
3:11
Speaker 1: They didn't see it on the way up, and now
3:13
Speaker 1: it's coming down faster than they expected, and they were
3:15
Speaker 1: probably right in some degree that it was transitory but
3:17
Speaker 1: they got every part of that transitory bit wrong right,
3:22
Speaker 1: and now they're going to look at it coming down fast,
3:25
Speaker 1: look into next year, start cutting rates when you and
3:29
Speaker 1: I might say, wouldn't there's be a great opportunity to normalize,
3:33
Speaker 1: and when it also isn't certain that inflation is definitely gone,
3:36
Speaker 1: and we can see that there's going to be although
3:38
Speaker 1: trouble in the Middle East is going to lead us
3:40
Speaker 1: into more supply crunches. Possibly that the geopolitical situation still
3:44
Speaker 1: suggests that things aren't quite as they should be. So
3:48
Speaker 1: now we worry, having previously worried earlier in the year
3:50
Speaker 1: that they might lead that they might raise rates too
3:53
Speaker 1: fast and leave it too late to cut. Now I'm
3:55
Speaker 1: beginning to get worried on the other side because there
3:57
Speaker 1: is seemingly no end to their incompetence.
4:00
Speaker 2: The other thing actually that fascinates me is the fact
4:02
Speaker 2: that the Fed kind of changed his mind so aggressively.
4:06
Speaker 2: Makes me wonder if actually maybe they are py and
4:09
Speaker 2: more attention than the money supply figures. Finally, and it's
4:13
Speaker 2: just on this side of the Atlantic that the the
4:17
Speaker 2: group think remains very intense. I mean, but yeah, I
4:23
Speaker 2: think that the thing that I've still got a lot
4:25
Speaker 2: of and I guess is maybe just maybe probably just
4:29
Speaker 2: a cognateive bias. But I'm struggling to see actual deflation
4:34
Speaker 2: kicking in again. And I do think that long term
4:36
Speaker 2: we're in a more inflationary environment, but that doesn't preclude
4:41
Speaker 2: interest rates maybe going down to you know, three and
4:44
Speaker 2: a half percent and just sitting there, you know, for
4:47
Speaker 2: as long as we can keep it at that level roughly,
4:53
Speaker 2: And that would be nice to get back to something
4:54
Speaker 2: more normal, although it probably does also mean that house
4:57
Speaker 2: prices are going to you know, fail to fall once more.
5:04
Speaker 2: So maybe the eighteen year property cycle guys are right
5:06
Speaker 2: along with the monetarists.
5:08
Speaker 1: They may be, and they have been historically, which means,
5:11
Speaker 1: by the way, if the eighteen year property cycle people
5:13
Speaker 1: are right, it's twenty twenty six when everything goes horribly wrong,
5:16
Speaker 1: So it's still not not that far off. Not that
5:18
Speaker 1: something to bear in mind, And I have a feeling
5:19
Speaker 1: we're going to come back to house prices over the
5:22
Speaker 1: next little while. But John, before we finish, I want
5:25
Speaker 1: to go back to what you said about Jeremy Hunt
5:27
Speaker 1: and his entirely notional and imaginary head run to come
5:32
Speaker 1: up with a tax cut of some kind before the election.
5:35
Speaker 1: But assuming that the next government is a labor government,
5:42
Speaker 1: both in Westminster and in Scotland at Holyrood, it seems
5:49
Speaker 1: likely that there'll be a degree of tax convergence between
5:53
Speaker 1: Scotland and the rest of the UK. Do you think
5:58
Speaker 1: that that will involve tax taxes in England coming up
6:01
Speaker 1: to the new dramatically and bizarrely high levels in Scotland,
6:05
Speaker 1: or taxes in Scotland coming down to meet taxes in England.
6:11
Speaker 2: If you ask me a bit, it's haugh to be
6:12
Speaker 2: taxes in Scotland. But that's only assuming that Leber does
6:17
Speaker 2: get in there. I haven't been paying attention to the
6:20
Speaker 2: polls closely enough to be one hundred percent confident that
6:24
Speaker 2: that's what's going to happen.
6:26
Speaker 1: But no, I'm not one hundred percent confidence either. But
6:29
Speaker 1: it does seem that the SMP seeming capable of getting
6:33
Speaker 1: anything at all. Right, I mean, that's been the case
6:35
Speaker 1: for a long time, but finally people are beginning to
6:37
Speaker 1: notice that, you know, it's a very high tax environment.
6:39
Speaker 1: Public services are not that great. The laces of budgets
6:42
Speaker 1: has received absolutely no praise from anybody anywhere, although I
6:47
Speaker 1: haven't looked at the headlines and the national yet. They
6:49
Speaker 1: may be praised in the budget. God knows how. We
6:51
Speaker 1: better go and look at that later. But we now
6:54
Speaker 1: have taxes in Scotland. We have income taxes at We've
6:57
Speaker 1: now got six bands, which is slightly nuts itself. And
7:01
Speaker 1: if you are earning over it's seventy five thousand pounds,
7:06
Speaker 1: you will now pay the advanced rate of forty five percent,
7:10
Speaker 1: so forty seven percent with your if you are paying
7:12
Speaker 1: the top rate, you'll be paying forty eight percent plus
7:15
Speaker 1: two percent of course your NI. So the top rate
7:17
Speaker 1: in tax whove one hundred and twenty five thousand is
7:18
Speaker 1: now fifty percent, and that means that if you're earning
7:21
Speaker 1: say one hundred and twenty thousand in the UK, you'll
7:23
Speaker 1: be paying very very significantly more tax five thousand pounds
7:26
Speaker 1: plus more than you would be paying in England. Which
7:29
Speaker 1: brings me to asking you, John, what's your personal finance
7:32
Speaker 1: tip of the week? Mover to Scotland, move out of Scotland. Fine,
7:39
Speaker 1: But all I would say about that is that it's very,
7:41
Speaker 1: very very tempting. But England looks like a safe haven
7:45
Speaker 1: right now. Will England still be a safe haven. After
7:48
Speaker 1: the next election we will find out. But yes, there
7:53
Speaker 1: will be a bit of a brain drain from Scotland
7:54
Speaker 1: now because everyone assumes that the UK government couldn't conceivably
7:57
Speaker 1: be as stupid as the Scottish government. But I wouldn't
8:00
Speaker 1: bet on that I.
8:03
Speaker 2: Can handle US sixteen nine point five percent marginal taxi
8:06
Speaker 2: over one hundred thousand poonds.
8:08
Speaker 1: No, you can't handle that kind of rate, John, and
8:10
Speaker 1: nor can the economy. And now imagine, just imagine that
8:13
Speaker 1: you moved to Scotland and you had your student loanroop
8:16
Speaker 1: payments on top of that. Can you handle that? No,
8:19
Speaker 1: you can't, You wouldn't come. Welcome to Marren Talk's Money,
8:24
Speaker 1: the podcast in which people who know the markets explain
8:26
Speaker 1: the markets. I'm marrin Sumnset Web This week another topic
8:29
Speaker 1: slightly off the beaten markets, par for your holiday listening.
8:32
Speaker 1: It's a conversation with filmmaker and professor Peter bick Because,
8:35
Speaker 1: a director, producer, and writer of Carbon Nation and a
8:38
Speaker 1: professor at Arizona State University in both the School of
8:41
Speaker 1: Sustainability and the kronk Heite School of Journalism. He's also
8:45
Speaker 1: the director of Roots so deep you can see the
8:47
Speaker 1: Devil down there, which is a four part documentary series
8:50
Speaker 1: looking at how cows canter fact help us combat climate
8:53
Speaker 1: change by embracing a different way of grazing cattle. Peter, Hello,
9:00
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today.
9:02
Speaker 3: Nice to be here. Maren, thank you.
9:03
Speaker 1: This is such an important topic. I want to just
9:06
Speaker 1: start by first telling the listeners that we're going to
9:09
Speaker 1: talk about agriculture. Are going to talk about in particular
9:11
Speaker 1: about cattle and about farming cattle, and how that the
9:15
Speaker 1: effects that might or might not have on the environment.
9:17
Speaker 1: But I think pretty much everybody who's listening to this
9:21
Speaker 1: podcast will have an idea in their head that beef
9:24
Speaker 1: in particular is incredibly bad for the environment in every
9:28
Speaker 1: possible way. So we read this in the newspapers all
9:31
Speaker 1: the time. I'm just going to read you a little
9:33
Speaker 1: bit from a magazine called The Week, which summarizes news
9:36
Speaker 1: stories here in the UK very popular. Eating meat significantly
9:39
Speaker 1: increases your carbon footprint, and beef is one of the
9:42
Speaker 1: worst culprits. A twenty twenty two study found that beef
9:45
Speaker 1: production produces over ninety nine kilograms of greenhouse gasp emissions
9:49
Speaker 1: per kilogram of meat far higher than any other meat.
9:52
Speaker 1: Cattle is the animal species responsible for most emissions, and
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Speaker 1: the article, like almost all other articles on the topic,
10:00
Speaker 1: goes on to explain that something like a courter of
10:03
Speaker 1: the Global green has gas origins in the food industry
10:05
Speaker 1: come from beef production alone, and therefore we must all
10:09
Speaker 1: stop eating beef, stop stop livestock farming, and eat nothing
10:14
Speaker 1: but chickpeas forever. And as I particularly don't like chickpeas
10:19
Speaker 1: ll entils for that matter, what I'm hoping is that
10:22
Speaker 1: you will explain to us today that that simply isn't necessary,
10:27
Speaker 1: and casid just not that bad.
10:29
Speaker 3: So the idea that meat is bad for the planet,
10:32
Speaker 3: that cattle are ruining the planet, that's studying a sick
10:37
Speaker 3: system that I agree with. Industrial cattle production is really
10:43
Speaker 3: really bad for the planet. But what we're looking at
10:46
Speaker 3: is cattle production that's really really good for the planet.
10:50
Speaker 3: And it comes down to how the animals are grazed
10:54
Speaker 3: and replicating the way bison and great hurting animals moved across,
11:00
Speaker 3: for example, the Great Plains of the United States, and
11:03
Speaker 3: so that what we call adaptive multi paddock grazing is
11:07
Speaker 3: proving to be an enormous environmental benefit.
11:11
Speaker 1: Could you tell us in a couple of sentences why
11:14
Speaker 1: it is that be funded in the traditional man of
11:18
Speaker 1: traditional but the modern manner, particularly in the US, is
11:22
Speaker 1: so awful because actually cattle farming in the US is
11:25
Speaker 1: different to cattle farming in much of Europe. What makes
11:27
Speaker 1: it so uniquely horrible.
11:30
Speaker 3: In the US When folks overgraze their cattle, which is
11:34
Speaker 3: kind of the norm where you get the blades of
11:37
Speaker 3: grass really short, so you could you know, it look
11:39
Speaker 3: like a golf course. You're not allowing nature to live
11:43
Speaker 3: in the way it wants to live. You're not allowing
11:45
Speaker 3: the plants to grow up to the height they want
11:47
Speaker 3: to grow up. You're not allowing birds and bugs to
11:49
Speaker 3: come into the system. Well, the grazing we're talking about adaptive,
11:52
Speaker 3: multipaddic grazing, or holistic plant grazing, or mob grazing or
11:56
Speaker 3: strip grazing, lots of names, basically produces on any size farm.
12:03
Speaker 3: The animals all in one herd and they move around
12:05
Speaker 3: in very tight packs for very short periods of time,
12:09
Speaker 3: so it's a short duration grazing and then they move
12:12
Speaker 3: on to the next little piece. And then what happens
12:14
Speaker 3: is most of the farm gets to rest most of
12:17
Speaker 3: the time. And the farmers that do this type of grazing,
12:20
Speaker 3: they're focused on soil health first, and one of the
12:23
Speaker 3: ways to get there is to let the grasses and
12:26
Speaker 3: the forbes and weeds and everything else to grow up
12:29
Speaker 3: to about waste height during the growing season. The animals
12:32
Speaker 3: eat half of that, stomp the rest of it down
12:35
Speaker 3: to give the soil a nice cover. They're manure and
12:38
Speaker 3: urine is evenly spread, and then the land gets to rest.
12:41
Speaker 3: And that's the replication of the way the bison moved
12:44
Speaker 3: across the Great Plains here in the US and built
12:46
Speaker 3: incredibly deep, rich top soil.
12:49
Speaker 1: So the bison moved around the plains in very tight groups, right,
12:55
Speaker 1: so huge herds, very tightly together, grazing one section and
12:59
Speaker 1: then moving on to another section to graze it. And
13:02
Speaker 1: obviously no fences. They can go for miles in these
13:05
Speaker 1: tight groups moving across the planes. So the majority of
13:08
Speaker 1: the planes at any one time were not grazed at all.
13:12
Speaker 3: Right, it's a long rest period between grazings, and you
13:16
Speaker 3: know whether it was tight or not tight. Those sorts
13:18
Speaker 3: of things you could debate, but they were massive, massive herds,
13:21
Speaker 3: and they always went to where there was better food,
13:23
Speaker 3: or they went to where animals weren't hunting them, and
13:26
Speaker 3: so that's why they kept moving on. So the farmers
13:28
Speaker 3: are replicating that movement on their farms, whether it's forty
13:32
Speaker 3: acres or you know, twenty hectares or one hundred hectares,
13:35
Speaker 3: it's totally doable, and it's an amazing thing to hear
13:40
Speaker 3: from farmers how well it works. How many more species
13:44
Speaker 3: of plants they're seeing growing in their fields when they
13:47
Speaker 3: just don't let the animals overgraze their field seeds they
13:50
Speaker 3: didn't even plant. They're just sitting there in the soil,
13:53
Speaker 3: not expressing themselves. And when those plants grow up, they're
13:56
Speaker 3: attracting so many different insects, so you have this great
14:00
Speaker 3: balance of insect community, which then brings in a whole
14:03
Speaker 3: lot of birds. And here in the United States, our
14:06
Speaker 3: grassland bird population is over fifty percent depleted since nineteen
14:09
Speaker 3: seventy and on the farms that we're studying that are
14:12
Speaker 3: doing the adaptive grazing, they're having three hundred percent more
14:16
Speaker 3: of those endangered birds on these farms. Wildlife is coming
14:21
Speaker 3: to these farms. I just was at a conference with
14:23
Speaker 3: seven hundred farmers and people were just coming up to us,
14:26
Speaker 3: coming up to us, coming up to us, same story,
14:29
Speaker 3: same story. We're seeing many more birds, much more wildlife.
14:33
Speaker 3: Our water cycling is better, we don't have huge input costs,
14:38
Speaker 3: our animals are selling for more. It's just a consistently
14:42
Speaker 3: good story for the farmers. But what we wanted to
14:45
Speaker 3: know was whether it was good for the planet. And
14:48
Speaker 3: so we went to great lengths and raised a lot
14:51
Speaker 3: of money to study the greenhouse gas cycling on these farms,
14:55
Speaker 3: comparing it to their neighbor across the fence, and five
14:58
Speaker 3: replications in the southeast US. And the greenhouse gas data
15:03
Speaker 3: that we're it's pre published right now, so it'll it'll
15:08
Speaker 3: be a bit different, but close. We account for all
15:12
Speaker 3: three of the major greenhouse gases. So a lot of
15:14
Speaker 3: the studies that you quoted at the top of the piece,
15:17
Speaker 3: they're looking at methane, methane, methane, methane, methane, methane. But
15:21
Speaker 3: there's three greenhouse gases on these agricultural systems that are
15:25
Speaker 3: that are important carbon CO two, methane, nitrous oxide, and
15:30
Speaker 3: so when we account for all three of those greenhouse gases.
15:33
Speaker 3: The method of grazing is drawing down so much carbon
15:38
Speaker 3: that it overtakes the warming of the methane and the
15:41
Speaker 3: nitrous oxide. We don't even begin to say that cowsdoni methane.
15:46
Speaker 3: Of course, cowsumant methane and nitrous oxide is a natural
15:50
Speaker 3: byproduct of their urine on the fields and things like that.
15:55
Speaker 3: But the greenhouse gas sinc of what we're seeing in
15:58
Speaker 3: our research of all threehouse gases all being accounted for
16:02
Speaker 3: in a very very conservative way. It's called GWP one hundred.
16:07
Speaker 3: We're seeing a draw down of twelve point one tons
16:10
Speaker 3: of CO two equivalent per hectare per year on the
16:14
Speaker 3: adaptive side of the fence, and we're actually seeing draw
16:18
Speaker 3: down on the conventional side of two point nine tons
16:21
Speaker 3: of CO two equivalent per hectare per year. Again, those
16:25
Speaker 3: are numbers that are not yet published, but that's what
16:27
Speaker 3: we're looking at right now. So the idea that grazing
16:32
Speaker 3: cannot be a climate solution does not work with our data.
16:37
Speaker 3: And we've spent ten years on this. We're looking at this.
16:40
Speaker 3: I personally, you know, I'm just looking for solutions to
16:45
Speaker 3: climate change. This is the thing that caught my eye.
16:48
Speaker 3: This is the thing we've been looking at for a
16:49
Speaker 3: long time, and so this is what we found. Animal
16:54
Speaker 3: impact properly used on land is what nature developed for
16:58
Speaker 3: us for the planet, not for us for the planet.
17:00
Speaker 3: It's incredibly effective. And to act like we should just
17:04
Speaker 3: take all the animals off the land because we don't
17:07
Speaker 3: like people eating meat is not really looking at what
17:11
Speaker 3: nature has provided the planet.
17:14
Speaker 1: Let's look at Ganeta because not everybody will understand how
17:17
Speaker 1: it is that this type of grazing creates a carbon sync.
17:21
Speaker 1: So what you're telling is is that the carbon sinc
17:24
Speaker 1: created by this grazing offsets or the farting and the
17:27
Speaker 1: burping of the cows. Right, And as I understand and
17:30
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong, As I understand that this
17:33
Speaker 1: is about a the depth of the roots of the plants.
17:38
Speaker 1: So the deeper the roots of the grasses and the
17:41
Speaker 1: other plants in the past, is the deeper they go,
17:45
Speaker 1: the more carbon can be held in the soil. And
17:49
Speaker 1: is the microbes in the soil develop and are not girneder,
17:52
Speaker 1: there's no plowing, etc. That also helps is that how
17:55
Speaker 1: it works.
17:57
Speaker 3: Those are all accurate, accurate statements for sure, so when
18:00
Speaker 3: you have plants that are being overgrazed, think of it
18:03
Speaker 3: as sort of a mirror. The roots are very short
18:06
Speaker 3: on the bottom too, And the longer you let a
18:09
Speaker 3: plant grow, and the higher you let a plant grow
18:12
Speaker 3: above the soil surface, the roots are growing deeper into
18:14
Speaker 3: the soil surface. And so what that does is that
18:17
Speaker 3: brings carbon down into the soil community helps create channels
18:23
Speaker 3: for water to absorb into the soil. And when you
18:27
Speaker 3: have a lot of different types of plants, not just
18:29
Speaker 3: one or two or three types of plants growing in
18:32
Speaker 3: that pasture, but if you have seven or more, ten, twelve,
18:35
Speaker 3: then you're creating a situation with enormous increases of the
18:40
Speaker 3: soil microbial diversity and also the soil microbial abundance. And
18:46
Speaker 3: so when you have a lot of microbes in the
18:49
Speaker 3: soil doing their job, the plants are actually feeding the
18:52
Speaker 3: microbe's carbon. And so when those plants are eaten half,
18:55
Speaker 3: like we were talking about the cattlemen, have the animals
18:59
Speaker 3: eat half of that plant above the surface, they stomp
19:01
Speaker 3: the rest down. They keep the soil cool, keeping the
19:04
Speaker 3: soil cool, keeps the microbes thriving. Exposed soil can get
19:09
Speaker 3: insanely hot, insanely quickly, Like you can have soil on
19:13
Speaker 3: an eighty degree day, if it's exposed be one hundred
19:16
Speaker 3: and five one hundred and ten degrees, So you're actually
19:18
Speaker 3: killing your microbes. But when you keep the soil cool,
19:23
Speaker 3: the soil surface covered, the cool soil, the microbes they're thriving.
19:27
Speaker 3: The plants are bringing carbon into the soil system. The
19:30
Speaker 3: microbes are feeding the plants all the minerals and nutrients
19:34
Speaker 3: they need, so you actually get nutrient dense forage being
19:38
Speaker 3: grown from that microbe rich ecosystem below ground where carbon
19:43
Speaker 3: is the currency. I know your show's about money, Well,
19:45
Speaker 3: carbon's the currency with microbial life below ground and diverse plants,
19:52
Speaker 3: big plants, tall plants, those are bringing more carbon into
19:55
Speaker 3: the system. So that's how these these farmers are throwing
20:00
Speaker 3: down so much more carbon than the warming of the
20:03
Speaker 3: methane and the nitrous oxide that's coming up out of
20:05
Speaker 3: the system and from the cattle. That's how it's happening.
20:09
Speaker 3: It's photosynthesis. It's just simply photosynthesis.
20:12
Speaker 1: That's everything. We landed school when we were twelve, right,
20:16
Speaker 1: and presumably the depths of the deeper, the roots of
20:19
Speaker 1: the plants go, the more resilient the land is to drought.
20:23
Speaker 1: Is that right?
20:25
Speaker 3: That's accurate, And I'll just give you a little bit
20:27
Speaker 3: more nuance. When you have deep roots, you're breaking up
20:32
Speaker 3: the soil, so the soil is porous. And when you
20:35
Speaker 3: have a lot of microbes, the soil is also porous
20:37
Speaker 3: because the soil itself is actually made of dead microbes,
20:42
Speaker 3: like up to maybe fifty percent of healthy soils or
20:44
Speaker 3: dead microbes, and so that's like a sponge. It's very
20:48
Speaker 3: a very porous, very aerated. So those roots are aerating
20:52
Speaker 3: the soil, right, So you'd get different types of roots
20:54
Speaker 3: that are breaking through compacted soil. So all of that
20:57
Speaker 3: air through the soil system is allowing the rain to
21:00
Speaker 3: go in to the soil system itself. So the adaptive
21:05
Speaker 3: side of the fence in our study is getting two
21:07
Speaker 3: more inches of rain soaking in per hour than their neighbor.
21:11
Speaker 3: And that's a huge amount of water when you're thinking
21:14
Speaker 3: about you know, one acre inch of water is twenty
21:16
Speaker 3: seven thousand gallons. Two acre inches of water is fifty
21:21
Speaker 3: four thousand gallons. And if you have a thousand acre farm,
21:24
Speaker 3: which is not unheard of over here, not as common
21:28
Speaker 3: over there. But if you just use the math, that's
21:30
Speaker 3: fifty four million gallons of water per hour that the
21:34
Speaker 3: adaptive folks are getting, So all that water's going into
21:37
Speaker 3: their system when it rains, and all those porous spaces
21:40
Speaker 3: are holding that water. So when the droughts come, which
21:43
Speaker 3: they will come, and they'll come more and more, we'll
21:45
Speaker 3: have heavier rains and bigger droughts as climate change takes off,
21:49
Speaker 3: this global weirding it's doing. That water's staying in the
21:53
Speaker 3: soil in these little pockets, and it's actually more resilient
21:56
Speaker 3: in drought for the farmer. And we've had farmer after
21:59
Speaker 3: farmer after farms still growing their their forage when their
22:04
Speaker 3: neighbors are feeding hay to their animals at a very
22:06
Speaker 3: high expense because their land is more resilient and drought,
22:10
Speaker 3: which is exactly what you said. It's also more resilient
22:13
Speaker 3: in floods. It's more durable. The soil soaks up more water,
22:17
Speaker 3: so there's less flooding downstream. So farmers, you know, if
22:22
Speaker 3: a whole watershed of farmers is focusing on soil health
22:25
Speaker 3: and getting their soils super healthy, super porous, then the
22:29
Speaker 3: flooding downstream is going to be mitigated. It's going to
22:31
Speaker 3: be much much less.
22:33
Speaker 1: Okay, interesting, So what we've got here is as you
22:37
Speaker 1: describe it, and I would encourage everybody to watch the
22:40
Speaker 1: documentaries you've done on this, as you describe it, you've
22:43
Speaker 1: got something that massively improves biodiversity, improves the resilience of
22:48
Speaker 1: the soil and hands of the land. Is a great
22:53
Speaker 1: assistance in the fight against rising global temperatures. But sounds
22:58
Speaker 1: like an awful lot of work for farmers. And I've
23:02
Speaker 1: spoken to some regenerative farmers using these AMP systems and
23:05
Speaker 1: they tell me that they're moving their cows every day
23:09
Speaker 1: or twice a day, So there's an enormous or twice
23:12
Speaker 1: a day. So you've got an enormous amount of planning
23:14
Speaker 1: to do apart from anything else. Do you know how
23:16
Speaker 1: we all hate admins admin for starters. And then there's
23:19
Speaker 1: the actual work of moving cows around the place. So
23:24
Speaker 1: this is something of a barrier, presumably to getting farmers
23:27
Speaker 1: to want to use these systems rather than just shove
23:31
Speaker 1: more fertilizer on the lands as they used to doing.
23:35
Speaker 3: It would be a barrier if it were true, But
23:38
Speaker 3: I've just met so many farmers. Like I said, I
23:40
Speaker 3: was just at a conference with seven hundred. None of
23:43
Speaker 3: them are complaining about more work. They're actually enjoying their
23:47
Speaker 3: work more because they're not an attractor making Hey, they're
23:49
Speaker 3: on the land watching their animals. And the movement of
23:52
Speaker 3: the animals is super, super easy. It's just putting a
23:56
Speaker 3: pollywire fence up and then putting a gate on on
24:00
Speaker 3: it and opening the gate. The animals move quite naturally
24:04
Speaker 3: to the next spot because they know there's better food,
24:06
Speaker 3: they know what's coming, they know that it's going to
24:08
Speaker 3: be a better diet for them across the fence. So
24:12
Speaker 3: we've made ten short films about amp grazing. That series
24:16
Speaker 3: is called Carboncowboys. It's Carboncowboys dot org. That's the historical
24:21
Speaker 3: catalog of watching this type of grazing and a lot
24:24
Speaker 3: of different ecosystems including Cornwall and Devon and all over
24:28
Speaker 3: the US and some in Canada. The new work that
24:31
Speaker 3: we're doing right now that is based on the research
24:33
Speaker 3: that we've been doing over the last well it's a
24:35
Speaker 3: ten year project and we've been out in the field
24:37
Speaker 3: for five It's called Roots So Deep you can see
24:40
Speaker 3: the devil down there, and so that website. You can
24:43
Speaker 3: also go to Carboncowboys dot org and find out all
24:45
Speaker 3: about that as well. That film is not yet released
24:48
Speaker 3: to the public. We're screening it in screenings and barns
24:52
Speaker 3: and churches and people's homes and theaters all over the US.
24:55
Speaker 3: We've done a bunch of screenings in the UK as well.
24:58
Speaker 3: And that's the film that's about all the research, it's
25:02
Speaker 3: about all the farm families, it's about the scientists on
25:06
Speaker 3: our team.
25:07
Speaker 1: And.
25:09
Speaker 3: You just see how easy it is, how much more
25:12
Speaker 3: enjoyable it is for the farmers to be doing this way.
25:14
Speaker 3: So it's not There is some planning, but it's not
25:19
Speaker 3: a barrier. It's not a burden from the hundreds of
25:22
Speaker 3: farmers that I've spoken with. I'm not a farmer.
25:25
Speaker 1: Is it commercially viable? I mean this is the maybe
25:28
Speaker 1: not viable, but is it better financially And one of
25:30
Speaker 1: the things that I've been wondering about recently. I was
25:33
Speaker 1: helping judge a series of awards for small companies the
25:36
Speaker 1: other day and they were all absolutely fascinating. In company
25:40
Speaker 1: after company after company came in and talk to us
25:43
Speaker 1: about how they were more sustainable than a company that
25:46
Speaker 1: did something similar and how they did it better and
25:48
Speaker 1: how they were you know, the way that they did
25:50
Speaker 1: it improved carbon missions, etcetera, etcetera. And my question to
25:53
Speaker 1: each of them was, Okay, that's great, but if you
25:57
Speaker 1: were to put the environmental impact of your work side,
26:01
Speaker 1: is your product also absolutely better than a product that
26:06
Speaker 1: does not have the sustainability attached to it? Or is
26:09
Speaker 1: it the same just a bit more expensive. And I
26:13
Speaker 1: suppose that's my question to you as well. Farmers who
26:16
Speaker 1: take on board the information and the research that you've
26:19
Speaker 1: done and move over to a more regenerative style of agriculture,
26:23
Speaker 1: do they find that their income goes up or down?
26:27
Speaker 1: And is their meat of a higher quality when you
26:30
Speaker 1: or I might get to eat it.
26:33
Speaker 3: So on the income side, the farmers tell us that
26:37
Speaker 3: they're getting themselves out of debt by going to regenerative agriculture.
26:43
Speaker 3: Conventional agriculture creates a lot of debt for the farmers.
26:48
Speaker 3: It's not based on profit per acre. It's based on
26:52
Speaker 3: yield per acre. But when you talk about profit per acre,
26:56
Speaker 3: the farmers who go towards regenerative agriculture are making a
26:59
Speaker 3: lot more money for themselves. Their operating costs go way down,
27:03
Speaker 3: let's just talk about nitrogen. So nitrogen. In our study,
27:08
Speaker 3: the farmers were reporting about fifty grand a year they're
27:10
Speaker 3: spending on nitrogen, and that was before Putin invaded the Ukraine,
27:16
Speaker 3: and that number is now up to one hundred thousand,
27:18
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year on nitrogen
27:21
Speaker 3: fertilizer to then grow all the hay they need to
27:23
Speaker 3: grow to then feed their animals hay. When the adaptive
27:27
Speaker 3: farmers don't grow hey, they don't put nitrogen on their
27:32
Speaker 3: ground and they don't have that huge expense or that stress,
27:35
Speaker 3: because if you put nitrogen on the ground and it
27:37
Speaker 3: doesn't rain in a couple of days, you've lost. It's
27:40
Speaker 3: a gamble and it won't it won't benefit you at all.
27:45
Speaker 3: It's like throwing that kind of money away. The adaptive
27:48
Speaker 3: farmers don't put nitrogen down, have grown forage around their
27:52
Speaker 3: farms enough that they don't have to feed hay except
27:55
Speaker 3: for in the winter time, and sometimes even then not
27:57
Speaker 3: that much. So huge huge cost reduction right there. And
28:02
Speaker 3: then according to our study, they actually have more functional
28:05
Speaker 3: nitrogen in their soil than the folks who are spending
28:08
Speaker 3: tens of thousands of dollars applying nitrogen to their farms
28:12
Speaker 3: and so naturally working with nature, the nitrogen is there
28:17
Speaker 3: and it's doing its job for them, whereas the folks
28:20
Speaker 3: who are putting nitrogen down are in a spiral in
28:24
Speaker 3: the wrong direction. So just the operating costs right there.
28:27
Speaker 3: They all talk about how their medical bills are much
28:32
Speaker 3: much less. They're all talking about because.
28:36
Speaker 1: They are happier and eating a more diverse diet.
28:39
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know about happy, but they're healthier, healthier.
28:43
Speaker 1: Healthier normally means happier.
28:45
Speaker 3: I'm with you, I'm with you, but i'll give you that.
28:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, yep.
28:49
Speaker 3: So, but they're healthier animals. They don't need the antibiotics,
28:54
Speaker 3: they don't need all these medicines that farmers are having
28:57
Speaker 3: to do conventionally, and therefore the cost are a lot
29:00
Speaker 3: lot less. The pesticides. These farmers aren't spraying pesticides because
29:07
Speaker 3: they're having such a diverse forage community, such a diverse
29:11
Speaker 3: plant community, that the bugs are as equally as diverse,
29:15
Speaker 3: and it's a much more functional bug community. In our research,
29:21
Speaker 3: it's thirty three percent more diverse and functional insect community
29:25
Speaker 3: on the AMP side versus the conventional side. So what
29:28
Speaker 3: does that mean. That means that bugs that are pests
29:31
Speaker 3: if you just have a monoculture, that one bug's just
29:34
Speaker 3: rampant in that monoculture and it's destroying everything. Well, if
29:37
Speaker 3: it's in a situation where there's twelve types of plants
29:41
Speaker 3: and it's not in a monoculture, it's actually a functional
29:43
Speaker 3: citizen of that community. When the bug community is more
29:47
Speaker 3: functional and more balanced, it's much more. It's actually cycling
29:52
Speaker 3: carbon more. It's all part of a system. And so
29:56
Speaker 3: a lot of the science that's gone on in the
29:59
Speaker 3: past looking at pieces of this system, looking at the
30:03
Speaker 3: methane only from animals and getting a picture where you
30:08
Speaker 3: really have to look at the system, which is what
30:10
Speaker 3: the scientists on our team have taught me and have
30:14
Speaker 3: demanded to even be part of this team, that we
30:16
Speaker 3: do look at the system, and that's that's a part
30:19
Speaker 3: of that. So less pesticides, less herbicides, if any. Sometimes
30:25
Speaker 3: folks are putting some herbicides down. Sometimes they're putting them
30:27
Speaker 3: down to kill a cover crop. Other people are crimping
30:30
Speaker 3: the cover crop. So it's just a lot less input costs,
30:35
Speaker 3: and then the animals themselves from the data we got
30:39
Speaker 3: from the farmers. They're selling their animals for hundreds of
30:42
Speaker 3: dollars more per head, and so there's there's money to
30:47
Speaker 3: be made on that side, money to be saved on
30:49
Speaker 3: the other side of.
30:50
Speaker 1: Why are they selling them for more per head because
30:52
Speaker 1: they are marketing them as a premium product or because
30:54
Speaker 1: they are heavy?
30:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, more of a premium product.
30:58
Speaker 1: Okay? Interesting? And do you have to reduce a number
31:03
Speaker 1: of animals in your herd for a given amount of
31:06
Speaker 1: land to do this or the herd size remains the same.
31:09
Speaker 3: No, These farmers are doubling and tripling and quadrupling the
31:12
Speaker 3: amount of animals they can produce on their land with
31:15
Speaker 3: the same rainfall because they're producing so much more forage.
31:20
Speaker 1: Everybody doing this? Why are there any nonsos don't know
31:23
Speaker 1: about farms left? They don't know about it. They will know,
31:26
Speaker 1: some of them will know. I'm not sure how many
31:27
Speaker 1: farmers listen to this podcast, but I think we can.
31:29
Speaker 1: We can get it out there a bit.
31:32
Speaker 3: Well, that's obviously what we're working on too. Is you know,
31:36
Speaker 3: farmers love their land and they don't love being in debt.
31:42
Speaker 3: I guarantee you that. And you know the suicide rates
31:46
Speaker 3: in the US and the UK are incredibly high for farmers,
31:50
Speaker 3: and debt is a leading leading cause for that. It's
31:54
Speaker 3: the third highest rate in the US, is it, professor
31:58
Speaker 3: any group?
31:59
Speaker 1: Yeah?
32:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, can just.
32:01
Speaker 1: Translate across to arable farming. I mean, I've written quite
32:03
Speaker 1: a lot over the years about soil health and about
32:06
Speaker 1: soil depth, and about the disappearance of top soil across
32:10
Speaker 1: well across the world, as you're not just in the US.
32:12
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you remember a few years ago,
32:14
Speaker 1: there was a lot of talk about how we only
32:16
Speaker 1: had ten good harvests left globally, etc. Because our soil
32:21
Speaker 1: was so thin top soil.
32:22
Speaker 3: I think it was sixty that was out of the
32:24
Speaker 3: un that was sixty?
32:25
Speaker 1: Was it sixty? Okay? Not ten? Then I go can't
32:27
Speaker 1: help but exaggerate. So how do you translate this across
32:31
Speaker 1: to arable.
32:32
Speaker 3: Well, you can. You can. You can integrate the livestock
32:36
Speaker 3: production and the arable production, and then you're going to
32:39
Speaker 3: be fertilizing your land for a profit rather than having
32:42
Speaker 3: to pay for fertilizer. And that's being done. I mean,
32:45
Speaker 3: that's how it used to be done all the time.
32:48
Speaker 3: And now colleagues of ours Alan Williams and Gabe Brown
32:51
Speaker 3: and their group Understanding AG. They're they're working with General
32:56
Speaker 3: Mills and a lot of other big companies at scale
32:59
Speaker 3: doing that work and teaching farmers about this. Farmers love it,
33:05
Speaker 3: and that's a big sign.
33:07
Speaker 1: I mean, what you're describing here is something where you
33:09
Speaker 1: can do a lot less work, have more animals, make
33:13
Speaker 1: more money, and create a wonderful environment on your farm,
33:18
Speaker 1: and beer carbon sink at the same time. It's got
33:21
Speaker 1: to be a downside here, Peter. There's got to be
33:22
Speaker 1: a downside.
33:24
Speaker 3: Providing wildlife habitats for endangered animals is what's also happening.
33:30
Speaker 3: So I've been looking for a downside for ten years.
33:33
Speaker 3: But you were saying that it was less work. I'll
33:36
Speaker 3: say that farmers are telling me it's either less work
33:38
Speaker 3: or it's the same amount of work but a lot
33:41
Speaker 3: more enjoyable work. So I'm hearing that kind of spectrum.
33:46
Speaker 3: But the downside that I'm discovering right now is secession.
33:51
Speaker 3: It's what happens to the next generation. The farmers that
33:55
Speaker 3: are doing it right now, their kids aren't necessarily wanting
33:58
Speaker 3: to be farmers themselves. So what happens to that land
34:03
Speaker 3: after this generation passes. That to me is the weak
34:07
Speaker 3: link to having You know, you're building up the soil,
34:11
Speaker 3: you're getting all that carbon into the soil system, but
34:14
Speaker 3: you're what's going to happen when those farmers pass on.
34:17
Speaker 3: That to me is a really important thing to be
34:21
Speaker 3: looking at. How do we keep the land in agricultural production.
34:25
Speaker 3: We don't need more neighborhoods, we need more farms.
34:28
Speaker 1: It seems to me that that's something that you may
34:31
Speaker 1: find happens naturally. I would have thought there's an awful
34:34
Speaker 1: lot of people who would love to work on the land.
34:37
Speaker 1: As you say, it's a much more enjoyable environment, and
34:41
Speaker 1: it's also a lower chemical environment and a less labor
34:45
Speaker 1: heavy environment. I would have thought that would be very
34:47
Speaker 1: attractive to the young triguly if, as you say, people
34:50
Speaker 1: are making an orval on more money. Now money is attractive.
34:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are definitely people who want to work on
34:56
Speaker 3: the land, but they might not be the land owners.
35:00
Speaker 3: So if the farmers children aren't into farming and they
35:03
Speaker 3: want to make money from the land when their parents pass,
35:06
Speaker 3: that's what I'm talking about, and so folks are working
35:09
Speaker 3: on it. It's definitely a thing that's being looked at
35:12
Speaker 3: and talked about, and farmers are making their land into easements,
35:16
Speaker 3: so they'll have to stay in agriculture from in perpetuity.
35:20
Speaker 3: Finding the managers, training the managers, those are all the issues.
35:24
Speaker 3: It was just like you know, when renewable energy is
35:27
Speaker 3: coming in, you've got to train all sorts of new
35:30
Speaker 3: skill sets to be installing the solar panels, to be
35:33
Speaker 3: putting in waterless toilets and those sorts of things. It's
35:37
Speaker 3: the same kind of thing where we need a lot
35:38
Speaker 3: more farmers trained in these methods. But it's certainly happening.
35:43
Speaker 3: But you asked me for a week link, and that
35:46
Speaker 3: is the weak link that I see.
35:48
Speaker 1: Peter. This all sounds absolutely brilliant and I really appreciate
35:51
Speaker 1: you coming on to tell us about it. But let
35:53
Speaker 1: me just actually one more thing before I let you go. Obviously,
35:56
Speaker 1: I'm based in the UK and most of my listeners
35:58
Speaker 1: are based in the UK. Would like to buy beef
36:02
Speaker 1: that is raised like this and feel good about them
36:06
Speaker 1: eating habits? I certainly do. Is there a mark of
36:09
Speaker 1: any kind? Is there a way that we can buy
36:11
Speaker 1: a MP produced beef and know that we're buying it
36:14
Speaker 1: or they're not yet any kind of I don't know,
36:16
Speaker 1: kite mark for the a MP beef.
36:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's a great question. I know folks are
36:21
Speaker 3: working on that. I know of one company. It's called
36:25
Speaker 3: Regenified and it's genified dot Com. They're working exactly on that,
36:31
Speaker 3: and they have a very rigorous system where they go
36:34
Speaker 3: to the farms and they measure what the farms are
36:36
Speaker 3: doing and they assess the farms and then when the
36:38
Speaker 3: farms get to a certain level, they can use that badge.
36:42
Speaker 3: That's the one I know about. The other thing you
36:44
Speaker 3: can look for is grass fed, grass finished. That doesn't
36:48
Speaker 3: mean it's going to be amp grazed, but at least
36:50
Speaker 3: you're on the right path. But yeah, that's a that's
36:55
Speaker 3: a needed thing. But it's you know this is this
36:58
Speaker 3: is not as yuh, everyone's not doing it right now,
37:02
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. It's like three four percent
37:04
Speaker 3: of US farmers or somewhere along the path of this
37:07
Speaker 3: type of grazing. So there's a lot of opportunity, a
37:11
Speaker 3: lot of opportunity. I know. This shows about investment, and
37:14
Speaker 3: I know a lot of people are talking about investments
37:17
Speaker 3: in land. If you invest in the land and then
37:20
Speaker 3: you regenerate the land. Is the land more valuable? That's
37:22
Speaker 3: definitely something people have been looking at for a while now.
37:26
Speaker 3: And then the whole issue of carbon credits. Can you
37:28
Speaker 3: trust soil carbon credits? Can you trust the measurement? Can
37:33
Speaker 3: you trust the models? Those are all really important questions
37:37
Speaker 3: that are being answered on a day to day basis,
37:40
Speaker 3: and it's sort of a wild West right now with
37:42
Speaker 3: people claiming that they can prove carbon credits, where sometimes
37:46
Speaker 3: their claims are thin and other times their claims are accurate.
37:51
Speaker 1: There's a company, there's a company here in Scotland and
37:53
Speaker 1: Dundee that does exactly that does test soil every three
37:57
Speaker 1: years with almost just see how they're doing on building
37:59
Speaker 1: up the carbon and then that allows them to claim
38:01
Speaker 1: carbon credits on it. So in that sense, you know
38:03
Speaker 1: there is a financial incentive to improve the carbon content
38:07
Speaker 1: of your soil or that one would like to think
38:09
Speaker 1: that it was about more than just credits, but there
38:11
Speaker 1: you go.
38:12
Speaker 3: That's that's worthy of a whole show talking about the
38:15
Speaker 3: voluntary carbon market right now.
38:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an interesting one, and Peter, we will leave
38:19
Speaker 1: that for another day, but I think there's a lot
38:21
Speaker 1: to come back to here. So Thank you so much
38:23
Speaker 1: for joining us today. Really appreciate it so interesting.
38:26
Speaker 3: Thank you, Maren. I appreciate it.
38:32
Speaker 1: So John. This was also like your topic, and I
38:34
Speaker 1: know you love agricultural experts, nor am I, but what
38:37
Speaker 1: did you think about this?
38:38
Speaker 2: That was really interesting? I mean a few questions, but
38:44
Speaker 2: there were sort of similar to the ones that raised.
38:47
Speaker 2: But I mean it kind of struck me as I
38:51
Speaker 2: be doing them much more with farming than I do.
38:52
Speaker 2: But it's kind of like rewalding, but practical rewalding that
38:58
Speaker 2: thing late letting. Letting need to look after itself and
39:02
Speaker 2: be a bit more and how many with the biodiversity
39:07
Speaker 2: and things like that, and that actually be in a
39:09
Speaker 2: better way to just do everything.
39:14
Speaker 1: I mean from that, it's not it's not quite rewilding.
39:17
Speaker 1: I mean, I see what you mean, but it's you know,
39:19
Speaker 1: actually that the cattle in something like this very corraled.
39:22
Speaker 1: You know, they're very controlled. You have to be in
39:24
Speaker 1: this bit now and they're very crowded together and then
39:27
Speaker 1: they're moved on very quickly. So it's very controlled environment
39:31
Speaker 1: in some ways. But it also works to replicate a
39:34
Speaker 1: natural environment for herd animals, so you can do the
39:37
Speaker 1: same with any pasture pasture fed animals. But the really
39:41
Speaker 1: interesting bit for me in it, I think is the
39:44
Speaker 1: is the soil health bit. And I've been to visit
39:48
Speaker 1: a couple of regenerative farms in Scotland that do exactly this,
39:51
Speaker 1: or try and exactly this. You know, you have to
39:53
Speaker 1: go on work to try and transform a farm from
39:55
Speaker 1: traditional traditional agriculture to regenerative agriculture. I have been to
40:00
Speaker 1: a couple and when you look at you know, going
40:03
Speaker 1: to the fields and yank outer a clump of grass
40:05
Speaker 1: that is part of a traditional farming method and then
40:09
Speaker 1: yank outer bit that is part of this new amp
40:13
Speaker 1: style of farming or old style of farming, should I say,
40:16
Speaker 1: And you can really see the difference and going back
40:20
Speaker 1: to the roots so deep, you know, you can really
40:22
Speaker 1: see how the roots of the of the grass and
40:24
Speaker 1: it's not just grass of course, is much more diverse
40:27
Speaker 1: inside the the amp field. You can see how deep
40:31
Speaker 1: it goes and you can see how the clumping is different.
40:33
Speaker 1: You can see how the soil look different and understand
40:36
Speaker 1: how that works with the microbes. That's absolutely fascinating to
40:39
Speaker 1: see it in real life, in real life, so you
40:41
Speaker 1: know it works and soil health is a fashionable subject
40:44
Speaker 1: of the matter, but it simply couldn't be more important
40:46
Speaker 1: to I mean, that's all we've got, right, the health
40:48
Speaker 1: of our soil. That's all we've got. That fails. Everything fails.
40:53
Speaker 2: And so because this was the I mean, you actually
40:56
Speaker 2: did ask this question, but all the way through I
40:59
Speaker 2: was thinking, maybe we'll watch the downside. Is this one
41:02
Speaker 2: of those things where it's like say, organic farming, where
41:05
Speaker 2: it's all very well, but you get like maybe one
41:08
Speaker 2: cow that costs you know, one hundred pounds per kilo
41:11
Speaker 2: a steak as opposed to ten that means everyone can
41:14
Speaker 2: eat meat. Because obviously that democratization of the food supply,
41:18
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, is one of the issues on
41:21
Speaker 2: which all of this pivots, you know, the whole thing
41:23
Speaker 2: about you know, supermarkets versus local shops and all that
41:28
Speaker 2: sort of stuff. The reason we don't the reason we
41:30
Speaker 2: do things in a high intensity way so that the
41:32
Speaker 2: food is affordable for the white depopulation. But I got
41:36
Speaker 2: the impression from what you're saying that a low farmers
41:41
Speaker 2: can sell it at premium prices because of the method.
41:45
Speaker 2: If everyone adopted this, we'ld still have as many cows,
41:48
Speaker 2: and you probably wouldn't be able to chat to premium anymore.
41:51
Speaker 3: Is that?
41:52
Speaker 1: I think that's ansic point. I mean, this is still experimental, right,
41:55
Speaker 1: I'm not that many farmers doing it, and I think
41:58
Speaker 1: that the main problem is the transition, as everything you
42:02
Speaker 1: know persuading people to take the risk of making this
42:05
Speaker 1: kind of transition. So in the beginning, it's only going
42:07
Speaker 1: to be the rich farmers that do it right because
42:10
Speaker 1: they can afford the risk and they can afford the experimentation.
42:14
Speaker 1: So bit by bed as it starts to work, it
42:16
Speaker 1: should be easier for other farmers to make that transition.
42:20
Speaker 1: But I suppose that the important thing about it is
42:24
Speaker 1: that you and I have often talked about how economies
42:27
Speaker 1: should work with how people are, and you will say
42:30
Speaker 1: that capitalism is the only answer for people because it
42:33
Speaker 1: is the only system that is natural to us. Because
42:35
Speaker 1: we're accumulated and barterers and self improvers, etcetera. We're natural capitalists.
42:40
Speaker 1: We're also natural meat teachers, it turns out, yes, And
42:44
Speaker 1: so we're beginning to see a little bit of reversal
42:46
Speaker 1: and veganism and beginning to hate mails these look address
42:49
Speaker 1: of course, and we're beginning to see that all the
42:53
Speaker 1: artificial meat companies. I don't mean that the lagram meats,
42:57
Speaker 1: but I mean the very processed food that protects meat.
43:00
Speaker 1: Except that these companies are failing, and various companies that
43:03
Speaker 1: only produce vegetarian food are failing, and so heather Mills,
43:06
Speaker 1: this company went down the other day. So you know,
43:09
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily something that in the end people love
43:11
Speaker 1: the idea, the moral idea of becoming a vegetarian or
43:15
Speaker 1: a vegan, but in the end people tend not to
43:17
Speaker 1: stick at it. So it may be that like were
43:19
Speaker 1: natural capitalists, we're also natural meat eaters. And if we are,
43:22
Speaker 1: then we need to find a way to produce meat
43:24
Speaker 1: in a way that is both humane, sustainable, and carbon friendly.
43:28
Speaker 1: And if we're going to do that, this is a
43:30
Speaker 1: very very clear answer to that conundrum.
43:34
Speaker 2: Well, I think, I mean, on that point, I thought
43:36
Speaker 2: it was really interesting a bit the carbon credits because obviously,
43:40
Speaker 2: and as I was saying, it's somewhat of wonderful producer
43:43
Speaker 2: that we should do a short o the whole mess
43:46
Speaker 2: of the carbon credit sphere, because we should. Yeah, I mean,
43:50
Speaker 2: as PR says, it is the wild waste, but the
43:51
Speaker 2: point is if you can have it farms partelling the
43:57
Speaker 2: developed worlds, we have confidence and institutions and regulations is
44:02
Speaker 2: fairly high, and people will actually be checking their stuff
44:05
Speaker 2: as opposed to you know, pretend and that they're protecting
44:08
Speaker 2: a chunky reinforce that doesn't even exist. Then I mean
44:13
Speaker 2: that would also be a great way to get farmers
44:16
Speaker 2: to do it, because it's kind of like the wind farms.
44:18
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, the turbines all went up because
44:22
Speaker 2: the owners got paid absolutely, you know, tons for allowing
44:26
Speaker 2: them are on the line. And if if you've got
44:28
Speaker 2: the kind of Calvin market and you know, premium Calvin
44:32
Speaker 2: credits to go along with your premium beef, then I mean, yeah,
44:36
Speaker 2: I mean there's always things.
44:37
Speaker 1: It's fairy exciting, it is, yeah, And we talked a
44:41
Speaker 1: bit in there about about not much, but about how
44:43
Speaker 1: that can transfer across to arable farming as well, because
44:46
Speaker 1: of course the traditional arable farming really does strip the
44:48
Speaker 1: health out of the soil and it's a long term
44:51
Speaker 1: where we talked briefly in there about the constant gam
44:54
Speaker 1: angering about how many harvests there are left, and I
44:56
Speaker 1: remembered reading somewhere that it was ten years. It was like, no,
44:59
Speaker 1: it's sixty. But even if if it weren't true that
45:01
Speaker 1: there were really bad, really bad so and that's that's
45:06
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why there is this very intense
45:09
Speaker 1: focus on on soil health. And so if you can
45:11
Speaker 1: shift the ideas that there are generative farmers over from
45:16
Speaker 1: from pasture pasture meat farming to arable farming as well,
45:19
Speaker 1: I think that really does become very interesting.
45:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought it was good.
45:23
Speaker 1: We should do more on farming.
45:27
Speaker 2: Will should do more on these slately? Can the edge
45:31
Speaker 2: case subjects and you know, viadeos right in and let
45:35
Speaker 2: us know if there's anything that you're that's right.
45:39
Speaker 1: Everybody talks about interest rates, right, we can we can
45:42
Speaker 1: go a little more niche.
45:44
Speaker 2: It reallys for the entire ecoomy, doesn't it, because you
45:47
Speaker 2: know what's more fundamental?
45:50
Speaker 1: Why am I saying this is niche? That is not niche,
45:52
Speaker 1: This is vital, right, Listeners, if you'd like to hear
45:56
Speaker 1: more of this kind of thing, let us know. In fact,
45:59
Speaker 1: do you know what coming into Christmas here, coming into
46:01
Speaker 1: the end of the year, John and I have been
46:02
Speaker 1: doing this for a year now. We would really like
46:05
Speaker 1: to know what you think we'd really like to know
46:07
Speaker 1: what you want to hear more of. Do you want
46:08
Speaker 1: to hear us talking more about how cheap UK equities
46:11
Speaker 1: are and which investment trusts you should buy as a result,
46:14
Speaker 1: I think you probably do. Or do you want to
46:16
Speaker 1: hear more about what should be doing in Japan? What
46:18
Speaker 1: should be doing in Asia? Should you be buying outies
46:21
Speaker 1: in China or not? Are you growth? Are you value
46:23
Speaker 1: this kind of thing? Let us know. Do you want
46:25
Speaker 1: to hear more about the bond market? Do you actually
46:27
Speaker 1: want to hear more about arable farming? Or about space?
46:31
Speaker 1: I would like to talk more about space. Our producer
46:33
Speaker 1: says that I'm obsessed with space, but I am obsessed
46:36
Speaker 1: with space. You know, the Earth is finite. Look what
46:38
Speaker 1: else is out there? We're going to do more podcasts
46:40
Speaker 1: on space. Anyway, let us know what you want. We
46:42
Speaker 1: would really appreciate that, and then we can tailor Taylor
46:45
Speaker 1: what we talk about more to you. Although you may
46:47
Speaker 1: still not agree with some of the things we say.
46:49
Speaker 1: Right and all that remains for me to say to
46:52
Speaker 1: you is do have a very very happy Christmas. John,
46:54
Speaker 1: would you like to say happy Christmas listeners as well?
46:56
Speaker 2: Mary Christmas listeners.
46:59
Speaker 1: Okay, thanks for listening to this week's maryon Dog's Money.
47:02
Speaker 1: We'll be back in time with the new year in
47:03
Speaker 1: the meantime. If you like our show, rate review, and
47:05
Speaker 1: subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast, and do please
47:08
Speaker 1: talk about us over Christmas. If you would like to
47:10
Speaker 1: introduce the subject of something we talked about in our
47:12
Speaker 1: podcast over your Christmas lunt, and encourage your relatives to
47:15
Speaker 1: listen to the podcast. We would appreciate that this episode
47:19
Speaker 1: was hosted by me Maren zumset Web. It was produced
47:21
Speaker 1: by Summersadi, additional editing by Blake Maples. Special thanks to
47:25
Speaker 1: Peter Back and tief John Steppe as usual, and of
47:28
Speaker 1: course our weekly reminder to sign up to John's daily newsletter,
47:31
Speaker 1: Money Distilled. The link for that is in the show notes,
47:33
Speaker 1: and we will also put in the show note a
47:35
Speaker 1: link to some of Peter's work.