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From Silver Screen to Soil Structure | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Hello.
0:08
Speaker 2: I'm Charles Malleck with a UK column interview and today
0:12
Speaker 2: I have with me Rachel Ward, who, among many other things,
0:15
Speaker 2: is a regenerative farmer in Australia. Rachel, thank you very
0:19
Speaker 2: much indeed for joining me, and a very warm welcome
0:22
Speaker 2: to UK column.
0:23
Speaker 3: Well, thank you.
0:24
Speaker 4: I'm a regular watcher of your columns, so I'm thrilled
0:27
Speaker 4: to be invited.
0:28
Speaker 2: Well done, Rachel. A diplomatic triumph. That's us off to
0:32
Speaker 2: a very good start, I think after Actually, let's be honest,
0:35
Speaker 2: a couple of little tech niggles, but we won't go
0:38
Speaker 2: into that now. What I would like to get to
0:41
Speaker 2: is first of all, to give people an insight into
0:45
Speaker 2: what it is that you are doing, because there may
0:47
Speaker 2: be a few who, at the mention of the word
0:49
Speaker 2: regenerative have been reaching for their agricultural literature to find
0:53
Speaker 2: what you've published or printed. Now you are a convert
0:56
Speaker 2: to it. So tell us a little bit about what
1:00
Speaker 2: your farm does, and in particular about your soil.
1:05
Speaker 4: Oh, just start with a big question, why don't we
1:07
Speaker 4: So what I do is I farm regeneritively or I
1:11
Speaker 4: attempt to farm regeneratively, which and I was five years
1:17
Speaker 4: ago before we had the big fires.
1:19
Speaker 3: I was a conventional farmer, which.
1:21
Speaker 4: Meant that I well, essentially I wasn't really paying much attention.
1:25
Speaker 4: And I had a farm manager, and we use chemicals,
1:28
Speaker 4: and we did set stocking, which means that you keep
1:32
Speaker 4: the cattle the livestock on the ground, add infinitum until
1:37
Speaker 4: basically they just eat it away and the roots are
1:40
Speaker 4: very short and it it just ain't great for biodiversity
1:45
Speaker 4: or for soil health. So what I was initiated into
1:49
Speaker 4: was this thing of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity,
1:55
Speaker 4: enriches the soil, improves water quality, and enhances ecosis stones
2:00
Speaker 4: and that is called regenerative farming. So I basically moved
2:05
Speaker 4: into that from having not farmed at all, but really
2:09
Speaker 4: from a place of deep in potence where I was
2:12
Speaker 4: very alarmed by, you know, I suppose the trumpeting of
2:18
Speaker 4: climate change and what that meant and how disasters it
2:25
Speaker 4: was going to be, particularly for my grandchildren, of which
2:28
Speaker 4: I just had my first. And then we were hit
2:31
Speaker 4: by these massive fires that tore through New South Wales,
2:36
Speaker 4: and that where our farm was one of the first
2:38
Speaker 4: to be hit. So I was ignorant really of how
2:41
Speaker 4: huge it was going to be. But we'd never had
2:43
Speaker 4: fires before. We're not particularly in country that that has
2:48
Speaker 4: regular fires.
2:49
Speaker 3: Anyway, it decimated the farm.
2:52
Speaker 4: My neighbour's house was burnt to the ground, all of
2:55
Speaker 4: my fencing was burnt. I did not think my house
2:59
Speaker 4: was going to withstand the fires. Anyway, we got through it,
3:04
Speaker 4: and after that I sort of really had an existential
3:08
Speaker 4: crisis of like what can I saw really that governments
3:13
Speaker 4: were really behold into corporations, nothing really was going to
3:17
Speaker 4: be done in the sort of time frame that we
3:20
Speaker 4: were being told we needed to do something. And I
3:24
Speaker 4: guess it was sort of out of this frustration and
3:26
Speaker 4: sense of impotence that I started to look up, well
3:30
Speaker 4: what else can I do? And out of that I
3:33
Speaker 4: realized I was a farmer. I could change my farm
3:37
Speaker 4: to regeneritive principles. I'd read this amazing book called Call
3:41
Speaker 4: of the read Warbler by an Australian farmer and writer,
3:45
Speaker 4: Charles Massey, who basically just did this great narrative on
3:52
Speaker 4: all of the earlier doctors in Australia of regeneritive farming,
3:56
Speaker 4: and each and every one of them was so inspiring
3:58
Speaker 4: and they had really reached a head banging moment, a
4:03
Speaker 4: moment where they had to change the paddock between their
4:05
Speaker 4: ears in which to change the way they farmed. And
4:10
Speaker 4: I think that sort of happened.
4:11
Speaker 3: To me as well.
4:12
Speaker 4: I sort of got to a crisis point, and I
4:13
Speaker 4: think almost you have to get there in order to
4:16
Speaker 4: embrace fundamental change, this sort of radical change of your
4:21
Speaker 4: farming practice. So not only did I become a regenerative farmer,
4:25
Speaker 4: but I was a filmmaker and I could make a
4:28
Speaker 4: documentary about my journey from conventional to regenerative farming, which
4:34
Speaker 4: I did. But most importantly, I realized I am a
4:37
Speaker 4: consumer and where I spend my food dollar.
4:40
Speaker 3: Is what is of utmost importance really.
4:43
Speaker 4: And I sort of, I don't know why it took
4:45
Speaker 4: me so long to really understand that that was my power,
4:48
Speaker 4: was really where I spent my How I could encourage
4:52
Speaker 4: farming by spending my food dollar with farmers who farmed regeneratively.
4:59
Speaker 4: Not easy because there is very little The supply chains
5:02
Speaker 4: for regeneritive farmers are disastrous, and but really there's been
5:09
Speaker 4: a grand swell of awareness of not any regenerative farming.
5:13
Speaker 4: But if people understanding the connection between their health and
5:18
Speaker 4: the food they eat. So it became a sort of
5:23
Speaker 4: an obvious thing for me to do was to start
5:28
Speaker 4: buying boxes of food, of of meat from regenitive farmers
5:33
Speaker 4: and vegetables from organic vegetable gardens, and that sort of
5:38
Speaker 4: just became my resondetri and from that I just felt
5:42
Speaker 4: empowered that I was actually doing something fundamental that made
5:47
Speaker 4: me feel a bit more potent with this climate crisis
5:51
Speaker 4: that we were we are dealing with.
5:56
Speaker 2: That's that is a very interesting point, and thank you
5:58
Speaker 2: for that sort of as an introduction. I think it
6:00
Speaker 2: gives people a good idea if not just what you're doing,
6:03
Speaker 2: but why you're doing it, the motivation and all that
6:06
Speaker 2: kind of thing. Now, your description of feeling impotent and
6:09
Speaker 2: subsequently sort of feeling empowered by what you were doing
6:13
Speaker 2: suddenly in the United Kingdom, and actually I would say
6:16
Speaker 2: across a lot of the rest of the world, everything,
6:19
Speaker 2: almost everything that has gone wrong with landscape, the environment,
6:23
Speaker 2: animals has been blamed on the climate rather than on people.
6:29
Speaker 2: And what you're talking about, in actual fact, is the
6:34
Speaker 2: systematic destruction of the landscape by farming practices. To what
6:38
Speaker 2: degree do you think that this has been sort of
6:44
Speaker 2: allowed to perpetuate because the finger has never been pointed
6:47
Speaker 2: at people well wholly.
6:50
Speaker 4: I mean, in Australia, the sort of miners and farmers
6:53
Speaker 4: are sacrifanct. You can't criticize them because basically our economy
6:58
Speaker 4: is built on the sheep's back, on what we mine.
7:02
Speaker 4: So it seemed like you could never make a judgment
7:05
Speaker 4: about how somebody farmed. And I went up to a
7:09
Speaker 4: film festival and a place called Glenninis, and I traveled
7:13
Speaker 4: through this country during the twenty nineteen drought, and it
7:18
Speaker 4: became incredibly apparent to me as I drove up that
7:20
Speaker 4: either side of the roads there was not plenty of grass,
7:24
Speaker 4: but there was coverage. There was coverage over the soil,
7:28
Speaker 4: over the fence. Where there was a farmland, it was decimated.
7:32
Speaker 4: It was just a dust bowl, and these sort of
7:35
Speaker 4: pathetic animals huddled under a single solitary tree, and.
7:41
Speaker 3: I just went, this is not good farming. This is
7:44
Speaker 3: why does nobody have a go at?
7:47
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, many people farm really well, and
7:51
Speaker 4: I am more and more in admiration of people who
7:54
Speaker 4: do farm well, but there are people who set stock,
7:59
Speaker 4: who keep their sheep on or their cows on their land,
8:02
Speaker 4: for too long, they eat it down to the bare dirt,
8:05
Speaker 4: and then we have either a big wind which blows
8:09
Speaker 4: all the dirt away, or they plow the land which
8:12
Speaker 4: blows the dirt away and or the soil away rather,
8:16
Speaker 4: and then you have a massive rainstorm, and then you
8:19
Speaker 4: have soil erosion. So it seemed to me that really
8:22
Speaker 4: since colonization, we had been overburdening our landscapes with livestock
8:29
Speaker 4: and you know, just packing them on to such a
8:32
Speaker 4: degree that we were absolutely ruining our landscapes. And it
8:39
Speaker 4: seemed like when I when I became introduced to the
8:43
Speaker 4: whole idea of regenerative farming, which was all about the soil,
8:47
Speaker 4: all about diversity, and all about not getting you know,
8:51
Speaker 4: growing roots really long so you can pull nutrients from
8:54
Speaker 4: the ground, pull down carbon into the soil, and that
8:58
Speaker 4: you keep a coverage on the ground all the time.
9:02
Speaker 4: So those are just the you know, it's very simple
9:05
Speaker 4: in many ways and very nuanced, very complex, complex when
9:09
Speaker 4: you get down to nature, which is you know, a
9:12
Speaker 4: curly beast.
9:13
Speaker 3: And and and so unexplored.
9:17
Speaker 4: Really, I mean, it seems to me that we don't
9:20
Speaker 4: really know the magic of what really is in the soil,
9:24
Speaker 4: and what mechanisms go on that just make it be
9:29
Speaker 4: able to sustain itself. And and and how nature works
9:33
Speaker 4: in such a such a.
9:37
Speaker 3: Magical, brilliant way. If we don't get in her way.
9:40
Speaker 4: The minute we get in her way, it seems like
9:43
Speaker 4: we make a you know, we muck it up. So
9:46
Speaker 4: really it's about stepping back and letting nature do what
9:50
Speaker 4: she does really well. And I believe that livestock are
9:55
Speaker 4: part of the land. And you know, where you have land,
9:58
Speaker 4: you always have animals. That's always been part of part
10:01
Speaker 4: and part of it. So I think the animals are
10:04
Speaker 4: an endemic part of the landscape. And I think what
10:09
Speaker 4: cows particularly can do with their trampling and their and
10:14
Speaker 4: their nipping and their poohing and all of those sort
10:18
Speaker 4: of things just makes this wonderful alchemy that basically gives
10:21
Speaker 4: you health.
10:23
Speaker 3: And but if we you know, I think where we go.
10:25
Speaker 4: Wrong as this terrible industrial farming for starters, which is just,
10:30
Speaker 4: you know, just awful for animals. And I got to
10:33
Speaker 4: a point where I certainly didn't want to eat an
10:35
Speaker 4: animal that had had a horrible life in an industrial system.
10:40
Speaker 4: So if I wanted to go on eating meat, which
10:43
Speaker 4: I did.
10:44
Speaker 3: I wanted to.
10:45
Speaker 4: Know that the animals that I was eating had had
10:48
Speaker 4: their best lives, had had their natural lives before they
10:52
Speaker 4: gave their lives for food.
10:56
Speaker 2: Well, I think a lot of people come to that point,
10:58
Speaker 2: and it's a really good one that you bring out.
11:01
Speaker 2: But I think also just to go back to the
11:04
Speaker 2: magic of nature, but particularly the soil, you've spent a
11:09
Speaker 2: lot of time analyzing your own soil in detail to
11:12
Speaker 2: understand what it is that you're doing and why.
11:15
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a critical part of it.
11:16
Speaker 2: If you don't, you know, if you don't know the
11:18
Speaker 2: effect that you're actually creating, or indeed your start point,
11:21
Speaker 2: then then it's very hard to make a case for it.
11:25
Speaker 2: Just go into a bit more detail on that, because,
11:28
Speaker 2: as I said to you before we started recording, what
11:31
Speaker 2: you've done is already, you know, leaps and bounds beyond
11:35
Speaker 2: the understanding of an awful of people, who, of course
11:37
Speaker 2: are not in such proximity to the land. So what
11:40
Speaker 2: was the condition of your soil, let's say, before you started.
11:45
Speaker 4: Well, I'm basically as ignorant still as most people are.
11:48
Speaker 4: Really only things I have and I'm not a scientist,
11:52
Speaker 4: and I don't claim to be and I don't, and
11:54
Speaker 4: you really do have to have a science sense of
11:57
Speaker 4: experimentation and and uh you know, data collecting and that
12:05
Speaker 4: sort of time that it takes in order to do that.
12:08
Speaker 4: But I did have something called an EOV. It's a
12:10
Speaker 4: sort of environmental verification. I can't remember the o is anymore,
12:14
Speaker 4: but anyway, I had scientists come out onto my land
12:17
Speaker 4: and they would do like water infiltration. They would measure
12:20
Speaker 4: how much how fast the water went through my soil.
12:24
Speaker 4: They would do soil samples, they would do they would
12:28
Speaker 4: number how much diversity I had or didn't have. They
12:31
Speaker 4: would count the number of bugs that I had in
12:35
Speaker 4: my groundcover, lots of things, and they were then able
12:40
Speaker 4: to give me a rating and then I could so
12:43
Speaker 4: I had a mean rating, which was really low, and
12:47
Speaker 4: then very quickly my ratings started to go up year
12:50
Speaker 4: are you know as the years went on. So I've
12:55
Speaker 4: actually stopped doing it now because I know that I'm
12:58
Speaker 4: moving forward. I know always that, and no one actually
13:02
Speaker 4: reaches the perfection.
13:04
Speaker 3: Really, it's all about it's all about improving your land,
13:10
Speaker 3: you know.
13:10
Speaker 4: I think very few people get to the perfect score
13:13
Speaker 4: because nature, whether everything is always moving around and some
13:17
Speaker 4: years you have good years and some years you have
13:19
Speaker 4: less good years. But it does give you a sort
13:22
Speaker 4: of measurement about if you're heading in the right direction.
13:26
Speaker 4: So I felt I was heading in the right direction.
13:29
Speaker 4: But the problem is that nobody knows what an EOV is,
13:32
Speaker 4: so it didn't help me in the marketplace. So it's
13:35
Speaker 4: not like a it's not like an organic certification or something,
13:40
Speaker 4: which again is incredibly expensive. To go and get your
13:45
Speaker 4: organic certification. People have to come out, they have to
13:47
Speaker 4: measure everything, they have to make sure you're not using
13:49
Speaker 4: anything you shouldn't be, and it's you know, and until
13:53
Speaker 4: there is a collective verification that is, you know, either
14:00
Speaker 4: globally understood or at least nationally understood, it's very hard
14:04
Speaker 4: to continue, particularly when your margins are also small on
14:08
Speaker 4: a farm. For you to then be spending a couple
14:11
Speaker 4: of grand a year having this testing done, it's just
14:14
Speaker 4: not really an option. So once I knew I was
14:17
Speaker 4: on the right way, and I haven't changed my principles
14:21
Speaker 4: since then, I kind of know I'm in the right direction,
14:24
Speaker 4: and hopefully every year my soil gets better and better
14:31
Speaker 4: and my cattle do better and better. But again it's
14:36
Speaker 4: very hard to tell because it can really come down
14:38
Speaker 4: to the weather where we've had you know, we've had
14:43
Speaker 4: we've had pretty we've had good rain for the last
14:45
Speaker 4: few years, so everything is looking very bountiful.
14:49
Speaker 3: But we're heading towards.
14:50
Speaker 4: Anel Nino, so you know, I haven't been managing the
14:54
Speaker 4: farm with a crisis yet, so that remains to be seen.
14:58
Speaker 3: How I fare in the crisis.
15:00
Speaker 2: Well, absolutely, I think that's always the test for anyone
15:03
Speaker 2: doing anything, really, but what I want to get into
15:06
Speaker 2: are the sort of well the information picture and how
15:11
Speaker 2: that relates to the finances or economics.
15:14
Speaker 1: OFIC because I think it's totally fascinating.
15:16
Speaker 2: You've just said there that nobody knows what an EOV
15:19
Speaker 2: is or what it represents, or you know, the fact
15:22
Speaker 2: that it's not a formal certification. Now that's a critical
15:26
Speaker 2: point because I think it would be fair to say
15:28
Speaker 2: that for those that understand it, the thread of benefits
15:33
Speaker 2: from regenerative farming would be that first of all, you're
15:35
Speaker 2: improving the environment and the ecology and therefore the health
15:39
Speaker 2: of the soil, of the landscape, the terrain, everything, as
15:42
Speaker 2: well as the health of the animals, which means that
15:45
Speaker 2: you're then able to create a business that satisfies a
15:48
Speaker 2: local market, therefore improving the community and providing nutrient dense
15:53
Speaker 2: food for people who should be happy to get it
15:56
Speaker 2: because it's satisfied the criteria that you're talking about. People
15:59
Speaker 2: know that it's had good life and everything else. Basically,
16:01
Speaker 2: it all stacks up. You stick it down on paper,
16:03
Speaker 2: the whole thing makes perfect sense. Everybody wins, and yet
16:08
Speaker 2: it's a it's a tough choice. It's a difficult one.
16:12
Speaker 2: Just how given what I've just said, that sort of
16:14
Speaker 2: that sequence that it should work in, what is your
16:18
Speaker 2: experience of that? I mean, how many of those things
16:20
Speaker 2: are actually true, particularly the say that the element of
16:24
Speaker 2: the local community appreciating what it is or doing, and
16:27
Speaker 2: indeed the business is kind of stacking up.
16:31
Speaker 4: So okay, so I think I mean, it was interesting
16:35
Speaker 4: watching Clarkson's farm the other day and Jeremy saying, you know,
16:40
Speaker 4: it takes being a new farmer to really have an
16:44
Speaker 4: appreciation of just how shocking are shocking an outcome that
16:50
Speaker 4: farmers get and have and they accept it and they
16:53
Speaker 4: always have and they have this. You know, they are
16:56
Speaker 4: price takers, not price makers. So when I go to
17:00
Speaker 4: the market, I can't dictate what my what my business
17:05
Speaker 4: is worth, what my product is worth. I am told
17:08
Speaker 4: what my product is worth, and that depends on international relations,
17:13
Speaker 4: trade deals, the weather, all sorts of things. So sometimes
17:18
Speaker 4: I'm getting two dollars fifty akilo. Sometimes I can get
17:22
Speaker 4: five dollars akilo. And that that that uncertainty makes it
17:29
Speaker 4: really hard to be a farmer and to know, you know,
17:32
Speaker 4: to plan your year and to know what you can
17:35
Speaker 4: what you can afford to do. So the thing that
17:39
Speaker 4: I noticed was that the whole thing of this regenerative cycle,
17:44
Speaker 4: there was a whole once there was there's lots of advocacy,
17:48
Speaker 4: there's lots of people doing it, there's lots of people
17:51
Speaker 4: who really understand how incredibly beneficial it is. And then
17:54
Speaker 4: it comes when it comes to the market, it's like
17:56
Speaker 4: a full stop. And I saw that we need needed
18:00
Speaker 4: to connect, We need to bring the consumers in.
18:03
Speaker 3: The consumers need.
18:04
Speaker 4: To be part of this journey because we know there
18:07
Speaker 4: are people out there who really do care about what
18:09
Speaker 4: they eat, either for their own health or for animal.
18:13
Speaker 3: Welfare, et cetera, et cetera.
18:17
Speaker 4: So I know that there are people out there, and
18:20
Speaker 4: we know there are people who are doing farming well,
18:23
Speaker 4: using best practice, and yet that the the supply chains
18:27
Speaker 4: were so sewn up by the big corporates that we
18:31
Speaker 4: couldn't get our our meat a into the abatwars. All
18:35
Speaker 4: the abatoars are closing because they've been bought out by
18:38
Speaker 4: you know, massive corporations, so they buy all the little
18:41
Speaker 4: local abatois and then they close them so they can
18:44
Speaker 4: centralize and you know, and control the whole the whole
18:48
Speaker 4: meat system. So that's going on everywhere in America here
18:52
Speaker 4: and I believe in England too.
18:54
Speaker 3: So that's number one.
18:55
Speaker 4: That's sort of the way that you are forced through
19:00
Speaker 4: a system that you have no control of, and you
19:03
Speaker 4: go into that market undistinguished between feedlot cattle. So that's
19:08
Speaker 4: industrial farmed cattle, cattle that have been on land that's
19:13
Speaker 4: been a lot of inorganic fertilizers have been used and
19:20
Speaker 4: chemicals have been used.
19:21
Speaker 3: You don't know what you're getting when you go to
19:24
Speaker 3: the butchers.
19:24
Speaker 4: The butchers no longer order a beast from a farmer
19:28
Speaker 4: that they know they It all goes in a We
19:32
Speaker 4: have seventy percent export of our cattle in Australia. Seventy
19:36
Speaker 4: percent of it is exported, so everything is built around
19:40
Speaker 4: the export system. So and now basically all the supermarkets
19:45
Speaker 4: and the butchers are just part of that export.
19:48
Speaker 3: They use all the same mechanisms that the exports do.
19:53
Speaker 4: So there's nowhere that you can know your farmer or
19:57
Speaker 4: know where your food comes from. And so I mean
20:01
Speaker 4: I'm not the only one. I mean, you know, it's
20:03
Speaker 4: it's becoming a big thing now that people can buy
20:08
Speaker 4: from the farmers. They know they can buy where they
20:11
Speaker 4: know that there are no chemicals. They can buy where
20:14
Speaker 4: they know that the animals are grass fed, grass finished.
20:18
Speaker 4: The worst thing you can do is have grain fed cattle,
20:22
Speaker 4: because that is the whole issue about monocultures of growing.
20:26
Speaker 3: You know, just.
20:31
Speaker 4: Fields and fields and fields and fields of monocultures of
20:35
Speaker 4: corn and soy, and that all goes into feeding cattle
20:38
Speaker 4: in a feed lot and that's where they spray.
20:41
Speaker 3: The Jesus out of it with chemicals.
20:44
Speaker 4: And so when you buy through, for instance, we've just
20:49
Speaker 4: started this thing called farm through where you actually know
20:52
Speaker 4: part of the con See it's like buying wine. You
20:55
Speaker 4: know where it comes from, you know who's farmed it.
20:58
Speaker 4: You can see on the website, you order on a website.
21:01
Speaker 4: You can see the farmer, what the priorities of the
21:03
Speaker 4: farmer are. You can see how his relationship is with
21:07
Speaker 4: his pigs and his chickens and his cows.
21:11
Speaker 3: And also what it does more than anything is.
21:15
Speaker 4: It supports small family farms. And all up and down
21:20
Speaker 4: the east coast and the west coast of Straightfack all
21:22
Speaker 4: around the coast are really up until the Great Dividing
21:25
Speaker 4: Range are small family farms.
21:28
Speaker 3: Now those farms are dying. They are going.
21:31
Speaker 4: Because people cannot make a living on in the system
21:35
Speaker 4: as it is at the moment, because they are not
21:37
Speaker 4: assured enough of a dollar. They don't get as verified
21:43
Speaker 4: as I was saying earlier, and they're not verified they're
21:46
Speaker 4: going to get five dollars a kilo.
21:48
Speaker 3: You just don't know what you're going to get.
21:50
Speaker 4: And we get like thirty percent of the eventual price
21:55
Speaker 4: that it is sold for.
21:57
Speaker 3: So there's all those.
21:58
Speaker 4: Middle men in the middle who are and the big
22:00
Speaker 4: supermarkets who are pushing down the price of the meat
22:05
Speaker 4: so that it's the cheapest it can be in the supermarkets,
22:08
Speaker 4: and then they load the extra prices onto the washing
22:12
Speaker 4: powders and the everything else so that they get the
22:15
Speaker 4: people in to the supermarkets because they offer very cheap meat,
22:18
Speaker 4: and they're able to offer cheap meat because they squeeze
22:23
Speaker 4: the farmer and they squeeze the land. So the farmer
22:26
Speaker 4: has to overgraze, has to put too many cattle, too
22:29
Speaker 4: many sheep on his land in order just to make
22:32
Speaker 4: a living. So the whole system is needs to be
22:36
Speaker 4: given a check out the backside. And I'm hoping that
22:41
Speaker 4: with this regeneratory farming mob that we are getting and
22:45
Speaker 4: where people you know, understand that really the only thing
22:48
Speaker 4: that the supermarkets have on us is convenience. It's convenient
22:52
Speaker 4: to go to the supermarket and you know, buy it
22:55
Speaker 4: all in one place. But now because of being online,
22:58
Speaker 4: it's just as convenient to go online and go, okay,
23:01
Speaker 4: I'm ordering this, this, that and the other and it
23:03
Speaker 4: comes to you in a box. So really they don't
23:05
Speaker 4: even have that.
23:06
Speaker 3: Over us anymore.
23:09
Speaker 4: So, you know, I think there's a really good chance
23:11
Speaker 4: that this can be the great disruptor of how we
23:16
Speaker 4: get our meat, how we demand that our meat is farmed,
23:20
Speaker 4: and therefore how farmers farm, and if we can get enough,
23:24
Speaker 4: if we can win enough with this, it's like a carrot,
23:27
Speaker 4: you know, if farmers know that they can they can
23:31
Speaker 4: make a good living by farming regeneratively, and that people
23:34
Speaker 4: will buy their product, that their their produce done. So
23:38
Speaker 4: I want to be out of business with farm through
23:40
Speaker 4: I basically want the supermarkets to switch on and go oh.
23:44
Speaker 4: People want to know where their food comes from. They
23:47
Speaker 4: want to know that the cattle are treated well. They
23:49
Speaker 4: want to know that small family farms are supported, and
23:52
Speaker 4: rural life will go on. And therefore, you know, I'm
23:57
Speaker 4: going to farm that I'm going to shop this way
23:59
Speaker 4: and then and the farmers will go, okay, well I'm
24:01
Speaker 4: going to farm that way too. I mean, there's always
24:04
Speaker 4: We're never going to win entirely. Of course, the whole
24:07
Speaker 4: of the middle of Australia has just given over.
24:09
Speaker 3: To massive, massive farms.
24:12
Speaker 4: Great big corporate and big big family farms, and they
24:16
Speaker 4: just send thousands and thousands of head of cattle down
24:19
Speaker 4: in this big supply chain that basically then goes out
24:23
Speaker 4: all over the world. In the meantime, the rest of
24:26
Speaker 4: the people who farm and rural life goes under.
24:29
Speaker 3: So it seems.
24:31
Speaker 4: Extraordinary that the government has not really recognized this and
24:35
Speaker 4: is not doing doing more about it. But maybe it
24:39
Speaker 4: comes down to us. Maybe we just as consumers and
24:42
Speaker 4: as farmers, have to have to make this adjustment ourselves.
24:47
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, to an extent.
24:49
Speaker 2: I mean I think you're giving the government quite a
24:53
Speaker 2: bit of slack there, or at least the benefit of
24:55
Speaker 2: the doubt, where I think many might not.
24:57
Speaker 4: Okay, well, we're not used to you see in England
25:00
Speaker 4: and you're very used to the government helping farmers out.
25:03
Speaker 4: I mean you get subsidies. We don't get subsidies here
25:07
Speaker 4: from the government. What we get out is big arm
25:11
Speaker 4: is big crisis handouts. So because we basically rock from
25:17
Speaker 4: flood to drought to flood to drought, and people are
25:21
Speaker 4: sort of farming on very marginal country, those people are
25:25
Speaker 4: constantly got their hands out to be rescued whenever there's
25:28
Speaker 4: a drought or there's a flood. So all of the
25:33
Speaker 4: stuff that would normally be subsidy goes to the crisis,
25:37
Speaker 4: the crisis farms.
25:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really interesting distinction, and I will qualify
25:42
Speaker 2: what I meant because obviously the other standout figure you've
25:45
Speaker 2: just said it is that seventy percent of beef. In fact,
25:48
Speaker 2: I think maybe up to seventy percent of all Australia's
25:50
Speaker 2: produces is exported, so the situation in Australia is completely
25:55
Speaker 2: almost the other way around. From the United Kingdom. I mean,
25:57
Speaker 2: we're our government tells us we're uximately sixty sixty percent
26:01
Speaker 2: sort of self sufficient to stretch because a lot of
26:04
Speaker 2: that includes drink as well, which frankly, if it comes
26:08
Speaker 2: to it's not going to be that much use. But
26:11
Speaker 2: the other element, exactly as you say, is subsidute. But
26:14
Speaker 2: really what I'm talking about in terms of the ability
26:18
Speaker 2: that the government might have to affect an outcome or
26:21
Speaker 2: have any influence, really is their dealings with the terribly
26:25
Speaker 2: terribly influential corporations, which of course is exactly what you're
26:28
Speaker 2: talking about. And as an illustration of that from the
26:31
Speaker 2: United Kingdom, some years ago, the Environment Minister was a
26:36
Speaker 2: lady called Terse Coffee who made the outrageous statement that
26:39
Speaker 2: glyphosate was a necessary and vital part of regenerative farming. Now,
26:45
Speaker 2: what that said was how much captured already and subverted
26:51
Speaker 2: the regenerative movement was going to be by those interests
26:56
Speaker 2: that realized they could make something of it. Now from
26:59
Speaker 2: that is this this sort of media battle and what
27:03
Speaker 2: I wanted to get you to talk about a bit.
27:05
Speaker 2: Was this your incredible documentary because you've made an amazing
27:09
Speaker 2: film about this and it really engages people. Have what
27:13
Speaker 2: effect have you seen from not just that but also
27:17
Speaker 2: sort of media on this.
27:20
Speaker 4: Really it's given me a position that I really don't deserve,
27:24
Speaker 4: which is as as as as a region know all,
27:29
Speaker 4: and I'm so early and the people who are so
27:32
Speaker 4: much better at it, and I'm still I mean it
27:35
Speaker 4: takes I mean, I'm learning to farm, I'm you know,
27:39
Speaker 4: and then on top of that learning to understand the
27:41
Speaker 4: soil and how all of those sister how the system,
27:44
Speaker 4: the system of nature works.
27:46
Speaker 3: So I'm still very much a.
27:49
Speaker 4: Newbie, and there are people, but there are a lot
27:53
Speaker 4: of people out here who just are doing it so well.
27:56
Speaker 4: And there's and and it's very easy to find it's
28:01
Speaker 4: very easy to find people who who actually are in
28:06
Speaker 4: your area because there is no regenerative blueprint.
28:09
Speaker 3: It's it's very much.
28:11
Speaker 4: To do with what your environment, your particular environment is.
28:15
Speaker 4: So I have in my where I live this grass
28:19
Speaker 4: that was that is not indigenous but was planted everywhere
28:26
Speaker 4: in the sixties, and it's like a it's a South
28:29
Speaker 4: African grass, and it grows like seven feet tall, and
28:34
Speaker 4: it's really robust and it has very deep roots, so
28:38
Speaker 4: it's great for pulling carbon, but it's very difficult to
28:43
Speaker 4: work with with cattle because it grows exponentially and it
28:49
Speaker 4: starts to sort of dignify very quickly, so it goes
28:52
Speaker 4: to hay hazes off very quickly, and then it loses
28:55
Speaker 4: all its goodness and then in the winter it completely dies.
29:00
Speaker 4: Where I live, I have no winter grass, so that
29:03
Speaker 4: is always a big challenge.
29:05
Speaker 3: And we're just going into winter now.
29:07
Speaker 4: Actually yesterday was the first day that I put out
29:10
Speaker 4: I have a sort of protein lick so that they
29:13
Speaker 4: have so that they have some thirty percent protein added
29:17
Speaker 4: to their eating of this sort of dignified fodder which
29:21
Speaker 4: doesn't really give them very much energy. But so there
29:24
Speaker 4: are all of these things that you have to learn
29:26
Speaker 4: very specifically to the area in.
29:28
Speaker 3: Which you live. And I imagine I would imagine probably
29:31
Speaker 3: in England.
29:32
Speaker 4: It's much of a muchness, you know, it's and also
29:34
Speaker 4: you have so much wonderful rain, and you have so
29:38
Speaker 4: much diversity of grasses. A lot of see where I
29:42
Speaker 4: was was forestry, so I don't have really a lot
29:45
Speaker 4: of native pasture, so it all has to be it
29:49
Speaker 4: all has to be very very very little of it
29:53
Speaker 4: is indigenous.
29:55
Speaker 3: So those are all the things you have to get
29:56
Speaker 3: your head around.
29:57
Speaker 4: And so what did the documentary do you Yes, it's
30:00
Speaker 4: sort of, you know, it did very much like Clarkson's farm.
30:03
Speaker 4: It was about someone who knew nothing having a go
30:07
Speaker 4: at this at this at this very very hopeful way
30:13
Speaker 4: of farming and one that just made so much sense.
30:18
Speaker 4: But it's tricky because it's very divided. I mean, it's
30:22
Speaker 4: made me quite a pariah in my area because farmers
30:27
Speaker 4: particularly do not like to be told, particularly they've been
30:30
Speaker 4: farming for many generations. They don't like some upstart, you know,
30:34
Speaker 4: film star coming in and telling them, actually, you should
30:38
Speaker 4: be farming this way, and you should have more biodiversity, and.
30:42
Speaker 3: You should be having you should be.
30:44
Speaker 4: Pulling carbon so that you increase your water holding capacity,
30:49
Speaker 4: and you shouldn't be eroding, and you shouldn't be set stocking.
30:51
Speaker 4: And you know, it's sort of for the first time
30:55
Speaker 4: farmers are being challenged on the way that they farmed
30:58
Speaker 4: for many, many years.
31:00
Speaker 3: And traditionally, of course, farming has always been.
31:03
Speaker 4: Very male driven and men love machines, and the bigger
31:07
Speaker 4: the machine, and the more destructive the machine, the better,
31:11
Speaker 4: so you know, and with regenerative farming, it doesn't really
31:15
Speaker 4: appeal to them so much because it's all much gentler.
31:18
Speaker 4: You don't tear up your roots, you don't disturb your land.
31:23
Speaker 3: You do it very gently, you.
31:25
Speaker 4: Know, you just insert your seed with a little of biofertilizer,
31:30
Speaker 4: worm juice or whatever.
31:31
Speaker 3: So they all think we're completely nuts, but you know,
31:36
Speaker 3: it's just over and over again.
31:38
Speaker 4: People have shown on from one side of the fence
31:42
Speaker 4: to the other where you can see abundance and then
31:46
Speaker 4: you see destruction, and I did show that in my film,
31:52
Speaker 4: and really any regenerative farmer you go and talk to
31:55
Speaker 4: you can see the same thing if they're next door
31:57
Speaker 4: to act to a conventional farmer that they there is
32:01
Speaker 4: no biodiversity.
32:04
Speaker 3: The grasses is eaten down to an inch of its.
32:07
Speaker 4: Life, and you look on the other side and it's
32:10
Speaker 4: a completely different story. So you know, but farmers don't
32:14
Speaker 4: like to be told, and it takes them a long time,
32:16
Speaker 4: and very rarely does the farmer come over and lean
32:18
Speaker 4: over the fence and say, what are you doing to
32:20
Speaker 4: have such you know, fabulous pastures there they basically yeah,
32:27
Speaker 4: they it's become quite them and us.
32:31
Speaker 3: So, but there is a lot.
32:33
Speaker 4: Of you know, regenerative has really been taken up by
32:36
Speaker 4: a lot of people who didn't farm before, you know,
32:39
Speaker 4: who go. I would appeals to them, particularly people who
32:43
Speaker 4: don't want to be in town anymore and want to
32:46
Speaker 4: take on some small farm and they are excited by
32:52
Speaker 4: the idea of farming regeneratively, regenerative, regeneratively farming with nature
33:00
Speaker 4: boosting nature on their land.
33:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a terrific point to make, and
33:05
Speaker 2: I would say it doesn't apply just to farmers, but
33:09
Speaker 2: in general, people don't like to be told that they're
33:12
Speaker 2: getting it wrong, or they don't like it to have
33:14
Speaker 2: for it to be intimated that their tried and tested
33:18
Speaker 2: systems are not yielding what they should be, and that
33:24
Speaker 2: is a very difficult battle.
33:26
Speaker 4: I would say too that there are many farmers who
33:29
Speaker 4: don't call themselves regenerative but are using regenerative practices. A
33:34
Speaker 4: lot of it is about how you move your cattle
33:36
Speaker 4: around on your.
33:37
Speaker 3: Landscape, so you move them around much.
33:40
Speaker 4: More often than you would do if you were if
33:42
Speaker 4: you were a conventional farmer. So part of it is just,
33:46
Speaker 4: you know, people have very big paddics. They put the
33:49
Speaker 4: cattle in there for six weeks and they don't have
33:51
Speaker 4: to think about it as a regenerative farmer. You're basically
33:55
Speaker 4: moving your cattle every three, four, five days, and so
34:00
Speaker 4: it's a little bit more work, but it's you know,
34:03
Speaker 4: obviously the benefits are are you know, I think it
34:08
Speaker 4: works because it just.
34:09
Speaker 3: Doesn't mean that you are.
34:14
Speaker 4: Destroying the pastures by overeating, by overgrazing.
34:19
Speaker 2: Well, I think it does more than that, and it's
34:21
Speaker 2: what I'd like to get you to talk about because
34:23
Speaker 2: I think I suspect the case in Australia would be
34:26
Speaker 2: broadly similar to the British Isles, which is that the
34:29
Speaker 2: farming population I think that you're describing are bar large
34:32
Speaker 2: male and bar and large over the age of fifty,
34:35
Speaker 2: if not over the age of sixty or even seventy.
34:38
Speaker 2: So really what we should be considering, looking at talking
34:42
Speaker 2: about are those people who are in their teens, twenties,
34:45
Speaker 2: thirties who are going to be taking this land on
34:48
Speaker 2: at some point, and therefore how it is that they
34:52
Speaker 2: would tip. The reason I want to talk about them
34:56
Speaker 2: in a specific way is to do with what you
34:59
Speaker 2: have just referre to, which is the fact that if
35:01
Speaker 2: you are dealing with livestock in a regenerative manner, you're
35:05
Speaker 2: required to spend more time with them, and you're you're
35:09
Speaker 2: in a way in touch with the land and the
35:12
Speaker 2: livestock much more. Now that that must not be dismissed.
35:18
Speaker 2: That the effect of the human contact with the land
35:21
Speaker 2: with the animals, I would say, is a really significant
35:25
Speaker 2: part of it and something that has been lost totally
35:28
Speaker 2: over the years. And you well, I mean, well, I'm
35:32
Speaker 2: not going to tell you what you think. What do
35:33
Speaker 2: you think about that, because you've you've been doing this
35:37
Speaker 2: absolutely hands on and what are the i don't say
35:41
Speaker 2: benefits effects of that.
35:44
Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad you brought that up about the farmers
35:46
Speaker 4: and the age of the farmers and things, because that
35:48
Speaker 4: is really the biggest that is really the biggest problem
35:52
Speaker 4: about all is that most of the farmers are in
35:56
Speaker 4: Australia anyway, are over fifty five, and they their children
36:02
Speaker 4: don't want to take on the farm because they can
36:04
Speaker 4: see that there's no money to be made taking on
36:06
Speaker 4: the farm, and so they go off to the mines
36:08
Speaker 4: or go to the city for jobs that pay better
36:11
Speaker 4: and they can you know, make a better income. They
36:13
Speaker 4: see their parents struggling with the prices and the tiny
36:19
Speaker 4: margins that they have, and.
36:23
Speaker 3: They just go, this is not for me.
36:25
Speaker 4: So really there's a whole sea change out there of
36:29
Speaker 4: basically farms that are going to be when these farmers
36:33
Speaker 4: you know are no longer there, what is going to
36:35
Speaker 4: happen to these r to this rural land. And it's
36:41
Speaker 4: very and land is still very expensive. It's hard for
36:44
Speaker 4: people who do want to you know, those those rare
36:46
Speaker 4: people who do want to be on the land and
36:49
Speaker 4: do want to take a punt with it and do
36:51
Speaker 4: want to live in the cab that lifestyle.
36:53
Speaker 3: It's very hard for them to buy into it.
36:55
Speaker 4: So we need to really think hard how we can
36:59
Speaker 4: help those want to farm get into farming.
37:02
Speaker 3: And there are meant, you know, there are.
37:04
Speaker 4: A number of schemes going on that you basically can
37:08
Speaker 4: you know, ajist you can have which is quite cheap
37:12
Speaker 4: to do, to adjust land to rent land and then
37:14
Speaker 4: you have your you know, have your own livestock and
37:17
Speaker 4: so on, but just to buy you know, even my
37:20
Speaker 4: area is very very low social economic and it's very
37:24
Speaker 4: hard to find anything under a million dollars, you know,
37:29
Speaker 4: a farm of ten acres or something. You know, it's
37:32
Speaker 4: just I mean a million dollars is probably about five
37:36
Speaker 4: hundred pounds, very.
37:39
Speaker 3: Hard just to buy a small landholding.
37:43
Speaker 4: So how do we get those people in, how do
37:45
Speaker 4: we get the kids to stay in farming. It's a crisis,
37:50
Speaker 4: it's and I don't understand. That's one of the things
37:52
Speaker 4: I don't understand why the government isn't doing something to
37:56
Speaker 4: make sure that because another thing too is, you know,
38:00
Speaker 4: if the farms go, the whole infrastructure of our rural
38:03
Speaker 4: areas go, all the small towns go, all the small
38:06
Speaker 4: shops go. I mean my town, local town is gutted out.
38:10
Speaker 4: You know, people are it's very hard to get teachers
38:12
Speaker 4: and nurses and age care facilities. It's a you know,
38:19
Speaker 4: it's it's just not viable because we're not paying enough
38:23
Speaker 4: really for we're not paying enough to the farmer for
38:27
Speaker 4: what they do. And there isn't a farmer here who
38:31
Speaker 4: doesn't have a second job. They've all got one of
38:33
Speaker 4: you know, if they've got a wife, she's got a
38:35
Speaker 4: job in town. They very often have another job during
38:38
Speaker 4: the day and then.
38:39
Speaker 3: They work on the farm. On the weekends.
38:42
Speaker 4: And that's really the only way you can do it.
38:44
Speaker 4: I mean, I couldn't do it. I can't run this
38:46
Speaker 4: farm with a farm manager. I realized I actually had to.
38:50
Speaker 3: Do that in the end.
38:50
Speaker 4: As much as I kind of thought, oh well, I'll
38:53
Speaker 4: just sit on my verandah and look at my cows,
38:56
Speaker 4: I was just losing handover fist. So I had to
39:00
Speaker 4: actually become the farm manager. And I have a farm
39:04
Speaker 4: hand two days a week to help me with stuff
39:08
Speaker 4: that I can't do.
39:10
Speaker 3: But essentially, you know, the margins are very, very small.
39:14
Speaker 4: And I don't know what the answer is, Charles, but
39:17
Speaker 4: it's it's it's happening everywhere. And unless unless we start
39:22
Speaker 4: to really value what farmers do and the produce that
39:25
Speaker 4: they that they grow for us, and the and the
39:28
Speaker 4: effort and the and the and the and the skills
39:35
Speaker 4: that they have, and we're going to lose all those skills.
39:38
Speaker 4: Farmers have to be plumbers, vets, electricians, agriculture you know,
39:44
Speaker 4: are agrip good on agriculture, understand scientists.
39:49
Speaker 3: They have to know it all.
39:51
Speaker 4: It's it's and you know, they have to be a
39:54
Speaker 4: what's it called jack of all trades, And that's you know,
39:58
Speaker 4: you learn those skills with your dad or your muma.
40:01
Speaker 4: You know you're right from the beginning. It's very hard,
40:05
Speaker 4: like I did, to come in and just say you're
40:07
Speaker 4: going to be a farmer, because you just don't have
40:10
Speaker 4: that body of skills that you and you know, if
40:13
Speaker 4: they go, they go, so so suddenly it becomes like,
40:18
Speaker 4: what's going to happen to this land. It's just going
40:20
Speaker 4: to become this wasteland or it's just going to become
40:22
Speaker 4: these mega corporate farms which are ruled by boards and
40:28
Speaker 4: from afar, you know, with all mechanized I don't know.
40:32
Speaker 3: It seems a sad road that we're heading down.
40:38
Speaker 4: Unless we go, unless the consumer goes no, I kind
40:43
Speaker 4: of get what that means. And I want to still
40:46
Speaker 4: have a rural life. I want to know there's a
40:48
Speaker 4: rural life out there. I want to know that the
40:53
Speaker 4: animals I eat are you know, cared for, not in
40:56
Speaker 4: an industrial system. I want to know I'm in a
41:00
Speaker 4: viron mentalists. I want to know that the land is
41:02
Speaker 4: being looked after. You know, you've got to join those dots,
41:05
Speaker 4: and you've got to be very proactive if you want
41:08
Speaker 4: that world to stay.
41:11
Speaker 3: Maybe young people don't anymore.
41:13
Speaker 4: And maybe they don't know where food comes from particularly,
41:16
Speaker 4: So I guess that seems to be my job at
41:19
Speaker 4: the moment is doing a lot of advocacy for the
41:23
Speaker 4: best type.
41:24
Speaker 3: Of farming, how farming is done, how you get your food,
41:29
Speaker 3: you know, all the sort of all the.
41:30
Speaker 4: Things that we we just don't know what goes on
41:33
Speaker 4: in rural Australia, as rural Australia doesn't particularly know what
41:37
Speaker 4: goes on in the city. You know, it's a very
41:40
Speaker 4: very different worlds.
41:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a very stark divide. But I think
41:44
Speaker 2: the what you're describing the universal skill fade across young
41:49
Speaker 2: well actually not just younger generations. I think people of
41:51
Speaker 2: all generations now have been convinced to toss traditional skills
41:56
Speaker 2: over the hedge because artificial intelligence will do it for you,
42:00
Speaker 2: which of course is a fascical position to take. And yeah, absolutely,
42:06
Speaker 2: So the message is one of being able to communicate
42:11
Speaker 2: this and what actually what I was wondering if you
42:15
Speaker 2: could just talk a little bit about is your view
42:18
Speaker 2: on the connection between everything that we've talked about and
42:21
Speaker 2: human health, because the way I see it, let's say, okay,
42:24
Speaker 2: to put the British statistics out there which are absolutely unbelievable.
42:29
Speaker 2: But the National Health Service costs the British taxpayer half
42:34
Speaker 2: a billion pounds every single day, and yet I know
42:38
Speaker 2: the systems are totally different and therefore not comparable. But
42:41
Speaker 2: the British farming budget what for the year we're currently
42:46
Speaker 2: in Okay, There've been a few little bits added on
42:49
Speaker 2: here and there, but was five billion pounds. So in
42:52
Speaker 2: other words, the taxpayer is shelling out to the farmers
43:00
Speaker 2: only ten days of funds that the National Health Service uses.
43:06
Speaker 2: And it seems that people cannot see the connection between
43:12
Speaker 2: you know, the everything you're describing and their contact with
43:17
Speaker 2: the National Health Service.
43:18
Speaker 1: For example.
43:19
Speaker 2: You know, if all of these things fell into place,
43:21
Speaker 2: I think it stands to reason that cues for X,
43:25
Speaker 2: Y and Z procedures and in particular drugs would not.
43:30
Speaker 1: Be as it is.
43:31
Speaker 2: Is that a message that's getting through it all in Australia?
43:34
Speaker 3: Look, you know, I mean.
43:36
Speaker 4: It takes a lot of hitting people over the head.
43:38
Speaker 4: I mean I was in the same place five years ago.
43:40
Speaker 4: I mean I was very healthy. I wasn't paying particular
43:44
Speaker 4: attention to what I was eating. I wasn't eating much
43:46
Speaker 4: processed food. But I wasn't really seeking the best meat
43:50
Speaker 4: or the best vegetables or making.
43:52
Speaker 3: Sure there was no chemical contamination, you know.
43:56
Speaker 4: And I think it really takes and not that I
43:58
Speaker 4: was I had a health crisis, but I think a
44:05
Speaker 4: lot of people they don't really wake up to it
44:07
Speaker 4: until they have a health crisis and then they start
44:11
Speaker 4: to realize that actually it is. I mean, yeah, I
44:15
Speaker 4: mean we all know how little doctors are trained in nutrition.
44:20
Speaker 4: You know, it's like it's like one tiny bit of
44:24
Speaker 4: their training is nutrition.
44:25
Speaker 3: And I think that, you know, we're becoming much much
44:28
Speaker 3: more aware of how.
44:30
Speaker 4: Nutrition is so connected to our health and our nutrition. Obviously,
44:37
Speaker 4: something is going on with the way we're farming. That
44:40
Speaker 4: the true nutrition we used to get, you know, in
44:43
Speaker 4: the sixties, fifties, forties.
44:44
Speaker 3: It's just not there anymore.
44:46
Speaker 4: It's just everything is done so intensively and the soil
44:52
Speaker 4: is is exhausted, and you know, the everything is just
44:59
Speaker 4: chemical that goes back back into it, and it's so
45:01
Speaker 4: it's you know, the thing is it's that is the data,
45:05
Speaker 4: There is the you know, there is there a this
45:09
Speaker 4: plus this equals you know, that is it? You know,
45:13
Speaker 4: healthy cattle make or healthy lives doot plus healthy food equals.
45:19
Speaker 3: A healthy person.
45:20
Speaker 4: I mean, how is that a lot of people get
45:23
Speaker 4: away with it. They drink, they smoke, they eat bad
45:26
Speaker 4: and they live till they're eighty five. So, you know,
45:30
Speaker 4: people I think think I'm going to get away with it.
45:33
Speaker 4: I'm going to have the convenience of you know, shopping
45:36
Speaker 4: for crap and it's very cheap, and I'll get away
45:39
Speaker 4: with it until you don't. And then I think that
45:42
Speaker 4: people start to think I wake up to it and go, oh, okay,
45:46
Speaker 4: I probably have not been eating very well and my
45:49
Speaker 4: body is collapsing. So yes, it's the same in Australia.
45:55
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, the statistics of health and obesity
45:59
Speaker 4: and all of those, all of those diseases that are
46:03
Speaker 4: connected to your mitochondria are all rife in Australia as well.
46:08
Speaker 4: But how much is it being connected, you know, how much?
46:13
Speaker 3: I don't know.
46:14
Speaker 4: You know, maybe in the city they're just giving you
46:16
Speaker 4: another drug rather than saying, go and eat a healthy steak,
46:19
Speaker 4: you know, get off the processed food, buy some organic
46:25
Speaker 4: apples rather than stuff that's you know, definite apples are
46:28
Speaker 4: the worst because when they're sprayed, they're shallow, rooted, so
46:31
Speaker 4: they just suck up all those chemicals.
46:34
Speaker 3: We don't know.
46:34
Speaker 4: It's also hidden really what's going on in the food system.
46:38
Speaker 4: So yes, I've definitely become obsessed about it.
46:41
Speaker 3: You know. It's like.
46:44
Speaker 4: Once you start digging in, you really and you start
46:47
Speaker 4: to see how appallingly.
46:52
Speaker 3: How much chemical is poured on everywhere.
46:56
Speaker 4: Do you once you start to unravel that, and you're
47:01
Speaker 4: just so shocked by how much it contaminates our food
47:06
Speaker 4: that you know, if you don't go down that rabbit hole,
47:09
Speaker 4: you don't know.
47:09
Speaker 3: And maybe people just don't want to know.
47:11
Speaker 4: They're too busy, they've got other problems, you know, until
47:15
Speaker 4: they get very sick.
47:16
Speaker 2: Unfortunately. I think that is precisely what happens. And I
47:19
Speaker 2: think people do bury the head in the sands and
47:21
Speaker 2: in the sand rather and exactly like you say, there
47:25
Speaker 2: there's or there's there's a drug for that, and not
47:27
Speaker 2: just that. But of course the pharmaceutical companies have it
47:30
Speaker 2: sewn up both ends because they are they are dosing
47:33
Speaker 2: all the livestock as well as the humans. So I
47:36
Speaker 2: mean it's it's the perfect sort of corporate model.
47:39
Speaker 1: Really now.
47:42
Speaker 2: In this internet age, I would say it strikes me
47:46
Speaker 2: that people become sort of desensitized to being uh to
47:52
Speaker 2: being sort of influenced online. You know, you're you're talking,
47:56
Speaker 2: you're talking about farmers who are farming. I mean, it's
48:00
Speaker 2: sort of odd that we do refer to it as
48:02
Speaker 2: conventional but nonetheless in a conventional sense. Therefore, I would say,
48:06
Speaker 2: a destructive sense. And you don't get much traction with them.
48:11
Speaker 2: And I should imagine sort of online if indeed people
48:14
Speaker 2: are even looking at this online as they wouldn't be
48:17
Speaker 2: that much going on. But face to face, I think
48:22
Speaker 2: there can be ground made. And yet face to face
48:26
Speaker 2: communication is something that we are being pushed further and
48:30
Speaker 2: further sort of away from because we are encouraged to
48:34
Speaker 2: do absolutely everything on the internet with that in mind.
48:39
Speaker 2: Your your network, your sort of non farming network. Really,
48:43
Speaker 2: what I'm getting to is you've you know, we can't
48:46
Speaker 2: not mention it. You have had a glittering career in film,
48:51
Speaker 2: and you have a network that is totally separate from
48:56
Speaker 2: what it is you're doing. Are you Are you sort
48:59
Speaker 2: of evangelizing about regenerative farming to people in your other
49:04
Speaker 2: lives and how is that going down?
49:07
Speaker 4: Well, I certainly don't see myself as having had a
49:11
Speaker 4: glittering entertainment career. But it may have seemed so on
49:16
Speaker 4: the surface, but I wouldn't put it in that way.
49:21
Speaker 4: But am I evangelizing to them, No, I'm basically thrilled
49:28
Speaker 4: to be to not be in that world at.
49:30
Speaker 3: All, and I am thrilled to be in the farming world.
49:37
Speaker 3: It is.
49:40
Speaker 4: Particularly the regeneritive farming world. There is something about regenerative
49:43
Speaker 4: farmers that it's their whole psyches, their whole belief systems,
49:48
Speaker 4: their whole you know, the fact that they are early adopters.
49:52
Speaker 4: They are they are independent thinkers. They are not following
49:59
Speaker 4: you know, they're not following generation after dress. They're thinking
50:02
Speaker 4: about the problems the issues there. I mean, it's like
50:04
Speaker 4: my next door neighbor who I did my film with,
50:06
Speaker 4: who was my manager at the time. He is just
50:09
Speaker 4: a you know, a local country boy, and his dad
50:13
Speaker 4: is farmed, and his grandfather farmed, and he has four kids,
50:17
Speaker 4: and he went, I want to leave this land in
50:22
Speaker 4: a better place for my kids than it was for me.
50:25
Speaker 4: I mean, it wasn't that his you know, father was
50:28
Speaker 4: a good farm a good conventional farmer, and he's you know,
50:32
Speaker 4: he also had his wife had to go. And I mean,
50:34
Speaker 4: he couldn't make a full time living on farming, but
50:37
Speaker 4: who can. But he was very conscious about what he
50:42
Speaker 4: was doing to the land and what his father had
50:45
Speaker 4: done with the land, and he wanted to change so
50:48
Speaker 4: that and he'd seen the rivers change. He'd seen them
50:52
Speaker 4: filled with urea, and urea grows this algae it's just
50:57
Speaker 4: nitrogen and it pours down off the land and into
51:00
Speaker 4: the rivers. And we've had these huge fish kills in
51:04
Speaker 4: Australia where the murray darling has just been you know,
51:08
Speaker 4: pumped full of urea nitrogen and it eats up all
51:11
Speaker 4: the oxygen and then the fish have no oxygen and
51:14
Speaker 4: they all float to the surface and float down the river.
51:16
Speaker 4: So you know, there's just that's just one of the
51:18
Speaker 4: things that go that that happens. He's seen, you know,
51:21
Speaker 4: he's seen the erosion going on. He's seen how you know,
51:26
Speaker 4: just so many things in his lifetime. Has he seen
51:30
Speaker 4: change in this just one area. So he knows that
51:35
Speaker 4: there's enormous destruction going on with farming, and he wanted
51:40
Speaker 4: his children to be able to carry on, and he
51:43
Speaker 4: knew he had to do something different, so and he
51:47
Speaker 4: you know doesn't have a lot of money, and he
51:50
Speaker 4: had to make that change. He was very bold. And
51:54
Speaker 4: it's different for people like me and Jeremy Clarks. And
51:56
Speaker 4: I suppose because I do have an independent income, you know,
52:00
Speaker 4: all goes to if all goes to Hell and a handbasket,
52:04
Speaker 4: I can spend some money on some feed, you know,
52:07
Speaker 4: if I run out of feed. But you know, most
52:10
Speaker 4: farmers just have to my god, they just have to
52:13
Speaker 4: balance those books so with such precision because they just
52:19
Speaker 4: can't make any mistakes otherwise the bank's for clothes and
52:23
Speaker 4: goodbye farm. So it's you know, as I said, I
52:27
Speaker 4: have an increasing admiration for farmers of whatever stripe. Really
52:32
Speaker 4: more obviously for the ones who are taking that punt
52:36
Speaker 4: and and.
52:38
Speaker 3: Learning a different way and.
52:41
Speaker 4: Doing having a go at the regenerative farming, because clearly
52:47
Speaker 4: we have to do something. Clearly we can't go on
52:50
Speaker 4: the way we've been going. And I don't know anybody
52:53
Speaker 4: who has a better a better answer to it. I mean,
52:58
Speaker 4: of course the vegans will shout and scream, well you
53:02
Speaker 4: shouldn't be eating meat.
53:03
Speaker 3: Anyway, but.
53:05
Speaker 4: I mean, what do they think is going on with
53:08
Speaker 4: their grains? And they're sory and and their vegetables. I mean,
53:11
Speaker 4: they're all still being done on an industrial level, and
53:14
Speaker 4: they are being you know, they may not be animals,
53:17
Speaker 4: but their land is being sprayed with lyser fate and fake,
53:23
Speaker 4: fake fertilizer and nothing that's helping the soil. So it
53:30
Speaker 4: isn't necessarily the bell and end all, you know, the
53:33
Speaker 4: absolute answer to rectifying our environmental issues.
53:40
Speaker 2: And I think unfortunately it's become well and has always
53:45
Speaker 2: been very very politicized. I think the underlying elements of
53:50
Speaker 2: veganism in particular, I think it's for a lot of people,
53:53
Speaker 2: you know, it's forced people into taking a sort of
53:56
Speaker 2: radicalized position on something that frankly shouldn't really be radical lies,
54:00
Speaker 2: and it's it's a little very little understood by I
54:02
Speaker 2: think an awful lot of people who think that they
54:04
Speaker 2: subscribe to the to the overall philosophy.
54:06
Speaker 4: I understand it because they feel impotent and they feel
54:08
Speaker 4: that actually the strongest thing, the most potent thing they
54:11
Speaker 4: can do, is to stop eating meat because it's been
54:14
Speaker 4: vilified and particularly with all this methane rubbish, you know,
54:19
Speaker 4: and yeah, and they think that, you know, they've got
54:22
Speaker 4: the high moral ground by not eating meat. But in
54:25
Speaker 4: fact the livestock on the land is actually very positive
54:29
Speaker 4: for the land if it's if it's right, if it's
54:33
Speaker 4: farmed in the right way.
54:36
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, what what what that brings to mind? Just
54:40
Speaker 2: I know we don't have a huge amount of time left,
54:42
Speaker 2: but I just I just be interested in your thoughts
54:44
Speaker 2: on it. Previously, I've interviewed Julian Rose, who was involved
54:49
Speaker 2: in the early stages of the Soil Association, and the
54:52
Speaker 2: point he always makes is that the Soil Association were
54:54
Speaker 2: presented with effectively a fork in the road where they
54:58
Speaker 2: had had success by promoting the cause of organic farming
55:05
Speaker 2: cause not quite the right word, but the advantages of
55:07
Speaker 2: organic farming, and they were then faced with a decision
55:09
Speaker 2: where they could in effect commercialized so so deal with
55:14
Speaker 2: the supermarkets. And his advice was always don't do it,
55:18
Speaker 2: because you will be forced, in effect into the same situation.
55:21
Speaker 2: You will be price taking, you'll be forced to cut corners,
55:25
Speaker 2: you will be in effect selling out, losing your competitive advantage.
55:29
Speaker 2: And yet I think it's it's possible to see from
55:32
Speaker 2: everything that you've described so far that in some ways
55:35
Speaker 2: to have a sort of certification to slap a you know,
55:38
Speaker 2: a regenerative label on something and to have a more
55:42
Speaker 2: distinct brand may have advantages, but it's a sort of
55:45
Speaker 2: it's a balance because of course the moment you do
55:47
Speaker 2: have that, you also open up the potential for it
55:50
Speaker 2: being super commercialized and then actually all the advantages disappearing.
55:54
Speaker 2: Have you is that something you've thought about, considered, had
55:57
Speaker 2: discussed very much so, and.
55:59
Speaker 4: That's why you know, with the particular business that we
56:02
Speaker 4: have farm through, it's very farmer profile centric. So you
56:07
Speaker 4: can go online and you can listen to your farmer
56:11
Speaker 4: talk about the way he farms, and you can get
56:14
Speaker 4: an idea about what his priorities are, and you can
56:17
Speaker 4: either you know, you get a sense of it. You
56:19
Speaker 4: can believe him, or you can think he's full of
56:21
Speaker 4: hogwash and you can find someone else who you believe more.
56:25
Speaker 4: I mean, I think greenwashing is always going to be
56:29
Speaker 4: an issue. But I think if we make if we
56:32
Speaker 4: give ourselves too many of these these stamps again, it's
56:38
Speaker 4: it's costs a lot of money to get that sort
56:41
Speaker 4: of to do that testing. And I think you just
56:44
Speaker 4: have to have you have to have faith somewhere. I mean,
56:50
Speaker 4: you know, it's not a perfect system. None of it is,
56:53
Speaker 4: but it's better than it's better than you know something.
56:59
Speaker 4: At least you know that it's not come from a
57:01
Speaker 4: feed lot. You know that, you know, well, you don't
57:06
Speaker 4: know necessarily that it hasn't had glyphasate. And I have
57:10
Speaker 4: to say that in regenerative farming, you have a toolbox
57:14
Speaker 4: and Glypa sate is in your toolbox, and it's you
57:18
Speaker 4: know a lot of you know, there are certain things
57:20
Speaker 4: like if you in regenerative farming, we move our electric
57:25
Speaker 4: fences a lot, and if you don't have heavy machinery,
57:29
Speaker 4: you do need to get underneath your fences. You need
57:33
Speaker 4: to clear your fences, so some people do put glypha
57:36
Speaker 4: sate under the fences. Then we have some terrible issues
57:39
Speaker 4: with buffalo flies and you do have to put you know,
57:44
Speaker 4: you do have to put this thing in the cattle's ear,
57:46
Speaker 4: which I.
57:48
Speaker 3: Had in my documentary.
57:49
Speaker 4: One of the most dramatic things in my documentary was
57:51
Speaker 4: when the buffalo fly attacked my cattle and they go
57:55
Speaker 4: nuts with these bloody flies, and unless you have some
57:59
Speaker 4: chemical thing then they will. You know, you have to
58:02
Speaker 4: make a decision really about whether you're going to put
58:05
Speaker 4: the chemical in or whether your cattle are going to
58:07
Speaker 4: go nuts.
58:08
Speaker 3: So that was three years ago.
58:09
Speaker 4: We've now changed breed of cattle and I do put
58:12
Speaker 4: them in my breeding herd, but I don't put them
58:15
Speaker 4: in my paddict to plate herd. And really it's only
58:18
Speaker 4: as the cattle get older, and it's testosterone too that
58:21
Speaker 4: the buffalo flies love. So actually, you know, you just
58:25
Speaker 4: have to separate your herds. There's just a little bit
58:27
Speaker 4: more work in order to avoid putting the chemical in
58:30
Speaker 4: the ear of the cattle that you sell. So there's
58:33
Speaker 4: all sorts of you know, complexity in there, and and
58:38
Speaker 4: nothing is perfect, and you know, I think that one
58:42
Speaker 4: doesn't want to sort of pretend to be perfect. And
58:45
Speaker 4: that's why I quite like this EOV where it's actually
58:48
Speaker 4: just about moving in the right direction. You know, as
58:51
Speaker 4: long as your scale keeps going up and you can
58:54
Speaker 4: see that the cattle are healthy and healthier and the
58:57
Speaker 4: grass is and you can talk to your farmer online,
59:01
Speaker 4: you know, you can see what they what their priorities are.
59:04
Speaker 3: And if you care enough, you know.
59:06
Speaker 4: If you care enough about what's going your your landscapes,
59:10
Speaker 4: your national landscapes, your food, the way your cattle are treated,
59:15
Speaker 4: you can find that out.
59:17
Speaker 3: If you care enough.
59:18
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's very obvious listening to you that
59:20
Speaker 2: you absolutely do care enough, and I would say more
59:23
Speaker 2: than enough. But one thing I did want to ask
59:25
Speaker 2: you about. It comes across very strongly in your documentary
59:28
Speaker 2: that you are absolutely going to have a crack at anything,
59:31
Speaker 2: that there's always a new scheme, a new idea. You've
59:35
Speaker 2: talked about changing your herd, changing the type of cattle
59:38
Speaker 2: you're going into winter. Have you got any projects either
59:42
Speaker 2: that you're sort of converting into a reality now or
59:44
Speaker 2: that are sort of tinkering around at the back of
59:46
Speaker 2: your mind.
59:47
Speaker 4: Particularly with this farm through, you know, joining those dots
59:50
Speaker 4: between the farm, the regenerative farmer, and the consumer and
59:53
Speaker 4: the city consumer. So farm Through is, you know, we
59:57
Speaker 4: have our own now, we have our own supply chain
1:00:01
Speaker 4: and we are joining.
1:00:04
Speaker 3: We are hoping to pull.
1:00:06
Speaker 4: Regenerative farmers into this system so that they have a
1:00:09
Speaker 4: market particularly designed for them. So we have hubs at
1:00:13
Speaker 4: the moment, we're hoping to increase our hubs in Sydney,
1:00:16
Speaker 4: so we pulled.
1:00:17
Speaker 3: We have a hub in Western Sydney.
1:00:18
Speaker 4: We pull from western farmers in the eat in the north,
1:00:21
Speaker 4: we pull from northern farmers. You know, so that the
1:00:25
Speaker 4: so that regenerative farmers have a marketplace, a solid marketplace
1:00:30
Speaker 4: like a community supported agriculture, where you're given a definitive
1:00:33
Speaker 4: price and you're going to get that whatever the market
1:00:37
Speaker 4: is doing, you are going to be able to get
1:00:39
Speaker 4: that price. And I think that is a that is
1:00:42
Speaker 4: a great way forward. And if people, if the consumer
1:00:47
Speaker 4: gets onto that and buys into that, not only they're
1:00:50
Speaker 4: getting the more nutritious food, but they are saving rural
1:00:53
Speaker 4: Australia and they are helping animals have a decent life.
1:00:59
Speaker 3: And you know, and it tastes great. It tastes so
1:01:02
Speaker 3: much better. That's the main thing.
1:01:04
Speaker 4: Grass fed, grass finished is like I can't even eat
1:01:08
Speaker 4: in a restaurant anymore because it's it's to me, it
1:01:11
Speaker 4: just tastes bland. It's all feed lot animals, so it's
1:01:14
Speaker 4: fed on grain and it might be tenderer, but it's
1:01:17
Speaker 4: just it to me, it tastes like cardboard.
1:01:19
Speaker 3: It just doesn't have that taste of you know, of the.
1:01:23
Speaker 4: Land of meat, of proper meat like it used to
1:01:27
Speaker 4: taste and like you know when you go to Italy
1:01:30
Speaker 4: or France, like it tastes. And that's how our meat
1:01:35
Speaker 4: tastes when it comes off, when it's grass fed, grass finished.
1:01:38
Speaker 4: So yes, my farm now I have the full circle.
1:01:41
Speaker 4: So I have a breeding herd, so I breed my calves.
1:01:45
Speaker 4: They grow up, they spend they're here probably twenty four months,
1:01:50
Speaker 4: between eighteen and twenty four months, and then they are
1:01:53
Speaker 4: about a four hundred and thirty kilo animal and then
1:01:57
Speaker 4: they go to the abbatir and then they go down
1:01:59
Speaker 4: to farm through. So they don't no markets, no horrible
1:02:03
Speaker 4: sales market when they go into that auction house and
1:02:06
Speaker 4: get shouted out and farmers are going, you know, bidding
1:02:09
Speaker 4: and none of that scary stuff. One bad day on
1:02:12
Speaker 4: a truck to the abattoirs done and they're other than that,
1:02:16
Speaker 4: they have a damn good life. I mean, I have
1:02:19
Speaker 4: a lot of pictures on my Instagram of cattle kicking
1:02:23
Speaker 4: up their heels as they go into their new paddock,
1:02:26
Speaker 4: and it's yeah, it's definitely a priority that my cattle
1:02:30
Speaker 4: are are as happy as can be. I mean, how
1:02:34
Speaker 4: can you tell, but you know, how can you tell
1:02:36
Speaker 4: but you do? How can you tell they're happy? You Yeah,
1:02:41
Speaker 4: they just do kick up their heels and they're very
1:02:44
Speaker 4: friendly too. They come around I'm very in there with
1:02:48
Speaker 4: the paddock with them and they're my mates.
1:02:53
Speaker 2: I think anyone with experienced will understand exactly what you're
1:02:57
Speaker 2: talking about, and those that won't have been inspired. I'm
1:03:00
Speaker 2: sure now I will put notes to attach to this
1:03:04
Speaker 2: interview so that people know where to go. But just
1:03:07
Speaker 2: because we do have an Australian audience, where would people
1:03:11
Speaker 2: be best directed to find out more to get in
1:03:13
Speaker 2: touch to support what you're doing.
1:03:15
Speaker 3: My film, my documentary was on BBC four.
1:03:18
Speaker 4: It might still be on BBC four and if not,
1:03:21
Speaker 4: it's on Apple I think, so you can see it there.
1:03:26
Speaker 4: You know, obviously I don't if someone should do a
1:03:29
Speaker 4: farm through in England. I'm sure they're getting close to it.
1:03:32
Speaker 4: But it's a system that you know with hubs where
1:03:36
Speaker 4: you basically order online and then you come and pick up.
1:03:40
Speaker 4: You could pick up or you have boxes, one or
1:03:42
Speaker 4: the other. The French have been doing it for years.
1:03:45
Speaker 4: One in four French French French people shot this way,
1:03:50
Speaker 4: so it's it's ordering online and picking up from a
1:03:53
Speaker 4: hub and that well the boxes and the whole your
1:03:55
Speaker 4: groceries are already packed up for you, so it's just
1:04:00
Speaker 4: catching up with them. Yeah, so I suppose the farm
1:04:04
Speaker 4: through I mean put on, I don't.
1:04:08
Speaker 3: Know, God knows, there must be.
1:04:09
Speaker 4: You must have a map in England which shows the
1:04:13
Speaker 4: people who are selling regeneratively who are because most regeneritive
1:04:18
Speaker 4: farmers are onto that now, I mean, that's the thing.
1:04:21
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't really want to be working shopify
1:04:24
Speaker 4: and doing all of that at the same time as farming.
1:04:26
Speaker 4: I just don't have time. But so this is what
1:04:30
Speaker 4: the farm fruit. They do, all of that end of it,
1:04:32
Speaker 4: and you just get on with the farming and have
1:04:34
Speaker 4: a and have a set price.
1:04:39
Speaker 2: Well, that's a lot for people to think about. I
1:04:42
Speaker 2: would have said, digest but fascinating. And you know, for
1:04:49
Speaker 2: those in Australia, I think someone they can really sort
1:04:52
Speaker 2: of properly go to look at what you describe is
1:04:54
Speaker 2: absolutely happening in the British Isles to a certain extent,
1:04:57
Speaker 2: and I think we just hope that it pushes on
1:05:00
Speaker 2: more and more. Now, your timing is absolutely impeccable because
1:05:04
Speaker 2: it's obviously night has fallen in New South Wales, so
1:05:07
Speaker 2: you have you have virtually disappeared. But thank you very
1:05:11
Speaker 2: much indeed for joining me at UK column.
1:05:13
Speaker 1: I