Latest / UK Column Radio / Farmer Angus on why regenerative farming is an agricultural solution

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Farmer Angus on why regenerative farming is an agricultural solution · UK Column Radio

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  Regenerate regenerative waiting here for Angus.
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  It is a holistic way of growing food that focuses on repairing
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  and improving the land. And I think that is Angus
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  arriving right there. Testing and mixing issues
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  breaks. I'm with my friend Farm Angus.
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  I am a farmer. I'm a regenerative farmer. 20
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  years ago I lived in London. I was a stockbroker for Goldman
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  Sachs. I've had a very interesting 180°
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  travel from my belief system when I was at Goldman Sachs to
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  now we use animals as part of our regenerative programme.
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  So this whole idea that car farts are killing the world is
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  total rubbish. Animals rejuvenate and
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  regenerate. And, and just one macro point I
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  want to make is I've banned the word sustainability on the farm.
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  So the reason I banned it is because I don't believe there's
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  anything, anything anywhere in the world we want to sustain
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  today. Nothing we want to sustain.
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  Everything has got to be made better.
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  Jeremy, you tried a beautiful afternoon to come here.
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  Just prepared these steals for some rebos.
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  Come and have a look here. Climb up here.
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  These are chicken feathers. Am I good to go?
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  Yeah. These are chicken feathers from
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  a free range abattoir in South Africa and the rest of the
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  world. 85% of chicken feathers become feather meal which is fed
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  back to chickens. What we do with it is we mulch
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  in our vineyards. So those are young vines, old
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  vines we we gave last year. So if you look here, this is
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  last year's feathers that are broken up.
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  OK. Now unfortunately on camera, you
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  can't smell anything. OK, but this, this beautiful
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  rich earth that is from chicken feathers breaking down.
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  So in Europe and in the US, you're not allowed to use any
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  animal waste for anything, OK. And then these, these are the
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  fresh, fresh feathers that we've put around the baby, the baby
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  plant. There's a farmer I know in
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  Eastern Cape who gets 2 lemon harvests every year.
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  The question was what the hell does he do?
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  How does he do that? He mulches his orchards with
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  sheep's wool and, and, and so accordingly he was getting this
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  unbelievable fertility from sheep's wool.
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  And I tried to find sheep's wool, couldn't find it.
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  Then these Kenyan farmers, these Maasai farmers came here and
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  said why are you stuffing around with sheep's wool?
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  Just get chicken feathers. So were you five years into
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  using chicken feathers in our vineyards?
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  Why do you have? Italian because I'm trying to
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  learn Italian. I used to have Russian, but it's
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  Russian. I don't have the time to learn
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  Russian, so now I'm trying to learn Italian.
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  Why? Because Zulu was the first
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  language that I spoke and I can do well with languages and
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  Italians, I want to speak Italian.
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  This is what you need to focus on.
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  Can you see that? Yes, OK this is exhibit one in
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  the human beings are committing species wild suicide scenario
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  tell. Me more.
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  Look at it. It's a global use of pesticides
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  over the last 30 years. OK, if you had had your child's
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  placenta analysed, you'd find 162 artificial chemicals in
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  there. Breast milk's got 280 or
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  something in it. Breast milk's God's purest
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  creation, and it's contaminated. Where's the watermongolani?
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  OK. And the waggons.
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  The salt waggons there. I want to show my friend.
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  OK, Mangolani, this is my friend Germ.
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  Can I tell you there are a lot of fat cattle in here?
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  Hey, please send me a WhatsApp quickly.
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  Now to say slaughter, because even some of these oxen are
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  starting to look really fat. Hey, how's life look for
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  something here? OK, this is interesting.
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  You see, these are nodules. OK?
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  These nodules are filled with risobacteria.
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  So this is a plot. It's called Lupin.
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  It's a legume. See, I'm breaking off.
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  See, See. See these these guys.
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  OK, these pink nodules. This is a brilliant sign.
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  What it means is that the, the, this plant is fixing nitrogen.
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  So nitrogen is the most available thing in the sky.
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  The sky is like 70% nitrogen, very little oxygen.
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  So in a, in a regenerative system, you want as many legumes
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  as possible, but they don't. So, so the fact that we've got
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  the legumes and that they're nodulating is amazing.
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  So what happens if they called a rise of bacteria lives in the
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  roots that's in that pink thing and they then pull the nitrogen
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  out of the atmosphere and make it available for themselves and
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  for the other plants in the area.
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  That is a very that's germ. Thank you for being here, buddy.
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  That makes me so happy to see. OK, Germ, come and listen here,
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  buddy. OK, So what percentage of
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  antibiotics do you think go to animals?
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  I know the answer OK, it's about 80 to 90.
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  Percent, 90% of antibiotics go to animals and only 10% to
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  humans. And why is that?
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  Because animal agriculture is ordained.
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  That or humans have ordained that animal agriculture should
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  be done in their toilets. That's what they are.
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  They're in their toilets, so that's why you're using
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  antibiotics, because they're sick and challenged.
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  So we, these animals, I can't say will never have an
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  antibiotic, but most of them will never, ever have had an
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  injection in their lives. These animals, most of them will
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  never, ever get an injection. I think year to date we've
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  injected one, OK? And there's two reasons for it.
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  The first is we move them twice a day, every single day, to
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  fresh pasta, OK? At the same time, we wait six
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  weeks before they come back the same spot.
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  So the parasite cycle's broken. That's reason number one reason
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  #2 is this thing OK? It's called a free choice.
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  Mineral lick works as follows. All soils are deficient.
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  All plants growing in the soil are deficient.
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  All animals eating the plant are deficient.
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  Deficiency manifests as disease. These animals, they have the
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  intelligence to know what they, what they're missing.
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  So they come in here, they push up with their noses, then
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  they'll self medicate, OK? What is this like minerals and
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  salts? A.
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  Whole range of different minerals OK.
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  And they lifted up on the air. Push up their noses.
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  This is this is for example, kelp hof kelp hof, diatomaceous
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  earth. This is a Pat Colby, Australian
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  vet dolomitic lime, copper sulphate, sulphur dust.
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  So the the the the principal germ is is the principle is 30%
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  of what they take in fixes the internal imbalance.
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  The rest comes out the back end biologically available.
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  And that goes back into the soil.
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  In a biological form, that's key because it's been through a
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  human process. No chemicals.
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  That's why it's so good to pee on your plants, Jim.
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  You know you're giving, you're giving, you're giving them
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  biological nutrients. Angus, what sort of beef is
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  this? So these are the the smaller
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  ones are limousine Simontola crosses.
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  This guy's a limousine Red Angus cross.
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  So you can see he's very muscled, OK.
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  But if you look at his back, he's almost got this line, looks
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  like a hamstring line. That's not he's not fat yet.
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  OK, So he'll slaughter. There's this magnificent
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  carcass. But beef, you need fat.
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  That's where the flavour is. OK, so these things are
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  hopelessly too small. Are you aware that you've lost
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  all vegan audience right now? What I can tell you is last
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  week, last week, my staff got paid out 650,000 Rand in carbon
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  credits. What's what's that?
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  What's that in dollars? I think it's they got the same,
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  I got the same 1.3 million Rand in total payout.
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  So it's maybe $80,000 something, they get $85,000.
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  I'm not sure. The exchange rate is 90,000.
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  Whatever the the the maybe it's a bit less cheap as my maths is
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  appalling. What is the exchange rate?
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  And you had Goldman Sachs? 20 years ago maybe.
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  So the point is that that that we would never been paid those
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  carbon credits if we hadn't increased the carbon in the
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  soils. And how do we do it through
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  animals. Whereas on the vegan way, you
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  can't increase the carbon, you can only burn it up because you
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  have to use artificial fertilisers.
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  So. So germ purely from a
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  regenerative a, a, a, a regenerative aspect, veganism is
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  disqualified. Yes.
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  It looks like a fat. There.
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  It just turned its head. You got it.
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  Yeah, there it is. Turn its head again.
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  Yeah, owls have chased it out of that ficus there.
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  That's that. The crows chased it out.
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  Now the poor owl, it's broad daylight and it's traumatised by
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  the crows. OK, Jim, so these are free.
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  Range. Are you trying?
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  Are you trying to be funny? Free range is consumer fraud.
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  Free range is what you think you're buying when you buy
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  chickens, when you buy eggs. I love my honey.
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  I love my beautiful. Oh yes, that is so lacquer.
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  That is a back rub. I've never lacquer If you UK
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  kind of people know what lacquer means.
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  But lacquer is is better than nice.
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  I mean, the free range is genuinely consumer fraud because
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  because with free range, they you, you're expecting to find
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  this green fields, moving animals, but you're not free
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  range. They live in a big barn.
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  There's a tiny little opening on the side of the barn.
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  There's no incentive for them to go out.
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  And ecologically speaking, free range is as bad as caged.
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  Why? Because they're manure builds up
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  in one place. Your housing's not mobile.
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  Look at this, the housings mobile, you see the cattle move
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  every day. So, so, so animals are part of
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  regenerating an ecosystem. But the way animals are farmed,
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  it's not regenerating anything because the manure is kept in
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  one place and then it's a huge problem dealing with it.
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  So do these chickens move also? Every single day we move these
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  egg movies. So it helps the grass also.
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  Of course, this is all natural, naturally grown Hala Mahanis.
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  How many chickens have you got here, Angus?
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  In total in the form 6000 hens, but in in this batch 1000 hens.
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  So then obviously this makes the eggs premium?
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  But they're more nutrient dense than other eggs.
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  We've done amino acid profiling on them and the other eggs are
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  dishonestly priced. The cost of of the waste of the
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  of the of of tidying up the waste that's not in the price,
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  yes, must be taught. Come if you look here, Jim, OK,
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  If you feel there, that is the totality of her breast.
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  Do you feel how little meat that is?
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  Yeah, She's a laying machine. She's not a meat machine.
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  It's like eating a marathon runner versus a sumo wrestler.
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  But she lays a lot of eggs. But she's a laying machine.
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  OK, let's go watch this be Moses potting the waters.
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  Moses called the Mitsubishi Moses.
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  You've also got pigs, but we don't have enough time not to go
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  look because the sun's setting. Pigs, dude.
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  We haven't even really spoken about wine, and we haven't
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  spoken about Robots tea either. So I launched a wine brand last
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  year. It took me 15 years to get the
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  wines up to a standard that we were comfortable to release.
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  One of the things we've done in the vineyard, if you remember
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  that the vine is the plant of Dionyses just grows down
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  straight, straight down. What is the opposite of
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  Dionyses? Apollo.
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  So we planted cypresses as the Apollonian tree.
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  So it's the energy up and energy down little bit of balance.
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  Oh, and those mountains, by the way, on the on the on the on the
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  far distance across there is the reals mountains.
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  Then that is Haldebach, Stellamosch Mountain, Fronchuk
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  Mountain, Simmons, Bach, and if you look carefully you can just
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  see Table Mountain under the clouds over there.
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  It is Devil's Peak just sticking out under the cloud.
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  So you also form pigs. Yes.
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  So we are one of three people who produce pigs outdoors.
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  You wouldn't believe it. With weather like this, everyone
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  should have their pigs outdoors, but they're all in cages.
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  But we are the only guys who cure without adding nitrites.
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  Nitrites and phosphates and germ over here, I'll put a little
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  packet of goodies for you to take home.
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  Salami sticks for germ. This is our tagline.
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  Get the real story, Know your food.
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  And we're the only guys curing without adding nitrites,
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  nitrates and phosphates. So there's some salami sticks
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  for you. That is chorizo.
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  Oh. God, that is delicious.
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  OK. Actually, it's all delicious.
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  This is called Salomeeti. And then here are some
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  frankfurters for you, young man. Nice.
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  Roller for your son? Yes, he's a he's a growing boy.
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  He's a growing boy. Thank you, Angus.
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  OK, Jim, the burning question in this country in agriculture is
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  why since 2010 have 56% of the cattle farmers and 54% of the
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  beef farmers, I mean cattle farmers and grain farmers gone
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  bust? Because capitalism is a system
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  that is the primary producer with sand as lubricant.
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  OK, it might be a grotesque metaphor and I couldn't say it
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  again. In the capitalist system, the
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  primary producer is the worst possible position to be OK, so
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  by me spending huge amounts of effort and time and money on a
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  brand, I'm a price maker and not a price taker.
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  Why the What's actually going on?
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  Because germ, they have not been able to increase their prices
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  off the farm gate, but their labour costs have basically
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  doubled, their fuel costs have doubled.
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  At the same time, the retailers in the feedlots are making
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  millions more just a You're a commodity producer.
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  What was? It Yeah, there we go.
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  We are regenerative farm. As I explained to you earlier,
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  I've banned the word sustainability because it's a
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  defeatist belief that everything is OK as it is.
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  In my opinion, everything should be better on whatever metric we
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  look at. We can only do better.
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  I mean, maybe we could go worse, but why would you want to have,
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  you know, more infertility, more cancer, more plastic in the
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  oceans, more plastic in our bodies, So more use of
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  pesticides, Yeah. It's healthier in the long run.
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  And it's a, it's, as Catherine Austinfitz says, this is how you
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  get off the central control grid.
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  You become, you actually become healthier, correct?
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  And you require less of the pharmaceuticals.
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  It's going to say what I did on Sunday.
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  Yeah, we have a little family tradition where when it's, if
• 17:30
  it's a birthday of somebody, they request something.
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  So I read last year for my birthday had requested a 24 hour
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  digital detox. So no one in our family, my 3
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  kids, my wife and I looked at the screen for 24 hours.
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  Gee, oh, that's why you didn't reply to me.
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  Jim, I can't tell you how wonderful it was.
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  Time just slows down, literally slows down.
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  It's incredible. We have no idea how
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  overstimulated we are. So farmers are attacked, no
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  question. I think 4000 farmers have been
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  murdered, but black farmers and white farmers are attacked.
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  And the attacks on farmers, I don't believe they've got
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  anything to do with race, but they've everything to socio
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  economic stuff. So the farmers perceived to have
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  money and they're also perceived to have guns and cash on their
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  farms, OK. So that's why many, many years
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  ago we said we're no cash farm, OK?
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  Whereas literally up the road from me, they murdered a guy
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  because he was paying out in cash to steal his cash.
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  So. So we are a criminal society in
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  South Africa where criminals are not punished.
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  So, so. But there's another underlying
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  tone which is like farmers are white and they kind of deserve
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  it. But what they don't understand
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  is when you kill the farmer with with it's black or white, you've
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  basically killed all the farm labourers too.
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  Yeah. How much of that do you think is
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  foreign influence foreign backed to to destabilise?
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  Well of course the the the the the CIA and MI 6 are fully
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  behind. The EFF is a destabilising force
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  because it's Brit. It's anti bricks.
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  All the British government can do is destabilise.
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  They've even destabilised England.
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  I lived in England for five years.
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  OK England is not the same as it was 20 years ago.
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  The British have destabilised their own country.
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  So mad at this. We, as in every human, are all
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  farmers by proxy. You, by virtue of choosing where
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  your food comes from, have chosen your farmer.
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  And the farmer is either regenerative or destructive.
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  So we can literally eat our way to a better world.
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  How's that for a beautiful, uplifting message, my man?
• 19:52
  Angus. OK.
• 19:57
  Thanks everybody. Jim, you're the best.