Opportunities in Challenging Times

Charlie Massy

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Some inconvenient truths: The state of our rural nation

• 70% farmers financially viable only due to ‘off-farm’ income

• In 2013 (1st time in Australia’s history) the banks owned > 50% all farm equity

• T.O.T. for agriculture been in consistent decline for > 60 years

• Almost 80% of retail grocer market controlled by 2 corporations

• FARMERS COMMIT SUICIDE AT 2X THE NATIONAL AVERAGE RATE

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• Av. Age farmers is 60, & slowly climbing -

but few have intergenerational succession plans in place

• 50% farmers hope to retire in next 5 years

• We are losing 76 farmers a week, from a low base of 140,000

• As a food exporter Australia feeds 60 million – But we have some 2.265 million food-insecure people (575,000 children)

• There are 3 to 4 jobs for every agricultural

graduate, but Ag. Colleges are under-populated

Demographics : A Massive Social Impact Due to Regional Population Decline

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ENVIRONMENTAL (Industrial Agriculture) • At 61% of Australia’s landmass,

agriculture presides over record rates of biodiversity loss

• Agriculture has high carbon emissions – 17%; & food systems = 30%

• It takes 10 calories of oil to produce 1 calorie of food to our table

• There is mounting concern over chemical residues in food/humans plus mounting weed resistance

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STRUCTURAL ISSUES

• As Australia is ‘open for business’, foreign transnational corporations increasingly own food production, distribution, transport & export products

(part of the ‘Get Big or Get Out’ syndrome)

• The impact of ‘Fair Trade’ agreements = largely unknown (they are an article of economic rationalist faith) - BUT ask dairy farmers re. global milk prices & pig farmers re. subsidised pork: as ‘the bottom line is king’

• 70% world’s food = peasant-based farming, largely by women on < 2.2 ha.

or less

• Such agro-ecological farms = more efficient & productive/ha than big industrials

• Small farms = better at utilizing biodiversity, maintaining landscapes, contributing to local economies, providing work opportunities & promoting social cohesion

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CONCLUSION

A Systemic Social, Economic, & Environmental crisis in our food & agricultural system…

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A CONUNDRUM?

• 94% of Australian farmers undertake N.R.M.

• Most farmers want to be good custodians of the land

• BUT ‘You can’t be green when you’re in the red’ Dep

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2. GLOBAL THREATS? …..OR ARE THEY OPPORTUNITIES? • Trend to legislated animal welfare, organic/ecological (the ‘millennials’) e.g. clean, green, ethical (PETA,

food waste, localism, veganism etc.). Opportunity?

• 2 weeks ago: Germany’s National Agricultural Strategy – aims to target animal welfare & organic farming – includes developing labelling laws. Opportunity?

• Is W.T.A. losing its bite? India hikes 30% tariff on chickpeas, lentils; 50% on field peas, up to 20% on wheat, plus quotas on mung beans/peas Opportunity for niche, higher value products, not bulk?

• ‘War on ‘Waste’ (we currently waste 30% food) – if this succeeds = < demand - But does this open door to high quality, niche products?

• China Premier’s speech to Congress: calls for an ‘Ecological Civilisation’- and that they will ‘take tough steps’

to stop & punish all activities damaging the environment – But is this an opportunity to W.A. for clean/green?

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3. ONE ACHIEVABLE OPTION: REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

Across the board proven solutions creating economic & marketing opportunities along with ecological/environmental & financial resilience Dep

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Key Message HEALTHY

LANDSCAPES HEALTHY

FOOD

HEALTHY PEOPLE + HEALTHY

PLANET

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BACKGROUND: Context & Challenge

WE ARE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

EPOCH!!!

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Components of the Earth System

1. Climate 2. Biosphere integrity 3. Interference in

Biogeochemical flows - especially Nitrogen & Phosphorous 4. Land systems Change 5. A Protective Ozone layer 6. Oceans (their balanced pH etc.) 7. Freshwater 8. Atmosphere 9. Chemical integrity

Industrial Agriculture is a major player in causing damage to all systems but #5.

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THE ANTHROPOCENE: IS IT HAPPENING? 1. ‘Alarming deterioration of global environmental trends’: > 15,000 scientists in 184 countries – (Ripple, WJ et al – BioScience, Nov. 2017.)

2. ‘Nitrate timebomb’ – huge quantities of industrial nitrate stored in rocks, set to release into ground-water: (Ascott, MJ et al – Nature Communications, Nov. 2017) 3. ‘Warning of ecological Armageddon’ – 76% decline of insects in Germany in 27 years: (Hallmann, CA et al – PLoS One 12 (10), Oct. 2017) 4. ‘Monsanto in massive cover-up over cancer & other impacts of Glyphosate’ (Der Spiegel Oct. 21 2017) 5. ‘Unequivocal methane-temperature rises on wide, continent-spanning scale’ (Ralph, CH et al – Nature Communications, Nov. 2017)

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This is grounds for hope…

If industrial agriculture = a causal factor

Regenerative agriculture

= a key solution

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We need a new story for our times…

For the story of growth and greed has failed us…

Regenerative agriculture is

‘ultimately a story about renewing mother earth and her systems and our deep, co-dependency on these’

(Call of the Reed Warbler)

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Background and context to the book

• Hope and solutions • Mistake ridden farming journey >

40 years • Increasing awareness of global

ecological challenges • PHD Human Ecology at ANU

examining transformation in regenerative farmers

• Realisation that most of us farmers are landscape illiterate

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Research for the book Visited 100 + Regenerative Farms Holistic Grazing

Edible Shrubs

Biological Ag. Agroforestry Keyline

Pasture cropping, No Kill Cropping etc. Permaculture

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Book Construction: A Tapestry and a journey

The Warp: Built around stories of remarkable regenerative farmers The Weft has many strands but key =

a journey of ecological literacy, illustrated by regenerative farmers De

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Chapter 1: A Gondwanan Ark

(Photo: Trish Dixon)

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Dryland Salinity W.A. (Dept. Agriculture & Food, W.A.) Dep

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Chapter 2: Rise of the Mechanical Mind ORGANIC MIND INDUSTRIAL MIND

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One View of Current industrial paradigm? Nature = enemy

• To be simplified, dominated &, if necessary, killed.

1. Mounting & unsustainable environmental & social costs

2. Increasing toll on human health

3. Escalating separation of humans from natural environment Dep

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Our urgent challenge is to move beyond ‘Sustainability’

How? REGENERATION THROUGH ECOLOGICAL LITERACY Part 2: Chapters 3-17.

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Landscape Illiteracy or Blindness

My own journey?

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Capital liquidation

Is Paradigm-Induced

Blindness

A Monaro Fence-line ca. 2009 (Lindsay Morgan)

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5

A JOURNEY IN ECOLOGICAL LITERACY Built around the 5 key landscape functions

1. Solar Function 2. Water cycle 3. Soil Mineral

cycle 4. Dynamic

Ecosystem Communities

5. Human-Social Key: All are interconnected; Indivisible; Dynamically in Feedbacks – They undergird ecosystems & human civilisation

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(per Norman Kroon, fence-line Karoo > 30+ years)

COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS: 12 key components KEY = SELF-ORGANIZATION This = the ‘BIG ENGINE’ that drives, underpins & structures the functioning of the natural world a new world-view to confront the Anthropocene

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The 5 Landscape Functions

Function # 1: The Solar Energy Cycle

Green plants = the foundation: So, to increase energy flow-capture & have more efficiency, we need to expand the primary trophic base (i.e. > number solar panels year round)

n.b. The solar function impacts all

other functions in a virtuous circle

5

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Holistic Grazing

Stacked, multi-species cropping for multi-function

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Karoo region South Africa - 7” (175mm) rainfall • Livestock carrying and production tripled after 40 years • Water Retention tripled after 3 years

Holistic grazing regime

Set-Stocking regime

(Per. Norman Kroon)

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Mt. Pleasant Station, NW Queensland, after 100 years of set-stocking – Oct. 2004 (per. Garlone Moulin & RCS)

Mt. Pleasant Station, Oct. 2014, 10 years on

Gully erosion healing after 10 yrs

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Resilience in Cropping

Pasture-Cropping & its Originator: Colin Seis, Gulgong NSW

No-Kill Cropping & its Originator: Bruce Maynard, Narromine, NSW

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Function # 2: The Water Cycle

An Effective Water Cycle

• Maximum water available to plants • > evapotranspiration & < run-off • < organic matter carried off

• > recharge in underground supplies • < soil-capping & > ground-cover • > % deep-rooted plants • > energy cycle via keeping plants in longer growing season

(Savory/Butterfield 1999)

An effective water cycle REQUIRES ACTIVE MANAGEMENT

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Karoo region South Africa - 7” (175mm) rainfall • Livestock carrying and production tripled after 40 years • Water Retention tripled after 3 years

Holistic grazing regime

Set-Stocking regime

(Per. Norman Kroon)

Function # 2: The Water Cycle

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Holistic Grazing Regime Regenerating desertified land in Mexico Coahuila, Las Pilas Ranch - (the latter > 27 years Holistic Management)

Before - 1953 After – 2007 (per Guillermo Osuna Saenz)

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Function # 3: The Soil-Mineral Cycle An Effective Soil-Mineral Cycle • Key = biologically active living soil – with adequate aeration & energy • Continuous supply Soil Organic Matter • Healthy, diverse plants species & root structures/types to draw-up minerals/nutrients….

• The soil bugs lay down long-term Carbon (e.g. via glomalin, chitin) Crux: Our management can drastically alter the speed, efficiency & complexity of cycles in system

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1930s Mallee Drought Previous ground-level surface

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Australia’s best soils - dead from misapplied industrial agriculture

Liverpool Plains, 2011 In a dry season: 8mm rain, but 12 hours previously

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Drone-view of Wind-mill & Sheep tracks W.A., Near Moora (photo: Josh Carr The Australian)

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The Iceberg Impact

In a healthy Agricultural soil there is

vastly more life under-ground than above

& thus more carbon & water

Soil Bacteria

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Only healthy soil biology can put long-term Carbon in the

soil

Functions # 2/3: The Water Cycle & soil-mineral cycle combined

5

Through getting all 5 landscape functions properly working, just with 1% > Soil carbon, up to 144,000 extra litres of water can be stored per hectare

(Morris, 2004)

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‘NATURAL INTELLIGENCE AGRICULTURE’ Ian & Di Haggerty, W.A. – Resilient Cropping

(Photo Haggerty Family)

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Function # 4: Dynamic Ecosystem Communities

Involves diversity/networks/complexity/

mutualisms & symbioses, food-webs, networked communities

The 5 Landscape Functions

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Dryland Salinity W.A. (Dept. Agriculture & Food, W.A.) Dep

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Rowan Reid’s farm ‘Bambra’, Otway Ranges, Vic. (he was founder Otway Agroforestry Network).

Before - 1987 After - 2010

(Photos: Bambra Agroforestry Farm)

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Solutions for Resilience: Putting food trees + edible shrubs (the missing

understorey layer) back into our landscapes + vertical grazing layer with diverse nutrients

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The Spanish Dehesa System Dep

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Shade and shelter: the forgotten management tool

Dean Revell, CSIRO, Perth, W.A.

Examples: • More pasture

growth

• Better animal performance

(+ animal welfare issues) • < evaporation with

better ground-cover etc. D

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Function # 5: The Social/Human Factor

All functions are linked but the human factor is crucial as we enter the Anthropocene era

The 5 Landscape Functions

• Paradigms/mental models/world-views = of huge import

& can preclude ecological literacy

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The ‘Mechanical Mind’/ Economic

Rationalism

leads to Landscape illiteracy/ paradigm

blindness

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(per Norman Kroon, fenceline Karoo > 30+ years)

KEY: ENABLING SELF-ORGANIZATION TO WORK The ‘BIG ENGINE’ that drives, underpins & structures the functioning of the natural world a new world-view to confront the Anthropocene

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4. Human Health We co-evolved in natural landscapes to detect, ingest & process a vast array of primary & secondary nutrients.

WE IGNORE THIS AT OUR PERIL.

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Chapter 21: Healing Ourselves?

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Landscapes with diverse arrays of plants

are nutrition centers and pharmacies with vast arrays of primary and secondary

compounds. (Fred Provenza)

Thousands of primary and secondary compounds

varying in time & space:

Phenolics > 8,000 Terpenes > 25,000 Alkaloids > 12,000

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For Herbivores eating a variety

of foods in a variety of

places…

…has huge consequences for humans if they eat/drink animal products off healthy landscapes, or conversely, if they exclude them or consume Industrially farmed products & processed foods

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PRIMARY NUTRIENT DEGRADATION

• Research into 63 Wheat cultivars (especially main soft whites)

• Wheat grain yield • Nutrient concentration

High-yield, input-responsive cultivars > micronutrient deficiencies in key minerals: Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, P, Se, Zn

(Murphy, KM et. Al 2008: Euphytica 163: 381-390)

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SECONDARY NUTRIENT/ PHYTOCHEMICAL DEGRADATION

• Early research: Phytochemical richness has declined in 43 fruits and vegetables from 1950 to 1999

• Latest research: Even greater decreases (e.g. Davis et al 2004; Davis 2009

Grown on soil irrigated and fertilized with NPK, increases growth at the

expense of phytochemical richness.

Selected for yield, not phytochemical richness, which gives flavor and health

through nutrition.

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Secondary Compounds in Oregano Primary Compounds in Spinach

F.Provenza

From foods grown on healthy landscapes

Over 100 Nutrients In each

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Let food be thy medicine, and medicine by thy food

attr. to Hippocrates ca.

400 B.C

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A MASSIVE VULNERABILITY: GLOBAL RELIANCE ON GLYPHOSATE (a.k.a. Roundup) (nearly 1million tonnes annually)

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SILENT SPRING 2 ? GLYPHOSATE & HUMAN HEALTH

‘Glyphosate, the most-used chemical on earth,

may be the most significant environmental toxin & most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment.’

Despite chemical industry assertions re. safety of glyphosate: 1. It damages soil biota

2. It enhances damaging effects of other food borne chemicals & environmental toxins; 3. Has insidious impact - manifested slowly over time; 4. Its main action is via disrupting the gut flora’s role in synthesising amino acids – via disrupting the Shikimate p’way 5. Therefore has profound effects on the immune system & basic

physiological & biochemical pathways.” (Samsel & Seneff 2013; from 286 publ. papers)

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“You cannot damage what you are dependent upon without damaging yourself.”

Chapter 20: Healing Earth

Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, 1977, p. 166 Departm

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REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE & EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES

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John & Robyn Ive, ‘Talaheni’, Yass Via regenerative agriculture - especially revegetation & restoring Fn #4: Dynamic Ecosystem Communities

In 30 Years: • Sequestration Soil C = 11 X Farm emissions

• Soil C, from 1 % 4 % (Doran-Brown, N: Anim. Prodn. Sci. 2016: 417-422)

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POTENTIAL FOR CARBON CREDITS IN THE RANGELANDS/PASTORAL & FARMING ZONES • Blockage? Unlike N.S.W & Queensland, whose pastoral leaseholders are gaining $100m of

Federal Government Carbon credits, W.A. is missing out

• So it just needs state government to grant consent to pastoralists for carbon projects

• Such projects are a win/win: landscape regeneration via holistic grazing or self-herding plus injected income, diversified income stream, and pressure off the land and families

• Potential $100m up for grabs

• Opportunities in farming zones also Dep

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OPPORTUNITY? HEALTHY, GRASS-FED BEEF, MUTTON, POULTRY • ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’: clean/green trend to accelerate (especially for protein-

rich foods) = huge opportunity for W.A.: shift price/quantity to quality e.g. Larry Fink (Blackrock Investments), US$ 6.3 trillion & wants C.S.R.

• > wealth Asia = > potential demand • Once grain > $200/tonne switch-over to pig/chook feed - opens way to W.A.

Farmers doing clean/green meat into Asia

• In USA & now Australia, a Regenerative Agriculture Certification Scheme - backed by Patagonia & Rodale = huge opportunity beef & lamb/mutton

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NEW MARKETS VIA ECOLOGICAL GRAZING & GRAZING-BASED CROPPING ? • > wealth Asia > Demand high-protein meat

• Ruminants = vital to regenerative landscapes (grazing and cropping) e.g. Sir Albert Howard: ‘Mother Nature never attempts to farm without live stock…’ (‘An Agricultural Testament’, 1943)

• Grazing animals on healthy landscapes concentrate far more nutrients & minerals than do single-crop

vegetables. e.g. to reach the recommended daily intake of 18 mg iron, a woman would have to eat at least 8 x more spinach than cooked liver & iron found in vegetables (i.e. non-haem iron) is harder for the body to absorb (because it is usually bound to fibre).

• Mutton is more nutrient dense than lamb, beef, chicken or pork, & mutton & liver are excellent sources of high bioavailable protein, iron, zinc & omega-3 fatty acids

• Lamb’s brain has 25 x omega-3 fatty acids than chicken breast (Prof. Robyn Alders, U. Sydney, 2017)

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CONCLUSION

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Monty Python’s Galaxy Song Eric Idle

‘So remember when you’re feeling very small & insecure,

How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there’s intelligent life

somewhere in space, ‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.’

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AGRICULTURE WILL BE FRONT & CENTRE TO OUR FUTURES

YES, PART OF THE PROBLEM… BUT, ALSO PART OF THE SOLUTION

KEY = ENABLING LANDSCAPE PROCESSES OF

SELF-ORGANIZATION

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Donald Worcester’s 3 principles for ‘good farming’ 1. It should make people healthier

2. It should promote a just society 3. It should preserve the earth & its network of life. (Worcester 1993: 92. The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History & the Ecological Imagination)

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BY TURNING CHALLENGES INTO OPPORUNTITIES

WE CAN:

• Build Soil Organic Carbon • Regenerate landscape functions

• Create new enterprises • Build greater economic, social &

Environmental resilience Dep

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“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world

it leaves to its children.”

(Source unknown, but attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

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For Herbivores eating a variety of foods in a

variety of places… …has huge consequences for

humans if they eat/drink animal products off healthy landscapes, or conversely, if they exclude them or consume Industrially farmed products & processed foods

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“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world

it leaves to its children.”

(Source unknown, but attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

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Phytochemical richness has declined in 43

fruits and vegetables from 1950 to 1999

Grown on soil irrigated and

fertilized with NPK, increases growth at

the expense of phytochemical

richness.

Selected for yield, not phytochemical

richness, which gives flavor and health through nutrition.

Early research showed that

Latest research shows even greater decreases (e.g. Davis et al 2004; Davis 2009)

SECONDARY NUTRIENT/PHYTOCHEMICAL DEGRADATION

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An Underground Insurgency…

Through healthy food & fibre off regenerated landscapes, we can partner with urban communities and create an agriculture of health.

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Our Farm

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The correct balance of Minerals and primary & secondary nutrients are essential for human & animal health.

© National Geographic

Mountain goat down-climbing for salt minerals

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Opportunities in Challenging TimesSome inconvenient truths: �The state of our rural nationSlide Number 3ENVIRONMENTAL (Industrial Agriculture)�Slide Number 5Slide Number 6Slide Number 7Slide Number 8Slide Number 9Key MessageSlide Number 11Components of the Earth SystemSlide Number 13This is grounds for hope…We need a new story for our times…Background and context to the bookResearch for the bookBook Construction: A Tapestry and a journeyChapter 1: �A Gondwanan ArkSlide Number 20Chapter 2: Rise of the Mechanical Mind One View of� Current industrial paradigm? � Nature = enemyOur urgent challenge is to move beyond ‘Sustainability’Landscape Illiteracy or BlindnessIs Paradigm-Induced BlindnessSlide Number 26Slide Number 27Slide Number 28Slide Number 29Slide Number 30Slide Number 31Slide Number 32Slide Number 33Slide Number 34Slide Number 35Slide Number 36Slide Number 37Slide Number 38Slide Number 39Slide Number 40Slide Number 41Slide Number 42Slide Number 43Slide Number 44Slide Number 45Slide Number 46Slide Number 47Slide Number 48Slide Number 49Slide Number 50Slide Number 51Slide Number 52Slide Number 53Landscapes with diverse arrays of plants are nutrition centers and pharmacies with vast arrays of primary and secondary compounds.�(Fred Provenza)For Herbivores eating a variety of foods in a variety of places… Slide Number 56SECONDARY NUTRIENT/�PHYTOCHEMICAL DEGRADATION�Slide Number 58Let food be thy medicine, and medicine by thy foodSlide Number 60Slide Number 61“You cannot damage what you are dependent upon without damaging yourself.”Slide Number 63Slide Number 64Slide Number 65Slide Number 66Slide Number 67Slide Number 68Slide Number 69Slide Number 70Slide Number 71Slide Number 72Slide Number 73Slide Number 74Slide Number 75For Herbivores eating a variety of foods in a variety of places… Slide Number 77Slide Number 78An Underground Insurgency…Slide Number 80Slide Number 81