The world has become a very polarising place when it comes to the environment. Sarah Perriam’s curiosity for 2022 continues to build on how we can repair our connection with the earth with ancient indigenous farming wisdom verified by science.
The irony of the current climate urgency is that if we slow down, we will achieve our outcomes faster. But humans have become extremely impatient which proves difficult when we need change.
This global urgency has led to polarisation in the New Zealand farming community. The media misrepresentation of last year’s Groundswell protests gave the impression that every farmer in the country shares the same views on what is needed to achieve better environmental outcomes. The defensive farming voices against a stack of government regulations highlight that the anger stems as an attack on the New Zealand farmers’ way of life with their identity threatened.
Whether it’s the pride in pulling the economy through Covid, feeding the people or looking after the land, when you boil it down farmers perceive they are already doing the right thing.
The real identity battle is the rise of interest in regenerative agriculture. Its fundamental principle that it could help farmers meet their nutrient loss and greenhouse gas issues has generated mixed opinions, with scientists against scientists, and farmers against farmers.
The groundswell of regenerative agriculture has been relatively fast over the past few years – as I reflect on the story I wrote (latitude April/May 2020) about the new farmer-led knowledge revolution around regenerative farming known as Quorum Sense. Many pooh-poohed it as an underground organics-like movement until July 2020 when the New Zealand Government released the food and fibre sector roadmap, Fit for a Better World – accelerating our economic potential. The roadmap sets out three ambitious targets to achieve a more productive, sustainable and inclusive food and fibre sector within the next decade and they stated this will be using a regenerative mindset.
The conversation moved to talking about ancient Māori philosophy, like the concept of Taiao, a deep relationship of respect and reciprocity with the natural world, that when nature thrives so do our families, communities and businesses.
Regenerative in the minds of some farmers was starting to imply that the 150 years of European farming practices that improved the country’s standard of living with subsidy-free, world-leading productivity gains, didn’t also have an inter-generational environmental lens. That they didn’t care about their land.
The festering sores had set in as livestock farmers were already feeling attacked by the tornado of ‘truth’ happening globally from multi-billionaire filmmakers such as James Cameron, funding science and documentaries to affirm plant-based diets will save the planet.
In August 2020, the release of a US-based Netflix documentary, Kiss the Ground, made the New Zealand farming communities inhale in fear. After watching it, I turned to my agronomist fiancé to exclaim, ‘This is great for New Zealand farming as we are already doing this anyway. Farmers can be the solution to climate change!’ And like that there was a flurry of activity throughout 2021.
The government began to fund science into regenerative farming; Our Land and Water National Science Challenge pulled scientists together to uncover how we can define our current farming practice as regenerative. Beef + Lamb New Zealand commissioned a global market insights report to assess whether there was consumer demand for regenerative products. Silver Fern Farms released their carbon-neutral beef programme. NZ Merino saw brands such as Allbirds and Icebreaker were demanding carbon-neutral merino wool and realised regenerative is a trend here to stay.
‘We’ve had a bit of a mindset shift. I always used to think I was a sheep and beef farmer, but now we’re farming the soil. Everything else that we do is just a by-product of what starts down below the ground,’ shares Grant Barbara of Glenbourne Station, Canterbury, who is part of the NZ Merino regenerative programme, ZQRX.
Even with the noise from vocal scientists opposing the regenerative movement saying, ‘It’s confined to the United States and will cause a decline in on-farm profitability,’ the dollar signs of reaching farmers’ ‘value over volume’ vision and meeting environmental regulations with regenerative practices have a lot more sitting up in their chairs.
Dr Charles Merfield from Lincoln University’s Biological Husbandry Unit (BHU), experienced in the organic movement, says, ‘Regenerative agriculture is like a marriage of many farming systems, far more than the sum of its parts.’ This explains how the inability to tame the philosophy to simple box-ticking has the industry perplexed on how to capitalise on this opportunity.
But it’s not just in sheep and beef farming circles; dairy farmers such as Align Farms in Canterbury are funding their own regenerative trials to answer the ultimate question. ‘We are trying to find out if regenerative dairy farming will be as profitable as the current dairy model, as well as help us reduce environmental impact and improve animal health,’ says Claire Buchanan, Head of Environment and Innovation at Align Farms as she inspects the diverse, multi-species pasture with animal nutritionist Emily House from 5th Biz Agri.
I’m proud that the principles of regenerative resonate so deeply with New Zealanders as it highlights the essence of who we are as Kiwis. Regardless of if regenerative is or isn’t a consumer trend, there’s money to be made, environments that will improve and communities that will reconnect with the earth.
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