Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast features the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
382 Dianne, Ian and Matthew Haggerty - Food, not commodities: how regenerative agriculture works at scale on 63,000 acres
Legend alarm on the podcast! We are happy to welcome the Haggerty's family, Ian and Dianne, together with their son Matthew, on the podcast sharing their 30+ year journey- from being considered the hippie weirdos to leading a movement in Western Australia- showing that you can absolutely farm regeneratively at scale, in this case over 60,000 acres, with deep regeneration. Leading regenerative farmer and co-founder of Natural Intelligence Farming (NIF), the Haggertys' farm is a living example of a harmonious alignment of soil, plant, animal, and human microbiomes in farm ecosystems.
They regularly take on new land, but only if they feel the land wants and needs them to manage it. In other words, they don’t go looking for land, the land finds them. Often this land is extremely degraded, and they bring it back to life with the help of sheep, whose gut microbiome kickstarts regeneration, followed by well-integrated annuals.
We also dive into the different water cycles they are influencing and how these have even affected local rainfall. Of course, we unpack the massive mindset shift that is fundamental in the regenerative transition, vibrations, quantum agriculture, and rebuilding local supply webs. We cover it all.
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In Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast show we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.
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Wow, wow, legend alarm on the podcast. We have the great honor and pleasure of welcoming the Hegarty family on the podcast Ian Diane and their son, matthew. We talk about 30 plus year of their journey going from the hippie weirdos to leading a movement in Western Australia and showing that you can absolutely farm regeneratively at scale over 60 000 acres, in this case, with deep regeneration. They regularly take on new land, but only if they can feel the land and feel that the land wants them and needs them to manage it. Basically, they don't really look or seek land. The land finds them Often extremely degraded, which they bring back to life with their use of sheep, who bring their gut microbiome to the new land and kickstart regeneration followed by very well integrated annuals.
Speaker 1:And we talk about how fundamental it is to allow anything that wants to grow in a brittle environment. They don't have the luxury to talk about the concept of weeds. Anything that can stay green and alive with living roots in the soil pumping out these roots exudates in the brutal hotness of their summer months is welcome. We talk about different water cycles, they're influencing and how they affect local rainfall and, of course, we unpack the massive mindset shift that is fundamental in the region, transition Vibrations, quantum agriculture and rebuilding local supply webs we cover it all. Enjoy. This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast, where we learn more on how to put money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems, while making an appropriate and fair return. So welcome to another episode today with the co-founders of the Natural Intelligence Farming, ian Diane and their son, matthew. Welcome all.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, pleasure to be on Absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1:And so we'll have three, four voices, including mine, on the podcast, which is always a pleasure, which might be a bit messy sometimes, but they're in the same room so they can cut each other off or give each other an elbow when somebody has to take a question, which is which helps the coordination, because normally I'm pointing around to different screens and, of course, people are not in the same position. I'm very much looking forward to this conversation. It's been many years, I would even say I'm following your journey and different people I've mentioned. You should absolutely have them on In this case. I think Samantha did the introduction, so thank you for that.
Speaker 1:And I'm just curious to unpack your journey and your story, which you've told many different times. You've won big awards and things like that. So I'm sorry for repeating some things, but I hope I will give some interesting angles to it that others haven't done yet, or at least this is a different audience in that sense, and some might've learned about you already and some haven't. So just to start with, I'm not saying the beginning, but we always love to ask this question why are you doing what you're doing? Why are you spending most of your waking hours on soil, and in soil. In this case it's gonna talk a lot about microbes.
Speaker 2:Choose who wants to take it first, like what's the big draw to this massive topic, but also quite a niche topic or at least there are easier topics out there to make a career, I think the thing that drives me while we do what we do and we all probably have a little bit of a different answer on it, but we're food producers, not commodity producers, and I think, with the health issues around the globe and planetary boundaries that are happening around the globe, we can make a big difference if we actually really concentrate and work along with nature and produce the best quality that we can possibly do.
Speaker 3:Partly from my perspective. I had originally trained as an occupational therapist and was working in paediatrics doing a lot of preschool preparedness and screening for childhood development, going into kindergarten, and at that stage it was 30 years ago recognising that there was some difficulties and children weren't meeting some of the standardised points that they needed to, and so that was just a starting point of children not being physically ready for school as we would have expected, and so that was just a starting point of children not being physically ready for school as we would have expected. And then that sort of rolled into the whole idea of the other health aspects too. Once we became farmers and, as I mentioned, really had a ram tone by dr elaine ingham and dr arden anderson about the fact that we are food producers and we need to be responsible for trying to produce the best quality food we could, and that took us on a very long and exciting journey from about 2001 onwards yeah, matthew, you don't have any options because you're exactly.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was born in 2002, mum and dad started down this journey in 2001, so for me it's been my entire life.
Speaker 4:It's all I've ever really known, and so growing up I didn't know any better other than just you always got to be supporting your soil health, because that's all mum and dad were talking about, and every time we had scientists visited and stuff, all I was hearing growing up was soil health, soil health, and so for me it was the norm.
Speaker 4:But as I've grown older, being able to go out and broaden my horizons, learn about all the other different farming practices that are around the world and listen to a lot more scientists and health experts has really deepened my understanding of the importance of soil health, because it's not just something that farmers need to be concerned about. It affects each and every single person on this planet, because our entire human health is dependent on the food that we eat and our gut microbiome, which is completely directly related back to our soil health and our soil microbiome. So the more that I've been learning about that, the health side and the environmental benefits obviously speak for themselves, but the human health side, which is becoming an increasing issue in our world today, has just been giving me more and more motivation and passion to learn more about going right down that rabbit hole, about soil health and how it interrelates to our human health, because that affects every single person.
Speaker 2:So I think what I failed to put in my background was industrial agriculture. I've been brought up in the industrial agricultural systems with family farms, and so I know the gig on the other side, and starting especially with my age.
Speaker 2:I saw the slowly increase of actually how the industrial just got more and more. So I think that was a big driver for us when we started farming. We're dying. We look at it now lucky enough not to actually inherit a farm and you think, gee, that's a bit strange. You're thinking it's lucky not to inherit a farm, but what it did by starting out on our own is it allowed us to make our own decisions too. So we didn't have inheritance to really think to look after. We could actually make our own way, and I think many times in the early days, when we first started investigating and trialing things and doing things, we'd sit around the kitchen table and say, oh, what's the worst that could happen? I'll go broke. Yeah, how else Start up and go again. So I think it was a good that gave us the freedom to do things differently.
Speaker 1:And it's fascinating.
Speaker 1:All of you three, of course, mention, mention health, but also there was such a trigger at the beginning 30 years ago. Now we not saying all we talk about is food, is medicine and preventive medicine and the soil microbiome and the gut microbiome, but it's much more of a thing. Or you are with your food aid, of course, the book that came out two, three years ago back then when you start like, it feels like but correct me if I'm wrong that it was a driver then as well, especially with the children angle, of course, with you, diana, but also that you were very aware that the soil health is deeply connected to to gut health and thus human health. How is that to you, first of all? Is that true? And second, were you very? How is that to you, first of all? Is that true? And second, were you very alone at that time? Or did you easily find a tribe of people that was there as well, or were you, let's say, the weirdos in the corner? Definitely farming practices wise, but also to take human health so seriously.
Speaker 3:In Western Australia. I'd say we were fairly alone at that time. There was the odd people that we could catch up with that were trying to do different things as well, but it really meant that we actually spent every summer when we had school holidays. We'd pack the kids up and we'd head over to the eastern states of Australia and we went to every state and just picked out whatever farmers we could find that were doing different stuff and fortunately, along that way too, we bumped into some wonderful Australian scientists like Dr Christine Jones and Walter Jenner and Dr Martin Stapper and people like that in the early days. That helped us understand that some of this stuff was real. We weren't just looking at the world with rose-coloured glasses seeing what was going on and that, yeah, there was science behind it too and there was other farmers doing stuff. So we just asked them who was best to call in and see, and we went around and yeah, shared a cup of tea over the table and had some great yarns.
Speaker 1:Must have been amazing holidays for you, matthew, maybe not so into it again. We go to a farm.
Speaker 4:For me it was just going to go visit farmers all the time. I was definitely always asking for a few days to go to like wet and wild or something like that, to go to a water park, which would be a lot more fun, because at that stage I wasn't really, when I was five or six years old wasn't quite aware of why mom and dad were visiting all these people, of course, of course the norm for me.
Speaker 4:But now that I look back on, I definitely have a lot of gratitude for those times, because a lot of those people are highly sought after people and legends of the regenerative movement around the world now and for me to be able to spend time with them as a child. And now, when I bump into them at a conference and stuff and they go hey, matty, how you going? And they go. I remember you when you came to the farm and you were four and things like that. I'm like, oh okay, that's a good start.
Speaker 2:I remember years and it helps.
Speaker 2:Years and years ago I looked at the story.
Speaker 2:We're at a big farm tour, we're invited to go to inspect this big operation and with a big group of people and very well credentialed people, and it ended up with this with big meal, this big banquet at the end and everyone's sitting at the table dining and maddie happened to be sitting right up at the end and everyone's sitting at the table dining and Matty happened to be sitting right up at the head of table with the lead person up there and that person was actually our ex-Governor-General, major-general Michael Jefferies, and he was the Governor-General of Australia at the time and he headed Saws for Life. And Mike tapped the wine glass and everyone stopped and Di and I were right down the other end of this massive big table. Mike does his, his introduction, a speech which is really great, and we're all about to start eating going and next thing I hear tap on the glass again and it was matthew he was like oh, that's fun yeah, dine are about to crawl under the table, thinking oh gee, what's going to come out of his mouth.
Speaker 2:And he made this speech about what he observed on this farm. We're just blown away. So it's amazing. It's what a young age and you know what must just sink in if you're around it enough yeah, it's, I think, bringing children.
Speaker 1:We see that as well when we do so. Just changes changes the game or the tone. Many people lean into that, like of course it's different, it's not for everyone, it's not for everyone, that's absolutely fine, but it's really different. If somebody, yeah, it's a different energy and these, of course you're not at a conference, you're on a farm which changes, change the tone, energy in general, and just to give people a bit of an understanding of where you farm and what people. This is an audio, mainly of audio, first medium podcast what we could see or smell and touch and feel when we would be outside now in the winter obviously we're recording this in july and so just to walk the land a bit for us to see hectares, wise, acreage, wise. What would we imagine now, 30 years down the line?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're farming 60,000 acres and we're three hours northeast of the city of Perth in Western Australia, so we're in.
Speaker 1:July, which is the most remote city in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we farm right out and we're virtually on the edge of. Not far from our farm the pastoral country starts, so that's just all the grazing pastoral lands and that goes right away through to the north of Western Australia. So we're out on the edge of it in a fairly what's classed as an isolated area and it's a brittle environment, probably around that 200mm rainfall, numbers of years where it's well under that and some really good years where it's above that. Yeah, we're in July now. This year for, for example, has been an so far until now, extremely dry year. We haven't had any rain. Rain didn't start until the end of the first week in June. We've sown about 18,000 hectares of crops and multi-species cover crops and that all went in the ground dry and we've received rain in June. We've got about 40 mil in June and had about 10 mil so far in July, is it? Yeah, so now we're really happy. Everything's green and coming up, looking good.
Speaker 3:As far as the landscape goes, it's very broad and undulating. We're very fortunate there's some high spots. We have some magnificent views around the property, but a mixture of soil types some nice deep clay loans in places, but then some very shallow, rocky country that's had a lot of wind and water erosion in the past, so rebuilding topsoil there has been very interesting, but it's, yeah, progressing beautifully and, as a result of that, getting a lot more resilient plant base there, so plants that are active in summer and winter and they do get going very quickly. So, even though it was only the end of first week in June that we got the rain, we've now got very good cover and fresh green growth across the whole property going really well. So it's yeah. So it's looking pretty good at the moment and just about to start the wildflower season, so that'll make it look even better.
Speaker 4:This is definitely probably one of my favourite times of the year because, yeah, it is a very dry and brittle environment with not much rainfalls.
Speaker 4:But once that winter starts coming in and the morning starts cooling down because you've been so used to the hot, dry weather from the summer it's a really special time to be out in the farm because the last probably month now we've been having those really chilly mornings where it's nice dew start real nice heavy fog, where we we're situated up on top of the hill so you wake up and you see the fog down in the valley.
Speaker 4:So it makes you feel like you're up on top of the mountaintop and, yeah, really special time to be able to see the crops starting to germinate all around the farm and really looking terrific at the moment with the small amounts of rainfall that we have had, and it's a very pretty landscape out here with the red dirt contrasted with we have had. And it's a very pretty landscape out here with the red dirt contrasted with now the green crops growing and the massive blue skies as well that we have out here that we're pretty lucky to have, and, yeah, get some pretty special sunsets out here as well. So it's definitely a bit of a hidden paradise out here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it can be pretty lonely at times with how isolated it is, but yeah, very fortunate to be out here got a lot of granite outcrops as well native bushland around that so we're pretty fortunate for that too. Great habitat and biodiversity opportunities, which it makes it pretty good and interesting to get around and have a look and share with other people when they come yeah, I see an amazing sunset and a picture and, I think, a harvest combine or something behind you, but I see the sunset and just to describe a picture, operation you've said you started basically from zero.
Speaker 1:You started farming not on on, let's say, inherited land, but on land you bought yourself and then steadily being growing. Is it safe to say that you've taken on, let's say, not the easiest lands there are and easiest soils in that sense, and had to figure out a way to really regenerate at the core, because it was so degenerated over a lifetime and more probably in the beginning, absolutely, we would virtually take on land that a lot of people didn't really want.
Speaker 3:There was a couple of real estate agents that would approach us when they had trouble leasing properties and they'd ask if we would go and take them on, and so, yeah, there's been times where we've been spread over 15 or 16 different properties. At one time at, yeah, we were driving from 100 kilometers to the north of our home farm and 100 kilometers to the south of the home farm covering, yeah, up to 15 properties at once. So a lot of time on the roads, a lot of time to look over the fence and see what everyone else was doing and how it was all working and, yeah, what we were doing across such a broad landscape at any one stage.
Speaker 2:So we basically started. We put a $100,000 deposit on a 1600 acre farm, and it's just, and we had no machinery, no livestock, and it was just grown.
Speaker 1:From there.
Speaker 2:I remember when we first started, we got one of the local advisors in and they came out and looked at us and I said the best thing you guys can do is stop before you start. I mean, you're wasting your time too small, haven't got a home.
Speaker 1:And we said, oh, great thanks, that's the encouragement we need and so how long did it take before you start figuring out processes and practices that you start seeing to work, that you also give you the confidence to take on other properties and the other leases? Let's say, what was that first period like of really figuring this out and coming up with models and things that actually work, and recipes almost of course, there are no recipes. It's all context specific. And how much did you have to rely on others across the country to like okay? We have this context like how do we even farm something if advisors say it's too small and too difficult?
Speaker 3:it's pretty amazing really that we did persist like we did, because we got really inspired in 2001 by wanting to really shoulder up to the responsibility of being food producers and doing the best we could to make sure that we were getting the best quality outcomes. Then in 2002, we had the biggest drought that had been on record, so we had no animals on the property, we had to put them all on adducement and we didn't harvest any crop at all. We had one paddock that had enough seed on it to potentially harvest. As Ian pulled into the paddock, the knife broke on the header While he was retrieving a new part.
Speaker 3:Part a big series of tornadoes which was absolutely out of the world we don't have those come through our areas actually blew the crop away, so we got back with the part and there was no crop to harvest anyway. So that was a big hit, but fortunately the bank stuck with us and we were still very enthused about what we were planning to do. And, yeah, we just kept on at it For some reason whether we're stubborn or stupid, I don't know, but we just kept going.
Speaker 2:I remember in those early days they were fairly hard. We'd sat on our little 1600 acres, which is just far too small for the area, I think. At the time then I think we had a dream. We thought, geez, if we could ever get 6 000 acres, we would be my dream to get up to 6 000, which was a pretty good sized farm in those days and never would have dreamed of where it's gone to today.
Speaker 2:But we had trouble. We were looking and you were ticking along, okay, and I was working off farm and I was working off farms, occupational therapists as well, plus running the all, looking after the kids. And I remember we had trouble actually trying to find something to buy or lease because nothing was that small. They were all 3,000 acre blocks and that and you know yourself, you've only got X amount of base To go and more than double it is not a really good financial move. And we finally did that and put a deposit on the place next door just down the road a little bit, and the bank said to us this year going ahead is not the best year ever you're going to be in serious trouble, but we said oh, we might as well, have a go.
Speaker 2:We're not going to be able to get hold of any more land otherwise. And of course that was o2, the worst year ever.
Speaker 1:That made it really interesting and so when did that flip where you didn't have to take off farm jobs anymore to cover like? When did it became like a business in its own right?
Speaker 3:we chose after o2 and did a lot of contracting that year to try and get some income in, and I was working as an occupational therapist. But matthew was born that year, so when he turned 12 of age I used to actually take him to work with me and have a young woman come and look after him while I was at work. He was just wanting to be part of everything too much, so he decided I'd stay home and look after the farm fully. So I was still part-time. Looking after all the livestock was still my role and, yeah, took that on full-time after that and and what, and then like when does it start flourish?
Speaker 1:see, what kept you going in that way? Because I think there are many of the pioneers of we have these stories of hardship and difficult, very difficult years and somehow they don't give up. Of course, if the bank at some point pulls the plug, it's done, but somehow you manage to keep convincing them and somehow. I guess odds, because if you look, probably if you looked at it quote, unquote, rationally, it didn't make sense. But somehow we're here 25 years later and there's a flourishing region, farming, business and much more.
Speaker 2:It was really interesting. After that O2 drought and heading into O3 and you generally here in Australia you do your review in early January to set up for the next year and the bank comes out and does your review and see how you're going along. And we were left the last. Of course it just dragged right into February and finally the bank manager rang us up and said he's coming around to see us and we knew he was on his way around to see us and he rocked up there.
Speaker 2:He hit one day and he said oh, you know why I've left you to last, because you know what the situation is with buying that farm and then the drought. You know things are going to be pretty, pretty tight. And he said I've been all around the district, you know all around the farms and you know it would have been a shocker of a season and no one was too happy and everyone had taken a hit. And he came in and I said well, wow, you know. I said I reckon O2 is going to be the best year we've ever had. We'll look back in history it's been the best year ever had because we've learned a hell of a lot about what to do and what not to do. And I said this is our plan and we just laid out this to us new but a regenerative, more sustainable plan about how we were going to go back to the best of our knowledge at that stage that we've been going, how we're going to back ourselves up, learn the lessons.
Speaker 2:That sort of tripped us up in 02 in the seasons things. We could rolled out a full plan to him of actually how we were going to do that and I remember he sat back and he thought he said, wow, not what I expected, you know. He said really not what I expected, you know, because everyone's on the back step. You're on the front step going to take this forward. And he says I'm going to put it to the superiors and they've had to go to Melbourne, you know. And he says I'm going to put it to the superiors and they've had to go to Melbourne. We were in Perth and they put it up to us and they gave us a run for another year and the rest is history.
Speaker 3:I think in those days too it wasn't even termed regenerative.
Speaker 3:It was called biological farming as such. But I guess what kept us going? The livestock responded very well, even though we did things like stop drenching and stop grain feeding and all those kind of things which were fairly typical practice with merino, sheep and so forth, we stopped mules and all that sort of thing and just saw the animals flourish as well. And then with Ian on the propping side he was took out the you know really harsh synthetic fertilizers.
Speaker 3:We're still using the synthetic fertilizers in the start, but we made them into more soil friendly ones but dropped out insecticides and fungicides straight away and the crops didn't really suffer. And we're thinking, okay, well, there's something in this because you were told previously, your understanding was you needed to have all these things, all these synthetic inputs going on for things to work. And when we found that we took them away, it didn't all just fall in heaps. So I think we just sort of kept on going because each time we saw more and more progress, whether it be up and down and not always in a straight line, but it did.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 4:I think one of the early driving factors for mom and dad to start looking outside of the box means as well before my time, but from the story that I've heard was also to try and rebuild some resilience in the landscape, because, obviously, to grow a crop, one of the most important factors is moisture.
Speaker 4:Retaining moisture in a dry climate like australia is highly pivotal. And, mom and dad, what they seem to be noticing they'll be able to talk on a bit more is the fact that the further they were going down the industrial system, we weren't able to retain the moisture when we were getting the rain. So then, if you do get a dry period, the crops have severely suffered, and I think that's when they started to look elsewhere as well how can we retain moisture within our soils as best as possible? I think that's when they started to look elsewhere as well how can we retain moisture within our soils as best as possible? I think that's when they would have gone to the Dr Elaine Ingram course in 2001, which opened their eyes up to soil health, working with the microbes and things like that, which I think mum can explain a bit more on. And yeah, I think that's where the journey down the rabbit hole started to me.
Speaker 2:You know it was a bit of deja vu. It was going back as a young bloke on the family farm. I think nothing's changed. You know a bit of a dry spell on the season. You know we'd hit first week in September which was around. It was a certain day which was show day, and you'd turn around and get that one day of 35 degrees just out of the blue, with a hot wind blowing, and the whole crop would be green in the morning and totally tipped off in the afternoon. And you know we started thinking.
Speaker 2:I was thinking, well, this is back to way things had always been. You know we're not going to be successful in this venture if we just keep doing what has always been done. You know, how are we going to expand, compete, go forward, if we're just doing the same old? And I remember digging up root plants, digging up root systems. We had these little tiny root balls, you know, about as big as the palm of your hand and only in the ground about three inches, and you'd hit the hard pan and thinking, no wonder on one hot day the crops were all tipping off and we've got limiting factors here. But we've got to change, you know, and that's where probably the old saying came in Well, if we don't change, it was unknown, there was no one to really talk to, it was really a leap of faith of actually trying to work it out ourselves, and that's where probably the confidence came in.
Speaker 1:We're not going to make it doing it that way, so we might as well have a go at it this way and what's the worst thing, which is just go broke in land of the blind, the one eye is king yeah, it's the to see the bank, to see the banker bank person, recognizing, of course, often having toured all the other farms that are in trouble just as much as yours, without a plan.
Speaker 1:Probably the plan there was and is, in some cases, still hope for a better year in terms of climate, but not feeling or sensing or feeling the agency of.
Speaker 1:There's something you can do, like what you said, matthew, about whatever comes in terms of rain, or talk about it, because you're actually influencing that as well and whatever comes down, we need to capture it and use it as much as possible and we need to really and we need to harvest the folk that is there in the night and we need to really start changing rating patterns.
Speaker 1:Of course, that was maybe not part of your vocabulary at that time, but to see the agency and the role we play, and you play in this case in the landscape is from a banker's point of view. If you had that whole portfolio of 1,000 farms or whatever the number was, if you had that whole portfolio of 1,000 farms or whatever the number was, and you see all of them in trouble and you see a few or one saying, okay, let's actually we have a plan to maybe do it differently, unless you just write off the whole group and say, okay, this whole region doesn't work anymore because of changes, or you make an investment in innovation. I think that's maybe how he sold it at some point.
Speaker 3:Absolutely how he saw that at some point. Absolutely, it's been an incredible journey with the bank because we've had a long relationship there, but all the bank managers have been very supportive, even though we've had quite a number of different ones within the same bank. And you think, wow, that's a really unusual situation. And I was speaking to the accountant the other day and he said, you know, not all his clients have that same relationship, but they have backed us all the way and I think you know, fortunately, they must be fairly forward thinkers, the ones that we're dealing with anyhow.
Speaker 2:We made sure we got them out regularly and, you know, put them out there and on, you know, on the combine harvest or on the lawn seeder and roll them in some red dirt for the day and get their hands in it and just really let them see the journey and, you know, really tell them the story, what we were doing, how we were going about things, the successes, the failures. We haven't got a right all the time. You know there's some of the best learning out of mistakes that we make and you know now, you know we fast track, probably 35 years later on, and some of those managers at the heads of the bank followed us all the way through and we've got, we've had tremendous support. You know it's been a great relationship which is funny to say sometimes when you're talking farming with banking but it's been a great relationship.
Speaker 1:It's not always the case. Let's say, and let's talk a bit more about we're going to talk about the animal side as well and but about the water side and the rainfall side and you mentioned mentioned somewhere half the rivers in the sky how is that tuned sort of the almost the attention and the attitude towards rainfall, which of course, is a huge thing in your part of the world, but that it's not just waiting for it and hope that it falls, and it's not even just waiting for it and hoping it falls and make sure it falls in a place where it can be absorbed. But it's actually a much more direct relationship, like you're influencing the rainfall. You've said it in different places. When did that notion come in, that you have an active relationship and not just a passive, hoping that it comes and do your rain dance and and then, of course, have the soil ready to absorb it? Do you remember how that that relationship almost changed, that knowledge changed?
Speaker 3:I think coming to this property here at Mulleran made a big change, because the Wildcatchin properties were all scattered so they only had a lot of small parcels and they were all separated by quite a lot of kilometres.
Speaker 3:So we weren't ever really able to have much of an impact on the landscape level and on water at that stage, although just the very local on our property.
Speaker 3:We can certainly get the water infiltration and all that kind of stuff happening.
Speaker 3:But it was when we got up here and had the large landmass that was conjoined, seeing that impact over that large area with increasing that water infiltration and then seeing it slowly seep through the landscape and then creating that freshwater lens on a lot of the salt land that was lower in the landscape and seeing the sheep drinking from that but then providing the opportunity for perennial plants, which of course we were encouraging.
Speaker 3:We were encouraging everything that could possibly grow to grow so that we were having a lot longer green themed season throughout the year. Regardless of what the season was, you know, we may have a six or seven or eight month dry time, even longer than that at times, in extreme heat of 40 to 45 degrees over the last summer, but still seeing, you know, plants being able to be green and growing in that season, you know, in those circumstances, and then, I guess too, with the large water cycle fortunately there's a large tree planting to the south and west of us, so, tacking on to that as well, we've got a real capacity there to try and influence some of that at a big scale too, by bringing the native grasses, having them, they've all started coming back on their own accord.
Speaker 2:So once we've stimulated and got that core and sensing going up in the soil, we're finding all these native grasses coming back. So, as Dias said, we've got longevity of green, and that's actually throughout the year, where that larger water cycle where the tree plantings might be bringing some rain in, but we've got areas especially where this homestead was that just never used to rain. If it was ever going to miss out, it was going to miss out. Now it seems to be getting the rain, you know, and we seem to get our fair share and we seem to get, you know, the heavy mists and fogs come over the whole area and creating that smaller water cycle, getting it all up and going. So when we hit the year of 2023, it was only just a couple of years ago and we only had an 84 mil growing season that year for our growing season and it was fairly hot and dry throughout that year.
Speaker 2:But we grew some wonderful multi-species cover crops. We actually cut hay off some of them and stored a bit of fodder and but they grew just tremendously, tremendously, and even the straight cereal crops did really well. We talk about the big o2 2002 drought that we had. 2002 was a good year compared to 2023.
Speaker 3:So how things have changed and we're able to get that water cycle happening and those plants functioning properly that they utilized on such low moisture but we still were able to produce, that's what really gives us a lot of security going forward yeah, so able to harvest most of the crop that year and all the sheep were retained, other than what we sold off some, but we still were able to keep all the breeders and so forth and, yeah, now it was a phenomenal outcome compared to what o2 was yeah, and how important has that message?
Speaker 1:of course we had walter yena on the show and has that message of water cycles changed? Not the message, let's say the conversation around water cycles that we have an influence not only on destroying. Let's say together to actually start seeing that, because if you have a lot of individual, smaller plots, you need to be lucky they're in the right places, let's say, to see that influence. How has that conversation been in a place like Australia, where water is so important and where you have the giants like Walter Jena and others? Has that conversation been starting to get more mainstream? I'm asking because I don't see it yet so much in Europe or US or other places. This is becoming a thing. Look, we are part of the water cycle, we're a keystone species and we actually can restore quite a bit and have quite a bit of influence on the positive side.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's out there enough for mainstream. We've been very privileged to have people like Walter to explain some of these scientific ways about it. I remember Walter sitting down here and explaining about the rivers in the sky and he said there's rivers up there equal to water flows of what's going down the Amazon just up there in the atmosphere that are flowing through. And he says, if you can get your bacterial aerosols off the right native grasses and going up into that atmosphere and actually starting to capture some of that coming down, has that changed your farming practices?
Speaker 1:Those kind of conversations like actively, like how do I pull down or how do I influence or how do I trigger, let's say, the rivers in the sky has that changed your farming practices?
Speaker 3:Very much, and I guess that's the whole idea of the longevity of grain. So whatever's growing out there, grain all year round is good, so you're not out there spraying.
Speaker 1:Oh, I feel like we're going into a wheat discussion. This is our native one.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, that's where it does look funny, doesn't it? From other farmers driving by. So why have they got all that stuff out across the paddocks in the summer, where typically that would all be sprayed out to supposedly conserve moisture, but actually one? They're drawing moisture into the soil but building that whole soil sponge again so that you've got that longevity of being able to hold moisture.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, it's a completely different way of looking at things and that's why it does look a bit strange to others looking over the fence it's just very much changing, not having that scarcity mindset anymore, realizing that there is water in abundance, so we need to be able to work with it and maintain it and retain it as best as possible.
Speaker 4:And, yeah, instead of thinking that's only limited supply, we must spray anything that could possibly draw up moisture to try and conserve it, when really, the more what I'm saying the more green cover that you have, the more diversity of green cover that you have, yeah, the more improve that soil water holding capacity and you have deeper water holding capacity and they infiltrate further into your subsoil, which means further, deeper that water can infiltrate, the longer it can be stored. Therefore, which has yet huge increase of resilience into your landscape, which, when it comes to running a farm and, at the end of the day, farms are still businesses increasing resilience in your landscape and on your farming property is huge for increasing your farm's profit too, which I think seems to get missed a lot as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's really interesting.
Speaker 3:We took on a property in 2020 that had drains put through it to drain away the salty water, because it was pretty low in the landscape and was having some big salinity issues.
Speaker 3:They planted some alleys of oil mallies to try and have some kind of perennial plants there, which is great, but it was, unfortunately, it was monoculture plantings, but, yeah, they got these big drains to drain the water there, which is great, but it was unfortunately it was monoculture plantings, but, yeah, they had got these big drains to drain the water away, and it's been really interesting.
Speaker 3:When we first got there during the winter time, the drains would be full of water, of course, doing their job of taking that salty water away. But since we've been there for five years now and worked on that water infiltration, building that soil sponge and retaining the water where it needs to be in the landscape, as an asset, those drains aren't filling anymore and one day, when we get time, we'd actually like to fill them all in because, at the end of the day, we don't want to be taking water away from the property. It's an asset that needs to be there and just keeping that fresh water lens for the longevity of green across that landscape. So it's been really interesting watching that turn of events with what's happened to those salt drains.
Speaker 2:So you've got to be very careful when you look at going into dry years and things like that. You've got to look at, as you say, does it change our decision-making Absolutely? Because you look, sometimes you just know that you're in a very dry year and hope it's going to change around in a hurry. But you've got to look at. You've got to a bank account. You've got your cash bank account where you might get hit over the ears a little bit with it, but you've also got your ecological bank account. Now, if you can come out of that dry year and your ecological bank account has gone forward, when that next year comes in, and if it's a half reasonable year, you're going to go and claw that back really quickly and the property is going to respond. If you pull both bank accounts down, you're in a bit of serious trouble and that's when things start going pear short. So yeah, you've got to look ahead of your ecology all the time. What's going forward?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it must be interesting because you keep on taking new properties. Because you keep on taking new properties, you can see the difference, of course, from where you have been for a much longer time. But also refining your sort of approach, like, how different is it when you take on a property now compared to five or 10 or 15 years ago? We had a conversation on animals and we'll get to the animal side of things.
Speaker 1:It's been a long journey to the world of animals, but with Marco Carbonara in Italy and he says now I walk the land of a new property when I buy something and I pretty soon, like after a few hours walking it, I know what the freedom of animals is going to be. Of course I'm going to observe, it makes sense, et cetera, but what the order is to do things Like now when you look, if you're still looking at new properties, but let's say you do, how do you walk the land and how? How do you walk the land and how do you, let's say, decide, okay, what's the plan of not attack not, but what's the plan of action to go into? Mostly the greatest piece, I think.
Speaker 2:Really interesting. We actually haven't really gone actively out and think, gee, I'd like that property, and gone and seek the property out. We actually find the land comes to us, the opportunity comes to us, and that land it's probably a bit strange to say, but that land is actually talking to you and you soon get the fear.
Speaker 1:Don't worry.
Speaker 2:On this podcast, you can say anything that's not a strange sentence at all yeah, it talks to you and it tells you what it wants and how it goes and whether you actually should be there or not. There's some land that comes across your path and it's just not meant to be. It just tells you're not there and you pick that up and when you start learning to listen to, that's when you know things, really start to to work right on I think you walk me through that.
Speaker 1:You arrive in a car. How do you, how do you tune into that? Maybe that's the right word to to be able to do you meditate a bit on land, do you? How do you make sure? With all the business going on maybe you're just off the phone. If there's a connection, like with all the business going to see a potential new property, how do you approach that kind of process? Because after you know that, your intuition there and how do you listen to land is very important.
Speaker 2:You also don't want to mess it up, probably I and I have driven to properties where an agent sent us out to property, said I go, have a look by yourselves. That's why we always have liked to do it and we've actually drove over there in a ute and driven through the front gate, done about 100 or 200 metre arc in the first paddock and driven out the front gate and said not for us, see you later. And just that quick, you just get that.
Speaker 1:Are you always agreeing on that, or is it sometimes tuned?
Speaker 3:like how tuned in are you to each other as well? Pretty much don't even have to say a word, just look at each other and start rolling out the guy to guy. But it's funny even like the one I talked about in 2020 with the salt drains on it that one virtually felt like a physical embrace for both of us when we went there, and it was a bizarre situation how it unfolded that we got it because it was not an expected plan at all, but, yes, it has embraced us. But also, the minute we put the sheep on it, the sheep will absolutely flourish and we can see instantly that's the place that we're meant to be, because the animals do so well, even though, whatever history it may have, they let us know very clearly that this is where we're meant to be.
Speaker 1:And so let's talk a bit about the animals. Was it a plan from the beginning to have graziers? Did it come later? Was that out of the gate to be really and I'm saying this with all the respect using them as a tool to regenerate, or was it something you stumbled upon over the years of trying perennials, annuals and like how did that mixture come about?
Speaker 3:Both Ian and I came from mixed farming backgrounds with livestock, and we both had a very strong interest in horses. That's how we met, and so livestock have always been an important part of our lives. But, yeah, we didn't even really contemplate having a farm without livestock, so that was how we started off, even in conventional farming. And then, once we started changing how we looked after the animals and we were working with Jane Slattery about how to remove some of those I guess, those artificial practices with them and starting to understand their innate knowledge and wisdom, how they could interact with the landscape once their full health was restored and their capacity to seek out diverse diet and having that available to them, what difference it made to them, and just observing them over generations and seeing those epigenetic changes.
Speaker 3:I spoke to Charlie Massey about that in 2010. I didn't know what it was all about, but I was describing to him what I was seeing in these animals over time, with just how they were getting better and better and, of course, because we were working on the soil at the same time as we were working on supporting the animals, we were seeing phenomenal outcomes from them, and Charlie was able to describe it to me as being epigenetic change and it's really reinforced very clearly into us. Then that whole linkages of health, because what you can see in those animals makes sense that it can be transferred to humans as well. We can look at positive epigenetic change in human health. Once we look at our environment and the foods that we've got available to eating, maintaining that diverse microbiome, it's become just a no-brainer to us. So that's why we're very passionate about following that line and trying to support those things in our local and distant population to have those opportunities too.
Speaker 4:And you spoke earlier about how our practices change when we take on a new property. And the sheep are a massive factor in starting on a brand new property, because the sheep have the microbiome of our landscape and they contain all the essential microbes as they've been grazing amongst our vast landscapes for many years and have had that epigenetic change over 20 or so years now. So when we take on a new property, that's where we're able to send our livestock over there and transfer those nutrients, those important microbes that are still in the soil system of that property we're currently about to take on, but they're dormant. So it's just a way of starting to cycle in those microbial diversity and reactivate that landscape. And that's when then, a few months later, when it starts to come towards cropping season, we'll go in with some diverse cover crops and a few wheat crops as well and things like that. And really that's when this landscape starts to invigorate.
Speaker 4:And a lot of people always come to us and ask can they go? Do you transition a property when you take on a new one? Will you go back and buy some nitrogen and things like that and transition it Because it's been in the industrial system so long with all the chemicals under the sun used on it and plenty of artificial fertilizers. But no, every time we've taken on property it's just been completely cold. Turkey Just gone in with our entire system, cut out all artificial fertilizers completely and just with what we've been doing for 20 years, and I'm yet to see a property go backwards or still lacking yield. The last few properties just absolutely performed even in that first year as good as any other farm that we've got, which has just been really rewarding to see, you hear people talk about oh you'll hit.
Speaker 2:You hear them talk about hitting the valley of death.
Speaker 2:So they, when they start up this, they get to year two and three start. It takes a while to build up their microbial populations, to get things going and honestly, we've never really experienced that by, I think, being really in tune with those animals and really using those animals to their fullest of their ability is the difference that makes that work. And also, I think the difference that makes that work is the people on country as well. It's all the people, it's the whole attitude, it's a whole positive attitude. No one's got any doubt we're not good at doing trials, we just do a whole lot and we don't have any doubt Everyone is there positively going along, the intents right. I think that's got a major part of it as you get into the really deep side of it. And so I think over the years we've had actually people try to mimic action for action, what we do, and not have a quiet work, and what the difference has been is that probably square for real estate between years it's, and that whole attitude side of it.
Speaker 4:Being in tune with your landscape, I think, is a really vital factor for someone if they want to go down a regenerative pathway. Because us as humans, we vibrate at a certain frequency and if we can become in tune with the frequency of our landscape we can have massive impact. And that's when you can really get in touch and there's a lot of science in the quantum science starting to come out to that's roughly trying to explain it, but you can really feel it happen when you are really take a step back out of your own personal ego and really get in touch with that landscape and see what that landscape is asking from you and not what can you put upon that landscape yourself. But this isn't like anything new that we've come up with. Our Indigenous cultures around the world have been operating this way for, in Australia, 60,000 years, where they've been in tune in the right frequency with their landscape and working in harmony with their landscape. It's only within the last 200 years that I guess, as the world industrialised, we've moved away from that, especially the Western world.
Speaker 4:We've really separated ourselves from nature and started fighting against nature instead of working in harmony with it.
Speaker 3:I think that's where Jane helped us a lot, there too, and as we worked together and talked together and we became very good friends. The whole approach to farming here for us is one based on love, respect and gratitude, and I'd also like to put in humility there and reciprocity. I guess because, at the end of the day, we have learnt so much by all the other organisms within our environment and we've realised that we are just partakers. I guess because, at the end of the day, we have learned so much by all the other organisms within our environment and we've realized that we are just partakers. We are not the leaders by any means, and that's been the most exciting part just seeing all the other parts of our ecosystem do their bit and the miracles that occur as a result of that. So, yeah, it's something we're pretty privileged to achieve.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we're very aware of is in this kind of operation, as I said, we put in 13,000 hectares of crop multi-species, cover crops and things and so that takes a lot of big machinery as well that we use to do that. So you've got to be very careful when you're working with the most basic forms of nature, that big machinery. You can be sitting in a million-dollar tractor with 16 satellites connected to it and three computer screens up there, and you can actually be in an air-conditioned, climate-controlled cab. Listen to a podcast, which would be really good.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to say it, but I hoped you were going there, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you can get out of actually what's actually happening on the ground when you're towing a 70 foot bar doing 25 hectares an hour or something like that. It's about using those modern tools of trade to the best of our ability. So using all the modern stuff but bringing it back to the most basic forms of natural land management. And when I see a photo of rachel, one of the girls that works with us and she's really good, 22 year old, and there's this massive seeding rig stopped and probably the platoon of a thousand dollars an hour, and there she is shifting some little plover eggs and a mother plover because it was in the way of this seating rig, and that's what we love to see that person out there taking that the care of the nature, even though you're using those other tools of trade, and those things will really make it work and make it worthwhile working to use yet modern technology of the world, but, yeah, also to be able to still use it in its most basic form to work with the function of our ecosystem, our landscape.
Speaker 4:That's been around for hundreds of millions of years.
Speaker 4:Humans, we like to talk about the brilliant technology advancements that we have made in the last couple hundred years, but nothing will ever come close to the technological advancements that our ecosystem and our soil microbiome has developed over hundreds of millions of years. There's no way we'll ever catch up to that sort of intelligence. So, in any way possible that we can reconnect with that and harness that intelligence to be able to produce premium food, fibre and beverage for our population to consume, our beverage will produce that we as humans have been evolved to consume. We haven't been evolved to consume these highly modified products that we seem to get a fair bit of these days, which will mean no wonder we're getting so many negative health impacts around our population because of it. We haven't been designed to consume that. But if we can go back and produce food the way nature has evolved for food to be produced and utilize those natural systems, it's going to have a major impact on our human health as well, because we've been evolved for millions of years to consume food in that manner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's fascinating to hear that you must have heard it many times, but from an operation at that scale, that technology advancement, that this is not, with all all respect, a small market garden where everything can be done by hand, which we also need. Massive, like we, many of those, we need also technology there to make that life easier and better. But this is by all means relatively industrialized, whatever that word means, but in terms of machinery operation. But. But what you said before, I think, is such a powerful point of humility. Humility in humidity is also very powerful, but humility of we are part of nature and not commanding it, and it's really being in tune with that sort of seems to set many.
Speaker 1:I'm always wondering if that's a basic screen question to ask as a screening do you think you're part of nature? Do we control it? And if people are like means they didn't think about it and probably that's a sort of, it's a pass, let's say from an investment point of view or from any kind of like. When you visit other farmers, do you tune into that very quickly if they're in the control versus, let's say, emergent mindset, is that something? Or anyway, if you would be going, you would assume that they're in the emergent mindset more than they are in control. Is that something that triggers you or you would be able to filter quite quickly now, just as you're in tune in the land of that. Ok, we need to be here or not.
Speaker 3:I think so, and I guess we definitely choose to be mixing with those type of people with that more emergent mindset, and it just seems to be that way that we're coming across those sort of people all the time and, yeah, that, just that's more than enough.
Speaker 2:We're quite happy with that a bit of a revolving door on the farm these days, it's hardly a week go by where there's not someone from around the globe visiting, which is really fantastic for us because it brings you so remote? Yeah, of course that diverse range of people in them.
Speaker 3:Makes it fun.
Speaker 2:It does yeah.
Speaker 1:And do you ever speak or try to I'm not saying convincing, but of course you meet others. You've won some prizes where you of course connect with a lot of other people, let's say outside the bubble. How do you approach that?
Speaker 2:those kind of conversations or courageous conversations. Let's say we're really, if anyone wants to ask the question or wants to know anything, happy to share whatever we possibly can to help. Will we go and explain this or push this on to someone else? Absolutely not. It's everyone's got to run their own story.
Speaker 2:The farmers that are out there I look at western australia extremely good farmers like we've just we've gone through 120 years of industrial agriculture. They've been born into it may do it to do it to extremely well. The science-based people that are backing them that have done their whole careers in that and they're doing it extremely well to that level of where that is going and I'll take my hat off to the ones that are there. We're just doing, we're starting a different path and I don't know if you recall a TED Talk done by a guy called Damon Gamow, ted Talk out of Sydney. He talks about changing the story, changing the narrative from the really early Roman days right the way through, and it really resonated on you know. It's where we're actually on, a bit of a different narrative of how we're going. It's not that we definitely support all those other farmers Very proud of actually what they've done, but we're forging a new chapter of what's going forward. That's how we like to look at it.
Speaker 3:I guess a lot of the time too, we're mixing with people from all parts of the community and they seem to be coming up with questions, but with a lot of gratitude too, because a lot of them don't necessarily have those linkages with farms and how food's produced anymore, and when they hear those conversations they just think wow, and they're just very appreciative that there's farmers out there trying to make that difference in how their food is grown, how their environment's looked after, how the biodiversity is supported. And, yeah, we get a lot of people coming forward and wanting to share that understanding and learn more as a result of that. So that's a great thing, and what we're trying to do now is work with the wider community, the people that don't really know much about farming at all.
Speaker 4:I had plenty of experiences, obviously, being young still, going out and socialising at bars, plenty of times where you meet someone, you get into a conversation, you get into what you do for work and things like that. And yeah, the amount of times I tell them I'm a farmer, do more of a. I try and put it simply, I do like a sustainable type of farming and they go, oh, okay, they pique their interest a bit about it because they'll go okay, because they're used to hearing that farming's negative when it comes to the sustainability side. So when I say, do a sustainable way of farming, they go okay, that's quite interesting and they start asking a few more questions.
Speaker 4:I go into kind of explaining what we do in a shortened version and yet it really empowers a lot of people. They are quite amazed and love to hear that this is actually occurring not only in the world but also in their backyard. And all of a sudden, and then instantly, they're asking okay, where can I get this produce? This is great. How do I follow along? Because, yeah, I think they said, as a way of hope and a way of future for, yeah, their country, but also their own health.
Speaker 2:What's really encouraged us as of lately?
Speaker 2:We spent a fortnight in Canberra, a week in Canberra in February and mixing with all different professionals from different angles of careers and a lot in the medical profession and professors and researchers and that and it was really humbling the amount of them that were coming to us and saying thank you for doing what you do.
Speaker 2:And they're saying in our medical profession they're all trying to find cures and remedies for all different diseases that might be hitting them, at all different angles, from MD to Parkinson's to Alzheimer's, to everything.
Speaker 2:And they're saying the sheer fact is we are being hit with a tsunami, a tidal wave of ill health, and we're getting millions and billions of dollars invested into us and we're working our hardest to try and find and doing a wonderful job of finding cures and prolonging life and really doing a fantastic job. But what they're working out and they're saying thank you to us because they're saying somewhere down the line someone's going to have to close, try and close the floodgate down the other end of the situation a bit and they're all starting to wake up to this microbiome, the soil, the farm, the food we're eating, the environment we're living. Someone's going to close that floodgate a bit because we're not going to stem the tidal wave up the other end and and that's that was been really rewarding for us and it's been massive the amount that's been coming forward and do you see that reflecting as well in like partnerships, in offtake, in sales?
Speaker 1:because it's amazing, of course, the reward, the getting rewarded for the work you do and feeling that reward after many years of being definitely the outliers, is amazing. But does it help at yet or is it still something that has to come, let's say, in terms of driving the farm as a business further?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely Still a work in progress. We've got lots of big and wonderful plans but, yeah, certainly building on those partnerships, because I think I said to someone the other day, building on those partnerships, because I think I said to someone the other day it takes a village to actually make a village, because it does take more people coming together to want the things to make it all happen as a community, because that's that's how it needs to be. We need to come together as a community to ensure that the right things can happen and change, because we have got systems in place that have become very comfortable and familiar but they're not really working for us as a population and nor are they necessarily working for our planet's future either. We do need to do a reset and come together, work together.
Speaker 2:What we've realised. This is bigger than Matt Diane and Haggadie, the Haggadie family. We realise we have to work in collaboration. While we can do all what we can do, we'll only do X amount in our lifetime but we bring more people on board and more collaboration. And that means like getting the knowledge out there, getting the research and the science to back up. But we don't have to wait for the research and science because it'll probably be five to 10 years behind what we're actually doing before the discoveries start to happen.
Speaker 2:We know probably only 5% of what actually happens under our feet in that microbial life, that massive workforce under our feet, which is generally disregarded. But if we work together as a team, and that means getting this produce, this food, to the people in its integrity in the shortest chain possible, one grain a week can have up to 9 billion microbes in and on it. So that microbiome that even one grain of wheat can actually help fix in that food system is absolutely huge. We grew, I think last year, 13,000 or 14,000 tons of it and a lot of it went into the commodity market and just got mixed up with everything. Imagine what that could do to the people down there, and that's our goal, so just keep working on those systems to get that true to them and it's definitely no easy feat.
Speaker 4:Like mum said, it takes a collaboration of everyone to achieve, because, at the end of the day, we're trying to write a new blueprint, create a whole new market that does not exist yet, which, yeah, it takes a lot of work. And we talk about trying to activate and get the quorum sensing going within our source system, because that's how you get the amazing outcomes biologically with across your landscape, but we also need to get going the quorum sensing through us as people as well, because that's where we'll get the amazing outcomes as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and it's an interesting, as you started with, we want to go, we grow food, not commodities, but you're still also part of that system. Rightfully so, because now you can take that amount of tonnage to a farmer's market in perth and say, okay, that would be tricky, let's say. I think many people forget, let's say, the logistics of these things. But at least my sense is, but it's still. I saw a quote somewhere, I think regen brands mentioned. Like a lot of brands now want to use, especially bigger ones, want to use faces of farmers, obviously, but they can only use, in this case, this specifically face of a female farmer if they actually buy from it.
Speaker 1:Of course we're not gonna greenwash, but there is an interest. But then there's a whole processing, like how do you make sure that this microbiome actually gets to my gut microbiome and not get somewhere shelf stabilized and then it's no longer flour, let's say, or it's no longer so? There's a lot to figure out, but it's interesting the notion of how do we bring, I think, the health side of things into it, because it's such a much bigger sector. There's money in the sector more than there is probably in food. Unfortunately, we still put more like on a cream on our skin or medicine than we pay for food.
Speaker 1:That's starting to slowly change, but it's a big mindset shift and it's starting to slow down that tsunami or the floodgates or close it just a bit more, because it's just not going to be sustainable, even if we come up with the best cures and the best pills, et cetera. It's just going to be completely unaffordable. It already is in many places and many people start waking up to that. Oh, this, actually, this doesn't feed me, it just fuels me, or doesn't even fuel me, let alone feeds me properly. Has that this is a very long non-question more a has that led to your neighbors and your community as well? Has your success and of course your fields look messy, but it's a good thing, not Charles messy, but messy has it led to more, let's say, like-minded closer to you, around you that have been starting to join you on that journey Of course their own journey, but at least to not discard you as, oh, those hippies down the corner?
Speaker 2:I think that's an interesting one. Probably the least people, your influence, you hear around the globe is probably the people in, sometimes in your backyard, because you don't go there to a certain degree probably. We're probably more recognized in the eastern states of australia and also around the globe, globally as well, yeah, which is, many pioneers have that like it's a.
Speaker 1:It's not a, it's not a unique feat, I think, if you yeah, because you look for your tribe and you don't find it nearby, probably yeah, the people around us really respect us and they're great people because they just see what we do and they do show interest.
Speaker 2:But they're on that they're farming to a system and it's being successful at this stage and you just don't fit your mix with these people. You just don't really go there. But you go up, don, I did a Canadian speaking throughout Canada. I was speaking to her in the northern US last year, august of last year. It's great, you can just go for it.
Speaker 1:You can go as deep into quantum agriculture as you want to go and they will resonate.
Speaker 3:But there is more and more local people that are coming forward more frequently and doing more their own work on their own property and feeling confident that there is a path that they can follow in their own modified way, which is good, and you're seeing more and more of that.
Speaker 4:It's slowly becoming more less of the weird hippie thing that it once was For me, growing up, for many years I'd cop a lot of crap for being the weird hippie organic. Just any type of insult under the sun to have it go me because it's a miracle, you're still there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's like you didn't run away. Yeah, exactly the one farmers, and one of the only farmers in the country doing something completely different and going against the grain from everyone else. So, yeah, definitely copped it a little bit growing up, but as the years have gone on, it's slowly. I mean, obviously it's still your odd few and you're always going to get them. But I've noticed that narrative starting to change a little bit and instead of approaching with oh you guys are just bloody crazy out there going, okay, they actually see that there obviously is science behind it, that it obviously does work. They still don't quite understand it fully themselves, but they're, I guess, the four wheels slowly starting to turn and there's a very slow change.
Speaker 4:Like, I've had many conversations with friends who when we first met, they thought, yeah, we're off our heads. And after a few years of just being mates and having many conversations and many arguments as well and just explaining what we do, and they've gone and done their own reading in their own time and they've come back to me and said, actually, what you guys are doing is pretty bloody smart out there Don't understand it. I'm not sure how you guys are making it work out here, obviously, because all they've known is the industrialized system, but they go. But good on you for giving it a go and trying something different, which you know I thought that was pretty massive because it was completely big, massive change from what I grew up listening to and I think a bit of a proof's been in the pudding.
Speaker 2:We supply a couple of groceries down in the city and they're very popular and people are really loving it. They're generally sold out. Yes, I think a lot of that's really taken. I think we've got beer on tap now at one of the outlets and that's gone really successful. It's really starting to take, and I think, the new generation of Matthew's age it might have been a way to university. They're coming back with a different lens to the older fellas and they're looking for these things. So it is really encouraging to see that there is change and that was probably one of our things as well.
Speaker 2:I agree, I think on the globe that the most farmers that are small farmers on two hectares or one hectares or something like that, doing wonderful job. And we've had people say to us why do you do out here like you do at such a big scale? And we thought this is where it's got to be proven too, why all those farmers do it all this very well on a small scale and do an excellent job and then can sell their produce out at their front gate or they're closer to a big city while the big corporate scale operations out there going mental with their ploughing and doing all these things. What's going to affect their environment? That they're closer in on the coastline or somewhere as well? We've actually got to be able to prove that it can be done on the big scale as well as, similarly, on the small scale, and so we've actually been able to achieve that to a large extent, and now what we've got to achieve is actually getting, like you said, that volume of produce.
Speaker 4:You don't carry it in the wheelbarrow down to market and to the people. Yes, I think for the last ever since mum and dad started. It wasn't initially the plan, but it became the plan of trying to prove that it is possible to be in a regenerative system or natural intelligence farming system, which is what we do, and be able to do it at scale. Because that's the first thing, that first argument that everyone comes up to oh that's great, yeah, do it on your small property, but it's not possible for us at a large scale. You can't do it, but, mum and dad, and we've been able to prove that it is possible and you can have amazing outcomes from it.
Speaker 4:But I think now we're transitioning is to what's our next goal? How can we have the next biggest impact and where's the next big problem that we're facing is the market. We've got the produce the consumers are screaming out for as soon as they hear the story and hear about it, just trying to get that short supply chain in the middle, which is highly difficult and it's not cheap, especially for small family farmers like ourselves to fund on top of the farm as well. But that's been, I think, the biggest driver for me personally to come back home to the farm.
Speaker 4:I've always been passionate about what mum and dad have done, but to see the scope on where we can take it to the next step, to be able to create a big impact, get that produce out there. I've always had a bit of a marketing, a little love for marketing throughout I've been growing up. But, yeah, to try and get our produce out there, sell that story and create whatever you want to call it. We've created a regenerative brand that we've named it natural intelligence farming and to try and get our produce out there underneath that brand and it's been going well so far, but we're still a long way away from where we want to get to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's a journey that almost unfortunately, many farmers have to at some point they also start taking control more of their supply chain. And where does it go to? Because, unless you're very lucky with buyers that are super in tune with what you're doing and able to command a premium and sell that, etc, etc. Which basically nobody has, almost nobody you're going to end up doing it yourself or with a number of farmers together and set up some kind of cooperative and some kind of processing and some kind of and rebuild that, which, of course, is super costly. And so, yeah, that's a very logical but unfortunately that has to be the case that you cannot sell into not yet sell into in large enough quantities, into more established supply chains which have a hundred year experience and history and does a hundred year infrastructure ready. Because, yeah, everything here costs money and is scale. You have to store it separately, it has to be completely processed separately, otherwise you cannot say that there's been grown with these ingredients, etc. Etc.
Speaker 2:I understand why it's complex, obviously, and it's not anonymized, what we're hoping for is that, as some of these big, why we work on that, on to our scale, to our ability, but why some of these big multinational food companies and I think, as you explained before, they're actually starting to see it and they might look at it we buy so many thousand pounds of food product a year and none of it's regenerative and none of it's environmentally positive or to a degree we want to start actually and put in investing in this in our line and looking at what the ecological outcomes of growing that food was and things like that, that some of them start to come on board and actually approach people like ourselves and say you guys have got some massive tonnages.
Speaker 2:We take x amount of that and put that into a line, start that relationship of growing together, because what we do know is when they get the produce and if they use it correctly, it sells itself, because that's just flavour, energy, everything like that. It just goes and we've been able to prove it through the bakery and the beer and things like that. Once it gets out there in the marketplace, off it goes. So we're hoping some of those relationships might open up.
Speaker 1:And has that narrative and I know we are deep into time, what we scheduled, so I'm going to wrap up at some point but does the narrative around the animal side? I don't know in Western Australia, obviously, how, let's say, the anti-animal movement has been going around or not? I think, think especially in europe, but also us some somewhere down the line, sustainability became without animals and plant-based in a weird different way. Again, nothing against, obviously, the anti-cafe or activist factory farm. We're talking about a very different kind of farming here. How has been that narrative around the role of animals because you're very vocal about? They're an essential part of regeneration and an essential part of our, let's say, extended family and an essential part of our farm Without them? It was the first interaction with the land. When the sheep are happy on the land, we know that we listened to our intuition and chose the right piece, because if they're not happy then it means we got it wrong.
Speaker 3:I guess, too, they're such great educators and to be able to see and learn how the health benefits have come to them by being able to access a biodiverse diet and microbial system. To ignore that, as humans, would be really at our detriment. I think they offer a foodstuff that you can't get out of a plant system alone, and nature has evolved for that reason, and they're an integral part of spiralling upwards as opposed to spiralling downwards. Our transporters of microbiome around a landscape and plants and microbes in the soil respond to that. So, yeah, I think it's certainly at our potential detriment to ignore that.
Speaker 2:We've got. A part of our success here is we've got a total self-circling loop system here. So we grow multi-species cover crops which we bale some up for hay and store in some of the old cheds around the place, which then gets fed back through the animals, which then feeds the worm farm, which then actually ends up in manure, sometimes underneath the shearing shed, which then gets used to inoxylate that same multi-species cover crop in a Johnson's Sue reactor or a static compost heap or an aerobic compost heap. So it all just gets used around through the animals through the worms, through that whole composting. So it all just gets used around through the animals through the worms through that whole composting cycle. So the animals play a crucial part in that circular system which gives us the quorum sensing, the nutrient diversity, everything which makes these crops and everything flourish and has that narrative changed?
Speaker 1:have you seen the skepticism around that? Or how has been like the reaction to such a deep integration with animals, which also means they end up being taken out of the system at some point, which also means like in a flirt without large apex predators, which we don't have, I think, in Australia, unless we count humans. There is an end to that. Has that ever been an issue? Has it ever been like that kind of narrative? I'm just very curious on the sensitivities there and attentions.
Speaker 3:It hasn't been to date. I think we do have a lot of people come and visit and we've had people from all sorts of different leanings and being here, seeing it and experiencing it has been transformative for lots of people. So we are trying, we do our best, to have people come share time with us and help them understand. We've had some wonderful young women from different universities and so forth around and come here and it's actually changed their lives. So I think, yeah, there's a lot to be able to experience and really get to understand how nature does function within an ecosystem. And animals have been there for a long time, a lot longer than us as humans and they're there for a reason and we need to respect that.
Speaker 2:We've had people from the fashion industry come and see because wool's a major part of our operation and that's been an extremely successful story for us and when they see the respect put on those animals and how they're looked after and how that system works, I think it's just an education piece really and, if we can portray that as the right way, that's part of our goal too. Part of our goal is actually to get more accommodation on the farm so we can actually have people want to say I want to come for a week and actually come and just immerse themselves and actually educate themselves and see what happens in this operation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would be fascinating, but I want to be conscious of your time as well.
Speaker 1:We have safely say, probably 1,000 other rabbit holes to go into from the wool side of things, to microbes, to Johnson's Sue, to a lot of other things, but we'll keep that for another time.
Speaker 1:I want to end with a few questions we always like to ask as well. And let's say, you have that accommodation and we bring a group of investors, let's say people working in quite remotely in that sense remote, disconnected from farming, but interested in farming and agriculture, people working in finance, after a great experience, of course, a great meal or two farm walk, all of those things, they go back to the city, they might travel on, etc. What would be the one thing you would like them to remember? What would be? I always like to say the seed you want to plant, or, in this case, the sheep you want to move, or the microbe you want to, or what is the epigenetic gene switch you would like to click. What would be the one thing you want them to remember, because people forget and the next day they might be in an office and you want them to have that little spark. What would that be?
Speaker 2:I'd like them to remember that there's an opportunity there for them to actually play a role in what we're doing, just because we're the land managers. At the moment we don't really have a total bent on the ownership module sort of thing, because I think land is everyone's land and it's so that they, even though they go back to their city life, can play a role, and that role can be is actually how do we get that food to the people? How do we help, assist to get that and actually get involved. And they can play a massive, important part because they've probably got a greater knowledge of marketing the whole, those other type of systems.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, we're farmers and that's where that collaboration comes in and as we say, in the online world, the collab yeah, I love them to think that they could play an important role and talk to us about that role of actually how it could really help us short track the situation. And then what does that give you? What that gives us. And I've been approached by a number of people and some of it just as recently that they've had tragedy with family members struck down with these diseases and cancers and things like that, and I know I've actually come and said thank you to us, but I know I can stand there and look them in the eye and say I am trying to do everything within my power to get things right, that I'm trying my best, and those people that came on farm they can go back to and say, gee, we're trying our best as well, because we're contributing. So I think everyone has to contribute.
Speaker 1:Any other takes, because we're in three gas. You can or you don't have to. Let's say there's no force here.
Speaker 3:I have other questions, but if you have any other, Certainly agree with what Ian's saying and I guess what we find when people come on country and they've immersed themselves in it and it does affect them emotionally, just that idea of reciprocity, what is their capacity, what is their skill set, how can they contribute? Because, as we said, it takes a community to make these changes and systemic changes that are required. And, yeah, how can you put your hand up and your shoulder to the wheel to to do that for all that better good at the end of the day, and we'll all benefit and that's, yeah, what can be achieved.
Speaker 4:I think they basically just took all the words out of my mouth.
Speaker 1:I've really got too much to add, though it doesn't mean that yeah, it doesn't mean that if two go, the third has to go.
Speaker 1:This is not a question If we flip the conversation and put you in a position of extreme inequality. Well, let's call it as it is. Let's say you wake up and you have a billion dollars I don't know Australian dollars versus US, but let's say a lot of money. I'm not looking for dollar amounts, exact. I'm not looking for investment advice, obviously, as we don't give that, but I'm looking for priorities like where would you put big buckets of if suddenly, financial resources, at least, would be basically unlimited? Where would you and the three of you can decide how to take this one how would you? Where would you focus?
Speaker 4:no many uh, me personally we've been talking about it throughout the podcast so far, which is, and for which is, my passion. My leaning is trying to build markets, so I'll be doing everything in my power to be using that money to mainly shorten supply chains. So, starting off with here in our own backyard, here in WA, trying to market the entirety of our produce, build a structure of a shortened supply chain that meets the needs of us locally, and then anything extra can go abroad, whether that be over east or internationally, and build a blueprint on how we can market this type of produce, build that market and then replicate it around the world. That's what I'll be putting the money towards, so then we can have other natural intelligence farming producers in the east coast of Australia, in America, and replicate a shortened supply chain to get that quality produce to the people who need it the most in the cheapest way possible.
Speaker 4:Because that's where food has become so expensive is because the supply chain is just beyond a joke these days. It's just ridiculous how far things are travelling and so it's adding so much cost, which then is taken back from the farmer, and the farmer's getting pennies on the dollar for the hard work that they're putting into their landscape to produce, so to, yeah, bring a bit more reward back to the farmer, but then to also create a greater produce to the people as well, but then at the same time, then help. This is a billion dollars, so I've got plenty to spend. I'll be putting plenty towards helping any type of research to do more research into the benefits of microbiome and to go further down that path to further understand what we're working with and to be able to tell that story better as well, because we're so far from being able to understand it completely.
Speaker 2:but the more funding that they could have to understand that, to be able to portray that story, to help market that produce as well, it all helps I think just because you don't inherit a farm and the way it is these days, it means if you don't inherit a farm and you just come from a just a standard family around, you've probably got no hope at all of actually going farming unless you just go and work on a farm. I'd be looking at putting systems in place where that can open opportunities up so you can actually be not born into a farm and you can end up being a very successful farmer. And how I'd do that is I'd actually take time to relook and lead by example in the financial institution setups of how things are financed, how farms are financed, how we look at our financial situation, our balance sheets, how our big insurance companies around the world which, on general insurance, are not going to be able to insure anymore because of the massive disasters in the world, because of the floods, because the water's not held back on country you know country so part of their investment can go back actually into farming, which then can actually help bring other people on land. A superannuation fund is already great. Yeah, we just picked up 10, 15% return on investment. We've got oil companies and all these things around the world. What I say to them out of your whole portfolio.
Speaker 2:If you went to all your shareholders, all your people with their superannuation funds in there, and said, let's put 1%, 2%, 3% you can do the other 97% into the other off-market things, which has given us 15%, let's put it back into the environment, let's put it back into agriculture, the food, things like that. I would spend time in trying to change that narrative of where it's going. Because I'm a farmer, I pay. I go and buy the farm next door. I'm paying between 8% and 9% interest because I'm a farmer, isolated farm. I go work for a big multinational supermarket. I'm the manager of the supermarket and I buy a house down in the city. I'll probably pay 3.8%. Big difference and we're producing food and a big big difference in in real like.
Speaker 1:It still amazes me sorry for interrupting that we consider a house like a safer investment instead of a farm, and soil and acid has been regenerated, which yeah based off someone who could lose their job tomorrow true and could be, and in the farming, still the only asset where you can farm and have a return and leave the asset better than you got it from, but, like the maintenance, is your food basically coming off of it if you do it well, and that somehow I don't think that's landed yet in the real estate business. This is a very different thing. It's such a and that of course it should be completely reversed or even in a different way, it should be paid to regenerate, which we haven't figured out yet. Anyway, just a short rant on the real estate markets.
Speaker 2:So that's exactly. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of things that we could spend time and money on doing, and it does too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the slight difference. I agree totally with everything that the both of them have said. To bring it back to home, though is I would also like to facilitate the opportunity for more people. Like Anne said earlier, we can class ourselves as land stewards and we need to be able to share this environment with more people, and we can bring more diversity of what this landscape can produce and create. We have some wonderful First Nations friends and the opportunity to have diverse bush tucker and bush medicine and stuff occurring, bringing culture back to the landscape.
Speaker 3:This little area here used to have 185 people living in it. Now it's lucky to have 10, but there's still the opportunity there if we can get housing, some of that food development, like Matthew's talking about, getting the infrastructure required so we can have the grain mills or we might have a micro-habit far, or all the facilities there with a diverse range of enterprises, so there is more people. We can have our own wonderful local foods, too, to support our people here at a local level and, as Matthew described, the rest into the city or exported for if there's excess. So, yeah, I think that would be a great way to go to optimise all that we've seen and learnt here of food quality and just increase that diversity for all Because being something that's occurred all around the world people become further and further separated from country.
Speaker 4:we've got less and less farmers and more and more people living in suburbs and where everyone back in the day used to know everyone knew a farmer, whether it was an uncle, a cousin, a friend. But a lot of the times these days, people don't know any farmers, nor have they ever been on a farm, and there's been such a loss in connection of where people's produce is getting from, which is one of the most important purchases a person will ever make.
Speaker 1:so to be able to give people the opportunity at least so they can reconnect back to country where their food is produced, it's a really powerful thing, I think yeah, and I think it goes against this notion of the industrial extractive model where it's less and less people, more machines and less eyes on the land, less and less hands. Like you can do X hectares now or acres with X, one FTE or something like that and what you're saying, I think, correct me if I'm wrong what I've seen in other places. Operations like this can support a lot more people and a lot more families on the land in different ways. Not everyone on the tractor, obviously, but there are operated. There are other animal operations, there are other bush medicine operations, there are as processing, there is partly living and partly working remotely as you have a stable internet connection and so that the whole notion of the farms get, or the farm, the people on the farm, gets less and less. Actually, there is an opportunity not easy, because all of this infrastructure costs money.
Speaker 1:Housing is always an issue on any farm I've ever visited, because you get more people, you get more students, you get more interns, you get more businesses and where do they live? And usually the answer is yeah, you can't really live in a yurt forever. You can try, but it's not for everyone, let's say. And so you become almost a real estate developer because you need housing for your people. But that notion of actually having more people in the countryside, on land and part of their time actually active on the land is such an interesting. Somebody starts a market garden, somebody starts this and somebody, and suddenly you have a little community, like a mini village basically, and that's a very different path, as we're talking about paths again. Then, oh, this gets less and less and you need an off-farm job and you need one contractor and then you're managing your massive estate without ever touching the soil, basically because you get from your airco tractor cabin to your airco car and probably to your airco home.
Speaker 1:I want to end with. This is such a risky rabbit hole question. I'm going to ask but I would hit myself if I don't we mentioned indigenous first nations a few times. How has that relationship be and been, and how much has that been of an influence or of a guiding notary? What has that been? Because I think australia is special in that, compared to europe, where we have those connections, but very differently compared to us, of course, where it's in a very different setting. I think australia is quite special in that, in that regard. So I would kick myself if I didn't ask the question absolute it.
Speaker 2:It's been a huge part of it really, especially for me, before we, how we said we put back in 1994, deposit on that small property died. I spent a number of years up in the Kimberley of Western Australia and we had a fuel business that we took on up there and started off and we had over 100 Aboriginal communities, isolated communities on our books, and I spent a lot of time with First Nations elders Really lucky. At that stage I was in my early 20s, they were in their 80s, the really old guys, 80s, 90s, and it really had an influence, massive influence, and to this day that still does pay a large influence. If you'd like to comment on that, di.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for me I was busy looking after kids while I was able to go out on country a fair bit at the time, so for me it's actually that respect and awareness has grown since spent more time actually on the farm ourselves, with the animals, with the organisms, and then, as you understand your position, I guess within that natural world, and then you look at what our First Nations people, how they've been for tens of thousands of years and their integration with their landscape, just the respect and admiration for what they are and how they've lived and culturally, that's something we're really wanting to embrace and go forward with as we progress, because we think they're all critical parts for furthering our own understanding and our own capacity as humans to be learning off the people that have had the longest culture, continuous culture in the world, and we're very fortunate to have some close relationships and wanting to further our growth through that you know we've walked.
Speaker 2:We've had some wonderful people out and we've walked songlines with them on this property where people didn't know that they were there and they're there, and we've walked these songlines and seen these different things in the landscape and it's got us to look at the country a lot differently. We've got a lot more to learn. So part of this is actually your last question was what would you do if you had a lot of money? Actually, we'd integrate this first nations knowledge even more to what we do and we had a sense of a paddock back in that 2023. There was this paddock we were seeding and if you took your normal mind and your head, and we were seeding this paddock because we'd gone off some first nations intuition on this paddock it was probably one of the driest, meant to be one of the driest paddocks on the farm, and anyone would have seen us seeding the paddock and said, geez, these guys are really off their rocker seeding the paddock like that on a year like this. It was actually our best crop and that was offered intuition.
Speaker 1:And there's a lot more we can learn and need to tap into. So, yeah, immense, such a perfect way to to wrap up, and I'm gonna do that, and thank you so much for your time, your patience with some technical issues on my end and to for the work you do and coming on here to share about with, for sure, very busy times in terms of visits, talks and, of course course, managing massive pieces of land and being a land steward there. So thank you so much for coming on here, thank you for listening as well and thank you for sharing your story here.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having us, Dan and Peter.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the work that you do in putting those stories out there. It's absolutely fantastic work. Thank you very much, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Thank you, really Fantastic work. Thank you very much, absolutely Thank you.
Speaker 1:Really appreciate your time. Thank you for listening all the way to the end. For show notes and links discussed, check out our website investinginregenerativeagriculturecom slash posts. If you liked this episode, why not share it with a friend? And get in touch with us on social media, our website or via the Spotify app, and tell us what you like most and give us a you like most and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your podcast player. That really really helps us. Thanks again and see you next time.
