"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..

[Gulli]

We had a talk by Dr Jenni Dungait a while back. She’s one of the top soil scientists in the country and edits The European Journal of Soil Science. She is very pro regen Ag but see’s the threats similarly to you. She also adds the organic certification bodies to the list of threats though, as they try to hi jack it to further their own cause because “you can only be regenerative if you’ve registered with the Soil Association” (and paid their fees and submitted to their inspections and “standards”).

I think you can also add zealotry to the list of risks. Just go on some of the regen Facebook groups and read some of the cringeworthy posts where they get up on their high horse and belittle, patronise and abuse anyone who doesn’t agree with their point of view. The danger is they put off the very people that can benefit the most from the concept.

To be fair it can be quite preachy on here sometimes

 

[CornishTone]

To be fair it can be quite preachy on here sometimes

Surely not?!?!?!?!

 

[Gulli]

Surely not?!?!?!?!

Only if you dont follow the teachings of the great ones ?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Will Harris’s latest blog tells of another threat, greenwashing removing the competitive advantage of genuinely regenerative food. http://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/blog/greenwashing-is-destroying-regenerative.
The accreditation schemes are losing credibility in their desire to work with the multinationals and the only real way of guaranteeing you are buying genuinely good food is a direct relationship with the grower.

That's why EOV (Ecological Outcome Verification) is such a big deal: It is a peer-reviewed method for farmers from the high-tech to the African subsitence ones to be able to robustly prove that they are regenerating their land and environment while producing food. So long as you are truly doing that then you are Regenerative.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

To be fair it can be quite preachy on here sometimes

Nature is just like that, too

Where is homo neanderthalensis these days, anyone seen him about?
I can't really apologise, honestly, for being "a bit preachy" because the exact same fate awaits sapiens; ie we are too energy-hungry and inefficient, we are literally too big for our boots.

A couple of minor adjustments simply isn't going to cut it, IMVHO

 

[Henarar]

Where is homo neanderthalensis these days, anyone seen him about?

still a bit about
apparently there was some interbreeding

 

[Farmer Roy]

This is why it can be SO hard for people to grasp concepts behind regenerative agriculture, natural health etc etc... and why it is always more transformative to ask powerful questions than to tell people information that contradicts their world view. Many people hold onto their beliefs like a life vest on a sinking ship... not realising their beliefs are the sinking ship!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

still a bit about
apparently there was some interbreeding

It's looking that way

But honestly, if our survival depended on parking up ploughs and sprayers, and buying 'erbal ley seeds, wouldn't that be scratched on a rock somewhere deep in the Amazon? On a cave wall somewhere hot?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

This is why it can be SO hard for people to grasp concepts behind regenerative agriculture, natural health etc etc... and why it is always more transformative to ask powerful questions than to tell people information that contradicts their world view. Many people hold onto their beliefs like a life vest on a sinking ship... not realising their beliefs are the sinking ship!
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Spot on!

"Oooh I can't have some small cattle, they won't make me any money/ might catch tb"

Who said they need to make you money, who said you need to sell them at ALL, let alone to a supermarket processor; it's just your land says you need cattle on it too

'Oooh, I can't do that with my sheep, they might jump out'

Let them jump out, replace them with decent fiçking sheep that stay where you park them

'Oooh, can't not spray, my crop will be full of weeds'

Mate... your crop IS THE WEEDS, just stop growing the same 3 monocultures!

..... and, so on, ad infinitum.... ?‍

The "why don't you/ oh yes, but" game is just that, a game; the gimmick of the game is that it fills in time but is never going to finish until one of the participants walks away or dies of boredom.

My kids play this one every time we want them to clear their mess;
but they see it for what it is, and the result is the job gets done because playing games doesn't solve the problem of a mess needing cleared

They probably don't see food scraps under the table as mess, neither does Mr Ratty, perspectives are important.

 

[Blaithin]

We had a talk by Dr Jenni Dungait a while back. She’s one of the top soil scientists in the country and edits The European Journal of Soil Science. She is very pro regen Ag but see’s the threats similarly to you. She also adds the organic certification bodies to the list of threats though, as they try to hi jack it to further their own cause because “you can only be regenerative if you’ve registered with the Soil Association” (and paid their fees and submitted to their inspections and “standards”).

I think you can also add zealotry to the list of risks. Just go on some of the regen Facebook groups and read some of the cringeworthy posts where they get up on their high horse and belittle, patronise and abuse anyone who doesn’t agree with their point of view. The danger is they put off the very people that can benefit the most from the concept.

Much like any other type of farming, what works on one regenerative farm won’t work the same on another. Each farm is in effect it’s own ecosystem. A desert can’t lecture a tundra on how to be a swamp.

People get stuck on what they find works for them. If it works for them it must work for everyone else but that isn’t the case. It’s also hard to think outside of the box of experience despite how good someone might think they are at it.

Example, I’m involved in a workshop about programs offered by stewardship groups for cow/calf operations to help maintain healthy riparian areas. When I mentioned I would like to hear a similar workshop towards arable farmers I was asked “why, what does it have to do with them” Like arable farming has no interaction with riparian areas and only livestock can be used to boost an areas health.

It’s apparently too easy to fall into the rut of thinking livestock is the way to improve things and therefore livestock is the only sector that needs to be worked on.

 

[Blaithin]

Nature is just like that, too

Where is homo neanderthalensis these days, anyone seen him about?
I can't really apologise, honestly, for being "a bit preachy" because the exact same fate awaits sapiens; ie we are too energy-hungry and inefficient, we are literally too big for our boots.

A couple of minor adjustments simply isn't going to cut it, IMVHO

I didn’t know Neanderthals were energy hungry and inefficient too!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I didn’t know Neanderthals were energy hungry and inefficient too!

Apparently they needed around 5000kj whereas sapiens only needed 3000kj.
I think our "RDI" is around 8700kj, according to food labelling in NZ, and I've read somewhere it can take about 10j of fossil energy per j of food we consume.... based on averages acrosd western diets.
If that's in any way true, then it kinda blows the doors off any claims of an "efficient food system" or the sustainability of our species, worse yet if you factor in the reported 30% waste factor.

And I'm not sure if the fossil energy figure even factors in the manufacture of tractors, implements, combines and trucks....

 

[Blaithin]

It’s odd to think we require more energy than historic populations. As a whole they’d be a bit more active than we are now. There is the “brain needs energy” argument but it’s becoming common theory that prehistoric species may have actually had higher brain capacity/function than modern humans. Plus many people today don’t tend to use their brains anyway.

Then again, we’re in an obesity crisis. Even 5000kj could be a step in the right direction.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It's been a long time since people have had great selection pressure placed on them for energy efficiency... so maybe that's why?
Of course we had wartime rationing but that was hardly killing 90+% of the species quickly

Rough mental calculation (bit steep here) it takes the same total energy to feed one modern homo sapiens as would have fed FIFTY sapiens11,000 years ago

Great throwback to your "what if there had never been agriculture" question, really.
The chemical brothers,, love to trot out the line about "nitrogen fertiliser stopped a billion people from starving to death" but perhaps in reality it will starve 11 or 12 billion to death instead?

Because it enabled those with wealth and power to not address the fundamental problems

 

[Farmer Roy]

you've given me another excuse to play a Tim Minchin clip, so yes it is on topic

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Only if you dont follow the teachings of the great ones ?

Gaia?

 

[JohnGalway]

This is why it can be SO hard for people to grasp concepts behind regenerative agriculture, natural health etc etc... and why it is always more transformative to ask powerful questions than to tell people information that contradicts their world view. Many people hold onto their beliefs like a life vest on a sinking ship... not realising their beliefs are the sinking ship!
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There's a guy I know, very sharp, anytime a person goes to him for advice after explaining the situation he has this answer

And what would you think of that yourself Roy?

I figure it's a great tactic, get a person to ask themselves questions rather than particularly tell them what to do.

 

[JohnGalway]

Gaia?

Bono surely?

 

[Treg]

There's a guy I know, very sharp, anytime a person goes to him for advice after explaining the situation he has this answer

And what would you think of that yourself Roy?

I figure it's a great tactic, get a person to ask themselves questions rather than particularly tell them what to do.

I find I'm very biased if I ask myself questions

 

[Kiwi Pete]

A bit of diversity in "your crew" helps, or I should say it helps me

I've found that a group of farmers will ho-hum a lot whereas an engineer or accountant or doctor will look at your farming and ask the damndest things, they're generally who I ask if I'm stuck on something.