The Regenerative Journey with Charlie Arnott

In this podcast interview, Peter Challendar discusses his journey in regenerative agriculture with Charlie and Murray Richardson. Peter shares his experiences with pasture cropping and cover cropping on his property in Albury, NSW, where he has been working to improve soil health and productivity. He describes his shift from sheep to cattle farming and the benefits of working with Highland Beef to support his regenerative practices. Peter emphasises the importance of hydrology in his regenerative approach, highlighting the positive impact of contouring to retain water and improve land management. Overall, the interview provides valuable insights into Peter's efforts to diversify income streams and create a sustainable farming ecosystem.

Season Sponsor:

This season we've teamed up with Highland Beef Pastoral a grass-fed beef supply chain servicing the growing US grass-fed market.

The Highland Beef program uses an innovative model to change how farmers and customers interact.

Essentially, this Australian-owned business places cattle on their member graziers’ properties at their expense and provides farmers competitive returns for every kg of beef produced, allowing them to focus on improving their businesses in a capital-free, risk-free environment.

If you’re interested in finding out more about this program visit hbpastoral.com.au/charliearnott.

Episode Credits:

Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our host Charlie Arnott. Our producer is Rhys Jones of Yaga Media. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.

Patrons get access to exclusive videos, a discussion community, and much more. Go to https://charliearnott.com.au/podcast/ to support my work.

Peter Andrews is one of Australia's landscape geniuses, who has been battling to change the stats quo attitude of government, farmers and land managers to hydrology and restoring landscape function for 40 years. Charlie sat with Peter at his farm in the central Tablelands of NSW while he recounted his formative years of desert life, how that informed his lifelong passion to restore the oldest continent in the world, and highlights that the healing of this land is totally within our reach if we reinstate a few simple principles of land management that had kept this landscape the most productive in the world.

Episode Takeaways:

There is a predictable natural sequence within the landscape we just have to recreate and nurture it | Peter’s property at Bungonia was bought to be a demonstration site, this region of NSW was a very over exploited area given its location between Sydney and Canberra | Plants are specialists at bringing various components and elements into a landscape | We don’t recreate the old landscape, we recreate the processes and function of the landscape | The landscape evolved due to plants managing water | Frequent fire, flood and drought are symptoms of a dysfunctional landscape | Peter grew up at Broken Hill where his experiences of desert storms and floods started him on his journey to rehydrate the landscape of Australia | Pioneering plants are essential to repair the landscapes | The current agricultural system that replies on the removal of specific plants is costing our farmers businesses and the landscapes health | Peter’s experience with sheep health in those early years identified the importance of nutrition and how a functioning landscape provides a broad range of plants to provide this nutrition | Over-stocked properties and poor understanding of hydrology has caused the degradation of the landscape | Early experiments on the family property at Broken Hill included ripping along the high water mark of food plains | The Australian landscape had a higher percentage of pines and palms than is currently there | We are generally left with fire recovery desert plants, mostly eucalypts | Water much more influential in the atmosphere than carbon | Hot air produced inland from a lack of transpiring vegetation and moving towards, and being absorbed by, the area over the moist ocean creates damaging weather events | Capillary action and gravity are the fundamental phenomena NSF relies upon to work | Fire flood and drought are opportunities to change the pattern and create plant succession | The Peter’s horses performance were results of the management of his land, where a fundamental principle was to let all plants grow | Willows are suckers in the landscape wounds that are creeks and rivers | Peter was able to double the aquatic life in riparian zones in 2 years using willows to heal them | 95mm dew can be accumulated in a year where ground cover is maintained | Restoring deciduous green trees in flow lines reduces fire risk | The eucalypts in the landscape before human management were huge, towering above the canopy and had the role of reducing the escape of moisture from the area | The best management post any fire is to spread seeds of deciduous shrub and tree species | It all gets back to human and environmental health and this is Peter’s motivation.

Episode Links:

Tarwyn Park Training

Australian Story ‘ Land Regeneration -Peter Andrews’ - 2017

TALS Institute - Peter’s ‘The Australian Landscape Science’ Institute

Dr. Jan Pokorny - Scientist

Charlie has interviewed Hamish Mackay many times for his Youtube channel and this interview is a poignant reminder that whilst the principles of regenerative agriculture, and specifically Biodynamics, remain the same, its application and adaption to landscapes and communities is ever changing and definitely on the rise. Hamish takes listeners for a ride into the world of Biodynamics, leaving us with very practical and compelling steps we can take to produce better food and improve the health of our planet.

To start a dialogue and converse more about topics raised in this podcast, please visit The Regenerative Journey Podcast Facebook Group.

Episode Takeaways :

Hamish grew up near Braidwood, NSW on a family sheep and cattle farm | Andrew his brother is his major mentor | Travelled Australia before going home to the farm and Alex Poloinsky visited the farm in 1972. Alex showed him his farm through different eyes | Alex made Hamish aware of his farm in a physical sense, made him aware of soil health | Hamish was also involved in the wool industry and worked at the famous Demeter Bakery in Glebe, Sydney | Change in the agriculture world is slowly happening and now building momentum | The practice of Biodynamics is very easy and is a form of environmental and food security when inevitably we meet challenges in the food production and environment health space | It will be important to have people in the world who are practicing Biodynamics to ensure food security as conventional practices continue to fail | 1960s was the start of change in the dairy industry in Australia | Currently there are many people in agriculture as a result of obligation to their family, rather than because it’s their destiny and are passionate about it | Spiritual science uses scientific methodology to investigate ‘things we can’t see’ | People are becoming more aware of value in organic produce both economically and nutritionally | We need to collaborate, not be competitive, in the regenerative agriculture world | Consumers are ultimately in the position to ‘judge’ the success or otherwise of regenerative farming practices | Regenerative farming is not prescriptive agriculture. That is one if its defining characteristic that sets it apart from industrial farming | The diaries of early white explorers identified that indigenous peoples managed the landscape as a ‘parkland’ like landscape | Bill Gammage in ‘The Biggest Estate on Earth’, Bruce Pascoe in ‘Dark Emu’ and Joseph Jenkins in ‘The Diary of a Welsh Swagman’ highlighted this phenomena | Our landscape is now a bit like teenagers going through puberty - its chaotic, and the recent Summer bushfires were a reflection of this | The Australian landscape was once managed, prior to white settlement. Now it’s being pillaged. It is ‘managing’ us. Again, the ferocity and complete disruption and destruction of bushfires reflects this | Biodynamic food and pasture is more mineral dense and therefore harder to digest and makes organs work harder (which keeps them healthier) In addition, one needs to eat less of it (and it is also harder to burn which makes it potentially more fire resistant) | Healthy humic aerated soil retains moisture and biology even in a drought | All mental illness has a physiological basis | Current industrial medical system treats symptom, not the cause | Nutritionally dense food impacts positively the social fabric of individuals, families and communities

Episode Links :

Hamish Mackay - Farming Secrets profile

Hamish Mackay & Charlie Arnott | Biodynamics Workshops - 2021 workshop dates will be announced soon. Check back to www.charliearnott.com.au for dates.

Martin Royds - farmer and regenerative farming advocate

Mulloon institute - a research, education and advocacy not-for-profit organisation

Blackthorn Trust - is a supportive therapeutic environment in which people can recover, grow and develop.

Low Tox Life - Alexx Stuart

This is the second part of the Charlie's interview with Mick Wettenhall. Charlie caught up with Mick Wettenhall at his property 'Weemabah' at Trangie, NSW to dig into his own regenerative journey. Mick most recently has been progressing research into a little know fungi that has an enormous capacity to sequester carbon in the soil. Mick would rather see an agricultural evolution than an agricultural revolution, highlighting that if we are to support the adoption of regenerative practices it needs to be 'adaptable' to their current farming situations.

To start a dialogue and converse more about topics raised in this podcast, please visit The Regenerative Journey Podcast Facebook Group.

Episode Takeaways:

Dr James White pioneered the research into plants farming microbes back in 2013 |Think big, start small, scale fast | There is a massive potential to sequest carbon in soil, farmers just need to know how | The key to driving a shift in farmers thinking of how they can contribute to reversing climate change is the conscious consumer through their buying choices | ‘Create a product or service that people can patronize to make that difference | ’The only thing missing to rapidly progress the research and uptake of carbon sequesting practices in this space is money | You can’t manage what you don’t measure | Farmers need to be remunerated for the carbon they sequest and nutritious food they grow | Hand held nutrition scanning technology is developing rapidly |Market gets what market wants |Create a demand economy lead by consumers to support farmers to grow more nutritious food |Mick uses a number of Johnson Su compost bioreactors to make fungal dominant compost which he then makes an extract from to spread on his crops | It is essentially a static pile aerobic compost | Once the thermophilic stage is complete worms are then added (vermophilic) | If the same amount of funds that is currently invested in industrial Ag ‘solutions' was invested in regenerative farming techniques........ | Truth is first ridiculed, then opposed then accepted as fact | Next generation will want to be part of the solution | Mick attended Landmark in his early 30s. It could be called a personal development course, however is so much more...Charlie has completed the course as well | Landmark Forum is essentially 'Holding a mirror up against ones self to help identify why one does the things one does '....

Episode Links :

Aust soil planners group - Australia's largest sustainable group of farmers.

’Quality Agriculture’ - John Kempf

David Johnson

‘The Great Disruption’ - Paul Gilding

Landmark Forum

In this world-first Regenerative Journey virtual panel discussion, Charlie Arnott, Stuart Austin, and Murray Richardson come together to discuss the latest advancements in agriculture technology and its application in regenerative farming practices. Stuart Austin, the progressive General Manager of Wilmot Cattle Company, shares insights on how technology has transformed their farming operations in New South Wales. The panel explores the criteria for selecting and adopting ag tech, the value of information-driven decisions, and the significant returns on investment observed in their unique enterprises. Don't miss this enlightening conversation on the future of technology in regenerative agriculture.

Episode Links

• Farm Bot https://farmbot.com.au/
• Farm Lab https://www.farmlab.com.au/
• Maia grazing https://www.maiagrazing.com/
• Sapien https://www.sapien.com.au/
• Xero https://www.xero.com/au/
• Figured https://www.figured.com/en-au/
• Safe Ag Systems https://www.safeagsystems.com
• Emergency Plus https://www.emergencyplus.com.au/

Season Sponsor:

This season we've teamed up with Highland Beef Pastoral a grass-fed beef supply chain servicing the growing US grass-fed market.

The Highland Beef program uses an innovative model to change how farmers and customers interact.

Essentially, this Australian-owned business places cattle on their member graziers’ properties at their expense and provides farmers competitive returns for every kg of beef produced, allowing them to focus on improving their businesses in a capital-free, risk-free environment.

If you’re interested in finding out more about this program visit hbpastoral.com.au/charliearnott.

Episode Credits:

Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our host Charlie Arnott. Our producer is Rhys Jones of Yaga Media. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.

Patrons get access to exclusive videos, a discussion community, and much more. Go to https://charliearnott.com.au/podcast/ to support my work.