Charles Massy |Part 2 | Regenerative Agriculture's Great Catalyst

09/07/20 • 62 min

The Regenerative Journey with Charlie Arnott

In part 2 of this interview, Charlie and Charles detail the difference between Complex Adaptive Systems and the Industrial Method of farming. Charles’ resonates his free flowing insight into the direct relationship between farming, food systems, human health and its effect on the mental health of ourselves and our children. They summarise the consequences of our increasing divorcement from nature and the job description of a regenerative farmer.

Charles Massy is a devotee for regenerative farming and patriarch for land care advocates in Australia. He is a farmer, author and storyteller who has brought life to the ideals of so many scholars and forward thinkers that are fundamental to our human interaction on the ecosystem. He has deep empathy for nature that is in sync with land management.

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

Episode Takeaways:

Emergent Properties are the name they’ve given to elements within the system that will emerge when it needs to adapt. The solution lies within | If you have a healthy environment and you degrade it too far it will go to a stage that it’s almost impossible to get it back | In industrial farms you have drug addicted plants waiting for their fertiliser dose | Modern industrial food is causing all of these diseases causing havoc on human health | Most indigenous women in hunter-gatherer societies can identify at least 500 food or medicinal plant in their landscape | We now find devastating evidence that the world’s most widely used herbicide is in almost all modern foods | For every child in Australia under aged under six, only 1 in 4 has ever climbed a tree or a rock | The solutions are simple: grow and eat healthy food and get out into nature as much as you can |

Episode Links: Holistic Management – Alan Savoury Nourishment - Fred Provenza Last Child In The Woods – Richard Louv Di Haggerty – Cropping Farmers A Thousand Days Program Zach Bush - Holistic Health and Wellbeing Patagonia Provisions – Yvonne Chouinard

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

Episode Takeaways:

Previous Episode

Charles Massy |Part 1| Regenerative Agriculture's Great Catalyst

The introduction to Season 2 is a long overdue interview with Charles Massy, devotee for regenerative farming and patriarch for land care advocates in Australia. He is a farmer, author and storyteller who has brought life to the ideals of many scholars and forward thinkers that are fundamental to our human interaction on the ecosystem. He has deep empathy for nature that is in sync with land management.

In part one of a two part interview, Charles is sat in his Severn Park home, unravelling his journey into farming. A profound love of nature from a young age helped his transition to inherit the family farm that he converted to regenerative agriculture, all while studying a degree in Ecology and a PhD in Human Ecology. He describes his “head cracking” moments into understanding the need to develop better practices to nurture the health of the ancient Australian landscape. His holistic, pragmatic words are like a wise father who the world over should come to hear.

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

Episode Takeaways:

Europeans came here under huge misunderstandings of how this land would behave | There were probably 15000 to 25000 years of indigenous landscape management before we came | If we are going to talk about humans on earth we have to understand how they impact our natural environment | The concept of we, humans and sustaining our environment is inseparable | Our cognitive function tends to lock in that world view and it takes a lot of disturbing to crack it open | There are excellent indigenous thinkers writing in this space. It takes a lot to get your head around but wow, we’re in kindergarten |

Episode Links:

Aldo Leopold - Ecologist, philosopher (website)

Call of the Reed Warbler - Charles Massy

Breaking The Sheep's Back - Charles Massy

The Australian Merino - Charles Massy

RCS - Course

Holistic Management - Course

Project Drawdown - Paul Kawken

Dark Emu - Bruce Pascoe

Fire Country - Victor Steffensen

Sand Talk - Tyson Yunkaporta

Next Episode

Sarah Wilson | Award winning author & activist who refuses to sugar coat anything.

Charlie’s guest for this episode is Sarah Wilson. Sarah Wilson, the New York Times best selling author, former journo and retired intrepid traveler shares her regenerative journey in a frank, open and honest chat with Charlie.

The setting for the interview is Sarah’s Bondi apartment, her sanctuary and place she now calls home. Sarah recounts her fascinating story and explains what it is to finally put down roots. Charlie and Sarah share an open dialogue which touches on what regenerative agriculture means to Sarah, as she talks about the fragile state of mankind today in terms of diet, mental illness /disease, and the urgent need for realignment - a subject matter close to Sarah’s heart and aptly the focus of her new book: ‘This One Wild and Precious Life: A hopeful path forward in a fractured world’, which has just hit the shelves.

Put aside some time and delve in and listen to this life-changing episode now!

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

Episode Takeaways:

Every community needs an esoteric spinster wandering around the street | I interpret odd as not being necessarily bad. I I rebelled against some of the thinking around my upbringing however I maintained many of the sustainable minimalist principles. | I probably did a bunch of things that scared the living daylights of my parents. | It generally takes a slap down for those of us who have done a very big pivot in life, to do that pivot. | I believe when you have a longing in your soul.. Life will join you. Life will corporate with you to steer you in direction. | (Talking about her auto-immune disease) - Gets your ego and scrapes you through the mud. | I had made a commitment, in the absence of any framework, into how to live life on this planet... If I hear a mention of something three times in a row, I must act. | Meditation was a big part of my shift. It was being stripped bare, and being left with nothing. | Reduced down to the two suitcases.. And then the rest of my life started| I was aware of how off kilter we were with our food system.. How much really basic logic we have managed to disrupt. We have created hyper normal problems. | There is a lot of sensible common sense stuff that really we only have to look at the way our great grandparents to get an indication of what a really good sustainable life on this planet looks like. | I have been able to heal from multiple stress related / autoimmune disease I believe and reverse a lot of the markers because of the way I live - in nature, in dirt, in trees. | I describe a serious anxiety order as like carrying a shallow bowl of water around for the rest of my life. | I am feeling very overwhelmed very scared about what is going on in the world. | (talking about her book) I am reframing my anxiety through a new lens.

Links :

www.sarahwilson.com - Sarah’s website Sarah Wilson website

I Quit Sugar Series - author Sarah Wilson

First, We make the Beast Beautiful - author Sarah Wilson

This One Wild and Precious Life: A hopeful path forward in a Fractured World - author Sarah Wilson

Nicho Plowman - Vedic meditation teacher

The Conscious Club - Transformational Learning and Lifestyle centre

Tim Brown - meditator

Hashimoto's disease - information

Dr James Hollis - jungian psychoanalysis.

Food Inc - Joel Salatin movie

Dr. Chris Kresser - renowned expert, leading clinician, and top educator in the fields of Functional Medicine and ancestral health.