General | The Conscious Farmer

HOW IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING AGRICULTURE?

21 August 2015 / 0 comments

We often hear about how changing climate will affect future generations – our children and grandchildren. This is very true, but we should also realise that it is already affecting us – especially as farmers. Agricultural production is highly influenced by weather, so our businesses are likely to be one of the first affected by climate change (as it affects our weather). Information coming from Australia’s CSIRO (the federal government agency for scientific research) supports this. I learnt this and more when I spoke with Mark Howden of CSIRO recently.

What we often think of regarding climate change is an increase in temperature, and this is true with regard to overall climate and long term average temperatures, but climate change also has other effects on climate. Changes in climate have resulted in more erratic weather events that can affect our agricultural production and increase risk of crop loss. Such erratic weather events place crops at risk of damage; think frosts, drought, hail, intense storms, increased winds etc. Continue reading “HOW IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING AGRICULTURE?” »

CAN FARMERS MAKE MONEY FROM CARBON TRADING?

29 June 2015 / 0 comments

What many of us really want to know about carbon trading is if farmers can make money from it. Recent times have seen more methodologies introduced that are more suited to our farming operations, but are they profitable enough to make the paperwork involved worthwhile? The short answer is – I’m not allowed to say!

An ACCU (Australian Carbon Credit Unit)- which is the tradeable carbon unit, is considered a ‘financial product’ and one must carry an Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence to advise on this. Whilst I have carried such a licence in the past – it is no longer current, so I would be breaking the law to infer, predict or advise any likely financial gain or loss from ACCU’s.

I can however, talk about how much carbon one might be likely to sequester into the soil and you can get your own advice on the financial relationship to this carbon. Continue reading “CAN FARMERS MAKE MONEY FROM CARBON TRADING?” »

CARBON TRADING – now more relevant to you all!

16 June 2015 / 0 comments

Carbon! I usually talk about how it helps our production and how to get more of it in the soil. There is however another aspect to carbon that I haven’t touched on yet. This is the opportunity for farmers to earn money from trading carbon – either storing carbon or reducing the emissions of carbon (and other greenhouse gases). For some, this may be adding extra income to their farm business, while for others the income might be an added bonus to putting carbon in the soil, which they know will benefit their production in many ways.

I don’t know about you, but in the evolution of the Carbon Farming Initiative in Australia (what the last Government called the agriculture component of carbon trading), I felt a bit like switching off from the politics involved with it. As a farmer, I felt – “Just give me something that’s easy to work with on-ground!” This is why I am grateful for people like Louisa Kiely of Carbon Farmers of Australia. Louisa has contributed to the hard work for us, to help get our industry to a point where there are now some usable aspects of the Australian Governments’ carbon reduction scheme. This is why I’ve chosen to speak with Louisa about where things are up to with carbon trading and the now called Emissions Reduction Fund. Continue reading “CARBON TRADING – now more relevant to you all!” »

A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MINDSET

2 February 2015 / 4 comments

If we want to be successful business people it’s not all just about doing the right thing in the paddock. We need to be good planners, good budgeters, etc, but something we often overlook is our mindset. The good thing about improving our mindset is that it not only improves our businesses, but also improves all aspects of our lives! Derek and I have been on a path of improving our mindset – and I suppose mindset is fairly apt to regenerative farming, because we are in essence regenerating our minds and this can have really great outcomes for our business.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that we only use 10% of our brain. Now I’m not sure if this is right, but what this is getting at is that we rely so much on our conscious minds and forget the role of our subconscious. (All of our teaching, schooling and universities are all aimed at developing the conscious mind). The subconscious mind is where our emotions come from (among other things), most of which are generated as a reaction to things around us, and are ideas and reactions formed from earlier life experiences. Some of these reactions will be positive and supportive while some of them hold us back. It is highly useful to be aware of these reactions when we are communicating and making business decisions. The tricky thing is, and what I’ve come to realise, is that we are rarely conscious of these reactionary emotions and THIS is what can make them difficult to identify and to change or improve, ultimately leading to an undermining of our success.
So we have to actually be more CONSCIOUS in the short term in order to re-train our subconscious in a more supportive manner. “Consciousness is observing your thoughts and actions so that you can live from true choice in the present moment rather than being run by programming from the past.”¹ Continue reading “A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MINDSET” »

WATER SPREADING BANKS

29 January 2015 / 0 comments

If some of our most marginal grazing country can be regenerated from 5% groundcover to 80% groundcover, then surely there is the ability to regenerate virtually all our agricultural land. The marginal country I’m talking about is in western NSW, northwest of Cobar in Australia. I mention this marginal country because the McMurtrie family have used water spreading banks (combined with thoughtful grazing management) to help regenerate areas of their property and I thought this was a good flow on from last week’s topic.

I will first point out that water spreading banks are NOT keyline farming as I talked of last week – where water is spread from the valleys to the ridges. Water spreading banks however, have a similar purpose in that they aim to alter water movement and runoff, spreading and slowing water movement so that there is more opportunity to infiltrate rainfall into the soil.

VALUING EVERY DROP OF RAINFALL – with Keyline Design

19 January 2015 / 0 comments

What Mark Shepard has achieved at New Forest Farm is truly inspiring, admirable, provides hope and is enviable to anyone interested in nutrient dense, chemical free food production and consumption and most certainly to farmers – with its low inputs and high outputs. But it is also daunting, overwhelming and, honestly, in the past has actually made me switch off to a degree, because its production system is so far removed from our current beef cattle grazing operation or from the monoculture cropping enterprises of current agriculture. Do you ever feel a little like that?

It’s like I haven’t been able to bridge the gap on a ‘how to’ basis between what currently is and this pinnacle of agriculture of what could be. But let me describe it to you and see how we could apply some of the techniques to our farms.

New Forest Farm is a perennial permaculture farm in Wisconsin, USA that grows chestnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, apples, asparagus and other fruit, nuts and berries, as well as raising cattle, pigs and turkeys (see above image). It has been regenerated from what was a degraded, eroded, chemical intensive monoculture cropping farm. Rich, dark, humic soils have been built from degraded, hard setting, dead red-clay soils. All this regeneration and production has occurred without the use of pesticides or artificial fertilisers. The farm is “agriculture redesigned in nature’s image” as Mark described it to me. Continue reading “VALUING EVERY DROP OF RAINFALL – with Keyline Design” »

TREES AS PRODUCTIVE BIODIVERSITY

22 December 2014 / 2 comments

If there is a consistent message coming out of regenerative agriculture practices of all kinds it is the need for soil biology, and for a diversity of this. We gain this from a diversity of species of plants, as well as animals.

I used to think about biodiversity as diversity in the soil, or in our pastures or of native fauna – all of which might have benefited and supported the production of one product from an area of land – be it beef, lamb, goats, wheat or corn. But of late, (as well as the wonderful benefits that biodiversity can offer to a current traditional production system), I have started to consider biodiversity from the point of view of the number of layers of productive biodiversity that we can have. Continue reading “TREES AS PRODUCTIVE BIODIVERSITY” »

OPPORTUNITIES IN PRODUCING CLEAN, NOURISHING FOOD

14 December 2014 / 0 comments

It’s always great to get off the farm as I find I think in fresh ways and from a different perspective. Mix with this being surrounded by people equally as passionate about farming in a conscious manner and it’s a pretty good combination – as we found at Acres USA. I will share with you some detail of practices and growers techniques in time, but today I want to discuss where our food producing systems have gone wrong and that this creates opportunities for us as growers.

I am always aware of how our crop and livestock production systems affect the quality of soils, our animals and our food and, in turn, the health of us and our families. After all, this is one of the reasons we changed the way we do things on our farm. With young children, I wanted them to live in a safe, clean environment and I wanted to produce a product that is safe to consume. As well as chemical free, I want to produce a mineral dense food that nourishes our bodies.

Despite being well aware of the problems with conventional production systems and the associated health problems, (and even changing our practices accordingly), I am still shocked as to the seriousness of this problem when I hear people like Don Huber of Purdue University speak. Don shared the science behind why we should be concerned about the impacts of Glyphosate and GMO’s on the health of our soils, plants, animals and ourselves. Continue reading “OPPORTUNITIES IN PRODUCING CLEAN, NOURISHING FOOD” »

LET’S DIP OUR TOE IN THE WATER

6 November 2014 / 0 comments

If we want to grow our businesses and improve our yield/ profit/ fulfillment, we need to always be looking for a better way of doing things. It’s great to learn new ideas and become enthused about a new system, but if we don’t act then nothing changes. I’d like to encourage you to try something different this season. Or have you already tried something different on your farm recently? In trying something different I don’t necessarily want to use the word ‘trial’ as this tends to indicate multiple plots tested under the reductionist mentality – where one input is changed and the outcome or yield tested accordingly. With the complexities of nature’s systems, to alter one input and look at the effects sort of misses the point of many of the processes used in regenerative agriculture. The symbiosis created from changing several things can be of great benefit and missed in the reductionist scientific model.

Doing something different may mean you have to be a little brave. Continue reading “LET’S DIP OUR TOE IN THE WATER” »

WHY REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE?

12 June 2014 / 1 comments

I will delve into the first of many and wonderful sustainable farming practices in the next few weeks, but first I want to shout out to everyone why Regenerative Agriculture is so important.

We must REBUILD, not just sustain

The human induced degradation of soils worldwide has been significant. In Australia this has predominantly been since European settlement and its associated impacts of grazing and farming the land. To purely ‘sustain’ our soils, river systems and environment at the current state is simply not enough. We need to regenerate and build our soils to a state better than where they currently are. We have encroaching desertification, loss of soil carbon, loss of soil life, acid soils, dryland salinity, lowered nutrient contents of the foods produced from these soils and massive increases in chronic human disease in developed countries in the last 50 years, which many attribute to increased pesticide use and lower nutrient contents of food. We have the opportunity to turn this around!

Continue reading “WHY REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE?” »

WELCOME

10 April 2014 / 0 comments

I’m REALLY excited to be sharing with you the first of what will be many inspiring regenerative agriculture Conscious Farmer blogs!

I have previously experienced wonderful learning amongst farmers when they share their own experiences -both their wins and challenges. So much so, that I have been driven to start this blog – to shine the light on regenerative agriculture, to explore the science behind the experiences and to facilitate this sharing on a global scale.

It is you and I, it is all of us, who can revive our landscapes, enliven our soils and help return farming such that we produce healthy, quality food.

My weekly blogs will spark ideas in you for sustainable, productive farm practices in your grazing and cropping systems; they will:

Continue reading “WELCOME” »