REGENERATIVE Farming vs INDUSTRIAL FARMING
Changing a farming system without using polarising language.
Clean communication is essential when discussing a different way of doing something.
Traditional ways are ingrain into our psyche. This is where the use of language is so important.
New ideas and concepts need to flow easily to reduce friction and even worse polarisation. This is what I have learnt over the past nine years.
Communication of ideas and changing perceptions is the difficult bit. Actually implementing change on-farm seems to be the easy part. What I know for certain… start the practical process before the full picture is understood because Mother Nature will always give you the direction you need once you have learned to translate her way of talking.
If you never start the change, you never see the potential waiting for you to act.
“Every healthy ecosystem relies on balance. Even an apex predator has an important role — not to dominate, but to help create a thriving habitat”
What if the question isn't regenerative versus industrial at all?
What if there were just three major parts to the future of farming and leaving a thriving farming legacy.
1. Understanding the 5 Principles
2. Recognising your context.
3. What to put into practice to ensure all 5 principles in your context are being optimised.
The 5 Principles
- Increasing Biodiversity – includes animals, plants and microbes
- Minimise Soil Disturbance – occasional ploughing is ok.
- Keep the Ground Covered – preferably living plants but crimped or slashed organic matter is ok.
- Increase Landscape Function – hold as much water for as long as possible by increasing soil carbon.
- Restore all Cycles – There are many cycles but the top 7 are essential to kick start the rest.
e-book
To understand more about the 5 principles check out our E-BOOK.
"Concise and thought-provoking. This succinct book is the perfect jump-off point for anyone wondering what regenerative farming is all about and how to implement change on your farm.
It will assist you to ask yourself the important questions and gives an overview on why multi-species farming is so exciting. By choosing to dive into regenerative farming after you read this book you will not be alone.
Farming Revolution brings with it a deep-rooted community that will help you flourish in all aspects of your life and business."
Your Context: These are the top 7
- What do you want to achieve?
- Where are you on the brittleness scale?
- What is your soil type?
- How much annual rainfall or better still what’s your sliding scale of rainfall?
- What’s your elevation?
- What’s your longitude and latitude or what is your graphical location?
- Your seasons — when and what does your average growing season look like?
Putting this Knowledge into Practice:
- Pacing yourself — what is your priority? Then list other important jobs but always have a daily priority job. This will include having a day off or having a holiday (more than 2 consecutive days off).
- Knowing your dollars — forming a healthy relationship with money. Don’t guess what is coming in and going out, sit down and work it out. Then plan for the next season.
- Keep your mind open — Stress builds when you don’t have an escape route. Diversify or have a back up plan. If a crop fails can you graze?
- Is your land capable? — No need to gallop just a steady walk from one season to the next. Learn as you walk. Going cold turkey is high risk, so pace yourself. Results will not be seen over night. Give your farming ecosystem a chance to adapt.
- Observe and Document — For your own sanity take photos or hire Farming Revolution to film (hehehe) so that you don’t become despondent that improvements are not being noticed by you. Record everything you do and keep those diaries. There are infinite possibilities when using Multi Species Farming so document seed combinations, what cash crops did you harvest and were they profitable?
Multi Species Farming and Landscape Rehydration
There is no single blueprint for farming with nature. Every landscape is unique, and every farmer brings their own experiences, challenges and opportunities. What connects them is a willingness to observe, adapt and work with the natural function of the landscape.
The following stories showcase different approaches to Multi Species Farming and Landscape Rehydration. From increasing biodiversity and improving water cycles to building resilient farming systems, these examples demonstrate what can happen when we begin farming with nature rather than against it.
Kevin Elmy and Tamzin Revell explain what Multi Species Farming really means. It’s more than just cover cropping and comes in all forms of life; animals, insects, plants and microbes.
From bare ground to a multi species paddock. Martin Williams discusses what Darren Mudford did to his paddock to increase water holding capacity. This farming-country is as far west as you can farm in Australia.
Stuart Andrews demonstrates Natural Sequence Farming on a small scale.
Russell Young of Young Seeds spoke to me in the tractor about how he started and what he has noticed. He is using a roller crimper to terminate and cover the land before he sows his cash crop of sugar drip sorghum.
The Polarising Conversation We've Been Having
Industrial Farming
The Industrial Farming approach has taken a living organism (soil) and degraded it by using the following techniques:
RELEASING CARBON
Releasing carbon from the ground into the atmosphere by ploughing, burning, harvesting and laying fields bare fallow. Without Carbon in the ground water cannot be absorbed, the natural sponge effect disappears and compaction is the end result.
Limiting diversity
Limiting diversity (monoculture) and by growing the same crop year in, year out (no crop rotation) destroys the diverse range of microbes in the soil, this weakens the natural immune system and defence mechanisms of the soil and plants.
Only suppling the soil with synthetic fertilizers
Only suppling the soil with synthetic fertilizers (Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium, (NPK), Urea and Superphosphates). This creates weak plants that are more susceptible to disease because it ignores all the other minerals that plants need. If our food is lacking these essential minerals this results in our diet becoming inadequate and therefore, we are quickly becoming a sick society dependent on taking synthetic drugs.
Using pesticides, herbicides and fungicides
Using pesticides, herbicides and fungicides (‘cides). This strips the soil of all good and bad microorganisms and insects. Residue is left to leach into our waterways and also contaminates our food.
Clearing native species
Clearing native species of flora and trees eliminates pollinating and predatory insects and entire ecosystems.
Over stocking and over grazing
Over stocking and over grazing kills off diverse species of grasses and leaves bare ground open to the effects of erosion by the weather (flooding, wind, searing heat).
The combined effect of all of the above contributes to creating stressed and lifeless ground. The most limiting factor in Australia is compaction. Once the ground is compacted no moisture can soak in (infiltration) therefore no plants can grow. When it rains the water simply runs off, leaching the topsoil and chemicals straight into our waterways and out to sea. This kills aquatic life and increases algae, helping to upset the equilibrium of ecosystems. Once the topsoil has disappeared it leaves our land baron, dry, compacted and hot.
Nothing can grow without Soil Organic Matter (SOM) and soil biology, that is the way nature intended it. Without soil biology, photosynthesising plants can’t survive.
The knock on effect to this is that we cannot produce food! We are at critical point. Something has to change and it has to change immediately.
Regenerative Farming
Regenerative Farming is a unique approach incorporating the ways of the past with up-to-date science. This creates an holistic approach that allows Mother Nature to perform her magical tricks to help produce mineral dense healthy food/crops. This technique starts at grassroots level, protecting our soil is the fundamental part of Regenerative Farming.
The secret is
Photosynthesising plants need to live in the soil all year round, or at the very least, majority of the time. Cropping farmers need to retain as much stubble as possible during harvest to feed the soil biology.
Reseeding a cover crop immediately after harvest has been proven to be more beneficial because the roots and their exudates continue to help keep the soil alive. Keeping plants alive above the soil means retaining the life below (roots and microbes).
Photosynthesis puts Carbon back into the soil
Taking a greenhouse gas from the air and putting it back into the ground. Carbon acts as a big sponge giving microbes a place to live and allows infiltration of moisture to happen.
Carbon is EXTREMELY important in keeping our soil healthy. Taking it out of our atmosphere means it’s a free resource. The nitrogen in our atmosphere is also free so let Mother Nature increase our soil and plant profit, naturally.
A diverse range of photosynthesising plants creates microbial diversity within the soil
And different root systems benefit both the soil and plants’ health (companion planting). They also help to create hummus, this aids in the creation of soil aggregates that aerate the soil and prevent compaction. Soil Organic Matter (SOM) is the most important component of a healthy soil and is converted into hummus with the help of living organisms.
i) Fungi
ii) Bacteria
iii) Protazoa
iv) Worms
v) Insects – above and below the ground
vi) Root exudates – the secretion that allows plants to communicate with each other.
A diverse range of photosynthesising plants increases a diverse range of fungi
Dark fungi are the Carbon sequestering fungi converting the Carbon to melanin a stable form of Carbon within the soil. Mycorrhiza fungi create an increased root surface area to help search for, and uptake specific micro and macro nutrients when the plants require them.
To create a healthy plant actually means an increase in its defence mechanism and the need to use ‘cides decreases drastically. Increasing profit.
Photosynthesising plants with deeper rooting ability, especially perennials, improves infiltration because:
i) Carbon storage is encouraged much deeper in the soil enabling deeper infiltration and water storage capacity. Mother Nature’s natural protective effect against drought, flooding and wind erosion.
ii) They create an attractive environment for the microbes at a much deeper level. Photosynthesis exchanges sugar from the plants’ roots for nutrients and moisture from the microbes and fungi. Therefore the moisture is held much deeper in the ground.
iii) The roots are able to penetrate deeper, therefore they grow stronger plants above ground and help to hold the moisture deeper, away from the climatic changes.
All of the above, helps to create an active biological community that enables the plants to absorb the chemistry (minerals) from the soil. Our food becomes healthy, mineral dense, clean food.
THE BOTTOM LINE
For many years, discussions around agriculture have often been framed as “regenerative versus industrial” creating an environment where people feel they must choose a side.
While understanding the differences can be helpful, lasting change rarely occurs through division.
The future of farming may not lie in winning an argument, but in learning how landscapes function and how we can work with nature to build resilient farming systems.
After all, a fully functioning landscape will reflect back a healthy mind and soul.
