297 Chris Henggeler - Standing on the shoulders of giants (Savory, Ingham, Provenza) and managing over 77000 hectares in remote Australia

A conversation with Chris Henggeler, a second-generation high-density, low-duration herder using herds for land management. From one of the most remote places in Australia, we explore big myths like many animals damage the land, to a huge question: can we actually put the new megafauna to work? Farms need to get smaller, and ranches need to get bigger. If you want to retire in security, you have a vested interest in healthy landscapes.

How do we invest as if our grandchildren mattered? How do we ground investing in ecology, and what human activity is restraining nature from building wealth? This and much more in the conversation with Chris.

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https://foodhub.nl/en/opleidingen/your-path-forward-in-regenerative-food-and-agriculture/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

We cover so much in this interview straight from one of the most remote places in Australia, and that says something, from big myths like many animals damage the land to a huge question Can we actually put the new megafauna to work? And farms need to get much smaller and ranches need to get much bigger. And if you want to retire in security, you have a vested interest in healthy landscapes. And how do we invest as if our grand-grandchildren mattered? And how to ground investing in ecology and what human activity is restraining nature from building wealth? This and much more in the interview of today. Enjoy.

Speaker 1: 1:03

This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast Investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems, while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today. Thank you, soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community and so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you If our work created value for you and if you have the means, and only if you have the means, consider joining us. Find out more on gumroadcom slash investing in RegenEgg. That is, gumroadcom slash investing in RegenEgg, or find the link below. Welcome to another episode today with a second generation high density, low duration herder. Using herds for land management.

Speaker 2: 2:24

Welcome Chris, welcome Koen. Thank you for having me on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 2:27

And this is an enormous pleasure because I've read about you and we got an intro through a shared friend, judith D Swartz. First of all, shout out to Judith, who's always making amazing introductions for this podcast. But for the people that don't know you, because that one sentence introduction doesn't, I mean, does justice, but there's a lot underneath that. Let's say and I always like to start with a question um, what got you into, say, spending most of your awake hours focusing on soil? Um, and and worried about soil or interested in soil. Like, how did you get into? You mentioned second generation, but it could also mean let's escape as far as possible, but you decided to spend most of your wake hours around soil. How did you get there?

Speaker 2: 3:13

It was forced on me, or, shall I say, dropped into my lap. I found this place, which nobody wanted, and it had sunshine, it had nearly a meter of rain every year and there were soils being washed away. So we had uncontaminated soil that had productive capacity and was being washed away, and this is on a world where some people are going hungry. So the farmer in me rebelled and I said well, we've got to at least stabilize these soils, and I guess that's that's the beginning of my soil journey, and it's gone a long way.

Speaker 1: 3:51

There's still a yeah and do you remember because this is in a, let's say, quite a remote place and remote here is an understatement um, it's not that you stumble upon this by accident or you see it from the side of the road or something, because literally you can't Like, how did you see this? And do you remember that moment where you saw the soil washed away or saw this opportunity? Like, this is an opportunity, this is not just like a landscape that nobody wants to to manage, like do you remember? Like how did you, how did you get to see this opportunity? Um, from in a very remote place.

Speaker 2: 4:31

Well, the opportunity. I was very opportunistic. I was actually sort of a lifestyle refugee. I came to australia looking for a place where I could commit and and hopefully, um, do something involved with the land, and I didn't have enough money to get into something that was up and running. So it was either something very run down, something small, something part of a place or something very remote. So I had a look at a number of things and then Kachana did tick a number of boxes. But what really got me enthusiastic about the area was when I first flew over. I saw the water and I flew over.

Speaker 2: 5:06

It was this time in 1985, we flew over the country and everything was green, but there was also some patches with flowing water and green forests and then I thought, well, that's interesting, interesting. So I decided to come back end of the year in September when, after a few months of dry weather before the rainy season, started to see how permanent that water was. And there was definitely there were quite a bit of there's quite a bit of perennially flowing water and which was well, it was new to me. I'd work my way across the northern Australia from east to west and finally, when I saw all that flowing water, I thought, well, that has to be worth something, although it wasn't really cattle country and I didn't see much soil. And then by the time we actually got out here and that's moved out as a family in 91, I realized that the very areas that had attracted me, these little oases in the valleys, nested in the valleys, they were eroding, they were being cut by erosion and then drained, and then we were just losing this incredible resource, which hadn't provided any money to anybody ever, and yet we were losing it. So instead of plan A, where I was going to do tourism and focus on money generating money, I needed to find out how am I going to stop tourism and focus on money generating money? I needed to find out how am I going to stop this hemorrhaging, how can we hang on to the little soil that we've got and take things from there? So in 92, I seriously began experimenting and we got some very good results by 95, by 97. But what I was doing is I was actually using African models that I'd seen work in Southern Africa, where I grew up and that's why I'm calling myself second generation.

Speaker 2: 6:56

Dad was the first generation using herds in high density for low duration for the mulching, even fertilizing, and the pruning effect they have on plants. So he picked up his knowledge in Kenya and then applied it on our little farm in Rhodesia at the time and I grew up with that. But then I came to Australia and everything was different. So it was only when we were losing all these soils I thought well, hang on, we've got these introduced herds, we have introduced pasture species that are deeper rooted. Could I use these introduced or new Australian pasture species to hold the soils together, new Australian megafauna to keep the pasture healthy? And so my experimentation started. But by 97, we had very encouraging results. But then the question was have I now just have I put an African skin graft onto an Aboriginal wound and is that going to be rejected in 30 years or something?

Speaker 2: 7:53

So in 97, at the ripe old age of 40, I had to go back to school. It was the first time I willingly went to school and started learning about soil and started learning about soil and fortunately you know Alan Savory, elaine Ingham came. Well, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So we had a few teachers appear. The other very interesting fact that also I became aware of only in the late 90s was that Australia, many thousands of years ago, when the first humans arrived, did have large animals. So all of a sudden, with this new regenerative knowledge that was already coming from various sides, and then the gut feelings that I had and what the country was trying to tell me, all of a sudden things started to make sense. And then, in the early 2000s, the internet started. So next thing we could be communicating. Farmers on three different continents could start communicating with each other. So it was actually a very exciting time to be trying new ideas.

Speaker 1: 8:53

There's so many things to unpack there, but I wanted to unpack that feeling you had in, let's say, 97. You saw something was working. In your experimentation you were using imported herds or new herds to Australia and relatively new species as well. When did that feeling start to? Maybe I'm just putting a small Band-Aid on a wound that's going to be rejected in a bit. Maybe this is a temporary fix. When did that doubt started to to appear, and and how did that manifest itself? Apart from that, you went to school, but how did that doubt start to to?

Speaker 2: 9:28

to talk to, you the doubt, the doubt was there. Well, not doubt, but caution was there right from the start. I was new to the country, so no local knowledge, but there was no local knowledge to tap into for this sort of stuff either, so I was certainly treading with caution. My experience in the pastoral industry, working my way across northern Australia, was that the pastoral industry was capitalizing on Australia's new megafauna to support an industry. Pastoral industry was capitalizing on Australia's new megafauna to support an industry. However, we were mining the tops of Australia's soil with native pasture and set stocking practices that we had, and then new pasture species got introduced by the industry and well, we were just mining deeper. So I was fully aware that the pastoral industry or a lot of the pastoral industry.

Speaker 2: 10:23

Great, deeper, deeper roots, amazing but a lot of that was not sustainable. Yes, however, when I, when I had my challenge, when I saw these eroding soils, I saw I said, well, I'll use a band-aid measure because if we can stabilize the soils, we can then pursue the academic debate of what do we want to do with it. But if we don't have soils, we can't have that debate. So that's why I resorted to Band-Aid measures, and I did this with the blessing of the department at the time. So we got photo monitoring sites which we established and we started annual monitoring and I was experimenting with the knowledge that I had from Africa, using new Australian species, including myself. But then, once we'd stabilized the soils, well, there were two other challenges, and that is fireproof and build biodiversity, and I had a very, very I still have a very basic approach. As long as I can see more biomass every year, if I can see species I've never seen before appear, if I've seen species that I've seen before in areas where they've never been before, I believe I'm more or less on the right track. In areas where they've never been before, I believe I'm more or less on the right track. However, I'm still moving forward with caution and uncertainty and that's why I found it very important to try and understand as much as possible about what's going on underground.

Speaker 2: 11:53

And so the macro herd management. Savory had refined that quite a bit. So just rewind back in the 50s and 60s when dad had his little farm in southern Africa. He was using herds for conservation purposes and was winning land care trophies, but he wasn't making money with the cattle. Now he solved that dilemma by having photographic tourism to support his land care efforts. And our neighbors who were making money with cattle weren't winning any trophies for their land care. So we still.

Speaker 2: 12:20

When we left Rhodesia, we realized there was something that just didn't match. And then, thanks to Alan Savory and the people that he networked with over three continents, we were able to put the pieces together. So the macro herd management I thank Alan Savory for. So the macro herd management I thank Alan Savory for. Then in 1999, I found out about Elaine Ingham, about the micro herds underneath the soil and how the grass farming actually feeds the micro herds, and that really helped me. I was able to move forward with the conference, but then I was also able to compare notes with other people thanks to the internet. That was very important, but I think it's important all the while to understand that what we're doing is relatively new.

Speaker 2: 13:09

Success well, what is it? Those people who succeed have just got up one more time and they fell down. So success is a very fleeting goal. We've got to keep on working at picking ourselves up and adapting and learning as we go, and I think we've got a long, long way to go before we can be sure about what we're doing. But I think that's something that I find, but I think that's something that's very good. In the whole regenerative philosophy, or the different philosophies, that's one thing in common that we actually move forward with a sense of caution, knowing that we've made mistakes before, knowing that we've all made mistakes, and knowing we will make mistakes again, again, and try and be more responsive to indications that nature's trying to alert us to. So nature's definitely the best teacher.

Speaker 1: 14:07

Your definition, almost, your definition of success. Yeah, and your definition of success, or what you said before, like I know that I'm on the right path. When I see species popping up that we haven't seen before, or I see species that we have seen before, but in other places, and I see biodiversity basically increasing and biomass increasing every year, then we're on a good path. Is it a success? No, is it done? No, but it's. It's at least in the direct. The direction of travel is positive and is is towards more complexity and and more, more complexity and more activity, and more sunlight being turned into something useful instead of being radiated and heating up the planet. So I think that's sort of almost the definition of regeneration. I think it's a very humble one, but a very, very good one.

Speaker 1: 14:52

And you're saying we're early, sorry, let's go back one step just for people to understand what we're talking about, in terms of where you are, more or less, in terms of the map of australia, just to give people understanding. I will put links below, of course, people can google it um, but and and what kind of size of operation or size of land we're talking about? Just to give people an understanding and a feeling, because this is, uh, bigger than we are not used to, but in Australia everything seems bigger. So just to give people a bit of an audio tour what we see because you said we fly over the land I mean that already says something how big it is, but what do you see when you would walk out of your place, and how many hectares or acres are we talking about? Just to give a bit of a feeling to this audio, because we don't have all right.

Speaker 2: 15:36

so we're in the northwest of australia, we're actually closer to singapore than we are to our capital city, perth, and melbourne, and um, we have, we have the managerial responsibility or the custodianship role on an area that is 75, 77 and a half thousandares, which is actually small for this part of the world. Most of the areas are sort of 4,000 square kilometers, so that's quite a bit more. So we've got 775 square kilometers. Now, of that there's only 300 hectares that we manage intensively, and then there's 2,500 to 3,000 hectares that we manage semi-intensively and the rest we manage extensively. But back to what I was saying earlier on.

Speaker 1: 16:30

And when you say that, what does it mean? What does that mean Like intensively semi and extensively in your world. What does that mean like intensively semi and and extensively in in your world.

Speaker 2: 16:39

What does that right? So I'm I'm using the herds as my main tool. So the challenge is to have the right number of animals at the right place, at the right time for the right reason, in the right frame of mind, doing their work as a herd. And we can only we've only got a few hundred head of cattle, so we can't be doing that everywhere. And also I don't know whether this works Well.

Speaker 2: 17:08

We didn't know how to go about it when we first started, so we focused on a small area. Actually, I was a bit enthusiastic. I started on 30 square kilometers and then we actually created our own fire nightmare, and so I've actually had to sort of downsize and just tease out what's possible on smaller areas. And another indicator is hydration. So I mentioned about more biodiversity and everything, but by using more miles and more hooves we actually got more grass to grow, and by getting more grass to grow we get more water infiltrating and less water evaporating. So we ended up getting permanent stream flow within three years in areas where the in streams that used to seasonally run dry or stop flowing, and now, after 30 years, regardless of season, every year we're seeing new springs appear somewhere. So it's all right, geography's on our side as well, or topography's on our side as well, but what we're using is we're using these herds to literally put a biological plug at the base of the mountain range or the hills you'd call them here, you don't call them where you are, but we call them mountains. But at the bottom of the range is we're just plugging up these areas where we were losing water. So it's yeah, it was just a hydration.

Speaker 2: 18:44

Hydrating the landscape or rehydrating the landscape is also, in my mind, a very important measurement of our progress, because, you know, people talk about biosecurity these days. I'm actually saying, well, unless we have water security, we don't have biosecurity, because water underpins all life and on a continent that's already reasonably dry, if we're losing springs and perennial flow in areas where, until very recent times, we had all that, well you know, that sets off alarm bells in my mind, and so I feel it's more important to find out what really works and what are the pitfalls, and then potentially overextending myself and trying to do the whole area, but in the indirect management, of course, what we're doing is we also use fire. We have this predicament in Australia that we don't have enough herbivores to cycle the vegetation that grows each year. And if that vegetation isn't cycled through biology, we feed flames with devastating effect, and that's why we still need to manage extensively the stuff.

Speaker 1: 20:07

Let's sink in for a second. So you don't have enough herbivores on Australia soil to turn the biomass into um, into, not flames, let's say so. That's just to for the whole discussion on animals. It's fascinating to hear the very like look, if we don't eat this stuff, it will burn, and if we, which is extremely polluting, dangerous and and all of that um just to to double click on that piece. It's. It's good for people to sink in, not that it's a new theme here on the podcast, but just to let them sink in A certain portion, of course.

Speaker 2: 20:40

I'm not talking about big trees or whatever. A healthy forest that has its own microclimate isn't going to burn readily. However, there are forests where you do need the dry stuff to be pressed down to the ground so that when the next rain comes it can compost. And yeah, just, the function of the herbivore in seasonally dry country, in seasonally dry landscapes, is the gardening function. It's nature's gardeners. They literally mulch evenly, fertilize and prune vegetation. And I mean, if someone gave us a bucket of sand and said, grow something, well the first thing we'd need to do is put a bit of mulch on there and then fertilize and chuck a seed on there and hydrate it. It's just.

Speaker 2: 21:30

And animals do all that, and especially our herding animals in the dry season. Well, each one of them I'm talking aboutologically active microsites that are highly active for about two months, and then they go dormant and they're ready to explode with life when it starts raining again. And all that has been absent for thousands of years. And now we have this opportunity where we have more people, more demands, but we have the new herbivore, the new megafauna, and the question is can we put the new megafauna to work, to perform the tasks that the extinct megafauna would have done, would have performed, and I don't think we need to be rangeland scientists or vets. I mean, I don't know your background, Kuhn, but if I gave you a kangaroo, and a knife and I'd say well, can you find the heart or the kidney?

Speaker 2: 22:45

you'd probably be able to find it for me and you'd be able to tell me what it is. And it's the same with a mouse or an elephant. Or if the heart of an animal has the same function, the kidney has the same function, whether it's a large animal or a small animal. And although we've got totally different continents, wetland systems on different continents basically function the same. Forest systems on different continents basically function the same. Savannah systems on different continents basically function the same. So, even if the players aren't quite the same and don't behave quite in the same manner, their function is the same. Don't behave quite in the same manner, their function is the same. And that's the exciting thing is that you know we have we have the opportunity for pastoralism to rebuild australia's ecological foundations, which were significantly impaired when the, when the megafauna disappeared thousands of years ago and you're saying we're early and and at the same time, you you started in 87 um.

Speaker 1: 23:37

has something changed in your mind, like in Australia or in the discussion? Of course, the internet came. You can now communicate, we're recording this online. To begin with, that wasn't possible back then. We have this opportunity, you say. Do you see signs that we're starting to take that opportunity seriously as, let's say, a beneficial keystone species that we take the role of, of ruminants, um and herbivores seriously compared to when you started? Is there um? I'm not saying hope, but what do you see? Like we're now in 24 um compared to an 87 in in terms of this knowledge, in this practice, in this um implementation of this at scale as well.

Speaker 2: 24:24

It's very interesting because people, each context, is different. In each context you have different people aspiring to different things, and in Australia we are very spoiled. We have a lot more land than we need, and it's certainly my appreciation of what I've experienced in the last 40 years is that Australia will run out of water security long before it runs out of things to eat. So we don't really, whereas in other parts of the world, where you've got higher population density, you know we focus on better food stories and you know, if you have a good at a farming level, if you produce a good food story, automatically your water story improves. And so the regenerative movement is fantastic and it's being embraced by industry well, by farming and agriculture, where we're looking at feeding people. However, the bulk of Australia doesn't feed people, and the bulk of Australia is where the bulk of the rain drops and it's where the wild fires grow and where the floods grow and where the droughts grow. And this is where I think well, this is where I'm excited about the regenerative movement that we can actually take tools and expertise that's already been tested worldwide and in Australia by the industry, take it beyond the production zones, into the watersheds, into landscapes, and start rehydrating our landscapes, reducing the flood damage and danger, reducing the fire hazards and, who knows, if what I'm seeing in how we are creating microclimates if we can roll that out on catchment, on bigger catchments, we may actually start building more resilient regional climates. Because, at the end of the day, to survive, we want biosecurity, hydration. But we're looking about biology and life forces, but underpinning all that is physics, and if biology can't cope with the physics, well, the physics will kill us. And this is where the biology is going to be strong enough or the biodiversity has to be strong enough that the sunshine and the rain, these life-giving forces, actually provide life rather than destroy life through floods and radiation.

Speaker 1: 26:57

Destroy, destroy life through floods and radiation destroy. And that begs the question you are at 300 heads now. Do you feel comfortable? Um, that I'm not saying you find a recipe, you're practical, but you're comfortable enough, like if you had way more cattle, or like would you feel comfortable managing more of the land? You're managing intensively and not extensively, or is that the wrong question to ask here?

Speaker 2: 27:28

I'd like to reframe that perhaps, and I'll quote Savory and then I'll paraphrase him. Savory said once farms need to get smaller and ranches need to get bigger. I'll take that a step further and I'll say nutrient production needs to intensify, landscape management and environmental services needs to extensify. Management and environmental services needs to extensify. And does that answer your question?

Speaker 1: 28:03

Absolutely, and I think you are in the landscape services side. So that would mean you could grow bigger or you could manage more land intensively with herds, not necessarily for the food production but for fire risk and literally restoring water cycles, as we've discussed many times on the podcast. Do you feel like you're in the food side of things? You have to intensify on a smaller piece but really intensify your impact there.

Speaker 2: 28:36

All right, I'll answer that as best I can. What we do is is scale neutral. If biology does all the heavy heavy lifting, we're scale neutral. So what works on a square meter will work on a hectare, will work in a catchment, will work on a in a region. So there's absolutely, absolutely no problem upscaling this. However, if we want to provide food, if we want to provide red meat, I firmly believe that red meat should be a byproduct of large herbivores doing what nature designed them to do, and we could. I mean I have not in my 40 years in Australia, or over 40 years, I have not seen a single property which couldn't run four times the amount of animals. I'm not saying it could produce four times the amount of beef every year. I'm saying it could run the same amount of four times more animals and it's easier to add product.

Speaker 1: 29:33

And what's holding us back there then? And what's holding us back there then? Because there's always this discussion of sorry to interrupt, but like there's always this yeah, but we could never feed the world like all this mega claims we always put there, and you're basically saying like we're scratching the surface of how much life we could run or could facilitate on many in the place in Australia context specific, obviously what seems to be holding us back to even I'm not saying doing it, but even believing that it's possible to have more more water, more life, more biomass, more biodiversity, more insects and more cattle running on on these lands as well um, two things are holding us back, I think.

Speaker 2: 30:13

One is that the science isn't evaluating what we're doing fast enough and perhaps through a conventional set of lenses we actually need to sort of, we need to relate what we do towards an aspired outcome rather than just observing activities and documenting activities. But the other thing, I guess the biggest restraint at the moment and I'm not sure what it's like in the different states, but certainly here where I am in Western Australia at departmental levels there is an understanding that too many animals do damage to the landscape, and I think that understanding is scientifically forlorn and Savory has been trying to break that news to the world for 60 odd years now. What we've proven on a small area which is another reason why I focus on a small area, because if you stuff up a small area, well, you can fix it, whereas if I do it on a whole catchment level, well then it's a different thing. So that's why we've got to the stage where I can safely say with confidence we need to look at this and we need to throw some rigorous scientific analysis behind it, because if there's substance to what we've been doing the last 35 years, more people need to know about it. More people, more brains need to be applied, more innovation needs to happen, and if it's not working well, then I certainly want to know too. But so we do need the science, but we need the community understanding and the regulatory backing.

Speaker 2: 32:04

And I guess what's so counterintuitive about what I'm talking about is your conventional business thinking, where people are told focus on the 20% that give you 80% of the income and forget about the 80% that are only giving you 20% of the income. Well, if you apply that thinking to your restaurant, you'd say well, where the tables and chairs are, that's where the money comes in. The kitchen costs me money, let's get rid of the kitchen and have more tables and chairs. And that thinking doesn't work in the natural world. We've got to look at the whole.

Speaker 2: 32:35

And just because we can't get money out of it, it's still where the water comes, and we've got to start putting value on the water and the environmental services, the purification of the air, the filtration of the water. And we had a great little example last year. Well, a little example it's a half a billion dollars of unexpected expenses because a river got washed away, a bridge got washed away and a main highway north to south got severed and that impacted every business up here. It even impacted prices on the grocery shelves, and that is simply as a function of the deterioration in these catchments. Now we live right next to that, on the same watershed, just on the other side of it, and we've been watching these phenomenal rainfalls every year and we can see where these floods come from, and it's just a function of bare ground shedding water faster, and it is so. There are services that the industry could provide, maybe not making money, but just saving costs, just saving the Band-Aid, reducing the Band-Aid measures that we're already paying for every year.

Speaker 1: 33:49

And in your landscape. How do you choose where to focus intensively or semi-intensive, or extensively? How do you pick the? Apart from logistics, which, of course, are important, how do you get your herd where and how do you get water, etc. But how do you, how do you decide where to focus? This is always the same. Does it change over a year? How do you? How do you plan? How do you pick?

Speaker 2: 34:12

not everybody has a gym to go and work out now. Most people who go to gym, they have a sort of regular workout sessions. But you can be healthy and fit without a gym. It just means understanding what needs to happen and as long as you're conscious of what you want to achieve, you will move. Here's an opportunity to you know, while you're waiting, you can do some pull-ups or you can do some press-ups somewhere else. You've got a sore leg? Well, while you're waiting, you can do some pull-ups or you can do some press-ups somewhere else. You've got a sore leg? Well, maybe you can just have a rest.

Speaker 2: 34:59

There's, it's the land. Going through the landscape with the herd and the animals will tell you as well. You build depending on whether you want it to pull a buggy or you want your child to be able to sit on it, or, if you want it, you know, become a show jumper. Well, depending, you'll do different things because you know what the outcome is. And now, in this case, I just want a healthy landscape to start off with, and then, once the landscape is rehydrated and coming back to health, then we can start looking at. Well, you know, which enterprises should we focus on for revenue, or what does the country need? And that standard ecological answer, of course, according to Elaine Ingham, is it depends. It really does depend, and time moves on and challenges move on, so it.

Speaker 2: 35:40

I think the important thing is just that we re-establish our ties to the land that supports us and the landscapes that's that surround our nutrients, supplying areas, and then, as a community, start looking and see and and and taking note of where we're going, and perhaps start coming up with new visions and say well, what would we like for our grandchildren? What opportunities Are they like? A rural community? Maybe we want young people to stay and not move off to the cities? Well, if we want that to happen, what do we need to do? Well, if we want that to happen, what do we need to do?

Speaker 2: 36:20

We're all in this together, and I think the important thing is that and this is where the media is so important you're building bridges between the various teams. We've got us on the ground, who are trying to do the bottom-up stuff. Then you've got the regulators, who have the top-down supervision. But that top-down supervision has to be in line with how nature works, and so we have to communicate there. But we've also got to communicate to local government. We've got to communicate with the local community, and so we're all in this together's. Nature's given us these cyclical um relationships, and there's no reason why we can't um as humans sort of yeah, mimic a bit more from from the bigger design, which sort of seems to have functioned very well for thousands of years and what if we would do this conversation?

Speaker 1: 37:20

uh, you mentioned the local government, but also, let's say, the another world where we try to build bridges, especially with with this podcast, but also in general. It's, let's say, the world of finance and the world of entrepreneurship, and and that are starting to get more interested in food and agriculture and the regeneration perspective. Um, let's say, we do this in a, in the theater, in the business center of perth, or um singapore, which is closer, as you mentioned before, and we have a theater full of people that are managing their money we could argue if it's theirs or not um, but also maybe other people's money pension funds and things like that and they're very excited. We've shown many pictures, we're on stage, but we also know that people forget things very quickly. So, if there was one thing you want them to remember, if there's like a seed you want to plant in their mind, what would that be?

Speaker 2: 38:13

The seed that I would like to plant in the mind of those who have accessible wealth is if you wish for retirement insecurity and old age, you have a vested interest in healthy landscapes. You have a vested interest in healthy landscapes and I think that we have a very graphic example there in 2009, the drought in Syria, where, according to the information that I read, a million farm families left their farms and went to the city. Now, just in one season. I don't think there's any city in the world that could handle a million farm families who are destitute and have to walk away. Just the social ramifications and people like Savory have been saying this for decades that poor land will eventually lead to conflict and violence. And what I'm seeing here in northern Australia by the time these problems reach the city limits, it's going to be game over. So if you're comfortable in the cities and you need to have an interest in what's happening out there and I actually think that an investment in healthy landscapes, in rehydrating the continent, would be cheap insurance policy for the one percenters and it would provide an awful lot of work, or not even work. I'm not talking about providing jobs here. I'm saying you're creating incentives for self-starters to really kickstart the economy from the bottom up and leaving a legacy for the next generation.

Speaker 2: 40:00

And if we look at how nature works, nature's economy work on paying it forward and there's no reason why we couldn't be doing that as well. There's no reason why we couldn't be doing that as well, paying it forward, that we actually we are doing it to some extent, but to do it more consciously, do it more proactively, that we actually, if we've had a good run with our lives, like I have, use that privilege to allow young, to create space for young people to also move forward and get them to pay it forward as well. And we make a decision when we, with our own children, when we say, oh, we're going to send them to good schools or teach them to be civilized humans. There's an investment in time and money there, which and the return is well, hopefully, security and old age, and they pass that on. And that's how nature works. And whether it's wild birds feeding their hatchlings or a wild herd protecting its young, yeah, that's how nature works. So it's bringing that investment thinking back or grounding the investment thinking in our ecology or in our futures.

Speaker 1: 41:26

Probably the message that I'd like to, or the seed that I'd like to plant and for people that are, like, for sure you've had people visit and like, how do we? My question is I'm asking this because we we often see people in big city centers in in, let's say, the, the financial world, financial jobs, etc. They, and also government, as you mentioned before they don't really know or are exposed to how nature works and biology works and how that all underpins, like a healthy watershed and even those terms are are sort of like, how do we, um, have you seen that? How do we expose them to that in a way that it hits home? Or how do we make sure that that divide as well?

Speaker 1: 42:14

Because if you're in your comfortable home nice air conditioning, nice air-conditioned car you go to your comfortable office, your food gets delivered and all of those things which, for the happy few, is definitely the case um, do we have to bring them to to a station like yourself, to really experience things? Like, how do we make, um more people feel it, not only read it online, like, oh yeah, we're all part of nature, great, we're all in this together but to really understand the power of animals and the power of regeneration or rehydrating landscapes have you seen that on your farm as well? Like people coming and the light bulb moments, or like transformation when, when people visit, or how do we do that from from the glass buildings to buildings, to understanding soil butter.

Speaker 2: 43:00

Well, the people who've come here over the years, most people stay at least three days, so in that time that's enough for people to actually appreciate what's going on and then hopefully go back with a different perspective. But I don't think it's necessary for everybody to actually move out and actually see anything as remote as what we're doing. It's just understanding how nature works. I think you know, when I was a kid, 50, 60 years ago, well, it was obvious that you want your children to have numeric and alphabetic literacy. By the time I got into business, well, computer literacy became an imperative and I think what we now need is environmental literacy. If we want our species to thrive, we need to reroute ourselves in the ecosystems that nurture us and keep us alive. So there is definitely a schooling element and a reattachment element. That is necessary and otherwise nature does select. I mean, if you look at a tree or something that produces seeds, there's millions and millions of seeds that just get wasted and don't grow into trees, yeah. But if we want that to happen to our children and grandchildren, millions and millions of seeds that just get wasted and don't grow into trees, yeah. But if we want that to happen to our children and grandchildren. Well, we keep going the way we are, but if we actually wish for our children and grandchildren to actually have opportunity and the sort of privileges that we've had, well, we need to understand what supports these opportunities. What supports these opportunities? So I think there's a big responsibility there for those who have the means to look beyond their immediate gratification and understand their good fortune but also understand that we need to make decisions in a different way. You got me thinking when you sent me these questions there, kun. One of the things that I'm saying is we need to invest as if our grandchildren mattered.

Speaker 2: 45:31

Great-grandchildren, I used to say, grandchildren. Now I belong to the baby boomers. I'm in that generation. Now we arguably. I've met a lot of people whose parents said to me I pray every night that my children never have to experience the horrors that I experienced, the horrors that I experienced. I can see that anybody who was affected by World War II would come out thinking that, and I think it's only natural that we make decisions in the interest of our children.

Speaker 2: 46:11

But that has brought about, arguably, one of the most spoilt and egotistical generations ever, and I'm not saying we need to feel bad about the privileges that we've had these last 60 years and be grateful for these opportunities and show gratitude by paying forward in some measure and understanding that these privileges do have responsibilities, that responsibilities come with them and that there are costs, and not everybody. But you know, we still have enough sunshine and as long as the sun shines, every day it's 12 hours of gratis energy that comes in. And as long as water drops out of the sky, I believe that life will find a way. We just need to sort of become better custodians and reestablish ourselves, and I think becoming environmentally literate and understanding how the world works is something we need to do and we need to focus that, pass it on. You know it has to from school age or even before school age. It has to become part of our culture in the future for society to survive or civilization to survive. What do you make?

Speaker 1: 47:26

of the attacks on savory and others I've experienced in the last not that I've been attacked, but the last decade, plus I think the whole conversation around ruminants and cows specifically, but let's say ruminants and herbivores has been very polarizing, like there's a whole, and you would imagine, with this, with internet, with this ecological literacy starting to spread more, with a TED talk Alan Savory did, with a lot of research coming out more and more to support, like it's not necessarily the animal, but it's the how, it's not the cow, it's the how and all of those.

Speaker 1: 48:11

It's context, specific and all like. It seems to be like the body of knowledge and the examples, like millions of actors being managed this way, um very interesting outcomes, etc. Etc. And somehow it attacks this super strong counter reaction, um, and what do you make of that? Because I see in investment circles um, herbivores and animals, especially in certain groups, is still like something you cannot touch or you cannot invest in or you cannot be exposed to because, by definition, cows are banned and so we invest in plant-based meat and all kinds of other um potential solutions. What do you make of this strong counter reaction to this message of you can actually like its management and its context and its its facilitation, not necessarily the herbivore I agree with you, coon, that there is a lot of polarization, and polarization is not a healthy situation because it tends to literally polarize.

Speaker 2: 49:06

You end up with one or the other. I think we've we've got to start looking at things from different angles, and context is everything. Contexts change all the time. Well, there are a lot of different contexts and contexts tend to change as well. So I think each argument needs to be looked at separately.

Speaker 2: 49:32

I wouldn't like to try and participate in this polarizing, just come up with one answer there, I would say the moment there's polarization, it's an opportunity to actually ask questions, because we can say well, that's an unnatural, unhealthy situation. Why are we polarizing? What are the polarizing arguments? Is it about money? Is it about money? Is it about safety? Is it about ego? Tease out what actually is doing the polarizing, because the polarizing is not. We want to come together, we need to connect, reconnect.

Speaker 2: 50:13

So anything that does the opposite is obviously not taking us where we want to go. So maybe answers, maybe new questions, but certainly not follow that polarizing argument and try and I think there's a number of keys there. I mean, you can follow the money or you can have a look at the fruits, see what the results are. If someone makes a strong claim, well then they need to back that up, and there are some people making strong claims and they can back it up. But there are also some people making strong claims and all they're doing is selling media. They're selling articles and creating controversy. Now, if you're in the, if you're in the business of selling debate and controversy, well yes, polarization does help you.

Speaker 1: 51:10

Yeah you're gonna make strong claims but we need reconnectness and collaboration it's fascinating over the.

Speaker 1: 51:19

And what if we would switch the positions a bit so we put you in the position of a large investor. It could be a billion australian dollars I don't know the latest, but let's say a lot of money could be a billion dollars, us dollars, um, if you had to put that to work, which in this case could be extremely long term, but at some point it would be nice to have some kind of financial return. But it could be multi-generational, it could be for great-grandchildren, etc. But if you had to put it to work and I'm not looking for exact amount, I'm looking what would you prioritize? What would you focus on? Would it be, um, maybe some small percentage to lobbying and education, or would it be getting more animals, other fencing? Would it be whatever special compost machine? I don't know what you? What would you focus on if you had maybe something completely different? Um, lentils production in, uh, in in south africa? I don't know um. What would you prioritize and focus on if you had a billion dollars to put to work?

Speaker 2: 52:22

I would look at. First of all, make sure that the people who own those billion dollars understand what's happening. Obviously, you don't want them to pull the funding from you that suit people's values and appetite for risk and adventure. I think the greatest opportunity for big money is to find situations where human behavior is Human behavior, is manageable. Human activity is actually restraining nature from building wealth. That probably doesn't sound right Now.

Speaker 2: 53:26

What I think is important to understand is in conventional investing, we focus on return on investment. What do I spend this year? What do I get back? And I think there's nothing wrong with that focus. Now that focus is realistic and we're not going to change that. That needs to happen. We need to focus on a return on our annual expenditures. But the opportunity is how we do that and can we do that in a way that we actually grow the capital resource base, in this case, the natural capital and understanding that when nature invests in an economy, we actually have gratis income on average 12 hours a day through solar income. So instead of focusing on our inputs, focus on the intake. So when nature builds an economy, it's driven by solar energy and water and carbon and stuff out of the atmosphere. So if we've got areas where human activities are restricting the intake, manage that human activity so we can increase the intake and increase the output and then use your conventional thinking for efficiency. So we're talking about effectiveness, far greater effectiveness.

Speaker 2: 54:49

Think of a flame. The size of the flame depends on the fuel that I give it. I can make the flame bigger or smaller. Now the flame is destructive, it's just burning the fuel. But an ecosystem that's functional. The more you feed it, the bigger it gets. The more you starve it, the more it shrinks. And that's the sort of thinking If we can get out of the way from nature's inherent propensity to build wealth and increase that intake and then get a fair reward on the inputs, by all means. But just reinvest the bigger returns in consolidating your natural assets and then over time learn to live off the interest that that sustainably generates. But we need to approach our natural assets the same way we approach finance. It's focus on the asset base, build that asset base and then get it to, get it to yield um a consistent return. Does that make some sense or not?

Speaker 1: 56:12

in in your context absolutely. And I think there the two worlds of finance and and ecology um come together, because that one of the reasons I'm following this space. I'm in this space not because I have a finance background, but because I just couldn't imagine, after I've seen um grazing examples in australia and agroforestry examples like this makes so much sense from a basic economy background, like you get free input, the sun 12 hours a day or depending where you are, and you get the water, and like how does that not make sense in a spreadsheet? If you do it well, manage well. Of course it's not that simple, but it should make so much sense. And somehow when we evaluate a bike factory or something like that, it seems to make more sense than a well-functioning farm, which is interesting. That's one of the reasons I'm into this area, because it seems to make so much sense practically. And then now the question is why is not more of the financial world interested in this, in an asset that you can actually, with management, grow over time, Like you can restore, you can regenerate, with turning more sunlight into something, into soil, into plants and root exudates, et cetera, and so that. But those basic mechanisms, I think, were we lost somehow in the input-output methods we've been using to evaluate things like agriculture or ecology is fundamentally different.

Speaker 1: 57:38

But coming back to your context, where is human like? In your landscape, in your farm, your station? Where is human activity restraining nature from building wealth Like? Where would that be if you had to invest it in, let's say, your area? I'm not sure. Maybe this is way too much money or not. Where would you put it if you could do that? Where would you build more wealth by managing differently?

Speaker 2: 58:04

differently We'd have to have. The limiting factor in a situation like ours is skilled no start again. Motivated young people willing to upskill. I think this is a commitment and that's where I'm. If you look at history, we seem to accept the fact that we fund a military and the idea of the military is to protect our livelihoods, to protect our borders or whatever. So there's a lot of money spent for the military. Then there's also a lot of money spent for hospitals and training people, for staff, and you look at the players in there, whether it's the leaders in the military system or the leaders in hospitals.

Speaker 2: 59:10

They all started off as young people who invested six years of their lives working hard with virtually no return, but there was something at the end of it a career. I'm saying that the revitalization and the restabilization of our ecological foundations that support a nation deserves every bit of that sort of effort and energy and commitment as well. So the biggest investment is in the human capital, the social capital, and skilling them and enabling commitment. And for that to happen it does need a culture. We've got to build that, and cultures start from the bottom up. I mean Petri dish. If you want to grow a culture, you start at a cellular level, you start at the family and the community level. You start from the farming family, you build a culture that reconnects and then we can then get biology to do the heavy lifting. But it does need that connection and that's where I see the importance of big business and factory farming and all that.

Speaker 2: 1:00:29

The way we're currently positioned, we can't just go cold turkey on everything that is environmentally questionable. We have to understand what is a better path and slowly turn things around. And if people are very good at extracting, well, let them extract. But what about offering the people, offering those who can rebuild? Let them do something. Let's start reclaiming landscapes that are already basket cases. Instead of getting a farmer who's already producing and feeding people way beyond the limits of his village or town, instead of getting him to sort of change everything. You keep on producing, keep on feeding people, but let's open up new areas, let's start rebuilding the health of these landscapes.

Speaker 2: 1:01:21

We can then decide well, do we want to monetize the production or not, landscapes? We can then decide well, do we want to monetize the production or not? But let's focus on the environmental services and put values on health, on water, on aesthetics, and the community is starting to do that. It's just it may need some more Well, it needs more reconnection. I don't know. I think I'm hopeful with the podcasts that are around now. There's some wonderful podcasts and most of them are thriving, so I'm sure that message is getting out there, and I'm not in a position to judge how effective it is and whether it's fast enough, but it's certainly. That is. One of the very positive things that I've seen in these last few years is how more and more people listen to these podcasts, and there should be a growing awareness Now. Whether we can get traction fast enough, we'll find out.

Speaker 1: 1:02:21

And it's a perfect bridge to a question we like to ask, borrowed from a podcast of a good friend of the show, john Kempf, who always asks what do you believe to be true about agriculture that others don't? And I like to ask it about regen. So what do you believe to be true about regenerative agriculture that others don't believe to be true?

Speaker 2: 1:02:38

I don't know what others believe, because I'm out here on my own and belief tends to be a religious thing, and I think people are entitled to their beliefs. So my belief is based on what I've experienced, and I grew up in a situation where I was very attuned to water scarcity in similar latitude to this in Southern Africa. I was also attuned to land hunger. We had a growing population that was doubling every 15 years at the time not sustainable. We had desertification happening, not sustainable, happening, not sustainable, and I've seen these sort of trends mirrored in other areas as well. So what I believe to be true is there is enough sunshine and there is enough water for the 9 billion people, or whatever we're going to aim for, to live with dignity. Now there's not enough of all these resources for everybody to be able to go on cruises and whatever, but healthy, dignified lifestyles are well within the reach of what this ecosystem can support, and nature's shown us that, and we do need to.

Speaker 2: 1:04:04

You know, economic growth in industrial settings needs to be responsible and foresighted, and and there and that's not my domain uh, I can ask questions, but I'm not qualified to to criticize or come up with recommendations how to do it. But in my domain where I'm, which is the interface between the wild and the society, I'm seeing there's a lot of inefficiencies and there's a lot of wealth building just wanting to happen. That we've just, with the way we manage our landscapes, we're actually just stopping from happening. And so, yeah, I think that there's a lot of room for optimism there, but it does need commitment. And that's where we've got to come back to the social capital. And then the financial capital. That's the oil, but the oil's no good unless we've actually got the players in place and the levers. So the ecological capital is there, it's poised. The social capital needs to be woken up or revived or regenerated, and then the financial capital will oil the grease, grease the wheels, but the intake has to happen from a solar and rainfall side from a solar and and um rainfall side.

Speaker 1: 1:05:30

It's such a beautiful way of stating that, because what I, what we've seen, or what what gives me hope here is, is is not the interest from investors and people managing wealth that are getting interested in soil, which is great, which is important, but it's way more important to step before, like they need something or people and teams and people to invest in, and what we've seen is that there are a lot of people without a background in food and ag or with a background in in entrepreneurship, in people in building things from scratch, like the starters, the kickstarters, as you mentioned them before, that are starting to get very interested in soil. They got they bitten by the bug, the soil bug, somewhere I don't know. It was a movie, it was an experience, was a visit, was plant medicine, was some kind of of experience and they cannot go back and they will build things. They will build um food companies, they will build interesting farms, they will build technology, they will. They will do a lot of things. They will make mistakes as well, but I think our role with the podcast is to help them to get up to speed with knowledge, to see who is doing interesting things to find their path, literally to help them speed up their finding of their path and hopefully go faster without breaking things. But go faster still make mistakes, we all know that and then the resources will come, then the money will flow.

Speaker 1: 1:06:43

That's not the issue. I don't think we have a shortage of investment capital. I I'm gonna get curses from people now that are in trouble raising, but I don't think we have a shortage of investment capital. We definitely have a shortage of um, people capable people, committed people, like you said, um, building things over the next decades, like that's. That's the um, but that's the biggest lever we have having smart people, capable people, um, creating things, seeing opportunities like you saw.

Speaker 1: 1:07:10

You saw an opportunity of rain, sunshine and nobody else saw it. There was sort of the combi you saw in in 85 to 87 and, in the danger of asking a final question like this is a perfect end, but I still want to ask a final question because I would love your to hear your answer to it. If you had a magic wand and you could change one thing overnight could be an agriculture, food, could be generally, it could be global consciousness or, very simply, more animals on land. We've heard all different, or all subsidies gone, or I mean whatever you feel like, but you literally have only one wish you can change. What would that be?

Speaker 2: 1:07:47

well, you've painted a broad. It's a broad area the agriculture. If you eat, you are in agriculture full stop. So everybody is in agriculture. So if I had that wand next Monday morning, everybody would wake up realizing we're in this together. We actually have to work together for each other, with each other. Symbiosis outranks competition. Competition is necessary for health, but symbiosis is necessary for survival and for us to move forward at the scale that we now have 8 billion of us I mean, there's 5 billion added just in my lifetime For us to move forward at that scale, we need to work in line with how nature worked and sink our roots back into the soil that nurtured us in the first place.

Speaker 2: 1:08:45

Sink our roots back into the soil that nurtured us in the first place. Now we can also, like plants, orientate themselves towards the sun. We can orientate ourselves to higher goals, but we need those goals. Whatever they are, they need to be embraced by our culture, either locally or bigger. But we need to sink our roots into the soil, into fertile soil again, and nature will provide that. We need to grow beyond ourselves, regenerate cultures and we need to learn to collaborate within the culture and across cultures. Nature's done this. We don't need these hierarchical models. Let's follow nature's prompts, grow like mycelia, grow like bacteria, naturally, and let the intake push that growth and the inputs we use to refine that growth and make things more efficient. But I think there's some you mentioned. But back to those young people. I did mention two of the. I stand on a lot of shoulders. I did mention two shoulders I stand on, that's Eli Ningham and Alan Savory. But I also stand on Fred Provenza's shoulders and Fred Provenza wrote a very interesting book.

Speaker 1: 1:10:04

I will put them all in the. We had them all on the podcast. I will put show notes to all of them down.

Speaker 2: 1:10:10

Sorry, the one about the shepherds about tapping into the wisdom of the French shepherds. Not a single one of those shepherds was actually born a shepherd. They came from all walks of life and they embraced the thinking and acted it out. So I think we have a situation where we are uprooted and some people are sort of more like pot plants and some people are even like cut flowers. But it's going to be hard to get cut flowers, plant root to grow roots. But if we can just get the pot plants and start saying, well, hang on, we can actually there's a garden out there you'll actually grow and flourish so much better if you stick your roots into a garden. And, yeah, just reestablish our roots, our biological roots as a species. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:11:02

We are part animal while we live. I will put the link below. I think it's the art and science of shepherding of Fred Provence. Is that right? Is that the book? Yes, we'll put it below Because we've interviewed him and I read Nourishment. That's amazing too. Yes, yes, I would love to no.

Speaker 2: 1:11:20

Tapping into the Wisdom of the French Herders, and he just has a new one out, actually into the wisdom of the French herders and he just has a new one out actually, so this is an older one Tapping into the wisdom.

Speaker 1: 1:11:29

I will find it below for any. Yeah, I see it.

Speaker 2: 1:11:31

So it's Tapping into the Wisdom of the French Herders, art and Science of Shepherding, and it's well, he says shepherding, but it's herding, you know, and herding schools, and there's ways if, if we take it's treated seriously, just like we have, um, our military academies and our hospital traineeships, we could have landscape management academies we can have you could put in three months somewhere learning and doing learning by doing it's. It's actually quite fascinating and we've had a lot of young people over the years come and help and without them we wouldn't be where we are, and it's just fascinating to see how each one brings their own uniqueness to the table.

Speaker 1: 1:12:12

and um, yeah, and, as as always happens, listeners to the podcast know I ask a final question and then it leads to more final questions um, does this make like? How do you? Are you optimistic about the, the future? You've seen a lot. You've seen a lot from a distance, because you are quite remote, but because of internet you can follow a lot. You've seen a lot on the land, in the land, literally. Um, how do you feel about this regenerative movement or, in general, let's say, the, the direction of? It's a very big, open question. But are you optimistic about um, about the current state, or about where, where?

Speaker 2: 1:12:53

I'm very optimistic about what is possible. I have grave concerns about how we sometimes react. It was interesting these last four years, how well 2020, when we virtually the whole world just stopped. So if it did show that if people really want to, they can change overnight. The question is can they change for the better or do they just stop, full stop? I think, just knowing that there are options, I think, yeah, that's good, but I do have I do harbor concerns. I think for some people, especially if they're very comfortable, maybe there needs to be a lot more pain or something has to happen for them to wake up. But certainly, as far as the possibilities go, yes, we haven't even scratched the surface of what's possible. It's just we've got to stop doing wrong what we're doing. Just stop doing things wrong is a good start. We can always start doing things better after, but let's just stop doing some of the things that are obviously patently wrong.

Speaker 1: 1:14:09

So, yeah, there's a great opportunity there and thank you so much for for the work you do, for writing a lot about it. I will definitely put a link to your website as well. And and joining us here on the podcast sharing about your journey and and thank you for for your optimism. So thank you so much for taking the time and joining us here on the podcast sharing about your journey, and thank you for your optimism. So thank you so much for taking the time and coming on here to share about your journey. I definitely enjoyed it a lot.

Speaker 2: 1:14:34

Well, thank you, kun, and I think it's so important that I mean sustainability I hate the word sustainability because we don't want to sustain something that's inherently unsustainable but sustainability for sustainability to actually function. It's not about knowing what is sustainable. It is about creating the conditions where the next generation picks up the ball and runs with it, even if they don't play a better game. Just the willingness of the next generation to pick up the ball and run with it. That is a prerequisite for any form of sustainability, and I think that's where podcasters like you and many others are playing a vital role at a very critical time, and I wish you well and I thank you very much for this opportunity.

Speaker 1: 1:15:24

Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. For the show notes and links we discussed in this episode, check out our website investinginregenerativeagriculturecom. Forward slash posts. If you liked this episode, why not share it with a friend or give us a rating on Apple Podcasts? That really helps. Thanks again and see you next time.