The document discusses regenerative agriculture as a solution to the environmental damage caused by industrial agriculture. It summarizes the history of agriculture as a series of transformations that increased productivity but also caused environmental degradation. Regenerative practices like holistic grazing management, cover cropping, and permaculture can help repair landscapes by restoring healthy soil, water cycles, and biodiversity. This represents an eighth transformation to a more sustainable model of agriculture.

1. Charlie Massy
Presentation to
Sustainable
Food Trust
July 4th, 2019
(Image: Trish Dixon)
REGENERATIVE
AGRI-CULTURE:
THE GREAT
DISRUPTOR TO THE
ANTHROPOCENE ??

2. Where we live: Snowy Mountains region, NSW, Australia
• 2000 acres
• Fine wool Merino sheep
• Some cattle
• 23 % farm in nature
conservation

3. Eastern Dunnart
Red-necked
wallaby
Wallaroo
Swamp
wallaby
Echidna
Earless grassland dragon

4. We work with senior local
indigenous ‘Law Man’,
Rod Mason – of the Ngarigo
Aboriginal Nation:
Seen here running our annual
cool patch-burning workshops

5. Regenerative Agri-culture
Key Message
HEALTHY
LANDSCAPES
HEALTHY
FOOD/FIBRE
HEALTHY
PROFITS, PEOPLE +
HEALTHY PLANET

6. Regenerative Agri-culture
Ecological Grazing
Edible Shrubs
Biological Agric. Agroforestry Keyline
New Cropping BiodynamicsPermaculture
Agricultural practices that enable landscapes/systems to
self-organize back to open-ended health – to self-heal

7. HOW WE GOT INTO OUR
EXISTENTIAL CRISIS # 1
OUR PLANET
IN THE
ANTHROPOCENE
THE BIG CONTEXT

8. THE ANTHROPOCENE
The greatest crisis that humanity has ever faced in its entire history

9. THE GREAT ACCELERATION

10. Industrial Agriculture is
a/the major player in
causing damage to the 6
key biophysical Earth
systems:
1. Climate Change
2. Biodiversity Loss
3. Land-system Change
4. Freshwater use
5/6. Biochemical
phosphorus/nitrogen flow
(graphic Wikipedia)
Earth’s threatened
planetary boundaries

11. This is grounds
for hope…
If industrial agriculture
= a major causal
factor - then
Regenerative
agriculture
=
a key solution
But -
(Image: Black Cockatoos, painting by Richard Weatherly)

12. HOW WE GOT INTO OUR
EXISTENTIAL CRISIS # 2
AGRI-CULTURE
THE BIG CONTEXT # 2

13. A BRIEF VIEW OF GLOBAL AGRI-CULTURAL HISTORY
Such history = a series of ongoing cycles of
Agro-Ecological Transformations
Began with the domestication of plants
& animals, ca. 10 to 12 k. years ago
Indian Himalayan
Farmer: 1978 – (pic. CM)
& an ‘ARD’

14. History of Agri-culture: A Series of Agro-Ecological Transformations
Productivity progression in transformations
1. Hunter-gathering: 20 to 100 ha to feed 1 person/year
2. Slash & burn Agriculture: 2 to 10 ha….. (i.e. > X 10)
3. First sedentary agric. (‘ard’ cultivatn): 1.4 to 2 ha…
4. Medieval: 0.6 to 0.7 ha
5. First modern revolution (16th – 19th centuries)
6 & 7. Modern industrial agric.: 0.2 to 0.25 ha…(i.e. > X 250)
8. MODERN REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE (Same or better, without the ‘Costs’)

15. Fifth Agro-Ecological Transformation: 1st Modern revolution 16th – 19th Cent.
• Occurred in post-Medieval temperate regions of N.W. Europe
• In rain-fed, cultivated ecosystems based on the plough
• Still led by cereals but now with closer integration of domestic herding animals in a
pasture & crop rotation system, & still ‘Organic’
Example: the British ‘Agricultural Revolution’:
The Triumph of Horn over Corn

16. Sixth Agro-Ecological Transformation: 2nd Modern revolution (late 19th, early 20th C.)
Key Features
1. Elimination of the integration of animals in cropping systems, and thus
2. Elimination of organic fertilizers for building soil fertility
3. Introduction of synthetic fertilizers, no fallowing, & mechanisation of animal-
drawn cultivation & transport
4. This phase = distinct from its predecessors in > productivity & impact
helped fuel human cultural ‘evolution’
5. Began inculcation of the 7 traits of industrial agriculture
(Beginning of the ‘Metabolic Rift’ in ‘Social Metabolism’– Karl Marx, 1867 )

17. 20th C. Entrenchment of the 7 Platforms of Industrial Agriculture
1. Intensive tillage
2. Monocultures
3. Application of synthetic fertilizers
4. Extensive/intensive Irrigation
5. Chemical pest & weed control
6. Manipulation of plant & animal genomes
7. Factory farming of animals

18. 7th Agro-Ecological Transformation: 3rd Modern (INDUSTRIAL cont.)
Nett Impacts of 2nd & 3rd Modern Agro-Ecological Transformations
1. Mounting & massive unsustainable environmental costs
2. Mounting & massive unsustainable social costs
3. Increasing costs on human health = ENORMOUS
4. Industrial ag. = key factor in crossing of safe limits,
tipping us into the Anthropocene
5. Escalating separation of humans from their natural
environment
This = a fatal schism: An immense mutation

19. The beginning of all the strife:
The world’s first plough –
THE ‘ARD’
(Indian Himalayas, 1978, photo CM)
A POWERFUL METAPHOR/
PARADIGM

20. USA ‘Dustbowl’, Prairie states, 1935 Article in The Land, May 30 2019, advertising
a large “quality” NSW cropping farm
‘A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself’
President F.D. Roosevelt: ‘Letter to all State Governors on a
Uniform Soil Conservation Law’, 26th Feb. 1937

21. History of Agriculture: A Series of Agro-Ecological Transformations
Eighth Agro-Ecological Transformation: 1980s on
The Rise of Modern Ecological Agriculture – Regenerative, Social-Ecological Transformation

22. HISTORICAL DESERTIFICATION: The Fertile Crescent
The eroded hills of
Attica are like the
“skeleton of a sick
man, all the fat and
soft earth having
been wasted away.”
(Plato, 360 B.C.)

23. The Historical
Legacy
& Impact on
Ecological
Function ?

24. SO, HOW DID WE GET TO THIS ?
RISE OF THE MECHANICAL MIND
ORGANIC MIND MECHANICAL MIND

25. 1930s Mallee Drought Australia
Previous ground-level surface

26. From facebook: Swan Hill Guardian 28 Feb. 2015
‘The BOM has issued a severe weather warning of
strong winds up to 90 km.’
ONLY IN THE PAST ?
Melbourne Herald Sun Cover: May 8 2019

27. 1930s
Dust-Bowl
U.S.A.
Wes Jackson in
Nature as Measure (p.4):
“The ploughshare may
well have destroyed more
options for future
generations than the
sword.”
Agriculture has degraded 5 of 13.4 billion ha.
available for agriculture globally (= 37 %) (UN FAO)

28. BUT - THERE IS ANOTHER PATHWAY
The Key? Healthy, biologically-rich & active Soil

29. Plants, with animals, can restore our farms and
soils, our ecosystems and profits
Not Monocultures of plants, not the plough,
nor industrial inputs - BUT
1. Multi- species cover crops &
2. Richly Diverse grasslands
& holistically grazed;
with a wide diversity of plant species

30. (Image: Elaine Ingham; plant seedlings)
TURNING THINGS AROUND
1. Regeneration via Gaining Ecological Literacy

31. Current industrial paradigm?
Nature = enemy !!
• To be simplified, dominated &, if necessary, killed.
1. Mounting, massive unsustainable environmental & social
costs
2. Increasing toll on human health
3. Escalating separation of humans from natural
environment
This leads to Landscape Illiteracy

32. 1
2
3
4
5
HEALTHY LANDSCAPES = A JOURNEY IN ECOLOGICAL LITERACY
Built around the 5 key landscape functions
1. Solar Function
2. Water cycle
3. Soil Mineral
cycle
4. Dynamic
Ecosystem
Communities
5. Human-SocialKey: All are interconnected;
Indivisible; Dynamically in Feedbacks –
They undergird ecosystems & human civilisation

33. 1 2
3
4
The 5 Landscape Functions
Function # 1: The Solar Energy Cycle
Green plants = the foundation:
So, to increase energy flow-capture,
we need to expand the primary trophic base
(i.e. > number
solar panels
year round)
n.b. The solar function impacts all
other functions in a virtuous circle
5

34. Nature has long provided a template, & through
holistic grazing we too can inject energy by
bunching cattle/sheep & provide long rest periods

35. Greater Karoo region South Africa - 7” (175mm) rainfall
• Livestock carrying and production tripled after 40 years
• Water Retention tripled after 3 years
Holistic
grazing
management
Set-Stocking
regime
(Norman Kroon)
Solar Cycle: Resilience in Grazing

36. Mt. Pleasant Station, NW Queensland, after 100 years
of set-stocking – Oct. 2004 (per. Garlone Moulin & RCS)
Mt. Pleasant Station, Oct. 2014, 10 years on
Active Gully erosion healing after 10 yrs
on Mt. Pleasant
One paddock at a time !!

37. Kachana Station, N.W. Kimberley
Henggeler Family
Before (1992) & After (2018)
The Tools: Animal impact,
human ingenuity, solar electricity
(per Chris Henggeler)

38. Multi-Species Cover Cropping
Grazing and cropping are combined and
managed in a way where each one benefits the
other.
SOLAR CYCLE: RESILIENCE IN CROPPING

39. 1. Cover Cropping uses a diverse crop/planting to create mulch,
control weeds and improve soil health by stimulating biology.
2. i.e. to cover the ground & build fertility for the next crop
or pasture
3. But to maximize soil health, animals in rotation = essential
Maximising sugars &
other exudates
into the soil

41. By using high-density, Holistically-grazed
livestock in cropping/grazing systems:
• Industrial inputs = eliminated
• Spongy soils return
• Soil is covered i.e. protected
• A tipping-point in soil health = triggered
(Quorum Sensing)
• This in turn leads to rapid soil-building
(rapid increase soil carbon)

42. Function # 2: Water Cycle
Desertified land in Mexico after 30+ years
Coahuila, Las Pilas Ranch - (the latter > 27 years Holistic grazing Management)
Before - 1980 After – 2007 (per Guillermo Osuna Saenz)

43. Source: Conservation Research Institute
Modern
industrial
Crop-Lands’
Hard-Pan

44. Function # 3: The Soil-Mineral Cycle
An Effective Soil-Mineral Cycle: Key = biologically active living soil
(Image:
U.N.)

45. INDUSTRIAL REGENERATIVE

46. Resilience in Cropping
Pasture-Cropping & its
Originator:
Colin Seis, Gulgong NSW
No-Kill Cropping & its
Originator:
Bruce Maynard,
Narromine, NSW
(per Norton & Reid 2013)
Industrial cropping

47. ‘NATURAL INTELLIGENCE AGRICULTURE’
Ian & Di Haggerty, W.A. – Resilient Cropping (on 6 to 14” rain)

48. His Secret?
13+ diverse-functioning
cropping &/or pasture species,
laid down as cover by livestock

49. Gabe Brown’s low bulk
density soil > 12 yrs
(rainfall penetration: 1st inch, 9 secs;
2nd inch, 16 secs)
Across the fence, neighbour’s
high bulk density soil -
under industrial agriculture
(rainfall penetration: an inch/2 hours)
(Gabe Brown; Christine Jones)
Better Soil Health =
Better Water Cycle

50. SOIL ORGANIC CARBON (S.O.C.) = THE KEY DRIVER
OF FARMER’S PROFITABILITY (GRAZING & CROPPING)
Dramatically changing agriculture one paddock at a time

51. 1 2
3
4
5
Function # 4: Dynamic Ecosystem
Communities/Biodiversity
Involves diversity/networks/complexity/
mutualisms & symbioses, food-webs,
networked communities
(above & below ground)
The 5 Landscape
Functions

52. The Spanish Dehesa System
Portuguese Montado
Silvo-Pastoral systems = v. high carbon capture

53. Before ---1994
The Stewart Family, Otway Ranges, Victoria, Australia.
A fine example of integrated farming and agroforestry – leading to 8+ stacked
enterprises -- + LOTS OF CARBON IN-GROUND
BUILDING ECOLOGICAL & SOCIAL RESILIENCE
After – 2018 (photos per Andrew Stewart)

54. (Image: Elaine Ingham)
TURNING THINGS AROUND
2. Addressing the Anthropocene

55. Industrial Agriculture is a/the major
player in causing damage to the 6
key biophysical Earth systems:
1. Climate Change
2. Biodiversity Loss
3. Land-system Change
4. Freshwater use
5/6. Biogeochemical
phosphorus/nitrogen flow
Earth’s threatened
planetary boundaries
BUT REGENERATIVE AGRIC.
HAS THE SOLUTIONS !!

56. 100 Top Carbon Draw-Down Techniques (Fully calculated by 70+ scientists)
• Combined Regenerative Agriculture Practices: > 217 GT CO₂ Reduction
i.e. combined regen. ag. = 240% > impact than # 1 (= refrigeration)

57. The World’s first (& so far only) carbon credit under the
U.N. Paris Climate Agreement: Neils Olsen & Family, Vic., Australia
control Soilkee
0.9% +S.O.C. in 12 mths.

58. HOW WE GOT INTO OUR
EXISTENTIAL CRISIS # 3
HUMAN
ILL-HEALTH
THE BIG CONTEXT # 3

59. THE ANTHROPOCENE & HUMAN ILL-HEALTH
ARE JOINED AT THE HIP
i.e. The ‘Great Acceleration’ also includes modern diseases

60. Industrial Agriculture destroys food nutrient availability, diversity &
quality, & delivers man-made poisons into our industrial foods

61. PRIMARY NUTRIENT
DEGRADATION
• Research into 63 Wheat cultivars
(especially main soft whites)
• Wheat grain yield
• Nutrient concentration
High-yield, input-responsive cultivars
> micronutrient deficiencies in key
minerals: Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, P, Se, Zn
(Murphy, KM et. Al 2008: Euphytica 163: 381-390)

62. CAUSES OF DECLINE IN NUTRIENTS?
1. Over-processing of food
2. Genetic modification of complex genomics & narrow breeding goals
3. But MOST of this decline in nutrients is related to a serious decline in
Soil health and Soil Carbon nutrient-poor foods

63. SILENT SPRING II
A MASSIVE VULNERABILITY:
GLOBAL RELIANCE ON
GLYPHOSATE (a.k.a. Roundup)
But there is a second alarming issue:

64. The Elephant in the room:
Glyphosate & soil, plant,
animal & human health
It has penetrated:
• Our food & water
• & those of our animals
With devastating & not yet fully
appreciated consequences

65. Dr. Bob Kremer, ex USDA
Impacts of Glyphosate on the Soil: # 1
• Kills beneficial soil microbes that keep pathogens
in check
• Binds up all the nutrients in a plant (= they
become inaccessible to animals, humans)
i.e. it acts as a chelator
• Plants now vulnerable to disease without defence
• Glyph.’s breakdown product AMPA = more toxic
than Glyphosate
etc. etc. etc.
Prof. Don Huber

66. Gut Microbiome Gut Microbes

67. Two Key reasons why glyphosate is emerging as the
worst & most pervasive chemical in our
environment:
# 1 - Interferes in the vital Shikimate Pathway
# 2 - is water soluble & therefore penetrates the
gut barrier & the blood-brain etc. barriers

68. (ZachBushMD.Com)

69. Epigenetics:
heritable changes in gene
expression caused by
mechanisms other
than changes in the DNA
sequence
F.Provenza

70. OUR CHOICE
Regen. agric. can help save the planet, Or, we can roll the loaded dice
& ourselves

71. Let food be thy
medicine, and
medicine be thy
food
attr. to
Hippocrates ca.
400 B.C

72. 1. Aug. 2010 - 'Monsanto ordered to pay $289 million
as jury rules weedkiller caused man's cancer’.
California.
2. March 2019 – ‘Monsanto ordered to pay $80 million’
A Federal District Court jury in San Francisco found
in favour of 70-year-old Edwin Hardeman
3. April 2019 – ‘French Court Rules Bayer’s Monsanto
Weedkiller Liable for Farmer’s Health Problems…
now thousands more cases against Monsanto await'.
4. May 2019 – ‘A California jury on Monday awarded
more than $2 billion to a couple who claimed Bayer
AG’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer caused
their cancer…’
CHANGE IS
COMING !!
Huge Legal
Implications on
the Horizon for
Monsanto/Bayer

73. 1 2
3
4
5
CAN WE PROFITABLY, REGENERATIVELY
& HEALTHILY GRAZE & FARM
WITHOUT INDUSTRIAL CHEMICALS ??
ABSOLUTELY YES !!
Renewed Healthy
Landscape Functions

74. HOW DO WE DO IT? (1) ONE FARM & ONE PADDOCK AT A TIME !

75. HOW DO WE DO IT? (2)
In partnership with our urban cousins and demand for healthy
food, urban gardens, green cities ………etc. etc.

76. HOW DO WE DO IT ?? (3)
Re-Connecting Children with Mother Nature

77. CAN WE DO IT ??
Absolutely Yes !!

78. CONCLUSION

80. Our urgent
challenge is to
move beyond
‘Sustainability’
TO REGENERATION

81. Capital liquidation
That is:
We Need to Change Our
Mindscapes Before We Can
Change Our Landscapes,
Ourselves & our Planet
“Today’s problems cannot be solved
with today’s mind”
(James Gustave Speth. 2008. The Bridge at the End of the World)

82. We have to overthrow 10,000 years of agricultural Tradition –
based on destructive mechanical/chemical intervention

83. “BEHOLD THE TURTLE.
HE MAKES PROGRESS
ONLY WHEN HE STICKS
HIS NECK OUT.”
(James Bryant Conant)
Law of the Turtle

84. WE NEED TO COMBINE THE BEST OF
THE MECHANICAL & THE ORGANIC MINDs

85. REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE
Profound Solutions for Challenging Times
1. Key Solutions to the Anthropocene Crisis
2. An Agriculture that enables Natural Systems
to Self-Heal (to Self-Organize again)
3. Key Solutions to the Human Health Crisis

86. We need a new story
for our times…
Because the story of growth and
greed has failed us…
“The ultimate test of a
moral society
Is the kind of world
It leaves to its
Children”
(attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

88. Mountain yellow robin
Scarlet Robin
The highly endangered earless
grassland dragon

89. The Aral Sea
(between Uzbekistan &
Khazakstan)
(same size as Tasmania)
• Once the world’s 4th
largest lake – effectively
dried-up in 2014
• Soviet era cotton
irrigation
(on drying-up, pesticides,
herbicides were released
to atmosphere)
FRESH-WATER OVER-USE

90. Humans not the first to develop a ‘cultivated’ agriculture
which exploits & ‘farms’ other species
Ants & termites have been doing it for millions of years
• Some ant & termite species cultivate highly specialised mushroom gardens
• & products feeds hundreds of millions of insects
• Breeder ants cultivate mealybug aphids – control their breeding in protected
caves/shelters to feed off the honeydew (excreta).
i.e. aphids = ‘stabled’, taken out to ‘pasturage’, & a managed reproduction etc.

91. i.e. The difference between the 2 is cultural
• Agriculture is about human cultures
• It is about habits & metaphors
• It is about world-views/paradigms
• & industrial ag. is about a powerful paradigm
& massive power

92. OVER-GRAZING, OVER-CLEARING, OVER-BURNING & INDUSTRIAL
CROPPING DESTRUCTION OF SMALL WATER CYCLE & SOIL HEALTH

93. The plough and poorly-managed
domesticated animals has created
deserts around the world
•Did our ancestors get Agriculture wrong ?
•Are there better ways to grow crops ?
• Are there better ways to graze animals ?
• Should we do both together ?
Agriculture
has
degraded
5 of 13.4
billion ha.
available for
agriculture
globally
= 37 %
(UN FAO)

94. Pearce Family’s
‘Bannockburn’ station,
Rockhampton, Queensland
After 150 years continuous
grazing & burning (Catriona Pearce)
August 2006 (Dry S.) September 2007 (Dry S.)
November 2008 (Dry S.) October 2012 (Dry S.) March 2013 (Wet Season)

95. How a neighbouring property looked like
with 6” of rain last summer (2018)
How our Property looked like
with 6”of rain last summer (2018)
(A. Carrillo, Mexico)
CHIHUHUAN DESERT, MEXICO- Alejandro Carillo, Rancher

96. Holistically-grazed livestock are also
integral to the new cropping
approaches
3,800 sheep, Wellington, NSW
2,000 + cows, Anna & Michael
Coughlan, Holbrook, NSW,
2018 drought

97. To Generate high S.O.C. in biologically rich soil
Requires:
• Animal density, holistic grazing &
- either diverse grasslands or
- diverse multi-species cover-cropping (or both)
Q: But What happens then?
A: We get remarkable self-organization and thus
a tipping-point rapid soil building

98. So, what is going on?
1. Great plant-microbe (soil life) communication
Communication is across animal/plant kingdoms,
phyla, genera, species (e.g. between plants, a range
of soil biology forms & humans)
- Using a common chemical vocabulary
2. QUORUM SENSING (Q.S.)

99. Example of Q.S.: Response to disease attack, plant-microbe communication,
& genes switched on/off
(epigenetics)

100. Remember: Glyphosate has penetrated the modern industrial food system
& Water ?

101. AGRICULTURE: FRONT & CENTRE TO OUR FUTURES
Donald Worcester’s 3 principles for ‘good farming’
1. It should make people healthier
2. It should promote a just society
3. It should preserve the earth & its network
of life.
(Worcester 1993: 92. The Wealth of Nature:
Environmental History & the Ecological Imagination)
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE DOES THIS