Soils For Life

In this episode we talk with Joel Williams about how growers can start weaning off costly chemical inputs, rules of thumb for seed treatments and foliar sprays, why he likes tweaks and incremental improvements, the growing scientific evidence behind regenerative farming practices and more!

Joel Williams is an independent plant and soil health educator based in Canada, working on soil management, plant nutrition and integrated approaches of sustainable food production. Joel is interested in designing farming systems that focus on managing soil biology along with crop and soil nutrition to optimise plant immunity and soil function. 

At Soils for Life we’ve recently launched a major project focused on cropping systems, and we thought Joel would be the perfect person to talk about why and how growers are transitioning to a more regenerative, resilient approach to cropping.

Find out more about the project via soilsforlife.org.au/cropping-resilience/.

If you have any feedback or questions about this podcast, or suggestions of topics or people you’d like us to include in future episodes, please reach out on social media or via info@soilsforlife.org.au.

We’ve all heard the saying “You are what you eat”. But, as we'll hear in this episode, it really should go “You are what you eat, and the soil it grows in.”

Over half of our adult population are considered to be malnourished, and this is in part due to a decline in the nutrient density of our food. As the world's population grows and remaining arable land decreases, growing healthier, nutrient dense food might just be a part of the answer to improving human health outcomes.

In this episode we talk with two farmers and two researchers about the question: ‘Is soil the key to better human health?’. 

What we find is a complex tangle of connections between soil, plants, animals, and humans that science is only just beginning to understand. 

Thank to our wonderful guests

Matthew Evans - Farmer, chef and food writer and the author of ‘Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy”

Courtney Young - Co-owner at Woodstock Flour and project manager at Soils for Life

Robyn Alders - Honorary professor with the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University.

Dr Stephan van Vliet - Assistant professor of nutrition at the Center for Human Nutrition Studies at Utah State University He holds a PhD in Kinesiology and Community Health. Dr. van Vliet also holds a Masters in Nutrition Science.

Additional research links

Hosted by Susannah Kable from the @GrowLoveProject and James Diack from Soils for Life. This Podcast has been produced by Grow Love Project in collaboration with @SoilsforLife. 

For more episodes of our podcast, head to soilsforlife.org.au/podcast

If you’re a long-time listener to this podcast, you’ll be used to our in-depth episodes co-hosted by Grow Love Project’s Susie Kable and Soils for Life’s James Diack. We’re continuing to make these episodes, but from time-to-time we’ll be bringing you shorter interviews with farmers doing interesting things to regenerate soils and landscapes. This is the first of these interviews, with actress-turned-farmer Rachel Ward and farm manager Mick Green.

Mick and Rachel jointly manage a farm in the Nambucca Valley on the NSW mid-north coast. As newbies to regenerative farming, they decided to make the most of Rachel’s lifetime of experience with film making to produce a documentary about their journey. That documentary - called Rachel’s Farm - is out now on limited release.

This is a broad ranging conversation about getting started in a new approach to farming, working as a team, learning from friends and neighbours, and dealing with pests and extreme weather. Most of all, I enjoyed hearing about Mick and Rachel’s incredibly humble and curious mindset - always questioning, never afraid to admit to a mistake and learn from it. I hope you enjoy listening to this conversation. And just a note, you’ll hear some references to ‘Normy’ in this podcast - Normy worked with Mick and Rachel during the early days of their journey, and was the ideas man and inspiration behind many of their shifts.

If you have any feedback or questions about this podcast, or suggestions of topics or people you’d like us to include in future episodes, please reach out on social media or via info@soilsforlife.org.au.

Thank you to Rachel Ward and Mick Green for sharing their story and their wisdom.

Hosted by Eli Court from Soils for Life. This podcast has been produced by Soils for Life, and edited by Michelle Watts.

#regenerativeagriculture #biodiversity #soilsforlife #podcast #farmingpodcast #samvincent

Building cropping resilience through diversity

In this episode we hear from croppers who are growing multispecies crops as a way of building soil health and improving diversity. We discover why and how these farmers are moving from growing monocultures to establishing polycultures.

Find out more about how croppers around Australia are regenerating soil and landscape health by reading Soils for Life’s new cropping case studies: soilsforlife.org.au/case-studies

Thank you to all our guests:

Rob and Judi Hetherington - Walma

Martin Williams - Nyngan Seed Graders

Grant Simms - Down Under Covers

Hosted by Susannah Kable from the Grow Love Project and James Diack from Soils for Life

This Podcast has been produced by Grow Love Project in collaboration with Soils for Life. This project is supported through funding from the Australian Government’s Smart Farms Program.

The industrialisation of agriculture has created large paddocks of monoculture crops and increased the chemical burden on farmers and their environments. Global herbicide use has continued to increase as farmers have shifted to no till practices and adopted herbicide-tolerant crop cultivars over the last 30 years. One result of this is that the list of herbicide resistant #weeds is growing.

Some farmers spend huge amounts of money on herbicide and scarce time removing weeds; Meanwhile, exactly how much damage is being done to native plant species and soils is not yet fully known. Either way, the current model is not sustainable

In this episode we are exploring a paradigm shift to an ecological systems approach to weeds with Soils for Life agroecologist Sarah Fea. We visit four farmers to understand their changing relationship to plants. Including a grazier, seed producer, a farmer who has enlisted the help of goats and another who has developed no kill cropping.

We take a fresh look at weeds and how we can benefit from seeing them through a different lens. We hear how specific weeds germinate to heal damaged soils, showing us what the soil needs and how we can help them heal it.

James Diack from Soils for Life visits grazier Martin Royds at his farm Jillamatong in Braidwood. They sit down to have a yarn over Martin's fascinating story of change and repair. James also talks to farmer and soil microbiologist Bruce Davidson, who has a great story about how he approaches Blackberries and African Lovegrass. And Agroecologist Sarah Fea talks to seed producer Russel Young who talks about the challenges he’s facing as someone who is earlier on in his journey of transition to a more biological approach to farming. She also visits Bruce Maynard to hear more about his approach to weeds. Bruce is a farmer and educator who has developed methods such as No Kill Cropping and Self-Herding.

Thanks to all the our guests

Martin Royds - Jillamatong

Bruce Maynard - Willydah 

https://soilsforlife.org.au/willydah/

Bruce Davidson - Soil Smith 

https://www.soilsmith.ag/about/

Russell Young - Young Seeds

Hosted by Susannah Kable from Grow Love Project and James Diack and Sarah Fea from Soils for Life

This Podcast has been produced by Grow Love Project in collaboration with Soils for Life. This project is supported Australian Government’s Smart Farms Program.

Agricultural scientific research is really good at honing in on specific issues in the sector to investigate targeted solutions. But nature doesn’t always work that way. A fundamental principle of regenerative agriculture is to observe landscapes as a whole system and to build resilience by embracing ecological complexity.

The importance of farmer and researcher collaboration is highlighted in this episode with the need for research models and questions to meet with the complexity of farming with a whole systems and holistic approach.

In this episode we ask how the experience of regenerative farmers can contribute to research and build a strong evidence base for regenerating agricultural soils and landscapes. We will hear from two farmers that have transitioned to regenerative farming practices and two researchers working in the space.

Hosted by Susannah Kable, Grow Love Project and James Diack, Soils for Life

Thank you to all our guests:

David Marsh:https://soilsforlife.org.au/david-marsh-the-regenerative-farmer

Colin Seis: https://soilsforlife.org.au/winona-pasture-cropping-the-way-to-health/

Kirsty Yates:https://soilsforlife.org.au/about-soils-for-life/our-people/

Liz Clarke:Senior Executive Designer and Consultanthttps://www.thinkplace.com.au/

The book David Marsh refers to is Andre Voisin the French farmer scientist who wrote Grass Productivity

Australian agriculture currently has a labour shortage of over 100,000 people. It’s not an easy gig for someone to start from scratch on a farm and many younger generation farmers are moving from farms to urban areas.

We rely on farmers to sustain our way of life as they produce our food and fibre. It’s critical that young and new farmers are encouraged and supported to supply for our needs in a way that regenerates soils and landscapes.

Some major barriers and challenges that young and new farmers are faced with include access to land and capital, climate change issues and access to learning, particularly learning about regenerative practices.

In this episode, learn from a researcher, writer and farmer who has walked the walk, and started her own regenerative farming practice. Be inspired by an additional six young and new farmers who embraced a regenerative mindset to overcome these challenges.

Thank you to all our guests:

Tanya Massy  https://sustainabletable.org.au/advisors/

Josh Gilbert https://www.joshuagilbert.co/

Harriet Finlayson https://soilsforlife.org.au/womens-day-regenerative-agriculture-chicken-egg-farmer/

Adam Lilleyman https://soilsforlife.org.au/chickens-for-a-change/

Trish Smith https://www.youngfarmersconnect.com/

Luke Winder https://www.tathraplacefreerange.com/

Thank you to https://www.farmerincubator.org/regenerationreport for producing the much needed report: Regeneration which you can download from the website. And thank you for the audio featured in this episode from the launch of the report.

Hosted by Susannah Kable, Grow Love Project and James Diack, Soils for Life

The 8 families farmer group formed more than a decade ago after a holistic management course. Since then, the group has evolved and experienced transitions in all the businesses and families.

In this episode we explore environmental markets through the lens of two members of the 8 Families group. The 8 families explain how their motivation to build natural capital was not primarily to gain market outcomes, but rather a desire to fulfill their Holistic Context.

This includes building the productivity and profitability of their farming systems, as well as an intrinsic desire to rebuild the function and health of their landscapes in their roles as soil and landscape stewards.

In this episode we’ll hear from some of the group about how and why they came together, their consideration of environmental markets and the benefits of working through those together.

Thank you to all our guests:

Michael Gooden and Rebecca Gorman - 8 families Soils for Life Case Study:  https://soilsforlife.org.au/8-families-land-stewarship/

Kim Deans -  https://www.reinventingagriculture.com.au

Rowan Foley - https://www.abcfoundation.org.au

Ian Loane - https://www.carbonlink.com.au/

Andrew Ward - https://regenfarmersmutual.com/

Dieuwer Reynders - https://www.bct.nsw.gov.au/

Hosted by Susannah Kable, Grow Love Project and James Diack, Soils for Life

Farmer,forester or conservationist. It might seem like you need to choose one but more and more landholders are challenging this. With the right management, trees on farms can provide better farm productivity andforest products andincrease biodiversity. But in many ways forests are still treated as either conservation reserves or plantations, making it difficult for farmers to take this path.

In less than 100 years as a nation we have gone from removing trees to wanting to plant them back. Tree planting programs are not achieving the scale of restoration required to repair Australia's landscapes. We need to rethink how we support landholders to invest in trees.

In this episode we hear from two farm foresters who have approached farming trees very differently, as well as a scientist and a forest policy professor. They discuss why more farmers have not adopted forestry, how trees can be managed for multiple outcomes and what mindset and policy shifts are required to move to a whole-of-landscape approach. 

Thank you to our guests: 

Farm forester and grazier - James Henderson https://soilsforlife.org.au/colodan/

Forest scientist and grazier - Rowan Reid https://www.agroforestry.net.au/

Professor Peter Kanowski - https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/kanowski-pj

Associate Professor Cris Brack - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cris-brack-233a117a/

Your hosts Eli Court @soilsforlife and Susannah Kable @growloveproject produced by Edgars Greste

There are millions of hectares of degraded soils in Australia's agricultural landscapes. But there are a billion reasons why compost offers a solution to this problem, teeming with micro-organisms and organic matter that can help regenerate soils. But not all composts are the same and there is still a lot that we're learning about this precious, carbon rich resource. How can governments, farmers and industry work together to return organic matter to the soil and close the loop from paddock to paddock?

Thanks to all our guests for their time and insights.

Soils for life case study with Milgadara, Rhonda and Bill Daly - soilsforlife.org.au/case-study-catch-up-milgadara

Rhonda and Bill Daly, Milgadara and YLAD Living Soils - yladlivingsoils.com.au

Eric Love - Centre for Organic Research and Education - core.asn.au

Amanda Kane, organics manager, NSW EPA - epa.nsw.gov.au/your-environment/waste/waste-facilities/organics-processing-facilities

Virginia Brunton, environmental scientist - MRA consulting - mraconsulting.com.au

Gerry Gillespie, compost industry consultant - gerrygillespie.net/about.html

Phil Lavers, Moonacres Farm - moonacres.com.au/farm

This Podcast has been produced by Grow Love Project in collaboration with Soils for Life.

This project is supported through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program

How could the emerging market for soil carbon support farmers to regenerate soils?

Soil carbon offers so many benefits both above and below the soil surface, from improving farm productivity to revenue raising in carbon trading. But while the case for building soil carbon is clear, the carbon market is still evolving. So what’s the potential, what are the risks and what can be done to unlock the potential of soil carbon as an enabler of better farm management and soil stewardship? In this episode we talk to farmers, scientists and policy makers to explore the soil carbon opportunity.

Thanks to all our guests for their time and insights.

Stuart Austin, Wilmot Cattle Co. - soilsforlife.org.au/wilmot

Craig Carter, Tallawang - soilsforlife.org.au/tallawang-greener-pastures-through-restoring-landscape-hydrology

Dr. Susan Orgill - Soil Scientist, NSW Department of Primary Industries

Skye Glenday, Co-CEO, Climate Friendly - climatefriendly.com

Dr Michael Crawford, CEO, Soil CRC - soilcrc.com.au

Konrad Muller, Assistant Manager, Land, Forest and Blue Carbon Methods, Clean Energy Regulator - cleanenergyregulator.gov.au

Anthony Bennie, Assistant Secretary, Natural Capital and Markets - Federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment

agriculture.gov.au/ag-farm-food/natural-resources/landcare/sustaining-future-australian-farming/carbon-biodiversity-pilot

Have your say about the new soil carbon methodology - submissions close by Monday 27th September

https://consult.industry.gov.au/soil-carbon-method-proposed-new-method

For the latest updates please subscribe to the Soils for Life newsletter

soilsforlife.org.au/the-newsletter

This Podcast has been produced by Grow Love Project in collaboration with Soils for Life.

This project is supported through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program

This is Soils For Life. A podcast about connecting farmers, researchers and policy makers, to shed light on agricultural best practice and explore current policy barriers and mindsets that are getting in the way of adoption and how to overcome them. Each episode we’ll delve into a topical issue around soil health in agriculture. We’ll hear from farmers about what inspired them to change their practices and we’ll talk to industry experts about the challenges and opportunities to help improve soils for life.

Sign up to the newsletter by visiting soilsforlife.org.au/the-newsletter/