Three people, two quests and one mission
The story of regenerative agriculture told a little differently
A few weeks ago — when we were in-between lock-downs — I went on a drive to Cooma. It is an hour and a half away from Canberra and the drive is always pleasant. This drive was different though. It was more than pleasant. It was, one might say, magical. It was a frosty winter’s day, yet the sun was reluctantly shining just enough to infuse the grass pastures with a shimmer and the crackle of cockatoos with a glimmer. Couple these images with the fact that I was driving in silence to meet a giant of the regenerative farming movement in Australia — possibly also the world — led me to feel that this was not your usual drive in the countryside. Instead, I felt I was a hobbit, embarking on a quest down the Monaro Highway.
My podcast co-host, Ryan, had received the directions for the quest via email. The instructions led us: down one and half hours of a fairly straight, sealed road from Canberra to Cooma to the third exit at the second roundabout; to a left-hand turn at a double-named road; past a thickly timbered hill on the right; straight through the grassy open plains to another sharper left turn onto a dirt road; down another double-named road another a sharp left hand turn; through a creaky farm gate; over a cattle grid; down a narrow bumpy dirt track. We were to stop only when we reached the rusty brown ute parked out the front of a white brick farmhouse. And that’s where we met the really tall man, with a mop of white hair and a long grey flannel jacket, (if Ryan and I were really hobbits and we really were on a quest, then this man would be our Gandalf).
Apart from the difficulty in choosing whether I wanted the rhubarb or the raspberry muffin at the ski hire shop at Cooma, where Ryan and I met up, and almost missing the left-hand turn at the first double-named road immediately after the third exit at the second round-about, it was, as far as quests go, easy. Finding our way to the farmhouse, however, was only Part 1. Part 2, the “what comes after the drive” aspect of the quest, was what Ryan and I were both more anxious about, manifesting in non-stop nervous chatter between us for the time it took us to navigate the drive.
Ryan and I had different reasons for being tense: while we were heading to the same place we were on different quests. My quest was to carry out a purposeful, thoughtful and entertaining interview so that Ryan and I could legitimately call ourselves “podcasters”. My anxiety centred around professional angst: while Ryan and I had done our research, prepared a list of questions in advance and discussed an interview execution plan, I was cognisant of the fact that we were about to interrogate someone who had been interviewed millions of times by people who are paid, professional interviewers, (including by the iconic ABC TV program, Australian Story — see below), not two mates who had decided to do this in their spare time.
Ryan’s quest was more personal and his anxiety came from a more complex place. See, the Gandalf-esque man who was waiting for us as we pulled up to the rusty brown ute person was Dr Charles Massy and he is Ryan’s actual, real life, hero. (When we recorded the introduction to the interview, a few weeks after the event, Ryan validated my use of Gandalf, noting that Charles had always “kind of seemed mystical to me”.)
Meeting one’s hero is a challenging moment. There are loads of stories and advice written about why one should never meet one’s hero, mostly because the hero will inevitably let you down — so says the advice I read on the internet anyway. When I was 10, I thought John Farnham was my hero. I managed to meet him once and survived. It didn’t stop me from listening to “You’re the Voice” on repeat. Then, when I was 26 I met the actor Joshua Jackson, (better known as Pacey from the late 1990s TV show Dawsons Creek), on a London street post theatre performance (his performance, not mine) in London. I’m not sure he was ever my hero and meeting him didn’t affect me in anyway. I think that in the time that existed between John and Joshua Bono from U2 was most likely my hero (I have a notebooks somewhere in my filing cabinet with a list of questions that I am planning on asking him should I ever get to meet him). I think, based on this, it is fair to say that maybe I am a little “hero less” right now. This fact made it hard for me to understand what Ryan was feeling when we pulled up to the farmhouse. From the look on his face though, I’m pretty sure it was similar to how I was feeling, just for different reasons: we were both terrified and excited.
Charles, or Charlie, as he referred to himself in our email exchange setting up the interview, is a local hero. For the past ten or so years he has been on mission, which is a much bigger endeavour than a quest: a quest is a search for something whereas a mission is the taking up of an assignment, a vocation or a calling to do something. I was on a quest to interview Charles. Ryan was on a quest to meet his hero. Charles is on a mission to change the way we farm in Australia, and the world.
Using his 4500 acre sheep farm as a living lab, Charles has spent the past 20 years focused on farming in a regenerative manner, meaning that farming practices focuses on regrowing, renewal or restoration of the land, especially after being damaged or lost, consciously not pushing the land beyond what it is naturally capable of.
Charles’ 2017 book, ‘Call of the Reed Warbler. A New Agriculture. A New Earth’, is a series of regenerative farming stories that arose from his PhD research in Human Ecology at the ANU.
“Part lyrical nature writing, part storytelling, part solid scientific evidence, part scholarly research, part memoir, the book is an elegant manifesto, an urgent call to stop trashing the Earth and start healing it.”
The book is, essentially, a story of hope. By telling the stories of others who are farming in a new, better way, Charles provides us with a glimpse of a more positive future. It is:
“a story of how a grassroots revolution — a true underground insurgency — can save the planet, help turn climate change around, and build healthy people and healthy communities…”
We asked Charles about the book, plus a whole lot more in the almost two hours that Ryan and I spent with him.
Here is a smattering of some words of wisdom from our conversation. Charles told us.
If Charles was elected President of the world he would “mandate a shift to a sustainable, renewable global economy within five years.”
Alongside the great environmental thinkers, such as Rachel Carlson and Paul Hawken, Charles’ environmental heroes include earthworms, fungi, birds, sugar gliders, marsupial diggers of fungi and river gums.
Charles believes there are a series of actions that all humans should take right now: “Buy local food. Get a good bicycle. Walk everywhere. Build food gardens at school and in your backyard. Read the great environmental thinkers. Shift to regen ag.”
Charles’ message to all of us is clear: “unless we want to destroy this unbelievably beautiful, functional and precious accident then we need to radically change our consumptive, destructive, unnatural behaviour and move from extraction and destruction to renewal, regeneration and recycling.”
Charles has a vision of a “better” future for all of us. By 2030, he sees:
“…100% renewable economy, our nation a 100% food and energy self sufficient, farms, urban backyards, schools, towns, city gardens, a nation focused on planetary, regional and suburb survival, thriving and community. I see abandonment of harmful consumer culture — no plastics etc. recyclable clothes coming back, I see all junk food and sugar driven foods and aggressive multinationals banned…I see the main curriculum along with language and maths focused on planetary and regional and local health and community…I think it is a better one.”
A few weeks after we met with Charles, Ryan and I recorded a Sunday afternoon special edition of our podcast, to reflect on the process so far of making Local Environmental Heroes. At some point during our conversation, we veered into the territory of heroes, discussing our initial hesitation over whether to use the word “heroes”. Interestingly, almost all of the people that we have approached for an interview have responded with a qualified yes, with the qualifier always relating to the “hero” descriptor “Yes”, they say, “but I am not a hero.” I disagree. After meeting Charles and, after watching Ryan meet Charles, and, after taking time to reflect on the interviews we have conducted so far, I have two things to say about this.
First, let’s not be sheepish about being a hero. We (you) need to own it. Heroes aren’t necessarily larger-than-life characters. Heroes aren’t necessarily achieving freakishly impossible things. Heroes aren’t necessarily acting alone either. But — and this has been the common thread for every one we have interviewed so far —heroes will have chosen to live their life with intention, with a sense of purpose and with determination. They are somewhere on the continuum of shifting from a quest to a mission.
My second point is that having a hero — or even multiple heroes — is awesome and absolutely necessary if we are to shift from possibilities to probabilities. This is exactly what Charles did in his book “Call of the Reed Warbler” Through stories of farmers findings new, successful ways to farm that kept the land in balance, Charles showed us what is possible and, in so doing, helped led a farming revolution, not only across Australia, but the world.
Perhaps this is also the somewhat unplanned, but very welcome, outcome of our podcast: collecting a set of visions from local heroes may play a part in shifting the narrative of what our world in 2030 can really be. These conversations may help shift the possibilities into realities because, according to my theory anyway, if we align our hearts (hope) with our minds (knowledge) our actions will follow.
As Ryan and I drove away from the farmhouse, feeling deliciously full from a delightful conversation, I asked Ryan to reflect on whether meeting his hero had lived up to what he expected and what he had wanted. I was not surprised that Ryan unequivocally said it had. How could it have not? Charles is a thoughtful, community-minded sheep farmer with a deep love and reverence for the natural world around him. While I had, originally, been only on a quest to do a good interview, I left Charles’ farm having achieved success with a quest I didn’t know I was on: having found a hero all of my own. But I also left with a clear mission: to bring more stories of local heroes to you. The more stories we have out there, the better!
