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Charlie Arnott is a regenerative farmer in Boorowa, Australia. Charlie’s farm, Hanaminno, started as a conventional farm over 35 years ago with traditional methods that relied heavily on chemicals and fertilizers.
About 15 years ago, Charlie experienced several of what he refers to as “small tension events” that led him to seek out alternatives to his current practices. His journey started with a one-day course called “Profiting from Drought,” which, at the time, almost sounded like a joke.
His biggest takeaway was realizing that he wasn’t happy and mental fatigue and financial strain were taking a toll. Charlie began simplifying his business and taking steps toward regenerative farming. And most importantly, working on the “paddock between his ears.”
Charlie and I recently got to hang out at the RCS Convergence Conference, a fantastic gathering of over 600 people all talking about agriculture, human, and planetary health. In our conversation today, Charlie and I talk about:
- Charlie’s background in conventional farming
- Finding your tribe
- Changes Charlie has made on his farm
- Charlie’s new business model
- The emerging cattle diseases threatening Australia
- Managing wildfires with livestock
- Carbon-tunnel vision and reactive government policies
Be sure to check out my chat with Charlie on his podcast, The Regenerative Journey too!
Resources:
Bruce Pascoe: Dark Emu
Bill Gammage: The Biggest Estate on Earth
Video: Walter Jehne on Understanding the Water Cycle
Matt Evans: On Eating Meat
Connect with Charlie:
Website: Charlie Arnott
Podcast: The Regenerative Journey
Instagram: @charliearnott1
Episode Credits:
Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connelly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners.
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Quotes:
“We’re still making mistakes, and that’s where we make our biggest learnings – like we should in life, that’s what our farming philosophy is really about.” – Charlie Arnott
“If we’re not cycling that carbon, it’s not going to stay a healthy ecosystem. So it needs to be in use, right? It needs to be part of a cycle.” -Diana Rodgers, RD
“If we were just looking at it in a silo, linear sort of a function, then there is no cycling. And then we’re depleting the opportunity for life” – Charlie Arnott
Transcript:
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connelly, who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now on to our show.
(Patreon Ad) Diana Rodgers, RD
Ready to take your support for a nutritious, sustainable, and equitable food system to the next level? Join my Global Food Justice Alliance community on Patreon and have access to ad-free podcasts, exclusive videos, and a discussion community, plus so much more. Go to sustainable dish.com/join to support my work, and thank you.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. Today I have with me Charlie Arnott, Charlie, I don’t think you’ve been a guest on my podcast yet, have you?
Charlie Arnott
No, no, no, I’ve been waiting for an invitation for years now, Diana. You had to come all the way to Australia for us to reconnect. So lovely to be here. Really, really honored to be on the show.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. So for those of you who don’t know, Charlie Arnott is a regenerative farmer in Australia. And I was just hanging out with him last month and was on his podcast and spoke at the RCS Convergence Conference, which he is involved with that group. And I was super impressed. Wasn’t that a great conference?
Charlie Arnott
It was wonderful, wasn’t it? Two days of wonderful speakers, international. And yeah, and you were one of the stars that actually got yourself to Australia in person. So that was a win-win, for me anyway. We got to sit down for a few hours. And that interview will come out on the Regenerative Journey podcast in middle to late September. Now as I was just gonna say, it was just a relief to finally because I’d put it off for two years. It’s a 10 year conference, kind of cycle, RCS work. And then having been put off for two years, to finally have everyone in the room was probably the biggest conference everyone had been to for two and a half, three years. 600 people and just the quality of the speakers. And it wasn’t just what was wonderful… wasn’t just the quality of the speakers, you know, the experts and so on, like yourself, but also the clients that RCS have sort of helped in the last 30 years and their stories of their regeneration of their farms and their families and their businesses. So that was kind of a real highlight for me to just hearing those stories of, of how they, how they’ve developed and grown last as long as they’ve been clients of RCS. So that was a high point.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah. So I wanted to talk a little bit about like the differences about what’s going on in the cattle industry between Australia and the US and some of the unique challenges that you have, not only with your brutal climate but diseases. But before we do all that, my listeners might not know much about you. So can you give folks an overview of your operation and your background?
Charlie Arnott
Sure. Diana, I grew up here at Hanaminno, which is our farm – family farm in Boorowa. It’s about four hours sort of southwest to Sydney, for anyone who wants to know where that is. We were very conventional. We were cropping – we had sheep, and we had cattle. We were growing wool and wheat and canola and making hay – lots of activity, lots of inputs, lots of outputs, doing a pretty good job of that. But very conventional, and that was sort of I grew up here. That’s how we did things. That’s how my father had shown me. My secondary and tertiary education were very similar, very science-based conventional agriculture, and which was all fine. And that’s just what I knew. So over some years of after university, and taking a bit of time out, I came back to the farm to manage it, and again, in the same way, but after a few years, probably 5, 6, 7 years, I kind of started asking myself, you know, questions about did I want to keep doing this. I was watching paddocks blow away in the wind, and you know, that soil ending up in New Zealand, essentially, bit of mental fatigue, I guess at the time, financial strain. So I guess it was a tension event or a number of small tension events that led me to looking for other alternatives to what we’re doing. And I went to – just referring back to RCS, a one day course they had called Profiting from the Drought. And I know that you guys have been pretty dry times. And we certainly suffered, you know, what we call droughts every few years with extended dry periods. And so that was quite an interesting journey for me from that day on. Going to a course called Profiting from the Drought sounded like a joke. So I went and changed my life in that the biggest question, the biggest take home for me was the facilitator said at lunchtime, “Are you happy?” And I said, “Well, I’m not unhappy,” which I think is pretty reasonable. So really, you know, that sort of, it really got me thinking about, well, why wasn’t I happy, you know. So that was the beginning of a journey. But lots of training, using alternative methods, cutting costs, we’re just not using super phosphates and removing a lot of the chemicals from our system to stop cropping, which obviously involve all the chemicals. And so that was the beginning of my regenerative journey. We started using biodynamics few years after. We sort of started moving away from conventional, and I guess there’s not much that we do conventional anymore. You know, we very rarely drench. We have done a bit recently with trade animals. We use biodynamics we really have a pretty low-cost base with much more simple with sheep and cattle. We’re not cropping anymore. So that’s really where we headed in the farm is a much more simple operation, I still think I can simplify it somewhat more. But, you know, in terms of the ecology is much improved, you know, we’ve got better animal sort of health. And, you know, some of these things are anecdotal and some data science around it, or data around it, but it’s just my stress levels, whilst they do peak and trough every now and again, just with life agenda, I feel much more in control. We’re focusing on what we are in control of. You know, we used to worry a lot more about the weather and this in the market and, and that sort of things. And that probably just comes with sitting and reflecting and asking ourselves much better questions than we used to, you know. So yeah, so that’s the short version, Diana, where, you know, we’re basically selling lambs to butchers. When the time’s right, we’re producing beef cattle. We just started a new ewe – like sheep, ewe composite ewe herd. So those lambs will be ready to go at the end of this year. They’re dropping as we speak. So look, we’re still learning. We’re not perfect. We’re not experts in too many things. But we kind of really advocate and support others picking up what we’re doing. And we share what we do a lot and not because, again, we think we’re the best at it, it’s just like, this is kind of working or this is not. So yeah, we’re still making mistakes. And that’s where we make our biggest, biggest, biggest learnings I, like we should in life, you know, that’s just, our farming philosophy is really about, you know, similar our life philosophy, you know, in a way and you can’t escape it really because we live on our farm. And that has its own challenges, doesn’t it? Yeah.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yes. Tell me a little bit about the other farms/ranches in your area? And are they, is anyone else following suit along your path there?
Charlie Arnott
Yeah, Diana, there’s a couple. We’ve got some neighbors who have probably been at it for longer than I, and they’re probably not doing as much anymore in terms of the grazing management and so on. There’s a gentleman, David Marsh, who is wonderful. He was probably doing this sort of style of farming some years before I did – a great family friend, a mentor of mine. He’s nearby, and he’s one of Australia’s [mumbled] he’s very humble man, but just doing it very simply, and very well. So he’s 15 minutes from here. There are a handful of people. There’s a small grazing group has become sort of the Boorora grazing group. And it’s probably a dozen or more farmers from within 50 kilometers or 100 kilometers of Borrora that come together every few months. And we talk about grazing and animal health and all those sort of things in paddocks, you know, just looking at what’s the best. That’s one of the most educational things that I find is actually going to someone’s farm, you know, talking to them, looking at their grass for their cattle. Yeah, that’s time well-spent in my books. So look, there’s… we’re the minority. I have to say, we’re, you know, I guess, I think there’s a mix of kind of curiosity with what we’re doing. And also, and more of that now, like, probably when we started doing this, it was like, we’re the weirdos, you know, we’re the guys who are – we’ve got thistles on our front paddock, you know, and we stopped doing this and started doing that. And, you know, a lot of the paradigms of conventional farming, you know, not very conventional sort of person anyway. And so, for some people, it probably wasn’t a surprise that we got weirder than we already were by not spraying thistles out of paddocks, and, you know, just doing things differently. So, I’m very comfortable with what we’re doing, you know, again, we don’t go into make fun or compare ourselves to anyone. The only person I compare myself is to my former self, you know, and I can say, look, I made some mistakes, and I used to do this, and now I don’t and, you know, if I’m going to hack on anyone it’s myself, and that can be funny, and that could also be a soft way to talk about, you know, how we’ve changed without actually making you know, making someone else that reference point. So, you know, it’s the movement here is growing, you know, absolutely. We saw that the conference that 600 attendees, and then those that couldn’t get there, you know, there were a few of them from down around here. And look, you know, it’s lovely to find our tribe, you know, farmers, or anyone needs their tribe. We don’t have that in our modern culture, or we can if we look forward, and it’s a very different type of tribe. Now, of course, you know, the whole COVID thing, dare I say, one benefit, if I can, if there were any of all of that was that people started to find their tribe. And I know, we started just associating, I guess it might be the wrong word to use, which sort of was a great filter, you know. I found for, like, who do I want to hang with? Who do want to converse with? Who do I want to spend time with? And who can I be happy about being with? And so you know, we’ve got a great tribe down here, and it’s growing as well, which is lovely.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And so can you talk a little bit about the changes, like where you’re at today, mentally, financially, production-wise, animal health-wise, compared to before you made the transition?
Charlie Arnott
Yeah, I guess, you know, our cost structure is very much more simple. We just don’t want to bind the stuff with making a lot of our own column fertilizers with biodynamics and manures. And so it’s not much input. There’s a few supplements that we give animals, copper and sulfur and that sort of thing. So the inputs generally are much lower because we’re basically generating a lot of those ourselves. We found that a lot of the things we were doing, we just stopped drenching, pretty much overnight. We stopped vaccinating cattle and sheep, just we’re just doing it… we’re in a system of just doing that, because it was like, “Oh, she was… It’s March, we better go on drench, those things.” Yeah, we’re in that sort of very prescriptive mindset back then. So I went cold turkey with a lot of this stuff, which is probably not something I recommend everyone do. But it certainly highlighted some of the things we didn’t, just didn’t need to do. So that was that was one of the main things we have done a bit of drenching the last 12 months, because we’ve got some sheep here and some cattle and the data is coming from elsewhere. We just needed to do so. In terms of chemical use, very little. We don’t on chemical and pastures and that sort of thing anymore. So we’re generally chemical-free. So back to the human side of it. That’s a big thing. You know, for me, I don’t know, I necessarily had chemical poisoning. But I do know, there were times when I had horrible headaches. I felt sick as a dog. And we used to use a lot of chemical here. So in terms of the environment I’m providing my family to grow up, and to live in, that’s been a massive thing. My diet has changed a lot, too. There’s no way I would have made bread out of the wheat I was producing here 16-17 years ago, I know all the crap I was spraying on it. And I come from a long line of this, just get my bread makers, you know, so it’s got to be in my genes in a way. But there’s no way because I just wouldn’t have done that. We weren’t ever growing any vegetables and things. So we were killing animals, you know, for meat and so on. But, you know, so my diet’s changed – much more conscious about that. Because, you know, my understanding of working with nature meant that I had to be in a better frame of mind myself and physically and mentally. And so you know, the whole diet thing was, that had to change. And my wife Angelica, who I met – she’ll kill me if I don’t get this right – 13, 14, 15 years ago, she made me see what she had been eating organics for years. And like, so that was another step first, probably to impress her. But then probably more genuinely is like, wow, this is actually serious, you know, I don’t want to be spraying these chemicals. I need to be eating organic food. And so that was a change as well. Financially is probably not, you know, it’s probably similar in a way. We’re probably not turning over as much as we were, but our cost structure is so much lower at the same time. So and it’s just a more simply run business. So in terms of the mental, what you have to do every day, it’s still probably too busy, you know, but in terms of all the juggling balls in the air, yeah, that’s a great one. And there’s, you know, so there’s the, on your balance sheet, you’ve got your assets and liabilities and so on. But you’ve also, which is obviously in dollars and cents, but the thing that’s really coming to the fore now and banks are looking at it much more seriously, is the items that aren’t on the balance sheet that probably should be like the natural capital, you know, the ecological health. I think that’s a much bigger thing. Not just for the farmer to know and be aware of, and I’m involved in a pilot program, which is sort of identifying retrospectively the improvement in the value of natural capital with the changing of practices. It’s also something that corporates and as I said banks and said ESG the whole ESG thing, which I’m not necessarily a big fan of. I think there’s some merit in it, but I think it’s also a lot of involves on greenwashing, other agendas apply there. But, you know, just the consciousness of the world to the value and the partnership with nature. And that’s probably worth a note. As well, you know, it wasn’t until we changed things like change my paradigms, and I changed the path between my years. You know, that’s the place to start, you know. I went out and did a lot of things in the paddock, or our fields that I adopted. This is probably a point to make, I adopted a lot of things to put into the paddock, which I probably should have adapted instead, you know, went off what works for you and do it here, or it doesn’t necessarily translate. So adaption not adoption was a big thing. And so I made mistakes, or I had some failure failures as it were, because there were still some changes in the paddock between my ears – in the field between my ears that I hadn’t made to then think differently about things. I still probably thinking with that old paradigm, but trying to apply a new paradigm. So generally, you know that was my mental health improved. And so to my point was partnering with nature and understanding that nature is our most powerful, compassionate, forgiving business partner. Okay, you know, it’s the giver of resources and the forgiveness of nature’s incredible because we just keep throwing *bleep* at it Yeah, we just flog it or not anymore. But in my old self, we treated like, I don’t know, not as a business partner, not as anything nice. You know, we were just using it, gobbling up as a resource, so we could just grow stuff to sell, you know. Now we’re much more aware of its value. Financially, its value to us mentally and spiritually. And it’s, you know, it’s got its role in our business.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And do you sell direct to consumers? Or what’s your business model for selling your beef and sheep?
Charlie Arnott
Yeah, well, we used to do a bit bit of beef some years ago, and we sort of did direct-to, you know. We had a butcher in Sydney that was just four hours away, and Abbottsford was an hour away. So we ran a few animals through that system and did direct to sort of marketing and door-to-door in Sydney. Now, when we’re selling to butchers, it’s generally lambs, because it’s much just a much easier commodity to or product to sell in terms of breaking down and acceptance and just ease of getting through to butchers. So we haven’t done any of that this year because we just didn’t have lambs that were raised already. And we’re drenched, we drenched our lambs. So I’m not, I’m just not going to send them to butchers direct, but our lambs that will be on the ground sort of any day now. Then later in the year, we’ll start selling them to butchers. So that’s kind of the main part of our direct-to-customer part of our business. We have a lot of involvement in direct-to-customers in terms of education. So we run a two-day introduction of biodynamics workshops here. We’ve got one in a couple weeks time and we do them in Queensland and Victoria and Tasmania and WA, in South Australia, every other state pretty much. So that’s part of our business model. It’s not our biggest part by any means. But it’s certainly probably different to most farms that we’ve got that part of our business and that’s wonderful because it really brings the people side of it literally to the farm. We’re hosting a landcare in Australia, you might have heard of is 30 plus years old now. And it’s basically a – it’s a community, state and federal and local community of land carers, people who care for the land and so we’re hosting a field day tomorrow here. So that’s pretty much it. We do dabble with a bit of multispecies, pasture cropping just to improve and probably experimental at this stage, really. So that’s probably the only cropping we do. And we don’t use chemicals in any of that. We were using some solid and composites and some liquid, there is a fertilizers for that as well. So that’s generally our business model, Diana.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And so compared to the United States, you guys deal with some – well, first of all very dangerous insects and sneaky things and awful, awful animals. But then you also have uniquely dry – I mean, really dry landscape and disease on its way in right now to threaten the cattle population. So can you talk about that a little bit?
Charlie Arnott
Yeah, sure. The – so yeah, that’s something that biosecurity in Australia has always been a thing. And it’s been, you know, when you come into Australia, you have to sign declaration cards. There’s inspections, you got to declare, you know, goods and where you’ve been. That’s something that’s pretty standard. But more recently, I think it was in this year, the foot and mouth – so it’s a bovine, sort of cloven-footed animals carry foot and mouth disease, and that was that was found in Indonesia, just to the north of Australia, and where maybe business partners and a lot of tourists trade between the two countries. So that was found earlier this year. And so that it sort of took a, dare I say, a month or so before we all sort of heard about it and put us not too far away, but then it was highlighted with the media – highlighted sort of how critically dangerous it was and how we always knew about it. Like in the UK, I think it was in the, in the 1980s, they had an outbreak there and maybe one of the 60s and the last one was in Australia was – it’s a viral disease, very contagious. And it was in Australia, I think 1872, a bull from the UK came in here. There was only two farms involved and eradicated the disease all those years ago. So the threat to Australia is that someone or tourists can come in with it on their feet, or, you know, bring the bring the virus in and then go to a farm and then spread from there. Because once it gets to animals, it’s very contagious.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And will you describe it a little bit, but just so my listeners can understand what happens the animals when they contract it.
Charlie Arnott
Yeah, it’s mainly like some like pustules around the mouth and their feet. And that’s sort of the weeping of those. And the respiring of the animals when they respire and touching and but mainly the very contagious fluids, I guess, from the mouth. And so being on the mouth can be, you know, part of breathing out and then in the winter, apparently carry a couple of kilometers and can stay on the environment instead of warm, moist conditions for a couple of weeks. So it generally doesn’t cause death in adults, but it can in youngstock. I couldn’t tell you what, I think I heard 20 or 30% chance of death, generally. So mainly in the youngstock. So that’s kind of the disease. So, you know, from the outset, I mean, there’s lots of viruses that animals can get – lots of virus in the environment. And yeah, humans are vectors for viruses as well. And so it’s interesting that, you know, the general thinking around it is that it is, I mean, it’s a bad thing, because of just currently, the legislation in place, if Australia gets Foot and Mouth Disease, that’s the end of our exports, and 80% of the meat produced in Australia goes to export. So that’s the talking $52 billion loss of revenue for the producer over the next 10 years and if it gets here, they would have to obviously quarantine, depending on where the spread is and how big it is. And they would have to eradicate those animals within those areas to try and eradicate the disease. So this yeah… where the government is currently really focusing on is helping the Indonesia is eradicated over there. So if we can stop it, there is less chance of even getting in here that creates a bigger, bigger buffer. There’s a lot of tourists trade between Indonesia and Australia, as I said, and some of my angst too – a lot of my angst a month or so ago was around there didn’t seem to be and they’d been proved that since, but many checks and balances in place. People just come back, you know, there weren’t shoes being inspected or washed. They just didn’t seem to have up the quarantine kind of regulations in place. I understand now they have sniffer dogs. There’s much more activity at the airports for people coming and going so and I just – wondering if we just do a travel ban Don’t you know, people could come back but make sure that totally doused and not gonna bring anything in. And then just people just can’t go – like even a month. Just go okay, sorry, you can’t go on holidays because it really got my goat was that the whole COVID thing a few years ago, they basically shut the world down for what that was, and we kind of… I’ve got my views about it, but it was it is what it is. And you know, it’s… the world suffered for I believe, you know, it didn’t really have to. So we’re happy to shut all the borders there. You know, so I didn’t think was a big ask for the Australian government to say, hey, let’s just cool our jets for a month and just not don’t go there. So people aren’t coming back and potentially bringing in. That didn’t happen but they have to up the sort of the process that people go through. The other threat is is actually people bringing in meat and dairy products illegally and not declaring them and the virus coming in on those.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Right because so you and I had an awesome dinner with Pran Yoganathan, who’s also been on my podcast and I’m a huge fan of his, and a wonderful woman that you brought along
Charlie Arnott
Shiri Whooly
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yes, I still have my gummy gummy leaves
Charlie Arnott
You have contraband. Are you? How you feeling? Is it giving you, you know?
Diana Rodgers, RD
I need to do more of an experiment. I think I was like I was so tired when I got back in the time it took me like a week and a half to really feel like adjusted and normal again. So I need to do a better experiment because when I first got home, I was like crazy. And but anyhow, she was giving me a little more information on this and like you said and I think I was shocked to hear that. And maybe I heard this wrong but I think when you said people bringing meat and dairy products in this disease can actually be on a meat product, and you can actually spread it that way. It can be on like, a burger.
Charlie Arnott
Yeah, from what I understand, I know that there can be, you know that. And they did find and they do find the virus, the dead virus like strands of the virus in products. And they found some, probably three or four weeks ago in Melbourne in a retail shop. And I think that it was pork products from Asia somewhere, might have been China. And they weren’t, it was a standard sort of procedure. And they found it, I don’t know that the dead sort of virus strands can actually then spread so to speak. But I think it depends on the processing of that meat and how exposed it is to the environment when it gets here. You know, I don’t know enough about it in terms of the process of infection. However, I do know that that’s one of the biggest, you know, sort of fears, I guess, for the government and farmers is that is potentially the illegal because a lot of tourists, foreign tourists coming over here from Asia, seem to love bringing food with them. And that’s fine in theory, but you know, if it is infected, and they bring it in, it just poses another risk and nervousness and kind of you know, that opportunity for infection somehow so that it may well be kind of the least threatening way of getting here. But it is certainly something that’s on everyone’s mind. So yeah, looking around, I mean, the irony is we’ve got so many good pork products here in Australia, and beef products, and general meat products that why we’re bring it in in the first place that’s beyond me – for the economic reasons. And for the biosecurity reasons, I just don’t know why that’s even happening. But I know a lot of it’s illegal. And that’s where the problem is.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And there was another disease that she was even more concerned about because it, I guess, transmits more through the air. And that was something about bubbly skin?
Charlie Arnott
Lumpy, Lumpy skin,
Diana Rodgers, RD
Lumpy skin, yeah.
Charlie Arnott
Oh, that was actually found in Asia from March this year. So it’s, I’m not as familiar with Lumpy Skin, to be honest, but it was, it’s certainly, I guess if I can say the good thing about it being found in Australia in Indonesia in March is that put everyone on high alert. They put the authorities on high alert, the biosecurity, the customs officials, and so on at the airport is like and what I found out more recently is there’s always been a very detailed and, dare I say, effective biosecurity plan in place for such an event. So what the Lumpy Skin disease did was kind of activate the system. And then when probably potentially whether we’re whether you call it worse or the better known threat of Foot and Mouth Disease being in Indonesia in March in my… the wheels are already turning on that. So that was if we can say it was a good thing it was that.
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Diana Rodgers, RD
And then the other issue is fires. Was it last year or the year before there was just crazy fires? I remember you posting about it and people not understanding how livestock is actually one of the great ways to mitigate fire risk. Can you talk a little bit about fires in Australia?
Charlie Arnott
Yes. So Australia is a very, I think it’s the driest continent, in general, on the planet. And we have… it’s a pretty rosy long conversation and I’ll try to keep a brief. We have a lot of native forests and woodlands and so on in Australia, a lot of it’s actually been removed through clearing and so on. But the traditional owners of this land, indigenous aboriginal cultures and people, they were very good land managers and some wonderful books, one called Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe, and also Bill Gammage – The Biggest Estate on Earth and they both really dug into pioneers, the early explorers upon his diaries, and they kind of worked out that a lot of this landscape for what people turned up was managed very well. They were farmers, some of the first farmers in the world the first bread was baked and made with seed in Australia in the world. The oldest, no one human manmade to not building, but construction is in New South Wales. It’s a fish trap, you know, this one was amazing history there. Anyway, so the indigenous, traditional owners of Australia were very land managers and they cared for the landscape. They manage it in a way… they were farming or cultivating all sorts of wonderful things, that they kept the landscape in a condition that and there were no cattle in Australia, by the way. There were kangaroos, and they were mega fauna and you know, all sorts of big wombats and that sort of stuff. So it wasn’t kind of like in North America, you’d get your bison, but nonetheless, they were grassland-type environments here. And the indigenous people were very good managers of that. Now and they rotated – they didn’t really rotate but they kind of manage it in a way where there wasn’t a huge fuel load in the landscape. You know, the grass was fresh. There was cycling nutrients just because of the management. Now, over time, and as you know, white people settled and they cleared more land and changed the way that the landscape was managed. They depleted the soils, and a lot of the woodlands that were managed in a way, went a bit feral, basically, and a lot of the biodiversity declined, and the natural cycling decline. And so over time, you know, generally a huge, well, the biggest tool of the indigenous peoples’ use was fire, you know. They would burn areas, whether it was to sort of move kangaroos from here to there, and then they can capture them, or they just knew that burning of that landscape was a way of regenerating landscapes. Now, when white people came along, and they stopped burning. Then the landscape and the woodlands and the forests kind of went backwards, you know, their succession regressed, and became much more simplified. And so without this burning, and this management, a lot of the debris, you know, the fuel lay on the ground, and this can be there for some years or decades. And so with, you know, that change of Land Management, and then, you know, whether it’s the generally the world’s heating up, and there’s different environmental factors, and, you know, there’s a changing climate, I like to say, not necessarily climate change, but a changing climate, then these things are actually tinderbox, as they – with large national parks, we’re talking about private land as well – massive fires, you know, you get a really a couple of years of dry, dry, the drought conditions, there’s so much fuel on those out in those forests, they just go up and they cook the ground, like the carbon, the soil burns, you know, the carbon is everything, and the ground is cooked. Life, you know, the soil biology is gone. And that creates a desert, basically, in the soil. And so there were cattle, as a quick example, there were cattle and horses grazing in, over many over decades, and there is a century and a half in the snowy mountains of New South Wales. And Victoria, it’s a great example of whilst the cattle weren’t native, they were doing the job because with a change of management, they were actually, you know, wasn’t like a large, lovely range land pasture area, like in North America, or maybe parts of Australia. They were contributing to the recycling of nutrients and the kind of the management of that landscape. And so when they were removed, there’s been a lot of things and we’re gonna get back to a native sort of a situation, get those cattle and horses out of the way. There are big changes, you know, that change of management or change the situation had some dire consequences and the fires, it may not have stopped it, but certainly removing those animals and horses, I believe made those fires much worse. They’re the use of glyphosate is another thing that Zack Bush talks a lot about is, you know, that in the environment, he believes has been… it’s found in a lot of places, a lot of farms obviously being used, and also it gets its way into waterways. And its general anti-bacterial kind of function, I guess, has impacted on the soil. And so the soil life is depleted. And it’s not able to kind of recycle the load of fuel that’s dumped in these forests. So there’s sort of probably a number of different contributing factors to this whole fire thing that there was lives lost infrastructure. Some of those areas, I think, are still trying to recover. And you know, we people blame the environment and people blame you know, every other thing, but at the end of the day, it’s mismanagement. It’s not recognizing that, you know, we have changed the management in such a way that we need to be looking more at the indigenous cultures about how they used to manage it, as we know and we appreciate certainly with our farm here, and certainly a lot of the ranches in the States for example, you know, the use of animals in those landscapes are absolutely invaluable for keeping the cycles going – nutrient cycle. You know, hydrological cycles, the solar cycle, the sequestration of carbon. You know it and I know it and a lot of your listeners would know it too. But it’s, you know, when you’re battling bureaucrats when you’re battling ill-informed or people who sort of don’t necessarily want to know or want to explore, definitely not even advocate. They are quite against the use of animals and landscapes because they just have a very simple equation cow equal farts equals killing the planet. I had a fascinating conversation with Walter Jehne, who you may have seen at the conference, you know, his wonderful presentation. There he got the whiteboard out. You’ll be pleased to hear in my interview with him yesterday, day before. And his you know, the way he talks about the natural cycles and transpiration and the breaking down with sunshine in water vapor and breaking down methane. And it’s just fascinating. This is all science. This is all stuff that we know and it can be proved. And it’s not about proving it’s just like saying, hey, it’s already here. Like this has been done. We know that stuff. And I mean, I have my view on why but you know, why are people ignoring it? Why are people just… you know. It’s science-based and it’s not as though someone’s just gone, oh, I think this is happening, you know. So there’s so many other as you well know. And you know, we’ve talked about, you know, agendas at play here that are… it’s ironic that those are saying cows are killing the planet. They are the most effective, I believe, way of restoring health of this planet. And it’s not just like in the immediate zone, in the microclimates, and on the farms. It’s the bigger broader picture. And it’s cattle and sheep, and it’s, you know, other grazing animals. So, I mean, it’s not news to you Diana, I know. But it’s a constant source of frustration for us and people doing what we’re doing, and no doubt that you come up against this very conscious wall of *bleep*. You hear from other people, with politicians – it’s not so much other farmers or other farmers can’t seem to get it. But it’s yeah, it’s vegans. It’s greenies. It’s a whole lot of, you know, I don’t wanna get political about it. But it is a fairly big political sort of side of it all, and other agendas at play. So look, again, I know a lot of your other guests probably talk about similar things. But here in Australia, that issue is as raw as it is anywhere else in the world, I think.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Completely. And gosh, I mean, I think it’s important for folks who are listening to know that this is really happening everywhere. And what I’ve learned from this past year in Brazil, and in England and New Zealand, and Australia is just policies that are so reactive, based on this carbon tunnel vision, and this idea that we have to eradicate all methane and carbon, but only from our food supply, and only from cattle. It certainly benefits the ultra-processed food industry, the big oil companies, and many other villains in the system, when they can have a common enemy like this, you know, killing beautiful animals for meat that probably are going to give you cancer and by the way, their farts are destroying the environment.
Charlie Arnott
Well, the great example that’s happening in Ireland, I think recently, they’re looking to this law, whether it’s been legislated or there’s certainly a push to remove a million cows, bovines out of the system there. I mean, that is just, that’s a great example, of just siloed thinking. It’s like cows, farting. If they’re not there, they’re not farting, and we’re going to reduce emissions and save the planet. It’s like, well, those Irish people are not going to stop eating meat. Yeah, they’re not going to. So those animals are our system, and they’re not able to contribute to the carbon cycle and sequestration, number one, and the other thing is there going to be emissions from the importing of all the meat that’s going to replace those million cattle or the products or whatever it is, whether it’s dairy, or meat or whatever. So it’s just, and it’s like, can they not? Did they not see this? I mean, they clearly do, because it, I mean, they’re intelligent people, and they’re cunning, you know. That’s probably the, that’s probably the bad combination. But again, all those agendas at play. And I mean, don’t get me started with electric cars, and all that sort of stuff, too because that’s just kind of, I can’t get my head around the logic, any logic of that. In Australia, you know, most of our energy supply comes from burning of gas and coal. But you know, people run around saying, let’s go get some, let’s drive electric cars. And I think about where the rare earth metals, the where’s that power, most of that power coming from when they plug it in, unless they’ve got a solar setup at home, and it’s all sort of reasonably sort of self-contained. But if they’re plugging into a wall somewhere and charging up – well, that’s coming from somewhere, and I just think this is s such a big conversation, isn’t it? And, you know, if people are wanting to, you know, who can just very simply and your good self that sort of use and your presentation at the conference was wonderful. That you’re not just saying, Oh, I reckon this and I think that it’s like – these are the, this is the science, these are the numbers, you know, drop the mic. And the thing is, we just don’t get that. We don’t get the conversations. We don’t get the headway or the progress with government, and it’s, you know, the whole carbon emissions thing, or they’re gonna track our emissions and through our buying choices, and then, you know, depending on being potentially taxed on that or disadvantaged in some way, because of our choices. You know, that whole thing is a lot of rubbish too, because, you know, while they’re just looking at carbon – carbon is they’re commoditizing it so they can actually make some money out of it, you know, and which is the irony because it’s the carbon that’s been put in the atmosphere, you know, through fossil fuels that they’re saying we’re going to reduce emissions, but they’re really happy to still make money at the other end of it from people like you and I. I mean, thank God I’m a farmer, at least I can probably justify some offsetting and connecting actively offset some of that stuff if I need to justify that. But for mums and dads who buy food, you know, one day and kind of their credit card doesn’t work because they’ve just gone over their emissions kind of quota. And that’s the penalty for killing the planet just to live. I mean, this all might sound like conspiracy theory stuff, but there’s so much more that is just, you know, it is creeping into the media a bit more and it’s just the threads of it, it’s just a carrot and it’s just a little bit like, no I can see where this is going.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Yeah, you know, and putting farmers out of business for buying up usable farmland for the carbon credit of it, and then now taking it out of commission. And of course, if we’re not cycling that carbon, it’s not going to stay like a healthy ecosystem. So it needs to be in use, right, it needs to be part of a cycle.
Charlie Arnott
That’s it and what we’re hear of all these emissions, we’re gonna stop emissions going up. But that’s pretty much what you hear. You don’t talk about – so that’s only a part of the equation. You know, and we’ve got – what really frustrates me – well I’m not frustrated. I’m really interested in a lot of very vocal activists and celebrities, whatever you want to call them, people who have the opportunity to – they’re intelligent people, they have the opportunity, they’ve got access to information, they bang on about reducing emissions. And we’re going to do that, because we’re gonna have electric cars as an example, just like they’re not even looking at the other side of the equation, which is, you know, what, farmers with their cattle, and with the management can actually sequester carbon and do the other bit of the whole equation and keep this thing cycling, you know, so, and we only ever hear about one half of it. And it’s all one way, you know. This is – you’re absolutely right, it’s about cycling. And carbon is the building block of life. And if we, if we were just looking at it sort of in a silo, linear sort of a function, then there is no cycling. And there is, you know, we’re depleting the opportunity for life, you know, you’ve got livestock, you’ve got deadstock, you know. Things only live when other things die. Again, it’s a constant, it’s a constant frustration. And just on that, you know, there’s a great book, Matt Evans, Australian chef and a farmer in Australia. I might have mentioned to you actually, I said, I was going to send you a copy, didn’t I, and I haven’t yet. That’s very rude of me. I’m gonna write that down. He has a book called On Eating Meat. And it’s a fantastic thing. And he, you know, in Australia, that whole thing is very topical, as always, has been for some some time now, obviously. And he makes a very, very simple point that we’ve got the ethical and the environmental, nutritional kind of angles on eating meat or not. And in terms of probably more the ethical side of it, and the environmental side of it, that it’s about suffering, you know, and in Australia, we have a lot of native animals, and there’s less and less of them because one thing is cats, feral cats are killing a lot of native animals. And if the whole thing is about reducing suffering, and that’s what we keep on getting is like, you know, we don’t have animals to suffer and be in farms and can get slaughtered and eaten. That’s all sufferings like, Okay, if and so the general, there’s agreement around it’d be nice to reduce suffering, the biggest impact that the Australian consumer can make on suffering in Australia of animals is getting rid of feral cats, because there’s some hundreds of thousands of native animals that get killed and tortured, I might say, by feral cats every night.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And house cats
Charlie Arnott
Totally, yes. See it’s not just the ones that you don’t see in the scrub. There is the one – exactly, it’s the ones that jumped on the birds in the tree or the whatever else. So that you know, so. It’s yeah, that’s fascinating.
Diana Rodgers, RD
And a third of our meat production in the US goes to pet foods.
Charlie Arnott
Totally. This is and I think we might have had this conversation when we were together there.
Diana Rodgers, RD
We probably did but it’s mindblowing.
Charlie Arnott
The irony is if you chat to some of the some people who were not, don’t want us to produce meat and eat meat, it’s like, well, have you got a pet? You know?
Diana Rodgers, RD
We could go on and on and on, right? Owning pets and denying other people the right to access nutritious meat is definitely an ethical dilemma that should be discussed.
Charlie Arnott
Yeah. Totally. I was just yeah, just on that one to finish that little quick rant was yeah, those pet owners who if they’re feeding their pets meat, that’s kind of you know, hypocritical. And if they’re not, and they’re feeding them grain-based foods, you know, like those pellets and things well, that’s kind of – cats and dogs don’t eat grain. So that’s unethical too, so they can’t win. So they you know, they’re going to stand up and say, we can’t have animals grazing paddocks, and we can’t eat them, then they just can’t have pets as you just sort of said. So anyway, look, it’s a very circular conversation and the constant source of frustration.
Diana Rodgers, RD
It is. Well, I enjoyed the conversation even though it’s frustrating at times, and it was nice to have you on and I really enjoyed seeing you in person in Australia. And I did just get invited back to Sydney for the Women Business Meat something group. So hopefully, that works out, and I’ll be back there next spring. And so I look forward to that and let people know where they can find you, Charlie.
Charlie Arnott
Yes. So I have a website, charliearnott.com that are you on there, we have events that if any of your Australian listeners can come and join us at workshops. We are hoping to get to the states, potentially next year as part of a bit of a world tour. We’ve got workshops to do in Europe, and hopefully in North America. There’s so many people I want to drop in and see. And I don’t know, my podcast Regenerative Journey. Find it on your favorite podcast platform. And, yeah, look, we are season six starts in a couple of weeks, and you – I think you’re gonna be episode two, on season six. So you’re up front there after myself and my wife Angelica and I have a bit of a rant in the first episode. So that’s where you’ll find me. Thank you so much for your time. And you, when you come back in, I guess that’s your spring is our fall, our autumn. So in the next early next year, you’re most welcome to come down to Hanaminno here and do a farm tour, another visit.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Awesome. That is great. And people need to follow you on Instagram. We’ll put all those links in the show notes so they can find you.
Charlie Arnott
Fantastic. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Diana, really appreciate your time.
Diana Rodgers, RD
Thank you have a wonderful day, and stay warm.
Charlie Arnott
I will. I will. I’m very envious of the warmth you’ve got over there at the moment.
Diana Rodgers, RD
It’s amazing. I’m very happy, and I’m not looking forward to getting cold here. But all right, have a great day. And thank you again for your time.
Charlie Arnott
Thanks, Diana. Good to speak.
Diana Rodgers, RD
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