And are our farmers being farmed?

Trigger warning: I’m going to rock the boat a bit, and some people may get upset. But this is a long overdue conversation in agriculture, both as an option for farmers and as a direction for our country. So, see if you can follow my thinking.

How we got here

The current agricultural system is emergent, built on 75 years of well-intentioned small decisions trying to fix genuine problems, each relating to the context at the time. A vast array of nutrients, pesticides, herbicides, seeds, and machinery has been developed to make life easier for farmers, and in many ways, life for farmers has become easier. Fine. However, the cumulative effect of the unintended consequences of these decisions is weighing us down and, in most cases, does not suit the people, the land, or our country. Bold words, but stay with me; it gets bolder.

Efficiency and price: The globalised trap

The problem is that globalised conventional agriculture optimises for efficiency and price. Let that sink in. New Zealand supplies markets a long way away, competes in a globalised marketplace against countries that do not share our employment or environmental goals, and often provides substantial subsidies to their farmers.

How can a country, at great distance from markets, compete effectively on price and quality in a globalised marketplace? The answer is free trade agreements—until tariffs recently came along and globalisation began to fracture.

From production to debt

As farm gate prices have declined in relative terms, and costs have gone up, efficiency gains were necessary to keep the farmer in the game. Globalisation may have meant ‘feeding the world’, but in many cases, subsidies are required for farmers to feed themselves. However, direct subsidies in New Zealand vanished in the late 1980s, and to survive, farmers had to take on additional debt to buy the neighbour’s place, and therefore, more production to achieve ‘economies of scale’.

Through a series of reforms and as a result of globalisation, the focus shifted to production, not profit, and the former does not necessarily lead to the latter. The average sheep and beef farm in New Zealand was forecast to lose $186,000 last year.

The cost of conventional thinking

Trapped in a one-dimensional production-focused system, farmers are coerced to take on more debt to expand (or survive), use more synthetic fertilisers and inputs to sustain more animals and achieve mythical ‘economies of scale’, all subsidised by the socialised costs of environmental degradation.

Hopefully, when (or if) it all comes right, they will start turning sustainable profits. But at what cost to themselves, their families, animal health, and soil and environmental health?

A legacy that no longer serves

And so, we find ourselves in an agricultural bind. We continue to expend vast amounts of effort, energy, and inputs to produce ‘food’ (nearly half of which are ingredients for processed confectionery), then compete on price to supply markets—many of which are on the other side of the world—all while trying to maintain a fading ‘clean, green, climate-friendly’ image. We are trapped by the legacy of the past that increasingly does not serve our future.

Redefining success in agriculture

I am sure I will be accused of taking a dim view of what is lauded as a largely successful model, but who is truly successful? What does success in this model mean? Farming is considered the backbone of our economy, yet agriculture (which includes aquaculture and forestry), for all its footprint, makes up only 5.1% of New Zealand’s GDP.

So, whom does the model serve? It is no wonder some farmers are buckling under the constant pressure to perform, in an environment that does not look kindly on ‘failure’ – however you define that.

A love for farming, not the model

Please do not assume I am ‘anti-farming’. On the contrary, I love farming and we have a small farm ourselves. I just don’t agree with the way we are farming and the downstream implications. I am not blaming anyone. There are plenty of good people involved in conventional agriculture – people that really feel like they are making a difference. But I think we can do farming better; in a way that works with nature, not against it, in a way we as a country can come to the marketplace as a high-quality niche producer, not a price-taking beggar, and in a way that regenerates our people and our land, not erodes and destroys it.

Change from the margins

These are not changes that should be imposed, but rather willingly adopted. This should not come from the centre, but from the margins where people are open to change and careful experimentation. This is not a seismic shift but a subtle change in approach, for those who wish to embrace it.

A regenerative path forward

A regenerative or natural systems approach to agriculture provides an alternative for conventional farmers in crisis, or simply, for those farmers who feel the existing conventional model is not working for them and they are looking for a better future than the one they feel they are on track for. This approach to agriculture reconnects the farmer to the land in a way that supports life.

Beyond the buzzword

Far from some ‘airy-fairy’ mumbo jumbo, regenerative agriculture is a principle-led design framework, inviting farmers to create a transition strategy for their own context. Context is specific to the land, the farmer, and their own needs. As such, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Because of this lack of a single applicable model, regenerative agriculture has been simultaneously dismissed and also attracted vitriol, largely from detractors embedded in (and profiting from) the conventional agricultural system. They maintain there is no evidence that ‘doing’ regenerative agriculture outperforms conventional farms. That may be true, when the single metric is production and externalities are just that—externalised.

The six principles of regenerative agriculture

Regenerative agriculture is defined for each context via six principles:

• Understand your own context
• Reduce inputs
• Maximise diversity
• Minimise bare ground
• Maintain a growing root in the soil
• Incorporate animals

A shift in thinking

The mindset of regenerative agriculture creates conditions for desirable emergent outcomes, whereas conventional agriculture controls inputs, the process, and interventions to create desirable outputs. One is a complex ecosystem with feedbacks; the other is a complicated machine. This is the seismic shift—the way you think about it. One is nature, the other, a factory.

Is regeneration worth it?

It’s not that conventional agriculture hasn’t been incentivised; it has for years. It’s just that a more regenerative or nature-based approach has not and looks like high-risk, hard work—the kind of work farmers have been trying to avoid for the last 75 years. It still has not produced the widespread premiums once touted, and from the outside, it looks like a giant step back in time.

But for those farmers who feel the current system is not working for them and are willing to examine their farm through the regenerative design lens and take small steps towards implementing change—especially towards debt reduction, grazing management, and a gradual reduction of inputs and associated costs—premiums are only the icing on the cake.

From what’s inevitable to what’s possible

When the farming context and decision-making framework expands beyond production targets, regulations, and financial survival to enjoyment, family, succession, profitability per hectare, animal and human health, and care for the land and water, there is a shift from what’s inevitable to what’s possible.

And I wonder what’s possible for our country if we could tell the stories of how we produce the lowest input, highest quality, healthiest food and fibre for the most discerning consumers in the world, rather than squeeze another political term out of an agricultural paradigm that has now passed its use-by date.

Regenerative is a movement that is transforming farming, agriculture, communities, business, and organisations. Ata Regenerative work with farmers to help with regenerative adoption and implementation, and can help you transition to a regenerative future.

For more information, contact us at Ata Regenerative.