Ep 12 | Martin Royds
In episode 12 Charlie interviews regenerative farmer Martin Royds.
In this insightful interview with Martin Royds, he and Charlie discuss personal experiences relating to the polarising differences of conventional and holistic farming. As a fifth generation farmer, Martin evolved the family cattle property in Braidwood, NSW to biodynamic practices with a goal to reconnect city and country. Together, they highlight the importance of economic influence in regenerative agriculture and solve the monetary concern that naïve consumers often have when purchasing nutrient rich food. There is an underlying subject that generational farmers have shifted their inherited knowledge over time to be in harmony with the environment and part of that comes from acknowledging the oversights of the past. Yet, the humility is in the fact that we are constantly learning.
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Episode Takeaways:
The epiphany was watching your land blowing away and thinking you need to do something different. Tried something different, the chemical experiment, and that was even worse | Australian farmers have been extremely good at surviving in decreasing income and increasing costs. The difference now is setting a goal of where I want to be environmentally and socially and making every decision to reflect that | There is one kilo of glyphosate being used per every human on the planet. Our ancestors will look back at us and say “how on earth did you think that pouring that stuff onto the country was a good idea” | None of us looked at what was happening environmentally, we were asking how long it would take to get our money back | Most of our soils had 3% carbon and we mined it back to 1% | You can use double entry bookkeeping to fix the problem as soon as you add in environmental capital | Most farmers who are generational farmers find it hard to get out of “this is what my father or grandfather did” | Sadly, humans are one of the few species who leave the land behind them in a worse state | When people understand nutrient density in organic vegetables they will realise they can’t afford the cheap option because its poisoning me | My goal is that supermarkets will have to label their products with the amount of nutrients in those products. Ultimately that could lead to listing the amount of chemicals used to make it also |
Episode Links:
Nutri Soil – Biological Spray Solution
Carbon in Soil – An explanation
Double-Entry Bookkeeping – An explanation
Charlie Massy – Author/Farmer
Pennie Scott – The Bush Goddess
Nutrient Dense crops – An explanation
Carotene in Food – Definition
Land to Market Australia – Organisation
Joel Salatin – Farmer, lecturer, author
Peter Andrews – Regenerative Agriculturalist
Christine Jones – Amazing Carbon
Dr Maarten Staper – BioLogic AgFood
Alison Pouliot – Fungi Workshop, photographer
