Have humans lost the ability to choose nourishing diets or has it been hijacked? This question posed by emeritus professor Fred Provenza emerges after comparing findings from his 40 year career in livestock nutrition to human nutrition and is highlighted in his 2018 book Nourishment: What Animals can teach us about Rediscovering our Nutritional Wisdom. As New Zealand farming gets squeezed by...
How long can New Zealand rural leadership continue to ignore regenerative farming insights and techniques? Again, Australian farmers are proving how regenerative farming insights and techniques outperform traditional farming. Regenerative Australian grazers develop a different skill set allowing them to be profitable whilst enhancing biodiversity. These same skills also enhance farmer well-being...
The world of biological farming is not confined to what happens in soil. Biological products have been available for decades and provide strong competition for traditional chemical products. Unlike many reach-for-the-shelf chemicals, biological products require more preparation and strategic thinking in their use. The spray and walk away mentality falls short of the next level of agricultural...
This is the final article in a three-part series on ‘regrooving’ NZ agriculture. In my first article, I focused on the links between flavour and nutrient density in the foods we produce: soil microbes and minerals make for more plant flavour compounds and vitamins in our food. In the second piece I discussed the effects of our paradigm regarding fertilisers and agrichemical choices: how changing...
It’s two years now since the launch of Our Forest Future, where I called for 1.3 million hectares of new forest planting for a greener, more climate-aligned economy. A lot has changed since then, which I’ll come to soon, but first I want to talk about a lesson I’ve learned. In Aotearoa New Zealand, many of us see forests as a binary choice. It’s either native conservation forests, managed under...
In my first article I discussed the connection between soil qualities, flavour and nutrition in our food. I defended cows as valuable contributors to healthy farming. Here I talk some more about those actual cows but more about our mental sacred cows. When you hear the word ‘sacred cows’ do you tend to think of Hindu religious beliefs about the sanctity of bovines? On an ecosystem level I do...
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