Many thanks to journalist, John McCrone, for covering the first day of the ODPG Conference ‘The Regenerative Soil Solution’ in Stuff.co.nz, and explaining the changing attitude to farming in New Zealand.
Here is an excerpt and you can read the whole article via the link below, in which John outlines presentations by Peter Barrett, Phyllis Tichinin, Hamish Bielski, Walter Jehne and Peter Fraser, and talks to attendees Dairy Farmer, Max Purnell, and Regenerative Consultant, John King. There are many interesting links to follow in the article too for more information.
The March AGM of the Organic Dairy & Pastoral Group (ODPG) brought together farming experts from all over New Zealand to talk about regenerative soil practices.
It was of course in the weeks when Covid-19 was still the looming storm cloud, not yet a crisis. Although subsequent events also mean that agriculture – the country’s bread and butter – matter all the more because of it.
But anyway, the regenerative argument is that standard industrial farming, dependent on over-powering the land with tractors and chemistry, is coming under threat for two good market reasons.
A demand for “real nutrition”. And a world that needs to take its carbon seriously.
One of the conference’s old hands at “soil first” farming, Waikato dairy farmer Max Purnell, says for New Zealand especially, as a premium foods exporter, this has to force a change.
And surprising even him, the politicians and industry leaders are now suddenly talking about it, he says.
John McCrone, Stuff.co.nz (25 April 2020)
- We’ll shortly be starting to upload presentation videos and available slideshows from the conference. Follow our page for updates.
Cover Photo Credit: Alissa Welker (ODPG Conference 2020)