The Regenerative Era Ignites: Tales from the 2023 Margaret River Conference (Day 1)

Welcome to the new year. And welcome to a new world, where soil renews and pastures flourish, where every bite of food embodies a philosophy of renewal. The Regenerative Era blooms, and with it, a transformative approach to our landscapes and the very sustenance of life. Join us on a journey to Margaret River, where the 2023 Regenerative Agriculture Conference ignited a beacon of hope and inspiration with a turnout of passionate souls exceeding 300. This episode is your exclusive pass to the heart of a movement, with regenerative systems pioneers forming an all-star panel that pulled no punches and had plenty of laughs along the way:

• Dr Terry McCosker OAM, founder of RCS Australia and one of the great innovators of Australian agriculture for over 55 years;
• Dianne & Ian Haggerty, globally renowned pioneers in WA’s wheatbelt;
• Heidi Mippy, award-winning Noongar and Thiin-Mah Warriyangka woman who has worked in community development for over 25 years, runs a business, and has a chapter in the best-selling book Rising Matriarch;
• And Rod O’Bree from Yanget Farm, whose work has been described as taking Peter Andrews’ famed Natural Sequence Farming to the next level - to say nothing of his work regenerating supply chains. 

This episode isn't just a recount of a conference; it's an immersion into an era that redefines our relationship with nature, a blueprint for a future where regeneration is not just a concept but a living, breathing reality.

Head here for automatic cues to chapter markers (also available on Apple and some other apps, and the embedded player on the episode web page), and a transcript of this conversation (please note the transcript is AI generated and imperfect).

Recorded on 6 September 2023.

Title slide L-R: Heidi, Terry, Rod, Ian & Di (pic: Daniela Tommasi).

See more photos on the episode web page, and to see more from behind the scenes, become a member via the Patreon page.

Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics, off their latest album.

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from the film Regenerating Australia.

The RegenNarration playlist, featuring music chosen by guests (with thanks to subscribing member Josie Symons).

Find more:
Hear more from Terry McCosker (and wife Pam) in ep136, Heidi Mippy in ep178, and Di & Ian Haggerty in ep142.

And hear Jade Miles & Rachel Ward the night before the conference in ep180.

Transcript

Anthony: 0:25

G' day. My name's Anthony James. Welcome to 2024. The eighth year of The RegenNarration. Hard to believe, really. A s an entirely listener supported podcast without ads or paywalls, i t's all thanks to listeners like you. Thanks so very much for becoming generous, subscribing members over the summer break Glen Chapman, Christine H annan, Jacqui and Bella. Thanks also for your extremely generous donation, Laura Dalrymple. A nd to the Haggerty family for the freezer full of loved lamb. I never imagined all the ways a podcast on regeneration would regenerate me and my family. Thank you.

Anthony: 1:07

I was also humbled to be nominated for a couple of awards as part of the Australia Day Honours. In one case, I was sent the nomination but without a name attached to it, so in case it was you given I've got no other way of doing this I wanted to say thanks here. I didn't win anything, but your kindness was its own reward. nd and thanks The Nomadics Nomadix too, for the tune you're hearing now r hoots shoots shoots shoots now green shoots. If you're also finding value in all this, please consider joining this great community of supporting listeners with as little as $3 a month or whatever amount you can and want to contribute. We've a year ahead like no other, so I look forward to sharing plenty of extras throughout, including a few new experiments. Just head to regennarration. com website via the show notes regennarration. com/ support. And thanks again.

Terry: 2:38

You look at the bill, the flood repair bills in Australia. Just take the flood and fire repair bills in Australia, and not just in WA but Australia. You're looking at tens of billions, maybe hundreds of billions. A nd to fix the landscape is a fraction of that, and change a lot of those outcomes.

Anthony: 3:29

First up this year, as promised, I've been looking forward to welcoming you in to the fold of two major events late last year in Australia. Today we start in Margaret River, a few hundred kilometres south of Perth in WA, where a full house of 300 plus people gathered for the 2023 Regenerative Agriculture Conference. Though, as the conference rolled on, we started to hear broader terms being applied to the work and objectives being showcased, terms like regenerative food systems, and one guest speaker ultimately describing this as the regenerative era. The bloke who trotted that out was Rod O'Bree, a highlight of the event, and at the end of day one he returned to the stage alongside a few fellow presenters you might recognise well from this podcast and elsewhere, for a truly all-star panel that pulled no punches and had plenty of laughs on the way.

Anthony: 4:26

Dr Terry Mc Mc Cosker OAM, founder of RCS Australia and one of the great innovators of Australian agriculture for over 55 years. Ian and Diane Haggerty, maybe we can call them the godfather and godmother of regenerative agriculture in WA. They'll love me for that, these globally renowned pioneers in WA's wheat belt. And Heidi Mippy, award-winning Noongar and Thiin-Mah Warriyangka woman who's worked in community development for over 25 years, runs a business and has a chapter in the best-selling book Rising Matriarch. And Rod O'Bree, his place, Yanget Farm, is near Geraldton in WA, 400k's or so north of Perth. His work has been described to me as taking Peter Andrew's famed natural sequence farming to the next level. He also runs Western Independent Foods, an established wholesale foods operation with freight travelling up and down the West Coast; and Mick Davey Butchers making a market available to local farmers to reach their own communities and tell a story with the produce. Yep, we will be talking more to Rod about all that on the podcast soon.

Anthony: 5:41

The format for this session was distinct. At the end of each day of the conference we decided to convene a panel on stage with me, with no predetermined agenda, but to reflect on what had gone before and what might come next. First Nations First. We start with Heidi, followed by Di and joining us on stage for the first time that day, Ian. H eidi, I feel like calling you in right up the other end there.

Heidi: 6:10

Must be karaoke time AJ.

Anthony: 6:13

Sit tight, not yet.

Heidi: 6:20

Well, look, I have really enjoyed the discussions today, I must say, a little bit overwhelmed by all of the conversations. There's always so much to digest. Thankfully, I really don't need to worry about all of the detail because I don't farm anything. But what I have loved the most is that the conversations where people are appreciating how First Nations knowledge can help diversify their farm practices and how we can work together, you know, on the bigger picture, which is just about restoring country and doing better with budja. So that part, I feel, you know, makes my spirit feel good.

Anthony: 7:13

Thank you. It's something I feel like, in a way, that line you use the greatest opportunity of all. It's almost the umbrella for the day, and it's something that you alluded to, the fact that you live out a bit with these guys here, so perhaps it's a good opportunity to bounce to you guys and see where you would pick up a dominant thread or two.

Di: 7:32

Just like to add to Heidi's story, then is just even the picture that you showed at the end with the barbecue. We've actually got an image, and I was going to put that up too. Was you prepare a beautiful wattle seed and salt bush mix and marinated the meat and cooked the meat with that and it was just spectacular. It was probably the best tasting meat I've ever experienced. I think that's what working together, I think the future going forward, those opportunities that we've got a wonderful landscape out there that's capable of all this stuff, that you know our own culture we've missed out on those opportunities, I think, going forward, we're so excited about that and we're just so grateful that we've had this opportunity to connect and looking really excited at the future. But I mean, that was just a start, wasn't it, howard? You know, and where it can go from here, there's so much more.

Anthony: 8:23

Ian. Welcome Ian, how you doing. Thank you A hand.

Ian: 8:31

Yeah, I think it's been a wonderful day and you know what everyone's saying. You know there's a lot of really good things happening out there and a lot of good collaboration, and you know a lot of science, a lot of intuition, everything's. You know the group of people here is just amazing. But I still feel there's something lacking a bit and it gets down to true systems change and what we can change and do all that we like on our properties and what we produce. And you know we're turning degraded, so it's not just taking straight country, we're turning degraded country around and bringing it back into productivity. But I think we need to really get together to push the whole community financial institutions, investment institutions to actually get behind us all and support us. I think they all seem to like to and there's a lot of talk about it and a lot of things put up that there is. They are supporting all these things, but I don't think there's actually true dollars getting back to farmers to actually transition and change.

Ian: 9:49

And you saw Jake just say at the moment the wonderful things he's doing, but is he actually getting any price back for actually what he's doing?

Ian: 9:56

And it's not happening and I think that's where we need to be putting a bit of pressure on to do that and doing that as a total group to go forward.

Ian: 10:06

You know, realistically, if you've eaten food, drunk water, breathed air, worn clothes over the last 100 years, you've all been part of the Industrial Green Revolution, so you've all ridden on the back of the degradation that that's caused through all these cheap products that we've all been a part of.

Ian: 10:26

So you look going forward. They're expecting farmers or agriculturalists to actually solve the problem with what they can do with the soil and the land and the food situation, which will help the health problem and budget around the world to get nutrient-dense food. But they're still saying they're expecting the farmers to actually do it. And I reckon everyone should be giving a little bit to actually help make that change and it can be only be a small percent, but it actually has to be shared across the whole community and rather than expecting the farmer to pay high interest rates and buy the degraded land or change all this and pay high interest rates for the privilege of actually fixing the planet as well. So I think we need to be working together as a group to actually change that side of it as well.

Anthony: 11:25

This is. I mean we've had some conversations, I think I can say this where that's not set.

Anthony: 11:32

as gently, you're being very nice because you've just come to the stage, but this is enormous and obviously it's sensed in this room. It will be talked about tomorrow, but I don't want to leave it alone just there. I want to keep going for a little bit with you before perhaps we elaborate a bit with the other guys next here. I'm wondering what you and or you die might add to that by way of some specifics that you might think need to happen, or indeed you might be working at or have seen work elsewhere.

Ian: 12:07

I think we have the privilege to speak to a lot of people around the world and a lot of institutions and things, and we've been put in front of a lot of people and just even financial institutions, for example, or investment or impact investment groups or things like that and they're putting together packages and saying how wonderful it is that we could bring this green package together to actually put the farmers to actually help retire some debt or do something like that or make change. And when you sit down and listen to the nuts and bolts of it, you just sit back there and you just go. You'd have to be kidding me. You know you're just so far off the market. It's a joke. And what's really shocked me is you've got really great people who really think they're trying, but they're just so far off the pace of actually what needs to be done as change.

Ian: 12:58

And you know you look at investment for exactly where investment dollars are going.

Ian: 13:02

You keep hearing there's trillions of dollars around the world that are put aside to come back into this, but none of us seem to be able to be seeing it.

Ian: 13:11

And when you cut down to the nuts and bolts of it, we're all still wanting their six or eight percent return on that investment and what I actually put to them.

Ian: 13:19

We should be going to some of these funds and saying five percent of that investment or ten percent of that investment should be coming into systems of change, which actually doesn't get a monetary return, but it actually gets the returns of what actually is happening socially and ecologically, and then do what you want with your other ninety five or ninety percent. Go get your eight percent, but if everyone put in that small amount that it was doing that, it would make a big difference and then we can actually hold mirrors up to our major financial institutions, where we usually borrow money on, saying this is where we can get it from here. This is what the trend is around the world and I can guarantee you when they have their AGMs and do their reports but I'll all be excited about their five percent and talk about that more than what they will do actually about their ninety five percent but it's just bringing them a straight monetary return.

Anthony: 14:16

Guy, would you add to that, and I wonder if you don't have anything in your mind already? Please go to that first. If you do, some of the successes that are coming on for you guys with some key partners that you alluded to briefly in your presentation that are growing, there are others coming to the table, so there are some people who do seem to be caught on in that sphere, if not the finance, sort of expressly, but I'd like to hear about that too, and I guess what the difference is like. What are they getting? How is it working?

Di: 14:49

I think it's still very early days, but there's some magic people out there really trying hard to make that shift, make things possible for other people to have a contribution and have that reciprocity back to the land, because not everyone who lives in the city might feel that there's any direct pathway that they can support activity on the earth. I guess, as Ian's saying, the funds to flow back to the land care is absolutely critical if we want this planet to thrive and flourish, for us all to have a future. There are people trying to pull those things together. They're still coming up with lots of resistance.

Di: 15:28

As Ian's saying, the mind steps is still very much upon that old way of thinking that it's all still return based. But our returns now have to be those other things social and ecologically and culturally and all the rest of it, because we've ridden that wave, we've crashed that one and we've really got to do the reparation and it's going to take a significant effort from everyone. And I think that's where as a group, as Ian's saying, that we all have to try and do our bit to talk to every person we possibly can through whatever media we may have available to us and just put that in their mind all the time because if we don't do everything we can as an individual and share those stories of there is ways, if we can get the funds right to the people that are genuinely doing the work on the ground. That's our only way for having a future. But yeah, I think it takes a bit of coordinating, but there are some great people out there working on it, but they've got a few battles ahead too. But let's try and you know, put the news out there all the time and so that wider community can start saying, well, yeah, absolutely, I've.

Di: 16:38

I resonate with that. I want to do something. How can I? How can I do it?

Anthony: 16:43

Rod, come to you sure, and I'll perhaps weave together. We ended up before with Barry from the floor, a little bit like I alluded to Fitzroy crossing. That's estimated to be a half a billion dollar repair bill, but that doesn't remotely a it'll probably north of that be. It doesn't remotely count the cost I mean people's homes are trashed. It'll be years, it'll be another year before we see the bridge. So what they're going to do this way, etc. Etc. So I think of the half a billion dollars there. I think the 200 million repair bill for woman the Chamberlain flooded in the Kimberley.

Anthony: 17:18

I look at the Canaver pictures and know that we've spent a lot of money on a levy bank there as opposed to the land. In other words, we talk about government policy. We talk about the masses and growing numbers in terms of money that we're having to pay back end to try and recover, when we never get there. It's like this tail chase. But you alluded powerfully to the fact that these things can be turned around and that we're not just paying for repairs. There's lost opportunity, cost where that water should have gone, the regeneration that could happen. That must be something you think about a lot when you try and get a bit more support and attention for what you're doing, definitely.

Rod: 17:58

I mean droughts and flooding rains as us. So you go from a destructive action that should have been a productive action. So it's. Australia survived on that for years. All the natural patterns were there for that to happen. The erosion repair bill that you're talking about doesn't cover the damage done to the marine life and and then the social issues that are caused the roads, the truck drivers and everything goes on with that. The insurance bills getting paid. Personally, I haven't settled my insurance bill from 2000 and it's a roger a couple of years ago, so that hasn't finalised yet. I know that the floods and the canaverna behind there's damage up there where they've got issues now with their groundwater as well, so they'll never recover it. The soil that gets washed out there's still bunnings are still selling for $35 a cubic meter.

Rod: 18:45

So I don't know how you'd measure that as well. But so it's a. It's got to be a whole of system repair. It's like a whole of landscape thinking or a whole of farm thinking. When you're looking at something, you've got to go the whole of system. So I think the marine boys have got to kick back a little bit on what's going on. I think the consumers have got to have a good hard think about what they're buying and where they're getting it from, and I think that and that might help drive the, the retailers, to do a little bit of work. And it's got to push back to the finance to give this a bit of a cutting edge. But the fact that we can't even there's not enough arbitrage or enough butchers around the place to start doing these things. I've got to start working on the system in all parts, not just one.

Anthony: 19:23

Terry, what do you observe, your experience with this and where it's coming, where it's not coming?

Terry: 19:29

I suppose my philosophy is that the only person you can change in any of these circumstances is yourself, and we've got to start with ourselves and change our own behaviour. Lead with our behaviour, as Dye says, talked as many people as we can, but we've got no ability and no right to change anybody else. And I look at the climate crisis and I don't think it's a climate crisis. I think it's a human crisis. It's the people that I talk to outside my normal circle, that they live in cities. They're waiting for somebody else to do something about it, and I think the majority of people I recognise. If I did account, there'd be 90% of Australians and 90% or more of people in the world that are waiting for somebody else to do something about it. That says to me we've got a human problem and it's not just a climate crisis. It's a biodiversity crisis, it's a food system, it's a health system, it's an education system. Some are other and I suspect we're headed for a significant event that's going to smash everything and we have to start again from scratch, and that's probably the only way, because I think everything that's happening now and if you look at it at a government level, it's symptom treating, it's fixing up after the floods instead of creating the landscape that wasn't going to flood in the first place, you know, and that would be a lot cheaper. If you look at the bill on the flood repair bills in Australia just take the flood and fire repair bills in Australia and not just in WA, but Australia you're looking at tens of billions, you know, maybe hundreds of billions, and to fix the landscape is a fraction of that and change a lot of those outcomes. So I think we've got to start with our own actions and I think that Thinking that we can change a Woolworths, you know, or a JBS or a big organization, they're a bit like government. I think they follow. They're massive bureaucracies, just like mining companies, and all big companies are bureaucracies, just like government, and I know that because I used to work in one and also worked in a government one. So I know that the impacts of bureaucracy. So I think we've got to look at ourselves. But how do we? The issue for me really is how do we get everybody to look at ourselves? That's the, you know here we're doing it right, but this is 300 out of what's the population of WA. It's very small and we're talking to the converted. We're preaching to the choir. The people we really need to reach with this conversation are probably not in this room. I mean, I hope that Rachel's movie will start to reach some of that audience that we're not reaching. Sometimes I despair, and particularly for my grandchildren. You know, I guess I'm having a go, but it's not. Yeah, it's bigger.

Terry: 22:51

The other question that's come up for me, just going back to some of the themes that have come out today, is the one that Will's raised a few times about how do you get through and handle learning experiences in Regen Ag and if you're moving into it, you're going to have them for sure and I think that, firstly, it's recognising that a learning experience not a mistake and that's really critical and that is coming back to yourself.

Terry: 23:18

It's treating yourself kindly and observation of which has already come up, is absolutely critical. But I think support is either mentors or peers that you can talk to is absolutely critical and, in my experience over a long period of time, if you're the only person or there's only one or two of you in your district that's stepping out and doing something as idiotic as what Brendan's doing, which is what will be considered by a lot of people that it's lonely and I know the loneliness of that because I've been pushing it up for a very long time and you need support. You need peers and people that you can talk to, and I think that's probably how you get through it. You need to find a community, and that community might only need to be half a dozen people, but it really comes back to a community that will help you through that.

Anthony: 24:23

Thank you, dye. I feel compelled to come back to you because again you've raised this, but just briefly in your presentation with Jane and really what could be part two of your presentation, the depth of how you guys work behind some of the gains we see Taking up the mantle from Terry. This is the number one thing to work on ourself, but with each other. Put a bit more flesh on the bones of that.

Di: 24:51

I hope I can do that. Justice, hey, jay, but thank you. And yeah, that's exactly where it's at. What Terry was saying is working on yourself first is the only place you can really get some truth happening. And then, yeah, I guess that has been a long part of our journey.

Di: 25:09

At the beginning we didn't really understand that's what we were going through and Naughty Jane at that stage too, she was very much on awe were working on a path together and it just unfolded that at the end of the day, like Terry's saying, it becomes a human problem and if we don't accept responsibility for each of ourselves in what we're doing and look at your own personal growth and how you can contribute, develop that humility, that love, respect and gratitude you know is needing to be there. And I guess that's where First Nations cultures around the world seem to have that integral to their core and perhaps, you know, some of our Western communities have lost that a bit somewhere along the line. And, yeah, getting that back at each individual level so that then we can come together as a community and do some great things.

Anthony: 26:02

Something that occurs to me is you know, you also talked about what I alluded to at the start of the day that what can come of that, as you guys are great exemplars of a lot of you and so many here, can be, to seem almost miraculous, like way beyond what you could even have imagined, let alone planned.

Anthony: 26:23

So it's interesting to think that we might think that's not changing anything, but that that could be the engine of what changes everything beyond your direct control, Like it could actually be the fundamental human characteristics that make what we're seeking, rather than, I guess, this unwitting perpetuation of a reductionist, mechanistic mindset where it's like I've got to change it, I've got to change that person, I've got to change that thing, that organisation, etc. It's interesting to think that paradoxically, seemingly by going would be small, you go bigger than you could contemplate. Heidi, I mean I sort of looked over your way, but I'm thinking it too. I wonder what your experience of this is.

Heidi: 27:15

So much going through my mind while you're talking about that, because I'm agreeing with everything that everyone is saying here around. Being strong in yourself and your ability to you know influence what you can in your own circle and being you know for me the importance of having or being out on country and taking my kids community out on country is about well-being. You know, mental health and well-being. You know we're strongest when our feet are in the soil, when our, you know, toes are in the sand, a head is clearer, a heart is stronger. And you know, maybe you don't realise how powerful you are doing nothing just in that space, but you're actually probably like so powerful just there doing nothing, and that's a really important space to be in. And I was thinking about that while you're talking in Diode when you shared your journey earlier and I've heard you share your story earlier.

Heidi: 28:36

We have had recent, you know, another recent youth suicide in our community this week and I keep thinking about the lack of access to country that our young people have and why I continually push for access to country. And you know country is not. You know it can be a park in the suburbs. It doesn't need to be ours away, but having that ability to connect and just sit and be present or hold space for people, particularly for our own mob, is a powerful space and it's a really important space. To do it in a place where biodiversity is strong and spirit can be strong means survival of our culture and survival of our people. So you talk about, you know, the fear for grandchildren. I often think, oh shit. I often think oh dear thank you.

Heidi: 29:42

It's not very young idea. That's why it didn't come to me firsthand. I think, oh dear, what are my kids inheriting? And it's a really hard thing. Like I get this anxiety that I don't normally get, anxiety like, oh wow, like what world do they live in? And it's not a nice thought. It really isn't a nice thought.

Heidi: 30:03

But I just constantly go back to well, all I can do is get back out on country, keep them out on country, share as much language, connect with the plants, with the animals, and do as much as we can to survive what we can. Really, that's it right. Because if I focus too much on and we're not even the big destroyers and the ag industry is not the big destroyers of this country, it's the other players right. But if we focus on the big, we do need to face reality. But if we focus on it too much, then I don't think any of us would sleep right. So it's about loving ourself and looking after ourself, being present in the moment and just being strong, the strongest place.

Heidi: 30:51

When my daughter struggles with her mental health, she'll say and she'll say Mum, just take me out, bush, that's all I need to do. And you know, I know when she needs a bit more than that, but most of the time that's all she needs to do, did I? I'm not sure I even answered your question there, aj, but I feel like you did, yeah.

Anthony: 31:10

First thing I want to say is I really feel that this week, Just to add a little bit to that, thank you.

Terry: 31:18

I think some of our issues are actually to do with the left brain and the right brain, and we live in our left brain, which is a brain that wants to control everything, and we need to spend more time in our left brain and our heart, which is where you were just coming from. That's our right brain and our heart, and there's only two ways that you can look at making the sort of change that needs to happen. That's, take a top-down approach or a bottom-up approach, and top-down approaches do not work. Bottom-up approaches do, and if we start, we're changing ourselves. Then you develop your own community and you develop a bigger community, and now we've got a bigger community here.

Terry: 32:06

As this community grows from the bottom-up for real reasons, for purpose, forit's authentic, in other words, that spreads. The authenticity of this movement will spread it by itself. As it gets big enough, it will influence. It'll influence markets, it will influence government, it will influence local government, state and federal governments. So I think we probably just need to also be a little patient. This will take time and it might take another 20 or 30 years to get a big enough regenerative community, and I hope it doesn't, but it might, so I think we also need a bit of patience in there.

Rod: 32:58

It's funny because your landscape works from the micro throughit's the same patterns and by the look of everybody here today, I think we're on a roll. We're moving anyway. We are APPLAUSE.

Anthony: 33:16

I think too about what Jade Miles mentioned last night at the film screening about the National Farmers Federation study into the mental health of farmers. As I was listening to you, heidi, in particular, cute edges with what I'll say we've inflicted on Aboriginal communities, but it's shared. The spirit is wilting. Come back to where you brought our roll into the room this morning Across the board, like it was this morning, wasn't it? Two more last night again, there was an last night, wasn't it? With Jade. Again I said that's not a food system. If that's what it does to people and that's what it's doing to people, we need a food system. That would be a health system that is anchored in spirit. In that sense, I don't think the person I'm going to mention next is going to mind that I'm going to do this.

Anthony: 34:04

It's Tanya Massey, daughter of Charlie Massey, who just took a bit of time out from doing some extraordinary work for Sustainable Table some of you might be aware of, and she took a book with her one of a few books, otherwise it was no screens and unplugged for a bit to reset, to get in touch with what we're talking about, the power of what you were talking about, heidi, and one of the books was how to Do Nothing, which has actually become quite famous. Jenny O'Dell is the author. She's all over the place now, globally, talking about this. She's got more books since, and she talks about kairos and kronos, even our understandings of time, and I know, heidi, you could talk to this more too, and that we would do well to live more in kairos. The time that's not of the clock. I'll leave that there for now and we'll come to you guys.

Audience (Local legend): 34:56

Thank you. This follows on from the discussion that we've just concluded. I think, Terry, you're absolutely right. The change has got to come from within ourselves as an individual. But then, as an individual, we all have spheres of influence. We've got friends, we've got families, we've got people we meet, and it's like putting a stone into water the ripples go out and it would continue.

Audience (Local legend): 35:29

Last night at the film and we were talking about how to ensure that that has a wider audience, and I suggested that if Rachel's farm people could contact the Rotary Clubs, the Arts Centres, the Lions Clubs, the Community Resource Centres, all these people in your own community. What I should have carried on and said was that if everyone sitting here last night at the film went out to their community and said, how about we put on Rachel's farm as a film evening in our community? Now there's, I think, three times as many people here tonight just now as they were last night, so that's a much bigger ripple. If each one of us goes back to our community and says, how about we put on a film night to show Rachel's farm and I've no doubt there are other films or documentaries promoting Regen Ag, or do you know where your food comes from. That would be available for film nights throughout communities the length and breadth of Australia.

Anthony: 36:59

I also think about the media we might create. Film is one, podcast is another bit, but there's all sorts, and the more I've seen of this or the absence of it around the country, the more I believe in this point. Community rate good, old-fashioned stuff doesn't need to be fan dangled and it doesn't need to be more than 10 people. That's one of the reasons I persisted with a podcast. Why would I do this for so few people at the start? And and another podcaster said, imagine if you had 30 people in your house who would listen to you every week. It's gonna be huge. I'll take that and run with it.

Audience (Mel Holland): 37:32

Hi again. Sorry you can listen to my voice. It what I wanted to add was not so much a question but more to echo what you guys have been saying up there and a little bit of lived experience that I've had. And I think it comes from the intrinsic sort of Australian demographic where, pretty poor at promoting ourselves, and even more so in farming, you know, we sort of downplay all of our achievements. It's something that I think is being bred into that the kind of farming background and I'm a sucker for it and I know everyone that I know around me and most of my friend community is the same and we're pretty terrible at putting a hand up and go. This is actually pretty cool what we're doing and you know there's amazing people in this room and I think you know not many of them will put their hand up and say I'm doing something cool, I'm doing something that's really amazing, and I think that's something we need to get better at. Telling people and valuing and whether that's a monetary value is, you know, for us it's a little bit easier because we are an end product and we're a fast-moving product.

Audience (Mel Holland): 38:36

Agriculture is a lot harder but you know, we experienced it with the you know Coles and Woolies branded supermarkets. You know Dan Murphy's Lick-a-Lands. You know the Endeavour Group. They hold a huge market share and when we first opened we had to fight for shelf space and premium shelf space. Is that eye height.

Audience (Mel Holland): 38:53

When you walk into a bottle shop? You know they didn't care that we were doing things sustainably the right way, using community where we could. You know, working with suppliers didn't mean shit to them, it was. You know. Is your product going to sell? Are we going to make money to the point where we lost out of sustainability awards because they didn't believe we were doing everything we said we were, whereas now they've got their emission targets and they want to use us to achieve them.

Audience (Mel Holland): 39:21

I'm now putting a monetary price on that. Yes, I hope you get there. We got to pay me to do it. So with that, we're starting to get better shelf space, my shot starting to have a point where we can, you know, have some traction in arguing that point and valuing that product. But how we got there was working with our little small community in our backyard, working with our local bottle shops, working with our suppliers, our sporting clubs, our friends. You know they're the people that are going to help you. So it sort of goes back to you know, valuing what you do and using your community, because you know the two things that are going to help you said thanks.

Anthony: 39:55

Well, there's so much in there too.

Anthony: 40:01

I think because one of the ways, because the humility is a beautiful thing, right, we've talked about it today too, but so one of the ways we can double up on that, I think, is by telling other people about other people. So tell other people about mouth, tell other people about these guys, etc. Platform the others and they'll platform you, which is, again, is something you know. Us people could be media creators that as well but it can just be with your neighbours or community groups, to all your colleagues, etc.

Audience: 40:33

I've got to a couple of comments really to make, and first is that I feel very optimistic actually about the future when I when I hear young men like Jake and what he's been able to do. If there's lots of young men like Jake and young woman, I think we've you know, we've got a very bright future indeed. And my second comment is relates back to something that Terry had on one of his early slides about not getting a pre, not expecting a premium for nutrient-rich food. It should be the norm and I wonder if there's ever going to be a time where the true cost of cheap food is charged, what your thoughts are about that, the carbon miles and the other aspects that really cheap food is not cheap food at all always there's been a cost to cheap food and that's that's the environmental cost and and that's what we're hoping to change and you know the communities of people dying.

Ian: 41:34

I've been in the space for 23 or 25 years now and we've seen it grown, especially in Western Australia, from very small to the amount of people that are taking notice now. And I think by shortening our supply chains wherever we can and there's usually a cost to that because it's infrastructure and things like that but wherever you can shorten supply chains and we see it through the bakery you can have really influence on your customers and all different people. You just don't know who is walking through that door and what other contacts they've got and through the taste and nutrient density and I think those examples is what we need just to keep growing and shorten but then encourage those people to spread that word and they can spread that word and, like I said, if there's enough pressure on the big institutions and web finances and that come from from the people, you know that's that's where that change will happen. But we've just got to keep encouraging our customers and our people just to spread that, to spread that word. We've got to keep that conversation happening.

Terry: 42:42

I'd like to just to respond to that as well. I think I don't believe in the market that there's actually premiums. There are only discounts. There are niche markets and I think the early adopters in lots of environments you know people like Brendan and you guys there are niche markets that you can get into because you're early adopters and there's a volume that a niche market can take. But when we go past that, those niche markets and those volumes and we have to be thinking normal volumes, grown this way, there won't be premiums.

Terry: 43:21

And I think we've got to look at the other side of this. There are people who can't even afford a house. There are people that are living on the street. There are lots of people that cannot afford to buy much food, although you could probably challenge what food they're actually buying. But you know I don't expect that a population is going to pay more for food, because there's a lot of people that can't, but there's a small percentage. You know there might be 10 or 15 percent of a population that is prepared to pay more and that's our niche market. But I think and they can support the early adopters. But we've got to go well past early adopters. We've got to the whole systems got to change and then I don't think there'll be premiums out the other end of that, but there will still remain niche markets. But we've got to go well past niche.

Di: 44:13

I think that's the. The whole point of those short supply chains is that the price, the end point, is actually cheaper than what it is, well, relatively, I guess it takes out that need for a premium because it's more direct. We're not having so many stumbling blocks in the middle where extra profit needs to be generated for all those different phases. So if there's only one or at worst two stops between the producer, I guess, and the end point eater or clothes wear or whatever it might be it just seems so much easier. We do have a direct market, a small market for a lamb, and the price that the customers are buying, just because they're dealing direct with us, is no wholesale or anything in between, and we're just working with a butcher and the abattoir. So I guess there's, you know there's two costs there, but there's nothing else. What the customers actually paying is a heck of a lot more reasonable than they'd be buying in any other circumstance. So I think that's that's where that systems change makes it possible, doesn't it? If there's more, instead of the big multinationals owning all the processing facilities or whatever else that can come down, and, as Jeff said before, there was used to be lots of these family owned abattoirs around the district and now they're all gone. We've created a system, now that the the big is better and you've got to have all these efficiencies and rah, rah, rah, which actually has ended up adding more and more, cost more you know at a social and you know a cultural and ecological level. Yes, so we can work on that.

Di: 45:53

And the other thing I wanted to add to your comment was about the young people. Absolutely, I think the young people coming through are just magical. That do have a different way of being. A lot of them seem to really get it and they're operating very much from their heart and making significant commitments. I know a lot of people that are 30 and below absolutely committing their lives to making serious change and they're not looking for a big pay packet out of that. They're just really keen to be involved in new things, new ways of making change and getting that that personal reward, I guess, and working on self, that personal growth and joining together with other people that can, you know, work alongside each other and feel supported with, so, I guess, creating another community. But, yeah, that the young people are very, very exciting, which is what it's what we're all doing it for, really, isn't it?

Audience: 46:57

I just wanted to say the week Terry was saying that that's the personal, and I think it's both the personal and the system. You've got it. You know the two together, not just one, and and the stories I've heard today are very much impacting the system. And so, and particularly the contact with the universities, the contact with the government, the funders of a lot of the funding has come through various government departments and a lot of the speakers have had input from either a great, you know, the, the academic, the left brain. So the left brain has been very important to a lot of people's practice, particularly that that observation and thinking things through and coming up, you know it's, it's real science, what he's doing, looking at things and, yes, might say that, but look what's actually happening. And so, and hiding particularly of this, that big picture that you put this morning, that's a system thing. It's not just active on the personal, it's actually doing both at once and and the power of this is the person.

Anthony: 48:12

But I think, acknowledging that you are having an impact with this, I just wanted to acknowledge that here, here, well said, it's something that, yeah, something that I'm hearing a lot to throughout the day and and here as well, it's that, it's, it's seeming. It can seem to be a paradox some of the things that being said here, but it's not. It is getting at system change. It's it's how you do it and how you think about it that either makes it all over or not. But also what you started the day with Terry Hay, like bridging the domains and having each play their part.

Audience (Local legend): 48:47

So I know that governments, I'm not going to lead us anyway, but what can they do? Or where do they need to get out of the way?

Anthony: 49:01

Don't hold back. You never do anywhere else, just get some.

Rod: 49:07

While we're all here, I think a lot of us will recognise the hard work Alana McTeen and did on the government side of things. So she's out there listening. Go girl Industries led the way for a lot of time from my viewing and I'm experiencing that lately with looking at that Gasco and River issue and then trying to get food through the market and everything else. How we weigh in on that's just got to be people numbers other than that to get the government to move. But I think they're always going to be reactive. I'm sort of half given up.

Anthony: 49:43

That's democracy in many ways, sort of the way the system works and should work arguably Should work.

Ian: 49:51

I think we just got to be careful that when we're talking about natural capital and what Terry's saying is right about, you know, there won't be premiums, it will just be where it is, that we don't get regulated. But we have to do all of these things which actually put in curves and other cost, just to tick those boxes. So, industry and what we're doing and talking to the other side of town, which is, you know, keeping that conversation open, which is, which is our big investment community, which goes to things, you know we've got a lot. We're not going to wait around for government, but we've got it. So what? Where do we go to? We just got to talk to all, all fields of where we are and we've all got a voice and we all talk in amongst our community. But we've got to be not scared to talk to the big side of the community that are.

Ian: 50:44

You know, we're all lucky, we can all put our feet on country and walk our country and spend time with our First Nations people and share things.

Ian: 50:51

But these people can't because they're treading the sidewalks of big cities and they're fairly removed from it.

Ian: 50:57

But where we all've got contacts and can and have our voice, we've got to be not scared to talk to these people about and try to get them to come and put feet on country, because when we seem to find when, when you get them on the country, the energy of country gives them a different thought and they have an experience of our life.

Ian: 51:15

We've got a wool market that goes directly into Europe and we we have brand representatives you know, whether it be McCartney or Goetje or whatever come and come on to country and it's the best experience of their life and they go back with a completely different point of view and you think how could have this ever happened? They've been in the wool industry and been so fairly successful for years, but to come on country and feel it and they take a different story back and a different voice is what needed to actually what? And they ask us what? How can we help? How can we put investment back into farming? So those questions are being asked and I think there the influences we can have wouldn't underline that enough.

Anthony: 52:02

I feel like that's another case, like connecting with your community groups or your neighbors or platforming other people's stories, whatever. It's another avenue for which the possibilities are endless to have country speak for itself, to essentially have everything that you tap. You guys already tap profoundly, tap other people in turn and not again have you have to carry that care of convincing people of something in abstract sense. So that appears to be something I hear a lot. It appears to be something that's fundamental and a huge opportunity to invite people in as you do. And that's the other thing I hear, I guess in spades is invitation. If we're not looking to change people control, then it's all invitation and I remember Tyson Young-Caporta talking about this to to be waiting for the invitation yourself, like the patience I guess you've mentioned.

Terry: 52:54

Could I just come back to the, the political question. I do think we have a lot more influence than we think and what I found is that there are very, very good public servants and if you can find the proactive public servants, particularly at a policy level or fairly high up in departments, that can get you to ministers. And and I think the other thing is talk to your politicians, I think, but just to ask them I have found that if you approach politicians with a really good proposition and are prepared to take a little bit of time to get something you know in front of them, you'll get a hearing and sometimes that hearing will get a reaction and get something you know and and even at a federal level just by having the right connections, being able to get some changes made within six or eight months in things when they needed to change. So I don't think we should give up on our political system. If we give up, we're in a much bigger problem than we are now. So I think we need to engage with it.

Audience: 54:09

What do we need to ask them?

Terry: 54:11

Well, I think what we need to ask them is different in every district and every region and whatever level of government you're looking at. I think what we've got to start with is what's our vision, you know, and where's our values, and then whatever you're asking for, if it fits with that, it's authentic when you go in front of a politician or a senior public servant, but I found they're very receptive and I believe that governments, and particularly politicians now, are struggling and they want help. They want help from the community, and this is a community that can help, and so I think let's use the political system rather than dismiss it.

Anthony: 54:59

APPLAUSE. It's interesting. You should say that, terry, home base for us is the federal seat of curtain. This is something else we can do, and increasingly places are put your own candidates up as communities. So Kate Cheney as an independent candidate on the seat of curtain. Again, another against all odds thing, for only four months out from the election. What's interesting about that in this context too, is that it was regenerative agriculture people that got that ball rolling in curtain. This is something, again, that's I mean, because the other thing I hear when I listen to you, terry, is that I know this influence that you have now on the back of your life's work. That's it. That's the point, right, the working on yourself and the building of trust and the integrity you've brought to the table for so long then counts. So again, there's no paradox there. It adds up the bigger's the small. But yeah, don't hesitate to nominate yourselves or others for bloody running for elections.

Audience (Jake): 56:02

LAUGHTER. Yeah, so probably changed the conversation a little bit, but thought there was a wealth of knowledge up here and growing crops. One of the biggest issues we've found in our area is snails in our grain crops and I know that the wheat belt is against mashery of carbenazin to kill them. I don't want to do that, so I'll see the fungicide and I like my sperm and I kill sperm really good. So snail pellets are obviously. I think they just laugh at them. So what are you guys doing? Control snails? Because I haven't got any answers.

Terry: 56:38

My thought process on things like that is what's out of balance? What might have controlled those snails in the first place? What else is missing? I don't have an answer for you. I'd probably just have more questions, but that's where I would try and start.

Terry: 56:58

The other area I think that's probably significant in regenerative agriculture is energy work, and there's a lot that you can do with intention and energy around all sorts of things, and so I'd probably also try some things there. But that's the subtle energy level, not electricity. So but yeah, but to me it's a you want to try and dig down as to what would normally control snails and why isn't that there, and then you're probably heading towards a sustainable answer.

Anthony: 57:38

Got anything to add to that, just don't have any experience, oh.

Di: 57:40

I don't think. Yes, they don't go to your.

Ian: 57:43

Snails like a bit more than 70 millirons.

Anthony: 57:45

Yeah, I thought we'd say that it's like this must be torture for you coming out of home to this bloody downpour outside.

Audience: 57:54

Hello. I've worked in the food industry and processing since 1976. I've been a quality manager and you're complying to standards not to kill your customer. Please don't kill your customer. That's the main thing is you know, is there a contamination in your product? Is there a chemical in the product? That's wrong. There's nothing there that says please make your customer healthy. So this is the issue that you've been talking about is the way that you're going to do. It is we pay taxes on cigarettes, we pay taxes on alcohol, we pay taxes for use on the road to stop people falling off the road. They're all recognised by the government as costs. You go to a mine site. Why do you think they're looking at safety? Because it costs them. So the thing that you've got to be looking at with this is how to make your people and your customers really healthy and how to reduce the cost of healthcare.

Anthony: 59:04

APPLAUSE. So much to be said for that.

Audience (Louise Edmonds): 59:09

I'm absolutely loving this conversation and just keeping them up, but I think the nature and climate crisis that we're facing is probably the biggest galvanising force that we have in terms of bringing the entire supply chain together to support what needs to happen, and I think it will be from the ground up, because farmers are the people that have influence over nature and climate more than anybody else. But obviously most farmers are heads down, tail up, doing all the work that they don't have time to really engage with these big beasts of bureaucracies that take so much time to move. But I'm observing a recognition coming from these organisations of the interconnectivity of everything and a recognition that their businesses are at risk and that the only people that can really have any influence there is farmers and, as I think Terri pointed out, they need help. They want help. There's a lot that they don't know and they don't understand, and it's a journey, and I think everyone in the room is probably contributing to that.

Anthony: 1:00:44

Thanks Louise very much. I said at the top but it might be worth repeating right now Nothing's exciting people more than this in my observation and I guess I say that partly as someone who's worked in international community development in many settings private, public education, the like, and mostly in urban type of obviously Energy and transport and urban planning and things. So in comparison to that and it's something about the visceral, sensory nature of it and something about the two-way aspect of it I talked about at the top, we could speculate on from there, but nothing is exciting people more than this on finding Like the winds at our backs.

Audience: 1:01:26

Hey, I'd like to get back to the question about the snails.

Audience: 1:01:34

I really, really liked your answer, terry, and I feel like this points to one of the big issues that we have as a society. Earlier, you talked about the fact that lots of people nowadays are waiting for someone else to do something about the crisis that we have, and I feel like there are some people who actually want to get into action and do something, but they also expect someone to tell them what to do. They all, like most people, want a ready-made recipe for how to address the crisis all the crisis that we have and the thing is that I feel like there is no one size fit all solution. There are only unique situations and everybody needs to work out what their recipe is and what their place is, and I feel like if there is one message that we need to put out, is that it's exactly this message you need to figure out what your solution is for your problem and put it into action. So I would really like to hear what you guys think about that. Thank you.

Terry: 1:02:55

I totally agree. Every situation is unique and different and you've got to find out what the cause of whatever the invasive thing is that you're dealing with in any environment, and look for what's missing, what normally controls it or what could be encouraging it. But every circumstance is a different, so whatever answer Jake finds is not necessarily going to work for other people in other countries and in other soils.

Ian: 1:03:23

Yeah, no, it's true we have people ask us about what to actually do in certain things and we can give a bit of a guide what we would do, but everyone's got to take their own journey and that's by learning about yourself. You can actually work through that, because everyone's situation is just a bit different and it might be how much you want to throw it at, how much money you got to throw it, or how much you haven't got to throw it, or totally different situations, but generally you can work through it.

Anthony: 1:03:54

There's something I'm hearing about responsibility and even what Tom talked about with learning for yourself. Because when I was here in Tom I was thinking, jeez, to avoid some of those painstaking mistakes, you want to listen to Tom first to know what, not to put the press against it or whatever. But then you say, actually the concluding point was to learn yourself. So then, obviously again mutually exclusive, you can learn from others and learn from yourself. But there's a responsibility point which, heidi, was really the defining ethos. That's where you took off from that sense of responsibility. So there's something that appears to me really strong here around.

Anthony: 1:04:32

There's an aspect of again working on yourself, but or not to the exclusion of getting stuck in. And, ian, I know you've done this in the finance realm there'll be times in boardrooms where you will say things in no one's sense. So it's not about being shrinking violet here when we're talking about working on yourself. Responsibility in that sense takes all sorts of domains, whether it be from snails to boardrooms. But, heidi, I wondered if you had anything else that was ringing through for you. I'll just look back at that.

Heidi: 1:05:04

My mind is going so many directions right now and I don't know why. I'm even thinking about snails and, to be honest, I'll tell you what. Can I tell you what I was thinking?

Heidi: 1:05:17

It's got nothing to do with responsibility, but I was just thinking about a story that was shared and it does tie. I wasn't daydreaming, but it may sound like I was about someone who shared an experience when we were at the field day at Dianians around, just how they had like a problem paddock where there was just something that they could never get anything happening within this problem paddock. And the reason why I was daydreaming about that was because when you're talking about every situation being different and there are so many problem paddocks across and I'll talk about Nyuungar country or anywhere in WA where things are just not going to happen because there's problems in the paddock that is not science is not going to be able to solve, and I think you're talking maybe about this. When you're talking about energy, that's not electricity, because we also talked someone else on that field day also talked about how he found strength in another place on his particular farm, and there was something about a space on his farm where it was just a strong space for him.

Heidi: 1:06:44

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about when we were talking about, when you asked about the snails again and around what solutions are, and in my mind I was just thinking about how we read country and interact with country and how aware people are of the strength of the spirit of country or the energy of country. And do you even know that it's there, apart from if you walk on it might make you feel good. But what about those parts of country where you walk and makes you feel not so good? Or you might get a chill over your body, or you just don't walk there at all and maybe some of you don't even feel that at all or can't connect. Anyway, that's what I was thinking about when the question about the snails happened, or I don't feel like I was daydreaming, but that's what I was thinking about.

Heidi: 1:07:42

Now, how does that tie into responsibility? Well, you know, my connection to country is that deep, it's about the spiritual. Like being an Aboriginal person is about our spiritual connection to everything, and I think that little daydream story is a little bit talking to the spiritual connection of country. So responsibility to make sure that it is in the best place, a condition that it should be for everybody includes everybody, not just me or other Aboriginal people, it's everybody. So when there is a paddock, that's not so good and there's no scientific explanation. Sometimes you just need a weird person like me not always me to come out and go. Is there something here that can explain why the snails or something's there? 100% Thank you.

Ian: 1:08:41

I think what Heidi is saying is really important. Thanks, ian. I think a lot of our success of trying to it's a bit hard to talk about to tap into that. We work over a large area, you know, spread over 150 kilometres, and there's a lot of paddocks involved there. And it's just that tapping into that intuition that walking with country and sometimes it can be, and then having the conviction like it could be a 500 hectare paddock, that for everything in your physical head you think that is a perfect paddock to put in this year and it's got everything going for it, it's all set up.

Ian: 1:09:29

But once you tap into that intuition, if there's something we have, it happen all the time and that's actually how we work our program out the feeling of not quite right to put that paddock in. And you've got your budget sitting there and your farm advisor sitting there and they're saying, well, why the hell aren't you putting that paddock in? You're trying to tell them it just doesn't feel right. And then there's other paddocks that you're putting in. They're saying, well, why the hell are you putting that paddock in? Because I know something's telling us to put it in and going by that and we see it happen all the time and I've got examples out there this year and I know there's a 600 hectare paddock which we put in because it felt right and the whole crew was saying, well, what's the sense in putting that paddock in?

Ian: 1:10:13

That's not right. There's a weed burden there. It's not a good performer. Look at the year, it's not raining. And, dianne, I've got the intuition that paddock had to go in. Now it is our best crop this year on that paddock. Why I don't know, but it was just tapping into that intuition and we see that happen all the time. So weaving that into your operation and that's why, dianne, I really value when we can spend time with people like Heidi and Iro, especially on country. It's just gaining that knowledge of distinctions that strengthens that intuition.

Di: 1:10:50

APPLAUSE. I just wanted to add to that and I guess that's sort of what we learnt on our journey with Dianne some of those obscure things that you just might need to be asking questions about and then Terri has touched on it too that self-development, that development of intuition, and probably there is a strengthening of that, with absolutely sure there's a strengthening of that being on country and to be able to make decisions around those intuitive things. And the snails might be there for a completely obscure reason that you hadn't ever thought of. And it's only just through sometimes sitting down asking some different questions and working on yourself that sometimes you can find ways to get those answers. Because I know some of the things we used to do in the beginning were just what is this all about?

Di: 1:11:44

But it took time and it's shown that tapping into that land energy, that spirit, energy, that wisdom, it's a very special thing that it can come up with answers that perhaps the scientific world hasn't quite got all the answers yet, but it's unfolding and you're seeing even the science now behind those three brains or ideas that's becoming a real thing now in the scientific world. And even epigenetics was something that wasn't even known about 20 years ago and now, oh, that's, you know, it's all gaining that understanding. So, yeah, there is a lot of stuff we're still just at the cusp of fully understanding, but it doesn't mean it's not real. We're just going to keep doing the best we can and keep I don't know just finding opportunities to expand that understanding.

Anthony: 1:12:35

The sky's not even the limit in that sense. Absolutely yeah, I'm conscious we're coming towards even our little overtime, but I've made a little executive decision over and I push it on. Stop me now, kaira. Have we got another question there? Alright, good, just hold that for a second, because I have to do this. I have to do this, terry, because this might be the last.

Anthony: 1:12:59

I think this is the last time we see you on stage here, terry, I think, although there might be surprises tomorrow, but I really would love. You've been working at this stuff and having it in courses quantum agriculture courses for 20 plus years now, but you haven't stopped there. You're still going on your exploring journey. Is there a short answer to where it's leading you now?

Terry: 1:13:24

I'm currently reading a new book about I can't remember the title something to do with the future of mankind and it's dealing with a level of working with energy that I haven't come across before. It's gone back to ancient Egyptian processes and this book is written by a highly intelligent guy with two PhDs, etc. And his claim is that the Egyptians built the pyramids by levitating those rocks into place. He said there was no other physical explanation and yet in the ancient stuff there is an explanation for how the fact that you could levitate them. That's where I'm going next, so I'm not necessarily going there myself, but I'm learning. I'm on a new learning curve and I believe very, very firmly and I've seen so many examples that what we can do with intention and energy is only limited by our imagination.

Terry: 1:14:36

I've had clients, for example, selling sheep, and one guy who did a trial. He sent four lots of sheep to sale in Dubbo over an eight week period and every time he sold those sheep. As he put them on the truck, he blessed them and intended for those sheep to top the sale in their category, and four times out of four that's what happened. I've got another client in Darwin that was running the big crocodile farm there and by using an energetic approach on the crocodile eggs he lifted the survival rate of hatchlings by 10%, which was a million dollars a year, added to the bottom line of that farm. So you can use it and I've just seen it use. Since I could just go on, put a bit of him back. We run out of time.

Anthony: 1:15:31

Thank you. No, I had to ask, alright Alas, question from the floor. Where are we?

Audience (local MP): 1:15:36

there, hi. So I am a politician, I'm an MP in the upper house here in WA, and what I've noticed there is that the attitude of the other politicians is that we, everything relates to economics, we live in an economy in their thinking right, and what we need is a paradigm shift. We need for them apart from me, I already get this, by the way but we need for them to understand that we live in a society, that we are a community, and that an economy does not meet our human needs. It doesn't meet the needs of our planet either. So we really need to change that. So keep on talking about this, and I will be talking about this in the upper house as well. We're doing a member statement. I'm a minor party, so I don't have a lot of influence, but I hope that some of the people there will listen to it. So, in any regards to snails, garlic butter is my solution for you, okay.

Anthony: 1:16:50

What's your name? Could we get your name?

Audience (local MP): 1:16:52

I'm Sophia Mormont.

Anthony: 1:16:54

Thank you, sophia, it's great to have you here as one of two MPs we had in the house today. Let's draw a line under it. Hey, you might have noticed, I would normally have given a sort of a wrap up of the day, but this experiment was working, doing that anyway, wasn't it? We did it together, which is vastly better. So I would like to bring Rod's comment about the regenerative era to the table at the close that I think that was a really powerful frame, whole system frame, and this is such a key part of it, obviously, and that just a couple of other threads.

Anthony: 1:17:32

That really occurred to me strongly was that everyone I heard today talked about their thing from the primary perspective of the bigger picture goal, and I was reminded of this when I remember Terry telling me once the one time he took his picture off that goal care for planet, people etc and put it on money was when everything went pear shaped, corrected, and I heard it with mail, I've heard it with everybody. It was the purpose first, as the money would come and trust, trust just echoed again and again, and again and again and again. There's a saying change happens at the speed of trust. I'm hearing it increasingly, such that I had to actually fish for who the hell said it first, and every time I asked someone who said it where they got it from. They didn't know. They said a mum told them or something. But I did find it was a civil rights activist woman in the 60s in the States that said that first. But what a ripper of a comment. Alright, please give each other a massive hand. And, of course, our people on stage here right now. That was Terry McCosker, Heidi Mippy, Rod O'Bree, and Dianne and Ian Haggerty.

Anthony: 1:18:43

For more on these folk, their previous appearances on this podcast, and the Margaret River Conference, see the links in the show notes. I've put a few photos on the website too, while many more are available on Patreon for subscribing members of the podcast. W ith great thanks once again to each of you generous supporters for making this episode possible. If you've been thinking about becoming a member or other kind of supporter, I'd love you to join us. Just head to the website via the show notes RegenNarration. com/ support. Thanks again, and thanks as always for sharing the podcast with friends and continuing to rate it on your favourite app. It all helps. The music you're hearing is Green Shoots by The Nomadics, a local outfit from down south over here who played at the Margs Conference. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.