Soil To Soul: The first panel from the Regenerating Food Systems conference

Ever since the extraordinary week of events here in Western Australia last month, from a reception at Government House for former podcast guests and current West Australians of the Year, Di and Ian Haggerty, through to the 2-day Regenerating Food Systems conference at Perth Stadium, and on to the 2-day Grounded Festival down south near Bridgetown, and plenty more besides, I’ve been wondering what might hold up to share with you here on the podcast. 

In short, I’ve got a few things you might enjoy hearing. Starting today, with the very first panel of the Regenerating Food Systems conference (with thanks to the team at RegenWA).

It features five special guests: prominent writer, broadcaster and chef turned farmer Matthew Evans, globally renowned plant and soil health educator and consultant Joel Williams, nationally recognised Indigenous leader and regenerative land manager Oral McGuire, award-winning farmer and RegenWA Chair Stuart McAlpine, and soil and gut microbiome researcher Dr Craig Liddicoat (yes, mighty men's business - mighty women's business closed the day).

I start by asking each of our guests for fire starters, and it takes off from there.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 17 September 2025.

Title image: AJ, Matthew, Joel, Oral, Stuart and Craig (pic: Paolo Sulit).

See more photos on the episode web page, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener below.

Find more:

RegenWA’s written debrief on the conference.

The WA Governor's introduction of the conference. 

Oral McGuire's appearance on SBS News.

Music:

Citadel by Ardie Son (sourced from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage In WA
• 0:50 Panel Lineup And Theme
• 4:10 What’s front of mind for each panellist right now?
• 4:30 Matthew Evans
• 5:50 Joel Williams
• 7:50 Acknowledgement of manliness
• 8:15 Oral McGuire
• 9:50 Community As The Engine Of Change
• 11:35 Stuart McAlpine
• 13:45 Craig Liddicoat
• 15:20 Matthew: Menindie or Mars
• 17:10 Oral on his experience as a Noongar regenerative land manager
• 18:55 Rethinking the economics of the land, ownership and markets
• 20:00 From Reductionism To Living Systems
• 23:30 Placentas planted on the river Songline again
• 28:10 Audience question: is it possible to build soil carbon here?
• 33:40 Questioner: what are the most common obstacles to adopting regen farming?
• 34:45 Is ‘regenerative’ a helpful or polarising term – and what instead?
• 37:00 Questioner (Dwayne Mallard): how does Oral practice reciprocation with Nature as a Noongar?
• 40:30 Oral’s vision
• 43:15 Land tenure’s a massive issue

Transcript

AJ: 0:10

G'day, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, your ad-free, freely available listener-supported podcast, exploring how people are regenerating the systems and stories we live by. Ever since the extraordinary week of events here in Western Australia last month, from a reception at Government House for my friends, former podcast guests, and West Australians of the Year, Di and Haggerty, through to the two-day regenerating food systems conference at Perth Stadium, and onto the two-day Grounded Festival down south near Bridgetown, and plenty more besides, I've been wondering what might hold up to share with you here on the podcast. In short, I've got a few things you might enjoy hearing. Starting today, with the very first panel of the Regenerating Food Systems Conference, with thanks to the team at Regen WA. This was the one panel I hosted alongside MC duties at the conference. It features five special guests who I introduce off the top, except for Dr. Craig Liddicoat, as he just delivered his keynote. Craig's a soil and gut microbiome researcher at Flinders University in South Australia. Our session was titled Healthy Soil, Healthy Food, Healthy People. I start by asking for fire starters in the form of what's front of mind for everyone right now. I'm going to invite four other special guests to the stage to join Craig. It's a stellar cast. Firstly, would you please welcome back to the stage Regen WA Chair Stuart McAlpine. Thanks, Stuart. And joining Stuart and Craig, Oral McGuire is a Noongar leader and landholder. The regeneration of that land is something to behold. In fact, Chris Tan's filming up the back, and he was out at the property the other day, so stand by on SBS and NITV for that later this week, I believe. Oral's vision is for the promotion of an entrepreneurial culture within and among the Noongar people of Western Australia and other Aboriginal cultural groups. Fitting, Oral should be taking the stage here at a footy stadium, too. As I'm reliably informed, he was named part of the Aboriginal Team of the Century for the Perth Demons Footy Club. And not only that, he was called the strongest man at the club, as a rookie, no less. He was also aptly named after a preacher and dubbed the Reverend here six years ago in this very room. Please welcome Oral McGuire. Joel Williams is an independent plant and soil health educator and consultant who has worked extensively in Australia, Europe and Canada where he is currently based. I probably don't even need to introduce Joel to many of you. He was, however, originally from Brizzy and true to my heart was an avid live music fan. And wasn't there plenty of it in that city back then? Joel got his Bachelor of Agricultural Science in Australia, and fascinatingly, his master's in food policy explored the motivations and barriers to the enormous leverage point of moving from monocrop to intercrop operations. And we were talking about the ongoing rapid progress in all that just last night, all the way from North America. Please welcome Joel Williams. Matthew Evans is a sh probably doesn't need an intro either, does he? Is a chef turned farmer, writer of 12 books, broadcaster and founder of Grounded Festival, which will be after this conference down south. He co-owns Fat Pig Farm, a mixed enterprise on 70 acres south of Hobart, and for over seven years he ran the on-farm dining room at Fat Pig with his partner Sadie, having grown just about everything served on site, summing to about 10,000 meals a year. He's also been the host of six seasons of Gourmet Farmer on SBS, fronted two documentaries, and is the author, as I said, of over a dozen books. Please give a warm hand to Matthew Evans. I'd like to come to the newbies on stage, and Craig, we'll come back to you. But for you guys, and perhaps we'll just run it like this, huh? Having heard what we've heard today, and perhaps particularly with regards to this session on the link between healthy soil, plants, people, planet, what's hottest of mind? I just wonder what's coming front of mind for you in this moment to get us started.

Matthew: 4:36

I think for me, the hottest thing is just listening to Craig, and one of the things that I was thinking about was the fact that we, you know, when my son was born, we were like, oh, do we need to sterilise the bottles? And I learned that Royal North Shore Hospital had said, no, we're not sterilising bottles anymore for and dummies for you know and teats for babies. And and that now, when I think of the microbiome, I think of the spinach leaf that can have 600 different species of bacteria on it, organically grown, of course. Um and and we know that pretty much like all of them are either doing us no good, you know, no harm, and some of them are doing us uh real good. And they are, as Craig was talking about, inoculating, re-inoculating our gut. Um but every time if you go and buy a bag of spinach today, it'll be bleached. Um, because the idea is not just that a hospital has no bacteria, it's that the idea that that we're all supposed to have no bacteria. Um and I and I was thinking about in terms of hospitals when my mum was in hospital and and they had uh processed ham and processed cheese, and I was really surprised because you know I don't think of them as food, and they I said, Why are you serving them? And they said, Well, because nothing can live on them. Um, you know. That's that's in my mind, that kind of stuff. Wow.

Joel: 5:53

So I think um, you know, Craig used that word there, uh, communities a few times, talking about microbial community, and I think that's uh uh maybe a very important link to our wider communities as we also open the conference here today about us all coming together, um the the role of these events, um the role of the community, and us all um doing that interaction and that the microbes do down in our guts and down in our soils, and what are the outcomes and functions that come from that. And I think that in that kind of trying to draw a little bit of another parallel here, it is very exciting to see the role of farmer-led events and community events coming together together, and I'll talk a little bit about this in my presentation tomorrow. Um, that really this whole regenerative movement is clearly this farmer-led movement, and I think that's for me one of the very exciting things about it that there is so much learning happening from the field, from the ground up, and it's farmers really leading the way. And yes, some of the science and research and things are catching up to that, and also now beginning to jump a little bit ahead of that too. Yeah, I think there's a bit of both of that happening. But I think for me that's kind of really one of the things that that does excite me the most. It's the fact that farmers are coming together, a community, uh connecting through social media, through conferences, through field days, all of those types of things. And I think that um the functions that we provide, um, that look what are the actions and the outcomes of this event and other events is a really important parallel to also understanding some of those functions and outcomes of the gut bioteur and soil bioter as well. So I think for me it's the community and the coming together that's particularly uh exciting.

AJ: 7:45

Yeah, I'm conscious that you have a front row seat to that in a way, as you get asked by farmers in groups, in communities, to come and work with them on both those levels, joining the two together. I do want to, for those who've noticed, this is a mighty big group of men on stage. I want to acknowledge that. Uh we will end the day with a mighty big group of women. So just so you know, we're balancing up. And of course, Felice Shaka was intended to be part of this too, so and then the group just got big on us at the end. But who's complaining given who we've got?

Oral: 8:18

Oral, over to you. Well, I suppose because I replaced Heidi, I'm the token woman. I'm the token black. Um, yeah, I look, it's it's always interesting. I find um interactions with um, you know, these types of communities at these sort of forums um uh challenging a lot of the time. So I I expand my thinking um immeasurably when I attend these sort of forums and and get to know individuals. Uh but what I what is just reaffirmed and reinforced and and I was at a different forum uh yesterday is the fact that um, you know, and it's a little bit of what wall, you know, we sort of we're the same breed, so we uh you know we we are a bit of a neural thinker, uh neural disruptor in our thinking. Um and uh the the truth is that when the these people sailed up the the river here, and the first contact was around the corner on the river at a place called Gumap, better known as Elizabeth Keek, or Ing Facts and George's Terrace, you know, the the archaeologists historians said that there were two worlds meeting and colliding. The Aboriginal people, the Nyongara people, the Weijopnyonga, the Moral Waijokanyonga, were possibly the healthiest people on the planet at that moment in time. And the people who were on the boat, because of their just travel journey, were possibly the most unhealthy people on the planet at that moment in time. So my sense is with all the science that Craig and Dan and other wonderful speakers and knowledge holders speak about, I think the Blackfellas and the Indigenous peoples globally had something. And I see and hear so much science, so much uh technical knowledge and technology being channelled towards trying to create something because it's been replaced. In the wheat belt, right, we've had 98% replacement of the ecology and the systems. So everything's been changed to a European mindset, but the land's still the same. You can't change the land. So what I'm hearing is that science is actually trying to now create nature through the knowledge of all this stuff about the health of the soil, the health of plants and food and in general. Yet Nyungar people lived in a completely different landscape. The previous landscape provided absolutely for not just 200 years, for the the 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, whatever the number that science is telling us, but for millennia, you know, uh indigenous peoples maintain a health, maintained a level of health that was not mediocre, like has been described today. So we're chasing, we're trying to improve mediocrity with science, and yet nature is the perfect science.

AJ: 11:24

Thanks, Oral. It strikes me that the research is turning up those patterns all around the world with Indigenous folks. Yeah. Stuart.

Stuart: 11:39

Yeah, thanks. And I think following on tomorrow, I think the watershed moment for me, after being exposed to soil biology and seeing what it could achieve with that immense diversity that it has in numbers, um, trying to get my head around that as a as a white, you know, conventional reductionist farmer. And you know, I ran out of bit of time earlier to put up the three concentric circles of soil health, but like it's embarrassing to think what we're focused on in food production. You know, we haven't focused on the whole, and it's the whole that's important. I think one of the watershed moments for me was actually a lecture at UWA from a professor John Crawford, who who I think the topic from memory was the self-organizing systems of the microbiome. So the the community that we talk about is self-organizing. You know, if we let it be. So it's about actually creating the right uh environment for diversity and all the energy that is captured from natural processes from the sun and stored in the soil with the interface with the microbiome and then the diversity that grows for a bomb that is just completely missing. It's gone. Like the energy has been sucked from the 98% of the wheat belt. Unfortunately, you know, we're probably never going to get back to where it was, and we will have to create something different. But just imagine if we start restoring the living, you know, the land is a living organism with all that community that's going on together. So just imagine if we can start getting that living soil starting, and then the living biodiversity below and above ground, and restoring all those energy cycles, you know, and rebuilding them and capturing the bit of energy that is left in the landscape with with you know First Nations you know knowledge and stuff like that as well. You know, how much can we achieve, you know? Um so the so the potential is exponential. It is only exponential if we all move together as one, like a community of one.

AJ: 13:49

The One Health, that term you came to us with, Craig. I wonder for you in this moment, having heard all that, and certainly the morning before us, what's front of mind for you?

Craig: 13:58

Yes, I obviously presented a lot of science and backed by technology, and I probably look at too much science and technology on social media and this sort of thing, but probably the top of my mind that is kind of related to all this is some of the questions that we face kind of need to be asked to society as a whole, and I think the some of the key challenges are are mental and social. They're not sort of like technological so much, and I've sort of, you know, on the social media you see some pretty big names that are trying to, you know, go to Mars and they're trying to secure mineral resources on the moon and Mars and this and that, and and um some of these people uh they're saying um you know there's two options here. We can we can consider Earth a womb or earth a home. Um, you know, like is Earth just a starting point, a stepping stone, you know, or is Earth a home? And and these guys were these guys were more or less saying, well, it's a starting point, you know, we're gonna go wherever, and it's like it kind of blew my mind a bit. Like, no, it's a home, you know. Quantum, this idea of quantum is like things in nature occur in discrete sized packages, and we've got a discreetly sized biosphere that kind of supports life, and you know, and I think some of our challenges are more mental and social rather than technological. It's about the mindset and the world view, I think.

AJ: 15:19

Thank you. Thank you for those starters. So much to go on with there. Matthew, I sort of feel like beaming straight back to you on that note.

Matthew: 15:26

Oh, yeah, I love that. Like Mars. Okay, so I just want to talk about Mars. I right. I went to this place called Plants for Space in South Australia, right? It's a it's a like a multi-million dollar federal government funded research facility to look at how we can help NASA send plants to Mars and feed humans. Mars, right? Mars, if you took every atomic weapon, every weapon on Earth, every chemical that humanity has made currently and unleashed them all on planet Earth today, you could not create an as an in hosp as much as an inhospitable place as Mars. It looks that way. I'm not surprised. We could never, using all of human technology we have today, we could never make Earth as inhospitable as Mars is. There is no chance that plants, which essentially feed humanity through what through you know, photosynthesis and the miracle of photosynthesis and putting them through animals, whatever, that that soil and plants, which have co-evolved for 420 million years, or whatever we heard earlier today, there is no chance that we can recreate that system somewhere else. We are not that fucking clever. But if we're not careful, we're turning Earth to Mars. Well, exactly. Yeah. I play a game called Menindi or Mars when I do slideshows because I found all these farmers were showing pictures of um around Menindi in the drought a few years ago and saying, hey, look, the Mars rover, you know, is it at my place? And um and I do this game, and people always usually get one or two of the pictures wrong and they think it's Mars when it's Earth. You have to point out the grass as it is a patch of, yeah.

AJ: 17:08

You don't have to go far out of here to see that, be confronted by that. In fact, we've had a few conversations on that level already, Stuart. Or to flip that, I'm wondering in the you know, you sort of nodded your head when um it might have been Stuart that made reference to the fact we're in this new context, same land, new context, different state of the land, you're on your land, bringing your lens and your people's and your ancestors' lens to how that regenerates, to how you're going about that. So, in a sense, it is restoring, perhaps more than many others in this room, some kind of vision of, I guess, what was before, but how are you finding it being different now?

Oral: 17:49

So, first of all, we're only in Beverley, we're not in Meriden or, you know, as the uh Haggertys are in Molleran or Wildcatch. And so therefore the work that they're doing is fantastic. You know, I mean I absolutely support regenerative um ag as a practice of agricultural, you know, farming. I'm not a farmer, and and I have no intentions or aspirations to be a farmer. Uh so I'm a regenerative land manager, is my preferred title. Um, and I do that as a younger. So I think that um the system of agriculture, right, and if you like, just life, needs Nungar indigenous people and conservationists, environmentalists, and and anybody else that's a green or whatever who loves nature to help restore the nature of the land and the natural systems in partnership with farmers and and I think we need to remove agriculture, uh industrial and and and this broadacre mindset that you've got to have a you know a 50 million acre bloody property to to make some money. Uh I think also that the the wrong drivers uh in terms of the economics, and I know this this is absolutely in conflict with probably all of you, um, but the economics of of the land is a serious problem. The other massive problem, because of this, you know, this sense of markets and economic driven you know drivers that that uh you know around profit and feasibility and viability is the issue of land tenure. So my statement about you know Nyungar people, indigenous peoples being the original affluent society was because they no one owned the land. Everybody had a right and access to food, water, and space for their model. And that was considered inferior and less than and even uncivilised. We were described as brutes by those fools, and our lands was lands were described as you know, wastelands. So, you know, if Australia is going to reconcile itself around who we all consider ourselves as being Australian, then someone's got to care for the land. And someone's got to put boodyar, and just on the concept of you know being born of the land. I mean, look at the wisdom and the and the and the logic in our language, for example. And you heard Wall speak beautifully, fluently, our language. It's a dying language, it's not dead. It's not dead. So scientists and linguists have got to stop telling us that your culture and your language and your spirit is dead. I'll get on to spirit maybe in another question. But the the so for me it's about the spirit of the land. And I've I've always consistently said that. Because that's what I've learned in my life, that we've got to we we can't nurture our own spirit without healthy places to nurture our own spirit. Where are young people here in Boral Perth or any other city in the world, where are they nurturing their spirit? Why is mental health and mental illness and depression in a place like this, when we look out that window? It's massive and it's growing, it's not getting better. And at the same time, the disconnection from every human, from nature itself, is at a highest, at its highest, as a as the longest and worst situation as far as connection to nature itself. So absolutely, we're we're as um I think Dan or someone said you know a lot about his kids, you know, they're animals. So they know. We are animals, right? We're animals, and we need the same thing that the kangaroo and the lizard and the bird and the fish need. We we need fresh air and clean water and good food and all that sort of stuff. So we are the the system is a fractal system, right? It's a fractal system. And so if we think that we are separate from nature, we're kidding ourselves. So someone's got to care for nature, someone's got to give 100% of their energy. And this is what I do, right? I don't I don't participate in any markets. We've achieved planting two million um, you know, effectively, a million trees, but you know, we I think we've regenerated another million on top of it, and we're only halfway through.

AJ: 22:13

Just because they're germinating naturally. That's right.

Oral: 22:14

So country's looking after itself, right? Um but we've done that on $40,000. I know that farmers who lease our property for cropping, which is now gone, they one year they pulled $800,000 for a ship crop like like canola. And I say that respectfully. So, so you know, and they pay us $40,000. Man, because that's our only revenue stream. So, you know, we we have this situation as Aboriginal people on country loving the land, and I I I alluded, but I didn't say it. But in our language, right, bujah, everyone's heard bujar is country. When our women are pregnant, they are bujari. The river is known as bilia. Bilia is also the word for the umbilical court, and women, therefore, are the authorities of rivers and waterways. So all of this logic and knowledge is held. You know, I I don't I have no interest in growing crops and competing and participating in the markets and the economy of what you mob are doing. No interest. But I am about growing healthy food, and we are doing that, and we're doing it with our traditional and sacred foods in a way that is not driven by the same markets that drive greed and corruption.

AJ: 23:31

It's so profound, Oral, to hear you talk like that. And I think as much for all of us, to countenance that that's an option, and for you it's a given. It's like this is the who we are. It's an obligation in response. Yeah, well, there you go. It's law. Okay. It's law. Yeah. So I actually can we just extend a little bit on this to round out. I feel like rounding out where you ended up with the umbilical chord reference. Because you told me the story the other day, and I say this with reference to how much it means to the health that's going backwards for people. You told me the story the other day of where the placenta was buried in the old sacred spot. Do you want to round that out with that story?

Oral: 24:12

So, my my grandson, um, my first, I mean, I've got lots of grandsons, but my my my oldest daughter had um her first babe. So I've got my own little man now. When Bridget was born, they were actually living with me because um on the farm because they were building, so I said, don't pay rent, come and live. So Lennox is Lennox Oral. The only other Oral, mate. There's only three of us on the planet now. Oral Roberts, me, and Lennox Oral. Um but he was born, and and because we've got I mean, so the spirit of what we've done, the spirit of the land is the most powerful. Crops and you know, man interventions and science and all things that we think we're creating as, you know, gods is nothing to what nature does. So the spirit of the land when you connect to it is is wonderful and powerful. So we've got um, you know, we've manifested, they've always been there, but we we reconnected and manifested six sacred sites on our property through the work that we do. Uh we've got immense ceremony, and it's marked in the rocks, it's not just me making it up, right? It's marked in the boulders, in the rocks. And they those rocks drew us to you. There was me, Barry Maguire, uh, Richard Wally, and Gold Manor. And because I took those other three men, as Sing and Young Amen, to read the country, to feel it when we first got there. So we found a ceremonial ground, dance ground, right? Which we have been, Richard Wally and myself and Barry and Wall have been re-energizing over the last 15 years. Getting it ready. Because it's too powerful to just turn up and and ochre up and dance, right? It'd kill us. And I know people, men, younger men, that have died accessing sacred places again. So there's a serious law. My point is uh when uh when Lennox was born, I said to, because we've got a women's site down on the river, because our property goes to the bullet yard, there's the Avon River. So I said to Bridget and and a few of um my older sister cousins who were women tradition, you know, knowledge holder, I think uh Heidi, you were you were there as well. And so these women went down and opened up women's business. So they took my daughters there, open up this uh this sacred women's site down on the river. Bridget then felt so connected that when Lennox was born, uh, and this is a cultural practice and a and a cultural law to maintain the health of that sacred site, she took the placenta after Lennox was born and buried it under a tree that she planted on the riverfront. So that cultural practice and that spiritual and powerful practice of connecting not only our new our women back to places that haven't been danced on, sung to, or sung for, um, to embedding, you know, in our language we say, mortal mortya budya burrow. Right? This land holds the blood of our people. So that place holds the lat the blood of Lennox as a three-year-old. Ten K's away at a place called Bally Belly, the other side of Beverly, is where my dad was born, in the bush. So I know that his placenta is on that same song line. So these are connections to healing country and healing people. I I can tell you, and Andrea with it with my partner would attest to this, uh, 15 years of pretty hard work. I can tell you at 62 nearly, uh, I am as healthy and fit and knowledgeable as I've ever been in my whole life. So my sense of spirit and self comes from you know these things that I've been doing in regenerating the land in order to complement food because the farmers next door have absolutely benefited from the work that we've done in the planting of our trees. So the land needs us, you might need the land and you might own it. But but the land belongs to all of us, and your spirit can only get connected to it through our law. Because first law is the law of nature, the second law on this land is new our law.

AJ: 28:12

Thanks for sharing that, Oral. Thanks, Aja. We have questions, yes.

Questioner: 28:16

Hi, team. Um my my question seems kind of irrelevant after after that, Oral.

Oral: 28:22

Sorry.

Questioner: 28:22

Thank you, that's really great insight. So I think my question would be best directed to either Stuart or Craig, and um it's about soil organic matter and soil organic carbon, and how we've got global requirements around sequestering carbon and how microbial activity actually feeds off soil organic matter and lives in those environments, and the cycling is really hard to manage and measure and actually build soil organic carbon over time, which is uh it's still pending whether we can actually do that in the wheat belt. Craig, do you think this is just a distraction from healthy soils or do you think it's actually doable?

Craig: 29:13

Yeah, there's definitely a need to boost soil carbon um in our soils, and I think I don't know, I sort of catched a bit of a um a note there that maybe to have active soils you're gonna have turnover, and you know, you're not gonna have dead soil organic matter that just is building up a thing so we can tick off that we're doing the right thing. Um, yes, so we want to build soil organic matter, soil carbon, and um, you know, the community here is is aware of how to do those things. And I think you know, there's a difference between um the opportunistic, fast growing sort of microbes that'll just they're active, um, that'll just chew through that stuff and not not leave it hanging in the system versus maybe longer lived microbes, your fungi, etc., in the more um Um less less disturbed scenarios. So there's probably different types of microbes. There's probably, you know, the the longer-lived soil growing fungi are better suited to keeping soil organic matter, soil organic carbon in the system. So yeah, different types of mic microbes based on the different types of management. Stuart's probably got a bit more to add.

Stuart: 30:19

Yeah, carbon's probably another reductionist term which we just put everything in, but carbon, you know, is itself is very diverse, and our our food systems aren't really utilizing what our diversity in plants can do in feeding the soil with the carbon compounds, the basic carbon compounds that are then mediated through the soil microbiome to produce these complex carbon chains, I suppose, and all these things that we've seen, you know, today with fancy names. But at the end of the day, you know, by actually overthinking we know what the plant needs and giving it stuff that they just take up in a water solution, doesn't encourage what plants inherently do, which is pump carbon into the soil. And the more diverse those plants are, then the more diverse that carbon is. But I bet you know hardly anyone in the crowd would know the potential of a three-ton wheat crop, how much carbon that that could actually sequester into the soil if it was being utilized in a way to feed the soil rather than just expect a lazy feed from how we feed it these days. You know, it's it's four to five tonnes to the hectare of organic substrates or carbon that are a wheat crop, just a wheat crop, never land the rest of the diversity that we would like to encourage. Just think about that when you compare it to some of the other things that we use as soil amendments or nutrition to our soil. That is an amazing capacity to capture the sun's energy and put it in to the soil to provide energy for the life of the soil and the diversity of the soil to re-energize that and reconvert it and put it into more meaningful things. So there's just so much we're just not even just considering in the way we do things. So when I I I get a bit bemused about, I can show you, and I was going to show you some pictures of some carbon in some really poor sandy soils being sequestered by just getting that interphase going of the soil microbiome and the plants and how much can be sequestered. So a lot of the carbon, we think we've got to come and put all the nutrients and all the carbon in externally to build new soil. We don't. We need to find out what we should have in our soil and utilize our plants to feed the soil. That's the first thing, and then we just maybe help a little bit. So, you know, we're just not you there. We go. Look, see, look at that. That little shot in the hand there. That plant, that little wheat plant hasn't started photosynthesizing yet. And and if you look at the biology that's already there that's come on with the seed and is interacting with the unit, that's where the carbon starts getting pumped in the soil to build those relationships and all the complexity that is required to grow that plant and nourish the soil in us. And if you go to the next picture, this is stimulating biology with the long roots and knot, so you know, both pretty healthy. But if you look at the picture to the right, you can see the carbon that's been sequestered, you know, where the soil biology is active compared to the one on the left, you know. At the same time I was doing this and looking at this, there was a CSRO program on the farm looking at um different wheat cultivators to grow deeper roots. It's double the amount of roots there just by working with the indigenous native microbiomes in the soil by just using some biostimulants.

AJ: 33:41

Thanks, Stuart. We've got another question?

Questioner: 33:43

This one came through on the Facebook. I might challenge our panelists to a one or two-word answer on this one. Um they just wanted to know what our panelists have observed as the most common obstacles to adopting regen ag from farmers. The name.

Matthew: 33:59

Two words, you did it, dude. You said two words. Okay, do you want to say have you ever done that before? No. But you asked for two words. You did. Okay. So just a frame now, Alana McKinnon was here before. She was telling me when you know she when she was minister, and and anytime you mentioned, and I did this when I did talks and you mentioned regen ag and there you'll see the farm farmer lean back, arms crossed, and the simple term has lost them. It's very hard to get them back.

AJ: 34:24

It's interesting hearing already this morning. I mean, Stuart, you did it too. Um, Hannah Beth did it, talking about how there's so much other language you can use. And Joel, you were talking about it too, I think, last night in our conversation. So much other language we can use that doesn't necessarily alienate, but you just talk about what it actually is. And and do it. Was it you, Stuart? It's in actions, not so much. Well, Hannah Beth it was, wasn't it? Yeah. Anyway, on we go. Two words. Who can match that?

Joel: 34:49

I don't know if I can do it in two words, but I think I would just point out that I think it's both of these things. It is both a decisive word that has um created division. I think that is a fair comment to make. Um, but it's definitely also maybe not in the word itself, but in terms of the practice change. It regenerative is definitely something that is emerged in the middle of maybe the previous battles that was organic versus conventional. Um, so rewind 20 plus years, and it was all about though us and them and those two sides. And we have this, I would say, then in a very positive way that has emerged in the middle and has very much bridged those two divides. Um, so I see it in a very positive light, also, even though I also agree that many farmers don't like the term, and it if you're if you're saying you're regenerative, then by default does that mean I'm degenerative, is that whole argument? So I think it's actually both. I think there is a positive way to look at this, and I think that moving forward then into your earlier question, another six years or or maybe a bit beyond that, there'll be another middle ground that's going to emerge between regenerative and conventional again. There's going to be all sorts of cross-pollination and and practice um merging uh where we'll have a new term in another few decades, and that'll probably be a controversial term at the time as well. But it will also be uh this bridging term and and hopefully scope of practice that is all part of that transition. Yeah, I like that, John. Thank you. Oral?

Oral: 36:20

Uh nature. Nature will prevail, no matter what science we want to bring along. Nature will decide.

AJ: 36:28

You want to go attempt two words, Stuart?

Stuart: 36:30

Not not really. I think it's been covered. Um it is about nature. We'll, you know, we'll we'll provide it is a good term because I think the description is quite what we're trying to do is wind back some of the damage that we've done for 10,000 years or more, really, if we're honest about it. Um and you know, re-engaging with nature again, that's what it is.

Craig: 36:51

Greg, got anything, Dad? Something to do with um connection across the whole of society, because I guess if it's going to be truly regenerative, it needs to sit in nature, but also connect up food production with consumers and you know have a circular economy. So I guess connection. Yeah. Did we have another one?

AJ: 37:08

Yeah, so complication when you've got an all-star five-person panel in 40 minutes is it goes like that. This will be the last one, but let's get it in. Duane, thanks.

Questioner (Dwayne Mallard): 37:18

Thanks. Um I'm glad the words that have been used around community, nature, um, responsibility and obligation. Um it's not passion, it's purpose. Um, and you know, our role and responsibility is to learn and understand it and fulfill it and act it out. So there's no separation. Um, when you talk about nature, culture, uh, human occupation, bush foods, bush medicines, river systems, this land's already got an identity. This land's already got a story. And there's custodians uh for time memorium that have been uh stewards of that. And the responsibility and obligation for everyone else in the room that's not nyungar and not Yamaju or not First Nations from anywhere else is to understand what your responsibility and obligation is around preserving, protecting, maintaining, and restoring the dignity of the lands, waters and skies and people and culture. And all I would like for you to share with the Room Brother um uh an example of reciprocity on Nyungar land, on what that looks like, that interconnectedness and oneness. When I spent time up uh in far northeast Arnaman with um old man Gummach Elder, the Yolnu people, uh, we're walking through, we're about five, six kilometers from the ocean, and he said, see that tree there. When that tree flowers, we know to go get stingray. There's plenty of them, they're fat, and they're not pregnant. It's just it's an element of systems being and interconnectedness and oneness. There's no separation because the tree through the flowers given a message to us that there's sustenance in abundance in the ocean, and all we've given is love and respect, and honor through reciprocity to preserve and protect the story and the knowledge and ensure that it's handed down to the next generation. And for the stingray, once again, love and respect, and in return, sustenance in abundance, and through song and ceremony, law of the land, spirit of place, there is a celebration, there's a song for that, there's a dance for that, there's a story for that. But if the tree's cut down and the child's removed from the land, and then generations later someone's coming back and they don't know the story. Then the old people have passed on. And they need sustenance. And unknowingly and unwittingly, they're actually breaking the law of the land. What's the story of interconnectedness and oneness through reciprocity for Yungar people, where the land gives you message oral to know that there's abundance through love and respect and reciprocity?

Oral: 40:31

Yeah, thanks, Ma. Um so the problem and the issue we we have, and unlike uh you know the Gumach people in Yung country, Gujarat, our place has been changed. Where I live in Beverly in the wheat belt, it's not what it was. So the the the reciprocity is a contemporary um almost hybrid version, because we've got to restore it. So my reciprocity is about not being extractive at all, right, on mass, particularly or on scale, but being more than just generous. So giving back, right? Having a principle of buja first, right? Country first. If it's good for country, we know it's going to be good for us. And I've already alluded to you know the sites and places. So country has has has given back in reciprocity the the planting of the trees and then the ecological magic that happens. You know, we've got a you know, Keith was you know, when we were doing this filming for SBS, you know, I was about to I I sang a song because I was about to light up and they wanted to get some footage of Bernie. So I sang a song, and this little echidna just cruised across you know the pack. Nyingarin. Nyingarin is uh a powerful spirit in our culture. So country is always giving. We miss signs is the problem. And as Nyungar people when we're connected, and and Nyamiji and all of us as First Nations indigenous peoples, we know those signs because those signs live in us and our spirit. So the reciprocity that I practice is having principles and leading groups and leading my own thinking and my own behaviour to give back, right? To put bujo first and to do everything that I possibly can to make sure that we are uh are committing to the process of healing country and the practice of healing country because country will heal us. It's already started the process of healing me. We're now getting to a scale where we will bring people, you know, big groups. You know, I've got a vision to not just have one house, homestead, on 2100 acre property, on a 2100 acre land, but to have potentially a hundred homes. And it doesn't matter what the bylaws and the shire say. It's not a fan, it's bujah, it's not a farm. It's bujah. And so the village concept of bringing people back onto country is what was. And it's it's part of the reason why country was healthy pre-colonisation. Because people were everywhere. They didn't live in one place, they moved across it. So land tenure is another massive issue. The minute that people could say that this is my land, I can do what I want with it, and the government was complicit and gave it to people and took it away from us, essentially, the problems began. And we're still dealing with those problems today because private land is open slather for whatever you want to do with it. And that's not culture, that's not law, and that's not nature.

AJ: 43:41

Yeah. Thank you. We're going to have to have that longer conversation about that, hey. That's all we've got time for on this panel. Thank you very much. Would you please give a warm hand to all our panellists? Matthew, Joel, Oral, Stuart, and Craig. Thanks, guys. That was the first panel conversation at the Regenerating Food Systems Conference staged by RegenWA at Perth Stadium last month. Gives a hint of how special it was. And that was just the beginning. With thanks again to the team at Regen WA for generously providing the recording. And to you subscribing listeners for making the episode possible. This week, special thanks to the wonderful Sharon Clifford, Todd Delfs, Dominique Hes, Ben Symons, Caitlin Tacey, Grace Rose Miller, and Caz. Friends old and new, thanks so much for notching up your fourth anniversary of support. If you'd like to join us, be part of this great community, get some exclusive stuff and help keep the show going, please do by heading to the website or the show notes and following the prompts. If you'd like to hear more from the conference, stay tuned for some bonus extras on this podcast over the next days. You can also read Regen WA's written debrief and stand by for the team's release of other recordings. And you can also watch Oral out at his place on that SBS News report. All those links are in the show notes. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden.