When the Unthinkable Becomes Possible in Six Years: A Short Story

Welcome to this brief bonus extra to episode 279, which featured a very special panel conversation from the recent Regenerating Food Systems conference. 

Now you might ask, why would anyone who wasn’t at the conference want to hear my MC’s introduction to it? Well, if you’re interested in some of the story of the conference, the movement in Western Australia generally, RegenWA in particular, including its moving roots, some of the rest of what became an incredible week of events in WA, from Government House, through the conference, to Grounded Festival and more - and maybe even some of the story of how I came to be connected to all this at about the same time RegenWA started – then here’s the short version for you. All of six or seven  minutes. With the Governor of WA and his wife, former Ministers, current MPs, and 300 others filling the room at Perth Stadium last month.

Recorded 17 September 2025.

Title slide: Introducing the conference, with the Governor of WA in the front row (from the film by Alex Hawkins of Simple Ben Stories).

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

Music:

Music by Jeremiah Johnson.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.

Chapters

• 0:00 Why This Bonus Exists
• 0:46 From My Ignorance To Involvement
• 2:10 The Spark: Books, Mentors, Events
• 3:16 Regen WA’s Beginnings And Growth
• 4:15 Country, River, And Collective Impact
• 5:05 Maureen Diver’s Legacy Of Trust
• 6:15 Alarm Bells And Audacious Goals

Transcript

AJ: 0:00

Welcome to this brief bonus extra to episode 279, which featured an incredibly special panel conversation from the recent Regenerating Food Systems Conference. Now you might ask, why would anyone who wasn't at that conference want to hear my MC's introduction to it? Well, if you're interested in some of the story of the conference, the movement in Western Australia generally, Regen WA in particular, including its moving roots, some of the rest of what became an incredible week of events here in WA, from Government House through the conference to Grounded Festival, and more, and maybe even some of the story of how I came to be connected to all this at about the same time Regen WA started, then here's the short version for you. All of six and a half minutes. With the Governor of WA and his wife, former ministers, current MPs, and 300 others filling the room at Perth Stadium last month. G'day, I'm Anthony James, AJ Amongst Friends, host of The RegenNarration podcast, Substack writer, and to be honest, formerly almost a complete ning nong when it came to food systems and farming and farmers. I knew next to nothing really until I mean a background in sustainability and holistic thinking, but that's another story. And there was a moment when someone in this room put Charlie Massy's Call of the Reed Warbler in my hand and gave me the tip that there was something afoot at Perth NRM. That was Nick Rose. Cheers, Nick. We'll hear from him later. I gave it a read and got straight on the blower to Charlie and asked him if he'd be part of a big event I was organizing in Melbourne. For which the couple, David and Frances Pollock from Wooleen Station, came over also. Out of which, A, Reed Warbler got its global publishing deal, and B, my family decided to go around Australia to get to know our country properly. And through the lens of you guys, the people that were doing this sort of work. For that, I thought I might as well share some of your great stories, even though I was a complete hack at it at that stage, started a podcast. It just happened to grow legs and sort of led to me meeting more and more of you. And here we are. On return from that first journey in 2018, I got a call from this new mob, Regen WA. And it was an honor to host the first conference in this very room, I think, certainly at this stadium in 2019. Show of hands, who was here for that? Maybe 40%. That's cool that there's so many more new people coming into it. And of course, yeah, we clearly got more to arrive still. Now, so much has changed in six years, no? The West Coast Eagles were the reigning premiers. Shouldn't laugh though. I'm a bombers fan, it happens to us all, we get our turn, don't we? And Ian and Dianne Haggerty weren't West Australians of the year. Cheer, cheer. Now, I wonder what was more unthinkable. The Eagles being a basket case today, or these guys being West Australians of the year? First touchstone. The unthinkable will happen in the next six years. And there is possibility and peril in that. I wonder what we might dare to aim for in that period. Now, six years ago, it was audacious to set up RegenWA and to have a one-day conference here. Symbolic of the call, indeed, at this stadium, of investing at a similar scale, financially, culturally, even, in this space. What if that happened? What could things look like if that was to happen? These years on, the money has started to flow, but still so marginal, and that's something we'll go at in the next couple of days, too. Regen WA went on to help stage the Margaret River Conference a couple of years ago. So we heard someone was at before. In a regional area for two days, its own triumph and breakthrough. And today we're back here on Noongar, Wajak Noongar Buja, the land of the Noongar Nation, for over 40,000 years, a presence so key to all we're here for. As we overlook too, Derbil Yerrigan, the Swan River, this ancient river carved a canyon the size of the Grand Canyon just off Rottnest when it was land all the way out. And it continues to underpin life in this city and beyond. We're being audacious again here, too. Two days this time, blessed with His Excellency and Mrs. Dawson's presence and yours. With a heck of a lineup too to help take things to the next level, where we come together for collective impact like never before. Indeed, this is also implicit in the full week of satellite events we've already heard a bit about as well. So thanks to those satellite partners, Grounded Festival, Mulloon Institute, Natural Intelligence Farming, Carbon Link, Common Land, Joel Williams, tickets are still available for some of those events to come. These are such rare, wonderful, and important times. So a hearty welcome to you all, to Boorloo Perth, from wherever you've come from around this country and the world for the Regenerating Food Systems Conference. With its pointed subtitle, Collective Responsibility for Soil Health, Human Well-being and Food Security. Now, collective impact is our overarching theme here, really, an approach Regen WA has observed to be effective in other sectors in helping people come together for impact at scale, as we seek to ultimately connect with people in all parts of our food system to the ends that we've been so eloquently describing already here today. Finding ways to build trust together, as the chair of RegenWA, Stuart McAlpine said to me the other day. And it's fitting that RegenWA should lead on this, given the power of work it's been doing on this space in those last couple of years, and given its roots, which I'd like to return to. This farmer-led network, with its thousands of members now, was born from that very mission, from when the very first seed was planted by the late Maureen Diver, a farmer from Dandaragan, who credited her experience with cancer for opening her eyes to her surrounding environment. She set about looking for ways to produce food that didn't rely on chemicals or synthetics, and also that didn't jeopardize the farming operation or their relationships. But she struggled to know what to trust when everything she was hearing was someone trying to sell her a product. Maureen sadly died before that first conference in 2019, but she planted a seed that sprouted Regen WA via co-founders Justin Wolfgang and current CEO Keith Pekin, who I believe is right there, to build trust together. So here we are, extending our understanding from soil through to all parts of the food system for everyone here to become more of an advocate slash listener, and they're not exclusive concepts. To generate widespread backing towards our secure food future and by extension the health of people, communities, and the rest of the living world. And given what I've heard from many of you since recently returning from some time abroad, and I'm talking from farmers and conservationists, there are alarm bells ringing everywhere. We need to be here, and I'm very glad we are. So I'm really looking forward to this. Not just a couple of days that inspire, as I'm sure they will, but to what we might recall in another six years as a trigger point. Whether or not it's the Eagles' resurgence, but what might be the next lot of unthinkable, previously unthinkable outcomes of this nature that we might help bring about?