The RegenNarration
Stories of the regeneration of the living world, not often on the news, often almost beyond belief. With award-winning host Anthony James. It’s ad-free, freely available and entirely listener-supported. You'll hear from high profile and grass-roots leaders from around Australia and the world, on how they're changing the stories we live by, and the systems we create in their mold. Along with often very personal tales of how they themselves are changing, in the places they call home, and with some of the music they love.
The RegenNarration
How a Tropical Farmer Helped Build A Global Regeneration Network, with André Leu
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
André Leu is co-founder and Director of Regeneration International. That’s the world's largest network geared towards the transition to regenerative food, farming and land management, for the purpose of restoring climate stability, ending world hunger and rebuilding social, ecological and economic systems. It includes over 740 organisations across more than 80 countries, and humble individual members like your host, and is in the midst of exponential growth in interest.
I catch up with André as he sits on the deck at his pioneering tropical fruit farm in the Daintree of far north Queensland. I’m eager to chat about his 50 years as a farmer, educator, author, rock musician and movement builder.
We start with the regenerated farm, now lush, green and productive, and he says, ‘just getting better and better’. How’s that for a narrative we could do with hearing more of right now? We go on to chat about his coming of age in the heart of the Aboriginal land rights movement, and the dawn of rock’n’roll.
We hear stories of legends, and a love story too, with his wife of almost 50 years. More well-known than him too, he says. And why did this pioneering organic farmer who’s led a movement for organics and regeneration for decades ditch his organic certification? And is Gina Rinehart really the world’s biggest organic farmer?
So much to talk about. So settle in with us, on André’s veranda, with the sound of the trees in the tropical breeze.
Recorded 6 August 2026.
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Music:
Rowdy, by The Lonely Ramblers (from Artlist).
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.
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A Garden Of Eden Moment
AndréI was told about this um South African barrister called Marjorie Spears who had this organic farm. So one day I wandered to it, you know, on a place called Black Mountain Road in Coranda and I remember going down the dirt driveway in my bare feet, walking through this canopy of rainforest and coming out in the sun. And in front of me was, I could see, bananas, papayas, big jackfruits. I'd never seen jackfruits before, custard apples, all these tropical flowers, all these incredible tropical vegetables I'd never seen. And I thought, my god, this is the Garden of Eden. And I said, this is what I'm gonna do.
AJG'day, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, featuring the stories that are changing the story and the systems we create in their mould. Andre Leu is co-founder and director of Regeneration International. That's the world's largest network geared towards the transition to regenerative food, farming and land management for the purpose of restoring climate stability, ending world hunger, and rebuilding social, ecological, and economic systems. It includes over 740 organisations across more than 80 countries and humble individual members like your host and is in the midst of exponential growth in interest. I catch up with Andre as he sits on the deck at his pioneering tropical fruit farm in the Daintry of Far North Queensland. I'm eager to chat about his 50 years as a farmer, educator, author, rock museo, and movement builder. We start with the regenerated farm, now lush, green, and productive, and he says, just getting better and better. How's that for a narrative we could do with hearing more of right now? We go on to chat about his coming of age in the heart of the Aboriginal land rights movement and the dawn of rock and roll. We hear stories of legends and a love story too, with his wife of almost 50 years. More well known than him too, he says. And why did this pioneering organic farmer, who's led a movement for organics and regeneration for decades, ditch his organic certification? So much to talk about. So settle in with us on Andre's veranda with the sound of the trees in the tropical breeze. Andre, thanks a lot for joining me, mate. Welcome.
AndréOh, thanks for having me. I I I really appreciate it. I just love the title of this regeneration narration. It's just so clever, you know. So good on you.
AJThank you. Because the industry tells me it's a stupid name, it's too smart and people won't find it. So I'm very glad to hear that. Thank you.
AndréOh, it got me straight away. I said, how clever is this? You know, that's poetry, music.
AJBeautiful. Mate, where are you? I I can see this beautiful lush backdrop. You're at home. Can you bring us into it?
Turning Burnt Hills Into Rainforest
AndréI'm home on my farm. This is my veranda looking out on um my garden, actually start of my orchard. I I live in um Daintree. Actually, we call it Lower Daintry, um, the lower part of the the Daintry River area. And I have uh a farm here. It's about 150 acres, of which now a hundred acres is rainforest I've regenerated, really high quality.
AJSo it wasn't it didn't look like this when you got there, huh?
AndréNot really. Um it been burnt every year, the back of it, and it was um so uh it it was regrowth and uh well really uh sort of like a savannah woodland. But we're in an area where we get say you know over three metres of rain a year. Um some years like this year we've had five metres, and it's only now starting to dry out. So the natural climax ecosystem is high biodiversity, tropical rainforest. And so over the last 35 years, that's exactly what I've done. And those parts of the farm, I just want to say that they're steep, they're mountainous, they're not suitable for machinery, and there's no point trying to farm it. It's just unsafe, it's just difficult, and having the biodiversity gives me valuable ecosystem services. And one of the things I do love about it now is that as soon as you start regenerating the biodiversity, all the species come, they find. So now I can walk around and I've got so many keystone species. Like our largest keystone species here is the cassawary, uh, you know, a large bird like the emu, a beautiful bird, and they are breeding on my property, um, reproducing. We have the buff-breasted paradise kingfisher, and this is a kingfisher that has these lovely long sail-like tails. They get them when they migrate down in our rainy season from New Guinea and they breed. And they're breeding on my farm, they breed on the termite nests. I don't kill our native termite nests because they don't actually recycle our houses. That the ones that do that are introduced termite. So I keep them because you know things like um the valuable rare parrots breed in them, goanas breed in them, um, rare types of um blind snakes live in them. Some of them, you know, we're aren't even described yet because they're you know they're hard to find. But and what the termites do, of course, is they recycle the wood, which is cellulose. Cellulose is made of glucose and water, and they break it down. Most of us can't eat wood, termites can, and they spread it all through the soil, all that organic matter, all those minerals, and in the tropics, particularly in the savannah areas, termites are the most important environmental species for regenerating soils and putting out soil fertility. And so by doing this, you know, improving the soil, improving the biodiversity, I've got things like um what here were originally um cane drains that they do is they straighten up the creeks and turn them into drains. I unstraightened them, pondered them, and within months I had things like platypus breeding. I had different um terrapins, you know, the freshwater turtles coming in. Um all these other species. As soon as you start making habitat, they find it, and then you know, they start reproducing. So I have platypus burrows.
AJWhat amazes me is their antenna for that. Like, and I want to say there, like, I mean all species, and and that makes me wonder about us too, right? Like, what what about ours that we've neglected? Because they f they like you said, they find you. It's amazing. And so quickly. So quickly.
AndréYeah, you know, and they just they're there before you know it, you know, and um, you know, so I just actually love the fact I've got all these incredible rare keystone species of plants and animals. It you know, it's a joy. And it's something that will last long, longer than I ever will. Yeah, there's a leader of the thing. You know, and and every year it's getting better and better. We're getting you know more biodiversity. But also, you know, that's the hundred acres I've let regenerate to to um what we call climax ecosystems. Then I've got my um regenerative ecosystem, agro ecosystem, we'll call it. And there I have about 30 acres under exotic tropical fruit trees. And underneath that I I have an enormous amount of biodiversity to give me the ecosystem services. And that, well, I have I have a whole series of perennial plants that I I use as um cover crops. I've got one lot that I let grow over my rainy season, and they will get up to over three metres tall for our friends in the US, ten feet higher than me and my tractor. And then the neighbours just can't understand why I let my orchard go to rack and ruin, and all these weeds take over instead of spraying it out and having bare soil, and when we get, you know, four inches overnight, 100 millimeters, and it all washes away in you know, into the creeks and kills the Great Barrier Reef. They just don't understand why I don't do that like they do.
Runoff And Why Reefs Die
AJIs that still true, Andre?
AndréYeah. Honestly, look, seriously, the biggest thing that's killing the reef is not climate change. It is bad land management, and it's not just farmers. You get our council spraying the drains with Roundup and other herbicides in the middle of the wet season, killing the plants that that protect the drains, work as silt silt traps, so it all washes out all those nutrients. And all of our fringing reefs, these are not I'm not so much I'm talking about the outer reef, but the fringing reefs were the ones along all the beaches. They are all dead until you get to Cape Tribulation. And then that's because it's rainforest. There's no agriculture at Coconut Beach, the first beach at Cape Tribulation. And from then onwards, we have living um fringing reefs. But when I first came up here, you know, first came up to this part of the world in 1971, we had living reefs out of Port Douglas, off Wonga Beach, other stuff. We could walk out low tide and there was coral. Now you walk out and it's just slime, algae covered in mud, it's smothered, it's dead.
AJBut it doesn't have to be this way.
AndréNo, and and once again, when we talk about regeneration, if we stop the disturbance, if we stop it, honestly, within one year, you'll see after you know, because every year the the coral reproduces in November, there's a spawning season and the the world's biggest mass orgy. And uh it's yeah, you know, and the whole of the sea is full of eggs and sperm, you know. Yeah, and and the coral having the time of their life. And but all of that then spreads. And so, you know, all of that could colonize these fringing reefs, and we'd get this incredible biodiversity starting in one year, and every year it would get better and better. It's as simple as that.
Stop Disturbance And Watch Recovery
AndréAnd actually, I just want to say too, this is the logic of why we started the international regenerative movement, is in any ecosystem, if you disturb it and then stop that disturbance, it will regenerate. It's a force of nature. It doesn't, you know, I've talked about the rainforest at the at the back of my place. What do I have to do to regenerate it? Stop the disturbance. It knows how to do it. If we want to regenerate the Great Barrier Reef, we stop putting in all these nutrients and herbicides and poisons and all the phosphorus from the runoff. It will regenerate. And I just want to say this the same way I farm. The same principle. That principle is across the board. You know, we use this force of nature, and it's an incredible force of nature. And it's if you understand it and then design your systems around it, it is the most productive force of nature. And that's exactly you know what I've done here with um the for instance the cover crops, they photosynthesize, they take carbon dioxide out of the air, the worst greenhouse gas. In my case, they take tons of it out, they mix it, they use sunlight and mix it with water, and they make glucose. And glucose is the fundamental molecule of life. Every or pretty well every living organism, there's there's a few that that work on a different system, but 99.99999 repeating percent of our biodiversity lives on glucose or molecules made from glucose. Similarly, our bodies are made pretty well made from glucose, adding a few extra minerals here and there. It's the same with bodies of plants, wood, cellulose, the leaves, that's glucose, with water, long chains, as I was talking when we're talking about the termites, and the termites will break it down into glucose and water. It's the same with grazing animals. You know, we can't eat grass, but they can, because they have in their digestive tract, they have microorganisms like the termites, that will have enzymes that break down that cellulose into glucose and water, and and they get it. So that's what I'm doing is trapping, using solar energy to get the carbon dioxide, get the water I've got, and make massive amounts of cellulose, but it's not just what's above ground. When when the as the plant grows, about 30% of that photosynthesis, those um molecules of life made from glucose, feed the soil microbiome. And the soil microbiome goes into my soil and and they use enzymes to release up all the locked-up minerals. I don't have to spend pretty well anything on um fertilizing about the only thing I do here is small amounts of boron because in a high rainfall area it leaches out. But, you know, so I'm talking dollars, and my yields are up there in the highest percentile, and I can tell you my quality is we're we're picking one of our main um crops at the moment, uh it's called Star Apple, um, Kamito's known. It's actually um comes from Guatemala and um that part of the Caribbean, and we we were involved in introducing it to Australia in the 70s and growing it, and for a while there I was Australia's major grower, but other growers have taken it up now. But I can tell you that my quality and my size is up there with the best, and I'm not using any pesticides, I'm not using any chemical fertilizers.
AJSo, how is that not enough to convince that neighbour, Andre? What have you seen in your life on that?
Cover Crops Carbon And Soil Life
AndréUm, well, one of my neighbours I've convinced now. He's a cane farmer, but the cane industry here has gone closed down, gone bankrupt simply because of the model of industrial agriculture. It's a it puts farmers and everybody into debt. In other words, um the the mill itself went bankrupt because it was always going into debt, always trying to get government subsidies. At some point, the government said no, enough's enough. Um and they're trying to get more out of the cane farmers, but the cane farmers um you know couldn't pay more, so the whole industry has collapsed. Now, one of my next door neighbors now um is doing all the picking for me and packing the stuff on contract, so he's seeing exactly how good the yield is, how good the quality is. And I just think one of the things too is that well, this particular farm is actually my third farm. I started in the in in the 70s, and whenever you pioneer anything, um you make mistakes. And I'm one of these people who've, you know, I'm I'm not afraid to admit my life is full of mistakes, but in most cases I've learnt from it. And so this farm now, my third one, is a very successful farm. Now, when I first came here in 1991, I was ridiculed. And I remember my kids at school got a hard time being the kids of the, you know, the hippie organic farmer sort of stuff. Well, the irony is 35 years later, I'm still in business, and they are most of them are out of business.
AJIt's telling in that.
AndréMy farm is the one that is resilient, high-yielding, and profitable.
AJYeah. So take me back a little further, Andre. Where
Childhood In Land Rights Activism
AJdid you grow up then?
AndréI actually grew up in Sydney, Adelaide in Sydney. Actually, in I suppose the most formative years was the north shore of Sydney, where I grew up in an area with forests, and uh that's where my love of forests came. Also, what was really interesting in those areas we still had um rock shelters um caves with aboriginal tools.
AJYeah, so recent.
AndréUm, Aboriginal implements, those sorts of things. Um, so that was a big influence on me. Also, my parents were actively involved in in various political movements, and that included the the 1967 referendum about counting Aboriginal people in the census so they actually existed, and also the original land rights movement. My mother was secretary of the Guringi campaign and just have you say worked a lot with people like Vincent Linghiari. I I always rem remember him. Actually, there's the Paul Kelly song, we talk about music, yeah. From Big Things, Little Things Grow. And I um in that song he mentions how Vincent went to Sydney and stayed with people. Well, that was our family.
AJAh wow, man. What a privilege.
AndréYeah, so I met him and really impressed by his awe, gentle presence, but you know, um leadership you could just see there. His son Peter and I became very, very close friends. Peter would come down to Sydney and taught me Geringi, taught me how to um make boomerangs and uh other implements where I started to learn about bush foods and basically how to live off the land, which uh something, well maybe now at my age I mightn't be so good at it, but it's something it held me in good stead most of my life. Um, my ability to survive, recognize food plants. And I just want to say too that it's been a major part of my life up here as well. Um I ended up getting postgraduate graduate qualifications in adult education. I actually specialized in teaching Aboriginal people. So, for instance, up here, our traditional owners, the Googie Allengy, um, I spent a lot of time bringing in numeracy and literacy courses. You know, my aim is not to tell them what to do, but to give them the tools and empower them so they can make their decisions of what they want to do, but they have the ability to deal with our authorities and government. So I've always had a close relationship. You know, I I introduced speaking Googie Allengy uh in our TAFE course, and that's now taught in the schools here. It's a living language because there were fluent speakers here. And I thought, you know, most most communities, cultures, you know, the last of the fluent speakers die and the language dies.
AJYeah, right.
AndréAnd so we started courses to teach the the next generation, and I made a point of of of learning Guru Alangy. But not only that, you know, I I was taught by my essentially um Aboriginal, you know, aunties and uncles, even though I'm non-Aboriginal, um, they regarded me as their nephew, their cousin, um, and so on, um, or uncle in some cases. And I I had the privilege of being taken out into the forest and learning. All about their food systems. And it's one of the things has really influenced me, and this is not just here, but all over Australia. I've had the privilege of being learnt teaching these food systems. And I just want to say that they were not hunter-gatherers, they were producers and harvesters on their estates. And what they did was the most consistent regenerative agroecosystems. When we look at using the principle of regeneration and how they used it. And I want to say for 65,000 years, because there's really good research looking at their food crops now at 65,000 years ago at a place called Majabidi in the top end of the Northern Territory. Now I know that area very well. My other, I wear a few hats, but I'm very good at botany and at ecosystems. And that area I've been involved in finding, for instance, a new species of water lily. Oh, really? We published it in in in Telope. Yeah, I've I've actually found a lot of new species over the years. I'm a good botanist and what we call ethnobotanist, which to me is the botany of of plant use by people. And I I specialise in that and not just Australia but the whole world, every continent. I've had a lifetime of going in forests and being on farming systems with different people and particularly First Nations people.
AJYeah, I really want to follow that thread too to how Regeneration International
Ancestry Clearances And Farming Myths
AJcame about. But before we do that, can I just go back to your parents and even grandparents? Okay. Like speaking of these indigenous lineages that go back the thousands of years, what do you know about yours? Oh, I know a lot. What have you found out?
AndréOkay, on my mother's side, they they they were farming in the the Shetlands, north of Scotland. So the um essentially Nordic people that uh Shetlands were given as a dowry to um Scottish lard, and my family, you know, were essentially the the peasants' farmers. And then we had essentially the the time of the closures and basically the people there in the highlands of Scotland, also in Ireland, they could no longer graze all their animals on the commons. What they did, they used to grow oats, and of course the other thing was fishing and smoking fish to preserve them, being an island place, and that's how they survived. But then the potato blight came, and everybody thinks of the potato blight as Irish, but affected a lot of Scotland, including the Shetlands. And as a result, just to explain with the closures, the lords could make a lot of money selling wool to the new factories of the Industrial Revolution. And by for a start, they all that land they didn't want the their peasant farmers to use, so they took it over to put their sheep on it. But also they wanted the peasant farmers to use less land for producing their carbohydrates. Now, when potatoes were introduced from Peru, you could produce ten times the amount of carbohydrates per acre with potatoes than oats. So the beautiful thing was now the lords could take 90% of the land for sheep, and the peasants could live on potatoes. That worked really well until potato blight, and there was no food. And so the solution to that, apart from letting a lot of people die in these famines, was there's now too many people and we will they emigrate. And so they um the Irish and the Scottish emigrated um to Canada, USA, and Australia. My family chose South Australia. And this is on my on my mother's side, and uh they arrived totally penniless, but uh within a short time um they started to get land because you know, really the most of South Australia was already cleared, used for traditional regenerative agricultural systems, for for and I I'm writing about this in a new book. And everybody thinks our first settlers cleared the land. No, they took already cleared land. If you read Mitchell and you read Sturt and they talk about these beautiful areas, and so what happened is the essentially the traditional owners, people owned that land, made that land, um, looked after it, and rotationally grazed their livestock, kangaroos, wallabies, and emus, and possums, which they had in. They built special um woodlands, hollow trees for possums and birds and honey. And they had um these wonderful agro, regenerative agro ecosystems, and they were kicked off it. And the land was basically, well, first it were squatters, then the government started parceling it out and selling it very cheaply. So essentially, my relatives managed to get one of these blocks. Now, the big problem with Australia and the history of Australia is that our soils were very different from Europe. And with the, you know, they did wheat sheep, that's what everybody did in that country. And in the days before super phosphate, they ran out of phosphorus. They mined the soil. And the wheat crops got less and less. And so what you do is, you know, what happened for a long time in Australia, and it's the same with the grazing systems and stuff, they impoverished the land, they then sold it, and then went further out, and they could buy a whole lot of new land that the government had now subdivided with the money, and now had more substantial acres. So they moved out to a place called Alford, where they had thousands of acres to grow wheat and sheep. And that area actually was not cleared, that was Mallee, and they had to clear all that by hand and by horses, and that was a really tough job. But they built a good farm, and the other thing that happened about that time, superphosphate came in and they started getting the yields. So that was that was my great-grandfather there. My grandfather at that farm, he was one of the early adopters. So he was one of the first people, uh, amongst the first in Australia to actually have a tractor.
AJOh.
AndréGet a motorbike, a car. He actually loved um machinery. And actually, my father and father's side, they they farmed um in Switzerland in a little valley called Hemental. And one thing my father and my grandfather loved, which is my mother's father, had in common was their love of machinery. And my father was actually involved in working with BMC in those days, British Motor Corporation bringing in all the prototype cars and redesigning them for Australian conditions.
AJWow.
AndréUsed to hot them up for the what we in those days were called the Bassus 500 with the Hardy Ferrado. And actually, I'll tell you one of the things my father did is the mini miner. It was called the Morris Mini, and it's total failure. Anyway, they bring it out to Australia. My father's um specialties were suspension and also carburetors. So they they hodted up a whole lot with um the carbies and and and a really good suspension, put GT stripes down them called the Mini Cooper S's, and put them into the Hardy 500. Now they knew they could never beat the supercars, but because of the hotting up and the suspension, these little cars, when they went up the hill, could overtake all the big cars. And so they go up the hill, they'd overtake all the big cars, and then they'd go down to what's called Conrad Street, because that's where cars blow their Conrads. And uh, they knew that these little things, you know, four cylinders could not beat the big V8s. But because they were so small, the game plan was they told the drivers you stick right up the arse of these cars, and its jets, tailwind, will pull you along. So all day, you know, it's 500 miles, and people are watching it, and he's watching his little cars screaming around the big cars up the hill, and then screaming right up the arse of the big V8s, and they're going, oh, so every kid wanted one all around the world. And that's why, you know, the mini took off and became the car of the 60s, you know, Austin Powers.
AJAnd the Cooper's still around.
AndréThat's what happened. That that that was my father's doing. You know, I actually got to see all of that and um grew up with it. And there's a whole lot of things like that, you know. So I I grew up seeing all these prototypes, but also grew up when I got my first cars and something slightly went wrong with it, my father would make me take the engine to bits or the gearbox to bit, every bit, and then reassemble it. At the time as a young teenager, you know, you're cursing. Oh, why'd I have to do all that? But but running a farm and working with machinery, I I'm I'm just so grateful for my dad, what he taught me how to do it. And for me, it's part of what I like farming.
AJOh, and and what I tip my lid at too. The can do everything, people. Yeah. And uh well, I've we've got a bit of shared overlap background there too, because I I took apart my old uh V8 Ford engine as well, because I just I was in my 20s by that stage, but I really wanted to know. And told you voluntarily, believe it or not, with a mate who actually knew what he was doing. So your last name then, was it was it French Swiss originally?
AndréUh it's Swiss German, Switzerduch. It's actually the old German word for lion, lions, based on Leo. Huh. So l you know, it's the Latin word Leo, and when it came in the days of of the Romans um in Switzerland, they adopted it, but you know, and changed changed it to Loy, L-E-U, and that means lion. And we actually also um have a coat of arms um which is a black lion, and that actually was given given to us by the Habsburgs, because what we used to, our family used to lead the Swiss Guard or Swiss troops in the battle uh against the Ottoman Empire when you know the Ottoman Empire was trying to expand um and conquer Europe, and so we were in our family was actually actively involved in defeating the Ottomans and keeping them out of Europe.
AJWow, so you know a lot of these stories. Is that because ancestors kept them alive or you had to go and rediscover them?
AndréOh, ancestors kept them alive, um, but part of it I rediscovered. Um, you know, I uh when I went to Switzerland and I got to meet with all my um Swiss relatives.
AJYeah.
AndréIn part I discovered some accidentally, like I remember one time I was at the Habsburgs Palace um in Easter in Austria, and that horrible wet, sleety snow comes in. And so Julia, my wife, and I we take um shelter in in this little gate alcove, and I look up and I see my family crest. I said, this is unbelievable. This is this is the the family crest that the Habsburgs gave us. And then I find out, guess where I am? I'm at the Swiss gate. So the gate where, you know, in those days where my relatives lived and um uh had all their troops and stuff in the Habsburg Palace.
AJYou didn't know that until you went there.
AndréNo, no, I knew I knew the history and it's been told to me, but that I never knew about that, but that confirmed the stories I've been told, you know. You just landed in a there it is in black, you know, painted and the name. If you look up the Habsburgs Palace, you'll find the Swiss gate. If you go in there, you'll see the black line or you know, the Lloyd.
AJHuh. What do you know? So you know what's interesting? I wonder if you found this. Like, I mean, ten years of these conversations, about the time you've been doing regeneration international, as it happens, so a the decade of these conversations, and they I mean, even just in recent weeks, but it's sort of been this build where these ancestral stories are regeneration that points to these ancestral stories for so many reasons, and then I'm wondering if you've well, A, if you've found similar, and B that it is a means of connecting across cultures through those stories.
Founding Regeneration International
AndréUh look, I couldn't agree more with you. Um, part of I just say one of the things we did with Regeneration International, um, I just so when we formed it officially in 2015, hardly anyone had heard of the word. Hardly anyone used it. Now, there was a small group of us. Um, at that stage, I was the president of iPhone International, uh, Organics International, um, people like Van Dana Shiva from from the Daniel Ronnie Cummings from the Organic Consumers Association, Steve Rye from McCola Health, um, the Carbon Underground Larry from that, people from Savory. What we did is we got bit by bit, we we built a steering committee and got a lot of people together. But when we did our first meeting where we formed it, that that was in Costa Rica at Finca Luna Nueva, uh owned by Thomas Newmark and a biodynamic farm. But what we did is we raised the money, and most of that money, Ronnie Cummings from the Organic Consumers Association, he raised over 200 US dollars. 200,000 US dollars, I should say. 200 dollars wouldn't quite cut it. Um and we made a point of bringing in women and men from every continent. So this was really inclusive. It wasn't just a North American or uh English speaking um thing. We we we wanted various leaders, stakeholders, and it wasn't just farmers, we brought in farmers, but we we brought in the market, we we brought in um journalists, we brought in filmmakers, for instance, Kiss the Ground. That's where they um how they started, and we brought in a whole range of um industries like Patagonia, Whole Foods. We're trying to bring the whole market, including from consumers through to um producers, you know, from the paddock, but also all our other stakeholders, our media people are really important. What you're doing is really important. You know, so we had Fred Waters from Acres USA and other other people. Yeah, so the whole thing was it's you know, it's not a supply chain, it's a supply web.
AJYeah, right.
AndréAnd we're all actors and we all have a role. And this is what we did is to bring them all together and have a conversation. And out of that conversation, you know, we got mission statements, we got we formed Regeneration International as a partnership of like-minded organizations. This is the really important thing. We we aren't a top-down organization, we're a network. We're a network of like-minded organizations, and I suppose our main role is getting out information between us in our network, but outside. And and on that we've been really successful. We brought events like after we went to the climate change meeting um in 2015 in Paris, and had numerous events there, got stuff up, you know. For instance, we got kissed the ground, got them into events and stuff so they could interview and just help them start that that that that process. It wasn't about us having our names in lights. Most people don't even hardly know about me. I'm not interested in being famous. In fact, it horrifies me. Um, you know, what I'm interested in is making things happen. And that's what we did. So I think part of it now is getting people then to go back. What we wanted everybody to do is go back and reconnect with their communities. And that's going back to what you're saying. It's that reconnection and going back to our grassroots, going back to our, you know, our families, where we can came from. Instead of us being top down and saying, oh, this is what we do, and being really prescriptive, we go, no, we want you to go back and have these conversations, go back to your roots. And in the beginning, you know, I know we're criticized for it, but in the beginning, we we did not want to have really strict definitions, strict standards. This kills conversations. What we wanted to do is come across with the basic concept that regeneration improves, it's the opposite of degeneration. Have those conversations. We're not saying what, you know, at this stage what's wrong or right, and we know it's going to be different for different people in different areas of the world, and and we have to celebrate that and celebrate our diversity.
AJThat's fascinating because I know with uh the Yarrow River, the bear rung through Melbourne that it's got recognized ago too, got recognized uh as a living entity, but didn't get legal rights. But what a lot of the advocates are saying is that's actually been a positive because it's done exactly what you just described in staying away from standards. It it opened up new engagement and new narrative around Yeah. It was an invitation to all that.
AndréExactly right, and and and so that's what happened. We had an explosion and we're still having an explosion of narratives. It's a revolution, and it's actually the biggest farming revolution. Now, we have now put out a standard, reluctantly, but because other people start standardizing and to stop greenwashing and as a guidance, so we're doing that, and because now there is a need. People are producers and stuff are asking us, so we still will show leadership, you know, and that's what we've done from day one. But I just want to say it's not a top-down leadership from our point of view, it's a participatory leadership. We want all our partners to do it in their own way, put their messages out, you know, uh, and not just one message, because we have an incredibly diverse world, lots of different climates, lots of different marketing systems, lots of different cultural systems, and all of them need to have a role, you know, and we we want to do the opposite of McDonaldizing the planet, which is what we're seeing, you know, you know, farming is landscape simplification, you know, and we're seeing it more and more massive monocultures of one thing, industrial, you know, factories over it. And we want to do the opposite, have an explosion of diversity. And that that's the diversity of thought and ideas as well. That's where it starts. Right.
AJSo over the ten years, and I guess you're f you're 50 in the game, but but just the 10 years, let's say, uh of the network, you said you're it's still exploding. And I see this too. Yet you also just said that we see more and more of the monoplanes, uh the mechanized landscape, uh, the the degeneration. So I'm seeing both too. So I'm wondering how you square it in your minds. What what are you seeing as the trajectory or or what's needed
Debt Monocultures And Farm Collapse
AJnext?
AndréOkay, look, I suppose there's two ways of looking at it. Um in many ways, the Monoculture has always been there, and it's been in the mainstream. What's happening is that the terms of trade are so bad that most of those farmers are going out of business. They walk out, they've been killed by debt. They're debt slaves. They're no longer peasants that have to serve the lord of the manor. The lord of the manor is called the bank and the pesticide companies and the fertilizer companies and the machinery companies that keep these farmers in massive debt. In the end, you only need a couple of bad seasons and the farm fails, they put it up for sale. So the reality is, I know we're seeing more monocultures, but the fact is what we're really seeing is more corporations or bigger people buying the land. But the reality is there's actually less land under industrial agriculture than ever. It's shrinking. If we look at the FAO figures. Is that right? Because it's getting taken up for things like solar cells, windmills, factories are getting put on it, suburbs are going over it, you know, land, or it's going in in other areas we can see it's going into basically biodiversity rather than food production. So the amount of hectares that we've got for producing food is the least we've had for a long time. And that that accounts for the massive clearing of old growth forests in the Amazon, in Asia and in tropical Africa. You know, we're losing all of those. Incredibly old growth by biodiverse. But even then, I just want to say a lot of them, most of these, and I I'm someone who spent a lot of time in them, they're not, they're never wilderness areas.
AJYeah.
AndréThey were managed agro-ecosystems by their traditional owners. And they had clearings in them, and they were complex systems, but they are being kicked out, being forced to be landless while the corporations are going in and covering them with oil palm or you know, GMO soil or or whatever for the factories in in Europe and the United States. But despite that, we're actually still losing land. The amount of land is disappearing. The other one where it's disappearing is desertification. I know people are trying to say NASA's saying it's greening up, but the reality is when you go to these areas rather than look at them on satellite, and I like ground truthing, and I'm someone who does go to all these areas, they are so degraded and can hardly keep any livestock on it. So the reality is what we're seeing is this loss of farmers, this degradation, and so many family farmers are failing mainly because of debt. And where the word regeneration took off is that the majority of farmers know that business as usual cannot continue. Business as usual means they lose their farm. Now, the concept we will regenerate agriculture, it's a positive message that doesn't come with any baggage. They get it, yes. We can't go on this way, we need to regenerate. The next question is the how. And that's what we're very big on now. And so the best way to say it, we're seeing a loss of farmers, and it's a farming diospora in industrial agriculture, and it's honestly it's millions of people either walking off. Um, the other one that's not talked about, one of the main main exit strategies is called suicide. Oh no. When f farms fail. What people gotta realize, a farm is just not a bit of real estate, it's a family heritage.
AJWell, it's everything we've been talking about, exactly.
AndréYeah, exactly. So when we talk about that's the other part about keeping the family heritage, because you know, your great-grandfather started it, and you know, this whole thing, and you're the person who's lost it. You haven't just lost a business, you've just lost your whole family history. And that sort of pressure we know brings on depression, it brings on substance abuse, it brings on domestic violence, you know, it results in suicide. And and it's not just oh, um, economic rationalism, we've got to rationalize the amount of farmers. We're talking about real people, real families, real communities, and the damage that this does. On the other hand, when we come in with a positive message, you can take control, you can regenerate, and give examples of farms that are st are doing well, turn it around, that changes everything. The programs we look at, and we look at these farmers, and you know, they've got a purpose in life. There's hope. There's also the enthusiasm now for change, they drive it. That's what we're trying to do, you know, and this feeling of well-being. You know, you do your podcast, and I bet you most of the regenerative farmers you talk to, it's optimism, well-being. You know, they really feel like something good is happening. Yep, exactly.
AJYeah, it's telling, isn't it? And I've, you know, I followed your work, I'm a member of the of the network as well, Regeneration International, and and following some of those stories from around the world, you know, places I don't get to, you know, Africa's or parts of uh India, um, you know, where bandana is, uh, just extraordinary work and and take up of this stuff. So it there does seem to be a sharp trajectory that is shifting from the that dark picture. Yeah. Uh and I do you have a sense of I guess where it's going, or and is it just keep doing what we're doing, we're on it, or do we need to pay attention to something else?
AndréWell, it's both. We need to we need to drive it. And in several ways. One is to get the messages out and give examples. So one of our examples every year, every October on World Food Day, we have the World Food Summit. Yeah. And we highlight from every continent, every we do it over 24 hours on on their time zones. And we highlight all these wonderful stories of people. Now, the first time we did it, we got about 600,000 views and do it. Last year we had over 10 million real-time views. So what we're talking now with this, and we're getting better at it, so hopefully, you know, this year's we we we will get even more. You know, we learn like all these things you learn as you go. But when you when we start talking about 10 million real-time views, that's impact. So we we're continuing that. Our newsletter is having impact. You know, we're what we're doing now is featuring every month a great story of one of our partners, what they're doing. Positive news. What we're trying to do is be mostly positive. Um, we do have to also point out how to avoid certain negatives and why we avoid them, like pesticides and that. And also, I suppose carefully managing the discussion, because you know you've got some groups that won't want to continue using Roundup or using GMOs and call it regenerative. When we put out our definition right in the beginning, as part of our definition, we also um said the opposite of regenerative is degenerative. Because we always knew we were going to be hijacked, because we're from the organic industry and we knew and and sustainable, we knew and we knew how big ag did that. So right from day one, we we knew we'd be hijacked, we're never worried about it. In fact, our biggest concern would have been if we weren't hijacked, that meant we weren't weren't relevant. It's like what's worse than someone talking about you behind your back is that they that they don't. And so, you know, them trying to hijack us is a success story, and we've turned it into an own goal for them. Because what it meant now is that we could get media that we could never mainstream media and discussions that we could never afford. Our write of reply or putting stuff in or getting them out there in all the main newspapers, all the main magazines, getting that concept of regenerative out has been so successful. They have probably done more for us than we've done, because we we don't have their resources. But the beautiful thing is, what they don't understand is from the farmer's point of view, is they like the word regenerative because they know that business as usual is failing them. And so when they see these big corporations putting out, trying to put out business as usual as um regenerative, farmers aren't stupid. They get treated like they're stupid. You know, a lot of them haven't had the opportunities of being well educated, but being well educated doesn't mean you're smart. Some of the most stupid people I've met have got PhDs. And some of the smartest people I've met can't read or write because they were too poor to ever go to school. Right, me too. But most farmers who are surviving, they've got what I call street smarts. And they work it out and they go, that's not regenerative. So let's try and find out what regenerative is. And that's actually what's happening. Um that's why I call what Big Ag is doing is the biggest own goal, the scoring goals for us. What we do is just keep the discussion going. We don't actually attack them. We just point out what is degenerative, what is regenerative. Just keep that discussion going.
Politics Standards And Greenwashing
AJHmm, fascinating. What's your read on the political level around the world? And I guess I say that with echoes still of the executive order that came out of the US recently when uh John Lundren and Will Harris were in the Oval Office. Yeah. What's your read on that? And around the world, are are governments shifting?
AndréYeah, yeah, everywhere. Everywhere. Because once again, look, I suppose from my point of view, I'll just say I'm one of the organic pioneers of Australia. I started uh my first farm in 1971 and started growing psychotropical fruits. We're we're part of that um pioneer generation. We developed the first standards and all these things. Now we we were regarded as nutters, long-haired hippie nutters, you know, and bit by bit it started to change. You know, in my time, you know, I realized we needed to have organizations, so I was involved in doing one up here. Then later on I became head of the national body in Australia, and I I went and saw governments and worked and tried to get things up, and then eventually I I became the international president. Now I met with ministers everywhere, dined with kings and princesses and princes, and you know, sat in tables with presidents and all over the world, all the ministers. Um I'd work at that level, but me being me, I was actually happier squatting in a rice paddy with the farmers and showing pictures of we're showing pictures to each other of our families on our phones, you know. Um but in those days, you know, I I would get flowing. The UN would arrange something for me and fly me to Kazakhstan exactly to meet with the government because what they wanted, all of these governments, was they didn't actually believe in organic, but they did believe in a premium market. And that was the driver. But the big trouble is it all sounds good, and then they try and put in the regulations and stuff. In most cases, the regulations would kill it for farmers. You know, because I'm a farmer, I'm meeting with farmers in every continent. And the main complaint I always got was organic regulations, organic certification. It was too difficult. So as a result, while they thought, oh, we could do all this and get all this premium on the markets, they didn't get the growers. Growers were not basically taking up organic because it was too difficult. And I was looking at the growth rates. I had it, you know, we're less than, even now, after a hundred years of organic growing, we're less than two percent of the world's farmers. So if we double it in a hundred years, we'll be four percent. Well, what is it? It's nothing, it's no impact. That got to me, you know, and what is stopping the farmers? And every case it was the standards and the transition period. It's too difficult. And I'll give you the example
Why Organic Certification Failed Him
Andréhere. Like I said, I I'm one of the people who pioneered the organic movement certification systems in Australia. One of the first farms to take up organic certification. And I kept it up for years, even though I made no money from it. It was a cost. I grow exotic tropical fruits, you know, we talk about the Kimito, um, which I'm picking at the moment, but things like Rambutans, durian, mangustines, lychee. And these basically go mostly to Australians of Asian heritage, particularly Indo-Chinese, Vietnamese ties. They're not interested in organic. I would, um, I I I got my premium because of quality. I would send boxes to the organic markets. They could hardly sell them. I would get less for it. I'd be sending, I send off pallets, hundreds of boxes. I I produce tons. That's going in export markets, central markets, other things. I'm getting a premium. It costs me money to send a few boxes separately to the organic wholesalers in Sydney and Brisbane. All the costs and the money I get back from them is a fraction per box of what I got. After a while, in fact, I was actually president of iPharm Organics International when I dropped certification. But when I dropped it here, I was the second last farm. There's one other farm still keeping certification, but they dropped it. And, you know, so 20 years ago there was 10 of us who were certified, organic, now there's none. Wow. And that's the story all around the world. And if you have a look at the figures, and I've got them all, what we're seeing is the acreage, the hectares increase, but not big increases in the amount of producers. Particularly in Australia, the US, the US is actually losing them at the moment now that the subsidy programs have stopped. What we're seeing is really what we call organic industrial agriculture. Really big corporations own it. So for instance, um, Australia's biggest organic farmer is Gina Reinhardt.
AJIs that true?
AndréYeah, she owns most hectares and stuff. Now, saying that, I'm really glad she's organic. I'm really glad that she's taken up all those hectares. She's actually the biggest organic farmer in the world. No one would know it. And um, and she's running it organically, and I think that's a really, really good thing. I'm I'm not against that. You know, that's positive, and I'd like to see some of the others do exactly that. More the better. I'm not against big farmers, but but what we've done is let down the average family farmer, the other ones who are leaving organic all around the world. And apart from some places like India, um, Africa, where we have group certification systems that make it easy for small farmers that do it. So group certification is one area that works, and all their expenses are covered, and it's just a much better system. And that's where, and and if you look at the bulk of um organic farmers, that that's where they they are. But what what we've done, if you look at our certification, is we've made it really easy to go into it and for farmers to make the change, be the change makers, make their decisions, and take the time, however long it takes them, to work out their systems and with an endpoint of regenerative A grade. And so instead of having a certification system that is a barrier, we've now got a certification with it system with a really easy entry point and a really supportive system to move through it. So it's the opposite of a barrier. It's um a helpful program. So we've actually designed what I think is probably the most unique um certification system, the standard system on the planet.
AJAnd I'm taking from your experience too that there's it's almost like that's good, but above all, it's quality and connection that drives it most.
AndréExactly. Can I say, yeah, quality is really important? I know the reason I'm in business is quality. Yeah. I got premiums on the market, even though it's certified organic, like I said, I'm I I made a loss on that. But my premium was I could produce the quality and quantity, um, because that's what buyers want. If they're gonna buy your product over someone else, why are they gonna pay you more for it? And it's the same thing, you know. If you're gonna um if someone wants to buy a car, they're gonna buy a Rolls-Royce or a Toyota Corolla. Are they gonna pay the same the Rolls-Royce price for a Toyota Corolla? No. It's about value, and value is quality, and you've got so that is number one. That's actually what I train farmers in. Now we we have a course that we do a certificate course from an accredited uh university, so so we're actually giving growers uh an accredited university certificate. The last one is on marketing, and I start with quality as king. But the other one is connection. Oh, there you go. And you look at the people who tell stories. Now you mentioned um Will Harris being in the White House. Will Will is a good friend, and actually Will um is one of the at the founding meeting of Regeneration International.
AJReally?
AndréYeah, uh Will is you know an absolutely wonderful, wonderful, real-world person. I've got all the time in the world for Will and what he's done and his family farm and his book, Giving a Damn. It's such a good book. It's Will all over, you know.
AJYou'd almost have to listen to the audiobook though, for the voice, I reckon.
AndréOh, yeah, for his George and Draw. I just love him. So I was about to get sidetracked with a whole lot of Will and Gary Zimmer stories and stuff, the difference between the way they the way they talk, but uh at Acres USA, but anyway, that um let's not go there. Um I just want to go back to quality, and that's what Will's about. And the other person like that's Joel Salatin. And connecting and getting the story out. This is what these guys are. Joel is brilliant at getting his stories out. And his farm, you know, I've I've also had the privilege of Joel taking me around his farm in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. And Joel walks the walk, talks the talk, walks the walk. He's real world. What he does and the multiple enterprises he gets out of it. His children are making money. These are stories that are just so important to communicate and get out. Because what we're talking now is people have had a lifetime. We're in our 70s. We've had a lifetime. We've still got dirt under our fingers. We're actually still out there in the field because you know, we'll retire the day after we die because we're not giving up farming. It's, you know, so good. We we're getting so much out of it. But what I mean is all of us, we've had our successes and failures. That's that's the real world. But in the end, we've persisted, we've learned, and we're successful. So I just want to say books people like Joel have written, he's written numerous books. Will, um, I've written numerous, there's a whole range of others. These come from us, from our personal experience. You know, they're not scientific, they're not supposed to be scientific. Agronomy documents. These are about real farmers who live in the real world and have prospered. And to let other people know, the next generation, how to avoid a lot of the mistakes we made. We didn't have roadmaps. But what we're giving you in our books are roadmaps.
Quality Connection And Farmer Storytelling
AJI'm conscious, you mentioned Julia before, that there's been a life you've shared in all this. There and there so commonly is like there's no the people who get the limelight, there's always a a partner or a family or commun or or all of the above behind it. And in your case, this is true too, huh?
AndréOh, very much so. I just want to say the irony is we both get the limelight, but in our own separate ones.
AJReally?
AndréWell, see, Julia was our mayor for a long time.
AJOh.
AndréAnd uh involved in all the local stuff. I'm the one who's doing all the farming, and she's doing a whole range of other social issues. But saying that, the irony is here in our community, she's the one who's known. I'm known as her her partner. Okay, and um, because being mayor, being involved in all the local issues, um, she's prominent. And I'm very happy to take a back seat there. I'm actually relatively unknown apart from as her partner here. Um most people here have no idea of what I do internationally, what I've done. I don't talk about it much here because, like I said, I I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be, I I listen like my personal space. I don't want to have to be like people you you know you can't go out in the streets or you you can't go anywhere without being recognized, you know.
AJSo how how do you guys with your I mean complimentary but divergent paths meet?
AndréHow do your parts crop? Okay, I well my first collecting trip. Really? And I went to Southeast Asia to bring back exotic tropical fruits. Um I'd heard about them, you know, like I said, I started in 1971 and actually I apprenticed in one of the first organic um farms, pioneering ones in 1973, because when I first started.
AJWhy did you start, by the way? Why farming?
AndréUm, okay. I actually in my book growing life, I tell the story. I left home at 17. I was very unhappy at school, I never finished school. And basically I hitchhiked 2,000 miles up to far north Queensland, um, where there's a famous Karanda commune. But also, I told the story of my parents being involved in land rights and aboriginal issues. And some of my parents' closest friends lived in Koranda as well, um, Aboriginal people, Jabbergai. And they were always, I grew up with them as my auntie and uncle, so I was staying with them, and you know, they've always met my uncle Lynn and Auntie Marita. And that's why I sort of ended up there. But one day I was told about this um South African barrister called Marjorie Spears, who had this organic farm. So one day I wandered to it, you know, on a place called Black Mountain Road in Coranda, and I remember going down the dirt driveway in my bare feet, walking through this canopy of rainforest and coming out in the sun. And in front of me was, I could see bananas, papayas, big jackfruits. I'd never seen jackfruits before, custard apples, um, all these tropical flowers, all these incredible tropical vegetables I'd never seen. And I thought, my god, this is the Garden of Eden. Yeah. And I said, this is what I'm gonna do.
AJWow.
AndréYou know, it's that moment of, oh, you know, that's what I want to do. I've found finally found a purpose in life, and that's what I've been doing. Now, it's it's come with, you know, wins and losses, but in the end there's been a massive win.
AJAnd what about those losses though? What about the tough or a tough time?
AndréOkay, f firstly, can can I just go back to Julia and then I'll talk about that because we some of the tough times I did by myself. Um, well, actually, one of them I'll talk about before I met Julia. I, you know, I want to get land. And the way a group of us in Coranda Commune decided to do it was we buy a block of land in shares. That meant each of us put $200, there's a $4,000 for this block, which none of us had in those days, and each of us put in $200, and we got shares in it. And it sounded really good. Um, by the way, that we were the people who inspired later at Tun Table Falls Commune and Nimbon. We were the first in Australia, we were called Zen Colony. But the whole thing broke down into all the usual sorts of, you know, fights and arguments and different groups taking sides. But the worst thing that happened, though, we realized that one of the when we first purchased it, which was cash by the way, um, which you know, um, we didn't have checkbooks, stuff like that. And in the solicitor's office, and the solicitor goes, Oh, look, we've got to have a name to put on the title. And one of the guys said, Oh, look, I'll I'll put my name down, and we thought, oh, well, what, you know, we didn't know better. But later on we found that our shares were worthless. At this stage, I've been involved with other people. We didn't, I put in three orchards, I had a house half finished, all this stuff, years of work, and I realized I had no tenure. And so I walked away. And that's uh another story when I ended up getting eventually my hundred acres in Karanda. But when I had that, that's when I decided, because the other thing was there's better climate. Zen Colony, by the way, is the highest privately owned farm and land in Queensland. Still is the people who use it for cattle now, they cleared it. Uh but had beautiful rainforests and stuff on it. But it was just too cold. It was over 4,000 feet at the top part of it, down to 3,600 feet in those days. Um so going down to Crandall, which is around a thousand feet, I thought that was um, you know, more tropical and better because I wanted to get, because like I said, I was actually apprenticed at one of the first organic farms and tropical fruits, and I wanted to, what it was, he's telling me about all these really exotic fruits he'd spent time in Malaysia, or Malaya in those days, and Rambatans, durians, mangastens, all these things which we saw, there was a few here or there, not much, but some small trees and research stations and stuff, but we couldn't get them in Australia. And so I decided I'll go over and get it. And everybody told me it's impossible to bring these into Australia, like everything else I get told I do is impossible. I'm not a great believer in impossible. Impossible means you've just got to do a bit more problem solving. So the first thing I thought I'd do is I'd go to, in those days, Aquus, a quarantine inspection service, ask them how I'd do it. And I found out it wasn't impossible, it's just very difficult. Now I've never been frightened of very difficult because all you need to do with very difficult is break it down into little steps. And each of those simple little steps makes it doable. And as a result, in 1975, I went over to Southeast Asia and did the first major introduction of all these fruits to Australia. I I opened the gates. Once I'd done it and shown it was possible, other people started doing it, and we started a whole what we call rare fruit industry, rare exotic fruit industry, you know, and other people started to go to South America and Africa, and we ended up with the biggest collection of exotic tropical fruits in the world here in Northern Australia as a result. But it was on that trip in 50 years ago, in 1976, that I met Julia.
AJOver there?
AndréYeah, and she was a Melbourne girl, um, taking a break from university, backpacking. And we've been together ever since. And we're and we actually got married later that year, so we've actually had 50 years together, and um we'll have our 50th wedding anniversary in December this year.
AJOh, congratulations.
AndréI I just say part of why our relationship worked is that each of us supported each other's dreams. So, you know, she supported me on the farm, you know, um, on every farm, generally speaking, you know, she you know, not the type of person who go out and do all the really hard work, that's what I do, but she loves doing all the book work. I can do, but I'd much prefer to be on a tractor than you know on a spreadsheet.
AJYeah.
AndréSo um, you know, uh, so it works that way. But the other thing is her degree's in things like community development and these areas, and this is what she likes. So she was like our first community development officer in the council, and and eventually council CEO, and eventually, long story, but she you know, she was very popular and elected as mayor.
AJSo um, and so we share a community development background too, me and her.
AndréYeah, good, which is really important. So I I I fully supported her in that, you know, and so I think that's what makes a really successful marriage and long-term partnership, is that you support your what your partner wants to do, that they're having a fulfilling life. They're enjoying doing what they're doing, yeah, and I'm enjoying doing what I'm doing, and we support each other in it. I I know is the the funny thing, amount of sexism. I remember when she was mayor and stuff, and people saying, you know, why didn't you run for mayor? You know, and everything like that. And I said, Because I said, She's the best person. She's um, you know, she's got an MBA and um years of experience in all government departments and doing all that. I don't.
AJAnd um, it's not me. Well, this comes up a lot too, huh? And it comes up in regeneration too. I mean, it's been enlightening for me too. And maybe I did want to bring um Van Dana back into the frame, too, because you've had such a long connection, and she's so another brilliant woman, obviously, who then works with other brilliant women where again they they'd be looked down upon largely. But it's it's here too. And even just the recognition of women farming in feeding most of the world, that those sorts of things, there's such a there's still such a vacuum of people understanding the narrative is still dominated by the we need corporates, yeah, and the women are invisible or inefficient or you know, that sort of thing. So that it's been a hell of a connection I've observed you and Vandana have over the years, and knowing she's on the steering group for the for RI as well.
AndréYeah, she and I are very, very close friends, and I generally go to India every year to teach at her Earth University Agency of Agroecology at Navdanya. I actually I have a real soft spot for India. Yeah, me too, by the way.
AJMusically too, we might get to that.
AndréYeah, and I just love it as one of our source cultures. There's so many things about it. The thing is about Vandana, and actually, you know, Ronnie, there's a few of the others, these are people with exceptional IQs. And it's hard for me to explain to people, you know, like I remember my IQ when I was in primary school was 140. And so there's times you sort of can you connect at a a level, it's difficult with with other people, you know, and so Vandana and I and others basically, you know, at the point we almost finished each other's sentences. And just being able to see issues, strategize, what to do, how to do it. And I think what was really important, you know, when we had the initial steering committee, there was never one sort of argument or oh, I don't want to, you know, um, you could actually see how all of us in both states, all of us have a lifetime experience in activism and doing things. We understood the issues, but really importantly, what we could do about it, how we could go about it. I think that's really important. You know, the thing is I love about Van Darna is the way she can communicate these issues and it resonates with people. I can't do that. Yeah, she's amazing. Um, that's not one of my skills, and I wish it was, but Van Dana, I just see the way she goes out into a crowd. I've been next to her in podiums all around the world. I'm invisible. She speaks and she's got the whole audience. Her use of words, her use of phrasing, getting concepts across. She's an absolute genius. It's such a skill. And that's the thing about I really like, and it's part of the reason why in our organization we prefer to have Van Dana as our spokesperson. None of us are there to grab, we're not doing this to be famous and grab the line light. We're out there to get messages across. And Van Dana is exceptionally brilliant at that, and that's why we're really happy to have her stand out front.
AJYeah, right.
Music Roots From Blues To Pub Rock
AJSo the other part of big part of your life, of course, that we haven't talked about is where I usually end up with people, regardless, is music. But in your case, it has been a huge part of your life, and right through all of this journey. Can you give us a little synopsis of that? Yeah, okay.
AndréYeah, exactly. Um no, and actually I can remember it too. I was just absolutely fascinated with the piano and the sound. But the other thing I can also remember is the satisfaction I got when I teethed on this. Is true ivory in the and those those had bit of ivory that stuck out and I could put my teeth on it. And you know, the satisfaction. So I've got this sort of warm love of piano and ivory. Um and parents couldn't keep me away. You know, I'd I'd climb up stools and everything, and so basically, you know, almost as soon as I could walk, I I was sent to a piano teacher. Actually, I always remember my first piano teacher, Miss Swatt. And she and her sister were spinsters because their boyfriends got killed in war World War One. And in their house near the she's got the picture of what who should have been her husband.
AJYeah.
AndréBut so many men didn't come back from World War One, so many women ended up never marrying. And so Miss Watts love was teaching piano and teaching kids like me.
AJAnd you've never forgotten her.
AndréYeah, and then I taught myself to play guitar off piano, because by then I could read piano and I could all that sort of stuff, and then particularly in my early teenage years. I suppose also I had a family also loved music, and particularly, you know, rock and rock and roll, you know, br um Brian Henderson and bandstand in the 50s. I always remember watching that every Saturday afternoon. No matter where they were, they'd come home and turn on the little black and white TV to see it.
AJThis is what Dad used to tell me, and he used to love Johnny O'Keefe.
AndréYeah, JRK, yeah, shout. Yeah. Um yeah, and I remember actually seeing JRK and stuff. Here's our Elvis Presley. Right. And yeah, and then the other part of it is my family loved the blues, and they had all the original 78s from the 1930s, 1920s, 1930s, stuff like that. And we we could play, you know, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, um, count basic, you know. And I just grew up with this love of blues and love of rock. And I suppose for me, then it's the teenage years were really formative. And things I I will never forget is when I first heard The Animals, House of the Rising Sun. And that guitar riff. That guitarist, most people wouldn't know, his name is Hilton Valentine. He only passed away last year. No one was. And uh that basically, you know, it's a whole generation of us that we we picked up the guitar and then we had to pick and play the way the animals did. And the other one for me, because I played um piano, was the organ.
AJOh.
AndréAnd so I used to be able to play both the the organ part and the guitar part, either one. So when I was in my first band, I could do either and and sing.
AJIs that where Ray Manzarek's influence came in?
AndréYeah, Ray Manzarek from the Doors, because he he he is just blues and jazz. But his blues and the way what I we'll call the pentatonic, and you could play it over it, that has been my greatest influence. And then the other one, and this is we're talking keyboards, big power chords and stuff, is John Lord from Deep Purple. But, you know, at the same time, I'm playing guitar, so people who blew me away, um, uh things like like Eric Clapton, um, and the song that actually absolutely blew me away was White Room and Cream. And actually, the person in there, I'm not a bass player, it was Jack Bruce, who sang and co-wrote the song with Clapton. What Jack Bruce did, he actually changed music because he was a lead bass player. Instead of just normally what happens is the bassist plays a note with the kick drum, we actually call it the rhythm section, and simple stuff. You listen to Jack Bruce, he's playing he wanted to be a jazz player.
AJYeah.
AndréSo he's playing jazz bass.
AJI love that. I love when jazz comes into rock because it brings that with it, right?
AndréYeah, and so that's where Cream and can I say Jack Bruce then influences the next generation, like uh what John Paul Jones um from Led Zeppelin as a bass player. And you actually see he's he's gone and seen Jack live, you know, though in the UK than London, you know, and um oh what's his name, the bass player in Free. It's another one you can see. Um Jack Bruce has influenced them. But then on the same time, guitars like Eric Clapton, you know, just hearing that, and you know, I still like to play like Clapton. The other one that person who absolutely blew me away when I first heard him was Jimi Hendrix. Yeah, the way he opens his his lead solos. I still do that in slides, and you know, you know, as young kids you listen to it and go, this is just mind-blowing. And then and then suddenly you get Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham, John Paul Jones, and when you hear things like a whole lot of love and you know, these sorts of things, you're just dazed and confused, you know. Never been anything like it in the history of music. And it's just this whole time, you know, I was fortunate enough to listen to it when it first started, and fortunate enough that I had the ability to copy it and learn from it.
AJRight. I mean, all that was still so influential in my rock journey in the 90s, we were all still trying to be these guys. It's just magnify and uh but I do, I thought I said off air earlier, like imagining to before they were part of the furniture, like when it was the first time they landed, oh just so envious of that experience in your case. So you end up touring the world yourself.
AndréWell, if you imagine everything was this really middle of the road poppy sweetness, and suddenly you hear a whole lot of love. Actually, the truth is none of it got on the radio.
AJYeah, right.
AndréWe got it through word of mouth and records. So the first time we'd hear it, one of our friends would buy a record and we'd go to their place, put it on, you know, and just blown away. But you didn't hear it on two UE or 2UW or ABC, you know. It never got airplay. Probably you know, maybe now it it can get airplay in some of the FM stations, but it was all underground. There's still seven-minute songs, and they're albums. Yeah, albums. We'd buy albums and just um wear them out.
AJThat's great. So you end up touring the world yourself.
AndréYou got around Well, mainly um, can I say m most of what I okay, I toured the world in my organic thing. I was wondering, yeah. Yeah, but everywhere you go there's bands and they want someone to get up, so you know, it gives me an opportunity to get up with a guitar and um a mic and brilliant. You know, and play. So well, I mainly did my professional career, mostly in Sydney, some in Melbourne. You know, like the first band I was in, of course, was a high school band, 1967. It always goes nowhere, but um it's like the old Summer 69 song, and he he he did his in 69, I did mine in 67.
AJI did mine in uh 89, it was.
AndréOkay, yeah, it's the same, yeah. But it's really important and you actually get you get blooded in to how a band works. Right. So the next time you're in, you're not a rock, you know, a shag on a rock.
AJTotally.
AndréYou you know, and each time you get more familiar and better and more professional at it. In the end, we're packing out venues, particularly in Sydney. We mainly did the in the s Sydney scene in the 80s, that's my you know. Um Yeah. You know, I had we got a lot of airplay on Triple J. They were really good to us.
AJYeah, awesome. Yeah. What what was the band called?
AndréUh it's called Golf Club, but you w you know, it's never um it's a different timber to Led Zeppelin or the or the Yeah, yeah, um, but we're an 80s band, so it's very different. Um a band at the time for Inner Sydney, Sydney. You know, we we never we never cracked the mainstream, never got on countdown. But what we what what I used to get on, which I used to love, was um Triple J would have their uh gig guide, and whenever we were playing, and I'd be driving to the gig, one of our songs would come on and I'd go, How good is this? You know, here's a song I've written, and we're singing on and recorded, and we're getting airplay, you know. Um did soundtracks and films, won a few awards, and as a result, uh Julia encouraged me to go to University, University of Technology Sydney to do a degree in filmmaking, or you know, in in communications, where I majored in film video and socio-political theory as a second major, things like that, you know, and later on got my uh postgraduate qualifications and adult education.
AJYeah.
AndréI've done things like that as well.
AJUm any films that you would send us to now, even?
AndréI don't know where look well I never everything we did was arthouse and small, and you know, you'd send them off to the film um film festivals.
AJYeah, yeah.
AndréAnd you'd win little awards and stuff, you know, it's all that, but you know, I was never part of um the major film industry. I was never we never got on rec recordings, never got on um, you know, the mainstream radio stations, we never got on countdown, all that, you know. We're part of the in those days, the 400 bands that played every night in Sydney.
AJOh, well exactly. What a scene. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, Melbourne too, where I was.
AndréMelbourne too, we'd yeah, and we'd go to Melbourne for exactly the same reason. I you know, I always liked Melbourne. Uh same thing. And I just want to say too, someone in that time, going to London and places, I actually I honestly think in in those times, um Australia um had the best bands because all of us, we cut our teeth in pub rock.
AJYeah, right.
AndréConstant live playing in front of audiences, you know, and and and that's what we did. And I just want to say something I still love doing, you know. Part of it for me, I stopped doing it full-time professionally when we started to have kids and and we bought this farm in 1991, and I'm farming. But just to say I was still in bands, I was still playing, you know, Friday, Saturday nights and things like that, because I just love it. And it wasn't for the money, it's just for the sheer love and joy of music and playing music and entertaining people.
AJHere. What venues would you play in now?
AndréWell, just local ones around here, but um, I haven't played for a little while. We actually had a a duo with a very good friend of mine. Um we actually first started playing together in 1971. Wow. And actually in venues like um King's Cross, uh, the famous uh folk club there, the name come to me, and then in Coranda, Croanda Commune, and all that sort of stuff, and then we're in other bands together over the years, particularly up here, you know, playing all around um far north Queensland, Cairns and the region, and we had a duo, but unfortunately he passed away last year and very suddenly, and so um it's just me now. There are other people who want to play with me, and so start getting something together soon and and play. Yeah.
AJGood. You know, Far North Queensland was one of my favourite tours.
AndréOh, okay.
AJJohn O's Blues Bar.
AndréJohn O, yeah. Yeah. So what band were you? If you played at John O'Shagan.
AJNo one will know it. Guy M, we were in the 90s.
AndréOkay.
AJBut you know, got around. We went to India, recorded and played a bit in India as well.
AndréOh, great. Yeah. Actually, John O, he actually just had his 80s.
AJDid he really? I did track him down when I went up there, I think 2018.
AndréYeah.
AJI found him in people told me he'd be in the park playing, and he was.
AndréHe was, he's busking. Um after John O's blues bands uh disbanded, John O started busking. But uh, see that they're all close friends. Rick Montgomery, who was the main um owned the bar and everything, he's still around, but he suffered from polio as a child, and now um as he's in his 80s, it slowed him down. But what he does do now, he's with some other people, and they got a youth band, ukulele band. Oh, cool. And having a lot of fun, even though he's actually one of the best guitarists, most technically um proficient guitarists we have up here. He's just enjoying playing youth music and everybody dancing, and you know, just once again, just for the fun of it and living life, you know. And John knows the same. Uh he's busking, but earlier this year he turned 80, so that at the Central Hotel there was a huge gig. All the museos, everyone came out to celebrate his 80th. He's still around, amazing. He's he's like our Keith Richards.
AJRight. It's like how does he keep going? It's true.
AndréYeah, exactly.
Mentoring The Next Generation Leaders
AndréHe surprised us all.
AJWell, long may you keep going.
AndréYou know, I don't know. It's the same thing. I just think the same thing will keep you going is just this joy of living, this interest, the next thing you were doing, you know, keeping focused, you know, instead of retiring and having nothing to do. I like the excitement that you know we're we're driving a major trend. We're we're making a difference, and we have made a difference, you know. That I I suppose the ability to be part of changing a global conversation is a really rare thing, but we've done it. And, you know, while I've still got breath, I want to be part of that process. What we what we are doing, and we're very aware of it, none of us are getting younger, and some of us are already passed on, or quite a few, um, we are bringing in our next leaders, mentoring them, helping them, teaching them leadership, because a lot of us were accidental leaders. It was never on our radar. We didn't do it because we wanted to be rich and famous, and as a result, we didn't become rich and famous. Um, but you know, we had other motives, and we want some similar people who are capable, in many ways, will be better leaders than we are. So the next generation, they're going to have a lot more responsibility than we have. And so we're carefully mentoring them, giving them the skills so that when our time comes, they're there. Also, you know, for me and others, you know, progressively giving up some of my workloads so I can just concentrate on the projects I really like. Right. And giving them to the others to do so they stand up, get the experience, and we will progressively shift more from our workloads to them, and so we have an orderly, what we want is an orderly transition.
AJYeah, succession plan, just like on the Farms, keep it going.
AndréYeah, exactly. Yeah.
AJWow, it's hats off to you, Andre, on a life well lived so far. It's been an absolute pleasure chewing the fat with you the last little while. Thanks a lot.
AndréYeah, and you too, and I I just want to say, you know, I'm just really supportive of what you're doing, and I'm talking about the next generation of leaders. And you're part of that, and a very important part, what you're doing, getting out the messages, is just so important. That's what we realized right in the beginning with regeneration, is we don't want to be the world's best kept secret. We actually need to get it out as a network, get it. And so, from our point of view, you're a really important part of that, and we'll we'll be happy to work with you to help you contact more people and get these messages out. You know, from our point of view, the more the merrier.
AJTerrific, Andre. Yeah, thank you. I I really take stock of that. Thanks a lot, mate. Thank you.
Links Supporters And Final Thanks
AJThat was Andre Leu, director of Regeneration International in the Daintree of Far North Queensland. For more on Andre, his books, and of course, RI, see the links in the show notes. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon or Substack for some writing too. This episode was only possible with your support. So thanks very much, Ursula Kretzer, for becoming a new paid subscriber on Substack. And also for joining us on the next Confluence River Journey. And for four years of support, thanks so much to the generous Josh Mullens, Steve Morriss, Jonathan Curtis, and Leanne Thompson. And thank you all for sharing, rating, and reviewing the podcast. It all helps. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden, and at the top was Rowdy by the Lonely Ramblers, seemed appropriate. Sourced from Artlist. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.
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