How regenerative farming can help heal the planet and human health

Regenerative agriculture is an ecological approach to agriculture that enables natural systems & functions to not just be renewed, but also to do the renewing: to self-organise back to healthy function, a radical idea of empowering and not controlling nature. In this talk, Charlie Massy OA draws on his decades of farming experience and research to propose new ways of farming that don’t harm the land and the planet in the way industrial agricultural practices can. Along the way, he shares some of his own personal journey of learning and change, and explains how he came to be the regenerative farming advocate he is today. Charles gained a BSc in Zoology at ANU (1976), before going farming and developing a prominent Merino sheep stud business (Severn Park). He still manages the family’s grazing property in NSW while teaching at universities and consulting in the fields of Merino breeding and landscape design. He has chaired and served as a Director on a number of national and international review panels and boards of business, research organisations and statutory wool bodies, involving garment manufacture, wool marketing, R&D, molecular genetics and genomics. Charlie’s concern about land degradation and the Anthropocene crisis led to him completing a PhD in Human Ecology (ANU) in 2012. This resulted in his new book, Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture – A New Earth (UQP Sept. 2017) concerning the emergence of a regenerative agriculture in Australia and cause for hope This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.