Food For Thought

A cattle farmer scouring records of his property before Australia was colonised found descriptions of swamplands and natural creeks that disappeared because farming practices channelled the water away. Deciding to let nature take its course, Peter Andrews removed obstacles to these sources and now water flows slowly across the land, meaning the soil can retain it for longer. 

Inspirational stories such as these are being gathered and shared by Western Sydney University researcher, Dr Gerda Roelvink, who wants to learn about Australian farmers who have made big changes to their farming practices and broken away from intensive agriculture. 

Learning to look at the land in new ways could help the country’s farmers restore damaged ecosystems and ensure agricultural productivity for years to come, according to Roelvink.

Many farmers fixate on maximising production of a single crop on a vast scale, regardless of natural soil and environmental conditions. But as climatic conditions become less conducive, cracks begin to appear in this intensive approach, just as they appear across the parched farmland. Around the world, pockets of alternative agricultural practices are emerging that could improve our use of the land and even restore lost habitats. But convincing traditional farmers to change their farming patterns is difficult.

Roelvink, from Western’s School of Social Sciences and Psychology, works with the Community Economies Collective (CEC), an international research group that aims to reframe how we think about the economy, placing a greater emphasis on ethics and responsiveness to environmental issues. “Environmental degradation is one of our most pressing challenges,” she says, “so I’ve been exploring our consideration of the environment, and other species, as we create ethical economic alternatives.” Roelvink suggests that societies growing more sensitive to the non-human world around them, could help change attitudes to agriculture, a notion first described by the anthropologist Bruno Latour.

Roelvink’s interest in farmers’ approaches revealed varied outcomes. “I was really interested in what sparked these changes,” she says, “what it takes for a farmer to change in response to these incredible environmental challenges, and why they don’t just leave the land or try out new fertilisers or farming technologies.” Most of the farmers she spoke to, it seemed, had experienced a revelation while surveying their land that led them to reconsider their relationship with it. 

For John Weatherstone, a livestock farmer, the revelation came while photographing his farmland at Lyndfield Park, south-west of Sydney, after a particularly severe drought. He noticed that weeds were thriving in the neglected borders of the land, untouched by chemicals and fertilisers, explains Roelvink, “while, before his eyes, the topsoil on the rest of his farm blew away in the winds”. Weatherstone saw an opportunity for change. He reduced sheep numbers, planted and began producing seeds of local trees and shrubs, such as acacia and eucalyptus, for wholesale, eventually transforming the land into a lush oasis amidst monocultures on neighbouring farms. The highlight for Weatherstone was seeing native birds return to his land. 

Associate Professor Jenny Cameron at the University of Newcastle, inspired by Roelvink’s findings, used the same approach in her research on community gardens, demonstrating how it applies at different scales. Cameron found that, by learning to be affected like Roelvink’s observant farmers, “community gardeners were becoming sensitised to environmental changes in the world around them as they went about caring for plants, seedlings, compost, soil and insects”.

The challenge now lies in connecting these isolated scenarios and ensuring new approaches are recognised as credible alternatives to traditional farming, for example by enlisting the support of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. Roelvink and her colleagues also gather at international conferences and local meetings to discuss the progress of current projects, and the CEC shares its work proudly online and at public events. “We hope that by making these stories more publicly known, we can inspire other farmers to break away from intensive approaches” says Roelvink. “There’s an expectation on farmers to feed the world, but we need them to recognise that they are also custodians of the land.”