 Thank you again for joining us. I'm really excited to have you here today on the first of the Our Regenerative Future series, speaking with experts, scientists, farmers and other advocates for regenerative agriculture in New Zealand. This has been a wonderful series to dive deep into over the last few months. I've been speaking with a lot of different people from across the sector, and it's been a real eye-opener for me just to see how many passionate people are out there experimenting with regenerative agriculture and seeing some great results. This started, I guess, as an idea to tell the stories of some of the Edmunds Hillary Fellowship Fellows that were involved in regenerative agriculture last year, and then we discovered that pure advantage we're actually looking to look at soils, carbon sequestration from a regenerative agriculture lens, and interested in looking at other models of regenerative practices. And so we got chatting with them. There's a lot of aligned values between the two organizations in terms of innovation, sort of tinkering with ideas on the edges, and really this idea of New Zealand being a leader for the world. So really excited to partner with them and then get into the research. So I've been chatting with people from about December onwards, and the more people I talk to, the more came out of the woodwork. And yeah, really just so many people. So we're going to be introducing three of those contributors to you today. They are the ones who are on the ground involved in regenerative agriculture. My role has really been as the storyteller, hearing from the people that are involved and then translating their stories into something that could be engaging and serve as a catalyst to unite this sector and provide some momentum going forward. So we're really excited with how this series has been received so far. You'll see that Paula is putting up a poll. We'd love to just know a little bit about who's on the call to help us orient the questions. So please do answer those three questions. They're very short questions. Also, you'll see in the bottom there's a Q&A box. That is where you can send through some questions. Now, we have had some sent ahead of time and so I'll be including those as well. But if you've got any questions, please put them in the Q&A box, not the chat box. That is the little box in the bottom bar on the right hand side, and we will be answering those questions for you. So I'm seeing people voting in the poll. That's fantastic. And also you can upvote questions. So if you're looking at the Q&A box and you see a question that you resonate with or that you would also like an answer to, you can upvote their questions and that'll help us just to manage some of the questions that are coming through and assure that the ones that are on people's minds are the ones that we are answering. We've got 208 people on this call currently. So if we don't get to your question, I do apologize. We are running six of these sessions. So this is just the first one. Okay, I'll give people another 30 seconds or so just to engage in that poll. It's looking like we have a pretty even spread at this point of people from a farming background from science and academia, a few more from business and media, and then a bunch of people who are in sort of the other or general interest categories. Great to see that people have read some of the stories. And most people are at least very or somewhat familiar with regenerative agriculture, which is a wonderful place for us to be starting today. Okay, I think we're going to crack into it proper now. So again, my name is Alina Siegfried. I am a storyteller. And so today I'll be trying to tease out some of the stories of the people involved in our regenerative future. I'm going to let our panellists introduce themselves. So let's start with you, Alan. Over to you. And viewers, my name is Alan Richardson. Sonja and I are organic sheep and beef farmers. We've been doing it for about 23 years. We live about an hour and a half inland from Dunedin, the South Island of New Zealand. And it's a beautiful part of the country. For me, I want to talk a wee bit about organics because that's part of my journey, a big part of my journey. We were one of the first to get into organics in New Zealand, not the first, but earlier adopters. And there's a fair bit of a lot of distrust with people that were doing that, and especially from other farmers. And it took a long time to earn respect for what we were doing. Organics, for me, was a word that I didn't even know about until I went to a leadership course. And two or three of the speakers were talking about this great potential for the marketing side of organics. And I studied it and won a farming scholarship to study overseas. And did that for six months. And that really got Sonja and I going on organics. And we started converting after about five years certification. So that's the first part of the journey. The second part probably was my father was a very successful farmer. Because for him, it was like turning the clock backwards. So that's another aspect which has driven me, I suppose. From the regenerative side, a good friend of my friend, first put me into that arena, I suppose, by saying have a look at some of these podcasts. For me, it was like an awakening, some of the people from overseas, especially that I listened to. And for me, it was really the missing link for organics. And some of the things that we couldn't do about organics, I was just excited from a regenerative point of view. And that for me was really exciting. And just now at 57, I've never been more excited about farming than I am now. Because I can see the regenerative side in the organic working really well together. And achieving all the things that I set out to achieve, and more. So it's a good place to be. Regenerative is starting to gain momentum. Touching the wet paint, they want to get in there and try a wee bit. And for me, regenerative, it attracts people from both organic, right through to the high input people, high input farmers. And they can all have a go. They're not bound by restrictions or standards or whatever. And that for me is the key. If we can get as many people trying a wee bit of regenerative, that will only increase and they'll become even more keen on the idea. And I think we've got a real industry. That's wonderful. Thank you, Alan. We're having a little bit of sound issues from you breaking up periodically. I'm wondering if we might be able to fix it just by turning your video off to improve the audio connection. So it'll be sad to lose your video, but I think we'll try that and see if we just get some better sound quality. Wonderful. Thank you for that introduction, Alan. Let's go over to you now, Sarah Saylor, if you would like to introduce yourself. Hi, everyone. And thank you, Alina and Simon, for organizing this and also my fellow panelists. It's really nice to be here. I'm hoping that the sound will work out fine. Just keep going and see how things are going. I'm just a little bit about myself. I'm based in Oakland and I work for an advisory and project development company called Barstress. All of our focus is in the market-based solutions for terrestrial and marine problems. But we're also working quite a bit in the impact investment space. On the basis that we recognize that for the transformation and the change that is required, at the scale that is required, we have to think how we're going to bridge the resources that are available to date, including from government, with more private investment potentially to be able to pursue this transition and the transformation that we need. And I think Alan already kind of set up what the context is in terms of on fun. A little bit more about myself. So I have an environmental management background. So in some ways I feel that I am the one in the room with that professional background that kind of carried me into the regenerative agriculture space. But I originally come from Romania. So as I grew up in a small village outside of Bucharest and I grew up with my grandparents having their own subsystems, agriculture, and so on. So you have that exposure to nature and the environment in which our food comes from from a very early age. And I find it quite useful that this is the sort of stuff that you carry through life and influences our personal interests but also passion for certain topics. In my case, I've been in New Zealand for about 15 years and I worked in research for about a decade at Lankey Research, leading the sustainable business area. And interestingly enough, when I moved to New Zealand in 2005, many of you, especially those that are in farming but not only, you remember the entire threat around food miles. The New Zealand exporters at the time were really facing this big challenge, especially coming out of UK, linked to food miles and the perception that products and specifically food products being shipped all the way from New Zealand, they may be producing, contributing a greater impact to the environment. So we're in a big rush at the time because of this trade challenge to find solutions. So we've got all in terms of post-business exporters, the government, academia. We got into the entire space of life cycle assessment and tried to bring carbon assessments and carbon footprint onto almost as a business tool to be able to answer this threat. Right? Things are passed on. We are here now 15 years later and you know, programs like Environment, now currently it's new brand name is Toy2 have emerged out of this market pressure if you want. And in the meantime, you know, we shifted from a major focus on carbon on to water quality issues in New Zealand context and we've got biodiversity loss challenges and we've got, you know, health issues and so on. So you can just see how, you know, we're kind of going, waving, going from one hyper-pressure to another and we're trying to address all of these issues often in an unconnected sort of silo way because of policy issues, because of resourcing issues, because of the way we are used in fact to address issues separately. And so that kind of takes me to what is the attraction with regenerative is the fact that here it is a concept that not only, you know, it is easy to grasp for a lot of people, but it also has the potential of bringing all of these concerns and issues together. And so in a lot of ways I feel that this is the reason why we're seeing it, seeing right now such a such an interesting New Zealand context in regenerative and such an energy, such a movement that is being built up. I think the challenge for us right now is really how do we transform a movement, a passion for something into a very tactical, strategic transition pathway, which is also commercially viable because the challenges that we've got in terms of land use, and I'll just very briefly touch on that, is that really for a lot of farmers and landlords to be able to embrace and join, the join if you want with regenerative agriculture and embracing regenerative practices. There is this question of, you know, how can we make it viable? You know, and viability, it's all about context. It's about including, you know, family and farm context. It's about the capacity that is available on farms and along the value chain capacity to even, you know, be a player and be able to be active in different value chains where you can capture different types of value. So all of these things, you know, kind of for me coming at things from environmental management perspective, brings us back to the ground to say we cannot answer environmental health issues without actually bringing commercial viability market access and so on together. And link to that just very briefly because I know that Gary is going to cover that quite well. It's of course the synergy between regenerative agriculture and regenerative transformation proposition more broadly and how we can actually leverage the practice experience, the certification systems that we've got in place and strengthening because of the organic build that is coming up. And so I feel again that if we talk about, you know, food and trade and being competitive, we've got to kind of merge, you know, really leverage what the organic sector has learned and have put in place in terms of systems and expand that through the regenerative lenses. I think that would be all for me for now. Wonderful. Yes, great points there around a holistic view and taking a whole systems approach to some of these challenges. I'd love to pass it over to Gary now, please, for your introduction. Thanks. Hi, Alina. Nice to see you and nice to see my friend Charicella. Also good to meet you, Alan. Talking to you from the East Coast in New Hampshire. So it's my night. You all are as usual ahead of me. It's tomorrow for you. I began my organic journey actually as a climate scientist back in the 1970s studying dendro-climatology, looking at evidence of climate change as made evident by tree rings, looking at tree rings at Arctic and Alpine regions. And it wasn't too, I wasn't too deep into that science before I realized that I'd much rather work on the solution side of the equation. And early in my career, I probably with some of the same influences as Alan encountered, I discovered that organic farming practices are basically another word for carbon sequestering practices. And that without sequestering, we're not ever going to slow down climate change, let alone reverse it. And putting it more positively, carbon sequestration holds one of the real keys, I think, to getting out of this mess. So I began then working at an ecological research institute on organic research, studying productivity, horticulture, animal, ag grains, vegetables, aquaculture. And then Ronald Reagan came into government and to the became the president in early 80s and slashed all funding for organic and renewable energy research, everything that my institute was doing. So I was on the board of a little organic farming school eating my partner who had his one cow, the founder of the school eating his delicious yogurt every day. And we decided to start selling the yogurt to make up for the lack of federal funding. This is 1983. Well, that became Stonyfield Farm, the world's largest organic yogurt company with roughly 400 million us and turnover became my life's work really for the last 36 years. And of course, in that transect, not only could was there no way to put the words organic and industry together at the same time back then. But today it's become a the growth sector, whether it's personal care products or food and beverage. Organic is now a closing on a 60 billion dollars of commerce here in the US. And, you know, along the way in the in the intervening 30 plus years, I've managed to sit on many, many boards in many, many sectors from wine and beer to feed and grain and candy and flour products and baked goods and home meal replacements and so on. And this is all a long way of saying that for me, it's always been exactly what your intelligence talked about. It's always been the science was proven to me early on. And it's always been about proving the marketability and the market proposition. And so just to leapfrog to what we're talking about today, one of my early friends in this world is the fellow who coined the name regenerative Bob Rodale, who was actually my first funder at my ecological research institute back in the 70s. And Bob and I used to have these long walks in his farm, where today now we have 35 years of side by side trials, looking at organic versus conventional corn production. And Bob was arguing for the need for this new term regenerative back then. And I was arguing fiercely that the last thing we need is another standard. And so I took a great interest in the emergence a couple of years ago of the so called regenerative organic standard that has gotten some headway here in the US. And I'll, I'll just, because I want to get, I know, Alina, we want to get into the Q&A. I'll just simply say two things here. For me, there is no such thing as regenerative without organic. And in fact, the US standard for regenerative requires that you first be certified organic. I understand the distinction. I understand some of the focuses, but I will say, as you know, Alina, so I'll just make it public. I disagree with one of the opening paragraphs in your introduction. I don't believe that organic is merely about reducing harm. And I debated that with Bob back in the day. And I don't believe that, in fact, I see organic regenerative as being all about restorative. And I'll just say Stonyfield buys our milk from over 2000 family farmers. The average herd size is 65 cows. Of course, we buy millions of pounds of fruit and flavorings, and all the other companies I'm involved with, you know, it's all about supply chain. And I have endless, endless data points and examples from great farmers like Alan, who have taught me that regenerative organic is about water conservation, is about biodiversity, is about soil carbon, is about farmer income, is about animal welfare, is about humane treatment, and also worker rights. And so to me, this, I'm thrilled. I agree with you, chairs. Oh, there's a whole excitement about this. But perhaps during the course of our hour, we'll talk about some recent consumer research in the US that really shows that most consumers are still trying to understand what organic is and aren't yet making the pivot here. But they understand the principles. And particularly during this COVID crisis, there's incredible economic tailwinds now supporting all of this that I'm sure we can talk about. Thank you for raising that, Gary. And certainly there's been some magnificent work by the organic sector here in New Zealand that this newer terminology and this newer movement, if it is indeed a new movement, can build upon. So I'd love to crack into some of the questions there. We've had quite a number coming through in the Q&A box. So just remind that that's the place to put them if you have questions. Let's start with, well, let's start with where we're at really, in terms of this is a post COVID world that we're at right now. So have any of you got any comments around how, I guess, the regenerative agriculture movement or industry has changed or will change or has an opportunity to change, given the situation that we find ourselves in now? Yeah, let me quickly just maybe tag on to my last comment and go right out that. So here in the US, I chair something called Organic Voices, which is a consortium of the leading probably three quarters of the 60 plus billion dollars in sales. Those are the brands that are in it. And when the crisis first broke here, and most of us were, let's say, 75% retail and 20% food service and very little direct to consumer, very little e-commerce as a sector, that has just been completely changed. Obviously, the food service sector is gone right now. Restaurants are not open here in the States. But the 142 million consumers who buy organic, we break ourselves into two markets here. We have what we call devoted, who 89 million US adults who purchase more than three organic products each week. And then we have temperates, which is 53 million. They use organic, three organic products or so per month. That number has skyrocketed during COVID. And to put it in very concrete terms, Stonyfield sells to about 1.5 million core mothers who see themselves as a subset of 26 million moms who describe themselves as wellness moms. Well, we cannot keep up with demand right now. Our 1.5 million has swelled to somewhere between 2.8 and 3 million nearly doubled. And this is true across every, from little tiny broth companies to massive rice producers here. And what's happened very simply is consumers have taken matters into their own hands. They are absolutely understanding I've never seen a step change like this in my 40 years that we are what we eat. We are what we wear on our bodies. We are what we smell on our personal care products. The number one way to stay healthy and keep your family healthy is to avoid unnecessary exposure to toxins. We have data here that one in two Americans in the US are going to get cancer in our lifetimes. And that's due to inadvertent exposure to toxins every day. So our issue right now, Alina, just to hit a summary point, is more supply than demand. And when you drill into it and get into some of these consumer attitudes, you can see that people get that this is preventative health care. But more importantly, they get that they want to know, they want companies they can trust. And although there's enormous financial insecurity here, we now have 21 million Americans new new additions to the unemployment rules. Nonetheless, organic across every single sector is we initially we couldn't even keep in stock. Now we're finally catching up. But what but for sure what's happening is that people have discovered how much organic they can get at home. So I would just bring this home to us here in New Zealand by saying simply, the market opportunity has just exploded. This excitement with the the new organic bill that chair sale mentioned, and all of Alan's many, many colleagues who followed in his footsteps. And my organic entrepreneurship center that I'm building just south of Mochueka, and not a Modi is I think perfectly well time because I while while many, many consumers might drop back to other practices, earlier practices, they have discovered that the goodness that is organic, the quality, they've discovered bulk organic, we sell mostly large size containers, organic carrots in bulk, organic rice in bulk, they're finding that it's economical. They're finding that they can get it direct at home. So they can avoid some of that retail margin. And as a result, I believe, like I said before, we've got enormous tailwinds that are going to carry us jettison the market into the future. Yeah, absolutely. Alan's talking he's muted. All right, yes. And Alan, perhaps to avoid the sound issues, if you could try to turn your video off while you're talking, you can do that in the bottom left hand corner. Look, I'll back up what Gary's saying that there's been a whole lot of food skiers throughout the world over the last 30 or 40 years, Mad Cal, all these sort of things. What we've seen every time after a food scare, there's been a big spike in organic food demand. And what we're seeing just now is just reaffirming that. So people are going to what they trust. And organic is a brand that people trust. Whether regenerative becomes a brand in the future, and people trust that is yet to be decided. Right. So really big opportunity for New Zealand here. We do face the problem. Sorry to interrupt you. Can I just quickly make a point? Convention, you may be reading over there that conventional milk in the US is being dumped right now. Large, large percentages. And the reason for that is that so-called cheaper milk. And of course, we all know cheap food is not really cheap. And no one knows this better than Teracella. You know, there's externalized costs that we don't pay at the cash register. But what's happened is that cheap milk found its way mostly to food service. So to restaurants, to schools, and those places are closed. And right now, organic farmers are being asked to increase herd size and increase cost. So it's literally what Alan just said is actually happening at the moment. That's a very interesting point. Teracella, did you have something you wanted to add there? Well, just focusing a little bit more on, let's say the New Zealand context right now. And like Alan said, and also what we observe in the US, yes, there is this increased demand if you want. That's been the case already in New Zealand. The challenge, though, for New Zealand, for us working in this sphere of restorative, regenerative, organic, whatever, the spectrum of environmentally performance systems of food production remains the same. And that is how we're actually going to respond to the opportunity, to the demand, how we're going to scale up, how we can bring more people to measure up in the first place. Because at the end of the day, what we see on the ground, if you want, in the country, is that we have really a lot of landowners that are doing fantastic, brilliant things that are driven often by what they believe in. And so to kind of match that with what the market wants and so on, then we have to bring in the systems, we have to bring in the measurement and so on. And that's a part where we kind of go in first. We've had a carbon threat, we responded to that 15 years ago, we came up with a product and so on, took advantage of the market, the first zero carbon wines in the world and that sort of stuff. The question right now for us is really, if the opportunity is there, how can we leverage? How can we transform an interest in regenerative agriculture into a market opportunity that really goes beyond the passion that we see on those that own the land and do things differently? And you know, that is still a challenge for us. Yes. Can I just say, sorry, Alina, because Alan was there and Teresela knows my feelings on this. What happened in the U.S., if it's any example, is where we went from being a movement to an industry was when we had a national standard. When all of a sudden there was a there there with a set of laws at most most fundamentally enforcement penalties, if you did not comply. And this is this is the challenge right now with regenerative. There's no body of law around it. Okay, so we've got a question actually that I think follows on very nicely from that. We've had we have a historical problem in New Zealand that most of our farmers produce raw materials or commodities and they don't generally have that connection with the end in food product market. So how might we I guess suggest a market visibility of regenerative really growing foods in New Zealand and so that more value goes back to the producer. And I'd love to invite Teresela to respond because I know you've done a bit of work in this area. I mean really there are different there are different pathways and I was saying this is what I was trying to say at the start that in terms of where we start we really have to understand context you know and we have to work with what those in the in the business whether they are you know farm landowners or a manufacturer of food products or health products and so where they are at and start from there. One of the things that I believe this COVID crisis is actually highlighting as an opportunity is the fact that we may in fact try and capture much more value in our local markets and around local food economies because the challenge in the absence of a standard which is what Gary is talking about is very difficult to go to an export market and actually make the case for a regenerative product we simply don't have at this point in time the systems that would clearly differentiate we do have organic certification and once again you know I would encourage very strongly that we are tactical when it comes to this we have to embrace that as a way of actually leveraging an organic certification standard and the systems that go with it that we have them in place in New Zealand and build to achieve you know regenerative but in the meantime there is the opportunity of actually thinking much more around testing concepts that have to do with local food economies I mean we talked in Alina you asked you know what is it that we observed through the COVID crisis and we know that the demand for organic even in New Zealand has increased and we've seen the spikes before the question now is can we actually hold on to it because we know that in addition to a safe product which is what organic often is about you know association with a health spray free chemical free product it is also the interest that New Zealanders and all of us have in supporting our local businesses in supporting our local farmers and so you know local food economies the type of work that was done in Rotorua presents an opportunity almost like a bridging step you know not everyone is going to be able to capture that export market right away unless they go through the loops and hooks of certification that we know we still lack capability to do that scale and you know do it efficiently let's say but we can look at you know local food economies as a as an alternative of capturing value and recognizing of building that brand around regenerative and locally produced food right Ellen I know that there are quite a number of regenerative farmers down where you are in South Otago are you able to speak to any local food networks that have been developing around there or is that is that still a large gap it is still a large gap Alina and and I think we're we're still at the stage where we're discovering regenerative farming and trying to join all the dots and the marketing side the pathway to the marketing and hasn't yet we haven't joined those dots yet from my point of view that I'd much rather see we get a lot of farmers on board experiencing and experimenting with regenerative and and being successful with that then when you get some critical mass then we've actually got something to mark with and that's been the real problem of organics in New Zealand we haven't had the critical mass and without that critical mass you can't chase the market so let's um let's get the people on the ground to get them going successful and and then we've got a product to take to market got it okay you mentioned marketing there and there's another question that's come through which I think is really interesting from Rachel Monks um what's the most compelling aspect of regenerative farming from a storytelling to consumer point of view so how do we actually talk about this in a way that gets people excited um look I'd like to make a start on that um just seeing healthy animals walking through multi species pastures sunflowers you name it it's it's such a wonderful thing and if you ever want to see an animal in a natural place take them to a regenerative farm that's doing things well and you'll see happy animals and plants um the microbes the whole thing everything is there and it's just see the excitement in the farmer's face and his family and and everything everything else involved in that you and you'll you'll see why people are excited about regenerative I would only add to that perhaps um I mean I think it's quite powerful in terms of market messaging the entire carbon positioning side of things and in fact we do know that a lot of farmers are interested in this because of the carbon sequestration potential um and so that provides for some messaging perhaps not directly with consumers I don't know Gary may want to add more to that but definitely in terms of uh supply chain and you know requirements from a from a customer client if you want perspective in the market the carbon story is very powerful because of the entire you know climate situation we are in one other thing I would add as well in terms of New Zealand it's it's the the story of the people including the indigenous angle um I feel again that that's that's unique to to the context here that's unique to New Zealand um and it weaves really the regenerative concept with Maori worldview there is such a strong and I you know not being Maori I really don't want to you know extract to develop this too far but I think there is such a synergy and such a powerful messaging to build around that yeah look I agree with both of my colleagues on virtually every point you've made here particularly on the local I think it does start with local and I think Alan's absolutely right and Alina your questions right starts with stories I mean again here in the states uh local regenerative even if they're not certified organic uh operations are sold out now of beef and lamb and products uh long before they normally would be their freezers are empty uh people want to feel connected and they want to see I will say though that data wise in terms of consumer data um there's uh one of the challenges we have faced as a market I know Alan understands this really well is you know we're so passionate about the good news you know our organic farms we have we have wells in the ground we know we have no nitrogen runoff on organic farms right next to conventional farms we have nitrogen runoff we know that dairy cows organic cows live twice as long you know the farmers have um better incomes we know that much more carbons being sequestered and so we try to tell the poor consumer all of this and we overwhelm them and so this group that I mentioned before this organic voices group and I think there's a model in here for New Zealand um uh what we uh we we spent uh years pooling consumer insights and came to one uh clear insight that has now been reinforced by a national study that was just done and that is the number one thing that consumers are motivated by is the absence of chemicals and in in USDA under USDA organic to be organically certified and this is true with the three certifiers you have in New Zealand it means over 700 chemicals are prohibited and that's our marketing and you can look at organicvoices.org and see that so I just want to underscore a certain Charisela's point and Alan's to say my my the institute that I run that you're aware of this uh Hershberg Entrepreneurship Institute every November we don't we don't just we don't it's not just an organic entry it's for anybody who wants to try to improve and enhance their storytelling it it's it loyalty comes from the heart not from the head and and uh but but if you want statistically to uh get a grip it's it's the absence it's it's helping to avoid chemical use. Right thank thank you everybody and yeah following on from I think your comments Charisela I think we do have just such a a wonderful town in this country of of the Maori culture in the in the Maori language and there's a there's a comment here from um from Anne Salmond um wonderful to have you here day man um I like fire honor uh seeking well-being health and prosperity for land and waterways plants animals and people it's simple it's distinctly Kiwi and based on the ideas in which all forms of life in the world are interconnected um so in a country here in New Zealand where we've been the first to recognize a river as a legal being uh why not build on our world leading steps towards those sorts of new ways of thinking. Has anybody got any any comments in response to that? I'm on the board of a company called Blue Apron here in the States that does meal kits and all of its beef comes from New Zealand and and the story uh is barely understood here but what consumers do understand about your pastoral system has given them a serious advantage of course the meat is better frankly uh I believe that what you just said is is the key here I unfortunately the domestic market is small we don't we haven't yet talked about the economic dislocation from COVID certainly over here in the States where I don't know how you would describe what the economy is going to be but people are going to be stressed and so I think the domestic market for organic will be limited but I can tell you the New Zealand story is uh incredibly compelling and beautifully well received here and social media levels the playing field right it democratizes the market it lets little or folks without big deep pockets do just what Alan just said show that show what's actually happening on the farms and it's a I think you have a real advantage here coming into the US market and as you know we're trying to help a lot of New Zealand companies come here okay can I Alina it's impossible to add something to that because it is true I mean there's always been this dilemma in terms of New Zealand the fact that we produce so much food that doesn't get consumed here um the importance of local food economy and local markets and really good food for Kiwis um I would say is is the fact that this is also that's how we we bring a lot of issues we connect them into a whole when we are seeking solution and it has to do with our own well-being um you know it is great for a number of years now we've seen the revenue from our food export increasing year on year and you know this is we need that right because we've we've got to bring that revenue on to the to the farms those that produce the food but the reality is that as a country as a society we are still struggling with the fact that we need you know we need breakfast for kids we need uh school lunches we need uh you know we still have a lot of people that don't eat good quality food in a country that exports so much so this idea of local markets local food economy and so on it's in a lot of ways also about that it's about equality and it's about social justice and it's about the well-being of New Zealanders um and then you know we can talk about that that trade and the export market and I think that's also partly where we have the challenges that we have because it's this how do we balance the fact that we need that revenue that only export markets can bring to us while at the same time we've got to deal with issues here that go beyond farm we talk about the food system as a whole uh and really our our you know the country system of policies and social policies and so on yeah it's very interesting to to reference the the perception of New Zealand from international markets um and leads into a question from uh Leo some say that New Zealand farming is already mostly regenerative and it's it's very different to other countries such as the US where it's it's still quite a novel concept and that's something that I've come across a lot in my research um so just yeah what would you say to that argument I guess and interested to hear um Alan have you come across that argument from other farmers and what was your response uh yes we have the answer sure and um we've also had that argument for organic that will almost organic anyway and it's the same for regenerative so look at them I think that the people that are trying to drag regenerative down are saying saying these sort of things um the reality is that much of our conventional farming is no is certainly um not close to being regenerative and and we need to uh yeah we need to highlight that um the positive things that regenerative farms are doing um and and hope that some of the other the farmers around the country will take them up but um at this stage um yeah I think it'd be a long straw to draw that New Zealand is regenerative wait yeah yeah sorry go ahead just in my world of dairy I think everybody in New Zealand knows that conventional dairy has uh been there's been challenges in terms of runoff and and and so on and uh you know I think the key here is to not make enemies of farmers and to not be divisive but to be encouraging and you know I love the way Alan talks about this because he you know he's saying at 54 I've got 11 years on you Alan and you know you but you're saying you know you're you're continuing to learn and you're more excited than ever and that's for me that's what's wonderful about this whatever the word is you know and I live I've lived through the the diminishment of the word natural which now means exactly nothing right as large companies have come in and you know slap barns and cows on the label and call themselves natural but what's exciting here is it's a conversation about principles it's a conversation about exactly what chair O'Sullivan was talking about which is a an ecological a systemic way of thinking about farming and we can all all improve but what I would say to you all and you know I'm an investor in in um eat my lunch so I'm very close to the food insecurity challenges it that chair O'Sullivan I couldn't agree more but you can use the carrot here more than the stick they at where what exports should do if they're if we're successful is put currency put investment back in which should ideally be able to grow this sort of better for you foods in the domestic market the key is not to be divisive right not to attack conventional not to pit organic versus regenerative the key is to just talk about these as as ways of improving agriculture in which you know future generations can live and I think you're invoking Maori principles here is exactly right all right there's um there's a couple of similar questions come through I think which are really interesting to explore from Barbara Hay and Alexa forms in terms of how do we how do we get the politicians on board to drive change so there's there's a good groundswell from the farmers um Alexa using the example that changes to water planning in Otago has has led to horrendous pushback in argument so where how do we think the political intervention could start and I know there is an organics um bill that is going through parliament through select committee at the moment so that's an interesting place but how can we get more of the politicians on board but can I yes to try and address that I mean it's such a big um it's such a big topic really and and it's partly why I was saying that you know we've got to be as a movement or as people that we're passionate and believe in the value proposition of organic and regenerative we've got to be a lot more tactical where we are in terms of how organic and regenerative is recognized in New Zealand is that really it doesn't have a place in policy at the moment right it's not seen when we are looking at the transformation for the country um regenerative agriculture organic agriculture is not seen as part of a low carbon pathway for example right but as in saying that this is where the policy frameworks are moving are moving and so we've got to leverage this we have in addition to the organics bill we've just passed last year the zero carbon bill and so that's that's putting is going to put a lot of pressure on agriculture sector as a whole about reducing footprint um and within that there is an opportunity for all of us passionate about this to actually advocate um with you know and lobby policy makers and decision makers both at central level but also regional councils because we know that they are a task we're looking at the natural resources um you know we have to kind of educate them and advocate around the value of organics and regenerative agriculture we need to make them to recognize the importance in those transition pathways you know we have less than one percent of New Zealand's primary land in organic production perhaps we can double that or more if we consider very loosely regenerative practices that many other farmers have put in place this is nowhere near enough right it'll be great to be able to see I don't know a sustainable agriculture strategy for New Zealand that will uh specifically you know zoom in on the proposition of regenerative and organic agriculture and have a strategy around it and being resourceful and so on so it's a whole it's a whole space that we haven't cracked you know but that's where we need to focus in terms of this recognition around the policy value but also the strategies um value of regenerative in relation to overall you know economic growth and other policy frameworks I'm sorry if it's not an exact answer no that's okay that's okay and I mean I know um I know probably first steps first for New Zealand in terms of the organics um bill coming through parliament but I'd love to see in the in the long term some sort of a regenerative organic standard as they've they've put in place in the US to give consumers that guarantee and that level of assurance it's not law yet though it's a it's a voluntary standard so far right got it all right we have about six or seven minutes left so I'm gonna I'm gonna address one or two more questions if I can quickly hear um let's have a look um Gemma's got a question what are the land use demographics for a regenerative approach in New Zealand across the board is there an even spread across meat and horticulture and dairy dairy of course being our um our big exporter but those other ones being of course very important as well Ellen are you able to uh provide any insight on that or he's muted Elena right look um there you go yeah hi Elena look um I think sheep and beef are certainly leading the regenerative um platform in New Zealand and um dairy there's some very good dairy farmers embracing that now um I'm not I'm not quite as aligned with the horticultural side um but I do know that anything with with animals plants and soil works really well so um yeah how how the horticulture tied that in I'm not sure yes that's what I've found in a lot of my conversations with people as well and we we have talked to some um at least one dairy farmer as well Mark Anderson who'll be featuring on our next episode I'm gonna very quickly cover up one more question and then we'll close up um interesting question here from um from Simon Yarrow um in terms of the future of regenerative agriculture what is the relationship between technology and regen ag is it a conflict attention or symbiotic you know and I'll just ask for very quick responses to this one because we've only got a few minutes left well I mean based on our experience here with the thousands of farmers we work with it's all about um metrics now it's all about measurements giving uh there's something called open team and we don't have time to go into it here but it's an effort to link thousands of farmers together to have a basic a base way of measuring soil carbon improvements and then sharing best practices it's all open source my company's been one of the leader leaders in getting it going and it's got widespread interest within the conventional and and organic sector and as farmers have um more and more uh common metrics uh then that will ultimately translate into marketing that you know can be able to for claims that can be meaningful to consumers so to me that's that's a central focus for the next few years Alina one thing that I'd like to add there is that um as soon as we can get a handheld device that will measure nutrient density I think that's when generative takeoff yes and I believe I believe that is on the way from some of the conversations I've been having which is super exciting then we won't need a standard people will be able to tell in the supermarket aisles if their food is good quality or not um I think that's a lovely point in which to draw to a close here um wonderful to see so many people interested in this conversation of regenerative agriculture in New Zealand I think at the height of the call we had 236 participants which is just outstanding and shows just how much momentum and excitement there is about this in New Zealand as I said at the beginning this is the first of six series we'll be continuing for the following five Mondays but we will be alternating between this noon slot and 7 p.m. in the evening so that we have an opportunity for our participants in the U.S. like Gary to to be part of it and also of course those farmers who right now are out in the field doing what they do so next week is it's seven o'clock we are going to be speaking with four farmers themselves next week Alan is of course a farmer as well but next week we're going to be speaking with Hamish Bielski who's predominantly a sheep and beef Simon Osborne predominantly cropping Mark Anderson is a dairy farmer and Kay Baxter from the Kauanga Institute who covers horticulture so that's at seven o'clock next Monday evening you can find all the details on the Pure Advantage website pureadvantage.co.nz on the screen there you can see the following episodes coming up over the next few weeks as well and you can learn more on the Pure Advantage website as well about which speakers are part of this. I'm just going to also quickly point out that the Edmintillery Fellowship who are a partner in this series have currently got their applications open for cohort eight those close on the first of June so there's a couple of weeks to get in those applications to join a global network of people who are really thinking at the edge and leading entrepreneurs farmers investors artists change makers of all sorts I believe that there are probably about 11 or 12 hours to get in on the early bird special if you wanted to apply today before midnight otherwise you have until the first of June to apply please share these these episodes with your friends the recordings will be made available and you can also check out details via the Pure Advantage social media channels the Facebook and Instagram pages and Edmintillery Fellowships Facebook page as well wonderful want to thank again our panelists for joining us today it's been wonderful to have such a diverse series of voices in the room really and wonderful to be with you all so thank you all thank you all for joining and we will catch you next time thank you bye bye thank you all