Regenerative agriculture
Why regenerative rather than sustainable agriculture?
What are we trying to sustain? Record temperatures, unprecedented bushfires, extreme weather events, dust storms that block out the sun, 30% of Australia’s farmland impacted by salinity, reduced food nutrient density, mass fish die offs, contagious viruses, …..the list goes on. All built on an extractive mind set and forgetting that we are in fact a part of nature. We need to relearn our relationship with nature and rebuild an integrated pathway that works in concert with the natural world – not against it. How do we do that?
Current farming practices are contributing to many of the problems we now face - destruction of topsoil, desertification, increasing salinity, dead zones in rivers and oceans, global warming, species and habitat destruction, and poorer health outcomes
Regenerative agriculture has been described as a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services. It aims to capture carbon in soil and above-ground biomass, reversing current global trends of atmospheric accumulation and at the same time, it offers the opportunity for increased yields, resilience to climate instability, and higher health and vitality for farming communities. What’s not to like about that?
Bio-diverse ground covers support ecosystems above and below the ground
It all starts with the soil. We aim to creating a biologically rich, healthy soils that pull carbon out of the atmosphere. The key to regenerative agriculture is that it not only “does no harm” to the land (so doesn’t utilize herbicides, pesticides and other dangerous chemicals that destroy soil life) but actually improves it, using approaches that regenerate and revitalize the soil and the environment. Regenerative agriculture leads to healthy soil, capable of producing high quality, nutrient dense, flavoursome, food while simultaneously improving rather than degrading land. Ultimately this leads to productive farms, healthy communities, vibrant local economies and vigorous ecosystems. It is a dynamic and holistic approach incorporating organic farming practices, including conservation tillage, cover crops, crop rotation, composting, and pasture cropping, to name a few of the approaches that essentially mimic nature – all with the aim of growing biologically active soil that naturally nourishes our trees and crops.
Soil bursting with bio-diversity and life
At Manna Hill Estate we look to implement these practices – building soil carbon through mulching and the use of biochar, applying compost and worm teas to build soil microbial life, direct drilling biologically diverse cover crops and using agroforestry to store carbon above and below the soil. We’re also organically certified with NASAA (National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia) to ensure the integrity of our systems and processes to produce chemical free food. In addition we produce in excess of all our own power requirements from our array of solar panels and put the rest back into the grid. Regenerative agriculture is on ongoing journey as we continue to learn and look for ways to enhance our regenerative farming systems - with a continuous focus on nurturing the land, nurturing your health
Every day is a new day - to observe, learn and revel in the passion of life. Regenerative agriculture is an ongoing journey. It is both exciting and humbling. We may only be a small farm but we are trying to make a big difference.