The Six Generation Rule Part Two - 1 plus 1 = 11

I'm finally back to the keyboard on a Sunday morning while I wait to move the hose that's watering the trees I optimistically planted on New Year's Day as a gesture of hope for the year ahead.  Remarkably they all have survived so far apart from one, an ill-chosen magnolia tree that didn't like the February heat and which I replaced quickly with a hardy Kurrajong, now thriving!

The Norwegian weather app  YrNo, (or more appropriately and colloquially known as ‘yeah nah’), has been more ‘nah’ than ‘yeah’ lately in the Forbes district and anything newly planted that has not yet got its roots down needs regular hydro-hand-holding.  Given that yesterday I saw a brown snake obviously thinking its plenty warm enough on the 5th of April to be out and about on a recreational slither, a very warm dry Autumn is our reality atm.

This week I've been inspired to write a few more words, particularly sponsored by a day spent this Friday just gone on a granite-soiled farm near Eugowra with the Mulloon Institute and the amazing land-stewarding Heinzel family, learning how to build landscape structures that rehydrate the landscape.  It turned out to be where all the cool people were hanging out for the day.  

The cross-section-of-community present (30 odd) talked about water-cycle function, slowing the flow, landscape history, pasture ROI, stocking rates, carbon and biodiversity markets, birds, insects and the power of nature all mixed in with conversations on science, philosophy and culture, all the while getting sweat-on-brow and hands-on learning.  These get-your-hands-dirty learning events help to make real and lasting connections not only with the land and like minded people but also connections in your own mind… greater neural connection diversity that fuses and consolidates otherwise disparate information…and that helps creativity which in turn helps problem solving.

These last three months I’ve been busy out in the farming landscape talking all things soil carbon to farmers and agronomists (and anyone who will listen) from one end of the state to the other.  One thing that struck me in all my conversations is the overarching desire agriculturalists have to care for the land on which we farm and depend. There wouldn't be a landholder who at some level doesn't want to hand on their land in a better condition to which they themselves took it on.  

However, as the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and some do it better than others.  Monitoring and measuring actual results seem to be the defining difference.  I spent a couple of days up near Ebor at the Wilmot field day a few weeks ago talking about all things natural capital, grazing and carbon.  The depth of know-how and evidence collected of seriously impactful ways to positively manage land was impressive to say the least.  Gab Brown from North Dakota US and Joel Williams from Canada were there to polish the narrative with facts and deep lived experience.  

Solid evidence for the sequestration of large quantities of carbon in the soil through managed grazing practices was music to my ears. The way the paddocks are grazed simply makes all the difference.  I took some notes…’Don't graze pasture lower than 50%, move animals on to fresh pasture quickly, leave long rest periods for pasture to recover (60- 90 days), and a new one to me, move stock to fresh pasture in the afternoon when plants are full of sugar from a day of photosynthesis means pasture will recover quicker’.  Makes sense.

  The results are more pasture, more beef produced per hectare per $ spent (more profit), healthier animals with optimized weight gains, more control over changing climate, the soil on a rising plane of fertility and significant quantities of carbon dioxide pulled down from an overburdened atmosphere and stored usefully on the soil.  What's not to like about a triple-stacked profit, land health and environmental win-win-win?  It’s certainly heartening to see Landholders successfully implementing these strategies, and it's not before time.

The reality-check is that we are now in a 1.5-degree Celsius hotter world than when I was a kid just five short decades ago, with tipping points threatening to escalate the rate of warming ever closer to a less habitable or perhaps uninhabitable Earth. We are an oblivious frog in a warming pot.  According to WWF data, biodiversity is nose diving at an unprecedented rate with a catastrophic 73% decline in the average size of global wildlife populations (yes I had to read that twice too!) in that same 50 years that bumped the temperature up a dangerous notch.   The system is in peril.  A sobering, distasteful reality check that most choose not to think about too deeply, me included nowadays.  I’d rather focus on the solution…the positive life affirming fun bits…how we can truly make things better and engage and design a future of our liking, and more importantly that our kids will like. 

By what metric do we measure success?  And how do we actually do it without going broke on a good idea?  If it doesn't make financial sense on some level in a farming business then it is somewhat academic, because otherwise sooner or later you won't be there anyway to tell the story.  Rather, how do we actually increase profit and resilience whilst increasing landscape function, carbon accumulation and biodiversity?  

That's the name of the game of the 6 Generation Rule.  It’s about creating a gift that keeps giving rather than a burnt-out legacy of pain and hardship for the young ones coming on. It takes consideration, commitment, planning and an eye to the future.  It's altruistic rather than self-serving.  6 Gen is about building rather than ransacking the future.

The beauty of a functioning Farmscape is that amplification of the efficiency of the natural system occurs as complexity increases. More complexity = greater efficiency. The aim of retrofitting an inherited, highly modified and often damaged or sub-functioning Farmscape from the European pioneering era is to build in the components of a complex, high functioning system that begins to selfheal and to deliver a greater range of benefits.  Because the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts. In nature putting one plus one together never equals two, but rather 11. 11X.

 The hidden magic in the biological machinery and its complexity. It is the intertwined and virtuous interconnections of nature's altruism that defines an advanced and highly productive and resilient ecological system.  The system is reliant on that very complexity of almost infinite feedback loops of algorithmic interconnections for its ever evolving and self learning engine room.   Once you start seeing those connections in your day-to-day life when out in the Farmscape is like when Neo starts seeing the digital pattern in the movie ‘The Matrix’….it was there all along and now can't be unseen.

In an enlightening conversation with my brother last week, who was “polishing the family silver” doing some Sunday morning Kelly-chaining of some post-flood Bathurst burrs and Lipia, this gem of insight was captured.  In a very simple example to anyone who has spent endless hours on a tractor with too much time on their hands to think, my brother phoned me from the tractor cab with this following revelation.

The crows & hawks follow the tractor along through the day picking up insects & worms in the soil stirred up and exposed by the Kelly chain.  It’s an easy feed for the birds.  He started to count them…over 100 keeping him company, working in a temporary symbiotic relationship with his Steiger tractor and Kelly chain.  Ok, so how many birds are on my property, he wonders.  A conservative estimate of crows, hawks, falcons, little ravens, cockies, galahs, corellas, grass parrots, finches, magpies, peewees, willie wag tails, mopokes, owls, squarkers (apostle birds), eagles and many more … say very conservatively… 8000 birds living on his property along the Lachlan River. 

 Type into the google-lator search bar ‘how much does an average sized bird poop out every day’ and we find, with a bit of refined searching,  it turns out it is about ~70 gms/day.  That’s 70 gms/day of highly useful & fertility-enhancing bird guano.  Multiply by 8000 birds = 0.56 tonne a day.   Times 365 days /year…we are averaging 204.4 tonnes of bird guano across 4000 ha’s, or 51.1 kg of guano per ha / year.  Of course this is simply recycled from the insects and seeds etc. in the landscape, and it's not all deposited evenly across the paddocks, however the phosphorus and calcium are very bioavailable to plants in the form of fresh bird guano, of which plant growth responds and the system energised as nutrients are recycled and bioaccumulated in certain areas of the farm, one would guess around trees most likely.

 Without the significant on-farm habitat trees retained for the birds, this ecosystem service would not be provided, he commented.  I love that kind of thinking.  Taking the time to assess what the ecosystem services around us truly delivers.

Thinking more deeply about how our landscape functions and how natural systems so deeply and fundamentally influence what we usually take for granted…and just how much we truly rely on it all, is the first step in the process of living by the 6 Gen rule.

Some of these notions can be captured as a set of propositions to consider.

The 6 Propositions of the Farmscape Six Generation Rule 

1. Intel-gather-  to understand your Farmscape ecologically.  Look back to look forward.  What was there before?  What could grow/live there.  Look at examples that have worked. 
2. Build an economic case - economic co-benefits and ecosystem services - there are many and varied philosophical and religious beliefs in the world, however everyone on the planet seems to believe in the necessity, imperative nature and agreed value of money - the ability to place exchangeable value on goods, services and any given investment of our time.  Making an economic case for a landscape retrofit always creates solid ground that all can agree on, and it’s no use going broke on a good idea.   Look for the true and real economic benefits to agricultural production that will stack up over time and leverage the available carbon and biodiversity markets that can further monetize and exponentially value stack those benefits. 1+1=11
3. Create a Vision - spatially and temporally with a holistic long-term approach toward integrated ‘one-plus-one-equals-eleven’ outcomes.  Dare to dream big.  A vision starts with “Imagine if”.  What could a 1+1=11 landscape look like?
4. Plan & Triage - take care of the foundational, most influential and potent components first the things that will kick start other changes and drive long term impactful change.  What are the big rocks that will move the needle the most?  Most often that's thinking about how the water and wind flows across the Farmscape. Too much, too little?  How can we modify the passage of water and wind through the Farmscape system to buy ecosystem services that improve both landscape function and profit?  Price it up.  How much time will it all take? Do a money and time budget, make it real.   1+1=11
5. Farmscape Aikido - Aikido is translated as ‘the way of unifying with life energy. Give your actions an unfair advantage towards the outcome you are seeking. Attention to detail and working with Nature rather than against her is Nature-Aikido. If the-devil-is-in-the-detail, then the Angel is in the confluence-of-the-nuance.  Getting the small stuff right makes the difference and unifies the components to ensure a successful plan.  For example, matching the right tree species to the right soil type and climate, and planting at the right time of year in the right way.  Building gully structures correctly to slow the flow of water is more than dumping an old car body in the way, that may inadvertently cause the water to divert and chew out the banks and make things worse in a perverse outcome.  Seek expert advice with experience and points on the board.  Learn from the best.  No one knows it all.  Design success in your favor. 1+1=11
6. Ongoing stewardship - keep a stewarding eye on the work from year to year to keep it maintained, modified, tweaked and improved.  Take measurements and records (photographs from the same point each year for example) to show the progress and inform future designs.  Own your work, take pride and responsibility and grow and share your learnings.  1+1=11…or 11X.

 Oops…better go check the hose on the trees!

Part Three… presently in incubation.

To the next six generations

Guy R Webb