Episodit
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This month, we ride the airwaves to the UK to hear from Claire McKenzie, the producer and filmmaker behind Six Inches of Soil - a grassroots UK documentary which Quorum Sense is bringing to New Zealand next month.
Jono has a fascinating conversation with Claire about the film, the young aspiring farmers it follows, and how its captivating non-farming audiences. We also explore how the regenerative agriculture conversation is unfolding in the UK and what the future looks like for family farms.
Having caught up with Claire, we couldn’t be more excited to bring Six Inches of Soil to big screens here in NZ and to shine a light on soil and regenerative farming.
This is a film for everyone, whether you’re into regenerative farming or not; it’s captivating and full of positive solutions. We encourage you to get along to a screening near you, and enjoy a night out at the flicks.
Visit the Quorum Sense website to find a screening near you and book tickets.
And click here to visit the Six Inches of Soil website.
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Beef farmer and Quorum Sense Team member Nick Tucker has swapped his urban luxuries for an off-grid cabin on 160 acres amid the backroads of Northland.
From the family dairy farm as a young boy, to ruminant nutrition research, being the PR bridge between marketers and farmers, and working for intensive ag companies, Nick pivoted to more 'meaningful work' in 2019 – and with that, a complete mindset shift.
Nick is vulnerable in sharing that he doesn’t have farming all figured out. Yet inspires us to lean into that experience, and view patience and observation as our best resources to find those windows of opportunity.
Enjoy the episode.
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Disclaimer: The information, opinions and ideas presented in this content is for information purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Any reliance on the content provided is done at your own risk (click here to view full disclaimer on the Quorum Sense website).
2023 Quorum
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Puuttuva jakso?
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Farming for Good (NB webpage not live yet) is a research collection that explores our sense of connection with farming in Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s about supporting everyday people and leaders across our communities, farming sector and government, to build trust in our food and farming system.
In this is podcast, we’ll be talking specifically to a research project led by Peter Edwards (Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research) focussing on social license and perceptions of the ‘good farmer’. The researchers asked urban and farming New Zealanders about their perceptions of 21 different farming practices – with some surprising results.
Also on the podcast is Daniel Eb, founder of New Zealand’s national open farm day - Open Farms – to share some stories about connection and perception change from the 100+ open farms events / 10,000 visits the project has supported.
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Disclaimer: The information, opinions and ideas presented in this content is for information purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Any reliance on the content provided is done at your own risk (
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National food awards, 10t/ha increases of soil carbon and nitrate levels now undetectable. These are results that’ll open your mind to what Coromandel drystock farmer Ewan Campbell has to say about his discoveries.
National food awards, 10t/ha increases of soil carbon and nitrate levels now undetectable. These are results that’ll open your mind to what Northland drystock farmer Ewan Campbell has to say about his discoveries.
Ewan’s journey started with helping his dad turn a peat swamp into a farm. Right across the railway from top-in-the-country dairy land that he wished he had.
Moving to a drystock farm in Waihi with little in his pockets, Ewan started trialing alternatives. This included the un-tapped power of electromagnetism through the soil. This is definitely an episode that will charge your brain cells!
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Disclaimer: The information, opinions and ideas presented in this content is for information purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Any reliance on the content provided is done at your own risk (
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Growing up in California, Phyllis Tichinin witnessed the abundance of local fruit orchards and their deep, rich soils begin to be concreted into what is now Silicon Valley.
After meeting her Kiwi husband, Phyllis now resides in Hawke’s Bay and is well-known as an eco-nutritionist with a passion for regenerative farming practices that produce nutrient dense food.
“If we get agriculture right, we get everything else right”.
This is a conversation that you’ll find you can’t draw yourself away from as Phyllis stoutly highlights the links and parallels between human health and the health of our food systems.
Enjoy the episode.
“I am optimistic and I am humbled by what many farmers are willing to take on [despite] social pushback from neighbours and family…
“…the risk that’s involved when you’re not doing the normal thing…so you can’t blame the weather or make excuses…and you become more responsible for your own results.”🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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2023 Quorum Sense
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Infatuated by seeds turning into food as a young boy in his Poppa’s veggie garden, Brad Rudd has always had a desire to grow things. Despite growing up in the outskirts of Auckland.
At first a senior shepherd on a ‘conventional’ farm in Hawke’s Bay, Brad then threw his hat over the wall and took on the role of manager of Motatapu Station – working for Nadia Lim’s Royalburn Station – in Central Otago.
Brad’s experience and unique perspective has him understand and yet question the status quo. Breeding livestock resilience is his thing, and there’s nothing else he’d rather be doing!
Enjoy the episode.
“And I think either way I’m going to really get the value of that variety for the animals. So I’ll use the kale paddocks as the dry matter, the gut fill paddocks, and I’ll probably take them on and off the regen paddocks to almost like give them their vitamins, so to speak.”🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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2023 Quorum Sense
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Australian farmer, podcaster and all-round regenerative advocate Charlie Arnott talks landscape healing, nutritionally dense food and the complexity and stresses of farm management.
Whilst Charlie is grateful for the reference point his science background provided, it wasn’t helping integrate his personal values into farming. Not just bringing biodiversity and resilience to a sometimes challenging environment, but also engaging with people, having fun and being playful.
He sees himself as a ‘grower of food’, is committed to living an authentic life and values stopping doing things as much as doing something different. And it all starts with the ‘paddock between your ears’!
Enjoy the episode.
The first place to change is the paddock between your ears. Getting gung-ho and buying equipment or applying tools big or small in the landscape at first is probably not what I’d suggest to do.Just to do the homework. Work out how adapting some different methods is going to fit with your budget, your resources, your temperament, your situation.Step into it lightly…and just align these potential practices with your values, and make sure they do align, and with your resources is really important.🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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Cherryle Prew’s journey progressed from city office worker, to organic horticulture, to BioGro auditing. But her “aha!” moment and passion for soil biology was born at a talk by Elaine Ingham, founder of Soil Food Web worldwide.
Boots and all, Cherryle set up NZ’s only Soil Food Web lab 20 years ago.
From discussing compost teas, to the need for auditing and regulation being more educational and less ‘stick’, to commentary on past and present ways of growing food, this is a ‘grab a cup of tea, a biscuit, and tell a few stories’ kind of conversation.
Enjoy the episode!
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2023 Quorum Sense
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It was an interest in body building, personal training and nutrition that sparked Peter Legg’s journey into farming. You’ll now find him on the family’s 45ha dry land arable, winter sheep grazing and dairy support block in Southbridge, Canterbury.
Peter talks about ‘right place, right time’ cultivation and success in raising soil organic matter levels. And he shares his experience with lime and biological nutrient brews, and his observations of the farm’s economic improvements.
Like most, Peter has concerns moving forward, but is also clear about the exciting opportunity farmers have with practices like green crops and maintaining soil cover all year round.
"It just blows my mind because we struggled to grow cash crops on dry-land in the early days. And now we’re growing a cash crop and all this biomass over the summer."It’s like, how is this even possible!"🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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2023 Quorum Sense
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Father and daughter duo Shane Birchall and Meghan Schutt have changed their whole dairy and beef system, just south of Rotorua. Shane’s ‘tried it all’ throughout his lifetime on the farm, with nudges from Meghan in recent years steering them to focus on creating self-sufficient and low waste operations.
The two share their experiences implementing herd homes, multi-species crops, combining mobs, high-density grazing management, low inputs, and most recently, halter collars. The benefits to soil and animal health, the team’s well-being and enthusiasm, and the overall flexibility of the farm system are unquestionable. And they’re not stopping here!
Enjoy the episode.
“We’ve had a massive change in farming really, in the last three years.”“The whole system has changed completely. We’ve gone from running two mobs to one mob.”“One herd now which has made things so much simpler. I forgot how easy heifers can be when they’re mixed in with the old girls. So that’s a huge labour saving.”“Multiple shifts, really focusing on keeping that residual 16, 17, 18 instead of 15, so making that grass grow more grass.”🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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2023 Quorum Sense
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A year into running a mixed farming operation in Canterbury, Sam Lang is committed to merging the best of science with farmer observation, enquiry, experience and innovation. And within his role at Quorum Sense, he’s always pushing for questions to be asked from a farmer’s perspective.
Throughout his travels as a Nuffield Scholar, Sam was inspired by farmers defying what he thought was possible in the world of ‘conventional’ farming. Now farming himself, he's acutely aware of the need to balance idealism versus realism versus risk.
The importance of a support network also rings clear in this conversation, for not only himself with his team and family focus, but for all farmers around the world.
Enjoy the episode!
“Look at root exudates…liquid carbon pathway root exudates driving the entire soil microbiome, nutrient cycling. All that kind of stuff and the impact of plant diversity, and grazing management, and nutrition, and all these different things on how these root exudates work, and it literally drives the whole ship.“And science discovered that. You can observe it, but the way that I think about it is an observant farmer can make a whole lot of really powerful observations and connections between things that happen and it takes them to a certain insight and a certain place. And then what science can do is amplify that understanding and observation to a whole new level which then further refines how you might farm based on that understanding.”🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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Jake Herron’s life has completely transformed since we last spoke with him two years ago. And his dream is coming true. Jake and his partner Emma recently shifted from Central Otago to Matakana. From scratch, they’re creating and managing a 300ha ‘gate to plate’ farm.
When it comes to taking on farming regeneratively, Jake emphasises the essential balance of managing your expectations whilst holding onto your enthusiasm.
He also warns to not attach your ego to the word ‘regenerative’. We’re all just farmers and we need to stop pitching ourselves against each other. Because to heal our people, our society, our soil and our planet, these practices need to become widespread.
Enjoy the episode!
“What I would say to someone starting out in so-called regenerative agriculture is: Don’t attach your ego to the word.“Because that’s the road I went down, for sure. My ego was SO attached to being a regenerative farmer, and I sort of almost cringe at it a little bit now.“We’re all farmers. Doesn’t matter how your farming, we’re all farmers. And really, if we want to produce positive outcomes, we need to stop pitching ourselves against each other.”🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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2023 Quorum Sense...
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Previously a school principle, Adam Rivett shares how he had to look outside the square to make his 64ha sheep and beef farm in Canterbury economic.
Among other farming enterprises, a family-run on-farm butchery was opened five months ago. And in 2022 received the New Zealand Sausage Award for Best Traditional Beef Sausage.
Adam is someone who’s created a farming schedule to fit his lifestyle and context. He says you don’t need to have the shiny shoes to make something happen and have it work. It’s the realness of your story that people care about!
Additional show notesResources mentioned in the podcast:
https://choppedbutchery.co.nz/🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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2023 Quorum Sense
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South Otago farmer Hamish Bielski sheds light on how and why his marriage sits at the heart of their resilient sheep and beef system.
Managing expectations has been key in Hamish’s journey so far. He is unattached to doing the same thing year-on-year, authentically sharing what hasn’t worked, and highlighting the innovation and opportunity that arises from failing.
Hamish is adapting all the time, from sheep breeds, to grazing management, to creating openings for positive action within the rules of our national and global systems. Hamish is clear that there’s always more to achieve, so don’t forget to celebrate your wins!
“Failure is critical. I think failure is probably the most critical for yourself. Keeping you humble. Keeping your ego in check. But I mean, when we’re on good a roll, and things are going well, and what we do turns to gold, wow, it’s just so easy to get arrogant and self-focused and think you’re just the bees knees.“But then you also limit yourselves in your innovation. So while you’re humming along well, somebody else that’s failing and changing, they end up leap-frogging you because you preferred to stay comfortable. While I love being comfortable, I also hate missing opportunities.”🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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2022 Arable Farmer of the Year David (Dave) Birkett is a pioneer in New Zealand regenerative arable systems.
Rising input costs and the power of soil-building cover crops steered Dave’s transition. Through acquiring and understanding knowledge, he’s gained the confidence to try new things, and emphasises that it’s okay to take ‘a step back’ in order to move forward.
Dave reckons you can’t beat standing in the crop, observing and monitoring. He discusses his experience in shifting away from calendar-based sprays and instead using them opportunistically. Listen out for what he has to say about timing and techniques for cover crop management too. And Dave is clear that there’s no such thing as cheap food!
“Right at the start a lot of it came down to the actual financials. I understood that if you can get your soil right then that’s what’s going to allow you to reduce your inputs and allow you to be a more financially robust and resilient system.”🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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2023 Quorum Sense
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Young farmer Marran (Maz) Tuckwell shares his passion for food independence, natural health and their connection to farming. He talks about closing the loops in our farming systems, frugality as a core value and land area not being the limitation when growing your own food.
Also touched on is the importance of boots on the ground connecting people with nature, and the benefits of community sharing. Brought up in a household dedicated to alternative health practices, Maz has always been doing things as naturally as possible. And is used to going against the grain!
“A big passion of mine is - how can we be more independent with our food? And move away from the supermarkets, and the big industrialised food systems?“Grow more of your own food. Try and get closer to your own food.”🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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2023 Quorum Sense
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Australian wine grower Richard Leaske joins Nick Paulin, national viticulturist for Aotearoa New Zealand Fine Wine Estates. They discuss the shift in customer attention from product to process and the importance of transparent story-telling.
Richard and Nick also share about their low-cost easy wins, being clear on your intention, and measuring outcomes. Plus optimizing the free power of photosynthesis, and undies in the ground…
Weaved throughout the conversation are their opportunistic mindsets, critical questioning, and having the confidence to learn by doing. It’s about shifting the needle of what we know by letting go of perfection to embrace a bit of chaos!
Enjoy the episode!
“It’s been more about the product, now it’s more about the process, and the product is the outcome from that. It’s a redesign, so we have to explain it.“And people – when they hear it – go ‘Wow, that’s pretty interesting, that’s a different way of doing it, tell me more about it’. And it opens up a much bigger conversation about how it’s done and what we can do.”🪴 Quorum Sense website (www.quorumsense.org.nz)
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2023 Quorum Sense
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Lake Hawea Station's Geoff Ross brings his entrepreneurial perspective to the table in this wide-ranging chat about regenerative farming and the opportunities opening up to Kiwi farmers. With consumers demanding closer ties to the food and fibres the buy, and the spotlight on environmental issues growing ever brighter, he discusses some of the possibilities that lie ahead.
The conversation covers the value of diversity, building soil health and carbon sequestration, both for our future and to the marketplace. Geoff sees farmers as ideally placed to be the stewards of our landscape, and in better telling their stories, reduce the divide between farm and city.
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2023 Quorum Sense
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From Sydney suburbia to Hawkes Bay farm owner, Michael Reilly shares a journey into regenerative agriculture driven by a desire to live on the land and to produce great food. Initially learning traditional production systems, his disappointment with both the physical and financial results soon had him seeking alternatives, and with great success.
Michael openly talks about his early experiences, and the impact of finally finding and connecting with other like-minded farmers, both in his area and beyond. It’s a great conversation with someone whose non-farming perspectives helped him see the need for a different approach, and whose gut instinct finally won out over the pressure to conform.
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2023 Quorum Sense
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Mother and daughter dairy farming team Janette and Carla Perrett share how the shift to organic production has shaped their farming over the past 16 years. The drive for alternative solutions to support animal health and soil fertility has resulted in a regenerative approach that’s cut costs, improved well-being and created deep connection with their cattle and land.
They also touch into the challenges of being women in a male-dominated sector, particularly when forging a path that goes against established norms. From homeopathic remedies to brewing their own fertilisers, a never give up attitude and the courage to trust your gut instincts, it’s a wonderful and varied conversation.
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2023 Quorum Sense
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