My next Guest is Shane Ward - a regenerative land use advisor, communicator and the founder of Action Ecology.
Shane brings an international perspective, scientific rigour and pragmatic approach to connecting people with the right knowledge, drawn from both innovative ‘on-the-ground’ practitioners and the latest research.
Passionate about sustainable food systems, ecosystem restoration, as well as plant, soil & microbial ecology, Shane also works more broadly to engage people with visioning a better way forwards for humanity’s approach to energy, economy and agriculture - re-partnering with natural systems - so we might provide a chance for future generations to thrive on this planet.
We discussed how we can secure the future of our food supply using natural systems as a guide.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:01
Hi, Shane, and welcome to the show.
Shane Ward 0:04
Thanks for having me, Katherine.
Shane Ward 0:05
It's really great to have someone with your experience here to share with us the importance of regeneration and what it means to our survival. My first question is, What's wrong with the way we grow food and the way we raise livestock today?
Shane Ward 1:40
That is a great question and it's a huge topic. So it's simply a case of counting some things and ignoring others. So the claims that it's needed to feed the world if I'm honest, I think are disingenuous at best as it accounts for only about 30% of the world's food. And half of that goes to animal feedlots and biofuels. So actually, most of the food that people are eating is produced by smallholders, what's also referred to as the peasant food web. We have a hugely destructive system.
They're telling us that they need to do this to feed the world. But they're not feeding the world. A huge proportion of that estimates between 40-50% of all the food that's produced is wasted, whether that be at the farm level, in the supply chain, after it's been purchased. So we have these other massive problems. So at the moment, the problem that we have isn't so much a lack of food, it's just a very poor way of getting it to the right place. So when we look at the question of "Why are we here? Why are we doing this?"
Shane Ward 6:07
You know, I think it comes back to this idea of this industrial mentality that we've approached, and that is actually symptomatic of a whole range of other things, we look at our economy and other aspects of society. So it's not surprising in a way that that's been applied to food production. But the only reason that it's become as bad as it has, is because fundamentally, this has only been possible because of the essential one-off energy inheritance that we've got from fossil fuels. So put simply, we have dug up some solar energy that was stored in not fully decomposed plant and animal matter. we've dug all that up, and we've burned it, to do a lot of cool stuff for a couple of 100 years. But that party is, of course, almost over. So even if fossil fuels didn't affect the climate, which they clearly do, these are finite reserves.
And we're now past that peak of this easy-to-obtain high-quality energy. What's left is a kind of an ever decreasing energy return on energy invested, or what's known as EROI. So you know, the amount of energy it now takes to get the stuff out of the ground, means that by the time you’re burning it to get the energy from it, you're getting a much smaller proportion. So it's becoming way less efficient. And it's ultimately a dead end. So what we need to be doing is urgently envisaging a low-energy future that actually partners with natural systems again, and we can do that by harnessing nature's regenerative power to essentially do the heavy lifting for us in harvesting that surplus. It's a major mindset shift, but it's entirely possible.
Katherine Ann Byam 7:46
Yeah. Now, that's interesting. So maybe people think that this is all doom and gloom, and that, this growth that we so need, and seek, is not entirely possible. But we can argue that it is. Can you explain perhaps the difference between sustainable and regenerative as one point and explain how we can really sustain that growth?
Shane Ward 8:12
Absolutely. Well, I would say that the first thing to understand is that sustainable. It means what it means is a lot of people that try to say it doesn't mean anything anymore, or get confused about it. But ultimately what it means is sustainable is something that can be sustained indefinitely; in essence, can carry on forever. Something which is sustainable can be carried on forever. Regenerative is the restoration of new growth. And that applies mainly to living things. So there are some key things to remember with this. So ecosystems, for example, are never static. They are either regenerating or they're degrading. They can be doing that either slowly or quickly but they are dynamic and ever-changing, they never stay still.
They're governed by constant disturbance and regeneration. So harnessing that impulse to regenerate after disturbance is the key to regenerative agriculture. Therefore, to be sustainable and to go on forever, our land use must be regenerative. So regenerative agriculture, when we're talking about - the definition that I like to use- is that it's the design and management of productive land use through mimicry of diverse natural ecosystems. That's harnessing and restoring ecological function to produce food, fibre and fuel, and is informed by observation of and continual adjustment to feedback.
So we're constantly looking and reacting to what's happening in front of us and working with these natural processes which are going on. And I guess to really boil that down, it means that you're looking in nature for a model of how ecosystems work, one that's appropriate to where you are. And then you use that to design your land use pattern. So you're working with rather than against nature so you're shifting your mindset from trying to impose artificial simplicity onto the land to one of managing the complexity that's actually there. And this is really important because it means that you can not only stop doing all that harm, stop doing all those bad things, but you can actually restore and repair a great deal of the damage that's been done.
And it's sustainable because it can be done forever. And to me, that's a huge deal because despite all our accomplishments, as a species, we owe it all to a thin layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains. So without permanent agriculture, there can be no permanent civilization, all of our concerns around economies and everything else essentially evaporates. If we can’t feed ourselves, any of that stuff matters anymore. So to me, the primary responsibility for every nation should be to ensure the security resilience and the long term viability of the food system.
The majority of the food that can be grown in a particular place, and that climate and consumed by its citizens, on a day to day basis, should be safeguarded and should be resilient to the impacts from the world around and from climate change. Instead, the fossil fuel use and the degradation of landscapes and biodiversity and all that stuff, undermine that. And that's a huge problem. And I suppose that leads me to the second part of your question, which was around growth? Well, I don't see how we can have growth, certainly not in the way that we've been thinking about it.
We can't have economic growth in the way that we've been having it so far. I just don't see how that's possible. It seems to me to be a fantasy. There is no way to have infinite growth on a finite planet. So at a certain point, that growth is going to have to stop. And that's a whole nother topic in itself. And we could talk a bit about that. And we can talk about whether you can have relative decoupling, or absolute decoupling, and all this kind of stuff, and non-growth or stable state economies. But frankly, I think what it all boils down to is that we live in a finite world. And but for some reason, we have designed a system where we have this inherent promise or hope for continued growth, but it just is fundamentally impossible.
Katherine Ann Byam 12:41
So this brings a lot of interesting questions for me because when you read the research and the text on circular economic principles, it suggests that this continuous growth could be possible, right? Because if you're finding ways to put things back into the system, either through extending its use, or through returning it to the environment through different means, but retaining it sustainably somehow to the environment, there is potential for continued growth. Does that fall asleep?
Shane Ward 13:14
Well, just put up what's growing in that situation, that sounds to me like a stable state. It sounds to me like a healthy, stable state where nothing is like the laws of the universe - energy and matter is not destroyed or created, they're just transformed. And if we have economies that are based on that, or societies that are at least that is based on those principles, then that seems to be a sustainable idea, at least in theory. And if things are cycling through, then I would call that a circular or a sustainable economy but there's not really one that's growing. That's because there are only finite resources.
In fact, when we say, "Okay, well, we're not using fossil fuels. If we're not using this buried one-off inheritance of energy, then where does the energy come from?" Well, like all energy, all living systems on the planet really has only one source of energy. And it's sunlight that moves everything else. So it takes in sunlight and it releases heat. And that's it. And then all of the living systems, including us, and our entire evolution has been based on that system, and how to harness that energy, turned it into chemical energy, turn that chemical energy into work, and so on and so forth. So I feel like if we are going to design something which lasts forever or indefinitely that's sustainable, then it needs to work on those principles because that's just the reality we're faced with.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:39
Yeah, absolutely. So now we want to kind of look at some other systems that aren't necessarily regenerative. They're probably more modern systems like aquaponics and hydroponics and aeroponics and different ways of growing food. Are these relevant solutions or are these also just the bit of delaying the inevitable?
Shane Ward 15:03
That's a good question. But I suppose we need to ask relevant to what is the question? Every tool has a context where it's appropriate. So it's not that one thing is just always good or always bad but more of what are these solutions to? So first, let's look at the whole system of each idea. The energy and the nutrient inputs - where do these come from? A part of the challenge with things like hydroponics, for example, is that often these systems make sense when you have abundant energy. You obviously need the physical infrastructure to build a greenhouse or whatever that you're using. And then, of course, you need to do climate control and temperature control. There's a lot of energy embodied and all of that.
And but even if you say, you've got that already, can it be run essentially self-sufficiently forever? Well, I'm not sure that it can. I think at least the way that I've seen them done, you need nutrients in those systems, which are brought usually in the form of synthetic chemicals which are of course hugely energy costly to produce, and then you got to transport them, and water pumping. All this kind of stuff is quite high energy systems, even the most efficient ones. So in general terms, I would say that while they may have a place in certain circumstances, I don't see them as broad solutions to the problems that we have.
And I think it's true of any solution. Really, I think what it does is it forces us to reflect on our habits or tendency to jump to solutions immediately. Obviously, problems need solutions. But what we're often not very good at I think, as a species, is accurately identifying what the actual problem is. We are quite susceptible to treat symptoms and not root causes. Our assumptions about things and habituation to the context that we find ourselves in can discourage us from digging deeper and there are plenty of incentives to the system that we operate in to discourage systemic change or going against the grain. So I think often, we just need to really ask ourselves when we think of something as a solution, look at it as a tool, and then try and understand what am I actually trying to solve with this?
Katherine Ann Byam 17:23
Yeah, absolutely. As we look at climate change, I think a lot of people conflate all of these issues into one thing, but there are several issues here. And if we look at climate change, I can see that these different types of solutions can be relevant to places that are climate-stressed. Because in your earlier comment, you mentioned that governments should be looking for maintaining the sustainability of their own food supply - using what's there. But that becomes more pressed as climate change happened simultaneously. So what are your reflections on that for countries that are in that belt of climate jeopardy? Let's see.
Shane Ward 18:13
Yes. Obviously, all countries are going to be affected. I would say that. To me, regenerative agriculture is a huge part of that because, for several reasons, it not only solves several of the problems. In other words, it stops us from doing bad. It actually goes beyond that by not only restoring the damage that's been done, but to actually do good and can do things like sequester carbon in soils, and help restore biodiversity. That is the potential that it has. Certainly, in a lot of developing areas and tropical countries, we've seen Agroecology, as it's often termed, is being used to do exactly that - to provide food security and economic opportunity to smallholders and to the village scale at the regional scale.
And I think that really what we're doing is we're trying to say that it's not enough to just stop doing the bad stuff. We've actually got to try and look at how we can make positive progress. I feel that if we're learning the lessons from nature, it is that we get resilience through diversity. And that's true at all different levels of the organisation and particularly true if we're talking about how you design and manage a living food production system. So that diversity becomes a key part which means that you're no longer operating a monoculture, you don't just say, "okay, you over there, you grow maize, and then you over there, you do something else, you could do goats, and then you do soy." So you don't split it up every parcel of land or every reasonable area has a mixed production because what you do is you start getting benefits from that diversity.
Not only do you get economic benefits of course. If the price of one thing plummets, you still got something else giving you an income. But actually, you start getting the benefits of things like pest control, pathogen control, because you are hosting the habitat for the things which predict upon those pests. You are able to restore nutrient cycling and fostering healthy soils. That's an ecosystem that is supporting healthy plants. You're getting the moderation of wind, and that you're soaking more rainfall in and so on, and so forth. You’re actually restoring these ecosystems. You're restoring the function of the landscape. So that's not only a good thing for nature. That's a good thing for us. We're connected to that.
You start producing healthier food that has more bio-nutrients in it. You're getting fewer pests and diseases, problems that actually have an effect on human health as well as the landscape of health. We're starting to sequester more carbon. We can actually repair the hydrology of landscapes. We can reverse the desertification at larger scales. There's evidence to suggest that we can actually start to bring rain back to places by putting trees back into landscapes with sufficient scale.
These are quite powerful tools. And we only have to look at some of the ecosystems around the world which have been degraded. If you think the Middle East used to be the Fertile Crescent that used to be the breadbasket of civilization. Look at it now. I mean the Mediterranean didn't use to look like what it looks now all those rocks and that's the bones of the earth sticking out where all the soil is washed away after all the trees have been cut down. We have massive impacts on the landscape but we also have the power to restore them. And that's really powerful.
Katherine Ann Byam 22:24
Absolutely. Would you say that our experiences of the pandemic have created a mandate for change?
Shane Ward 22:33
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I can't speak for everywhere, of course. But you know, I have been in Australia and New Zealand, during several lockdowns and I've spoken to friends and colleagues around the world. And I think that there's definitely a view that the Covid 19 pandemic has actually had a real impact on a lot of people's perception of the world that they exist in. There's been in some cases a lot of reconnection to the community or valuing of the community that they're in, realising that those ties are really important. I think there's been a lot of questioning I've noticed about what really matters?
Why are people deeply living in cities going and working hard at their jobs to earn more money to maybe pay off a mortgage or something? Is that really what they all they want out of life? And what's the rush? Being forced to take a pause and take a break has actually had a real impact. I think in a lot of cases. I've also noticed signs that more and more people are starting to realise that the system, the globalised world that we live in, and the systems that underpin it are quite brutal.
They've got a glimpse of that, which may be many of us had been immune to for a while. You're living in a developed world where we are led to believe that we can have anything we want, almost anytime we want. It was just how we got used to things being, probably the promises of new technology and all these new wonderful things in the way that our world is changing. And suddenly to be confronted with empty supermarket shelves in some places and just making us question, "what's the use of a food system? If it only works in the good times?"
And possibly the same for the economy - it's not safe. It's a bit of a confronting reminder that perhaps we can't do everything we want to do when we want to. It makes us question, "are we entitled to everything that we can dream of? Is that reality?” Or is that just something that we've been told through advertising and all these other things to buy stuff? I think this is really key because the again, this fossil fuel inheritance has diluted us a bit into a techno fantasy where we genuinely believe we live in a world without limits.
And we tell ourselves and each other this story in countless ways. But really no matter what anyone thinks that's just not the case. It's not it's not reality. Someone I remember reading a quote that was talking about resources and saying that, "if we continue to live in a world like there’s no tomorrow, there won't be one." And I just think, you know, when we over-consume energy and natural resources, we are borrowing that from future generations, our children. So maybe it's just time to grow up a bit and accept that the world we need won't fit inside the rules that we have. So maybe we've got to change those rules.
And especially when we look at what's coming down the line at us - climate change, biodiversity loss, and that's enormous and the only future that will be viable long-term for us is one that operates within ecological limits. Anything else is just a one-way ticket to collapse.
Katherine Ann Byam 25:52
Yeah, I think, probably my last question, we'll see how we go. What you've said has a lot of implications for how we live. And I know the pandemic has open the door to change because we've seen that we can completely change our behaviours. But I also know that there are a lot of people that are looking forward to when we can go back. There's a lot of talk about when we go back, there are things that they definitely don't want. And so that's the immediate things like going back into a cubicle in an office. People are pretty open to being quite flexible about how they work. But I don't know if the realities that we're talking about today are still close enough to home for many people. What individual changes do we need for people to make in order to start moving governments and decision-makers toward this cleaner, clearer and more regenerative future?
Shane Ward 26:58
It's such a good question. And I guess it's one that's never that far away from my thoughts. One note on all of this really is that I've noticed that in this digital world that we inhabit more and moreover the last few years, there's a tendency for discussions to become polarised and for people to miss or not be interested in the nuance anymore because everything's a bit black and white. It's a bit adversarial. And I think that that's problematic. Because a lot of these approaches, these answers that are out there for us require us to demand that we be a bit more observant and a little more humble.
And you know sit in the question a bit more sometimes. Look at what's actually going on observe and really see that everything is somewhat contextual. So to answer your question, there is no one size fits all response to that. What Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page can do versus what you or I or a teenage factory worker in Southeast Asia can do is going to vary wildly. So you know, it's difficult to generalise. But I suppose I'd say, whoever you are, wherever you are, start where you are.
Influence while you can, but never lose sight of the big picture. Recognise that the system makes hypocrites of all of us and demand better choices. Buy with whatever spending power you have. Companies, I've seen this plenty of times, played us and say they're just giving people what they want but that's passing the buck. Do what you can in your life. Know that individual change will never be sufficient to tackle this. But it's equally true that we absolutely cannot do it without you.
One really powerful thing I think that will benefit you and the wider world is to understand and care about where your food comes from and how it's produced. Now, there's so much talk about our good food, bad food, I can't eat meat, I'm gonna become a vegan for environmental reasons. Whether food is good or bad is determined by how it is produced, not what it is.
That's the key takeaway here. And that should matter to everyone because the health of the ecological system where your food comes from is directly connected to the health of your own body system. You're taking that food and you're consuming it, You're feeding the microbes in your gut and that food is becoming you. So it actually really matters how your food is produced and where it comes from. So support those people that are out there regenerating their soils and their landscapes and not destroying them.
That's a huge step if people can do that. So if that ends up with people forming closer ties to the food that they eat and then who's producing it or where it comes from and more of a localised food connection, then I think that's a huge step. But maybe I'll just leave with this parting thought. We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.