138. Living as One Organism
Matthew Evans on soil & re-imagining the world from the ground up
Matthew Evans is a chef, farmer, host of the popular TV series Gourmet Farmer, and most recently the author of ‘Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy.’ And what an incredible story. Prepare for perhaps the most mind-blowing hour on this podcast (and that feels like it’s saying something!). Matthew’s framed it as a story of bombs, of civilisations falling, of gods and pestilence, and … redemption. Author and journalist Gabrielle Chan wrote, ‘This book is an urgent and passionate plea to take soil seriously, not just for farmers, gardeners and cooks, but for anyone who eats.’
Matthew Evans just before this conversation, dodging storms and sitting on tarps (pic: Anthony James).
“This is the exciting moment. Ten years ago, if I went to a publisher of cookbooks and said I want to do a book on soil - I mean they looked at me like I was mad anyway, but I got it through, because the conversation has moved on.”
In fact, Matthew was partly motivated to write this book due to the polarisation around the topic of his last book, On Eating Meat. Perhaps the topic of soil could be more universalising. And of course, it needs to be. I do feel this personally, too, as Matthew’s research affirms our growing understanding of soil (and our treatment of it) as being at the heart of our mental, physical and even spiritual health – in profound ways.
Due to Covid, and living over the other side of the country in Tasmania, Matthew had become something of a digital friend. So we resolved to wait to talk about this book till we could do it in person. And you’ll hear that we weren’t the only creatures celebrating that during our conversation. As often happens, the timing ended up perfect, allowing us to weave in some of the key happenings in the world right now.
This conversation was recorded by Derbal Yerrigan / Swan River in Boorloo / Perth on 17 August 2022.
Click on the photos below for full view, and hover over them for descriptions (the first two pics by Anthony James, the rest supplied).
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Please note this transcript isn’t perfect, but hopefully serves to provide greater access to these conversations for those who need or like to read.
SPEAKERS
Anthony James (host), Matthew Evans
Anthony 00:00
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Matthew 00:50
This is the exciting moment like 10 years ago, if I went to a publisher of cookbooks and said I want to do a book on soil - I mean they looked at me like I was mad anyway. But I got it through because the conversation has moved on.
Anthony 01:18
G'day, my name is Anthony James. This is The RegenNarration. And the voice you heard at the top was Matthew Evans. Matthew is a chef farmer hosted the popular TV series called Gourmet Farmer. And most recently, the author of Soil: the incredible story of what keeps the earth and us healthy. And what an incredible story! Prepare for perhaps the most mind blowing hour on this podcast. And that feels like it's saying something. Matthew's framed it as a story of bombs of civilizations falling of gods and pestilence and redemption. author and journalist Gabrielle Chan wrote, 'this book is an urgent and passionate plea to take soil seriously, not just for farmers, gardeners and cooks. But for anyone who eats.' In fact, Matthew was partly motivated to write this book due to the polarization around the topic of his last book On Eating Meat. Perhaps the topic of soil could be more universalizing. And of course it needs to be. And I do feel this personally too. As Matthew's research affirms our growing understanding of soil and our treatment of it as being at the heart of our mental, physical and even spiritual health - and in profound ways. Due to COVID and living over the other side of the country in Tasmania, Matthew had become something of a digital friend. So we resolved to wait to talk about this book till we could do it in person. And you'll hear that we weren't the only creatures celebrating that during our conversation. As often happens, the timing ended up perfect, allowing us to weave in some of the key happenings in the world right now. So join us dodging storms by Derbal Yerrigan - the Swan River.
Anthony 03:13
Matthew, Welcome to the West.
Matthew 03:15
Thanks for having me. Finally,
Anthony 03:17
great to meet you
Matthew 03:18
we get to meet in person.
Anthony 03:19
I know. It does feel like I know you somehow over the years we've been in touch and the last conversation we had a couple years ago, of course on your last book, but so much has happened since we yeah, we haven't actually met in person. So it's great to be here by the Swan River in my neck of the woods. Dodging rain.
Matthew 03:34
I know that we can see the clouds disappearing. Right, right as we speak.
Anthony 03:39
Yeah, I'll put some pictures up for people so they can see it's a specky sight right now. We've got a break. So see if we can get through. How is the tour going so far? And I guess, you know, nationwide in that sense?
Matthew 03:51
Oh, look, I guess the book came out July 2021. I did a world tour of Launceston with the book because every border was closed, I had a few things planned for how to get out and about. It's going really well. It's like I can't believe I've come to Western Australia. I just went oh I've got a little bit of time to try and self organize events. And I've never really organized stuff like this, i gave it to an environment Centre in Denmark and got the open garden scheme involved. And suddenly I've got something like 500 people at different events, you know, all booked out. This is about soil. Anthony, this is about soil, which to be really honest. You know, most people would rather poke a stick in their eyes and then go to talk about soil. I would have thought that
Anthony 04:34
well, that's right. And we were just talking about this in the sense that the book had many reprints within a very short period of time without even the tour behind it. So you have done a great - and you have done, I might say a great - job at making ostensibly a - well I guess what has been anyway, it's part of the problem, isn't it, a niche interest, universally not just readable but riveting. So it's kudos to you for that and I guess it also says something about the context we're in - the shift in society.
Matthew 05:04
Yeah, look, I look back, I'm very interested in how we frame soil over time. So we go back 100, 200 years, pretty much everyone's wellbeing was dependent on the health of their soil. And then we all kind of forgot that because most of us, 99% of us don't grow food, to feed ourselves in any great substance. And the 1% of farmers, you know, they, they're growing food, but they got interested in technology. And so we got kind of lost interest in soil, and it became the subject that that wasn't top of mind. And then when you realize, I guess that soil is imperiled that it does all these functions for us beyond just, you know, feeding us, obviously, and clothing us, but it has all these other functions, then, I wanted to get people back interested, because I think soil only matters to people who eat, you know, you know, or want to live indoors, or wear clothes. And, and so that covers ...
Anthony 05:54
or drink water. We could go on
Matthew 05:55
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there's pretty much, you know, no soil no us. And soil in its current form, you know, the way it's evolved, we need it to survive as a species, but we also need it for all the other species that we are reliant on to survive.
Anthony 06:10
So, on that note, I thought we might get going with a bit of a mind blow because we could we could pick any number of things to do this with too, by the way, so I just wanted to say to you, what took the cake for you overarchingly out of this whole process, the attributes of soil, what did you learn that blew your mind the most?
Matthew 06:28
I think, yeah, there are, the numbers are crazy. You know, when when people talk about 10 billion living things in a teaspoon of healthy soil, my mind exploded then. But I think the single one that really shocked me, because when you say 10 billion living things in a teaspoon of soil, more living things than there are humans on the planet, it's kind of a nice way to frame it humans on the planet, you know, there's a few of them. But a lot of them are single celled, small, you know, like archaea, and bacteria. And you know, there might be fine threads of funghi or whatever. But I was reading about this American bloke, I think his name's David moldings. He's researching a forest in Oregon, in the US. And we haven't done this research, certainly not in the Tasmanian rainforest. But he worked out that under one foot, one of his boots, when he walks in this forest, there are 16,000 little critters that have legs, jointed legs, so 120,000 legs on 16,000 critters under one foot fall, and it's like, Ah, man like that. These aren't bacteria. These aren't tiny, tiny, tiny, these are insect like creatures in numbers that defy belief. You know, I think I think that's because they're small, you know, we don't. And because there a long way from our eyes, like our feet are a long way from our eyes. So even if we couldn't see them, our eyes aren't in the, you know, the soil or, you know, down in the dirt most the time. So we have to use our imagination. And we have to, we have to be told about these things before we understand how incredible life is beneath our feet.
Anthony 07:49
Yeah, I relate to that actually, the first stat you pulled out was the one that gripped me too. And I think it was Nicole Masters that told me that and I guess that had been one of the early times for me coming across this sort of knowledge at all. And it is the relatable one too with the human population, as you say. But I think from there, and just going through your book, and it's like, it's, it's just one thing after the other, just like what, what, that, in a sense, I feel like what I came to that most blows me away is the unknowability. Beyond all the knowing
Matthew 08:22
yeah, that's a great way of putting it. Because actually, I think, and I think that's what I, I got to it, by the end of the point of researching the book was that - so we talk about, you know, 10,000 species of bacteria, say in a teaspoon of soil, but 98% of what leaves in soil is unknown. You know, it's undescribed by science. So we know it's there through, you know, clever DNA analysis, or whatever we do. But the actual, you know, what, what's actually there, what it's actually doing, how they those things interact, how they interact with plants, that what are the chemicals that the plants feed to them, and they feed to the plants. 98% of that is unknown. So it is, its mystery, but it's not, it's sort of not unfathomable, because, you know, more than half the cells in the human body are not human cells, you know, there's lots of things doing services for us. We don't necessarily need to know what all of them do. But I think what we have to do is have reverence for the fact that they are there for a purpose that there's not, nature hasn't come up with some kind of accident, and you can wipe out the 98% that we don't understand and expect a system to work properly.
Anthony 09:25
Yep, that might underpin everything we talk about from here, actually. What about the extent of its promise for you? Were there surprises in this for you? The extent of soil's promise?
Matthew 09:29
Yeah, that's a really good question. Because I love the way you framed it in a really positive sense, because, you know, I feel almost guilty about - I saw a guy reading the book the other day, and he's, he's, you know, I was at a thing where he was selling the book, he was the bookseller and he's flicking through the book and reading it, and he looks up at about halfway through it, he goes, I hope it's got a happy ending. And I was like, Oh, have I framed it really negative? But I I guess I wanted to point out soil's plight and you know, you on your show, you talk a lot about this. And I guess growers who are in the space or scientists, they know that soil is, you know, imperiled to some extent. But the hope is the thing that I always I want to leave people with, because yes, soil is in a bit of trouble. And we've lost topsoil, and you know, there's issues with it. But there are people doing brilliant things with topsoil. So I'm really hopeful when I see a paddock that maybe has lost three quarters of its carbon and looking a bit degraded, or maybe is a bit eroded, I see that as potential, that's a place we can restore, that's a bit we can, we can make better. And we know this, we know this from 1000s of years that humans have been able to make topsoil. We now using modern science can prove that the ancient Amazonians could create topsoil, that's, that's fertile for 1000s of years. And we also know that people can almost quadruple their carbon storage in their soil in five years using the techniques of people like Niels Olson, over in Gippsland. And so we have the technology not only to do it, but to measure it and, and we can use ancient wisdom, old techniques, reverence for for the life within, and actually build topsoil in a way that nature has, like, this is the thing, lots of Australia, it takes about 1000 years to make a centimeter of topsoil, the best around the world probably takes 1000 years to make 12 centimeters of topsoil, right? So it's pretty slow, but we can make topsoil five, possibly even 10 times faster than nature can make it you know, maybe 25 times faster than nature can make it. So that gives me hope. And I guess the other thing to do with that is, you know, people have this idea that landscapes are wild or pristine or something, it's a very, I don't know, maybe Anglo maybe a very colonizer view. And where I live at 42,000 years, the Melakadi have been feeding themselves and altering the landscape. Australia generally 60, 80, 100,000 years, humans have changed this landscape. And humans have been involved in managing landscapes and changing them. And we can do that for better or worse. And our possibility now with all of this knowledge, and all of this ancient wisdom, scientific breakthroughs is that we can manage the earth in a really positive way if we choose to. But only if we choose to.
Anthony 12:14
It gives more flesh on the bones when I hear indigenous people say country needs people - that people need country and country needs people. And you see the evidence like this, of where our tending, where we've learned to be a part of it, and our tending, yeah, plays a positive role actually boosts ...
Matthew 12:34
Yeah, and I think this is what is sometimes missing from the debate is, you know, if you want to rewild or you're looking for ecosystem services, you actually need people to be there. You know, this isn't something that has happened by accident for 60,000 years, and it's not going to happen by accident for the next 60,000 years if humans manage to last that long. And so this idea that you can just let things go or rewild without a person on the ground, being able to, I guess, give some direction or management to that is a fallacy. I mean, it's a really nice notion, I grew up with this idea of wilderness. And you know, what, you know, the wild places around the Blue Mountains or, you know, in, in the west of Tasmania, I mean, in western Tasmania seems inhospitable, people have been there for 50,000 years, I've been in the rock caves, you know
Anthony 13:18
Western Australia ... right through the interior.
Matthew 13:20
Yes, yeah. places that you wouldn't imagine that people could actually exist but not only exist, thrive and you know, have the oldest continuously living culture on earth. So it seems odd to say, you know, that we need people, but I think - and any farmer and grower you know, who's interested in soil knows that their presence on the ground, and actually on the ground, not on a tractor or in a ute, actually on the ground gives you all the information you need to be able to manage that land better. You feel it through your feet, the softness, the smell the, you know, what's actually growing. And sometimes we forget that when we talk about how we're going to feed the world, or how we're gonna grow food, that actually we need people there. How are they going to do that? And how they're going to make a living doing that, you know, what's Where's where's the money gonna come from? What's the purpose? And what meaning do they have in their jobs. And, for me, that great hope with soil is that we can be on country be on land, managing it for wildlife, managing it for food, embellishing an ecosystem, maybe restoring water services or water systems and, and growing nutrient dense food in the process. And I think this is the, you know, that that is all possible and doable, and no, and we know that that can be done. But you do need someone there.
Anthony 14:35
Well, this is it, as I hear you speak, and we'll no doubt go into some of these areas through our conversation but clearly not all in the short time we've got. But you have said that we can feed all people easily if we do this - halt, or at least slow down warming and, by extension extinction rates, improve human health which needs it too, let's say that, to put it lightly, and even a sense of inspiration too, yeah the hope. And yeah, the re-habitation of the places not least for the first nations to be on their country in a fashion that's respected and made possible and not overrun with other interests. But for the rest of us to be able to spread out of congested cities, but in a way that's not just sprawling, it's actually taking care of the place. You know, what I wanted to bring up next, though, Matthew, is that I was just at the RCS Australia Convergence in Brisbane, at which John Kempf spoke and reading your book, again to remind myself in advance of our conversation here today. And hearing him at that conference. My mind was firecrackers just with the crossovers and comparing notes between the two. And I want to do a bit of that here with you now, just to continue the mind blow for a bit, and then we'll perhaps come back into a bit of your personal path with this. But he and you both talked about the level of intelligence, if you will, in plants, and their diet, their diet, their consumption of the microbiome and bacteria, for example. And John had a lovely quip, he said, so by the way, plants aren't vegetarian, which brought the house down. Nothing wrong with vegetarianism, but just interesting to contemplate. And he said, we're finding out now that they actually farm them effectively, with the level of communications and feedback mechanisms that are going between all these living beings in the soil.
Matthew 16:36
Yeah, yes. And I think this is where is where science is about to come up with some incredible - when you talked about mind blowing - That idea of the woodwide web, you know, which is where, and they first discovered in trees. Susan Simard, I guess, pioneered that in the US - a forestry worker - where a tree talks to another tree through fungi, and not only can it talk to another tree it can warn it of disease, it can draw carbon out of its own structure to feed a younger tree, if one of the trees is getting older or dying, and this whole communication strategy. And then now we're finding out you know, the trees, they talk to each other, not only trees of the same species, they might talk to trees of other species, but there's this whole, and this sounds fanciful, you know, like unicorns farting rainbows or whatever. Sometimes this stuff can sound really woowoo. But yeah, this is where the science is. So yeah, but the bacteria talk to each other. So a bacterium has all these little receptors on the outside of it, and it knows not only how many bacteria like it are nearby, but also other species of bacteria. And they can change their behavior depending on that. And so if you amplify that, you know, like, these 10,000 species in a, in a teaspoon, or whatever there are, you know, and then you've also got the archaea, which are also single celled, not dissimilar organisms, and then your funghi and your protasts and nematodes, microscopic worms, and springtails - all the layers, I guess, of soil life, there is this amazing interaction. I gave this talk recently at our farm, and I could see all these people just looking at me. I was telling them about fungi - a plants can say I need nitrogen, and it has funghi around its roots, and there's no nitrogen near the roots and the fungus going, oh, gotta find some nitrogen for the plant. You know, so it can go off and it can put a little loop in its structure. And so when a nematode, an animal, little microscopic worm, one of the most abundant creatures on the planet, crawls through the hole. Yeah, this little loop in the in the funghi. It's three cells, the fungi swells up those three cells and essentially strangles the nematode sucks the nitrogen out of it and passes the nitrogen back to the plant that needs it. And that doesn't happen by accident. The plant has said, I need the nitrogen and the fungi gets the nitrogen and can transport it safely through the soil from other things that might want to eat the nitrogen. And this, you know, people didn't believe me and I went off and found an electron microscopic photo of a nematode being strangled by by funghi. Just because a visual thing a visual aid, and they were like, oh, maybe what he's saying isn't complete rubbish. It isn't pie in the sky. But we know there are all these different interactions where fungi can talk to bacteria and protasts and this whole feedback loop about what they're trying to get from soil. We really don't understand how this happens. We have no clue how this happens. But we know it does happen. And it turns out that a plant isn't just shoving its roots into soil, and you know, the roots are eating dirt. There's this whole communication strategy about what does the plant need? What does the underground ecosystem need? A plant can dribble out through its roots - Yeah, so So a plant exudes chemicals through its roots, it can be up to 100,000 different chemicals come out of the roots of a plant. And we we know what some of those do, some are simple sugars just to feed the funghi, who, you know, to pay them back for getting the nitrogen, but some of them are amino acids, building blocks of proteins, but there's all these other chemicals which we have no clue, but the plants aren't doing it for no reason. It's happening because that's how nature intended and that's how it's designed. The fact that we don't understand it doesn't - it's neither here nor there. It does happen, we probably need to understand perhaps why but we don't need to necessarily understand the mechanism to be able to help plants and soil, I guess self sustain or self manage their ecosystem.
Anthony 20:13
John went on to say, in that sense, they are conscious informed decision makers.
Matthew 20:19
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony 20:21
Hard to argue with, in a sense, when we, when we contemplate what you just said
Matthew 20:25
Yeah. I was just in our paddocks. And I was looking at where the blackberries have put down runners. In autumn, they put out shoots, and they send off sort of long runners, and they try to put those runners into the ground. And if you look, you can see how all of the runners will land in one spot or two plants will connect up - something like 80, 90% of the runners actually go to where there's an existing plant. So what they're trying to do is is enclose an area with blackberries. So how does a Blackberry plant know there's one above ground over there and how to stretch its tendrils out? So yeah, maybe some pheromones through the air. But lots of this is happening through the roots. And the conduit often is fungi, and so a lot of this is happening. And some people think funghi farm plants and farm us, because they're getting what they want out of the whole deal. But this whole thing is this is this lovely interaction that's happening almost incomprehensibly complex.
Anthony 21:22
Yeah that's right. It's funny you should say that about farming us because I quipped at the conference again, after John's presentation. If the plants and the microbiome are farmers, then what are we? And it was sort of a rhetorical question going on to the next session, in a sense there, but but really the strong. If there was one sense that came out strongest in the conference, and it comes out in your book to - its stewardship. That actually there is a transcendent level, beyond farming, or whatever else you think you're doing - this, that I'm doing - that it is guided by stewardship. And that might sound easy to say, but if you really contemplate that, then how you think about economic systems, like anything that you construct, to live by, changes in a big way from what we've had.
Matthew 22:10
Yeah, yeah. And I think stewardship is a great word, because it doesn't imply ownership, it implies responsibility. And it also, I guess, in a way, almost, within stewardship, if you think of, you're the steward of something, you don't think, well, I'll go and organize it this year, or, and then I'll go and do something else. Or I'll do it for a little while. Like it sort of implies longevity. And I think one of the problems that we've had, and one of its problems, we certainly still have, and I think with the corporate takeover of a lot of farmland, this is only going to be amplified, is how we perceive the world - well the earth that feeds us in particular - in a timeframe that is beyond shareholder value, that is beyond even a single human lifetime. Because a human lifetime is nothing in historical terms. And it also implies, I guess, a passing on, like, if you're a steward of something, I think of, you know, maybe some kind of regal stewards of royalty, you know, you pass the baton to the next generation. You don't just wash your hands at the end of it go well, that's all done in my life time. And so it's a great word.
Anthony 23:27
Yeah, I think so too. You mentioned the increasing corporate takeover. Is there another trend going on? I know there's a lot of people working at it, to have land be accessible, brought back into the hands of smaller holdings. Is that happening at the same time? Or it's a bit of a struggle?
Matthew 23:43
I think it is. Well, is it happening at the same time? I think it is. Look, I live in a weird part of the world. I live in Southern Tasmania, we live in the most densely populated rural council area in Australia. So lots of people live in little small farms. But there's no cropping, there's no, there's very, very little that's available for most people to earn an income. So they're all sort of either patching together an income or not earning money from their farm. I think there is a movement and I think it's I think it's a fledgling movement. To go back to that. It used to be a lot more like that. There used to be more people living on small, you know, on land, in terms of number of population in lots of our little, the farmland around us. And around around Australia, you go to places where there's two people running a 6000 acre cattle station where there used to be 20. Yeah, so we've sort of taken people away from land, so it does worry me, but I think we are, we're making some inroads. But I was just, I was just in a place in Canberra a few months ago, drove into this former sheep station, it's now divided up into I think, 10 acre lots or something. I'm always interested in how country's used and land - I look at it very different. I try to see it from soil's perspective a little bit, you know, what's happening underground? How does that manifest above? And this, this sheep station and you know, I don't know how it was run as a sheep states and now 10 years later it is all broken up. And every house was on a big area of land and every house either had horses or a ride on mower. And I could not see any food growing. We're talking hundreds of acres of land. And then eventually I was off to pick up some pigs and I'm driving around and I got distracted because I could see it place with a little orchard and long grass where there's no long grass anywhere else looking really verdant. And I saw a dairy cow, I love dairy cows, milking dairy cows, I'm always excited to see someone with a house cow single dairy cow. And I thought, Oh, that looks really cute. You know, they've got a little veggie garden. Anyway, I got lost where I supposed to be driving, and then realized, Oh, I'm supposed to be going to that farm. The only place who's growing food and so I got a chance to talk to the owners. They'd been there hard times with the dry years and near Canberra, long lush deep grass, deep roots, beautiful looking vegetable patch, and they just chosen to grow food and not you know horses or have a ride on mower. So So I see areas of land being broken up, but not always being used productively
Anthony 26:04
Yep, where there's the potential to do that.
Matthew 26:06
And I think look when you know, when the apocalypse comes, and hopefully it doesn't - at some point, well, look at all these little farms all perfectly set up in size for people to manage land on a on a much more personal micro scale, and all be able to grow as much food as the one I went to. So I also saw the hope in that.
Anthony 26:26
Totally. It's the same in the Kimberley where we were based last year too, right? Yep, little five or 10 acre blocks of old stations not far from Derby, in this case. And I mean, where we were staying was working at it. But her vision certainly Wendy up there, was to at least be developing, showing the way for when we understand that this is of value, to be able to grow our own food year round through the wet, you know, in those sorts of circumstances. You mentioned the possibility of apocalypse. I want to ground us in that in a sense too. It was really powerful in the book also how you described that we have got the least nutrient dense food in history now. And the least varied diets ever, now as well. And gaining that if that's the right word for it, with the biggest impact ever, on the land and climate et cetera, human health, etc. It's, in a way, it's bizarre, that we should be the most prosperous society ever, you know on a global sense, notwithstanding clearly the inequalities and the horrid pockets, but that we should be in this situation as a whole and be living in the poverty of such a food system.
Matthew 27:44
Yeah, it's a bizarre thing, isn't it? I mean, that's when I had to sort of pinch myself and sort of thinking, Well, hang on. So you know, we talk about agricultural land and how, you know, one of the numbers that shocked me early on was that we've abandoned about 40% of the agricultural land, the farming land that we once had, since the agricultural revolution. So most of that's in the last 200 years, but we've been doing it for 10,000 years, so modern European style farming, we came from the Middle East, it's created some deserts. And that's bad and a lot of mistakes people weren't generally doing on purpose, you know, a lot of historical accidents and, and all that kind of stuff and not being able to measure soil in its impoverishment into human lifespan means that we don't necessarily know, by the time we're dead, that, we've done the damage. But all that sped up recently. But then when you look at, you know, how we've concentrated on certain crops and narrowed down our 30,000 available crops to about 30, or maybe 100, in terms of annual crop, in terms of vegetables that people can eat, people have exposure to a lot less variety in their diet, but the stuff that we're growing, you know, we're very good at getting it big, quickly, essentially getting carbohydrates in it, but we're not necessarily good at getting the other things that we need. And so I find this comparison between - that nutrient dense food and healthy soil - I mean, there's some really interesting parallels. So you know, healthy soil has lots of microbes, a healthy you know, human has lots of microbes in their in their gut. Diversity is really important for soil health. It's really important for human health. And when I think of the impoverishment of our food, you know, what we've done is we've we've sort of worked on the macronutrients. So in human terms, macronutrients would be fat, carbohydrate, protein, that's all we need to survive. That's what we thought 200 years ago. And with plants, we think they need nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, because that's all they really need to grow big quickly. But now we know that actually what human needs is phytochemicals and micronutrients. And you know, along with all the the vitamins and minerals and stuff so we know all of that for humans, but we've kind of forgotten that a plant needs that as well. So a lot of what a plant can get comes from the air like gases and carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, but it needs other stuff. And the same way we need tiny amounts of phytochemicals, a plant needs tiny amounts of rock minerals or the chemicals that are fed to it by the ecosystem under the soil. So tiny doesn't mean unimportant - the fact that it's a fraction, a tiny, tiny fraction of a plant's diet comes from healthy soil doesn't make it unnecessary. And because we are the end users of whatever a plant grows, be it we eat the plant or we eat the animal that eats the plant, what we're getting is a diluted version of, of what we could have had. Because all we've done is get the plant big quickly. But it doesn't have all those other really important chemicals in it it's supposed to have.
Anthony 30:25
And this is where it fascinates me that this essentially points to your in - like how you came to this - that 10 years ago, you weren't aware of this stuff, as a foodie, you know, as a chef and a restaurant critic that you weren't aware of this stuff. And it fascinates me on multiple levels. I think about for example, you talk about the blandness of our food. And you mentioned in your book that when your kids are interested in the vegetables there's a bloody good reason. It's not their bad attitude. It's bland. And it reminded me about conversation with Fred Provenza, where he cited the research that had been done by Clara Davis, 100 years ago no less in the orphanage, which actually did the experiment with nutrient dense, diverse foods, and the kids went for it. And they self selected in ways. So there was a diversity on offer, they self selected, their bodies were essentially guiding them to what they needed, and their health outcomes were, you know, well beyond the average. That sort of thing. What fascinates me, so Fred's come to think about that as pallette led, he's got other terms for it too, like flavor based self selection or something. And to think that in effect, that's what led you to this because of your background and your passion for flavor in food. That was the instigator for you to come to this whole field of understanding that you didn't have that understanding when you were in that space before.
Matthew 31:47
Yeah, it's sort of weird. I was a chef. When I first left school, I became a restaurant critic. So I've eaten a lot of different places and wrote a lot of recipes. And had no real understanding that the genesis of lots of flavor is soil. And I used to talk about or write about it, but it kind of like because a farmer had said, oh it's all about how I look after the soil. And I probably go Yeah, yeah, great, healthy soil. Even then I didn't sort of go well healthy, by definition means living, you know, and what does living mean? And I still struggle with this idea that people aren't people aren't eating enough vegetables. So how are we going to get them to eat vegetables? When our problem is generally that the vegetables don't taste very nice. And that seems like a really good sort of a pie in the sky idea that you know, homegrown vegetables taste better or healthy soil makes better tasting vegetables. And sadly, the research into nutrient dense food and effective healthy soil to create nutrient density is a little little lacking. But I was reminded of how much flavor you can get into a product. And a flavor is an indicator of nutrient density - how much flavor you can get into food, because we actually have a market garden, we've been growing food there for 11 years, the soil's, you know, quadrupled in carbon, and it's, you know, full of visible and invisible life. And it's amazing, amazing garden. And every year that you know, the stuff got better tasting in there, but now it's I'm just kind of used to eating nice tasting stuff. We tried to establish a garden at our house, which has been neglected, because we've been doing other things for years. Same seeds from the same packet, same rainfall, same, essentially, basic substrate, the geology isn't any real different where we're doing it. But the biology in that soil is only just starting to kick off because we haven't really looked after it. You know the house got built. So the soil structure got trashed. And you grow the peas, they're not interesting, don't want to eat them. These are homegrown Yes, we put in a bit of effort, they are nowhere near as good as I can get if I walk 200 meters to my market garden where the soil is better. The carrots aren't as good, everything isn't as good. And it reminded me again, of the connection between soil health, flavor, which is how I got into this whole game, because I'm interested in things that taste nice, but flavor is an indicator of nutrient density. And then that nutrient density, how that feeds our, you know, our gut microbiome. Yeah, for the book, I was really interested in this because people will still measure - I saw some studies on organic versus non organic, and they go oh, well, it's got, you know, roughly the same amount of protein and calcium in you know, the wheat or - and that's all they measure.This is really 1950s science. What we should be measuring is all the antioxidants and phytochemicals. But there's also there can be 70,000 different chemicals in plants that could potentially have an impact on us or or you know, our nutrient uptake or our microbiome. And all of those only exist because plants growing has an interaction with the world around it, especially especially that area around its roots, the microbiome in the soil. And so now I see flavor is driven by soil and this is no mystery - winemakers have known about it forever. But wine's worth 60 bucks a bottle not 80 cents a bag of carrots or whatever, you know a kilo of carrots. Wine's worth so much so someone actually paid attention to how you influence flavor.
Anthony 34:57
Exactly that's - We've said that on a few occasions in the podcast, too, it's not foreign to us to have such a nuanced appreciation of what we ingest. But just to cross it over. You mentioned there that you didn't understand healthy equaled living, that strikes me is profound. You did say in the book that we've created plants that are a shadow of their possible selves. And that made me think about what you've said before, like, you know, in your book on eating meat, the importance of having animals be able to express their chicken-ness, or whatever it may be. And then I think well, that's, you know, clearly, we're learning about the connection more than ever, to human health and vitality, that the same thing would apply. We've created a shadow of our possible selves. And I say that with respect to physical health, but not only. And I did love the way that you put, when you discovered the almost intangible quality of the ingredients that my palate could taste represented the soul of the grower. Yeah, I stopped on that line for quite a while.
Matthew 36:00
Oh good. So glad you like that. I actually, I used to, when I was writing about food, I was trying to work out why some food tasted better than others. And then I realized it was the person. It's not the carrot or the asparagus. It's not the, you know, the brussel sprouts. It's the person and how they're growing them. And then that was over 13, 14 years ago, a book I wrote called The Real Food Companion. And so I was kind of interested. Oh, so, it's really important about the grower or the producer - could be a cheesemaker, could be secondary production. But that person - then I realized that the soul of the grower is expressed through their treatment of soil, you know, the actual at the primary level. And so the human matters. But it's, it's not the human necessarily doing it. It's how they manage the life within the soil, or the life that grows above the soil or whatever. And it's like, ah, all these things line up, I'm interested in eating well, I'm interested in like everybody else getting dinner on the table really fast, on a Tuesday night when I'm tired and hungry. And you know, I've got a young son who just has to be fed before his low blood sugar kicks in. And I'm like everybody else. And how's the best way to get nutrient dense, delicious tasting food on the table. Well, it's if the ingredients are good, and how are the ingredients good? If you start with healthy soil, eating in season, freshness, then your miles, your streets ahead.
Anthony 37:21
You found that even not in just the eating of it, but in the tending it, it has antidepressant qualities like actually does affect mood in a really positive way. And I think about what we're learning about, we've got an autoimmune crisis to in our health, it's going nuts. It's a terrible trajectory we're on with this. But it actually has reversal qualities of that too. And things like psoriasis and autism, like all these other things that have been vaguely connected in this resurgence of understanding of soil but sort of scoffed at and discredited in other spaces. But you found no, this is this is holding up.
Matthew 38:00
Yeah, I did some work last year with a charity called Mothers Babies. I can't remember the name of this doctor who, who's also working in that space. But she's got a freezer full of poo. And she was like, oh, yeah, women's poo, pregnant women's poo, because she's interested in the microbiome of pregnant women, because that affects baby. So what they're interested in is neonatal health, and how to give your newborn child the best chance to have a healthy immune system. And so the big ticket items, and there's lots of work being done. I mean these are people who are researching the male's diet, pre conception, which is probably loosely connected, but right up to you know, things that happen after birth. But the big ticket items to give your child the best chance to have a healthy immune system are natural birth, if possible, you know, not always possible, but that's a good start. And that's pretty well documented now. Breastfeeding for a decent amount of time, if possible. Again, not always possible, you know, ideally. And the third best thing you can do is is exposure to dirt in the first three months of life. Now it can be through pets because pets also transfer these bacteria around. But soil inoculates our immune system. We are designed to be around it. And they know even from adult studies, I think we'll probably have some repercussions from some COVID lockdowns because we know that people who have more exposure to gardens have a better immune system than those who don't. Who would have thought this Anthony - that we are designed, we've been born into a world full of soil healthy soil, and we are designed to be around healthy soil. We are designed to eat things that have got this microbiome. A single single spinach leaf can have 60 species of bacteria. Like it's just that's washed not like with dirt all over it, you know, we, you know, organically grown because I doubt you'd get it, you know if you've had 16 passes with the tractor spraying too much stuff.
Anthony 39:42
This is the thing Hey, like, so much of this comes down to - and you do say the words - and this relates to grazing animals as well - comes back to get part of a natural cycle wherever possible in whatever ways we can. It's to re inhabit natural cycles. because they are beyond our knowing ultimately, but even what we know, and coming to know more, suggests that Yeah, well as Charlie Massy says nature has been at it a lot longer.
Matthew 40:11
Yeah, it's a great way to put it. On that thing that's, there's this one example, which I love, which is a chemical called ergothioneine. ergothioneine is only made in soil by soil bacteria. And so fungi
Anthony 40:23
I'm so glad you're mentioning this. It stood out to me too.
Matthew 40:25
Yes, I just love this, because this is one of only one of the things we know in soil - 98% of the things that live there, we don't know. Most of the stuff that's produced in soil, we don't know. But we know about this one - ergothioneine - only made by soil, fungi and bacteria. If you cut open the soil, if you plow the soil, you end up with less of it in the soil. But it's this is a chemical that passes from soil, fungi and bacteria into the plant unchanged. Now lots of chemicals get changed as they pass through a system. This goes into a plant unchanged. If we eat that plant - could be oats or something like that. It's one of the one that's better research, we ingest that ergothioneine unchanged. And it actually passes into our gut and through the lining of our gut unchanged in the same form it's made in soil, that same chemical has the ability to pass the blood brain barrier, the blood brain barrier protects our brain from unwanted things. But this chemical can get into our brain, where it then exerts anti aging and anti dementia effects, like this is crazy stuff. And the only place you can get it is from healthy soil. Mushrooms can be a pretty good source of it. But if you plow the ground, you end up with less of it. So this - imagine the stuff we don't know.
Anthony 41:29
This is the thing. That's what strikes me. And when you read this stuff about glyphosate, that that's potentially doing the same thing, but in a terrible fashion - transcending the blood brain barrier - and then who knows - there are people obviously, like Charlie Massey that speculate the damage it's doing relating to dementia and the other, again, the other terrible epidemic trajectories we're on at that level. And that this is just a hint of the evidence to show that the again, the other trajectory is possible.
Matthew 42:02
Yeah. And I think I think that we've sort of underestimated what happens at a at that sort of micro level. You know, because when we look at roundup and the study recently, 80% of Americans have it in the urine or something. So we're obviously it's around, and we know it has an effect on cell at the cellular level. You know, it's not a poison in the way that other things are a poison in those tiny amounts. But what is it actually doing to the soil microbiome? We know it's not great. What's it actually doing to our microbiome, the 56% of the cells that aren't asked that live in and on us that allow us to function properly? And then the cells within us? Is it having an effect? And that kind of science is where we haven't ventured yet. Because we still don't really understand some of that stuff.
Anthony 42:46
No, that's right. But again, all the pointers are saying go to natural systems, aren't they? In extraordinary fashion, increasingly extraordinary fashion. On the climate matter, what stood out to me, and I've been hearing a bit of it from people like Walter Jehne and so on, is the methane eaters in soil.
Matthew 43:04
Oh yeah, methanotrobes.
Anthony 43:05
Yeah. Now, this is fascinating, because you've already talked about how soil does the heavy lifting with regards to carbon. What did you say like 80% of the carbon storing in biological systems is in the soil or can be in the soil if we tend it well. And then we talk about - Well, certainly, we've both seen a lot of regeneration happening with grazing animals. And indeed, people like the Haggerty's will say they have led the way - and they're in the arid zone, not like some of the other successes that you talked about in your book. They are one of the ones in a semi arid zone, doing this stuff, led by the animals no less, they say. And even at the conference convergence, Terry McCosker dropped a hint of the research that they're coming up with on measuring carbon net gain on grazing properties that they've been working with for 30 years. And it's coming out like a 50 to one ratio of net benefit, carbon sequestration, or greenhouse gas entirely because this includes - this is even sort of post considering the methane. But then I think this is the stuff I've been hearing a bit of from the science is that actually again, if the natural system is in play, the nutrient upcycling and so forth, that the thing works as a whole. To extract methane as a point of concern. isn't really the point. And I guess it puts again, flesh on the bones a bit to hear you come up with this particular organism fermented by the grazing system that actually eats the methane. Tell us more.
Matthew 44:38
Yeah, this is one of those weird things. So methane can be broken down in the atmosphere by sunlight and chemical reactions in the atmosphere, but lots of it at least a fifth gets broken down by other things. And those things are pretty much always soil microbes. They're called methanatrobes, you know, their food sources is methane. And interestingly enough, you know, well, they're a really hard thing to research. You can't replicate them, they don't buried up in labs, they don't know how [- the science on this is very new. So they, they're really struggling to actually research them in depth. But when they do field trials going to the natural system where they're actually in the ground, we know that they exist in higher numbers around grazing animals. So if you've got an animal grazing over the top, there's, you know, there's way more methanatrobe action, than there is ungrazed grass. Like where we're sitting at the moment, there's, it's all cut by a mower, so it's gonna be less in here. And the worst place is tilled fields and plowed fields or where you grow crops, there's virtually none. Forests can have some, and that's probably because of the anaerobic processes, the fermentation that can happen in a forest, which can create a bit of natural methane, in a sort of deep litter of a forest. So they probably have, they have a bit more as well. But you read that stuff and you research it, and you go, well no one really talks about this, and then you sort of follow the trail and you go well, I guess, no one wants to talk about, because they don't really understand it, they don't understand the system. But I think we should never be surprised that the ecosystem under the under the roots of a grassland has developed a system to digest the product of the animal that's eating the grass. I mean that - a lot of the stuff in the book, I sometimes go Oh, wow. Seems like - you know, but but if you had to design the system, Anthony, wouldn't you design a system like that? So we shouldn't be surprised.
Anthony 46:15
No, it says it says a lot about where we've been, that it's surprising us, and great let's relish the awe of it all. But yeah, you're absolutely right to say. I wonder, Matthew, something I've been thinking about a lot too. And again, it was strong at convergence because you know, we're not there for fun, or partly maybe, but we're .... oh there are dolphins
Anthony 46:35
oh really, in the Swan River?
Anthony 46:38
Yeah, over there
Matthew 46:38
Oh, yeah. How cool.
Anthony 46:40
I love that.
Matthew 46:41
They're probably eating all the prawns. Do they eat prawns? I went prawning here years ago, and there wasn't many.
Anthony 46:47
No, that's right. There used to be and not long ago, either. That's another story another story for another time. But is the political window of possibility that perhaps we're in, I'm wondering what your take is on this. Where regenerative agriculture's popularity, for all, you know, the quarters that might be defensive about it. It ignites the imagination from the people that certainly I hear from in the podcast. But just even being at the I was at the community independents convention, the sort of after the election, wow, look at what happened and where do we go from here type of convention they had - another 500 people there - huge vibe in the room. And who knows where this goes next. But even right now, you've got a situation where Cathy McGowan was talking to David Pocock, the ACT's first senator, and regenerative agriculture practitioner, amongst former Wallabies captain and other other credits. And they were there to talk about getting more independents in the Senate. But at the end, Cathy couldn't resist. She said, Look, I'm passionate about regenerative agriculture. And how do you feel about essentially the fact you'll probably become the unofficial spokesperson in parliament for regenerative agriculture? What happened next though was fascinating, because as much as anything that they said, the room lit up. A room that ostensibly wasn't there for that lit up on that. And Cathy went, Wow, look at this interest. This is what I find everywhere. It ignites the imagination everywhere. And I think it's partly because of the things we're learning but also the visceral, visible, even the bits that are visible, you know, effective of it all. And now that we've got a situation where our parliament is transforming, and partly reflecting a) communities on the ground, finally, again, in Parliament, but also that there's this level of excitement about that space for this. Anyway, that's my observing. I wonder if you even have other observations that might suggest we've got a window of opportunity at a at a macro scale to turn the ship around.
Matthew 48:43
Yeah, this is the exciting moment, like 10 years ago, if I went to a publisher of cookbooks and said I want to do a book on soil. I mean, they looked at me like I was mad anyway, but but I got it through because the conversation has moved on. Because we are globally, nationally and in Western Australia in particular interested in this as a topic. But when you say regen, I was really interested because - and that excitement in the room - because actually when you talk regen agriculture - and I get occasional things from people I know going oh we've heard about regen agriculture you might be interested in, and I go thanks. Yeah, thank you had heard of it. Urban people are really excited about it. But if I go to a farmer group broadscale or sort of more conventional farmers, and I say regen, 95% of them fold their arms won't meet my eye. You know, that's the end of that.
Anthony 49:34
Oh, dolphin just flipped. Sorry to distract you mate. I've got this happening in my in my eyeline. It's just all happening out there. This is part of what I feel like is important that we do have a situation where the broader world that has marginalized farmers - you've talked a lot about this. The noble profession of farming that is treated like dirt too, like the soil, and they're getting excited. So I'm like, come on farmers. Don't be too precious about the words. Let's get together.
Matthew 50:08
Yeah, I think I think the so it's really hard. I guess - I'm reading a book called the winter road. I don't know if you've read that
Anthony 50:16
I've heard of it.
Matthew 50:17
It's about a guy who worked for the Department of the Environment, I think in New South Wales, who was who was trying to stop some illegal land clearing, got shot in the back and murdered. And anyway, but, but the book is actually also about the politics of farming and how farmers think, and you know, they don't want to be told what to do.
Anthony 50:34
nobody does.
Matthew 50:35
No one does. Yeah, like, and I think what's happened with, if you say, regen, or you know, even in my book, when I talk about the numbers, these are, you can't dispute some of these numbers about soil loss. Australia's lost half its soil in 200 years, whatever. You know, these are really easy numbers to find that people with really huge brains have come up with. But it's not to criticize farmers, or to just say, your grandfather or your, your mum did a terrible job. They were earning a living, doing the noble thing of growing food. And they did what they thought was best. And maybe what we thought was best 20 years ago isn't best now or 100 years ago, whatever. But you have to frame it in a way that they don't just turn off coz as soon as they turned off, you know, then then you've lost them. And then you can't get them excited about re envisaging soil or ecosystem services or anything because they feel like they've been attacked. And all they've done is tried to feed their family. They believe they've been good stewards - I think scratch the surface, a lot of them would actually say, Well, we thought we were good stewards, but actually, I can see the change over a lifetime.
Anthony 51:42
I hear that. And I hear people say, ideally, I don't want to be doing what I'm doing. I hear a bit of that too.
Matthew 51:48
Yeah, yes. There'a lot of that. You talk about that, what's your stocking density? Or what's your, what are your rotations like? You know, so, how am I going to make as much money or, you know, I couldn't possibly afford to do that. But I compare it to parenting. As a parent, I got a son, you know, if someone comes and says, you know, you can be a better dad. You know what, two fingers up to you, goodbye. Thank you very much. I'll admit, I really wish I was a better dad, and I'm trying to be a better dad, and I make mistakes all the time. But if you come and tell me that, I'm not listening, and I think farming is like that. It's so personal. It's it's so much about identity. It's so much about history and genealogy, like it's your parents, so your ancestors or whatever, how they, you know - and so how do we frame these ideas of restoring things or bringing things back to health? Because as soon as you say that, they feel like, well, it already had health. Well, you're not restoring anything, because my farm is already healthy. So do we have to - it's an interesting term regenerative agriculture, because it gets such traction in urban areas, and, and with some people in the bush, but a lot of others turn off.
Anthony 52:54
Yes, well, what I see working, whether it be with community independents, and you know, our seat was one of the ones, the first West Australian one, that elected an independent, so Kate Chaney's now in Parliament. So we had a firsthand experience, which I was really glad for, to be able to speak to it in a way. But it was the same thing I've seen working, whether it be with RCS Australia, working with farmers. They don't go in telling them what to do. The first thing they ask is, What do you want? And so did Kate in the campaign. What do you want? What's important to you? And Amanda Cahill, who will be on the podcast, perhaps just a tad before this goes out, her work with coal communities through Queensland and Victoria. But now she's expanding into food as well, because it's about system transition across the board, really, that we're grappling with. But she's now this trusted person in the context of these communities in the gun, you know, with the energy transition, and so politicized and all that sort of stuff. But she's got the trust on the same basis of I'm here to help you understand what else you are, and what else you want, or can be, because she's in communities that have, you know, half shut down Main Streets, and they don't want that they want a bustling street like Atherton does in Queensland. So I think that's the way in, it's not looking for the change you want other people to embody. And you do this, you're always saying this. And On Eating Meat was a classic example where you weren't saying this is a manifesto for people to eat meat or not. This is something to help us make our decisions with. So I think that's an MO across the board for us all to practice more than certainly for myself, is to be going to people looking for how we can Well, in a sense, enable more of their being, whatever the words we were using before like to not be a shadow of themselves, just looking out for each other in that way.
Matthew 52:54
Yeah. And better stewards.
Anthony 52:56
better stewards. That's what it comes down to. Yeah. So you mentioned it being a reflection of the soul of the grower, which I do love and it did come out again, when you're talking about the identity - like everything that's involved - it's at the deepest levels that we're talking about of being human. I did like it how you said, I don't believe in God, but I've got time for woowoo. You said you have a faith in the system of life begetting life, despite being unable to quantify it. I did love that because I'm getting a sense of this too, to be honest. Like, again, because I'm seeing so much of it. Where yeah, becoming part of the natural system as we're saying, or life begetting life, that regenerative baseline, that regenerative function of life, it wants to live.
Matthew 55:34
Yeah, I was just a thing recently and a biodynamics person came up and - I touch on it very, very briefly in the book - and she said, Well, how are you going to get lifeforce if you don't do your brews? Do you do any of these special biodynamic brews? And I'm like, no we don't. She said, well how are you going to get the lifeforce? My view is, there could well be some value in biodynamics, people who seem to get good results with it, that's great. There's virtually no science to back it up, which is I'm a bit more sciency based. But I also think that soils and ecosystems and all of that kind of predates humans. So I don't think when we had, you know, really deep topsoils, say 500,000 years ago, when when humans didn't exist, really in our current form, there was no one making a concoction to put on the soil. So I think there is a, if you want to call a life force, I think that that probably can exist in in a self sustaining ecosystem. And as land managers, it's our job to try to allow that to happen. If you believe in biodynamics, and that's a really good way for you fantastic, but I don't subscribe to that myself. But I also think my dad was a scientist, and he thought science would save the world. And it certainly didn't save him. He had meso and there was nothing we could do, you know, so one thread of asbestos in his lungs. And that's the end of that. But I think it's, I think it's a it's a bit of hubris, if we think that we can outsmart nature. Because we don't, we don't understand nature, we really don't. Like as we draw down more and more and more into the complexity of it, we understand how much we don't know. And so we have to kind of let nature do healing for us, or repair things or self sustain things for us, because we don't really understand it. But we can be managers in the sense of you know, we can direct traffic. So if we want human grade food, how do we get that out of a system? If we want fibre, how do we get that out of the system? If we want more wild ecosystem, how do we get that out of the system?
Matthew 55:36
Yeah, you know, I was so moved when you talked about soil as super organism, that it actually breathes. 25% of it is air and it actually breathes. And, and really, the way I've come to think about spirit is like that, that it's the inspiration. It's the breathing, and it's the mystery. So I think there's almost - people will use different words to go at that. But it makes me hark back even to the Gaia hypothesis. You know, you speak about science and Lovelock's breakthrough back then. And what a literal manifestation of that is - that literally the earth is this living organism, breathing living organism? And yeah, the ways we can conceptualize our stewardship of that, power to them.
Matthew 58:35
yeah, so that gaia is looking at it on a macro scale, a soil scientist put it to me you know, that you need to see soil or your garden or the ground beneath your feet as a single organism in a way because then you treat it differently. So we would never you would never just cut open your cow, I would never cut open my cow for no good reason. Why would I cut my cow open for no good reason. So you have to have a reason to do things. And you're gonna get rid of all the hair off the outside of your cow, just shave it or cut off its food source well no. Why would you do that? And so in some ways you're thinking that as a you know, this multiplicity of stuff that lives you know, on Earth and in Earth but also if you frame it - sometimes framing it as a single thing is easier because then it makes more sense to the human brain I guess.
Matthew 58:36
I think that's - and that is what brought to mind the Gaia hypothesis. The whole planet as the single living organism, but there it is, in a not at all abstract a form. Yeah, powerful stuff. Alright, Matthew, to wind us up. I feel like we almost don't need it but but I wonder if there's anything in your mind that, a parting word to listeners where they might take up the mantle of Yeah, I guess motivation for your writing the book, like what would you like to see people try and take on if it speaks to them?
Matthew 59:53
I think the most important thing is this beautiful human capacity for imagination. Because what happens in soil - like if you can see soil it's dying, you shouldn't be able to see it, it should be always covered with something. It's cut, it's dying, you know, doesn't talk. So. So what I would like is for people to re-envisage what soil is and does for us. And you can only do that through that wonderful, joyous human capacity for imagination.
Anthony 1:00:18
That's lovely. On that note, that's a perfect segue then. Do you remember we end with a piece of music?
Matthew 1:00:24
Yeah, I didn't think of one.
Anthony 1:00:26
You had a great one last time. You set a healthy benchmark.
Matthew 1:00:29
Yeah. Oh, gosh. Yes. I should have realized that we were going to be doing that. Yeah. No, I haven't got anything.
Anthony 1:00:40
Do you listen to music when you write?
Matthew 1:00:42
No, I don't listen to music a huge amount. Certainly not when I write. I can only listen to audiobooks in the car and podcasts in the car. I can't pay attention when I'm walking around the farm.
Anthony 1:00:53
Yeah, I know musicians who can't meditate with music because they just they see too much. Or hear too much, like you on the farm I guess.
Matthew 1:01:01
Yeah. I'll give you one. How can we dance when our beds are burning? I think it's a really good one because that looks at Australia culturally. But this also applies to you know, what we've done to the landscape in 200 plus years. It's midnight oil at their, I won't say their peak. But that suits my age - I'm a mid 50s man - went to school with the siblings of two of the people in midnight oil. This is - your listeners might not be interested in this but - So yeah, this guy Kingley Gifford, I can't remember his brother's name who was in the band. He came to school year 10. He goes and we're all listening to Duran Duran and you're too young to remember. But Duran Duran was very light pop band. And he came in. He said, Oh, can I put - we're at the discotheque wearing my brown cords and my jacket from Fossy's. And he puts he puts his record on, he goes my brother is in this band and he plays head injuries, which for a bunch of 14 year old, whatever we were, it was rubbish. We all hated it. absolutely hated. I went away for a while as an exchange student. I came back and I was like, Hey guys, Duran Duran and they all go, oh Jesus, no have you heard 10 to one? Midnight Oil. We've all moved on. I'm like Midnight Oil, don't we hate them? I should have gone in on the ground level.
Anthony 1:02:26
Well, that's right. They were on the cusp of a new wave of music at the time, it was totally groundbreaking. And then they broke ground again, with the indigenous connection, which was the powerful thing in the era that you've - the music you've cited here
Matthew 1:02:38
Yeah. And I think that when I think about our landscape, I often think about how much we've damaged it and ignored to our great tragedy and certainly an even greater tragedy to indigenous people but to our great tragedy as well, how to look after land better. You know, we've kind of ignored that for way too long.
Anthony 1:02:58
Yeah. Lovely track to go out on and you know, I'm seeing them next month. They're touring again.
Matthew 1:03:03
Really? That'd be the farewell wouldn't it?
Anthony 1:03:06
Yeah, well, it is. Yes. It'll be the last time they tour. Alright, Matthew, thanks a lot for speaking with me here.
Matthew 1:03:13
Pleasure. No worries.
Anthony 1:03:14
It's been brilliant. It's an incredible book and incredible thing, soil, isn't it? Wow. I'm convinced. I had no idea five years ago either. And so instructive to the potential that is literally at our fingertips.
Matthew 1:03:26
Yeah, right under our feet right now. Thanks Anthony.
Anthony 1:03:29
That was chef, farmer, TV presenter, and author, Matthew Evans. For more on Matthew, Soil and his other brilliant books, his home at fat pig farm, and my previous conversation on the podcast with Matthew, see the links in our program details. You can also find a few photos and a transcript on the episode webpage. Matthew went on to meet the WA Minister of Agriculture and Regional Development after we spoke too, for more promising conversation. And heads up, an updated version of the real food companion that Matthew mentioned, comes out in November. Thanks as always, to the generous supporters who have helped make this episode possible. If you're enjoying what you hear, please consider joining this community of supporting listeners so I can keep the podcast going. Just head to the website via the show notes RegenNarration.com/support. Thanks again. And if you feel like it, share this episode with someone you know who you think might like it. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden off the Regenerating Australia soundtrack. My name is Anthony James. Thanks for listening.
Find more:
On the book ‘Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy’.
Hear my previous conversation with Matthew on episode 60 ‘On Eating Meat’.
Music:
Regeneration, composed by Amelia Barden, from the soundtrack of the new film Regenerating Australia, available for community screenings now.