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Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, A New Earth
In Call of the Reed Warbler, Charles Massy explores regenerative agriculture and the vital connection between our soil and our health.
It is the story of how a grassroots revolution—a true underground insurgency—can save the planet, help reduce and reverse climate change, and build healthy people and healthy communities, pivoting significantly on our relationship with growing and consuming food.
Using his personal experience as a touchstone—from an unknowing, chemical-using farmer with dead soils to a radical ecologist farmer carefully regenerating a 2000-hectare property to a state of natural health—Massy tells the real story behind industrial agriculture and the global profit-obsessed corporations driving it. With evocative stories, he shows how other innovative and courageous farmers are finding a new way.
At stake is not only a revolution in human health and in our communities, but the very survival of the planet. For farmers, backyard gardeners, food buyers, health workers, policy makers, and public leaders alike, Call of the Reed Warbler offers a tangible path forward and a powerful and moving paean of hope.
It’s not too late to regenerate the earth. Call of the Reed Warbler shows the way forward for the future of our food supply, our planet, and our health.
505 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 13, 2017
About the author
Charles Massy
7 books15 followersCharles Massy gained a Bachelor of Science at Australian National University (ANU) in 1976 before going farming for 35 years and developing the prominent Merino sheep stud “Severn Park”. Concern at ongoing land degradation and humanity’s sustainability challenge led him to return to ANU in 2009 to undertake a PhD in Human Ecology. Charles was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his service as chair and director of a number of research organizations and statutory wool boards. He has also served on national and international review panels in sheep and wool research and development and genomics. Charles has authored several books on the Australian sheep industry, the most recent being the widely acclaimed Breaking the Sheep's Back, which was short-listed for the Prime Minister’s Australian Literary Awards in Australian History in 2012.
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October 15, 2024
A little too abstract, a little too wise
It is time for us to kiss the earth again.
Robinson Jeffers "Return"
To say this is a book about agriculture is like saying War and Peace is a book about battles. Paul Hawken's blurb calls it "the single most important book on agriculture today." Well-put. The sub-title is A New Agriculture A New Earth. Other books published years ago, like An Agricultural Testament will have had more influence than this, published 2017. I pray this new one will motivate and move more than any other has yet. Its size, good writing and wisdom make it now the Bible of "Regenerative Agriculture," to be read, taught and quoted by farmers and ecologists whose hearts are in soil.
This book is almost completely focused on Australia, but speaks to other countries and climes as well the dire message that in the last 250 years humans have been doing terrible harm to the living earth by ruining the ultra-ultra thin skin of the planet called soil.
Regenerative agriculture aims to repair that harm by sequestering carbon in soil and trees long-term. Doing so makes farmers' lives better, makes soil more resilient to unpredictable, tumultuous weather, adds to food security and quality, creates "negative emissions" of carbon dioxide and breaks the addiction to synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides that has turned farming in many places into a descending spiral.
The book has a lot of practical how-tos, but also prose poetry on animals that reminded me of Henry Beston in Herbs and the Earth and Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter; brief meditations, interviews with pioneers and a strong foundation in the literature of forestry and farming. Many of my personal favorite writers and teachers in these fields obviously influenced the writer and informed his thinking; Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, Allen Savory, Albert Howard are just five. Fred Provenza I've not read but mean to. Massy learned a lot from the indigenous people of Australia, who he argues knew much better than the colonials how to live on land without spoiling it. The chapter titles are lyrical and the epigraphs for each often worth noting for future use.
Personally, I could have happily read another hundred pages of this big book if they could have brought in even more ag history plus some more contemporary studies. George Washington Carver, for example, promoted organic fertilizers even before Robert Rodale as thrifty and effective. Carver wrote that "farmers should take advantage of the finest fertilizers going to waste all over the state in the form of decaying leaves of the forest and the rich sediment of the swamp, known as 'muck.'" [Tuskegee Experimental Station Bulletin no. 41 April 1936) Dr Carver was intent on helping farmers with little or no financial resources. Further back yet, in the 1890s, Robert Elliott in his [book:The Clifton Park System of Farming and Laying Down Land to Grass|36491010] had proved, in the words of Graham Harvey, "it was possible to make profits during lean times simply by rebuilding soil fertility. This was best done not by buying expensive 'chemicals' {Harvey's word] but by laying down a good turf."The Forgiveness of Nature: The Story of Grass. For contemporary work, the good section (319 ff) on the extraordinary benefits to soil of inoculating seed with compost tea could be gracefully complemented with more description of the process, pioneered by Prof David Johnson at New Mexico State University.
The book does not say that farmers will save the world or could if we wanted to enough. It has notes of sensible hope for humanity if we all act like loving sons and daughters of the soil.
End-note: terms like "organic farming," "regenerative agriculture." "biodynamic farming" "holistic planned management," "sustainable agriculture," "permaculture" would share space in a Venn diagram but are distinct from each other. "Regenerative," for example, does not have to be "organic" though it often is. Massy's book is mostly about regenerative agriculture but addresses the other practices.
It is time for us to kiss the earth again.
Robinson Jeffers "Return"
To say this is a book about agriculture is like saying War and Peace is a book about battles. Paul Hawken's blurb calls it "the single most important book on agriculture today." Well-put. The sub-title is A New Agriculture A New Earth. Other books published years ago, like An Agricultural Testament will have had more influence than this, published 2017. I pray this new one will motivate and move more than any other has yet. Its size, good writing and wisdom make it now the Bible of "Regenerative Agriculture," to be read, taught and quoted by farmers and ecologists whose hearts are in soil.
This book is almost completely focused on Australia, but speaks to other countries and climes as well the dire message that in the last 250 years humans have been doing terrible harm to the living earth by ruining the ultra-ultra thin skin of the planet called soil.
Regenerative agriculture aims to repair that harm by sequestering carbon in soil and trees long-term. Doing so makes farmers' lives better, makes soil more resilient to unpredictable, tumultuous weather, adds to food security and quality, creates "negative emissions" of carbon dioxide and breaks the addiction to synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides that has turned farming in many places into a descending spiral.
The book has a lot of practical how-tos, but also prose poetry on animals that reminded me of Henry Beston in Herbs and the Earth and Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter; brief meditations, interviews with pioneers and a strong foundation in the literature of forestry and farming. Many of my personal favorite writers and teachers in these fields obviously influenced the writer and informed his thinking; Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, Allen Savory, Albert Howard are just five. Fred Provenza I've not read but mean to. Massy learned a lot from the indigenous people of Australia, who he argues knew much better than the colonials how to live on land without spoiling it. The chapter titles are lyrical and the epigraphs for each often worth noting for future use.
Personally, I could have happily read another hundred pages of this big book if they could have brought in even more ag history plus some more contemporary studies. George Washington Carver, for example, promoted organic fertilizers even before Robert Rodale as thrifty and effective. Carver wrote that "farmers should take advantage of the finest fertilizers going to waste all over the state in the form of decaying leaves of the forest and the rich sediment of the swamp, known as 'muck.'" [Tuskegee Experimental Station Bulletin no. 41 April 1936) Dr Carver was intent on helping farmers with little or no financial resources. Further back yet, in the 1890s, Robert Elliott in his [book:The Clifton Park System of Farming and Laying Down Land to Grass|36491010] had proved, in the words of Graham Harvey, "it was possible to make profits during lean times simply by rebuilding soil fertility. This was best done not by buying expensive 'chemicals' {Harvey's word] but by laying down a good turf."The Forgiveness of Nature: The Story of Grass. For contemporary work, the good section (319 ff) on the extraordinary benefits to soil of inoculating seed with compost tea could be gracefully complemented with more description of the process, pioneered by Prof David Johnson at New Mexico State University.
The book does not say that farmers will save the world or could if we wanted to enough. It has notes of sensible hope for humanity if we all act like loving sons and daughters of the soil.
End-note: terms like "organic farming," "regenerative agriculture." "biodynamic farming" "holistic planned management," "sustainable agriculture," "permaculture" would share space in a Venn diagram but are distinct from each other. "Regenerative," for example, does not have to be "organic" though it often is. Massy's book is mostly about regenerative agriculture but addresses the other practices.
June 9, 2019
Charles Massy’s extraordinary book charts a lifetime of learning how—and why—to be a better farmer. As we hurtle into the Anthropocene, his call for land managers to develop greater “ecological literacy” is a voice we all need to heed. (“Ecological literacy means the ability to read a landscape: to appraise the state of its health and how it is functioning, and thus to know how to address any issues.” p. 55) Other reviewers have provided useful summaries of Massy’s arguments, so in what follows, I’m taking the liberty of describing my personal connection to his experiences.
In 1838, my maternal great-great grandfather pitched his tent on Mount Pleasant in an area of southern New South Wales that is known as the Monaro. His descendants spread out across the land, and many of them still live and work on farms that have been in their families since the nineteenth century. Massy’s family too have farmed the Monaro for generations; his mother, whose tragic story he tells, was my mother’s godmother.
In the process of settling on the Monaro, my mother’s family dispossessed the traditional owners of the country, the Ngarigo Aboriginal people, whose active management of the land they did not notice, let alone understand. Massy’s description of Aboriginal relationships to land that “linked people to ecosystems, rather than giving them dominion over them” (p. 23) is the most comprehensible I’ve ever read, and the story of what happened when the Ngarigo elder Rod Mason recognized (yes, recognized) the one surviving ancient kurrajong tree in Massy’s garden is deeply moving.
My mother’s family worked hard on their farms, and for a time in the 1950s there was sufficient money to be made from the merino sheep stud my grandfather established to generate a surplus: help was hired, my mother and aunt were educated at boarding school in Sydney, my grandparents took a lengthy trip to Europe. But by 1980 when my grandparents’ farm was sold, the land was dead. Not that I recognized that at the time, of course; it’s thanks to Massy’s book that I can see just how wrong everything had gone.
A few things were obvious even then: first, all of the paddocks that had been “supered,” i.e. fertilized with superphosphate, had sprouted impenetrable thickets of saffron thistle (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartham...) that neither cattle nor sheep would touch, and were thus unusable. The idea of applying superphosphate had been promoted by the CSIRO/Dept. of Agriculture, and the result on the Monaro was ecological catastrophe. Second, creek beds were badly eroded because the soil had lost the ability to retain moisture, leading to run-off when it rained. Third, there were no young trees. Fourth, there were no birds save the magpies, whose caroling is exquisitely beautiful and who survived, I suspect, because of their ability to scavenge dead and dying livestock. This was how it was; and I thought it was normal, how it had always been. It is heartbreaking to contemplate the damage done and all that has been lost.
And yet Massy’s book is full of hope. Each chapter introduces farmers—mostly Australian, but also some who farm marginal areas in South Africa and Zimbabwe—who have “thrown down a…radical challenge to the self-annihilating agenda of the dominant, growth-based, consumptive paradigm of modern industrialized global society” (p. 369) and successfully regenerated their land using a variety of different techniques that Massy discusses in detail. In the process they have transformed their communities and themselves.
Massy realizes that “we cannot return our landscapes to a state that existed before the invasion of the Europeans” (p. 444). Slowly, however, he has learned considerable ecological literacy, and as a consequence, his own farm thrives; his descriptions of the abundant life it brims with are poetic and affecting. Let me finish with one of them:
In 1838, my maternal great-great grandfather pitched his tent on Mount Pleasant in an area of southern New South Wales that is known as the Monaro. His descendants spread out across the land, and many of them still live and work on farms that have been in their families since the nineteenth century. Massy’s family too have farmed the Monaro for generations; his mother, whose tragic story he tells, was my mother’s godmother.
In the process of settling on the Monaro, my mother’s family dispossessed the traditional owners of the country, the Ngarigo Aboriginal people, whose active management of the land they did not notice, let alone understand. Massy’s description of Aboriginal relationships to land that “linked people to ecosystems, rather than giving them dominion over them” (p. 23) is the most comprehensible I’ve ever read, and the story of what happened when the Ngarigo elder Rod Mason recognized (yes, recognized) the one surviving ancient kurrajong tree in Massy’s garden is deeply moving.
My mother’s family worked hard on their farms, and for a time in the 1950s there was sufficient money to be made from the merino sheep stud my grandfather established to generate a surplus: help was hired, my mother and aunt were educated at boarding school in Sydney, my grandparents took a lengthy trip to Europe. But by 1980 when my grandparents’ farm was sold, the land was dead. Not that I recognized that at the time, of course; it’s thanks to Massy’s book that I can see just how wrong everything had gone.
A few things were obvious even then: first, all of the paddocks that had been “supered,” i.e. fertilized with superphosphate, had sprouted impenetrable thickets of saffron thistle (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartham...) that neither cattle nor sheep would touch, and were thus unusable. The idea of applying superphosphate had been promoted by the CSIRO/Dept. of Agriculture, and the result on the Monaro was ecological catastrophe. Second, creek beds were badly eroded because the soil had lost the ability to retain moisture, leading to run-off when it rained. Third, there were no young trees. Fourth, there were no birds save the magpies, whose caroling is exquisitely beautiful and who survived, I suspect, because of their ability to scavenge dead and dying livestock. This was how it was; and I thought it was normal, how it had always been. It is heartbreaking to contemplate the damage done and all that has been lost.
And yet Massy’s book is full of hope. Each chapter introduces farmers—mostly Australian, but also some who farm marginal areas in South Africa and Zimbabwe—who have “thrown down a…radical challenge to the self-annihilating agenda of the dominant, growth-based, consumptive paradigm of modern industrialized global society” (p. 369) and successfully regenerated their land using a variety of different techniques that Massy discusses in detail. In the process they have transformed their communities and themselves.
Massy realizes that “we cannot return our landscapes to a state that existed before the invasion of the Europeans” (p. 444). Slowly, however, he has learned considerable ecological literacy, and as a consequence, his own farm thrives; his descriptions of the abundant life it brims with are poetic and affecting. Let me finish with one of them:
As the days lengthened and light took on an intense spring shimmer, silver wattles were in flower, stippling gold across hillsides, mountain duck and wood duck had taken to tree nests, and crows and magpies called and squabbled as they busily raised broods. Up in our sheltered paddocks, lambing was in full swing, though at this time of pre-dawn the ewes had to share fresh pasture with a mix of kangaroos, walleroo, wallaby and the odd stolid wombat. (p. 356)There's an education here for all of us.
January 17, 2018
I didn't know I wanted to know everything about regenerative farming; turns out I did because this is actually about how humans exist within the environment, and this is the only real story; read this; cry and then be hopeful; give it to a farmer.
October 13, 2017
Great book and a celebration of so many Australian farmers I have met over the years who have helped define alternative approaches to agricultural landscape management. Like the way he does not advocate any particular model thereby allowing the reader to pick elements that are relevant to their interests, aspirations. landscapes and systems.
Regards our own agroforestry work (The Otway Agroforestry Network and Master TreeGrower program), which Charles celebrates (414-429) readers may be interested in my new book: "Heartwood:The art and science of conservation and profit" which was just published by Melbourne Books.
Regards our own agroforestry work (The Otway Agroforestry Network and Master TreeGrower program), which Charles celebrates (414-429) readers may be interested in my new book: "Heartwood:The art and science of conservation and profit" which was just published by Melbourne Books.
August 9, 2023
I should preface this by saying I enjoyed the book a lot and it certainly gave me some anecdotal evidence of sustainable agriculture in Australia.
Interestingly the first of Massy's companions in New England says he believes the Aboriginals may have overburnt the land. This small passing comment sits there completely ignored and unexplored. Massy early on stated that Bill Gammage's firestick theory from "The Greatest Estate" is correct and was the ideal way to manage the Australian ecosystem at the time and then he seeks to confirm his theories and never looks to disprove them. He also refuses to accept that introduced ruminant farming means that aboriginal land management doesn't encompass a complete solution.
The 5 land dynamics make pretty good sense, unfortunately Massy doesn't stick to the sections he puts so much effort into creating. I found the Solar dynamic which was the first one the least relatable to the topic and arguably all about water not sunlight. Perhaps the book would have been better structured as a quick review of the 5 dynamics and then each case study showing the examples. This may have been more boring for some but certainly would have stopped me trying to constantly figure out how it tied back to the main point, even knowing that it's all linked.
1. The Solar:
This section boiled down to two major things, the first being the need to constantly move animals across the land and not allow them to overgraze, with a subtext of keeping the herd large and closely clustered so as to get beneficial turnover and breakup of the ground. This was done several ways, one was to cut the land up into smaller sections and rotate more rapidly. Another was to move the cattle through herding and a temporary shelter errected each night, The idea of mimicking the predator led migrations that happened on the plains of Africa (Allan Savory's theories, you've probably seen that TED talk of his). This theory certainly makes sense from the land perspective and especially in Africa, but would have been interesting to see how it might be different in Australia where historically no large hoofed animals have conducted herding behaviour. I don't think the prehistoric megafauna were hoofed (certainly Diprotodons weren't) though they may have lived in herds. I got annoyed Massy didn't pay attention to the difference between countries. The second part of this section oddly dealt with the creation of a vast water system that created watering holes across an enormous Northern Territory farm. Mention was made of the Brahman cattle being used because the bulls don't mind herding and they don't mind an alpha, but I would have liked to hear more about their other adaptations to the drier land. This second part didn't really deal with solar but rather water.
2. The Water
The disagreements between Peter Andrews Natural Sequence Farming and Yeoman's Keyline Plan seem quite moot. Andrews Chain of ponds clearly breaks down on big estates particularly in more arid climates and his water lens seems to act the same way as Yeoman's water shedding from contoured earthworks.
Keyline - essentially about finding the keyline on a farm where convex becomes concave and all the water catches, the system is built around that point. Dams and irrigation channels are all related to that keyline and used to distribute it across the land. Water is the principle planning medium according to Percival Yeomans.
I feel there needed to be more exploration of how we know so little about water underground and how it makes sense to focus on that in Australia because the chance for evaporation is nil. He could have linked the above theories that way but didn't.
3. Soil
No Kill Cropping
1. Sewing dry. You have to sew seed when the soil is dry. If you do it when wet you give the upper hand to weeds
2. Straight disc implement (coulter disc). Less disturbance for the soil.
3. No fertiliser. Doesn't advantage introduced annuals
4. No chemicals or pesticides. Don't want to simplify the grassland
5. Don't change your grazing. Sew directly into grassland.
You can choose to graze a crop, go for a grain yield, or do both. Best year for a grain yield is when there's lots of rain. You always need to maintain complete ground cover at all time to stop erosion.
4. Dynamic Ecosystems
Then we meet the farmers of Connewarren. Only they aren't farmers. There's no talk of them actually farming the land. It seems to just be a landscape recovery program. No talk at all of the yields or returns as a financially viable farm.
Steiner's Biodynamicism - This is where things start to fray a little bit. I understand Massy's desire to consider every theory and idea with the same weight but when he gives the same credence to the Steiner theory of laying things in spirals to match the cosmos as he does to other theories it starts to get a bit silly. This would be the same as a medical text giving homeopathy the same credence as the use of penicillin.
5. Social-Human
The Machageartty's
- Use industrial style machinery but with organic fertiliser. Worm castings are turned into a fertiliser which is sprayed with seed, increasing growth and yield significantly.
- Unfortunately the cavalier way Massy talks of one family member using a dowsing pendant undermines his narrative.
- I was waiting for him to say that the Machageartty's drove past a paddock and knew it was healthy because of experience and having all that information compressed into a microsecond they can still see whether something is right or wrong. I wanted him to explore instincts and The "Blink" concept as such. But alas he just leaves it as is and believes they can read the cosmos in a blade of grass. I think instincts would have been great to explore, heading into the subconscious mind, and I was surprised he didn't.
Conclusion
This could have been a five star book. To get there it needed 150 pages chopped out and a serious restructure. The ideas in it are life-changing, world-changing even, unfortunately they are buried deep in the sediment of repetition, poor nature writing, and endless quotes. The worst part of the book is actually the end. Massy seems to have decided that every quote he's ever read needs to be jammed into the book. Unfortunately, it's not until page 450 when realises he's still got most of these quotes left and so starts chucking them in willy nilly. Just when we need a distillation and refinement of ideas, a conclusion, we get bombarded with more angles and views of the same material.
There are three main bugbears I have with this book. The first is the way Massy doesn't apply the same rigorous analysis to dowsing, biodynamicism, and come to Jesus moments as he does to industrial agriculture.
The second is the unexplored weaknesses of the new regenerative strategies.
The last is his construct of the organic, mechanical, and emergent mind. It seems to be a schema that suits him but isn't particularly well-defined. He deliberately uses mechanical instead of scientific to engender it as some sort of unfeeling and unnatural mind. It should also be pointed out that the mechanical mind can act in the same way as the emergent one, provided it's given the right data and information. It seems merely that this scientific mind is running in the wrong direction with incorrect information. It's incapable of looking at long-term data sources. For example, phosphates, nitrogen etc work on the short-term to increase yield on a paddock. That is scientifically proven and hence applied globally. If we increase the time scale to 10, 30 or 100 years the effects are drastically different. Certainly big business may try to cover this up but the seeking of the truth by the scientific mind will eventually figure it out. I don't disagree it may be too late by then but I think if you're going to claim weakness in the scientific approach then do it properly, attack the time scale that is needed to accurately test the outcomes and the inability to wait for these results e.g. glyphosates.
He's not a geneticist and so his various attempts at discussing epigenetics are monotonous and shallow.
Lastly, this idea of restoring the landscape to its natural state is a pretty tenuous concept when the whole purpose is to run introduced ruminant animals on it. There's no discussion of how introduced plant species are not the original landscape, nor are sheep or cows. I wouldn't have minded if he hadn't made such a deal out of imagining diprotodons roaming the land. I can see why he went light on Aboriginal material too because it doesn't fit with this cobbled together view of restoring function.
Interestingly the first of Massy's companions in New England says he believes the Aboriginals may have overburnt the land. This small passing comment sits there completely ignored and unexplored. Massy early on stated that Bill Gammage's firestick theory from "The Greatest Estate" is correct and was the ideal way to manage the Australian ecosystem at the time and then he seeks to confirm his theories and never looks to disprove them. He also refuses to accept that introduced ruminant farming means that aboriginal land management doesn't encompass a complete solution.
The 5 land dynamics make pretty good sense, unfortunately Massy doesn't stick to the sections he puts so much effort into creating. I found the Solar dynamic which was the first one the least relatable to the topic and arguably all about water not sunlight. Perhaps the book would have been better structured as a quick review of the 5 dynamics and then each case study showing the examples. This may have been more boring for some but certainly would have stopped me trying to constantly figure out how it tied back to the main point, even knowing that it's all linked.
1. The Solar:
This section boiled down to two major things, the first being the need to constantly move animals across the land and not allow them to overgraze, with a subtext of keeping the herd large and closely clustered so as to get beneficial turnover and breakup of the ground. This was done several ways, one was to cut the land up into smaller sections and rotate more rapidly. Another was to move the cattle through herding and a temporary shelter errected each night, The idea of mimicking the predator led migrations that happened on the plains of Africa (Allan Savory's theories, you've probably seen that TED talk of his). This theory certainly makes sense from the land perspective and especially in Africa, but would have been interesting to see how it might be different in Australia where historically no large hoofed animals have conducted herding behaviour. I don't think the prehistoric megafauna were hoofed (certainly Diprotodons weren't) though they may have lived in herds. I got annoyed Massy didn't pay attention to the difference between countries. The second part of this section oddly dealt with the creation of a vast water system that created watering holes across an enormous Northern Territory farm. Mention was made of the Brahman cattle being used because the bulls don't mind herding and they don't mind an alpha, but I would have liked to hear more about their other adaptations to the drier land. This second part didn't really deal with solar but rather water.
2. The Water
The disagreements between Peter Andrews Natural Sequence Farming and Yeoman's Keyline Plan seem quite moot. Andrews Chain of ponds clearly breaks down on big estates particularly in more arid climates and his water lens seems to act the same way as Yeoman's water shedding from contoured earthworks.
Keyline - essentially about finding the keyline on a farm where convex becomes concave and all the water catches, the system is built around that point. Dams and irrigation channels are all related to that keyline and used to distribute it across the land. Water is the principle planning medium according to Percival Yeomans.
I feel there needed to be more exploration of how we know so little about water underground and how it makes sense to focus on that in Australia because the chance for evaporation is nil. He could have linked the above theories that way but didn't.
3. Soil
No Kill Cropping
1. Sewing dry. You have to sew seed when the soil is dry. If you do it when wet you give the upper hand to weeds
2. Straight disc implement (coulter disc). Less disturbance for the soil.
3. No fertiliser. Doesn't advantage introduced annuals
4. No chemicals or pesticides. Don't want to simplify the grassland
5. Don't change your grazing. Sew directly into grassland.
You can choose to graze a crop, go for a grain yield, or do both. Best year for a grain yield is when there's lots of rain. You always need to maintain complete ground cover at all time to stop erosion.
4. Dynamic Ecosystems
Then we meet the farmers of Connewarren. Only they aren't farmers. There's no talk of them actually farming the land. It seems to just be a landscape recovery program. No talk at all of the yields or returns as a financially viable farm.
Steiner's Biodynamicism - This is where things start to fray a little bit. I understand Massy's desire to consider every theory and idea with the same weight but when he gives the same credence to the Steiner theory of laying things in spirals to match the cosmos as he does to other theories it starts to get a bit silly. This would be the same as a medical text giving homeopathy the same credence as the use of penicillin.
5. Social-Human
The Machageartty's
- Use industrial style machinery but with organic fertiliser. Worm castings are turned into a fertiliser which is sprayed with seed, increasing growth and yield significantly.
- Unfortunately the cavalier way Massy talks of one family member using a dowsing pendant undermines his narrative.
- I was waiting for him to say that the Machageartty's drove past a paddock and knew it was healthy because of experience and having all that information compressed into a microsecond they can still see whether something is right or wrong. I wanted him to explore instincts and The "Blink" concept as such. But alas he just leaves it as is and believes they can read the cosmos in a blade of grass. I think instincts would have been great to explore, heading into the subconscious mind, and I was surprised he didn't.
Conclusion
This could have been a five star book. To get there it needed 150 pages chopped out and a serious restructure. The ideas in it are life-changing, world-changing even, unfortunately they are buried deep in the sediment of repetition, poor nature writing, and endless quotes. The worst part of the book is actually the end. Massy seems to have decided that every quote he's ever read needs to be jammed into the book. Unfortunately, it's not until page 450 when realises he's still got most of these quotes left and so starts chucking them in willy nilly. Just when we need a distillation and refinement of ideas, a conclusion, we get bombarded with more angles and views of the same material.
There are three main bugbears I have with this book. The first is the way Massy doesn't apply the same rigorous analysis to dowsing, biodynamicism, and come to Jesus moments as he does to industrial agriculture.
The second is the unexplored weaknesses of the new regenerative strategies.
The last is his construct of the organic, mechanical, and emergent mind. It seems to be a schema that suits him but isn't particularly well-defined. He deliberately uses mechanical instead of scientific to engender it as some sort of unfeeling and unnatural mind. It should also be pointed out that the mechanical mind can act in the same way as the emergent one, provided it's given the right data and information. It seems merely that this scientific mind is running in the wrong direction with incorrect information. It's incapable of looking at long-term data sources. For example, phosphates, nitrogen etc work on the short-term to increase yield on a paddock. That is scientifically proven and hence applied globally. If we increase the time scale to 10, 30 or 100 years the effects are drastically different. Certainly big business may try to cover this up but the seeking of the truth by the scientific mind will eventually figure it out. I don't disagree it may be too late by then but I think if you're going to claim weakness in the scientific approach then do it properly, attack the time scale that is needed to accurately test the outcomes and the inability to wait for these results e.g. glyphosates.
He's not a geneticist and so his various attempts at discussing epigenetics are monotonous and shallow.
Lastly, this idea of restoring the landscape to its natural state is a pretty tenuous concept when the whole purpose is to run introduced ruminant animals on it. There's no discussion of how introduced plant species are not the original landscape, nor are sheep or cows. I wouldn't have minded if he hadn't made such a deal out of imagining diprotodons roaming the land. I can see why he went light on Aboriginal material too because it doesn't fit with this cobbled together view of restoring function.
January 9, 2019
Charles Massy takes the reader on a meandering route through seemingly endless case studies of sustainable agricultural practice, mostly in Australia, in the manner of an aimless road trip or a sightseeing wander around a diverse farm. In fact, each chapter begins with him describing a bit about a particular trip to visit an inspirational agricultural innovator, or a walk through his back paddocks, before launching into the substantive matter of the chapter. It's a slow way to tell a story but the book is worth reading as an introduction to many of the ideas available for making agriculture more sustainable, and the slow style is nevertheless readable and enjoyable.
This is a book of hope. Were I to rate it for the central premise, of making agriculture contribute to healing the world and ourselves, I'd give it five stars. Instead I gave it 3.5, rounded down to 3 (no half stars allowed on Goodreads) because most other reviewers rated it so highly and I think it deserves a critical review. Critical, because it's important, and influential, and deserves to be considered carefully -- not because it should be ignored or written off.
The author's "five landscape dynamics" are a great tool for understanding landscape function and interconnectedness: solar energy harvesting, the water cycle, the soil-mineral cycle, diverse ecosystems, and the human-social dimension. Rather than an academic treatise on each (which I am tempted to say would be better, but would not make a popularly accessible book) Massy gives us a few case studies. These are interesting in their own right, but not well focused - often they seem to be demonstrating another landscape dynamic, or several, apart from the one supposedly in focus.
I started out thinking this would be one of those books where livestock farming is the answer, and everything else is a question designed to give that answer. Well, it sort of is and sort of isn't. Other kinds of agriculture (cropping, agroforestry) are covered, but he emphasises the need for animals as part of agriculture and part of our diet. On the former I have no general dispute; on the latter I'm ambivalent. He even provides a scientific reference for the case that hard-hooved animals are not a major problem in Australia, news to many of us (poor management including overstocking and set stocking, he explains, is the real cause of the huge detrimental impact of livestock farming).
I am a little unconvinced, and here is where a dry scientific treatise might be better for a skeptic like me. I'd like to know the actual quantities of extra carbon sequestered in the soil of healthy cow paddocks, for example, to compare to the actual quantities of methane created by the digestive systems of those same cows. Previously when I worked at think-tank Beyond Zero Emissions, our researchers had a stab at quantifying these kinds of things, and I got the feeling that while soil carbon is good, it's fickle and hard to quantify or guarantee in the long term - whereas methane from ruminants is fairly well guaranteed, and has a direct and obvious effect on global warming.
At the same time, Massy has a second theme, which he puts as the conflict between the "mechanical" mind of Cartesian duality and capitalist industrialism, versus the older, more sustainable "organic" mind of indigenous peoples, ecology, and the attempts at sustainable agriculture he uses as examples for the bulk of his text. Massy posits a synthesis, or a transcendence of these views (very dialectical; but I don't think he's a Hegelian or a Marxist). He calls the new viewpoint that is needed the "emergent" mind, using the concept of emergent properties in complex systems - properties and outcomes of the system that cannot be found in the individual elements of it. And so his hopeful message goes beyond the practicalities of regenerative agriculture as a way to sequester carbon, support biodiversity, end nutrient run-off, make healthier food, and so on.
Massy presents his new "emergent" mind as a solution that will be born out of the multi-faceted ecological crisis that is the anthropocene, as will a sustainable, regenerative agriculture - if the option is there as a clear alternative when the anthropocene crisis reaches breaking point for enough people. It will presage a new way of appreciating our part in nature and finding the emergent properties of nature, if I am paraphrasing correctly
This is all well and good, but a little nebulous. His philosophical and ecological readings are impressively diverse. However, the conclusion of the book is where the meandering breaks down. I was hoping for a return to the five landscape dynamics, a recapitulation and a bringing together of all the roads the book took us down. I'm not convinced the vision of the emergent mind does that. I was looking for something more practical, and the concluding chapters were neither concise and focused, nor especially practical.
There were bits where I think the book was technically wrong. A discussion of the differences between primary and secondary compounds in plant biochemistry (and their importance to the plant) really fumbled the distinction, leaving it quite unclear what was meant. Fortunately this didn't seem to damage the overall discussion but it is frustrating. A lot of the case studies concerned concepts, and sometimes stories, that I was already quite familiar with; I hope that readers who are less familiar don't find these hard to follow as I would have with the plant biochemistry aside (had I not a degree in botany).
In the final, somewhat confused chapters, Massy goes into the problems for human health caused by industrial agriculture - including surveys of the problems with limited diet, poor gut microbial health and diversity, herbicides on food (glyphosate) and so on. In this, as in a number of other discussion in the book, there is just too much assertion, not enough qualification, and most of all, not enough references. It's a new and rapidly changing area of scientific investigation, also hotly contested by those with great power in industrial agriculture (such as the manufacturers of glyphosate). A less politically charged, but more detailed account, such as Tim Spector's "The Diet Myth" might be a better introduction to many of the themes here.
There are other questions I have. Massy talks a lot about his happiness at seeing the return of native grasses and wildflowers and wildlife on ecologically managed properties such as his own. At the same time, he cites examples (Peter Andrews, permaculture) that exhort the use of invasive weeds such as willows and thistles, rather than their eradication. He talks about holistic grazing methods massively increasing the biomass and diversity of plant species in paddocks, which is great - but local diversity can include common worldwide species, or it can be comprised of local endemics. At one point he declares the satisfaction of seeing Phalaris establishing in a paddock. This robust grass is useful to livestock farmers, but a menace when it is invading native ecosystems in Australia.
Overall I like the hope expressed in the message that we can restore and heal the earth by better understanding its natural cycles (and our place in, not above, them). There are many inspiring examples, and no doubt many points for interested farmers to begin deeper inquiries. The meandering examples could be skimmed or skipped if the reader begins to tire, but the structure seems in keeping with the topic (agriculture exists on diverse landscapes that also meander themselves).
This is a book of hope. Were I to rate it for the central premise, of making agriculture contribute to healing the world and ourselves, I'd give it five stars. Instead I gave it 3.5, rounded down to 3 (no half stars allowed on Goodreads) because most other reviewers rated it so highly and I think it deserves a critical review. Critical, because it's important, and influential, and deserves to be considered carefully -- not because it should be ignored or written off.
The author's "five landscape dynamics" are a great tool for understanding landscape function and interconnectedness: solar energy harvesting, the water cycle, the soil-mineral cycle, diverse ecosystems, and the human-social dimension. Rather than an academic treatise on each (which I am tempted to say would be better, but would not make a popularly accessible book) Massy gives us a few case studies. These are interesting in their own right, but not well focused - often they seem to be demonstrating another landscape dynamic, or several, apart from the one supposedly in focus.
I started out thinking this would be one of those books where livestock farming is the answer, and everything else is a question designed to give that answer. Well, it sort of is and sort of isn't. Other kinds of agriculture (cropping, agroforestry) are covered, but he emphasises the need for animals as part of agriculture and part of our diet. On the former I have no general dispute; on the latter I'm ambivalent. He even provides a scientific reference for the case that hard-hooved animals are not a major problem in Australia, news to many of us (poor management including overstocking and set stocking, he explains, is the real cause of the huge detrimental impact of livestock farming).
I am a little unconvinced, and here is where a dry scientific treatise might be better for a skeptic like me. I'd like to know the actual quantities of extra carbon sequestered in the soil of healthy cow paddocks, for example, to compare to the actual quantities of methane created by the digestive systems of those same cows. Previously when I worked at think-tank Beyond Zero Emissions, our researchers had a stab at quantifying these kinds of things, and I got the feeling that while soil carbon is good, it's fickle and hard to quantify or guarantee in the long term - whereas methane from ruminants is fairly well guaranteed, and has a direct and obvious effect on global warming.
At the same time, Massy has a second theme, which he puts as the conflict between the "mechanical" mind of Cartesian duality and capitalist industrialism, versus the older, more sustainable "organic" mind of indigenous peoples, ecology, and the attempts at sustainable agriculture he uses as examples for the bulk of his text. Massy posits a synthesis, or a transcendence of these views (very dialectical; but I don't think he's a Hegelian or a Marxist). He calls the new viewpoint that is needed the "emergent" mind, using the concept of emergent properties in complex systems - properties and outcomes of the system that cannot be found in the individual elements of it. And so his hopeful message goes beyond the practicalities of regenerative agriculture as a way to sequester carbon, support biodiversity, end nutrient run-off, make healthier food, and so on.
Massy presents his new "emergent" mind as a solution that will be born out of the multi-faceted ecological crisis that is the anthropocene, as will a sustainable, regenerative agriculture - if the option is there as a clear alternative when the anthropocene crisis reaches breaking point for enough people. It will presage a new way of appreciating our part in nature and finding the emergent properties of nature, if I am paraphrasing correctly
This is all well and good, but a little nebulous. His philosophical and ecological readings are impressively diverse. However, the conclusion of the book is where the meandering breaks down. I was hoping for a return to the five landscape dynamics, a recapitulation and a bringing together of all the roads the book took us down. I'm not convinced the vision of the emergent mind does that. I was looking for something more practical, and the concluding chapters were neither concise and focused, nor especially practical.
There were bits where I think the book was technically wrong. A discussion of the differences between primary and secondary compounds in plant biochemistry (and their importance to the plant) really fumbled the distinction, leaving it quite unclear what was meant. Fortunately this didn't seem to damage the overall discussion but it is frustrating. A lot of the case studies concerned concepts, and sometimes stories, that I was already quite familiar with; I hope that readers who are less familiar don't find these hard to follow as I would have with the plant biochemistry aside (had I not a degree in botany).
In the final, somewhat confused chapters, Massy goes into the problems for human health caused by industrial agriculture - including surveys of the problems with limited diet, poor gut microbial health and diversity, herbicides on food (glyphosate) and so on. In this, as in a number of other discussion in the book, there is just too much assertion, not enough qualification, and most of all, not enough references. It's a new and rapidly changing area of scientific investigation, also hotly contested by those with great power in industrial agriculture (such as the manufacturers of glyphosate). A less politically charged, but more detailed account, such as Tim Spector's "The Diet Myth" might be a better introduction to many of the themes here.
There are other questions I have. Massy talks a lot about his happiness at seeing the return of native grasses and wildflowers and wildlife on ecologically managed properties such as his own. At the same time, he cites examples (Peter Andrews, permaculture) that exhort the use of invasive weeds such as willows and thistles, rather than their eradication. He talks about holistic grazing methods massively increasing the biomass and diversity of plant species in paddocks, which is great - but local diversity can include common worldwide species, or it can be comprised of local endemics. At one point he declares the satisfaction of seeing Phalaris establishing in a paddock. This robust grass is useful to livestock farmers, but a menace when it is invading native ecosystems in Australia.
Overall I like the hope expressed in the message that we can restore and heal the earth by better understanding its natural cycles (and our place in, not above, them). There are many inspiring examples, and no doubt many points for interested farmers to begin deeper inquiries. The meandering examples could be skimmed or skipped if the reader begins to tire, but the structure seems in keeping with the topic (agriculture exists on diverse landscapes that also meander themselves).
June 26, 2023
This book popped up when I was researching some details about regenerative farming. It sounded like a good grounding on the topic. I learned a surprising amount of things about Australia. Well, considering how little I really know about Australia, maybe not so surprising after all.
In the early chapters it gives good and detailed explanations of the key principles of regenerative agriculture (see below). This unfortunately is bogged down by too many anecdotes, superficial case studies, quotes and repetition. Later chapters are also really drawn out and seem to endlessly go through the same material, without adding anything to the overall picture. Ultimately it’s too dry, too long and boring. I started skimming at some point and put it down for long stretches of time. Endless stories of other farmers, their biographies and his relationship with them. I enjoyed some and initially they were a great vehicle to explain general and regenerative farming principles, but the name dropping gets boring, as it doesn‘t add anything substantial to the topic.
I would have preferred a cleaner structure with more to the point writing, less repetition leading to a shorter book and definitely fewer anecdotes.
I find it curious that the author does not talk about animal welfare in more depth, being a sheep farmer himself. Especially in Australia with its mulesing practices he must be willfully tuning out that topic. I think I heard the word „mulesing“ once, but he did not elaborate at all, besides saying that so-and-do didn‘t need to do it, as they have more resilient sheep.
Overview of Part II of the book, aka the key principles of regenerative farming:
(Regenerating the Five Landscape Functions)
Regenerating the Solar-Energy Function
Regenerating the Water Cycle
Regenerating the Soil-Mineral Cycle
Regenerating Dynamic Ecosystems
Regenerating the Landscape: Role of the Human–Social
In the early chapters it gives good and detailed explanations of the key principles of regenerative agriculture (see below). This unfortunately is bogged down by too many anecdotes, superficial case studies, quotes and repetition. Later chapters are also really drawn out and seem to endlessly go through the same material, without adding anything to the overall picture. Ultimately it’s too dry, too long and boring. I started skimming at some point and put it down for long stretches of time. Endless stories of other farmers, their biographies and his relationship with them. I enjoyed some and initially they were a great vehicle to explain general and regenerative farming principles, but the name dropping gets boring, as it doesn‘t add anything substantial to the topic.
I would have preferred a cleaner structure with more to the point writing, less repetition leading to a shorter book and definitely fewer anecdotes.
I find it curious that the author does not talk about animal welfare in more depth, being a sheep farmer himself. Especially in Australia with its mulesing practices he must be willfully tuning out that topic. I think I heard the word „mulesing“ once, but he did not elaborate at all, besides saying that so-and-do didn‘t need to do it, as they have more resilient sheep.
Overview of Part II of the book, aka the key principles of regenerative farming:
(Regenerating the Five Landscape Functions)
Regenerating the Solar-Energy Function
Regenerating the Water Cycle
Regenerating the Soil-Mineral Cycle
Regenerating Dynamic Ecosystems
Regenerating the Landscape: Role of the Human–Social
March 17, 2022
For anyone feeling despair, there is hope...just finished Charles Massy's 'Call of the Reed Warbler', a wonderful synthesis/overview of the work of many people I admire (and lots I hadn't known about) who are working to regenerate the soil/earth. Although it's a bit short on detail and grazier/farmer centric, it's a book brimming with inspiration and quiet, tenacious intelligence.
March 30, 2018
Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture - A New Earth by Charles Massy is an inspirational, timely and significant book about one of the most important subjects facing the world. How are we going to feed the world’s growing population within ecological limits and regenerate degraded landscapes?
Charles Massy’s life experience and expertise make him ideally equipped to address this issue. He is a 5th generation Australian sheep farmer, scientist, and, as the book demonstrates, a gifted and evocative writer.
The book covers a lot ground but its key message is that the current industrial approach to agriculture, predicated on the notion that man should dominate nature, is unsustainable. This approach is degrading landscapes and soils, critically impairing their capacity to deliver ecological function and long term agricultural productivity. It requires high levels of fertilisers, chemicals and fossil fuels which leads to resource depletion, growing carbon emissions and farmers being increasingly dependent on suppliers of these inputs. It can also have deleterious impacts on human health.
The author illustrates, through multiple case studies, that alternative and viable agricultural approaches are being adopted which regenerate ecological function. These case studies cover a wide variety of practices and techniques, geographies and farming enterprises.
The technical aspects of the case studies are very interesting and informative. However, what really sets the book apart is its description of the cultural, philosophical and social factors that will be critical to determining whether there will be a successful, wide-scale transition to regenerative agriculture. The most perceptive and important insights from the book for me were:
• The need to combine scientific rationality and technological progress with ecological literacy. The book recognises (and, in fact, celebrates) the critical role of scientific method and rationality, and does not suggest that we should seek to abandon technological progress and innovation. Rather, it explains that the development of industrial agriculture (and industrialisation more generally) took place in a time when there was limited ecological understanding and literacy. Consequently, industrial agriculture’s methods and practices were adopted without awareness of their environmental impact. What is now required is an ecologically literate approach to harnessing technology and scientific method.
• Soils needs to be understood biologically. This a manifestation of the broader point about ecological literacy. “Soil” is comprised of a highly complex and dynamic set of living organisms, and its health depends on the vitality and balance of this biology. However, industrial agriculture has not traditionally focused on optimising the biological health of soils. Rather, there has traditionally been a more reductionist, chemical approach which has manifested in the extensive use of artificial fertilisers to support agricultural production.
• Social, personal and cultural barriers to change. Farmers face significant financial and technical risks in moving from traditional agricultural to more regenerative approaches. However, it is actually cultural norms, social pressure and personal identity that commonly present more profound barriers to change. In particular, deciding to transition to regenerative approaches requires farmers to break with practices and philosophies that are deeply ingrained in their personal, family and community identities and traditions, and to run the risk social opprobrium in what are often small communities. Interestingly, most of the farmers profiled in the book who have moved to regenerative approaches have experienced a personal or financial crisis or challenge that has acted as a catalyst for their decision to change.
• The importance of networks of support. Given the extent of the technical, social and cultural barriers to change, establishing networks and communities of practice to provide mutual support is critical to enabling farmers to transition to regenerative approaches.
So what does this mean for non-farmers, including myself.
• We need to understand and recognise the critical role of farmers in supporting the ecological health of the Earth, and empathise with the challenges they face in this context.
• We need to support farmers adopting regenerative practices. For example, purchasing their produce or supporting organisations that assist in facilitating regenerative practices.
• Adopting ecologically literate approaches in our own gardens, or supporting these approaches in our communities (this will be discussed further in a future post).
• Making lifestyle choices that will mitigate the demands we make of farmers – see previous post about moving to a largely vegetarian diet.
I hope Call of the Reed Warbler garners the readership, influence and profile it deserves.
Charles Massy’s life experience and expertise make him ideally equipped to address this issue. He is a 5th generation Australian sheep farmer, scientist, and, as the book demonstrates, a gifted and evocative writer.
The book covers a lot ground but its key message is that the current industrial approach to agriculture, predicated on the notion that man should dominate nature, is unsustainable. This approach is degrading landscapes and soils, critically impairing their capacity to deliver ecological function and long term agricultural productivity. It requires high levels of fertilisers, chemicals and fossil fuels which leads to resource depletion, growing carbon emissions and farmers being increasingly dependent on suppliers of these inputs. It can also have deleterious impacts on human health.
The author illustrates, through multiple case studies, that alternative and viable agricultural approaches are being adopted which regenerate ecological function. These case studies cover a wide variety of practices and techniques, geographies and farming enterprises.
The technical aspects of the case studies are very interesting and informative. However, what really sets the book apart is its description of the cultural, philosophical and social factors that will be critical to determining whether there will be a successful, wide-scale transition to regenerative agriculture. The most perceptive and important insights from the book for me were:
• The need to combine scientific rationality and technological progress with ecological literacy. The book recognises (and, in fact, celebrates) the critical role of scientific method and rationality, and does not suggest that we should seek to abandon technological progress and innovation. Rather, it explains that the development of industrial agriculture (and industrialisation more generally) took place in a time when there was limited ecological understanding and literacy. Consequently, industrial agriculture’s methods and practices were adopted without awareness of their environmental impact. What is now required is an ecologically literate approach to harnessing technology and scientific method.
• Soils needs to be understood biologically. This a manifestation of the broader point about ecological literacy. “Soil” is comprised of a highly complex and dynamic set of living organisms, and its health depends on the vitality and balance of this biology. However, industrial agriculture has not traditionally focused on optimising the biological health of soils. Rather, there has traditionally been a more reductionist, chemical approach which has manifested in the extensive use of artificial fertilisers to support agricultural production.
• Social, personal and cultural barriers to change. Farmers face significant financial and technical risks in moving from traditional agricultural to more regenerative approaches. However, it is actually cultural norms, social pressure and personal identity that commonly present more profound barriers to change. In particular, deciding to transition to regenerative approaches requires farmers to break with practices and philosophies that are deeply ingrained in their personal, family and community identities and traditions, and to run the risk social opprobrium in what are often small communities. Interestingly, most of the farmers profiled in the book who have moved to regenerative approaches have experienced a personal or financial crisis or challenge that has acted as a catalyst for their decision to change.
• The importance of networks of support. Given the extent of the technical, social and cultural barriers to change, establishing networks and communities of practice to provide mutual support is critical to enabling farmers to transition to regenerative approaches.
So what does this mean for non-farmers, including myself.
• We need to understand and recognise the critical role of farmers in supporting the ecological health of the Earth, and empathise with the challenges they face in this context.
• We need to support farmers adopting regenerative practices. For example, purchasing their produce or supporting organisations that assist in facilitating regenerative practices.
• Adopting ecologically literate approaches in our own gardens, or supporting these approaches in our communities (this will be discussed further in a future post).
• Making lifestyle choices that will mitigate the demands we make of farmers – see previous post about moving to a largely vegetarian diet.
I hope Call of the Reed Warbler garners the readership, influence and profile it deserves.
February 6, 2018
Call of the Reed Warbler is absolutely breathtaking. In scope. In detail. In its vision of a new form of agriculture, a new world.
An article I read recently dovetails neatly with Charles Massy's vision—it included the important observation that climate change is a symptom, and should be treated as such. Efforts to address climate change, therefore, are likely to often be misguided, even counter-productive at times (see REDD++ schemes), and any initiatives which don't address the underlying causes of climate change are most likely doomed to fail.
What Massy has given us here is firstly a powerful recognition of those underlying causes, the break between industrial and post-industrial society, and the natural world in which society exists. Secondly, it is repository of stories. Of farmers (not conservationists, not greenies or urban intellectuals) who have thrown off the industrial structures and 'wisdoms' which have been ravaging the Earth for decades. Thirdly, it is a way forward (or, probably better, he has communicated a onward path which many farmers have been treading for many hard years). Finally, for me at least, it is a meticulous and thorough research, a gold mine of references, readings, and ideas, which will be warming many a cold night over the months and years to come.
I've come to a little patch of land in middle-age. Daunted by learning new skills, new ideas, the land itself a mystery, grass simply grass, without natives, perennials, annuals, exotics. I don't even have the language yet to talk about this plot, but I've come here inspired by ideas like Food Sovereignty, La Via Campesina, regenerative agriculture. Massy's descriptions of the land to which he is custodian is familiar and also strange. The country is different, sure. A couple of hundred kilometres and a thousand feet or more of altitude different. But the strangeness comes in the familiarity of wildlife, trees, grasses, but told in a much richer language. I look out at the land I'm writing this on, and I don't (yet) see that richness, that life.
But it's seeing the world, the land, through those eyes which is the most powerful element of Call of the Reed Warbler. Massy's key message is that everything in the landscape is linked. Co-evolved. Forming a vast network, which organises itself, supports itself, and all the life which lives within it. That vision, that ability to see and evoke the complex, healthy life of the land, really brings everything else in the book to life.
This is one of those "everyone should read it" books. At times, it's a little dense. It's clearly written for farmers, by a farmer, and so there's occasionally some jargon which is a bit more difficult to understand. But for the most part the reading is rewarding, the stories are fascinating, and the picture Massy draws of our existing food and agriculture systems, alongside something we might strive to achieve, is compelling.
An article I read recently dovetails neatly with Charles Massy's vision—it included the important observation that climate change is a symptom, and should be treated as such. Efforts to address climate change, therefore, are likely to often be misguided, even counter-productive at times (see REDD++ schemes), and any initiatives which don't address the underlying causes of climate change are most likely doomed to fail.
What Massy has given us here is firstly a powerful recognition of those underlying causes, the break between industrial and post-industrial society, and the natural world in which society exists. Secondly, it is repository of stories. Of farmers (not conservationists, not greenies or urban intellectuals) who have thrown off the industrial structures and 'wisdoms' which have been ravaging the Earth for decades. Thirdly, it is a way forward (or, probably better, he has communicated a onward path which many farmers have been treading for many hard years). Finally, for me at least, it is a meticulous and thorough research, a gold mine of references, readings, and ideas, which will be warming many a cold night over the months and years to come.
I've come to a little patch of land in middle-age. Daunted by learning new skills, new ideas, the land itself a mystery, grass simply grass, without natives, perennials, annuals, exotics. I don't even have the language yet to talk about this plot, but I've come here inspired by ideas like Food Sovereignty, La Via Campesina, regenerative agriculture. Massy's descriptions of the land to which he is custodian is familiar and also strange. The country is different, sure. A couple of hundred kilometres and a thousand feet or more of altitude different. But the strangeness comes in the familiarity of wildlife, trees, grasses, but told in a much richer language. I look out at the land I'm writing this on, and I don't (yet) see that richness, that life.
But it's seeing the world, the land, through those eyes which is the most powerful element of Call of the Reed Warbler. Massy's key message is that everything in the landscape is linked. Co-evolved. Forming a vast network, which organises itself, supports itself, and all the life which lives within it. That vision, that ability to see and evoke the complex, healthy life of the land, really brings everything else in the book to life.
This is one of those "everyone should read it" books. At times, it's a little dense. It's clearly written for farmers, by a farmer, and so there's occasionally some jargon which is a bit more difficult to understand. But for the most part the reading is rewarding, the stories are fascinating, and the picture Massy draws of our existing food and agriculture systems, alongside something we might strive to achieve, is compelling.
October 28, 2017
An incredibly informative and well written book that EVERY farmer, every person really, should read. Not only does Massy prove - via many case studies across Australia - that regenerative agriculture CAN succeed over huge expanses and CAN feed the world, but he shows that there are many ways to achieve this change from industrial (pesticide ridden monocultures) to regenerative (soil restoring, organic) farming. He offers hope in an increasingly hopeless time. I cannot emphasise the importance of this book enough and I feel like buying a few copies and handing them out to local farmers - maybe I will.
November 10, 2019
A bit dense for an argiculturally layperson like myself, but nonetheless an insightful read on what farming could and should look like. Particularly relevant given the current drought
March 9, 2023
This was a really interesting read. It didn't contain a multitude of mind numbing facts about agricultural and animal husbandry practices. It is really recounting a journey from simplistic management of the land revolving around simply inputs and outputs to more integrated practices. The author also gives a glimpse of other's journey on this path. In Massy's mind the whole is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts. As a result, many on these journeys reveal a greater connectedness with the land the other living beings with whom they share it. Interestingly, many of them, the author included also found a much greater appreciation of the management of the land by First Nations peoples.
It didn't give me any great tips for how to manage my garden, but it did orient me to a different way of thinking about and working in my garden, treating it more like a habitat and reaping the benefits that this entails. The book is a call to move away from seeing land in terms of simply inputs and outputs and to see it as part of a whole, one of which we are a part of as well as every other being that might venture onto, under or above our land. As Massy said, why would we want to do the heavy lifting required around regenerating the land when if you look at it holistically, you work with Mother Nature and then get out of her way and let her do the hard work. She's much better at it than we are and much much stronger than we realise.
It didn't give me any great tips for how to manage my garden, but it did orient me to a different way of thinking about and working in my garden, treating it more like a habitat and reaping the benefits that this entails. The book is a call to move away from seeing land in terms of simply inputs and outputs and to see it as part of a whole, one of which we are a part of as well as every other being that might venture onto, under or above our land. As Massy said, why would we want to do the heavy lifting required around regenerating the land when if you look at it holistically, you work with Mother Nature and then get out of her way and let her do the hard work. She's much better at it than we are and much much stronger than we realise.
September 20, 2018
This timely and revolutionary book quietly slipped into shelves in 2017. But it is not a quiet book.
Massy takes true aim at our agriculture and food production and calls for a revolution. The old paradigm of exploitation must be overthrown, and replaced by a more holistic and intelligent approach to the land. We have been caught up in a mechanistic mindset that has taken us to a dead end, and our ravaged land requires urgent action if it is to sustain us.
But Massy is no anarchic theorist. He is a Monaro sheep farmer who admits to having poisoned his own land though blind obedience to tradition. His journey to a new regenerative agriculture has cost him a great deal, but he has gained much and is passionately committed to sharing. For him there is no alternative to change.
This intense book is remarkable, and easily my favourite non-fiction of 2017. It is poetic, wise and persuasive. I found it reminiscent of Eric Roll's "A Million Wild Acres", but perhaps mixed with the science of Tim Flannery and the polemic of Vandana Shiva. Massy's profound take on our land cannot easily be shaken off, and will long colour your views of agribusiness and food, plants and waterways. He is not kind to farmers of the old way, but he tells stories to change the mind, so it is more tempered than a mere manifesto. It may carry a weighty judgement and an occasional academic tone, but this book is a vital call for us all. As consumers of produce we are complicit in food production, and if we wish to hear the reed warbler return and sing, we must protect the earth.
I thoroughly recommend this remarkable book to all that value our land, and I have no doubt it will be a classic to future generations.
Massy takes true aim at our agriculture and food production and calls for a revolution. The old paradigm of exploitation must be overthrown, and replaced by a more holistic and intelligent approach to the land. We have been caught up in a mechanistic mindset that has taken us to a dead end, and our ravaged land requires urgent action if it is to sustain us.
But Massy is no anarchic theorist. He is a Monaro sheep farmer who admits to having poisoned his own land though blind obedience to tradition. His journey to a new regenerative agriculture has cost him a great deal, but he has gained much and is passionately committed to sharing. For him there is no alternative to change.
This intense book is remarkable, and easily my favourite non-fiction of 2017. It is poetic, wise and persuasive. I found it reminiscent of Eric Roll's "A Million Wild Acres", but perhaps mixed with the science of Tim Flannery and the polemic of Vandana Shiva. Massy's profound take on our land cannot easily be shaken off, and will long colour your views of agribusiness and food, plants and waterways. He is not kind to farmers of the old way, but he tells stories to change the mind, so it is more tempered than a mere manifesto. It may carry a weighty judgement and an occasional academic tone, but this book is a vital call for us all. As consumers of produce we are complicit in food production, and if we wish to hear the reed warbler return and sing, we must protect the earth.
I thoroughly recommend this remarkable book to all that value our land, and I have no doubt it will be a classic to future generations.
April 26, 2021
This is a great read. It is an extensive look at regenerative farming and how it is being implemented across Australia, especially in marginal farming land or degraded farming land.
Quite a few of the case stories within the book come from the West Australian wheat belt area, and so the book is highly relevant to me.
I did scan read some chapters, where Massy gets into the philosophy of what is surely a no brainer in terms of our need to look after the land! It is also a bit repetitive at times- but I guess that is part of its need to act as a change agent.
It is nicely written, and there is a lovely quote on page 432 from Indigenous leader Kerry Arabena who says: "We have to be terrified by what we have done, but not without hope...To care for country is all our business, it is the necessary and transformative element of a reconciliation agenda in Australia, and the world."
Quite a few of the case stories within the book come from the West Australian wheat belt area, and so the book is highly relevant to me.
I did scan read some chapters, where Massy gets into the philosophy of what is surely a no brainer in terms of our need to look after the land! It is also a bit repetitive at times- but I guess that is part of its need to act as a change agent.
It is nicely written, and there is a lovely quote on page 432 from Indigenous leader Kerry Arabena who says: "We have to be terrified by what we have done, but not without hope...To care for country is all our business, it is the necessary and transformative element of a reconciliation agenda in Australia, and the world."
August 21, 2021
I gave this five stars because I think everyone should read it.
It is long and I took it in stages and it meanders on a bit. But really good stuff.
I have been interested in this style of farming and land management and it was good to read input from farmers whose names I have heard and read about over the years.
Since the book was written we have had crises which hopefully will make us all think about what we are doing to our land, and I feel that our poor land management adds to climate and fire issues. Crises include the bush fires in Australia in the summer of 2020-21, and now a pandemic which raises societal issues and seems to have enabled people to appreciate being outdoors and in touch with nature.
I do sense that the fires raised the profile of wanting better land management and the increasing Interest by the wide community in indigenous management. I think there is also increased profile of ‘regenerative agriculture’.
It is long and I took it in stages and it meanders on a bit. But really good stuff.
I have been interested in this style of farming and land management and it was good to read input from farmers whose names I have heard and read about over the years.
Since the book was written we have had crises which hopefully will make us all think about what we are doing to our land, and I feel that our poor land management adds to climate and fire issues. Crises include the bush fires in Australia in the summer of 2020-21, and now a pandemic which raises societal issues and seems to have enabled people to appreciate being outdoors and in touch with nature.
I do sense that the fires raised the profile of wanting better land management and the increasing Interest by the wide community in indigenous management. I think there is also increased profile of ‘regenerative agriculture’.
October 17, 2025
Im giving 4 stars because I think it's good to give more people an introduction to regenAg. However this was a difficult read for me. I appreciate his research and the many stories included, but I could have really done with the abridged version. Coming for a place of awareness of the impacts of European industrial culture on the world, I just didn't need that reaffirmed in every chapter
November 13, 2023
I was certain this would be a 5 star read until I reached the penultimate chapter and was finally in territory where I have enough background knowledge to judge the author's claims. He repeatedly states that poor quality produce is linked to an increase in autism, among other things - this is blatantly false, and his references for these claims did not appear to mention autism, from what I could access online. With this one detail, he completely lost credibility in my eyes, and what I had otherwise regarded as an exceptional book suddenly became an untrustworthy source.
I remain deeply conflicted on this book, as it was beautifully written and, until that point, incredibly compelling. But I am left questioning how many of his other claims I can trust.
I remain deeply conflicted on this book, as it was beautifully written and, until that point, incredibly compelling. But I am left questioning how many of his other claims I can trust.
September 26, 2018
This is a must read book for all who care about the future of the Australian landscape. Beautifully written with love for the land on display in each new chapter.
January 12, 2019
Finally I finished Charlie Massy's regenerative agriculture tome!
It's a wonderful and sweeping journey through the growing movement of regenerative agriculture, with a particular focus on the stories of amazing pioneers reinventing their lands in Australia. Massy's writing is urgent, provocative, emotional and powerful and I particularly enjoyed the beautiful descriptions of restored, self-organising ecosystems on regeneratively managed farms.
My only quibbles with the book are that it is prohibitively long for many people to get through the whole thing, and could easily be shortened because there's a lot of duplication. Alternatively, some simple chapter summaries at the beginning of each chapter with key points, along with some visuals/charts, could really help the reader orient themselves and avoid getting lost in the mass of words. Finally I felt like there were lots of statements that were not referenced - this is perhaps related to the duplication, maybe similar statements are referenced in other parts of the book, but it still leaves the reader unsatisfied if you want to go and look up the evidence backing certain statements.
All in all though, a stunning achievement.
It's a wonderful and sweeping journey through the growing movement of regenerative agriculture, with a particular focus on the stories of amazing pioneers reinventing their lands in Australia. Massy's writing is urgent, provocative, emotional and powerful and I particularly enjoyed the beautiful descriptions of restored, self-organising ecosystems on regeneratively managed farms.
My only quibbles with the book are that it is prohibitively long for many people to get through the whole thing, and could easily be shortened because there's a lot of duplication. Alternatively, some simple chapter summaries at the beginning of each chapter with key points, along with some visuals/charts, could really help the reader orient themselves and avoid getting lost in the mass of words. Finally I felt like there were lots of statements that were not referenced - this is perhaps related to the duplication, maybe similar statements are referenced in other parts of the book, but it still leaves the reader unsatisfied if you want to go and look up the evidence backing certain statements.
All in all though, a stunning achievement.
August 18, 2018
I will never rake up a leaf or stick again without thinking of all I learnt in this book. I am now lending it to the grazier who has a property near mine. Then when I get it back, it will go to the next farmer. It is an inspiration.
November 18, 2018
I really enjoyed this book, but I have to fault it on a couple of things that kept it short from 5 stars (at least in my books).
Firstly, it seemed at times like Massy was more intent on being able to mention (and compliment with a well-thought out adjective) every regenerative farmer he had crossed paths with rather than provide new and interesting examples of how regenerative agriculture could be applied. Some of the examples in the soil and water chapters could definitely have been condensed without lessening the impact of the anecdote.
Secondly, there are a few pages towards the end where Massy goes on a small rant about how vegans and vegetarians aren't getting all the nutrients they need in their diet and how organic meat is the answer etc. This would be OK, except that it doesn't really tie into anything else he talks about and if he is to raise the topic, it warrants at the very least a slightly more nuanced discussion. It certainly left me (as a vegetarian) shrugging my shoulders.
Apart from that, great book, thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend. There are better reviews here than mine outlining what we can learn from CotRW and why it's so important.
Firstly, it seemed at times like Massy was more intent on being able to mention (and compliment with a well-thought out adjective) every regenerative farmer he had crossed paths with rather than provide new and interesting examples of how regenerative agriculture could be applied. Some of the examples in the soil and water chapters could definitely have been condensed without lessening the impact of the anecdote.
Secondly, there are a few pages towards the end where Massy goes on a small rant about how vegans and vegetarians aren't getting all the nutrients they need in their diet and how organic meat is the answer etc. This would be OK, except that it doesn't really tie into anything else he talks about and if he is to raise the topic, it warrants at the very least a slightly more nuanced discussion. It certainly left me (as a vegetarian) shrugging my shoulders.
Apart from that, great book, thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend. There are better reviews here than mine outlining what we can learn from CotRW and why it's so important.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 9, 2021
This is a fantastic book. It brings together a number of practical case studies where different ways of thinking have resulted in vastly different outcomes. For me it highlights the potential and the benefits of managing land and livestock to achieve a sustainable lifestyle in harmony with nature. Over the last 30 years we have practiced rotational grazing (a no brainier really, yet adoption rates are still relatively low), in that time we have also sown in excess of 15,000 trees on our small family farms, not much really; but it takes, time, effort, money and of course heartache when a drought comes and wipes them out in year one. Like the author I am only just now starting to get a real understanding of the potential for 'regenerative farming.'
This should be a must read for anyone who owns land, a lot of people taking one small step will be way more powerful than a few taking many. I am revitalised by this read and will march on. Thank you Charles!
This should be a must read for anyone who owns land, a lot of people taking one small step will be way more powerful than a few taking many. I am revitalised by this read and will march on. Thank you Charles!
October 8, 2021
For a beginner in regenerative farming it is not the book to go to because though it has the foundations of the principles they are buried in endless repetitions. The stories are making a point but it is often lost in vacuous rambling. My first impression was that I was reading a poor lit review then the stories came and I finally realised that this book had no structure to follow. Some interesting subjects are brought up but then dropped and not explored further leaving the reader to wonder what the point was to bring it up in the first place. The last chapter lost me as it brought concepts that have been known for a long time and were poorly applied to regenerative farming. Further more those concepts apply to all human beings not just farmers and this could have been linked back to the nutrient deficiencies in food today. This book could have been written in half the number of pages and needs a massive restructure to make it a document to go to for future regenerative farmers.
March 27, 2018
A wonderful and poignant story of a farming family’s work over the past four decades to begin restoring their 5 generation held farm in high tablelands south of Canberra in moderate to low rainfall country. The land needs restoring after the 19th and 20th century years of tree clearing, overstocking of sheep and cattle, clearing of native grassland for super phosphate and fertiliser style cropping. A typical Australian story. Charles Massy and similarly inspired farmers offer regenerative farming as a way out that preserves the health of the land and thus the health of people that depend on the crops, animals and ecology of the land.
I was lucky enough to see this far seeing farmer at the recent Perth Writers Festival, February 2018.
Eloquently written.
I was lucky enough to see this far seeing farmer at the recent Perth Writers Festival, February 2018.
Eloquently written.
January 11, 2018
Sometimes a book has a greatly profound effect and really gets you thinking. This is one of those. A great dive into the life and mind of an Australian farmer with experiences of the typical Western approach to agriculture in an Australian landscape, how that failed him and the landscape and its biodiversity and this way of farming’s impacts and implications for human health. A wonderful exploration of the turnaround in his and others mindsets in creating a more regenerative approach to creating healthful food for society and country. Inspirational stuff. Lots of great references to other work to explore further too.
May 2, 2018
This book should be required reading for anybody. Incredibly useful for those involved with agriculture or interested in it - yet equally important for someone who hasn’t the faintest idea about agriculture and farming. Charlie Massy manages to tread through some complex scientific areas and create a relatable and accessible story of life. Immensely powerful messages in this book about key themes moving forwards - health, culture, food, the environment, love, life and despair.
October 16, 2018
Essential for Australian farmers wishing for their pastures and reduce inputs
August 26, 2019
Call of the Reed Warbler
What I love most about this book is the variety of good quotes Charles Massey has gone out and found for me.
As many nuggets as I could fit here, I have put below.
This is an ambitious, beautiful work, that in it's energy and zeal pushes beyond the bounds of its primary topic.
As a result, I'm unsure of the rigor from the philosophical perspective, but forgive any shortcoming in this respect
for the sake of what it does well: the revelation of life beneath and in the soil; describing the tenets and history
of regenerative agriculture and permaculture; most importantly, the provocation to thought, discussion, rewriting
the narratives, and action.
P. 492
'The story of our own emergent evolution reveals this: that our "descent" was and is not simply linear. As Lynn Margulis and
Dorion Sagan concluded, "Life did not take the globe by combat, but by networking. Life forms multiplied and complexified
by co-opting others, not just by killing them.' Margulis and Sagan, p. 29
'...the evolutionary process that has led to such self-making systems, and is indivisible from them, is neither random nor
determined, but creative. This reality, therefore, is a total rebuttal of the nihilistic mechanism and meaninglessness of
"chance and necessity" as popularised by thinkers from Jacques Monod to Richard Dawkins. This creative, self-making process
is also one that gives higher meaning, values and a spiritual dimension to our lives: a reality I found in my investigations
of regenerative farmers who had undergone a mind-shift from the Mechanical to a newly Emergent mind.'
I can't agree with him that there is a spiritual dimension, there is no evidence for this aspect, and doubt is then potentially
cast on other claims. However, the other claims in this work are for the most part, fair and valid, and supported by research
and practical examples. The emergence of complexity in life forms is both random and creative, resuling in an increase of
information, even if it's at the expense of a loss of energy, the idea of entropy.
This is a rebuttall of nihilism, or an emergent, more creative variation on nihilism, less pessimistic, but not optimistic, just curious.
p. 493
'We relinquished integration when we found consciousness and in rejection we move to disintegration. But the prospect offers
us several choices - the quickest is annihilation as anthropocentric man produces the holocaust... The land will be raped and
creatures extirpated because the insistencies will be so loud; who can plan for the long term when survival is today? The
cities will grow as they have, enlarging the pathology of their hearts, growing into necropoles [sic].
What other prospect can you see?' McHarg, I. L., Design with Nature, p. 196
p. 500
'Only a crisis - actuual or perceived - produces real change.'
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
p. 501
'...as Paul Kingsnorth states... "It is too late now to plan for the future or to issue warnings about it.
The future is here. We are living it" and this because "We tell a story that we can mold the world to the
needs of the self to the needs of the world."
"Story" is thus the touchstone for our hearts and minds because it is fundamental to our cognitive, metaphorical,
symbolic mind that emerged some 250,000 or so years ago. Intervening at this seminal point of our psyches is therefore
key. As the courageous pioneering systems-thinker and environmentalist Donella Meadows said in terms of complex creative
systems, "People who manage to intervene in systems at the level of paradigms hit a leverage point that totally
transforms systems."'
p. 502
Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth
'For peoples, generally, their story of the universe and the human role in the universe is their primary source of
intelligibility and value ... The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the current
story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of a present situation.'
p. 321
'...because we are dealing with dynamic ecological and self-organising functrions - and functions, in the case of
agriculture, part-initiated or triggered by humans - we can never quite know where the landscape will end up. It is
almost as if the landscape is also learning and adapting. Indeed, the amazing processes involved in self-organising systems
could be interpreted by some as expressing a form of ecological-landscape "intelligence" or cognisance.'
p. 375
'The universe is revealed to use as an irreversible emergent process ... We now live not so much in a cosmos as in a
cosmogenesis; that is, a universe ever coming into being through an irreversible sequence of transformations moving,
in the larger arc of its development, from a lesser to a greater order of complexity and from a lesser to great
consciousness.'
Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, p. 26
p. 379
'The greatest riddle of cosmology is that the universe is, in a sense, creative.' Karl Popper, and John Eccles
p. 380
Quoting from J.J. Clarke, The Self-Creating Universe
'Where once there was a sense of alienation from a world which seemed at bottom no more than a mechanical motion of dead matter,
causally determined and in principle completely predictable, the new thinking ...locates usa in a world which is open and
constantly transforming itself, creating new and and astonishingly complex beautiful forms.'
p. 383
'systems scientists Fritjof Capra and Pier Luisi describe ..."there is a fundamental unity to life, that different living systems
exhibit similar patterns of organisation.' Capra and Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision p. 305
'any species that has evolved has also co-evolved.'
p. 436
'Only now are we getting scientific informastion to confirm what virtually all us landholders on the Monaro deny or
are ignorant of: that European settlement was devastating to landscape function from the start.'
p. 438
A 1972 bestseller book mentioned, The Limits to Growth - look into this
P.205
'the human capacity not to confront the truth.'
P. 205-206
'a world breakthrough didn't occur on the rich, fat soils of the Darling Downs or the American corn belt, but in tough country and even tougher circumstances, where people are forced to survive on their wits.'
Internecine - of conflict within a group
Gnaggly, and gnaggly bushes :)
P. 319
'when talking about the broader context of genetic plasticity and adaptability in us and our animals, perhaps the most crucial - but hitherto unappreciated due to its invisibility - element is our gut microflora, or what is called the enterobiome. The population of fellow travelers in both humans and animals - the microbiota on us and in us - far outnumber our own cells.'
'"The dominant portion of the genetics which interface with the environment is microbial"' and this in turn almost certainly involves vast amounts of epigenetic behaviour.'
'The truth is we know little about this microbial world - except that it is probably the biggest player of all in all human, animal and plant adaptability and function in our environments. ...we therefore have to step back, have humility ...let natural plastic enablement and adaptation act out... let nature's self-organizing capacities unfold unfettered.'
P.287
'the Australian landscape after the megafauna disappeared was ecologically changed, and some key elements of a healthy landscape function would have decreased.'
P. 316
'a long and slow process of interactive co-evolution occurred whereby when a plant was grazed it responded over time by producing defence measures to deter animals: measures such as thorns, small and hard-to-access leaves, or vegetation with unpalatable chemicals such as tannins and also poisons.
...these chemicals, because they are plant derived, are called phytochemicals or phytonutrients.
...with each plant evolutionary response, the grazing and browsing animals in turn genetically adapted and evolved to handle, detect and/or digest these different chemicals. Animals learnt to use some of the phytochemical compounds to medicinal and nutritional advantage.'
P. 321
'...because we are dealing with dynamic ecological and self-organising
P. 441
'"Rain Falls, Mulga Rises, Carbon Sinks," journalist Matt Cawood explained that in 2010-11, "millions of square kilometers of mulga and spinifex grasses flourishing in the inland drew down massive amounts of atmospheric carbon" but "only to return much of it in 2012-13 when rainfall over much of the semi-arid zones was half the long-term average."'
P. 442 The Wentworth Group
'...the simple equation that for every twenty-seven tonnes of carbon are sequestered in the soil via biological processes, one hundred tonnes of carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere.'
P. 469
'Author Rob Nixon used the term "slow violence" to describe our industrial, over-processed, nutrient-bereft food that is strongly implicated in a huge spectrum of modern diseases.'
P. 485
'In 1997, Susan George, (at that time a high-profile anti-war activist, exposer of corporate greed and strong advocate for global social justice) wrote about "the age of exclusion": where our so-called free market excludes people from meaningful participation in a life we were designed for. Another way to put this is that much of our population is experiencing "slow violence".
P. 489
'One bird sitting quietly on a leafless tree branch
Sang the world into a premature spring,
Because he gave all of his strength to his art, and fretted not
Of the yield he would bring.'
Lulu Curme Bretnall, c. 192
What I love most about this book is the variety of good quotes Charles Massey has gone out and found for me.
As many nuggets as I could fit here, I have put below.
This is an ambitious, beautiful work, that in it's energy and zeal pushes beyond the bounds of its primary topic.
As a result, I'm unsure of the rigor from the philosophical perspective, but forgive any shortcoming in this respect
for the sake of what it does well: the revelation of life beneath and in the soil; describing the tenets and history
of regenerative agriculture and permaculture; most importantly, the provocation to thought, discussion, rewriting
the narratives, and action.
P. 492
'The story of our own emergent evolution reveals this: that our "descent" was and is not simply linear. As Lynn Margulis and
Dorion Sagan concluded, "Life did not take the globe by combat, but by networking. Life forms multiplied and complexified
by co-opting others, not just by killing them.' Margulis and Sagan, p. 29
'...the evolutionary process that has led to such self-making systems, and is indivisible from them, is neither random nor
determined, but creative. This reality, therefore, is a total rebuttal of the nihilistic mechanism and meaninglessness of
"chance and necessity" as popularised by thinkers from Jacques Monod to Richard Dawkins. This creative, self-making process
is also one that gives higher meaning, values and a spiritual dimension to our lives: a reality I found in my investigations
of regenerative farmers who had undergone a mind-shift from the Mechanical to a newly Emergent mind.'
I can't agree with him that there is a spiritual dimension, there is no evidence for this aspect, and doubt is then potentially
cast on other claims. However, the other claims in this work are for the most part, fair and valid, and supported by research
and practical examples. The emergence of complexity in life forms is both random and creative, resuling in an increase of
information, even if it's at the expense of a loss of energy, the idea of entropy.
This is a rebuttall of nihilism, or an emergent, more creative variation on nihilism, less pessimistic, but not optimistic, just curious.
p. 493
'We relinquished integration when we found consciousness and in rejection we move to disintegration. But the prospect offers
us several choices - the quickest is annihilation as anthropocentric man produces the holocaust... The land will be raped and
creatures extirpated because the insistencies will be so loud; who can plan for the long term when survival is today? The
cities will grow as they have, enlarging the pathology of their hearts, growing into necropoles [sic].
What other prospect can you see?' McHarg, I. L., Design with Nature, p. 196
p. 500
'Only a crisis - actuual or perceived - produces real change.'
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
p. 501
'...as Paul Kingsnorth states... "It is too late now to plan for the future or to issue warnings about it.
The future is here. We are living it" and this because "We tell a story that we can mold the world to the
needs of the self to the needs of the world."
"Story" is thus the touchstone for our hearts and minds because it is fundamental to our cognitive, metaphorical,
symbolic mind that emerged some 250,000 or so years ago. Intervening at this seminal point of our psyches is therefore
key. As the courageous pioneering systems-thinker and environmentalist Donella Meadows said in terms of complex creative
systems, "People who manage to intervene in systems at the level of paradigms hit a leverage point that totally
transforms systems."'
p. 502
Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth
'For peoples, generally, their story of the universe and the human role in the universe is their primary source of
intelligibility and value ... The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the current
story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of a present situation.'
p. 321
'...because we are dealing with dynamic ecological and self-organising functrions - and functions, in the case of
agriculture, part-initiated or triggered by humans - we can never quite know where the landscape will end up. It is
almost as if the landscape is also learning and adapting. Indeed, the amazing processes involved in self-organising systems
could be interpreted by some as expressing a form of ecological-landscape "intelligence" or cognisance.'
p. 375
'The universe is revealed to use as an irreversible emergent process ... We now live not so much in a cosmos as in a
cosmogenesis; that is, a universe ever coming into being through an irreversible sequence of transformations moving,
in the larger arc of its development, from a lesser to a greater order of complexity and from a lesser to great
consciousness.'
Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, p. 26
p. 379
'The greatest riddle of cosmology is that the universe is, in a sense, creative.' Karl Popper, and John Eccles
p. 380
Quoting from J.J. Clarke, The Self-Creating Universe
'Where once there was a sense of alienation from a world which seemed at bottom no more than a mechanical motion of dead matter,
causally determined and in principle completely predictable, the new thinking ...locates usa in a world which is open and
constantly transforming itself, creating new and and astonishingly complex beautiful forms.'
p. 383
'systems scientists Fritjof Capra and Pier Luisi describe ..."there is a fundamental unity to life, that different living systems
exhibit similar patterns of organisation.' Capra and Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision p. 305
'any species that has evolved has also co-evolved.'
p. 436
'Only now are we getting scientific informastion to confirm what virtually all us landholders on the Monaro deny or
are ignorant of: that European settlement was devastating to landscape function from the start.'
p. 438
A 1972 bestseller book mentioned, The Limits to Growth - look into this
P.205
'the human capacity not to confront the truth.'
P. 205-206
'a world breakthrough didn't occur on the rich, fat soils of the Darling Downs or the American corn belt, but in tough country and even tougher circumstances, where people are forced to survive on their wits.'
Internecine - of conflict within a group
Gnaggly, and gnaggly bushes :)
P. 319
'when talking about the broader context of genetic plasticity and adaptability in us and our animals, perhaps the most crucial - but hitherto unappreciated due to its invisibility - element is our gut microflora, or what is called the enterobiome. The population of fellow travelers in both humans and animals - the microbiota on us and in us - far outnumber our own cells.'
'"The dominant portion of the genetics which interface with the environment is microbial"' and this in turn almost certainly involves vast amounts of epigenetic behaviour.'
'The truth is we know little about this microbial world - except that it is probably the biggest player of all in all human, animal and plant adaptability and function in our environments. ...we therefore have to step back, have humility ...let natural plastic enablement and adaptation act out... let nature's self-organizing capacities unfold unfettered.'
P.287
'the Australian landscape after the megafauna disappeared was ecologically changed, and some key elements of a healthy landscape function would have decreased.'
P. 316
'a long and slow process of interactive co-evolution occurred whereby when a plant was grazed it responded over time by producing defence measures to deter animals: measures such as thorns, small and hard-to-access leaves, or vegetation with unpalatable chemicals such as tannins and also poisons.
...these chemicals, because they are plant derived, are called phytochemicals or phytonutrients.
...with each plant evolutionary response, the grazing and browsing animals in turn genetically adapted and evolved to handle, detect and/or digest these different chemicals. Animals learnt to use some of the phytochemical compounds to medicinal and nutritional advantage.'
P. 321
'...because we are dealing with dynamic ecological and self-organising
P. 441
'"Rain Falls, Mulga Rises, Carbon Sinks," journalist Matt Cawood explained that in 2010-11, "millions of square kilometers of mulga and spinifex grasses flourishing in the inland drew down massive amounts of atmospheric carbon" but "only to return much of it in 2012-13 when rainfall over much of the semi-arid zones was half the long-term average."'
P. 442 The Wentworth Group
'...the simple equation that for every twenty-seven tonnes of carbon are sequestered in the soil via biological processes, one hundred tonnes of carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere.'
P. 469
'Author Rob Nixon used the term "slow violence" to describe our industrial, over-processed, nutrient-bereft food that is strongly implicated in a huge spectrum of modern diseases.'
P. 485
'In 1997, Susan George, (at that time a high-profile anti-war activist, exposer of corporate greed and strong advocate for global social justice) wrote about "the age of exclusion": where our so-called free market excludes people from meaningful participation in a life we were designed for. Another way to put this is that much of our population is experiencing "slow violence".
P. 489
'One bird sitting quietly on a leafless tree branch
Sang the world into a premature spring,
Because he gave all of his strength to his art, and fretted not
Of the yield he would bring.'
Lulu Curme Bretnall, c. 192
March 31, 2023
What a beautifully written book.
Call of the Reed Warbler is so much more than a call for a transition to regenerative agriculture before it's too late. It's a book that offers hope for the future in a time when so many people are feeling a little bit hopeless about where we've ended up as a society. In his artfully crafted, nature-loving (biofilic) language, Massy takes the reader on a journey through Australian farmland, wrecked and ravaged by the "mechanical mind" of white settlers who arrived a couple hundred years ago and had no fucking idea what they were doing. Ignoring millennia of Indigenous knowledge, within 50 years, many of them had killed the land they came to farm, and were forced to run back to Europe, tail between their legs.
At it's core, the book is an invective against massive amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides that destroy the complexity of Mother Nature--and her ability to protect and regenerate herself. In a series of case studies from around the nation, he shows just how possible it is to restore a farmland to health, to restore biodiversity and complexity that heals the land, to increase water-holding capacity, to become drought-resilient, to stop erosion, salinity, and pest outbreaks (that are all downstream symptoms of the lack of biodiversity), and to mostly just get out of the way of Mother Nature and let her do her thing. And on top of all that, he shows how this approach to farming can actually be less labor-intensive and more profitable for farmers than the chemical-ridden industrial processes we've come to accept as just the way things are. Oh, and we can save the climate while we do it.
There's nothing not to love about this approach or about Massy's book. His hope for the change that needs to come reminds me to keep hope as well. The only question is: how do we overturn the mechanical mind that is so ingrained in most of us that it's a difficult, maybe impossible, paradigm to shift? And how do we compete against the massive, monied corporate interests at the heart of industrial agriculture who are sure to fight tooth and nail to keep the chemical processes they've created in place, to keep their pockets lined, even if it means destroying the only food source we've got beyond repair.
My closing thought is, this book made me want to go buy a farm and biodiversity it back to health immediately, which is about as strong an endorsement as anyone can offer.
Call of the Reed Warbler is so much more than a call for a transition to regenerative agriculture before it's too late. It's a book that offers hope for the future in a time when so many people are feeling a little bit hopeless about where we've ended up as a society. In his artfully crafted, nature-loving (biofilic) language, Massy takes the reader on a journey through Australian farmland, wrecked and ravaged by the "mechanical mind" of white settlers who arrived a couple hundred years ago and had no fucking idea what they were doing. Ignoring millennia of Indigenous knowledge, within 50 years, many of them had killed the land they came to farm, and were forced to run back to Europe, tail between their legs.
At it's core, the book is an invective against massive amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides that destroy the complexity of Mother Nature--and her ability to protect and regenerate herself. In a series of case studies from around the nation, he shows just how possible it is to restore a farmland to health, to restore biodiversity and complexity that heals the land, to increase water-holding capacity, to become drought-resilient, to stop erosion, salinity, and pest outbreaks (that are all downstream symptoms of the lack of biodiversity), and to mostly just get out of the way of Mother Nature and let her do her thing. And on top of all that, he shows how this approach to farming can actually be less labor-intensive and more profitable for farmers than the chemical-ridden industrial processes we've come to accept as just the way things are. Oh, and we can save the climate while we do it.
There's nothing not to love about this approach or about Massy's book. His hope for the change that needs to come reminds me to keep hope as well. The only question is: how do we overturn the mechanical mind that is so ingrained in most of us that it's a difficult, maybe impossible, paradigm to shift? And how do we compete against the massive, monied corporate interests at the heart of industrial agriculture who are sure to fight tooth and nail to keep the chemical processes they've created in place, to keep their pockets lined, even if it means destroying the only food source we've got beyond repair.
My closing thought is, this book made me want to go buy a farm and biodiversity it back to health immediately, which is about as strong an endorsement as anyone can offer.
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