Once rich with magnesium and life, Australia’s soils are running on empty — and so are we
You don’t have to own a farm to be part of the fix:
- Buy from regenerative growers at local markets. Ask how they treat their soil.
- Compost food scraps. Every peel or coffee ground returned to earth repairs a small piece of the cycle.
- Grow something. Even a balcony herb pot reconnects you with the living chemistry of soil.
- Support food literacy. Teach children that true nourishment begins underground. When consumers reward soil care instead of packaging, agriculture follows.
All of this it true, I live in SW WA and it’s not quite so bad, a lot of people are scaling back herbicide use and optimising with rotational grazing etc. but even the most responsible land owners use literal tonnes of super phosphate, and that’s just the grazers, the vineyards, avocados, stone fruit etc all use huge volumes of herbicides, pesticides, fertiliser.
Our family farm is relatively responsible and as I take over more management I’ll be pushing a more restorative model but I have a lucrative second income. Our immediate neighbour runs a ridiculous stocking rate with his cattle and they are skinny cattle grazing on stubble, the crazy thing is that colesworth have begun penalising ‘overweight’ cattle so on average he gets a higher price per kilo than a farmer treating their animals humanely.
Industrial farming is a disaster. Small holdings are less extractive, less exploitative, and produce more calories per hectare. You can make a reasonable income on a small holding too, you just need to be able to buy the land, and if you’re not a millionaire or have family land that isn’t happening.