In 2023, a smaller farm without massive scale has to think outside the box. This was the situation Peter and Susan Evans found themselves in after buying their Kenepuru Sounds farm in 2015. Creating a sustainable business that would allow them to farm for the future was going to be tricky…the farm they had purchased, whilst beautifully located, was flawed.

While commencing early development of the property, the Evans quickly came to the conclusion that they needed to do some things differently. For example, they did not want to rely on industrial inputs just to keep modern grasses such as rye grass growing. It was their observation that Grass Stagers, Facial Excema, Internal Parasite Loading, and Drought Intolerance were common outcomes from production on a predominantly Rye grass pasture.

This wasn’t a farming farming system they wanted to be part of.  It felt like a system that was disconnected from nature, and it felt like a farming system that was going to own them, rather than the other way around.

Regenerative farming at its core embraces systems thinking, which is based on the belief and understanding that all things are connected and function within interdependent relationships, aka nature’s balance.

Donella Meadows, a famous systems dynamicist at MIT once stated, “Folks who do systems have a great belief in “leverage points.” These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city. an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything”.

Imagine if you will, a system where cattle get to eat only one type of grass, or a very limited array of grasses. Would you expect the eating quality of such animals to reach their full potential? What do you think would happen if those same animals were spoiled with rich healthy pastures grown in rich healthy soils? Much better, right? Exactly, and most people would agree with you. The animals, if they could talk, would also agree. Imagine just eating one type of meal for your entire life.

The first leverage point on the Evans farm was to focus on the soil. Get that right and everything changes for the better, including the quality of the beef.

The solution for Peter and Susan was simple. Understand leverage points. This was very helpful, and so was Regenerative Farming as leverage points are embedded in the approach of such a system. Salubre, which means healthy in Spanish was born.