Guy Trafford says farmers, and especially foresters, need to speed up their transition to a systems approach to their custodianship of the land, taking responsibility for the impacts their decisions have on the wider community

One of the issues emerging out of the debacle caused by the forestry slash and many other short comings when it comes to land use, is the lack of a holistic approach to management and decision making.

Too often decisions are made where the thought process stops at the point where the money lands in the bank.

That can occur in all businesses, however when it comes to agriculture, forestry and other sectors where land and water are involved the externalities which result from actions can be far more wide ranging.

Up until recently landowners have largely not had to consider what the wider impact of on farm (or forest etc) decisions have had. However, dairy was the first to have to acknowledge that effluent from farms was having (in some cases a major) a detrimental impact on downstream waterways, and more recently the impact of nutrients leaching through the soils into aquifers and beyond.

While some will say still not enough is being done to reduce and mitigate this issue, at least now the problem has been recognised and acknowledged by the industry and improvements are being made.

Hopefully forestry can make the same strides.

The finger can also be pointed at those who are contributing to problems by the lack of actions on the land, I.e. a lack of conservation planting etc. The theme of externalities can be extended quite a way beyond the obvious to include soil quality, animal welfare and impacts upon ecosystems as well as communities.

Professor Keith Woodford would often rail against some individuals at their lack of adopting a “Systems Approach” to management and decision making and accuse (correctly) these individuals of operating within silos and having very blinkered approaches to decisions and at Universities, research. So, it is with this as a back drop that it has been refreshing to see the upsurge in the ‘movement’ to regenerative farming.

It has taken some criticism as lacking a clear definition but if readers take the time to watch Rod Oram’s  interviews with several farmers it is pretty clear about the direction these individuals are heading. Oram has become a passionate voice in the cause of regenerative agriculture and with his columns on Newsroom and his speaking opportunities, he is certainly doing his bit to get the message out there.

To many farmers the systems approach is second nature and they have been following the general principles for decades to a greater or lesser degree. Science might be finally starting to catch up and work with them rather than trying to explain away many of the results that have been achieved.

Broadly speaking though, farming for some time now has had to argue for its “license to farm” as the ‘noise’ from opposing voices and philosophies grow louder. This has largely been due to farmers own actions and inactions which have impacted on ecosystems and communities.

Forestry is now also coming onto the stage and the management techniques (or lack of them) are being questioned and they to are being held to account and will have a job to re-earn their “license to farm” (trees in their case).

Being able to justify why ‘you’ should have the ‘privilege’ to use the land should not have to be a difficult thing to manage if the correct decisions are being made.

Land use is only going to come under more scrutiny as the bar to what can be considered acceptable gets progressively raised. Many landowners will find the ‘heat’ too much and leave the industry. I can see a scenario where if government and respective councils start to apply accountability to the forest industry regarding harvesting methods there may be an exodus from it as the reduced returns which are likely to ensue, at least in the shorter term, mean they fail to meet shareholder expectations.

The reduced number of dairy farm sales and lowering of the farm price is at least in part due to the increased scrutiny and cost of compliance within that industry. We aren’t seeing a land use change away from dairy as yet, as the alternative land uses have not yet emerged on the scale required to enable wholesale land use shifts, unlike what happened from sheep to dairy a decade or two ago and now to trees.

But the longer time goes on and with shifting consumer preferences, the odds of something new coming onto the scene increases.

Forestry by its very nature and in most cases the terrain it’s on is going to be a more difficult beast to tame and it may be letting it return to its ‘feral state’ may be the best thing for it.

In the meantime if more land users took a regenerative and restorative approach to land use, a Systems Approach, the country would breath a collective sigh.