The students are revolting – good!
Nicolas Lewis
Thu Jun 15 2023 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
'These students have taken up the responsibility to make the challenge and to imagine alternatives. Shame on the rest of us.' Photo: Getty Images
Opinion: In an opinion article on Stuff earlier this week, The problem with a regenerative farming approach in New Zealand, Dr Jacqueline Rowarth, a director of DairyNZ, criticises students protesting in recent climate strikes about their support of regenerative agriculture. She sees the students as “urging policy without understanding”.
Rowarth draws a sharp distinction between ideology, which she portrays as an intrusion into policy processes that she argues should be founded on ‘science’. The students are being ideological. Rowarth appeals to science to dismiss the concept of regenerative agriculture and justify the intensification of current agricultural practices.
Regenerative agriculture refers to farming practices that encourage life in soils to flourish, such as bacteria, algae, microscopic insects, earthworms, beetles, fungi and so on. Examples of regenerative agricultural practices include rotational grazing, cover cropping, and applying compost and manure. The idea is to nurture soils, although some advocates argue for farming that works with specific landscapes, climates, livestock and people. They celebrate indigenous approaches to farming.
Regenerative agriculture is seen as an antidote to business-as-usual or productivist approaches that use fertilisers, pesticides, and other chemicals to drive relentless increases in productivity (productivism).
I am not a regenerative agriculturalist, but I teach about the regenerative challenge to productivist agriculture students. I know there is a science to regenerative agriculture, just as there is an ideology to the complete set of interests and arrangements that we know as ‘science’.
@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 100px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 90px;}}
My aim here, however, is not to settle the case of regenerative versus chemical (yes!) agriculture. My concern is with how Rowarth misrepresents the students as lacking understanding, and debates about competing agricultural futures as if one is science the other is ideology. In both these ways, she advocates futures that are long past their sell-by date.
Science and ideology
Rowarth argues we must continue to nitrogen-fix our pastures by applying fertilisers, because our pastures are not suitable for growing crops. Beyond the curious statement that most of our land is suitable for pasture but not crops, her position is not arrived at scientifically.
Even if she is right that the harsh realities of 21st Century life mean we must export more, this does not have to mean more productivism. There exist counter-arguments about the productivity of regenerative agriculture, as well as the necessity for growth and national dependence on pastoralism. There are also other realities to consider – environmental degradation, climate collapse, and the cultural and social values of healthy soils. Rowarth argues on the basis of political and ideological shibboleths, not science.