20: Stop Killing and Start Healing the Landscape by Having a Regenerative Mindset with Charlie Arnott

The principles and practices of biodynamic farming are approaches that can be applied anywhere food is grown. With thoughtful adaptation to scale, landscape, climate, and culture, farmers everywhere will benefit from these simple yet profound concepts.

Knowledge combined with experience, and curiosity can create a sense of understanding and discovery. The more we make ourselves knowledgeable, the more we shift our way of thinking to something more beneficial

Who is Charlie Arnott?

Charlie is an award-winning grazier from Boorowa, New South Wales, Australia, an educator and passionate advocate for Regenerative Farming practices. His family business has developed under Charlie’s guidance from a ‘conventional’, industrial high input mixed enterprise farm working against Nature to a Biodynamically principled holistically managed farm partnering with Nature.

Charlie started his Regenerative Farming journey 15 years ago. Previously he and his family had been farming conventionally on their 5,000-hectare property “Hanaminno” for over 35 years, in an industrial high input/ high output farming business model, heavily reliant on pesticides, herbicides, and man-made fertilisers.

After a series of epiphanies and through education Charlie found the Regenerative Agriculture movement, a movement that reflected his instinctive connection to the land and his ethos of producing quality food for his family and the world.

Today, Hanaminno is managed using organic, biodynamic and holistic grazing principles, and produces beef, lamb, and pigs, pasture-raised on 100% native and exotic species, raised sympathetically within the landscape and the resources it provides, proactively marketing products direct to their clients, focusing on providing clean healthy nutritiously dense food direct to butcher and families.

The animals are handled in a ‘low-stress stock’ fashion, considerate of their individual and mob behaviour; they are 100% chemical-free and are not treated with any hormones, vaccines, or drenches.

Charlie believes the decision to move away from trying to get nature to do what man wants, and instead of learning how best to collaborate with nature, is key to not only a prosperous farming business but also to a farmer’s health, consumer health, and the land’s health. The business is not certified organic, nor Biodynamic, however, prefers being known as ‘Certified by Community’, given the transparency and openness to the public and clients under which the farm operates. Clients are considered ‘co-producers as they play a vital role in guiding the production of food through their feedback and connection with the farm.

Charlie and his team host and facilitate 2-day workshops at Hanaminno and across Eastern Australia, teaching farmers, gardeners, and families the principle and practices of Biodynamics, and hold open community preparation making events on farm to foster the skills and experience for farmers to create a relationship with their landscape, and be self-reliant.

Charlie considers himself and his team sunshine and water harvesters, soil builders, pasture and animal nurturers, change facilitators, educators, community supporters, and Nature partners. With a focus on putting the ‘culture’ back into Agri-culture. Charlie has received several agricultural industry awards for leadership, resource management, and conservation, more recently the prestigious Bob Hawke National Landcare Award 2018. The award acknowledges a person who has demonstrated a remarkable commitment to caring for the land, champions better practices, and gives their time to share knowledge with others.

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Website: charliearnott.com.au

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Social Media:

www.facebook.com/CharlieArnottBoorowa

www.instagram.com/charliearnott1

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