Transcript:
Regen Ray: Hello, Soil Lovers, and welcome to another episode of Secrets of the Soil, I’m so excited to dig deeper today. We’re going to hang out with our friendly friends at Nutri soil. Nakala, welcome to our show.
Nakala Maddock: Thank you. Good to be here.
Regen Ray: Share with our wonderful, Soil loving communities what NutriSoil is all about and how you help regenerate our soils.
Nakala Maddock: Sure. So we are a big worm farm and we sell to broadacre farmers and pasture across Australia. I’d say half pasture, half cropping, and it’s used as a seed innoculant and as in furrow and as a foliar fertilizer.
Regen Ray: So awesome. And so you say a big worm farm, what does that look like for our listeners? How do you visualize a big worm farm?
Nakala Maddock: Yeah. So we have kilometres of worms, we have millions of worms and we have tried to count them. They change all the time compared with the seasons and the condition.
Regen Ray: They don’t sit still.
Nakala Maddock: Yeah, but if you can imagine big, long composting rows, we have composting rows with the top layer all full of composting earthworms.
Regen Ray: Lovely and I’ve had the privilege of joining your team and seeing you there in person, and I think it was very impressive to see. And that’s why I went with that question, because when I think of a worm farm, I think more of like a wooden box or like a, you know, a plastic box that you buy from the shops, that’s a bit more small scale. But then seeing these massive winrows of our soil and seeing it getting fed from the top with your machinery was very impressive, to say the least. And then all your capturing techniques was super impressive.
Nakala Maddock: Yeah, I would say we’e the biggest worm farm in Australia.
Regen Ray: Yeah, and did this come as a bit of a, you know, innovation from a problem that was trying to be solved locally or was it always intended to be set up as a worm farm?
Nakala Maddock: Well, originally my father in law, Graham Maddock, he was a dairy farmer and he had a chemical accident and had pesticide doused all over him, and he had very bad medical condition from that. He got depression. He was in bed for a year. He had a small family and was in and out of hospital and is still affected by that. But he still has these bouts of depression and that’s directly related to the poison from the pesticide. He had to keep farming and he couldn’t use chemicals anymore if he does because he gets a headache. So he worked out how to use vermi compost. So first of all, he was spreading the vermi compost across his farm. And then they started seeing the leachate come out and they went, Oh, we’ll try that too. And their results were just amazing, so they decided to use it across their farm. They stopped using superphosphate and other farmers just started looking and seeing what they were doing and saying, Can we have some of that? And then they started going to field days and people started buying it, and then I think it started getting quite big. Then in 2008, they decided to sell the family farm and another business they had and make a purpose built Nutrisoil Facility closer to where we could access, transport and manure and things like that. So that’s also been a journey from 1995 to now.
Regen Ray: Wow, that’s that’s I love You know, it’s like realizing that there’s a bit of a concern from a health point of view and then solving that problem and then turning it into a business that then helps millions of people across the world and and change that landscape. And even to go down that level of building a purpose facility. A lot of people tend to just make do with what they’ve got, but like to have that initiative to go and say, No, we’re going to sell the farm and set this up and turn it into an impactful business. I know Helen and Hugo from Farming Secrets have been around the Nutrisoil brand for a long while and probably met at these field days and had a lot of fun capturing content and sharing information. You mentioned vermi compost and vermi culture. Can you explain to our Soil Lovers what that means and the benefits of that?
Nakala Maddock: Yeah, that’s a good question, because there’s lots of different worm products out there. So the vermi compost is the manure from your worm and the the liquid that we collect is like a vermi wash. So if you can think about what a worm makes, when it’s borrowing through the soil, it’s always trying to create an environment that is really beneficial to its succession. That’s what animals do; they want to breed and have food sources around. So what comes out of the worm is everything we collect, So it’s a broad base of nutrients. So if you think of your soil test, all of that is actually in a worm available form in a small amount. So they’re letting that out into the soil and they’re sharing that with plants like it’s it’s an intelligent thing to do because they want plants to grow, so they have a food source. Well, so that comes out of the worm. And then these other things, which we call non nutrient factors, which are amino acids, they come out of a worm as well, and amino acids and long chains of compounds. So you’ve got like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. And what they do is they twist and turn into all sorts of different patterns and turn into all of these complex compounds. So we’ve got things like hormones, enzymes, antibiotics. So then that means that all of these things are going out into the soil, which plants can use. They have signaling products to come out so other microbes can signal with each other. Plants can signal with each other, and then that in turn just makes plants grow. So they’ve got rich systems, they’ve got the microbes around. It us their food source and there’s also a healthy environment for them.
Regen Ray: Well, sounds like magic in a bottle.
Nakala Maddock: Yes. So that’s what they call it. They call it liquid gold, but I think that’s a bit gimmicky.
Nakala Maddock: Yeah. So they say it’s like gold going back into the earth, you know, so we’re mining the earth all the time, but we’re like putting this gold back in again. So yeah, we have these big, long composting rows and we mist this system. So it’s not like a big flood of water. The misting is on a sprinkling system, so it’s a number of times according to the rainfall. That’s why we call it a vermi wash. It’s collecting all the nutrients off the worm , it’s collecting all of the microbes that the worm makes. And if you think of a worm, it’s the best compost tea machine you can make. So they’ve got this bioreactor in their gut and it culls the bad microbes and it breeds the good microbes. And it’s making all of these amino acids which make all of these complexities that the soil needs to function and the plants need to function. So if they do let some pathogenic microbes out, and that’s about balance, but mostly they are anaerobic and with microbes that cull? the bad ones that let the good ones out. Yeah, it is really amazing, and it’s something that we’re constantly trying to educate people about because it had such a.. I know people say why would I pay money for that? Why would I? And they call it snake oil. I had all of these things in the past 20 years. But I’d have to say in the last five, definitely five years, it is not alternative anymore. There are so many farmers coming on board and Lyn, my mother in law, she’s always saying it’s going to be big this year. We’re going to get big this ear. We’re going to reach more farmers this year, and I would say that has absolutely happened.
Regen Ray: Love that. It’s so good to hear that. And you know, it just proves that nature has a way of solving problems. You know, the way that the worms work and I love that you’re referring it as a worm wash and collecting all those minerals and then bottling them up and helping farmers spread that on their on their farms. Does this then help when colonies grow on other farms? Or is it something that needs to always be put on?
Nakala Maddock: You can get to a point, and this is where we talked about one of the inputs before where you’ve got this highly functioning soil. So every farming system is different, and I’m hesitant to say, yeah, that’s highly functioning, you don’t need to use anything because then you’ve got right(?) is all I need, but it can be at times. If you get it right and youre cropping, you know, some people are in that transitional phase and they’ll need other inputs. So things like soft rock phosphate or guano or lime or a little bit of nitrogen, some trace minerals. But then you’ve got farmers that have been sort of through this for 10 years, and all they need is a worm liquid and a compost extract or a vermi cast extract. But you’ve got to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together. Yeah. So it’s about, you know, when you get to that point, it’s often when you’ve got perennial grasses growing over summer and you’ve got really good grazing management and you’ve got a really good farmer who has intent and good spiritual connection to the land, so we’ve got farmers at the start and farmers at the end. Some farmers you start with coating the seed. That’s the first place. The farmer will start with coating his seeds , you’re coating the seed with beneficial nutrients. All of those microbes and coating it with all of those complexities of amino acids which turn into hormones and enzymes and antibodies, and you’ve also got fulvic and humic acids. So a few things. You’ve got a seed inoculant , that’s exactly what you want to put on it. So vermi cast does that. And we see it time and time again, ? systems compared to something that hasn’t been inoculated.
Regen Ray: Yeah, I love that. I’ve seen videos of like this paddock isn’t treated and that paddock has and the root system is just ten fold different. And I love that because I think we live in a world of like seeing is believing unfortunately and so this is, you know, sometimes people need to see that.
Nakala Maddock: I absolutely agree. And that’s why I always say, start with coating your seed and compare it to a seed that has like just a fungicide on it and just see the difference in a high input system. But I mean, a worm coating? can even work in a high input system. You know, we were talking to a farmer the other day in Jerilderie. They had a corn crop. They were putting under 800 kilos of nitrogen under their corn and their corn had gone purple and his wife was from the city and she said. Can you just please try something else, try something more biologically friendly? And he put out Nutri soil, and within four days, his plant had turned from purple to green. And that was a real eye opener for me because I have concerns about those high input users using Nutrisoil But it actually did something, and he from then on was able to reduce his nitrogen. So there’s no one out there that this isn’t suitable for.
Regen Ray: Yeah, and that’s a really good point as well where like, sometimes people do one or two things, you know, regeneratively or naturally and then say, Yeah, that’s it. But then there’s all these hidden worlds behind the world, and I want to go a little bit deeper in that input side of things. But when I speak to regenerative farmers and people who want to go a little bit more holistic, you know, there’s this kind of thing of like zero inputs. And then at the end of the day, like water is an input, air is input. All the minerals in the soil is an input. Where does Nutrisoil fit within that. And you know, some people are a bit scared because I think that it’s an input and they want to be zero input.
Nakala Maddock: Yeah, we’re very conscious of not saying that Nutrisoil is the only thing that you need. We know that a worm liquid is part of a system. So and people are in transition as well. So if you have someone who transitions carefully for 10 years, they’re going to have a really high functioning soil where their inputs are a lot lower. But like that, a multi species cover crop is still an input. You might not be using any fertilizer with it, but the way that that can change a soil’s profile and nutrient availability for the next crop is amazing. So if we’re farming the soil, we’re always going to have to be managing it and we have to manage our team of microbes. We have to manage our plants, we have to manage our animals, we have to manage our inputs. So I would say that you never stop learning and you never stop tweaking a little. Yeah, but don’t get hung up on inputs.
Regen Ray: Yeah. I love how you’ve mentioned the word management because that’s where it comes into it. It’s like being a good manager and knowing what to use at the right time and just having your finger on the pulse and being an observer of your farm and just learning how to manage it a little bit differently. And the fact that everyone is on a different journey, you know, and every bit of land and farm business has its own goals and vision and needs to operate a little bit differently. And I love that you give that permission to think that way.
Nakala Maddock: And absolutely, but I think don’t micro manage. Yeah, always try and look at the bigger picture. But you know, when this was when you need to help that soil, you know, when you need to help that system and always be the helper ?
Regen Ray: Yeah. Yeah, love that. And I love how like you’ve just told a story about someone who had a problem and then within four days, it’s changed. And I think we do live in a world where we want quick fixes and I want to be mindful of that. And so with your expertise on Nutrisoil and people and farmers using the product, like what is a normal transition period because we live in a world where everything’s quick and easy to download and instant gratification. And nature wants to take its time sometimes, so how do you sit with that?
Nakala Maddock: Yeah, I’m also very careful never to say that you get immediate response. It takes time to learn how to look for responses and a response could be an increase in beneficial insects, and it could be your your cattle preferentially grazing because it’s a sweeter plant because it’s photosynthesizing more, it’s got more nutrient integrity in it. It could be healthier cattle. It could be that you don’t see any difference because you’ve got something holding it back. Like if you’ve got compacted soil that has a lot of weed burden and you’ve got your stock in there the whole time. I don’t think you’re going to see a lot of change very quickly, but I know change is happening, but it’s ultra slow, so you have to go, well, am I prepared for ultra slow change? Probably not. Say I want to be profitable. I want my land to regenerate. So yeah, you might need to ameliorate that compactionso there’s oxygen in there, so the microbes can do their job and drive around in those highways that you make with all of the aggregates?
Regen Ray: Yeah. And I think that’s a really important point as well. And I think this is like a little bit of a starting point, like being able to see the compaction in your soil makes more of a difference when you start realizing how the soil functions. And so by putting a product on like Nutrisoil or applying any other technique and then being able to look at the landscape that little bit differently from a new paradigm, things start appearing and you can you can then start making decisions from that. So there’s plant health, there’s soil health. What’s your experience from like a human food consumption point of view?
Nakala Maddock: Yes. Well, we we are a very healthy family, so that’s kind of where it all comes from. Lyn and her sister, Jill have the most amazing veggie garden and we have our own meat. And that’s just how it’s always been. So we really want that for others. We know that plants grown in a re generative system have more complexity in their root systems. So I talked about those amino acids and all those additional compounds, or you can call them secondary metabolites. They’re actually really important and we don’t talk about them enough. We talk about nutrients all the time, but nutrients are important. But having that conversation between a plant that has high nutrient compared to a plant that doesn’t with regenerative, organic and conventional. Conventional pump nutrients into them all the time. So they could have really high nutrient content but they’re missing the other facts that that are essential, the other vitamins that are essential and in the soil, those complexities. So with the human body, we, you know, everything is so complex, you know, but we’re just like a plant. So we need amino acids, we need a diversity of microbes. So if we don’t have diversity of microbes in our gut we can get really depressed. You know, it’s a mood enhancer. We know that when we eat something really high and sugary and we feel terrible, yep, we need amino acids for our hormones and enzymes and everything to work. And interestingly, what depletes amino acids in the soil and what depletes amino acids in a human is the same thing. It’s a high amount of urea, and it’s also heat? overgrazing , heat in us, it’s like having a temperature. So we need to realize that we could be eating an apple or we could be eating a banana. But it doesn’t have the same nutrient integrity if it’s grown in a really healthy system. So for me, my biggest passion is to be able to walk into a supermarket one day and everything there is healthy for me. So why are we growing food with poison? And that’s quite accepted, and that poison is on our food and it might be in parts per trillion. But if a mum eats that and the foetus has that and that baby’s affected, we’re not thinking long term, so we want complexity in our food. We want nutrition in our food and we want low chemical load. So our farmers not all of our farmers are organic but they’re regenerative, so they’re using less chemical and a worm liquid biodegrades chemicals in the soil. So if you think of all the different microbes that come out of the gut of the worm, you’ve got your nutrient solulising microbes. You’ve got your microbes that protect the plant from pests and diseases. And because you have these peptides, which are like chains of amino acids to kill pathogens. And we’ve also got these microbes that bio remediation microbes, so they break down chemicals in the soil. So there’s just so much complexity there that we’re mixing in a conventional system. And I’ve seen, you know, I’ve gone to an amazing organic farm and they have this beautiful rich red soil. And their root systems straight down and lots of soil around them, and we’ve jumped the fence. Same soil type. It’s really pale and the root systems. This is the worst I’ve ever seen, but I needed sunglasses to look at them they were so white . And they were all clumped together like this. Just a big mass of them. Just a mass of root systems that were all white. They didn’t go into the soil at all. So if we’re growing food like that, where’s the microbial complexity going into our food system and where’s the diversity of microbes? So if if we could get this food system right, the health system will just have nothing to do!
Regen Ray: What a wonderful world.
Nakala Maddock: I know, and we can put all of these people that work into the health system growing food. Like we’re a bit unbalanced.
Regen Ray: I agree. I agree. It’s it, you know, Soil Lovers I hope you’re getting as excited about worms as I am listening to this, I’m learning so much in this conversation. And you know, that’s why I think we always need to be be learning. And you know, these little creatures that are out of sight, out of mind and kind of grubby and (?) in society are so magical and creating so many benefits. And just even that link between the gut biome and the soil biome. And really, I feel like in the last decade there’s been more and more research and a lot more is becoming peer reviewed and cited in our everyday world of that link. And importantly, the links to our mind. You know I’ve heard things of like our gut is our second brain, and the chemical imbalances in our gut is causing a lot of, you know, other effects in our bodies, whether it be inflammation or, you know, health concerns. It’s just really interesting to see how many research is going into that and, you know, coming back to US soil. And that’s why I keep digging deeper into it because it keeps fascinating me about all these solutions.
Nakala Maddock: Yeah, I mean, if we can have a world of people who had a healthy mind, healthy body and a healthy spirit that would just be such a peaceful world. That would be great and not if hopefully it’s just when, you know, I think we’re going past that tipping point of it’s going to happen. I’ve noticed, especially in the last 12 months, you know, pandemic, it’s changed the landscape. It’s gotten people asking different questions. And, you know, farmers are starting to sell more directly. Consumers are starting to ask better questions of where their food’s grown and who’s growing it, what’s the system being used. And that is very empowering to say the least. Are you finding the same with the farmers that you’re talking to?
Nakala Maddock: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So the industry is getting bigger, but I think there’s a bigger picture going on with the consumers. So we’re getting it to be kind of cool and funky to know where your food comes from and having those conversations. But that’s our social side. We’re also very, very busy and people who are very busy make decisions just to get by each week. So I could be I’m just as guilty. So I have two children and I work more than a full time person and I run a farm. So for me, I can’t grow my own veggie garden , but I’m absolutely blessed that my mother in law does. And I have soup in the freezer every day that’s homemade from the garden. And like, I outsource people to do these things for me. So I just think there’s a bigger picture for consumers where we need a whole shift of role functions and priorities because we’re getting so busy. And to be healthy can be really busy, so we all need to work together to work this out.
Regen Ray: Yeah. And, you know, part of slowing down and just appreciating and I know it’s a very hard thing to do. You know, being a business owner myself and being in that hustle culture for a very long time, it is very hard to switch off sometimes and meal prepping. And where’s the food coming from? You know, I’m guilty, too. I’m glad you admitted that as well. It’s like, we are busy, and sometimes there is that impulse buy of not good food or, you know, not knowing where it comes from. And I think that’s where we do need a little bit of permission to say it’s a process. You can’t just go cold turkey on this stuff. Sometimes you need to slowly change different things in your life. You know, focus on one thing a week or one thing a month and just learn about it and go deeper in it and detox our body and detox our households and, you know, understand where the food comes from . And so with Nutrisoil and the soil and the worm farm that you talk about, what’s one of the things that’s being kind of most inspiring to you and share a story of like a farmer that’s maybe, you know, ha a great case study?
Nakala Maddock: Oh, look, I can’t go past the Haggerty’s. Yeah, like, they’re very special people Di and Ian Haggerty. They farm in the wheat belt in WA. And their intent and their spirituality. And when you go out on their farm, it’s just you can’t know it until you go there and you feel it like their native grasses and and those little mulla mulla bushes that come up there. Just you can’t believe it until you see it. And that is intent and that is making it non-negotiable and they’ve of course, they’ve gone through those really hard times and they’ve really struggled but to see a full time crop with no nitrogen, so healthy where not far away we were picking crops through the fence that was riddled with disease and we’re not harvesting the same way they were . It was just beautiful to see. But we do work with nature in regenerative ag. I don’t want people to think that it’s that like that every year. So that’s what it’s about. It’s about riding the highs and the lows but over the long term, you get a really good, consistent yield and you’ve got this amazing purpose that you can live for and gets you up in the morning.
Regen Ray: Yeah, I love that. What a great story. And I know Helen and Hugo have spent some time with them, Ian and Di Haggerty and a great enterprise has been built, and I think they’ve even been featured on Australian story recently as well. So people wanted to dig deeper and see their story. And what was one of the things that I was a bit saddened on that story was that sometimes they have to sell their produce to the normal commodity market because the demand of it isn’t there. And this is why I’m a big advocate of we, the consumers, the power of the people need to ask for better food and create that demand from the bottom up, you know, and the system will change, you know?
Nakala Maddock: And that’s where I was trying to sort of go to before like, we are busy. I don’t think we’re going to change our lifestyles. That’s just not what I think is in the future. I think what I see in the future is opportunity needing to support these farmers to be regenerative and to pay more for their food. You pay more for their food so that we’re not paying at the doctors. And so that we can pick the lifestyle that we want
Regen Ray: I love that. I agree you. We pay the same. We’re in the same net position over our life. We either pay now or we pay later. And I know it’s hard for some people and my self included on many start ups and I, you know, bootstrap all the way. And it is very difficult sometimes to, you know, pay the price at the checkout. But I’m also a believer that over my life, I’ll probably we all pay the same roughly, you know, whether it be in treatments or disease down the future. And we’re not a health show and I don’t want to, you know, I’m not a doctor or anything like that, but it’s just clear from me, from seeing so many people go down this path that we pay the same net position. And the other thing is when the demand increases, the prices are going to drop. It’s supply versus demand. It’s marketing 101 . So we are paying more for organic because the demand isn’t there. It should be that that’s just the way that our supermarkets are stocked. Everything is organic. Everything’s regeneratively grow and then the prices will be on par because there’s just the supply chain efficiencies that get built into the system. And you mentioned the word regenerative, and I want to dig a little bit deeper into that. So the word regenerative ag or being a regenerative farmer? What does that mean to you?
Nakala Maddock: Yeah. So when we keep talking about organic being expensive and being, I think about it in the supermarket in this small little section and you go to that part and it is more expensive and it doesn’t look as fresh. They’ve sourced it from somewhere overseas. Regenerative. It’s about growing with less, but not none. So it’s not about no inputs, it’s not about no chemical. Like, we don’t want consumers to be so scared of a chemical. We all use chemicals in our home, on our hair. Also, you know, you have to be a really pure person to use no chemicals, and I know that they’re out there so I don’t want to offend them. They’re probably on your podcast. But we need a healthy soil and healthy body that buffer those chemicals a little bit. So it’s about getting down to as low as you can grow profitably. So we know that there’s a point with nitrogen where the root systems become white we’ve seen that under the microscope. So a little bit of nitrogen five, 10 units, it’s okay. Knock down at the start to get that crop up is okay. As long as you’re biologically seeding that crop and putting a seed inoculant on and you’re putting other parts of the system together. So I think and I never want to say never, but I think organic isn’t something that is going to be achievable for the whole world. But I do think that regenerative is achievable for the whole world.
Regen Ray: Yeah, I love that and I just want to hit home on what you said at the start is that it’s not none. It’s some, like, I agree with this because, you know, we sometimes come across these techniques and people go, Oh, I’m not allowed to disturb the soil, I’m going no till. I’m going to sell my tiller, but that’s not the solution, because sometimes you might need to aerate the soil, and that’s actually going to help. You know, so we got to not go cold turkey on stuff and just reducing what you’re doing and making some small steps, make some small tweaks. And sometimes it’s even just as much as the farm between our ears. It’s the mindset change. It’s the paradigm, reading the landscape differently that speaks more than throwing out all your chemicals or selling your tractor, you know?
Nakala Maddock: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s not even just a paradigm shift. It’s also working on yourself so that you’re the best version that you can be. Your mind is as healthy as it can be, your body it is healthy as it can be because that’s when you can put out the right energy to the world. And in that light, energy comes back and then it just keeps going out from there. Like, I’m very big on energy and about, you know, the vibration of thoughts. So if you’re thinking fearful thoughts, you’re going to put out that energy and that it’s going to come back at you where you feel you’re positive and you’re looking forward to things and you’re peaceful, that’s going to come back to you. And that just starts to build that around even our office here. Yeah. So nature, soil, we talk about these things in our meeting and we’re all aware of we’ve actually got the vibrational scale at our coffee station. So if someone’s not feeling great, we go where are you on the scale today?
Regen Ray: You know, I love that, that is so good.
Nakala Maddock: Yeah, it’s everything. And that means we’ve got to have healthy food with good diversity of microbes in it, with complexity of amino acids in it. We’ve got to have good sleep. So many things we can start on a health channel. I agree.
Regen Ray: So why don’t you go back to the soil? I wanted to know whether you had a soil interest or a health interest before because you mentioned that you kind of married into this family but was it there beforehand? Or have you explored this after that?
Nakala Maddock: I wondered if anyone would ask me this question publicly. There we go. This is a first for everyday. Be careful what you wish for. I grew up on on a small property and we had our own meat and I was always meat and veggies. But my dad loved lollies like we were lolly fiends . Like every day we would drive to town, he’d get two dollars worth of lollies. And, you know, so I didn’t eat that very well, very well when I met Darren and like, he’d ask me if I wanted a drink and I’d say, Yeah, can I have coke. And he like, you can have a glass of water. The Maddock family have made me a lot healthier. But I did grow up, grow up on a traditionally healthy property, and it’s just that we did have a lolly fetish and well, I’m healthy.
Regen Ray: I’m very grateful because the way that you’ve explained everything today has been super clear and you know, you can you can tell that you’re super passionate about it and it’s contagious because I’m just like, maybe I need to go and do more about worms, you know? So, yeah, it’s definitely piqued an interest for me. So love as a hope that you’re getting just as much out of this podcast as I am. And if you wanted to see Ian and Di Haggerty, you can check it out at Soil Learning Center. com. I do know that it’s in the archives. You might have to dig deep, and the video version of this podcast will also be there. Nakala, I’m so grateful for this conversation. I wanted to ask you our signature question Are you ready to be the voice of our soils?
Nakala Maddock: I am glad. Hopefully, it trusts me to speak on its behalf. Fire away. Excellent.
Regen Ray: So if you were the voice of our soil, what would you say to us on Earth?
Nakala Maddock: Let me have complexity. Don’t simplify me and. It’s about your thoughts as well put out loving to me, put out love to others, put out love to animals because we’re all connected.
Regen Ray: I love that. Absolutely. I love that whole like, don’t simplify me and I am complex, you know, understand my complexity, you know? Don’t get confused and thrown and drawn away from it. Yes.
Nakala Maddock: And the soil loves us. It will look after us. It can do all things that we try to synthesize. It can act as a pesticide, as a fungicide with a healthy biological system.
Regen Ray: Yeah, yeah. If we just get out of the way and let it do its thing,
Nakala Maddock: its magic and support it because they’re farming it.
Regen Ray: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, if anyone wanted to hang out with you more, how can they reach out? What website links can you share
Nakala Maddock: So you can find us on our website: Nutrisoil.com.au and you can come and see us and see our worm farm, we’re open 9 to 5 Monday to Friday. We have Biological Farming roundtables, so we go across the country connecting to all of our Nutrisoil hubs. So our hubs are groups of farmers geographically across Australia who are broadacre farmers. We have a podcast: Biological Farming Roundtable podcast. You can listen to that where I interview farmers on how they what they actually do on their farming system. And if you’re a farmer, a broadacre farmer and you wanted to get involved that’s really exciting at the moment because with our hubs, we’ve got groups of farmers there’s probably 20 in each group across Australia, you get an amazing bulk buying rates and we organise that for you. But you also get a community, you get an independent soil coach come out to see that will help you with other inputs. We know Nutrisoil is part of the system, but let’s help you transition. And also that’s quickly changing from regen agriculture. And then we have David Hardwick, who supports the farmers with a course called Reboot Your Soil, so that people really feel like they can make their own nutrient plan decisions without having to flounder around not knowing what to do. So it’s yeah, we’ve got a really supportive environment that we can help you out with.
Regen Ray: There you have it. So Soil Lovers you have absolutely zero excuses of not being able to discover more about Nutrisoil because you just heard it here. There is so many ways that you can get involved, whether it be podcast, whether it be the roundtables, whether it be, you know, getting someone on your farm and joining in on these hubs. Like, I think you’ve just made it really easy for people to get started and start digging deeper into this wonderful world of wormy composting, worm castings and juice and whatever you want to call it. You know, it’s just super fun and your access and reach to it. And as always, all the links will be around the show notes or around this video. Any final parting advice, thoughts that you’d like to leave our Soil Lovers with?
Nakala Maddock: Oh no, I think I think that I really I was asked the questions, the things that I wanted to share. I’m excited for your podcast to go out. So is it going to be directed to farmers, consumers? Where is it going to sit?
Regen Ray: It’s going to sit more between our farmers and consumers who are interested in soil. One of the things that we’ve realized is that more and more people are realizing in their own backyard that they’ve got the power to make small choices, and that is creating a great curiosity of people who are then inspiring farmers to go, Wow, there is a group of people who really care about the way that I’m growing food and I want it to be more nutrient dense and I want it to be, you know, more profitable per acre. And I don’t want to buy the farm next door and have more land and work harder when I could just scale down and grow smarter. You know, and so, yeah, I’m really excited about that bridge, the gap between, you know, consumer and producer, and a lot of people have an issue with this word consumer. And I think, well, if you want to change the narrative, stop consuming so much and start producing more, you know, so we all got the power to change how we are labelled and what we refer to ourselves. But in marketing 101 , you’ve got consumers, and at the end of the day, that’s what we are. We can rebrand as like foodies and all these other words. And I just think, no, that’s just shying away from the truth. Like, we are definitely consuming more than what we’re producing, produce up and become an art producer. Like, I’m not saying you have to grow food, but we just need to get back to being more producers, produce content, produce videos, write a book or do something that’s going to change that, that conversation and that label.
Nakala Maddock: Absolutely, that’s really exciting.
Regen Ray: Yeah, super exciting. Well, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. It’s been an absolute bundle of joy and I can’t wait to share this with the world. Thank you very much for getting your hands dirty and digging deeper with us today and our Soil Lovers
Nakala Maddock: Loved it. Thanks, Ray.
Regen Ray: Excellent. Soil Lovers, until next time, get outside, get your hands dirty, start counting your worms and appreciate the work that they’re doing and keep digging deeper into our soils.
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