Allan Savory & Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm - We are losing the war and how that must change

At about 7am on the 27th of July 2014, Allan Savory summons Joel and I to sit down and have a chat at Polyface Farm's 'Near Barn'. We had invited Allan and Jody Butterfield to ‪@PolyfaceFarm‬ to have them contribute to the filming of what went on to become our multi-award winning 'Polyfaces: A World of Many Choices' feature documentary. Luckily Lisa Heenan had the camera ready to go and stick microphone fitted. With that Allan proceeded to tell Joel and I how that unless we (meaning the regenerative agriculture community and its leaders) came together then we will continue to lose the war. The war? The war against allowing the agriculture that has been the base of one of the greatest devastations this planet has ever seen. More recently Allan reached out to me to have some conversations about the future, and it is clear to both of us that the war is not really any closer to being won. Minor victories here and there, but still this movement is disparate and 'Holistic Decision Making' is clearly not being the basis to policy discussions and development—"we're not at the table" to which Allan is referring to the policy table. I would suggest that we have to start at the kitchen table, the enterprise table and the board room table, and back that up with action on the ground that is monitored sufficiently so that then, and only then, would we have the basis to causing the necessary change to the way that humans make decisions—and that has to be holistic. Change in the way human's think is of course fascinating and the acute and grotesque lesson's of the 20th century provide us with a clarity that coercion and fear do not work—most people just comply to avoid or put off various consequences. Just as the inquisitions of the middle ages did not keep the world flat or cease the renaissance from occurring, Allan has suggested that it takes a few hundred years for humanity to change its thinking and in some cases this has been the case. P.A. Yeomans suggested a generation or two. If we look at the period between Oscar Wilde's imprisonment to the more general acceptance of same sex relationships and marriage (at least in the global north and west) then that took about 100 years. Racism is another and so is #MeToo and yet still... What is curious to me is what would it take for holism to become an unconscious element of the fabric of human thinking and the way we manage this planet? The burn is slow and the majority of people are now separated from their "ecological umbilical" (pers. comm. Joel Salatin 2009). Environmental alarmism, perhaps starting with Thomas Malthus and then 170 years later with Paul Ehrlich, ecological alarmism from the dust bowls to Rachel Carson, and then climate alarmism over last few decades with 26 (+) COP conferences, doesn't seem to cut through either—and at no stage do any of these critically address the root cause of humans not thinking or making decisions holistically. Alas I should point out that this was the only thing that Joel said to us throughout the 5 years of filming Polyfaces that he didn't want included in the film. He felt it was too negative. This is the first time I have shared this and I wonder if it would be helpful to have it shared publicly. Talking with Allan recently he certainly hasn't changed his tune—if anything this issue has only increased as a his highest concern. I should also point out that this talk provided me with the impetus to have other organisations join the Regrarians Workplace—poignantly this started in earnest with Sheila Cooke, Christopher Cooke and Edmund Sutcliffe and the Ireland/UK Savory Institute hub '3LM' making this space their own. Is collaborating enough? • Savory Institute - https://savory.global/ • Polyface Farm - https://polyfacefarms.com/ • Joel Salatin - https://www.thelunaticfarmer.com/about • Polyfaces: A World of Many Choices - http://www.polyfaces.com/ • Regrarians Ltd. - https://www.regrarians.org