The last month has been a particularly intense one. Hot on the heels of our crowd-funding, and among the intensity of trying to put together a small factory, sandwiched between maintaining our farm and milk sales, be decided to have a crack at a Banksia Awards. We know – we’re crazy! But we are big fans. The Banksia Foundation which governs the awards, have been around for 30 years with a mission to inspire excellence in sustainability and educate more people about sustainable living. For us, this intent really captured our interest as we feel strongly aligned with this mission ourselves.
The Banksia Foundation endorses the Sustainable Development Goals summarised in the Figure alongside.
These 17 “SDGs” were developed by world leaders at the 2015 UN Summit, and universally adopted to be implemented “ending all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind”, over the next 15 years (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/)
And How Now is interested in these because…?
Well, in preparing our application submission we really had to check in with our motivations and goals and make sure we hadn’t strayed. The Judges also asked us about these Goals. And having our community so engaged, we felt a responsibility to not only take stock of what we were doing now, but what sort of legacy is worthy of such support, what are worthy pursuits, and how we want our business to evolve. What we were delighted to find is how many of the SDG’s are relevant to us. With just our hearts and minds guiding us to this point, we want to build a sustainable business that makes real contributions in areas that are important to us – land, animals and environment and naturally nurture the humans who enjoy our products.
I thought a quick summary of how we are aligned and what we are doing / working towards would be a valuable contribution. Perhaps more importantly, we think it is important you get a better understanding of how your support helps the international community.
So here goes:
If you know Dr Les, you know how much he detests waste – of any sort. Our modus operandi is that every bit matters, and we will keep working towards every bit of our precious milk finding a good home. None goes to waste, and we do what we can to contribute to those in need. We donate regularly to a charity that provides meals to any comers 3 times a week in a park and access to a staples grocery. They also regularly pack food boxes.
We set out to produce the highest quality, purist milk possible, and work hard to ensure it gets to you in pristine condition. We work hard to improve our soil and produce healthful, wholesome food without contamination or residues from those efforts. High Ca, good fats, quality protein are part of the picture, as are the other important nutrients real, unadulterated milk contains. We have the added benefit of low stress hormones in our milk which means other nutrients are more concentrated. Ours really is milk that can help you sleep at night.
Further, our farming system is providing measurable benefits to global health at levels of individual, community and environment. As part of the How Now fraternity, mind, body and soul are nourished.
Success commands interest, and interest provides learning opportunities. Ours is also a lead-by-example approach, and we are already publishing some of our insights and experiences even at this early stage. We are developing an accreditation program which aims to provide a learning platform and a path towards sustainable farming practices the How Now way. This is a core component of our journey.
Finding decent work is easy at How Now. Developing a highly productive farming system which encourages small farms, and with a family lifestyle focus is another core motivation. A collateral benefit of the How Now way, is that most of the distressing and unsafe components are eliminated. It is extremely satisfying work.
Innovation is where we live – firstly our sexed semen. I don’t believe taking a life to enjoy a glass of milk, butter your toast or eat a piece of cheese can be justified, so we use the latest tools to deliver only female calves, with our sexed semen yielding 100% success to date. Even more recent is the ability to choose polled genetics (cows develop without horns naturally)
Plus we have amazing stuff going on with our soils – we have introduced nitrate munching bugs, rainmaking microbes, and the Soil Kee system to introduce new species. All of these are developing technologies.
And breaking news: The imminent launch of our new packaging (October 2019) has us very excited. Imagine returning your spent milk bottle knowing it will go towards making a future litre of milk via our unique composting process. This really will close our loop by bringing our waste packaging back on farm, turning it into compost, and then feeding it to our pastures – we will be feeding the packaging to the grass to feed the cows – truly amazing!
Our compostible packaging will help alleviate the strain that plastic bottles, and their alternatives put on the environment. It’s a commitment we take very seriously, and the reason we haven’t moved to glass. Glass is perceived to be more environmentally friendly than plastic, but its not if you don’t have all the recycling equipment – which we don’t. So this is the almost the perfect solution (and we are working on no packaging at all – but baby steps!)
Our farming community growth through more farmers joining How Now and our consumers and share holders in How Now will be part, and already are part, of the shift towards these goals.
And lastly, and perhaps most significantly, we, like others before us (Rockstrom et. al., Nature, 2009; Ng et. al., The Conversation, 2006) have identified that while carbon, and particularly carbon dioxide and methane are the main focus in climate change arguments, Nitrogen is a much more significant issue. In their 2006 essay in The Conversation, “Nitrogen Pollution: the forgotten element of climate change” Ng and colleagues capture the extent of the issue and highlight some of the costs.
The seminal paper of Rockstrom et. al. illustrating the distortion of planetary boundaries was published in Nature in 2009 (Figure 1) putting some perspective on dangers of humanity continuing on its current path. Via our regenerative farming approach, we are tackling this head on. Dr Les in particular has become as obsessed about this as Cathy is with the compostible packaging. And they are equally worthy. None of our bottle components will ever contaminate land, air or sea as long as they come back to us. Better still, our packaging will be part of the picture when it comes to reversing desertification of agricultural soils. Perfect!
Figure 1. Planetary boundaries. Biodiversity and Nitrogen are much further out of safe limits than any other.
Improving animal welfare was the sole reason we started this journey. But like many natural developments once you crack it open you see there is so much more that could and should be done. We believe passionately that all animals should be respected and treated with kindness. We don’t believe disrespect, harm or killing purely in the name of production and output is justified. If our cows serve us well for 6, 8 or 10 years they deserve a happy retirement in our care. Our ultimate idea is that the retired cows be kept as part of a petting farm for people to come and enjoy, or maybe even host some “cow therapy” which fits nicely under the life on the land goal.
My personal reward from this unique, heart-led direct journey, is peace with my self. Animal rights is a large item currently and I love that our cows have a voice in how they are handled.
Our cow and calf together dairy has evolved from a community partnership and as a values-based business, this community partnership is a vital, integral aspect of who we are and what we do. Our community support is very important to our success. Our future partnership opportunities are endless ranging from small family-farmers joining the How Now way with a view to passing the batton to the next generations, to engaging with compatible groups such as the small producers alliance, right up to the RSPCA to promote sustainable farming, healthy living and clean air.
Other partnerships we are excited about right now are with a small group of Chin refugees living in Melbourne to create a community dairy on farming land in their native Myanmar, and closer to home, assisting the revival of indigenous agriculture in Victoria.
Feel free to share this with any friends or likeminded spirits who you know will enjoy the read.
Cathy & Dr Les
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