Grahame Rees – Low-stress and Regenerative Agriculture

Grahame Rees, an educator, farmer and 4th generation sheep and wool producer joins me on this weeks episode. During the episode, we cover some questions such as where does our food come from? What are the challenges for people on the farm?  In addition to these questions we also discuss what is low-stress stockmanship, what can animals teach us about stress, what is the difference between climate change and climate variability? I believe it is essential for those of us in the city to connect with the people on the land, as our health and the health of the planet is in their hands. We require the food they produce to not only survive but to thrive.

Selected Links from the Episode

Grahame Rees website - KLR marketing
Unstress episode with Dr Charles Massey on regenerative agriculture
Unstress episode with Joel Salatin on regenerative agriculture
Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown

Download the PDF transcription
Dr. Ron Ehrlich: Hello and welcome to “Unstress”. I'm Dr. Ron Ehrlich. Where does our food come from? What are some of the challenges for people on the farms growing the very food we need to survive than if they're doing it really well and we support them growing the food we need to thrive not just for us now but for our children, our grandchildren and future generations? These are serious questions and some others include, what is low-stress stockmanship? What can animals teach us about stress? What's the difference between climate change and climate variability? Did you know that in a teaspoon of healthy soil there are six billion microorganisms and it's the soil that 7.5 billion people on this planet depend on?

Well, my guest today is Grahame Rees, farmer and educator. Grahame is a fourth generation Sheep and Wool producer who grew up on the family property at Ivanhoe in Western New South Wales. Now as you will hear he has a passion for people, livestock and the rangelands. Grahame has spent the last 20 years with his wife Roz and two children on their property Penina near Ivanhoe building on his knowledge as well as participating in grazing and management programs in Australia and around the world.

In 1999 Graham was inspired by an innovative approach to farming which ignited an interest in low-stress stockhandling. Over the next couple of years, Grahame and Roz experienced the benefits of handling livestock using those methods. And in 2002 Graham joined with some partners to deliver low-stress stock handling schools right across Australia. Now assisting thousands of livestock handlers to improve their livestock handling. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Grahame Rees.
Download the PDF transcription
Welcome to the show Grahame.

Grahame Rees: Hey Ron, how are you?

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: I'm well, I'm well, thank you so much for joining us. Look, this whole story of connecting with the land bringing what's going on in farmers lives to the city so that we can all understand a little better. There's so much wanted to talk to you today about, but I wondered if you might share with our listener a bit about your own story how you got to where you are now?

Grahame Rees: Thanks, Ron. I think um it's interesting I grew up and spent most of my life in and out on an outback sheep station at a place called Ivanhoe near Broken Hill which is 900 kilometres west of Sydney. And it's interesting that at the time we're recording this I'm visiting my daughter in Sydney and I was only on the beach yesterday with her and I said, it's hard to understand there's anything out there. It's very I can really relate to how somebody in the city can't necessarily relate to somebody in the country and then there's me out there 900 kilometres away how do I relate to people. And I think that's part of this changing world we used to live in small communities but now we're a much broader world.

So I spent most of my life out there we ran a sheep station and I guess you went through all the challenges of running...