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A city-dweller’s change of climate
Change of climate for city-dweller
A new book by journalist and farmer Nicola Harvey offers a unique perspective on New Zealand farming and how it can find common ground with its critics, writes Gerald Piddock.
“ F ARM – the making of a climate activist” is both a memoir and a call to action for the farming industry and its critics to look beyond seeing the issues affecting food production in black and white, with single solution answers.
It encourages people to recognise the nuances in the food system. For farmers, it’s a view of their industry from the perspective of someone who has spent much of their adult life in cities. Harvey says it was deliberately written from a nonrural person’s perspective. She stresses it is not a definitive story of farming, nor representative of farming in New Zealand.
It’s an approach “that I hope will help people working on the land and those living in cities find a space where they can have a little bit more understanding of each other”, says Harvey.
The book evolved out of her shift from living and working as a journalist in Australia to rearing calves on a leased farm close to Taupō.
New Zealandborn Harvey and Australian husband Pat Ledden made the change after Harvey had a miscarriage while living in Australia. The prospect of farming offered them a fresh start.
Work she had done on an audio documentary about the pros and cons in the push towards veganism had put her in contact with farmers who were testing different farming methods that were less environmentally harmful. That would contrast with what she would see when she began rearing calves.
The couple arrived on the lease block, run by her father Roger, in February 2018 and reared calves for the next two seasons starting that autumn.
“That was the start of the book. I came back home to the farm and at the time we were learning to farm on this small place – 130ha. We were thrown in the deep end.”
They believed rearing calves would be a good way for them to learn about animal health and the business of farming.
“We did two seasons back-toback and had really good seasons. We were excited about it and thought it was the industry for us.”
Harvey finished her documentary in time for autumn rearing in 2019. However, that year a combination of higher input prices, health issues with the calves and a fall in the price that finishers were willing to pay for reared calves led to them considering a switch to finishing beef cattle.
They continued to rear calves that spring, but that proved to be their final season before making the change.
They reached a tipping point where they were both exhausted after two very dry summers and the effect this had on the farm, as well as by caring for their newborn daughter, Clara.
Harvey says she came to realise that the way they were farming was affecting her relationship with the people who mattered most in her life. “There was a combination of events that required us to sit down and force ourselves to make another big decision on what we were doing on the land and to change our business model.” She returned to the ideas found in making the documentary and started talking to farmers looking to change. It was from here that the idea for the book took hold.
“I started writing out our story and what life had been like coming onto our small farm with a very particular viewpoint around what farming was, a city-driven viewpoint and being constantly confounded and surprised about what I discovered.”
Her publisher liked the concept and Harvey spent the next 18 months during the covid-19 lockdown writing it.
Their new farming strategy – on hilly terrain that is not suitable for heavy cattle – involves them buying in about 350 beef or dairy-beef weaner heifers and either selling them as yearlings or finishing them at 18 months.
The strategy has the concept of “enoughness” at its core. It’s a term she heard during an interview with former Commissioner for the Environment Dr Morgan Williams.
“Enoughness” says that farmers can have control over their destiny by drawing a line in the sand that recognises that “this is where we are happy”.
“It’s in that moment, as Dr Williams suggests, you turn your back on endless productivity,” Harvey says.
For Harvey, it has become a key feature of what she and her husband strive to do on their farm.
That does not mean they believe they have settled on a farming system that is perfect. The nature of farming means they will constantly be reviewing the system and will forever be adjusting their business plan where necessary.
Doing anything other than that means taking on too much risk, she says.
“Every year brings up new concerns and considerations that we don’t have control over. The line in the sand of enoughness may shift as the years progress.”
They also know the context of their farm – the hapū that manages the nearby waterways, the landowner and the wider community.
Their herd may be their core business, but the environmental improvements they have made have seen the return of bird and insect life, and those ecosystems need to be taken into consideration when it comes to making decisions that affect the land, she says.
This means they recognise that farming is not just about profit, and that their actions affect those other stakeholders.
Threaded through the book is the at-times strained relationship with her father, who was sceptical of the changes being made on the farm and the values and philosophies the couple espouse.
Harvey says its an issue many in the farming sector can relate to as they try to navigate the many obstacles around family relationships in a farm business.
Harvey’s world view – unlike her father’s – is guided by her experience living in cities.
She says he has become more interested in their work as the changes become more noticeable on the farm.
“He’s curious to understand what we did and why we did it.
“When we talk about a generational divide, I think it’s also about the way knowledge is transferred and valued in the farming space.
“You can talk the talk and try and argue a point – and I did a lot of that – but it’s not going to persuade anyone who has had a lived experience that proves their point.”
Harvey realised she had to show visible examples to her father so he understood what they are trying to achieve.
The generational divide is a battle over whose knowledge is valued most, and why. It’s a complex issue. Harvey says she came into farming with very lofty and pre-conceived ideas influenced by her time living in cities; these rubbed up against her father’s views.
“I didn’t understand why they couldn’t see it my way, and that’s a bit of naivety and arrogance which I’m happy to acknowledge. The un-learning of that for me has been just as valuable as trying to understand the value system that guides my dad’s generation.”
The big challenge is finding a way to have those conversations and finding common ground.
Harvey hopes that urban critics of the farming industry reading her book realise that there is not just one solution to changing the industry’s environmental footprint.
She also has hope that this bridge is starting to be built across that divide. She recalls the vitriolic conversation when she started the book two years ago, because of the focus on veganism and a plantbased diet.
“I am hopeful that the conversation will shift because I already see signals that it’s moving in a direction where we get a sense that we’re all in this and we all have to help each other.”
