163. Regenerating a Region: Jeff Pow on how a regenerative, cruelty-free food system thrives or folds

Jeff Pow is at the helm of an extraordinary story of regeneration. You might remember Jeff and his wife Michelle McManus from episode 78, when I first visited them at Southampton Homestead back at the end of 2020. (They were also later highlighted among some globally esteemed names in the acknowledgements of Paul Hawken’s book Regeneration.) Since then, I’d been seeing the land there go from strength to strength. And I’d been hearing about how their pasture-raised poultry (as distinct from so-called free-range), and their micro-processing systems, were now enabling regional regeneration – of country, community and economy. Even in the face of COVID, more fires, and still finding themselves constantly on the brink of folding.

Attempts and experiments with partners to create market systems that get us eaters this nutritious, cruelty-free and regenerative food, and these farmers a livelihood, maybe even the means to do more of their great work, aren’t working. This is still too often the missing piece, it seems. So what shift in lens, and systems, can bring us all together in these situations, to enable the regeneration I’m seeing at Southampton and elsewhere, to happen everywhere?

We start in space, believe it or not. Then come back to earth with how torturously chicken appears in supermarkets, but how brilliantly it happens here. And how it all hinges on the possibilities we explore next.

This chat was recorded at Southampton Homestead near Balingup WA on 30 April 2023.

Title slide: Jeff Pow and Michelle McManus at Southampton.

See more photos including behind the scenes by becoming a subscriber via the Patreon page.

Music:

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, off the soundtrack for the film Regenerating Australia.

Find more:

Southampton Homestead.

Dirty Clean Food’s terrific profile page on Jeff and Michelle’s operation.

Dirty Clean Food’s online shop for pasture-raised poultry, including from Southampton (it looks like hovering over the pictures brings up the Southampton logo when it’s from there).

For more with Jeff Pow & Michelle McManus (including other links, and photos on the episode web page), listen to episode 78.

And to listen to Jeff with Yeshe, tune into Yeshe Interviews, for Earth & space & chickens & Support the Show. The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

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