OUR STORY
“Regenerative Agriculture is a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services.
Regenerative Agriculture aims to capture carbon in soil and aboveground biomass, reversing current global trends of atmospheric accumulation.
At the same time, it offers increased yields, resilience to climate instability, and higher health and vitality for farming and ranching communities.
The system draws from decades of scientific and applied research by the global communities of organic farming, agroecology, Holistic Management, and agroforestry.”
SOURCE www.regenerativeagriculturedefinition.com
THE POINT STATION
My name is Camilla Rutherford, and I am a professional photographer. I live on a high country merino sheep station, with my husband and two sons. I have lived here for 9 years and have learnt so much about farming food and fibre and what it takes to produce it. This is our farms story.
In 1910 the 352,000-acre Morven Hills Station, which spread from the top of the Lindis Pass to Clyde, east to St Bathans and west to the shores of Lake Hawea until it was broken up into smaller farms. These farms were sold off as high country stations and my children’s great great great Grandfather bought the 14,000 acre (5.5 thousand hectare) farm that is now called The Point Station in Tarras.
The farm has been passed on down through the generations and developed by each family as custodians of this precious land, protecting it for future generations. My father in law, currently at the reigns, has done a massive amount of work to develop and protect the land that we now farm. He runs the farm with my husband and they are incredibly hard working, passionate and caring farmers. They farm merino sheep and beef cattle.
Recently my husband Tim and his father have embarked on a journey into regenerative agriculture. Their journey into this method of farming started 3 years ago when they went out on a limb and purchased a no-till direct drill. This piece of machinery was not cheap, but they felt that their current method of farming was not working. Farm workload & running costs were inconceivably high, work / life all out of balance, as well as mounting pressure on the land and environment. This is not the future for farming, something had to change.
After this purchase something did change. Tim started researching more and more into soil health and how he could improve our farms efficiency. He started showing me a few TED talks and I became increasingly interested in how our food is grown. I've always been a bit of an environmentalist, trying to do the right thing, but of recent years, specifically since becoming a mother, it means more to me than ever. What will the world be like when my sons are my age? So when I began to learn more about ‘Regenerative Agriculture’ I found it solves so many more of the worlds problems than I could ever have imagined.
I have been documenting our journey on the farm for the past two years, here is our story so far.
This is us