Brian Wehlburg on going from growing tobacco to holistic land management

Brian Wehlburg once grew tobacco in Zimbabwe, but in his search for how to preserve biodiversity and restore the health of degraded farmland he became an early adopter of Allan Savory’s teachings on holistic management and regenerative agriculture. Today Brian lives in Australia where he teaches others what he has learned over the past three decades. He also manages his own farm with grass-fed beef, pork, and chickens. Brian says that “it doesn’t matter where in the world you are, you can help the earth regenerate itself by improving the water cycle, the mineral cycle, and capturing as much sunlight as possible in the plants and on the land. This is what holistic management is all about and by improving these things life can get better for not just yourself, but for everybody.” Through his work, Brian has realized how important it is to have a healthy vision about what kind of life you want to live. It is through this type of vision that we can start seeing the world differently and thereby start doing things differently. In this conversation, we also talk about how the Covid-pandemic and the bush fires in Australia have affected the visions of how people think about their own future. There are more people interested in regenerative agriculture than ever before. The podcast was recorded in January 2021. Editing: Magdalena Lindroos