Kane Brisco is a dairy farmer from Taranaki, who has a passion for helping those in the rural community maintain good health and wellbeing. Through challenges in farming, Kane found himself in a mentally not-so-great place, with a loss of social connection and fitness after retiring from playing rugby further exacerbating things. But Kane had always had a love of sport and it created a lot of positive benefits for him physically and mentally. After using fitness and training, through the form of boxing, as a tool to start looking after himself again, he turned to his focus to his local community and sought to do something to help improve the wellbeing of the people around him, rather than waiting for the Government to come and help improve services in the area. What started as running a couple of sessions a week in his driveway with a few people grew into something much bigger, now known as Farm Fit.
“…there were so many reasons to start Farm Fit and very little reasons not to do it. And one of the other reasons was it was actually just seeing people, I guess on social media and on Facebook comments and whatnot, literally waiting and begging for the government to come and save their life basically and turn their life around for the better and being a practical sort of fella I think, a lot of the services we have, a lot of them are the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. There’s actually nothing stopping us as individuals building our own fence at the top of that cliff, so it’s a little bit harder to fall off and it’s really that simple, taking a little bit of personal responsibility and that can be applied to many aspects in life, but I think particularly your own mental and physical health. There are things you can do to help yourself.”
The importance of sustainability from a human perspective
It is evident from talking to Kane that people are at the centre of everything he does, and his thoughts on sustainability emphasise the human aspect as well.
“We all know that the definition I guess of being sustainable is being able to do whatever it is you’re doing long term or forever without, you know, taking away from anything… we often use that word when we’re talking about farm systems I guess in agriculture, is your farm sustainable? Is your food production methods sustainable? Or whatever it may be, but I actually think on a personal level, I’m really passionate about asking people is your passion sustainable? Is your workload sustainable?
We’ve gotta be able to sustain how we’re living and how we’re working and our relationships and that sort of thing. That’s what sustainability means to me actually looking at yourself as well.”
The sustainability of our people within the Ag industry is of prime importance to Kane. Burnout, loss of passion for farming, and the consequences that come with that are such important factors to be targetting in the sustainability of rural communities. It should be no surprise then that the SDG that resonates most with Kane is #3 – Good health and wellbeing. Kane sees this as being a pivotal ‘cog in the wheel’, as a population who are thriving are more capable at solving problems, and there is an abundance of problems or challenges to be solved in the world right now. But not only does good health of people lead to better thinking, but it creates a feedback loop:
“We’ve got an incredible mind. We’ve got an incredible body that can do amazing things. I just see a lot of almost wasted potential out there in the world, and it’s a little bit sad, but I’m incredibly passionate about trying to get people to realise their potential in whatever way that may be. And I think if you’ve got healthy people, you’ve got a healthy planet. And if you’ve got healthy, happy farmers, you’ve got healthy, happy cows, healthy, happy land, healthy, happy farms.”
“I’m a big believer that you know, physical and mental health are really intertwined. They go hand in hand. Generally, you know, one supports the other. And when you get both in sync, you get a really productive, creative, happy human being that you know generally does a lot of good things in the world.”
The challenge of adaptation
Where agriculture is going in New Zealand is a question Kane gets asked a lot, and he thinks there will be some big shifts in the next decade, particularly in dairy farming but also sheep and beef, as to how we go about farming our land and our animals.
“And the challenge is, is that going to be done willingly by farmers or is that going to be forced upon us? To be honest, I think that’s a really big challenge for us as a country is where we gonna draw the line I guess in regulation and rules, in farmer led action. Most New Zealand farmers can be pretty stubborn and headstrong, and they don’t like being told what to do. So, I think that’s a huge challenge to what the balance is gonna be there between farmers and Government, And that relationships really important. It would be fair to say it’s being tested pretty rigorously at the moment and I think it’s gonna get worse as time goes on.”
“So how we adapt? I don’t think it’s a matter of are we going to change. I think we have to change. It’s the challenge for me I see. Are we gonna be allowed to do that farmer led? Or is it going to be forced upon us?”
Although the challenge is present, Kane has seen plenty of opportunity come from the need to change already, and it will only continue to increase over time. The opportunity to tell our stories and market ourselves, as well as create our own brands as farming businesses and create relationships direct to the customer, is an area that Kane is a big fan of, and thinks that we should be more open to within the sector.
“But I think the way that the world’s going a little bit, I think there will be a lot more I guess direct farm sales for dairy products or smaller dairy companies that are willing to do that niche product or bit more traceability or that, you know, a lot of people just have a genuine interest in knowing where their foods come from and hearing the story behind that is really important too, and us farmers have to get way better at telling our story and being proud of it. There’s a lot of farmers in New Zealand and if we all, I guess, told our story a little bit better, there’s a lot of voices that will actually come up and then that would drown out a lot of the bull that goes against us in all honesty. So I think we’ve gotta be a bit more open to doing that.”
For Kane, storytelling is not only important for connection with consumers, but also in helping to bridge the rural-urban divide and ‘get the country behind farming again’:
“I think a lot of urban people went, they just don’t know us. They don’t know us anymore. They don’t know our story. They don’t know what we do. So, I think in in part of getting the country behind farming again is actually we’ve gotta tell them what we’re doing and how we’re doing it and it’s not leaving it up to Fonterra to do it or DairyNZ or Beef and Lamb. They want to hear from real people with a real face with a real story and a lot of these farms have great stories behind them; they’ve been in families for five or six generations and got some great stories about what’s happened on that place. That’s what people in town want to hear about. They want to hear how good it is and how hard it is and what we go through to put food on their table, and do it in a way that’s not, we don’t want a thank you, we just want you to understand, and I think that’s really important and part of that storytelling is we don’t want a pat on the back all the time. We just want you to understand and have a relationship with us and talk to us again.”
Kane’s practical tip for farming businesses wanting to contribute to sustainability
The overwhelming theme that has stuck out from all of Kane’s responses to the podcast questions is to look after ourselves and the people around us, especially in our farming businesses. As Kane simply puts ‘It’s about actually seeing the person that’s standing next to you, not their job title’. Farming businesses are three-pronged for Kane, like a triangle, and his key tip is that we should be aiming for a balance between farming, business and people.
“What I’m a little bit concerned about is people have gone too much away from farming and people, towards business and making their business sustainable, which is hugely important, don’t get me wrong, we need that. We need to be profitable; we need to be able to weather the storms of the prices that we get thrown at us. But we’ve also gotta remember not to go too far and forget about the farming and the people, because without that you don’t have a business. Without the people, you don’t have anyone running your farm. So I think it’s super important that we make sure we have a really good balance between those three things. Do a good job on your farm. Make sure your business is running well and really look after your people because that’s a really big threat to our industry here in New Zealand.”
Listen to Kane’s podcast episode here: