Wayne Langford, who some may also know as the YOLO farmer, is a co-founder of Meat The Need – a farmer founded and farmer-led charity that supplies premium mince and milk to those on the frontline of addressing food insecurity in Aotearoa New Zealand. Since 2020, 1.9 million milk meals and 1.2 million mince meals have been donated by farmers to Meat the Need, and have been distributed to those most in need within communities across the country. The actions of this charity are directly contributing towards SDG #2, Zero Hunger, right here in New Zealand.
Sustainability and the YOLO farmer
Wayne was born and bred in Golden Bay, with a strong family history in the region, where he still farms to this day. When it comes to what sustainability means to Wayne, the word replication was at the fore.
“Sustainability for me personally is probably something that I can replicate over and over again without causing ill effect to my health or to the health of whatever that has been worked on, whether it be, you know, Mother Nature or human health mental health. Yeah, food quality, that sort of thing as well. That’s sustainability for me is really that ability to replicate something in a healthy way.”
Replication is something Wayne has also embodied through his journey through YOLO Farmer over the last five years. In a space where his mental health wasn’t ‘too flash’, Wayne decided he and his family needed to do something to pull himself out of it, and that is where YOLO farmer was born with an initial commitment to do something every day for a year that made them feel like they’d lived each day. They started day one with a trip to a local beach in Golden Baywhere they hadn’t gone for quite a while, and 1905 days later (at time of podcast recording) they were still on the journey of living each day. Sharing his journey has been a pivotal part of that, and it is clear that Wayne has really encompassed his idea of replicating sustainable actions through his approach to mental health, allowing him an achievable goal that enhanced not only his, but his family’s wellbeing, and allowed him to step into more opportunities creating positive influence.
“It’s become such a big part of our life and we’ve got people following along that are taking inspiration out of that, which is really cool, but at the same time, it’s just us living our life. It’s been great and it’s been very rewarding getting the messages and hearing people say that they get a lot out of it. One of the messages I hear the most is seeing mental health portrayed in an almost a in a positive, happy manner rather than a sad and cold and dark thing that was quite often portrayed as. I use my mental health as a foundation for building everything that we’re working on now, and so that can only be seen as a strength and opportunity really and that’s great.”
Meat the Need and its linkages to SDG #2: No hunger
Meat the Need is a charity that supplies mince and milk to City Missions and Foodbanks across New Zealand, putting quality protein in the hands of those most in need. The charity takes donations of livestock from farmers all across New Zealand, and with the support of Silver Fern farms they are processed into a product able to be distributed to those on the frontline of tackling food insecurity, and with this comes a pretty awesome backstory.
“The foundation of that was we took some mince into the local food bank here and in Takaka township. Upon dropping that off with the kids, just had the general conversation with the lady there and I said, oh, how long will these couple of bags of mince last? And I thought she’d say, oh, till the end of the week or next week or something like that. And she said, oh, this is gonna last us two or three months. This is just incredible. We never get mince. It completely changed the food parcels that we’re putting out there. It’s just fantastic. If you could just see the reaction on her face, that’s something I’ll never forget.
So, from there, I went home feeling like I’d achieved something that daytime thing and I was milking the next morning and I thought to myself, well, we’ve got about 100 farms in Golden Bay. If I if I donated a cow, it would fill up that food bank easily for the year. And I thought if I did that and if every other farmer did the same thing, then supposedly I only have to give one cow in my lifetime and no one in need goes hungry in Golden Bay.”
But Wayne didn’t just limit his thinking to reducing hunger in Golden Bay – it only grew from there. Wayne and fellow co-founder Siobhan O’Malley put some ideas on paper and saw there being a real need for them to give Meat the Need a decent crack. Their big initial challenges were finding funding and getting a meat processor on board, but Silver Fern Farms stepped up to the opportunity. Meat the Need was ticking away behind the scenes when lockdown in 2020 struck, along with the associated hardships. As Meat the Need had already been pitched as an idea to the likes of DairyNZ and Beef and Lamb, they received a call during lockdown asking if they could get Meat the Need up and running in about a month’s time. Of course Wayne and Siobhan rose to the challenge, with the massive task of getting everything sorted to launch a charity in a short time frame, and in the middle of a national lockdown no less.
A big takeaway from the formation of Meat the Need, and of Wayne as a human in general, is his sense of optimism and care, ensuring that people are looking out for each other.
“Like I said, just step back from your job and everything else and you say, hey, what are we doing here? What is this all about? this thing they call life and I say our job is, our role as farmers is to feed our community. And before we go off for profiteering and exporting food and all that sort of thing, is our community fed? Feed those that are genuinely in need. We can achieve that so simply and with such a small amount of what we produce, why the hell are we not doing it? That’s been one of the most rewarding things of Meat the Need is not only the fact that we are doing it, but also the fact that we think the goal at the end of the day is achievable and so that’s probably what gets us out of bed every day and we think we can make sure that no one and New Zealand goes to bed hungry at night.”
Wayne also emphasises the importance of everyone playing their role, and that everyone has a role in achieving zero hunger. From a charity perspective, he states that if the farmers play their role, the meat processor does the same and the food banks they service, then the great result exemplified by Meat the Need can be achieved. The success of Meat the Need is a great example of not only reducing hunger through an outcome-focused approach, but of collaboration and partnership to achieve the outcomes. All parts of the chain know their role and what the expected outcome is, which is evident through the belief in the charities purpose and approach.
Wayne’s take on the challenge facing agriculture when it comes to sustainability
When it comes to the challenge facing the Ag sector regarding sustainability, Wayne emphasises that we always need to make sure that we aren’t heading towards an end point.
“The sustainability is never gonna end, so one of the most important things in the discussion is to realise that once we’ve fixed climate change, there’s gonna be something else to work on, and it’s probably gonna cost us money in the primary sector, and that’s what it’s gonna be. And if you look over history, that’s where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing, whether it be through water quality or biodiversity or greenhouse gases or whatever it is, there’s always gonna be this moving piece of what we’re gonna have to do. It’s part and parcel with farming, particularly now more than probably what it was in the past maybe a little bit.”
While this provides challenge for farmers, there is also opportunity which will require some good thinking around how we are going to get there and what are farming systems will look like so that people can see the story, says Wayne. While there is plenty of uncertainty ahead, being able to see some of the way forward is important to Wayne, to allow the whole team to continue moving forward. “I think it’s about playing what’s in front of you but at the same time, having really clear direction around, you know, where people want to be, and that’s definitely a role that leaderships got to play in that space’.
Wayne’s practical take home action for sustainability on farm
For Wayne, having a bit of a plan around what you’re wanting to do and how you might achieve that is an important action for farmers to put things into perspective. What’s coming at me? What’s my farm going to have to look like in 10 years time? But at the same time, remaining connected to your community and prioritising looking after yourself are of great importance too, says Wayne.
“It sets a timeline on things and makes you think about the way you’re developing your farm or different things you’re doing on your farm and what you’re gonna do. But I think more importantly, once you have that plan, then you have the opportunity to getting others involved and having them understand what you do… So how much can you achieve while staying integrated and engaged in your community and being part of your kids and your family life and not working yourself to the bone and you know, killing yourself doing it.”
If you want to donate livestock, milk or a virtual animal, head to www.meattheneed.org for more info.
Listen to Wayne’s podcast episode here: