It could be the plot of a wholesome television drama: when Anika Molesworth turns 11 years old, her parents move from the city to the country, embracing life on a farm on the fringe of the Australian Outback, droughts, flooding rains and all. It’s hard work, but the wildlife, the sunsets, the joy of growing precious food and the colourful rural community capture the family’s heart.
And then, the plot twist: the farm is threatened, not by greedy corporate developers or unprecedented dust storms, but by the devastating impact of climate change. Molesworth finally grasps the truth that the crisis is both literal and a metaphor: her beloved farm is the whole world.
Dr Anika Molesworth is here to do something about climate change. Using the twin superpowers of science and storytelling to communicate the truth about the threat – in particular, to the food system and agriculture – she wants to inspire action and hope where, sometimes, the field seems barren.
At just 34, she has already achieved much. In demand as a speaker, commentator and filmmaker, and with a significant social media audience, Molesworth has been instrumental in creating an army of farmer activists who are demanding action.
After a crowd-funded trip to the United Nations’ Climate Talks in Paris in 2015, she co-founded Farmers for Climate Action, and became its deputy chair in 2020. She’s a governor of the Australian branch of the World Wildlife Fund, has travelled to Antarctica with a Homeward Bound women in STEM expedition, and has won awards celebrating her commitment to agroecology, including being named the 2015 Australian Young Farmer of the Year.
As a researcher with global connections, Molesworth brings academic rigour to the climate-change discussion. And as a farmer, she forms connections with a vast rural network, driving faith in her fellow-farmers as custodians of the land. And she expresses all of that with the sensibility of a poet.
Wordsmith
Molesworth believes that if she can create an emotional connection in someone to the beauty of the land, they will work to help save it. It’s as a storyteller and science communicator that she thinks she has the most impact.
Her new book, Our Sunburnt Country (published by Pan Macmillan), unites her love of the land, her drive to create more sustainable farming and her vision for the future. Written in 2020 after completing her PhD on agroecosystems, Molesworth relished the opportunity to unleash her emotions and love of words.
“When I was doing my PhD, I was constantly being told, you have to publish or perish, and to get off social media because it is a waste of time,” she reflects. “I couldn’t quite understand why, if I’m communicating with a very engaged and interested audience, that’s not seen as a meaningful role.”
It annoyed me that there is this antiquated view of what science communication should be,” says Molesworth. “Why has science failed in shaping policy? Why is the world so disengaged with an issue like climate change? There is a real problem here. We’ve got decades’ worth of good, solid evidence, and it has not been listened to.”
Talking to The Brilliant from her family’s sheep farm west of Broken Hill on Wilyakali country in New South Wales, Molesworth says she’s struggled to understand why so many people are not engaged with the climate crisis.
“I think it comes down to that emotional connection,” she says. “I can walk out the front door and see and feel a drought in action.”
Activist
It was a shock, at first, when Molesworth’s parents gave up suburban life in Melbourne to turn a remote rural property into an organic sheep farm. But they encouraged their young daughter to roam free on the property, firing a sense of wonder as well as a quest to find her own place it the landscape.
It wasn’t until her dad screened Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, for the family that Molesworth saw the bigger story: the decade-long drought, the land degradation, the silence of the birdsong was not just her family’s problem, but the world’s problem.
Ten years later, she connected more literally with former US Vice President Gore’s crusade, joining his Climate Reality Project and becoming a climate reality mentor in 2019 to help create the new generation of leaders.
Education helped forge the way forward. Studying agriculture and climate science through the lens of food production, Molesworth met and worked with passionate farmers from all over the world, particularly in South-east Asia.
There, she heard of their common heartbreak, caused by factors such as environmental degradation, people abandoning the land and destructive weather, but also met food producers who were committed to change and who were keen to create a global farming family.
“Most days, I am texting my Nigerian fish-farmer friend and talking with young farmers from around the world about a disease in a crop or a presentation they’re going to give to a school,” says Molesworth. “There is a constant flow of communication and I feel incredibly lucky to be in that community.”
She’s a walking encyclopedia of the possibilities for new technologies and innovation on the land, which could have an impact, but that demand commitment, courage and resources, on an individual and global scale: insects, fed with food waste and that in turn can feed stock, is a favourite.
Daunting as it is, Molesworth derives motivation not just from her farm, husband and family, but from her work on the executive of Farmers for Climate Action, a coalition of more than 6,500 members from all parts of the agriculture sector in Australia.
“We’re asking questions,” says Molesworth. “What do the projections mean for us? How do we do better? When I hear about what they’re doing on their farm, to try and overcome this complex, global challenge, I think “Wow, like, that’s incredible! You’ve planted 5,000 trees on your property? We should be shouting your name from the rooftops!”
Not everyone is on board with new approaches to land management and farming techniques, and some reject the evidence of climate change entirely, says Molesworth, but in the past five years, her social media engagement has become less angry, and more supportive.
If you’re not ruffling feathers, then you’re not trying hard enough.
There are people who don’t want to be challenged,” she shrugs. “They’re happy with the status quo because it’s working for them. But I try to be evidence-based, to think about the big picture and how what I do impacts some big challenges we face. If that means that I look like a troublemaker to some, then so be it.”
Spokesperson
For an introvert, happier among 10,000 sheep than a fraction of as many people, life as a communicator seems an unlikely choice. Why not just do the research, add to the evidence base, help create solutions and leave the talking to the likes of Greta Thunberg?
“We’ve got decades’ worth of research and evidence, so why is it still getting worse every season?” she says.
“Stories really resonate with me. I feel so lucky that I’m on this landscape, which is telling me its story of change and heartbreak, and of times after drought when it comes to life. If I can share that story, perhaps I can bring the humanity back into that abstract academic climate science, which hasn’t got the traction that it needed to.”
And so, Molesworth finds herself a spokesperson for the planet, carefully crafting social media posts, creating films for YouTube and honing her audience-engagement skills.
Her cohort of committed young farmers and activists keeps her motivated, especially when accepting speaking gigs that make her feel sick with nerves.
“I gave my first presentation on stage with a panel of amazing people in 2015,” she recalls.
“As the date for the panel was coming closer, I was full of nerves, thinking, ‘What on Earth am I going to bring to this conversation?’” she laughs. “But if I’m not on that stage, who’s going to be the voice for this place? Who’s going to talk about this story? Will they do it justice?
“I look forward to the day when I can live a very quiet life and close all my social media accounts and have less interaction with the outside world,” she adds. “But I have to help fix climate change first. So, I’m probably going to be here for a while. I’m not going anywhere until then.”
Article by Michelle Fincke
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