WEBVTT

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What's the one key important message you would like to share with the listeners today?

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Peace and health.

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If anything,

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I think all people become ever more aware that's the most basic conditions.

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And peace and health need to be grown.

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And they need to be grown by regenerating democracies and regenerating our ecosystems.

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And we hope to contribute to both.

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And in the history of humanity also,

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farmer movements were always at the forefront of growing that.

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And we hope that ERA can support all of us Europeans and beyond in growing that without being some cocky leaders,

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but being the humble mycelium below and in between that help us all.

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to be better stewards.

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Welcome back to the Deep Seed podcast.

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This week is the last episode of season two of the Deep Seed.

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And

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I want to start by expressing my gratitude to everyone listening right now and to everyone who has been listening to this podcast over the last couple of years.

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years.

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The community has been growing more and more every week,

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which fills me with joy and pride and happiness.

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And yeah,

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in fact,

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for the second season,

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our episodes have been listened to more than 100,000 times in total.

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That's already amazing,

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but I don't intend to stop here.

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I already recorded the first 10 episodes of season three,

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and I can safely say that we We've raised the bar even more with some top,

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top-level guests.

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and super high-flying conversations.

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These will be published from January 2026 onwards.

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But in the meantime,

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let's turn our focus back to today's episode.

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My guest today is Simon Kramer,

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who is the Executive Director and Policy Lead at EARA,

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the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture.

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This episode is divided in four chapters.

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One,

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we'll start with a conversation about farming revolutions of the past and why we need a new farming revolution today.

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Two,

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we'll talk about EARA,

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its history,

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its mission,

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how it functions and so on.

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Three,

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we'll talk about the recent report published by EARA looking to compare regenerative farming in Europe

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to conventional,

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bringing hard data to the table to demonstrate that no matter how you look at it,

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Regenac is just miles,

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miles better.

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And finally,

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the last chapter will be about the CAP,

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the Common Agriculture Policy,

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and about IATA's proposition to change it in order to support regeneration much more.

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This episode was made in partnership with Soil Capital.

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I am your host,

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Raphael,

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and this is the Deep Seed Podcast.

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you said that in the past farmer-led movements were always at the forefront of peace and health do

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you have any examples to share i would add to peace and health liberation so there are many examples for example we europeans

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came out of feudalism in which basically all of us,

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a part of a very,

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very few,

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were slaves.

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We were owned by other people who could decide where we ought to go,

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where we cannot go,

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for what we could be killed or to whom we could make love.

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And the first movement really in Europe to break out of that

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At the same time as the Evangelical Revolution on Luther was

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Thomas Münzer and the Farmer Revolution in southern

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Germany and Austria,

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which actually in this year has its

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500th anniversary.

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And those farmers went way beyond of what Luther demanded.

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But we never heard of them because they wanted more.

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They wanted true liberation in the sense of a re-indigenization of Europeans.

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Equality of women and men.

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Equality of all among themselves.

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not only just the reform of the Kleros,

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who was part of this ruling power.

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Then,

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for example,

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when what we now consider as representative democracies grew in the

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17th century in England,

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where we know,

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still some of us know,

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the name of Cromwell,

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Well,

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no,

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which fought for the liberty of the

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English against the king.

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Actually,

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there wasn't the most radical and liberating.

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Those were farmers,

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which are called the true levelers.

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It was a farmer movement led by Jared Wynne Stanley,

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which if you today read what they have written then,

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is like beautiful liberation across the board again.

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those movements standing up for the equality of women and men,

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which at those times wasn't really a thing in any other discourses.

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And then there was,

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for example,

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the Yeoman Revolution a little bit later on.

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And that's just part of

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European history.

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I mean,

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in Spain,

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for example,

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there was even a movement in the late

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19th century and early 20th century

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which was already in its name carried the name regeneration.

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And that's still European now than when we couldn't look,

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for example,

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at the Sankara in Burkina Faso in the

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80s.

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They were completely dependent.

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They were just liberating themselves from colonialism,

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completely food dependent.

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so

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They had to import all the food the country needed.

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And that's a huge part of imperialism.

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If I can't feed,

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as a people,

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I can't feed ourselves,

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well,

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I always got to suck up to the one who's putting food in my belly.

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And in only four years,

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they went to being completely food self-sufficient.

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And until this day,

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it's probably the most successful four years in regreening the Sahel and stopping the growth of the

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Sahara and the desertification of the Sahel.

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We can go to India.

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I mean,

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I'm a little nerd on that stuff.

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I mean,

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for example,

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the Magnitsky,

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which were a pharma revolution during the great...

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Russian Revolution 1917,

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where today again our sisters and brothers,

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Ukrainians,

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Russians and others,

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are dying at the hand of machines and guns and other interests.

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There,

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when the Red Army fought the White Army in Russia in 1917-18,

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all the way until 1920,

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In Ukraine,

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there was a free movement that was not led by a Bolshevik party,

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that had a real,

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true,

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direct democracy,

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like the original Russian revolution,

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which was a

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Soviet. I mean,

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Soviet republic is a paradox,

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but the Soviets are originally also farmers that liberated themselves and did communes.

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That's what a

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Soviet did.

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And there under Nestor Magno...

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They were able to basically fight both the Red and the White Army to keep a free space of Ukraine where they organized themselves.

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And again,

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always a good indicator of a true liberation movement,

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equality of women and men.

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And there,

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as farmers deep down...

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closest to our re-indigenization was also the only space in those years where we didn't do pogroms against Jews.

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So while both the Red and the White Army did pogroms against the Jews in that liberated,

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pharma-led,

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direct democratic space,

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there were none of it.

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Why do you think it didn't last,

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though?

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Ah,

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because they both wanted him dead.

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He died.

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He rode,

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he fled,

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he fought on,

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and then he fled,

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and then he wrote some reflections,

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Néstor Magno actually,

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from Paris,

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and then he died shortly after.

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But I think they don't last because,

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it says,

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with feudalism.

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I mean,

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we liberated ourselves from feudalism only to then to suffer the enclosures of the commons.

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And it's,

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if we can't,

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Marx said,

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if you take the soil away from the people,

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Then you can put them into the sweatshop and make them work for you.

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I can still freely decide if I'm going to live as a smallholder farmer there or if I'm going to work in your sweatshop for a wage.

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Conditions seem not favorable enough to have enough people in the sweatshop to keep the spin wheel of compound interest growing.

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Do you think that we need this kind of liberation movement of peace and freedom and health?

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In today's world,

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the globalized society,

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we can talk about Europe,

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but the world as well.

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Do you think we need it?

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And do you think,

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do you see that happening?

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I think we desperately need it.

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I think also it's happening,

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as I think also it's sprouting,

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has its greatest potential in the deepest of crises.

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Because it's most easiest for people to awaken out of the trance of affluent consumerism.

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And it's also easiest for people to refocus on what's really necessary.

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At the same time,

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I think...

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You said health.

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I mean,

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we can go into the ugly details of the exponentially growing non-communicable diseases or how we are becoming important or even then

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in agriculture the diseases.

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that are pressuring both our livestock,

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arable,

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perennial,

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all kinds of production.

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So I think that's desperately needed.

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And that regeneration has to grow from the root,

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because otherwise it's hollow.

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And that is both how we organize among ourselves as people and as we organize ourselves as people with nature.

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Okay.

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You said...

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It's easiest today to free yourself from consumerism?

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What do you mean?

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It feels very hard today.

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It feels like we're kind of stuck.

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Yeah,

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I would maybe easiest today is not proper.

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I would say easiest in crisis.

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So the larger the crisis,

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the easier it is to question your worldview,

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to come to a new mindset.

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Maybe also to be induced to do some lifestyle changes.

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And then we can see if we can grow something differently or alternatively or complementary.

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Okay,

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yeah.

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I saw this video earlier today of a

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French thinker who used the famous phrase,

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the tree falling makes a lot more noise than the forest growing.

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It was referring to the fact that the tree falling is the old system that's making a lot of noise,

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that's grabbing the headlines everywhere.

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But the forest,

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according to him,

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the forest is growing.

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Is that kind of what you...

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You mean as well?

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I totally believe also the new forest is growing.

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And the new forest and grasslands are growing,

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if I may be allowed to come into degrowing some,

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let's say,

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ecological science racism against the poor grasslands.

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In a sense,

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all of these pioneer farmers.

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part of IARA are a bit like pioneer trees in an ecosystem,

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preparing the ecosystem for the rest of biodiversity to thrive.

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And maybe here today by talking about this we're acting like the mycelium,

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sharing the information and the resources around to help spread that.

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I like this image anyway.

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Yeah,

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I love that image too.

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And I think it goes way beyond the farmers of Eara.

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I mean,

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it's on all the other continents.

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It's growing also in our youth.

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And

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I think also the women movement is...

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is a great part of the liberational potential we are seeing today.

270
00:14:40.563 --> 00:14:42.043
So you currently work for EARA,

271
00:14:42.383 --> 00:14:45.223
the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture.

272
00:14:46.684 --> 00:14:47.403
We mentioned

273
00:14:47.844 --> 00:14:50.383
EARA many times on a podcast before because I've had,

274
00:14:50.407 --> 00:14:50.688
I think,

275
00:14:51.165 --> 00:14:53.805
maybe six or seven different farmers from the group.

276
00:14:54.805 --> 00:14:59.141
But we never had an opportunity to do an episode focused on EARA.

277
00:15:00.422 --> 00:15:03.188
So I'm looking forward to learn a bit more today.

278
00:15:03.610 --> 00:15:06.594
So maybe you could start by explaining what it is,

279
00:15:06.954 --> 00:15:09.172
the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture.

280
00:15:09.887 --> 00:15:13.452
the story behind it and what it is that you're trying to achieve.

281
00:15:14.553 --> 00:15:15.014
GLELE.

282
00:15:15.514 --> 00:15:19.741
So it is basically a pan-European pharma association.

283
00:15:21.217 --> 00:15:23.858
So the new kind of evolution,

284
00:15:23.983 --> 00:15:31.522
I think every agronomic innovation leap goes with a new kind of pharma associations.

285
00:15:32.631 --> 00:15:36.741
And we came into being now more than three years ago,

286
00:15:37.053 --> 00:15:37.350
really.

287
00:15:38.239 --> 00:15:46.089
by several convenings of people hosting the space and bringing the movement together.

288
00:15:47.089 --> 00:15:57.331
And then several farmers felt the need for farmer-led voice for regenerative agriculture.

289
00:15:58.503 --> 00:16:00.221
And the friends from

290
00:16:00.659 --> 00:16:02.503
Climate Farmers and

291
00:16:03.507 --> 00:16:07.969
Also from the Spanish Association for Regenerative Agriculture,

292
00:16:08.751 --> 00:16:22.329
together we started hosting the space and then we had a kind of a startup accelerator which supported us and it was a young market gardening farmer from

293
00:16:22.829 --> 00:16:23.407
Denmark.

294
00:16:24.119 --> 00:16:26.001
me and our earliest colleague,

295
00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:26.582
Natascha,

296
00:16:26.681 --> 00:16:33.167
where we hosted the first online meeting of about 65 farmers in Europe,

297
00:16:33.191 --> 00:16:40.832
where we tried to bring together really the pioneers with always an attempt to steward for.

298
00:16:41.535 --> 00:16:42.216
diversity.

299
00:16:42.616 --> 00:16:46.779
So we say learning from how the pioneers do at their soils.

300
00:16:47.619 --> 00:16:56.392
So we try to have more or less a woman and a man from farmers from each country with as big of

301
00:16:56.405 --> 00:17:00.348
of a farm type diversity as possible.

302
00:17:01.331 --> 00:17:04.436
And then in those first online meetings,

303
00:17:04.437 --> 00:17:08.421
the farmers decided to hold a founding conference,

304
00:17:09.061 --> 00:17:13.342
which we held then with about 55 farmers from all over Europe,

305
00:17:13.374 --> 00:17:14.342
from all ages,

306
00:17:14.483 --> 00:17:15.686
from all diversities,

307
00:17:15.780 --> 00:17:16.483
farm types.

308
00:17:17.217 --> 00:17:18.171
Super beautiful.

309
00:17:18.264 --> 00:17:19.624
And then we founded Deara.

310
00:17:21.342 --> 00:17:22.999
And to me personally,

311
00:17:24.543 --> 00:17:33.650
The most powerful thing is still the peace among the farmers themselves and with their capacity to collaborate.

312
00:17:34.135 --> 00:17:36.713
And that's just become much more productive,

313
00:17:36.815 --> 00:17:39.400
just as our ecosystems and their farms,

314
00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:42.244
when they get diversity to work.

315
00:17:42.995 --> 00:17:59.132
in symbiosis and not in competition that's amazing so just from that first online meeting you all collectively agreed to meet in person to create an organization so that you could collaborate together on these big questions correct

316
00:17:59.194 --> 00:18:08.319
yes and how did you well you mentioned that you've selected farmers because you wanted a high diversity of farmers but

317
00:18:08.959 --> 00:18:11.725
I suppose this is a regenerative agriculture association,

318
00:18:11.744 --> 00:18:15.770
so there must have been also some criteria for selecting the farmers initially.

319
00:18:17.332 --> 00:18:17.715
Yeah,

320
00:18:17.856 --> 00:18:18.316
we...

321
00:18:19.423 --> 00:18:20.144
I try to say,

322
00:18:20.224 --> 00:18:22.847
and I ought to add always with humility,

323
00:18:22.927 --> 00:18:26.269
because we don't want to create new borders.

324
00:18:26.570 --> 00:18:29.210
So it's not like that's a good farmer,

325
00:18:29.273 --> 00:18:31.515
that's a bad farmer or any of that kind.

326
00:18:32.054 --> 00:18:48.312
We wanted to have the pioneers to be able to get the most productive organization that would be strongest in helping all other farmers to achieve as fast as possible this innovation leap in their production methodologies.

327
00:18:49.135 --> 00:18:50.718
and also in their mindsets,

328
00:18:51.259 --> 00:18:51.800
worldviews,

329
00:18:52.542 --> 00:18:53.481
as those others.

330
00:18:54.145 --> 00:18:57.669
And the criteria were very simple.

331
00:18:57.692 --> 00:18:59.411
We set pioneers in two ways.

332
00:19:00.614 --> 00:19:01.216
One really...

333
00:19:02.019 --> 00:19:05.901
in their way of producing food with nature.

334
00:19:06.202 --> 00:19:09.347
So the most sophisticated symbiosis.

335
00:19:09.909 --> 00:19:11.769
Back then we didn't have any kind of

336
00:19:12.347 --> 00:19:18.933
KPI system or the like to look if you have to increase your photosynthesis at least by 10%

337
00:19:19.230 --> 00:19:21.261
per hectare a year over the last 10 years.

338
00:19:21.276 --> 00:19:23.417
And then we didn't have anything like that.

339
00:19:24.308 --> 00:19:24.886
And then the other...

340
00:19:26.195 --> 00:19:33.904
Criteria was being pioneers in the way they would commit to help the movement beyond their farm.

341
00:19:34.220 --> 00:19:35.962
So if that's like

342
00:19:36.947 --> 00:19:42.087
Yannick and Alfonso in Spain with their own region academy schools,

343
00:19:42.158 --> 00:19:42.829
if that's

344
00:19:43.314 --> 00:19:48.439
Beate with soil biology schools for farmers,

345
00:19:48.517 --> 00:19:51.876
if that's farmers who are doing their own machinery producing,

346
00:19:51.877 --> 00:19:53.298
if that's farmers who are doing...

347
00:19:53.927 --> 00:20:11.588
agronomic advising and so forth so really being pioneers both in food production with nature and in helping the movement yeah incredible i've i like i said spoke to a few of the farmers from the organizations and whenever

348
00:20:11.651 --> 00:20:22.198
i asked them a question about iara i saw their eyes lit up you know and something they pretty much all told me is that it was a huge thing for them to not be alone anymore.

349
00:20:22.815 --> 00:20:27.938
to be connected to a network of farmers who might be living a different life,

350
00:20:28.001 --> 00:20:28.719
different conditions,

351
00:20:28.782 --> 00:20:29.762
different type of farming,

352
00:20:29.801 --> 00:20:32.282
but who had similar types of problems,

353
00:20:32.368 --> 00:20:36.626
similar types of visions of what farming should be like,

354
00:20:36.790 --> 00:20:42.594
and being able to exchange problems and solutions and experiences with other people they felt.

355
00:20:43.764 --> 00:20:44.785
much less alone.

356
00:20:45.206 --> 00:20:47.347
And that's really important,

357
00:20:48.150 --> 00:20:48.330
right?

358
00:20:48.931 --> 00:20:49.228
Yes,

359
00:20:49.369 --> 00:20:50.009
I think.

360
00:20:50.072 --> 00:20:50.369
I mean,

361
00:20:50.509 --> 00:20:52.830
that's just beautiful.

362
00:20:53.252 --> 00:20:54.017
Me personally,

363
00:20:54.158 --> 00:20:54.337
too.

364
00:20:54.697 --> 00:20:55.033
I mean,

365
00:20:55.173 --> 00:21:00.345
when we have meetings with the farmers or we meet in person more than ever,

366
00:21:00.408 --> 00:21:02.423
which is always a privilege because,

367
00:21:03.002 --> 00:21:03.267
you know,

368
00:21:03.580 --> 00:21:05.361
we are a pan-European organization.

369
00:21:05.502 --> 00:21:05.642
So

370
00:21:06.520 --> 00:21:08.102
It takes resources to meet,

371
00:21:08.142 --> 00:21:11.704
it takes time to be away from the farm to meet and so forth.

372
00:21:11.786 --> 00:21:13.888
So we are not meeting so often in person.

373
00:21:15.091 --> 00:21:17.333
But when we do and also online,

374
00:21:17.349 --> 00:21:19.372
it just empowers each other,

375
00:21:19.450 --> 00:21:19.872
I think.

376
00:21:19.896 --> 00:21:21.833
And that's super valuable.

377
00:21:23.724 --> 00:21:24.724
Where is it going from here?

378
00:21:25.099 --> 00:21:25.583
It started,

379
00:21:25.614 --> 00:21:25.880
you said,

380
00:21:25.896 --> 00:21:26.614
with 65,

381
00:21:26.677 --> 00:21:27.474
70 farmers.

382
00:21:28.005 --> 00:21:29.786
Has it grown since in the last three years?

383
00:21:29.864 --> 00:21:31.489
Is it looking to grow more,

384
00:21:31.552 --> 00:21:33.693
include more regenerative farmers from across Europe?

385
00:21:35.552 --> 00:21:35.792
Yes,

386
00:21:35.933 --> 00:21:37.073
so it has grown.

387
00:21:37.435 --> 00:21:42.958
We have taken always an approach of quality over quantity.

388
00:21:43.278 --> 00:21:49.567
And so we didn't have any goals of growing super fast at any costs.

389
00:21:50.489 --> 00:21:52.153
We are not an American startup.

390
00:21:53.294 --> 00:21:55.653
So with the farmers in,

391
00:21:56.231 --> 00:21:56.466
I mean,

392
00:21:56.497 --> 00:21:58.356
we are organizing in us.

393
00:21:58.513 --> 00:22:03.606
So we try to practice a regeneration of democracy also.

394
00:22:03.903 --> 00:22:04.044
So.

395
00:22:04.968 --> 00:22:16.408
We try to have a direct democracy in which all decisive decisions are decided by at least eight of our farmers making a consensus decision.

396
00:22:17.431 --> 00:22:29.861
So it's not like our farmers elect some kind of executive director once a year and then they make all the decisions and then after the year again we complain about the failed policies or decisions.

397
00:22:30.267 --> 00:22:33.096
But we really try with online meetings and stuff.

398
00:22:34.916 --> 00:22:36.337
I have a direct

399
00:22:36.718 --> 00:22:38.319
PharmaLab decision making.

400
00:22:39.702 --> 00:22:50.491
And the farmers also co-created in such meetings with such decision making processes their own methodology of how to take in new farmers.

401
00:22:51.468 --> 00:23:00.109
And now basically our farmers can invite whomever they believe fitting to join the family as a farmer.

402
00:23:00.748 --> 00:23:03.391
And then we have a non-bureaucratic,

403
00:23:03.631 --> 00:23:10.815
but a personal assessment methodology where each new farmer needs to be sponsored by two existing farmers.

404
00:23:11.518 --> 00:23:19.541
One optimally as regionally close as a new farmer and the other one from a similar farm type.

405
00:23:20.572 --> 00:23:27.260
And then they basically have a few chats and then they say if there would be an enrichment for our community.

406
00:23:28.150 --> 00:23:28.400
Okay.

407
00:23:29.068 --> 00:23:30.970
And there has been many new farmers?

408
00:23:30.971 --> 00:23:31.071
Yes,

409
00:23:31.072 --> 00:23:31.590
now it's,

410
00:23:31.651 --> 00:23:31.891
I mean,

411
00:23:32.432 --> 00:23:40.196
we started slow because also it took a lot of time to come to these processes and set up our own protocols in that sense.

412
00:23:41.078 --> 00:23:42.602
And now we are growing,

413
00:23:42.719 --> 00:23:43.203
I think,

414
00:23:43.281 --> 00:23:48.242
with about five to ten farmers every one to month.

415
00:23:49.164 --> 00:23:52.696
And now we have our next annual gathering.

416
00:23:54.144 --> 00:23:56.466
In December at Pulicaro Farm.

417
00:23:57.347 --> 00:23:58.909
And I think then again we will make,

418
00:23:59.370 --> 00:24:08.917
the farmers will let creativity and symbiosis sprout and then we'll make further decisions in terms of where our next successional stages will go.

419
00:24:11.714 --> 00:24:11.980
With

420
00:24:12.417 --> 00:24:15.542
ERA, you recently published a report.

421
00:24:17.188 --> 00:24:27.107
Where you collected data from a lot of regenerative farms across Europe and you compared that data to conventional farms in the same areas.

422
00:24:27.350 --> 00:24:28.154
Is that correct?

423
00:24:29.553 --> 00:24:29.787
Yeah.

424
00:24:30.732 --> 00:24:31.170
Yes and no.

425
00:24:32.748 --> 00:24:33.029
I can,

426
00:24:33.170 --> 00:24:33.404
yes,

427
00:24:33.592 --> 00:24:34.826
clearly go into it.

428
00:24:35.029 --> 00:24:36.889
So maybe just before,

429
00:24:38.779 --> 00:24:39.592
maybe some of you,

430
00:24:39.639 --> 00:24:41.217
we really wanted to show,

431
00:24:41.295 --> 00:24:43.670
and that's part of the story of hope.

432
00:24:44.720 --> 00:24:55.151
that our pioneering people are already able to produce with nature more than we even believe possible.

433
00:24:55.870 --> 00:24:57.831
Like we are now sitting here in Brussels.

434
00:24:58.433 --> 00:25:03.433
In Brussels the whole Green Deal discourse only two years ago and even now.

435
00:25:04.901 --> 00:25:07.229
Most people in DG agriculture,

436
00:25:07.308 --> 00:25:11.683
most people that claim themselves to be scientists.

437
00:25:13.656 --> 00:25:19.704
All people are young to speak on objective reason and empirics.

438
00:25:22.625 --> 00:25:34.375
They wouldn't even doubt the assumption that if we reduce pesticides and synthetic fertilizers by 50 and 20 percent respectively,

439
00:25:34.735 --> 00:25:37.704
we necessarily would reduce European yields.

440
00:25:42.244 --> 00:25:55.280
And they wouldn't even believe that until 2040 or 50 we could reduce pesticides and fertilizers by those numbers without reducing yields.

441
00:25:56.976 --> 00:25:57.343
And yes,

442
00:25:57.460 --> 00:26:03.562
in that report we show that some of our best farmers in Europe already today,

443
00:26:04.483 --> 00:26:05.749
the last three years,

444
00:26:07.655 --> 00:26:10.937
produce the same if not more

445
00:26:12.336 --> 00:26:14.466
with much less inputs.

446
00:26:16.312 --> 00:26:16.632
Indeed,

447
00:26:16.652 --> 00:26:22.513
that's some of the highlights I wrote down from the report.

448
00:26:22.552 --> 00:26:25.497
They say that you observe a 2%

449
00:26:26.794 --> 00:26:27.294
lower yield,

450
00:26:27.333 --> 00:26:28.794
so pretty much equal,

451
00:26:30.177 --> 00:26:31.357
while using 61%

452
00:26:31.513 --> 00:26:33.693
less synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and

453
00:26:34.380 --> 00:26:35.521
75% less pesticides,

454
00:26:36.224 --> 00:26:36.677
while making

455
00:26:37.755 --> 00:26:40.224
20% higher gross margins per hectare.

456
00:26:41.739 --> 00:26:43.271
That's quite incredible.

457
00:26:44.537 --> 00:26:52.280
That's what we would call some of the empirics on the fourth agricultural revolution of humanity.

458
00:26:53.265 --> 00:26:54.624
And to these 2%

459
00:26:55.148 --> 00:26:55.507
yields,

460
00:26:55.671 --> 00:27:07.062
it ought to be added that our farmers or the farmers in the report produced those yields without any feed imports from outside Europe.

461
00:27:07.780 --> 00:27:08.202
Actually,

462
00:27:09.140 --> 00:27:09.874
98%

463
00:27:09.875 --> 00:27:10.968
of the farmers...

464
00:27:11.532 --> 00:27:15.655
produced those years with feed only from their own region.

465
00:27:16.518 --> 00:27:25.569
And the one farmer who still bought some soya for his chicken from

466
00:27:26.209 --> 00:27:31.053
France while he was in Spain is now buying regeneratively produced soy in

467
00:27:31.428 --> 00:27:34.975
Spain. So that's amazing stuff.

468
00:27:36.652 --> 00:27:36.772
Yeah,

469
00:27:36.792 --> 00:27:37.273
incredible.

470
00:27:37.333 --> 00:27:37.453
Yeah,

471
00:27:37.533 --> 00:27:39.614
those numbers are already impressive in themselves,

472
00:27:39.636 --> 00:27:41.579
but they don't tell the full story.

473
00:27:42.177 --> 00:27:44.462
I would like to dig deeper into this report together,

474
00:27:44.501 --> 00:27:48.001
but to start with the name.

475
00:27:48.407 --> 00:27:49.165
So it's called

476
00:27:50.165 --> 00:27:53.407
Farmer-Led Research on Europe's Full Productivity.

477
00:27:54.954 --> 00:28:00.094
Could you please explain what we mean by farmer-led research and

478
00:28:00.688 --> 00:28:02.032
Europe's full productivity?

479
00:28:03.526 --> 00:28:03.646
So,

480
00:28:03.726 --> 00:28:04.827
PharmaLed is also,

481
00:28:04.928 --> 00:28:12.996
we have been working on this research in our working groups with the farmers for one and a half years.

482
00:28:13.035 --> 00:28:13.379
We were,

483
00:28:14.059 --> 00:28:19.660
relatively to other kind of public research programs and so forth,

484
00:28:20.301 --> 00:28:23.863
really fast in producing this report and that's also comes,

485
00:28:23.926 --> 00:28:26.645
we have a principle in the hour which is hurrying slowly.

486
00:28:27.223 --> 00:28:31.879
But our farmers of course are completely aware of the urgency of

487
00:28:33.146 --> 00:28:49.510
societal and ecological breakdowns and want to power ahead as they do on their farms in contributing to solving this so pharma let says that it was co-created and designed by

488
00:28:49.589 --> 00:28:54.917
farmers and full productivity is really

489
00:28:56.710 --> 00:28:58.391
We believe much more is possible.

490
00:28:58.452 --> 00:29:01.715
We have forgotten what nature can produce.

491
00:29:01.735 --> 00:29:04.079
If you go back to the books,

492
00:29:04.438 --> 00:29:05.157
for example,

493
00:29:05.235 --> 00:29:08.438
there's an amazing research on American,

494
00:29:09.360 --> 00:29:14.469
North American or Turtle Island food systems before colonialism.

495
00:29:15.430 --> 00:29:16.692
They were much more productive,

496
00:29:17.133 --> 00:29:17.674
of course.

497
00:29:17.894 --> 00:29:18.576
There was still

498
00:29:19.178 --> 00:29:23.064
8-9% organic matter in the soils and not like 1-2%.

499
00:29:23.908 --> 00:29:24.846
Same around Berlin.

500
00:29:25.307 --> 00:29:25.846
If you look,

501
00:29:26.369 --> 00:29:30.760
Albrecht Thea is a famous German agronomist from the

502
00:29:31.096 --> 00:29:31.596
19th century.

503
00:29:32.310 --> 00:29:33.091
He said around

504
00:29:33.431 --> 00:29:35.453
Berlin the soils were 4 to 8 percent.

505
00:29:36.074 --> 00:29:39.556
Now it's like 0.5 to 1.5 or something.

506
00:29:40.576 --> 00:29:40.701
So

507
00:29:41.341 --> 00:29:52.185
I said before this narrative that we would have to sacrifice yields and that producing more for nature is in trade-off with producing for humans.

508
00:29:53.357 --> 00:29:56.638
We want to debunk that and sow hope.

509
00:29:57.502 --> 00:30:06.348
Because we don't even know anymore what our productivity can be if we engage in the most sophisticated symbiosis with nature.

510
00:30:08.590 --> 00:30:15.223
So we have this idea that the current industrial conventional systems are highly productive,

511
00:30:15.255 --> 00:30:18.489
but they do produce big quantities of food,

512
00:30:19.239 --> 00:30:19.458
right?

513
00:30:19.801 --> 00:30:23.411
So we have the impression that this is the most productive system there is,

514
00:30:23.489 --> 00:30:26.067
but you're saying that it's not?

515
00:30:27.399 --> 00:30:27.519
No,

516
00:30:28.019 --> 00:30:30.605
like for example,

517
00:30:32.068 --> 00:30:32.286
you know,

518
00:30:32.349 --> 00:30:34.833
when we were still indigenous here in Europe,

519
00:30:35.576 --> 00:30:38.841
so we have archaeological...

520
00:30:39.954 --> 00:30:44.159
Findings from before the birth of Christ in Germany,

521
00:30:44.800 --> 00:30:48.686
where the staple crop of the indigenous

522
00:30:49.202 --> 00:30:54.226
Germans at that time were basically hazelnut and balrush.

523
00:30:55.249 --> 00:31:02.202
And balrush is a kind of wheat that grows in swamps,

524
00:31:02.780 --> 00:31:03.218
more or less.

525
00:31:04.610 --> 00:31:14.544
And the productivity to produce kilocalories and proteins of that bilirush per hectare is still a lot,

526
00:31:14.817 --> 00:31:18.200
lot higher than even today our most intensive,

527
00:31:18.903 --> 00:31:24.169
most sophisticated wheat yields of 13 tons per hectare.

528
00:31:25.466 --> 00:31:28.528
I know some Europeans even excel that.

529
00:31:30.231 --> 00:31:32.278
The very first phrase of the report says this.

530
00:31:33.810 --> 00:31:39.996
Conventional agricultural models are not fit for purpose in the face of Europe's compounding crisis in soil health,

531
00:31:40.515 --> 00:31:41.257
biodiversity,

532
00:31:41.476 --> 00:31:44.378
food system resilience and climate stability.

533
00:31:45.605 --> 00:31:52.871
These challenges cannot be solved by current input-intensive farming systems designed for short-term yields.

534
00:31:53.949 --> 00:31:58.339
Such models now expose Europe to critical strategic vulnerabilities,

535
00:31:59.308 --> 00:32:01.152
reliance on imported food,

536
00:32:01.917 --> 00:32:03.042
feed and inputs,

537
00:32:03.686 --> 00:32:09.887
Unturnable rural livelihoods and fragile production systems increasingly disrupted by climate extremes.

538
00:32:11.207 --> 00:32:14.649
I'd love it if you could unpack that whole statement,

539
00:32:14.992 --> 00:32:19.250
because I feel like this would be the perfect base for the rest of the conversation.

540
00:32:21.367 --> 00:32:21.649
I mean,

541
00:32:21.711 --> 00:32:27.008
I can put figures from the top of my head to that in the sense of how...

542
00:32:29.098 --> 00:32:39.390
Yields are reducing now for the first time since we started after the Second World War with fully employing the Green Revolution.

543
00:32:40.351 --> 00:32:44.093
So the logic of that is also for failing itself.

544
00:32:45.461 --> 00:32:46.742
At the same time,

545
00:32:47.711 --> 00:32:51.336
we have halved the amount of people who...

546
00:32:52.438 --> 00:32:55.180
are farmers in Europe in the last 20 years,

547
00:32:55.240 --> 00:33:00.524
and the trends look like we are going to do that again in the next 10 to 15 years.

548
00:33:02.047 --> 00:33:06.094
And then we need to think about where our food is coming from.

549
00:33:08.695 --> 00:33:10.336
And then on the other side,

550
00:33:10.399 --> 00:33:12.383
which is not so poignant in this,

551
00:33:12.445 --> 00:33:19.945
we have political economic crisis in terms of oligopolies in food retail markets,

552
00:33:20.133 --> 00:33:20.883
for example.

553
00:33:21.870 --> 00:33:31.320
We have other problems with our governments putting priorities on competition rather than collaboration.

554
00:33:33.125 --> 00:33:34.719
And I think as any

555
00:33:35.164 --> 00:33:42.375
European, especially with a continent as densely populated as ours,

556
00:33:43.531 --> 00:33:47.891
we need to seriously think how we can help farmers,

557
00:33:47.953 --> 00:33:49.437
help young people get into.

558
00:33:50.206 --> 00:33:53.964
farming and then help everyone to farm differently.

559
00:33:56.253 --> 00:33:56.493
Okay,

560
00:33:56.714 --> 00:34:03.139
and how does regenerative agriculture help solve these issues?

561
00:34:05.401 --> 00:34:08.925
I think from a very basic perspective,

562
00:34:10.784 --> 00:34:15.417
this fourth agricultural revolution of humanity,

563
00:34:16.714 --> 00:34:22.354
the pioneering farmers have indigenuated or have innovated.

564
00:34:23.777 --> 00:34:30.403
ways of producing more photosynthesis,

565
00:34:31.505 --> 00:34:32.602
more biomass,

566
00:34:32.969 --> 00:34:48.501
more microbiology on their land while producing food and using this more in biomass and microbial life to substitute the

567
00:34:48.907 --> 00:34:50.157
inputs that they have.

568
00:34:51.433 --> 00:34:54.341
enabled us to produce such high,

569
00:34:54.863 --> 00:34:57.187
though empty,

570
00:34:57.929 --> 00:35:00.312
and at other points destructive yields.

571
00:35:01.741 --> 00:35:06.505
Just a quick post to tell you about the official partner of the Deep Seed podcast and that's

572
00:35:06.844 --> 00:35:07.528
Soil Capital.

573
00:35:08.188 --> 00:35:16.376
Soil Capital is a company that accelerates the transition to regenerative agriculture by financially rewarding farmers who improve the health of their soils.

574
00:35:16.719 --> 00:35:18.180
They are an incredible company,

575
00:35:18.430 --> 00:35:22.680
I love what they're doing and I'm super proud to be partnering with them for the Deep Seed podcast.

576
00:35:25.571 --> 00:35:30.243
Something else I found in the report is on the topic of the greenhouse gas emissions.

577
00:35:31.381 --> 00:35:33.284
The report says that 75%

578
00:35:33.704 --> 00:35:40.573
adoption of regenerating forms of agriculture could more than offset the EU emissions coming from agriculture.

579
00:35:41.714 --> 00:35:42.089
First of all,

580
00:35:42.354 --> 00:35:47.456
can you explain how you arrived at that conclusion and maybe what it means?

581
00:35:48.577 --> 00:35:53.902
And I may say I think that is a very conservative figure.

582
00:35:53.903 --> 00:35:56.824
I have written with the Boston Consulting Group,

583
00:35:56.926 --> 00:35:57.785
for example,

584
00:35:57.824 --> 00:36:02.668
a big report on outcomes of application.

585
00:36:03.669 --> 00:36:06.830
adoption of regenerating agricultures in Germany.

586
00:36:08.049 --> 00:36:18.112
And the figures we arrived at so far still is basically you take coefficients of scientific literature on different practices.

587
00:36:19.151 --> 00:36:23.737
And then you see how many practices are we using now?

588
00:36:23.815 --> 00:36:25.471
What kind of emissions are they having?

589
00:36:25.877 --> 00:36:27.018
What can we achieve?

590
00:36:27.033 --> 00:36:28.049
And then the adoption,

591
00:36:28.268 --> 00:36:32.549
you model the adoption rates across different farmers.

592
00:36:32.737 --> 00:36:33.440
But that's not all.

593
00:36:33.441 --> 00:36:42.101
That's on very different ways still a very poor assessment of what's possible.

594
00:36:43.718 --> 00:36:43.960
How so?

595
00:36:45.898 --> 00:36:46.023
So,

596
00:36:47.882 --> 00:36:47.999
A,

597
00:36:49.593 --> 00:36:51.234
if you assess,

598
00:36:52.562 --> 00:37:01.609
so for example today let's say we have a standard arable farming and on the books of standard life.

599
00:37:02.545 --> 00:37:05.267
cycle assessments and standard science,

600
00:37:06.308 --> 00:37:16.896
maybe we would say a hectare of arable farming has something around 2 to 2.5 tons of emissions per year,

601
00:37:17.396 --> 00:37:18.521
CO2 emissions.

602
00:37:20.506 --> 00:37:20.928
However,

603
00:37:21.537 --> 00:37:23.365
that assessment is already fraud.

604
00:37:24.443 --> 00:37:24.803
Because,

605
00:37:24.849 --> 00:37:25.615
for example,

606
00:37:26.021 --> 00:37:28.349
the emissions we cause by erosion,

607
00:37:28.365 --> 00:37:28.974
erosion,

608
00:37:28.975 --> 00:37:30.053
so by the soil that's

609
00:37:31.481 --> 00:37:31.681
put,

610
00:37:32.702 --> 00:37:35.885
swam away by rains because of plowing,

611
00:37:36.725 --> 00:37:38.108
are not taken into account.

612
00:37:39.448 --> 00:37:50.557
So the way we today account for agricultural emissions in the standard science is flawed because that science is made up from the minds and the interests

613
00:37:51.157 --> 00:37:52.398
Of the green revolution,

614
00:37:53.060 --> 00:37:54.701
of those selling tractors,

615
00:37:55.142 --> 00:37:57.525
selling industrial livestock meat,

616
00:37:57.783 --> 00:37:58.947
selling pesticides,

617
00:37:59.025 --> 00:38:00.704
selling nitrogen fertilizers,

618
00:38:00.908 --> 00:38:04.290
they did due care that they wouldn't look so bad as they should.

619
00:38:04.853 --> 00:38:07.798
That's one part where it could be much better.

620
00:38:08.079 --> 00:38:08.251
There's,

621
00:38:08.267 --> 00:38:08.751
for example,

622
00:38:08.814 --> 00:38:10.814
now new peer-reviewed literature,

623
00:38:11.392 --> 00:38:13.392
where then instead of the two and a half,

624
00:38:13.454 --> 00:38:15.783
it's more like six tons.

625
00:38:16.454 --> 00:38:17.579
It's a huge difference.

626
00:38:18.469 --> 00:38:19.892
That's just one example.

627
00:38:20.353 --> 00:38:21.695
And then on the other end is,

628
00:38:21.736 --> 00:38:22.236
of course,

629
00:38:22.978 --> 00:38:26.982
not only how much worse are we actually today than our numbers say,

630
00:38:28.568 --> 00:38:32.576
and then how much more can we sequester than our...

631
00:38:33.409 --> 00:38:36.672
How much better can we be than our numbers say today?

632
00:38:37.312 --> 00:38:42.039
And there are also some methodological flaws in what we believe we can do today.

633
00:38:42.922 --> 00:38:45.117
That's also what we wanted to show with the report.

634
00:38:45.484 --> 00:38:48.062
Because in the report we are not looking at literature anymore.

635
00:38:48.664 --> 00:38:52.789
We are measuring on the ground of the pioneering farmers.

636
00:38:53.836 --> 00:38:55.898
Not the specific CO2 emissions.

637
00:38:56.029 --> 00:38:56.770
That's the model,

638
00:38:57.150 --> 00:38:59.031
but I'll later share,

639
00:38:59.032 --> 00:38:59.273
I think,

640
00:38:59.274 --> 00:39:04.496
the still by far most hopeful and amazing insight from the whole report.

641
00:39:05.121 --> 00:39:13.246
But what we have in terms of our CO2 sequestering capacities is,

642
00:39:14.074 --> 00:39:17.683
if we always just do a satirical study,

643
00:39:17.793 --> 00:39:17.918
so

644
00:39:18.369 --> 00:39:25.617
In science today you have to isolate all the other variables so you can prove a causal connection between two variables.

645
00:39:26.199 --> 00:39:32.300
So in agricultural science this means we leave everything the same and just denote it.

646
00:39:32.605 --> 00:39:35.269
But we keep the same nitrogen fertilizer,

647
00:39:35.270 --> 00:39:36.488
the same pesticides,

648
00:39:36.753 --> 00:39:37.863
the same phosphor,

649
00:39:38.003 --> 00:39:38.363
whatever.

650
00:39:40.050 --> 00:39:40.332
Okay,

651
00:39:40.457 --> 00:39:41.691
and then we see the difference.

652
00:39:42.394 --> 00:39:44.878
And then we do that for another and for another.

653
00:39:45.675 --> 00:39:47.035
And then we add them together.

654
00:39:47.609 --> 00:39:49.670
But we'll never see synergies by that.

655
00:39:50.893 --> 00:39:52.752
But farmers would never do it like that.

656
00:39:53.096 --> 00:39:57.440
They are never innovating like we do in scientific practice today.

657
00:39:58.237 --> 00:39:59.322
Because they would,

658
00:39:59.401 --> 00:39:59.682
okay,

659
00:39:59.721 --> 00:40:00.401
I go naughty,

660
00:40:00.541 --> 00:40:03.627
I reduce synthetic fertilizer 30%.

661
00:40:03.628 --> 00:40:07.283
I save some insecticides and I put some foliar spray.

662
00:40:09.127 --> 00:40:11.518
Science has no idea what's going on then because...

663
00:40:13.201 --> 00:40:28.888
according to standard scientific positivist practice we can't even know and then that's one part then comes soil science this is a little bit controversial i think

664
00:40:29.067 --> 00:40:38.286
we are all going to learn it's it's a positive thing so i don't know if you are deep into the discourse of

665
00:40:40.982 --> 00:40:46.248
We think at some point our soils can't take in more carbon.

666
00:40:46.249 --> 00:40:46.346
No?

667
00:40:46.347 --> 00:40:46.467
Yeah.

668
00:40:48.893 --> 00:40:49.549
That's a hoax.

669
00:40:52.033 --> 00:40:55.314
And that comes back to our racism against grasslands.

670
00:40:55.713 --> 00:40:59.103
I say that also provocatively because I think it's funny.

671
00:40:59.666 --> 00:41:04.150
But grassland soils work different than forest soils.

672
00:41:06.369 --> 00:41:08.812
And we have looked at forest soils for one.

673
00:41:08.851 --> 00:41:13.495
That's a problem why we have some thought problems on understanding that.

674
00:41:14.038 --> 00:41:17.218
The other thing is we say,

675
00:41:17.296 --> 00:41:17.577
okay,

676
00:41:17.679 --> 00:41:18.960
now the soil has 6%

677
00:41:19.640 --> 00:41:20.319
organic matter.

678
00:41:21.729 --> 00:41:26.812
Then we need to know the bike density and then we basically know how much carbon is in that soil.

679
00:41:26.914 --> 00:41:27.515
And then we say,

680
00:41:27.593 --> 00:41:27.894
yeah,

681
00:41:28.777 --> 00:41:29.015
you know,

682
00:41:29.054 --> 00:41:29.476
we are not,

683
00:41:29.914 --> 00:41:31.601
if you look at the famous graphs,

684
00:41:31.718 --> 00:41:33.062
let's say of Gabe Brown,

685
00:41:33.063 --> 00:41:34.398
he came from 2 to

686
00:41:35.343 --> 00:41:38.625
8% organic matter and then our S-curve is flattening out.

687
00:41:40.046 --> 00:41:40.312
Yes,

688
00:41:41.687 --> 00:41:44.656
that's a curve of a relative number.

689
00:41:45.750 --> 00:41:47.093
But in absolute terms,

690
00:41:48.031 --> 00:41:50.453
we can take more because we can build soil.

691
00:41:52.461 --> 00:41:53.521
In material terms,

692
00:41:53.681 --> 00:41:57.123
because so far we were never able to measure.

693
00:41:57.162 --> 00:41:57.822
So we say,

694
00:41:57.881 --> 00:41:58.002
OK,

695
00:41:58.123 --> 00:42:00.201
we take the soil test 30 centimeters.

696
00:42:00.541 --> 00:42:04.361
Maybe sometimes now we want to do 50 to see the deep carbon also.

697
00:42:05.963 --> 00:42:14.002
But just imagine every year you're putting amazing cover crops or you have a grassland and you put biomass on top and inside.

698
00:42:14.799 --> 00:42:16.502
Carbon on top of it.

699
00:42:17.349 --> 00:42:18.429
But you're also going to grow.

700
00:42:18.870 --> 00:42:21.270
So if you measured 10 years ago 30 centimeters,

701
00:42:22.731 --> 00:42:25.411
10 years later you're measuring the top 30 centimeters ago,

702
00:42:25.848 --> 00:42:27.832
maybe we are one centimeter higher.

703
00:42:29.051 --> 00:42:30.231
We didn't know so far.

704
00:42:30.536 --> 00:42:31.153
We couldn't know.

705
00:42:32.090 --> 00:42:40.293
Now we have super new satellite guided soil testing where we can look with the satellites if the distance is actually still the same.

706
00:42:41.356 --> 00:42:43.293
So the theory I'm spinning here.

707
00:42:44.589 --> 00:42:45.810
We will find out soon.

708
00:42:46.051 --> 00:42:46.491
But also,

709
00:42:46.571 --> 00:42:47.173
for example,

710
00:42:47.251 --> 00:42:49.473
the biggest soil scientist in Germany,

711
00:42:49.555 --> 00:42:50.134
Axel Don,

712
00:42:51.255 --> 00:42:56.481
he was a firm believer that at some point you just couldn't put more carbon into the soil.

713
00:42:57.700 --> 00:42:57.841
Well,

714
00:42:57.903 --> 00:42:59.286
last year he came out and he's like,

715
00:42:59.505 --> 00:42:59.622
no,

716
00:42:59.786 --> 00:43:00.044
guys,

717
00:43:00.145 --> 00:43:00.426
sorry.

718
00:43:01.661 --> 00:43:01.989
Actually,

719
00:43:02.051 --> 00:43:04.489
there is no limit to the carbon you can put in the soil.

720
00:43:05.786 --> 00:43:08.317
I never thought about it in the way that you explain now,

721
00:43:08.318 --> 00:43:09.692
but it actually makes a lot of sense.

722
00:43:09.708 --> 00:43:11.333
And I'm just thinking back of...

723
00:43:11.334 --> 00:43:11.583
However...

724
00:43:12.333 --> 00:43:14.495
of a farm I visited in Portugal recently.

725
00:43:14.534 --> 00:43:16.476
It was Antonio at Terra Centropica.

726
00:43:17.218 --> 00:43:24.284
He showed me one piece of land that recently planted a new system of trees and there was almost no soil.

727
00:43:24.308 --> 00:43:26.730
It was just rocks and a tiny bit of soil.

728
00:43:27.831 --> 00:43:29.831
And then he showed me a system that was six,

729
00:43:29.909 --> 00:43:30.472
seven years old,

730
00:43:30.473 --> 00:43:31.206
not even that old.

731
00:43:32.019 --> 00:43:37.722
And he dug a hole and he put his whole arm into it to dig up this fresh soil from under there.

732
00:43:38.394 --> 00:43:39.472
So he created...

733
00:43:40.185 --> 00:43:43.652
in just a few years time these 60-80 centimeters of soil.

734
00:43:44.812 --> 00:43:49.503
And so it does make sense that if you go from one centimeter of soil,

735
00:43:50.105 --> 00:43:53.207
which has a certain percentage of carbon in it,

736
00:43:53.589 --> 00:43:55.871
if you build a lot of soil,

737
00:43:56.733 --> 00:43:58.074
Maybe the total percentage,

738
00:43:58.075 --> 00:44:04.162
the percentage of organic matter in that soil arrives at a threshold at some point,

739
00:44:04.362 --> 00:44:06.201
but the amount of soil you can build doesn't.

740
00:44:06.381 --> 00:44:08.006
Is that what you're saying?

741
00:44:08.483 --> 00:44:11.889
And we have built those soils all around.

742
00:44:12.084 --> 00:44:15.069
Today we are fighting in Ukraine about the Black Earth.

743
00:44:16.834 --> 00:44:16.975
Well,

744
00:44:17.053 --> 00:44:25.381
no one heard of the archaeological findings of the so-called megasites of 4,000 to 5,000 before the birth of Christ.

745
00:44:26.021 --> 00:44:29.824
When we basically had a permaculture mega city in that area,

746
00:44:31.484 --> 00:44:32.828
maybe they built that soil.

747
00:44:33.547 --> 00:44:34.172
The Amazon,

748
00:44:34.289 --> 00:44:35.008
we now know,

749
00:44:35.852 --> 00:44:39.094
we humans built that soil with terra preta and stuff.

750
00:44:39.875 --> 00:44:41.258
And in the US too,

751
00:44:41.578 --> 00:44:41.836
I mean,

752
00:44:41.899 --> 00:44:48.742
we still know the black earth of the savannas of the bisons of the...

753
00:44:49.973 --> 00:44:50.634
We weren't.

754
00:44:50.814 --> 00:44:52.575
They weren't the buyers by themselves.

755
00:44:52.815 --> 00:44:54.157
The indigenous people there,

756
00:44:54.298 --> 00:44:55.317
they stewarded that.

757
00:44:56.579 --> 00:45:02.583
Architects of Abundance is an amazing book on those stewarding practices.

758
00:45:03.567 --> 00:45:05.646
It's really special when you think about it.

759
00:45:05.864 --> 00:45:09.286
People are talking about the environment,

760
00:45:09.646 --> 00:45:10.349
climate change,

761
00:45:10.786 --> 00:45:12.474
the problem of carbon emissions.

762
00:45:13.942 --> 00:45:16.739
And wherever you look at any industry,

763
00:45:17.997 --> 00:45:19.977
It seems like a very complicated problem.

764
00:45:19.997 --> 00:45:20.278
I don't know,

765
00:45:20.297 --> 00:45:21.477
like the transport industry,

766
00:45:21.538 --> 00:45:22.057
for example,

767
00:45:22.077 --> 00:45:22.979
you could say,

768
00:45:23.038 --> 00:45:23.178
well,

769
00:45:23.217 --> 00:45:25.620
we're going to reduce or use a fossil fuel,

770
00:45:25.678 --> 00:45:28.717
we're going to use more renewable energies,

771
00:45:28.819 --> 00:45:29.616
electrify,

772
00:45:30.538 --> 00:45:32.202
change the way we organize our cities,

773
00:45:32.256 --> 00:45:34.194
become more circular.

774
00:45:34.600 --> 00:45:36.616
Like you can find all of these solutions that are really,

775
00:45:36.678 --> 00:45:37.303
really difficult,

776
00:45:37.334 --> 00:45:37.756
first of all,

777
00:45:38.069 --> 00:45:39.022
to put into practice,

778
00:45:39.397 --> 00:45:42.663
and that will allow you to kind of reduce your environmental impact.

779
00:45:43.100 --> 00:45:43.444
But here,

780
00:45:43.445 --> 00:45:44.741
when we're talking about agriculture,

781
00:45:44.788 --> 00:45:46.944
we're talking about something that has the potential to

782
00:45:47.469 --> 00:45:50.810
not only become emission neutral,

783
00:45:51.592 --> 00:45:53.650
but actually become,

784
00:45:54.752 --> 00:45:55.494
would you say positive,

785
00:45:55.533 --> 00:45:55.908
negative?

786
00:45:55.909 --> 00:45:56.830
It depends on how you spin it.

787
00:45:59.174 --> 00:45:59.971
You can go way,

788
00:46:00.072 --> 00:46:00.189
way,

789
00:46:00.275 --> 00:46:02.213
way beyond just the zero.

790
00:46:03.572 --> 00:46:06.353
And that's very unique to agriculture,

791
00:46:06.354 --> 00:46:06.666
isn't it?

792
00:46:07.400 --> 00:46:07.713
Yes,

793
00:46:07.931 --> 00:46:09.416
and we don't have to reduce,

794
00:46:09.447 --> 00:46:10.635
but we have to do more.

795
00:46:10.713 --> 00:46:11.947
And by doing more,

796
00:46:12.010 --> 00:46:15.900
we can hear this almighty rift of humans,

797
00:46:16.338 --> 00:46:16.963
culture.

798
00:46:17.497 --> 00:46:18.299
and nature,

799
00:46:19.920 --> 00:46:25.289
all the other rifts that are kind of growing from this initial rift.

800
00:46:25.687 --> 00:46:26.625
And also to add,

801
00:46:27.406 --> 00:46:28.648
we also often forget,

802
00:46:28.750 --> 00:46:29.648
but until,

803
00:46:30.031 --> 00:46:33.273
I only know the numbers until 2019,

804
00:46:33.351 --> 00:46:35.492
but until 2019 still,

805
00:46:37.117 --> 00:46:39.476
we had caused more emissions.

806
00:46:40.961 --> 00:46:50.333
with land use change and agriculture compounded over the history of humanity than with fossil fuel emissions.

807
00:46:52.732 --> 00:47:01.888
In the report you also present an index that you've created that's called the regenerating full productivity

808
00:47:02.466 --> 00:47:02.935
RFP.

809
00:47:04.686 --> 00:47:05.066
First of all,

810
00:47:05.508 --> 00:47:07.170
what is this index?

811
00:47:08.012 --> 00:47:09.072
What did you create it for?

812
00:47:10.275 --> 00:47:10.717
And second,

813
00:47:10.858 --> 00:47:12.842
can you please explain how it works?

814
00:47:12.881 --> 00:47:14.342
What's the methodology behind it?

815
00:47:15.653 --> 00:47:15.794
Yeah,

816
00:47:15.914 --> 00:47:16.274
clearly.

817
00:47:16.314 --> 00:47:16.594
I mean,

818
00:47:16.775 --> 00:47:18.835
we wanted to contribute something,

819
00:47:18.937 --> 00:47:22.460
the whole regeneration movement everywhere.

820
00:47:22.781 --> 00:47:27.906
We have come up with new protocols on how we understand regeneration,

821
00:47:27.968 --> 00:47:29.710
which is not practice-based,

822
00:47:29.765 --> 00:47:31.007
but process-based.

823
00:47:31.046 --> 00:47:36.398
We are also on our first founding meeting that we spent the whole conference on,

824
00:47:36.414 --> 00:47:40.710
on defining regenerative agriculture along our four principles.

825
00:47:41.523 --> 00:47:41.992
together

826
00:47:42.913 --> 00:47:44.715
And then now slowly,

827
00:47:44.795 --> 00:47:46.598
let's say in the supply chain,

828
00:47:46.697 --> 00:47:49.418
so also now with certification standards,

829
00:47:50.582 --> 00:47:51.840
in the private sector,

830
00:47:52.480 --> 00:48:03.059
we are getting some food on the soil in terms of spreading that understanding of looking at agriculture.

831
00:48:04.590 --> 00:48:05.621
In the public sector,

832
00:48:05.730 --> 00:48:06.762
still not at all.

833
00:48:08.025 --> 00:48:11.725
So we wanted to create again a mycelium in the middle,

834
00:48:11.805 --> 00:48:21.291
a language which could translate between the worlds so we can connect our national economic worlds,

835
00:48:22.385 --> 00:48:23.666
the Eurostat worlds,

836
00:48:23.994 --> 00:48:28.682
the thinking worlds of our people in the agricultural and economic ministries,

837
00:48:29.573 --> 00:48:31.010
to the regeneration world.

838
00:48:32.289 --> 00:48:47.622
and at the same time also come up with something that just a discussion we had or we have to reduce emissions we have to reduce our impact we have to scale back we have to give land to nature again well

839
00:48:47.747 --> 00:48:55.950
we are part of nature and i'm a big fan of degrowth economics for example or steady state

840
00:48:56.129 --> 00:48:56.809
...economics,

841
00:48:56.909 --> 00:48:59.029
now so-called donut economics.

842
00:48:59.869 --> 00:49:01.250
But they all have one flaw.

843
00:49:02.890 --> 00:49:05.113
They never mention what we have to regrow.

844
00:49:05.832 --> 00:49:05.972
Yeah,

845
00:49:05.988 --> 00:49:08.535
we have to degrow a hell of a lot of things.

846
00:49:08.676 --> 00:49:08.855
Yeah,

847
00:49:08.972 --> 00:49:09.129
well,

848
00:49:09.176 --> 00:49:10.551
let's start with our military,

849
00:49:10.676 --> 00:49:11.574
with our nukes.

850
00:49:12.027 --> 00:49:13.574
We have to degrow a lot of stuff.

851
00:49:14.433 --> 00:49:15.074
But we have,

852
00:49:15.449 --> 00:49:16.590
even more importantly,

853
00:49:16.996 --> 00:49:20.058
as we just found out at the climate issue itself,

854
00:49:20.137 --> 00:49:21.715
but the health issue and so forth,

855
00:49:22.074 --> 00:49:23.215
we have to regrow.

856
00:49:24.453 --> 00:49:29.459
the capacity of our biosphere to grow complex life.

857
00:49:30.217 --> 00:49:43.127
So we wanted to bring out also an indicator that could be used by national economics and whole societies to steward their most underlying production factor,

858
00:49:43.268 --> 00:49:43.831
our land,

859
00:49:44.815 --> 00:49:45.799
in regeneration.

860
00:49:47.096 --> 00:49:51.424
So that was a big goal.

861
00:49:53.365 --> 00:49:55.387
And now I can go into how it works,

862
00:49:55.909 --> 00:49:56.147
which...

863
00:49:56.788 --> 00:49:57.370
I would love to.

864
00:49:57.510 --> 00:50:00.330
Just before you go into how it works,

865
00:50:01.131 --> 00:50:01.975
just another question.

866
00:50:03.131 --> 00:50:13.913
There are so many different indicators and different organizations working on different ways to measure and monitor the health of farms and ecosystems.

867
00:50:15.241 --> 00:50:16.788
Why did you decide to create your own?

868
00:50:17.116 --> 00:50:20.694
What was sort of missing from other systems?

869
00:50:22.261 --> 00:50:22.542
Yes,

870
00:50:23.362 --> 00:50:32.914
and we can now do an hour on history of certification or the history of the organic movement in the

871
00:50:33.469 --> 00:50:34.453
80s, late 80s,

872
00:50:34.492 --> 00:50:34.977
beginning of

873
00:50:35.375 --> 00:50:37.899
90s, kind of like the regeneration movement now with,

874
00:50:37.914 --> 00:50:38.211
you know,

875
00:50:38.336 --> 00:50:40.164
more than hundreds of...

876
00:50:40.957 --> 00:50:42.898
private certification standards.

877
00:50:43.440 --> 00:50:45.822
Where they are right now we are doing a benchmarking study,

878
00:50:45.943 --> 00:50:56.354
hopefully soon we can publish a report where we put all the private certification schemes on region claims into an overview and comparison.

879
00:50:57.768 --> 00:51:01.111
But the other thing is really the language was not,

880
00:51:01.190 --> 00:51:05.643
no one did the effort of trying to speak the language of our public servants.

881
00:51:06.657 --> 00:51:12.264
If we are not into the game of destroying our nation state tomorrow,

882
00:51:12.444 --> 00:51:25.073
then at least we should try to educate our public servants so that they can think more on how they can make policies that help us to steward for life.

883
00:51:26.088 --> 00:51:28.260
So we didn't see that anywhere,

884
00:51:28.838 --> 00:51:30.463
this attempt to speak.

885
00:51:30.981 --> 00:51:36.066
a little bit more the language of our public servants out of this pioneering movement.

886
00:51:36.886 --> 00:51:42.730
And the other part is that it ought to be pharma-led,

887
00:51:43.597 --> 00:51:47.035
because we are producing a lot of data.

888
00:51:47.036 --> 00:51:47.222
I mean,

889
00:51:47.285 --> 00:51:50.004
now we don't even have to start on AI and so forth.

890
00:51:51.097 --> 00:51:52.441
But we believe

891
00:51:54.185 --> 00:51:57.769
in the double use value of data.

892
00:51:57.869 --> 00:52:06.994
So every data point we want to measure at the farm should first help the farmer to farm more with nature.

893
00:52:07.861 --> 00:52:08.158
And then,

894
00:52:08.259 --> 00:52:08.502
okay,

895
00:52:08.541 --> 00:52:11.416
the data can also inform regulation,

896
00:52:11.603 --> 00:52:13.791
subsidy or supply chain,

897
00:52:13.978 --> 00:52:15.994
secondary standards and so forth.

898
00:52:16.869 --> 00:52:21.713
So that were our two outsets where we wanted to bring added value,

899
00:52:21.994 --> 00:52:22.853
which we didn't.

900
00:52:23.709 --> 00:52:24.570
which we were lacking.

901
00:52:25.330 --> 00:52:25.531
Right.

902
00:52:25.990 --> 00:52:33.119
So every measurement should be a measurement that's actually helping the farmer in his operation,

903
00:52:33.776 --> 00:52:39.002
not just something bureaucratic that is a problem for the farmer to measure and to communicate.

904
00:52:39.612 --> 00:52:42.971
And then ultimately also be completely non-dogmatic,

905
00:52:43.112 --> 00:52:44.174
that is to say,

906
00:52:45.424 --> 00:52:51.002
not rely on any practices and associated coefficients from some...

907
00:52:51.841 --> 00:52:58.147
flawed literature analysis but really measure results and outcomes.

908
00:52:59.409 --> 00:53:04.913
Okay sweet so we can get to the question of well how does this work actually in practice?

909
00:53:06.218 --> 00:53:15.679
So we assess a regenerating full productivity performance per unit of land because

910
00:53:17.325 --> 00:53:23.350
Land is the most finite defining resource of our journey here on Mother Earth.

911
00:53:24.874 --> 00:53:32.901
And then we look at a list of indicators per hectare of land.

912
00:53:34.409 --> 00:53:39.143
We have two indicators which for us are most decisive,

913
00:53:39.924 --> 00:53:44.471
which is photosynthesis more than any other.

914
00:53:45.268 --> 00:53:45.612
Yeah.

915
00:53:45.773 --> 00:53:53.005
because regenerating photosynthesis is a almighty task of humanity today.

916
00:53:53.345 --> 00:53:54.790
If you look into...

917
00:53:56.109 --> 00:54:04.574
Our biosphere had seen many more climate changes and many more mass extinctions.

918
00:54:04.801 --> 00:54:08.183
Today is the fastest and most steep one ever.

919
00:54:08.762 --> 00:54:09.683
But the dinosaurs,

920
00:54:09.722 --> 00:54:10.262
for example,

921
00:54:10.285 --> 00:54:11.387
they were living in a much,

922
00:54:11.527 --> 00:54:12.730
much warmer climate.

923
00:54:13.746 --> 00:54:15.371
But they had a stable climate.

924
00:54:16.168 --> 00:54:24.043
And that's because we had more than double the amount of living plants on this planet.

925
00:54:25.145 --> 00:54:28.985
which means of course also more than double the amount of living soils.

926
00:54:31.827 --> 00:54:39.487
And we basically assess how much food you produce for humans and for life,

927
00:54:40.346 --> 00:54:41.612
with what efficiency,

928
00:54:42.815 --> 00:54:43.393
and that's it.

929
00:54:43.628 --> 00:54:46.237
So we look at kilocalories,

930
00:54:47.643 --> 00:54:48.409
proteins,

931
00:54:50.689 --> 00:55:09.085
your gross margin and then what so that's what you produce in terms of human food and pharma food the gross margin and then we look at how many what kind of inputs did be used with what efficiencies so all

932
00:55:09.225 --> 00:55:15.069
the fertilizers pesticides fuel and water

933
00:55:16.945 --> 00:55:28.456
And then we look at the ecosystem services which most decisively is whole year photosynthesis and soil cover.

934
00:55:29.378 --> 00:55:37.870
Then we look at land surface temperature and plant diversity and evapotranspiration.

935
00:55:39.245 --> 00:55:40.823
I want to add also this is

936
00:55:41.997 --> 00:55:45.542
was the first report on an ongoing research program.

937
00:55:46.221 --> 00:55:47.100
So there's,

938
00:55:47.143 --> 00:55:47.542
of course,

939
00:55:47.543 --> 00:55:54.131
a very long discussion section because it's by no means perfect.

940
00:55:55.147 --> 00:55:57.475
It's a project and a process.

941
00:55:57.733 --> 00:56:00.881
It's not the perfect closed system.

942
00:56:01.194 --> 00:56:01.350
Yeah.

943
00:56:02.101 --> 00:56:03.863
It's a work in progress.

944
00:56:03.943 --> 00:56:05.904
This is the first version of it.

945
00:56:06.465 --> 00:56:06.887
And of course,

946
00:56:06.888 --> 00:56:08.125
this is going to expand.

947
00:56:08.149 --> 00:56:09.086
You're going to have more data.

948
00:56:09.168 --> 00:56:12.570
You're going to refine the methodology to improve all of that.

949
00:56:13.609 --> 00:56:15.375
So you mentioned quite a few indicators already,

950
00:56:15.391 --> 00:56:19.133
and I want to try and understand how you measure them.

951
00:56:22.310 --> 00:56:23.652
You started with photosynthesis,

952
00:56:24.472 --> 00:56:26.375
is that something easily measurable?

953
00:56:27.996 --> 00:56:28.113
Yeah,

954
00:56:28.238 --> 00:56:36.207
so we are now pretty good in measuring photosynthesis via satellites and we have big NASA projects and so forth.

955
00:56:37.269 --> 00:56:43.035
And then we have publicly available satellites,

956
00:56:43.036 --> 00:56:46.441
so for example all the satellites we use there are owned by us.

957
00:56:46.879 --> 00:56:48.254
It's European satellites.

958
00:56:49.144 --> 00:57:04.482
Then of course also you can take other satellite now we have a lot of private satellites you know like the mask satellites sending our fascist wi-fi or we have these cost

959
00:57:04.483 --> 00:57:05.122
a lot of money.

960
00:57:05.820 --> 00:57:08.542
So we had very little money for this report.

961
00:57:08.763 --> 00:57:09.044
I mean,

962
00:57:09.122 --> 00:57:11.587
we did the report on about 120,

963
00:57:11.626 --> 00:57:12.646
the whole study on

964
00:57:13.486 --> 00:57:13.607
120K.

965
00:57:14.665 --> 00:57:18.134
So we didn't have any money to buy better satellites.

966
00:57:18.415 --> 00:57:21.876
Hopefully in the next one we might be able to buy better satellites.

967
00:57:21.939 --> 00:57:22.236
Because,

968
00:57:22.251 --> 00:57:22.798
for example,

969
00:57:22.814 --> 00:57:27.626
then our data on surface temperature is a strong indication.

970
00:57:29.017 --> 00:57:29.970
It's amazing data.

971
00:57:30.776 --> 00:57:34.657
But it could be much better because unfortunately the satellites we use,

972
00:57:35.298 --> 00:57:36.477
they take their picture,

973
00:57:36.899 --> 00:57:37.579
which were free,

974
00:57:38.676 --> 00:57:39.415
at 10 a.m.

975
00:57:39.938 --> 00:57:43.540
We all know on a hot summer morning at 10 a.m.

976
00:57:43.618 --> 00:57:44.977
it's still relatively cool.

977
00:57:45.001 --> 00:57:48.493
If I want to see how cool the forest is against the desert,

978
00:57:48.540 --> 00:57:49.477
I better measure at

979
00:57:50.118 --> 00:57:50.758
3 p.m.

980
00:57:50.821 --> 00:57:51.337
or something.

981
00:57:52.633 --> 00:57:55.118
So satellites today are capable of doing all of that,

982
00:57:55.446 --> 00:57:58.040
of measuring the amount of...

983
00:57:59.216 --> 00:58:16.375
photosynthesis the temperature of the ground at any given times yeah not at any give depends i mean satellites are you usually specialized on something and then we send them up and they do their thing and

984
00:58:16.390 --> 00:58:26.281
then you have a lot of different satellites which you can utilize in different ways but yeah for photosynthesis it's quite good

985
00:58:27.052 --> 00:58:27.352
But then,

986
00:58:27.412 --> 00:58:27.853
for example,

987
00:58:27.873 --> 00:58:28.813
another problem is,

988
00:58:29.595 --> 00:58:30.055
let's say,

989
00:58:30.175 --> 00:58:30.395
okay,

990
00:58:30.456 --> 00:58:31.637
for the surface temperature,

991
00:58:31.677 --> 00:58:35.782
the problem is the satellite is doing its picture at 10 a.m.,

992
00:58:36.102 --> 00:58:37.766
which should be better at 3 p.m.

993
00:58:38.204 --> 00:58:39.141
Then another thing is,

994
00:58:39.446 --> 00:58:39.665
okay,

995
00:58:39.688 --> 00:58:41.829
the satellite makes a picture with a pixel,

996
00:58:43.501 --> 00:58:49.688
which has a 10 by 10 resolution or a 30 by 30 resolution or could also make much smaller,

997
00:58:50.501 --> 00:58:52.298
but then it's getting more expensive.

998
00:58:53.052 --> 00:58:53.212
Okay,

999
00:58:53.372 --> 00:59:00.094
so this information coming from Satellize is available easily for farmers to use,

1000
00:59:00.133 --> 00:59:01.657
or do they need someone,

1001
00:59:01.696 --> 00:59:03.172
like an organization like you,

1002
00:59:03.493 --> 00:59:04.891
to help them collect that data,

1003
00:59:05.579 --> 00:59:06.157
pay for it,

1004
00:59:06.672 --> 00:59:07.336
make sense of it,

1005
00:59:07.938 --> 00:59:08.336
and so on?

1006
00:59:09.383 --> 00:59:10.071
Theoretically,

1007
00:59:10.149 --> 00:59:11.477
it's now free of use.

1008
00:59:12.774 --> 00:59:14.196
We're trying to bring...

1009
00:59:15.620 --> 00:59:33.279
a system where it's kind of in the comments of the farmer we are trying to create a kind of open code methodology for example there's also open teams which is doing great work um where basically the farmers could have that free at

1010
00:59:33.357 --> 00:59:42.763
some point that's our goal for sure free and most importantly with the data sovereignty being on the farm with the farmer

1011
00:59:43.984 --> 00:59:45.005
How do they use this data?

1012
00:59:45.065 --> 00:59:48.709
Is there some kind of interface that allows them to make decisions on the farm?

1013
00:59:49.268 --> 00:59:50.752
What kind of format does it come in?

1014
00:59:52.530 --> 00:59:58.920
We worked here with a startup which was founded by one of our founding farmers,

1015
00:59:59.295 --> 01:00:02.139
which was now transferred to a purpose venture,

1016
01:00:02.326 --> 01:00:03.998
which is now called AgriPurpose.

1017
01:00:05.967 --> 01:00:06.233
Peter,

1018
01:00:06.561 --> 01:00:09.592
which was also a previous guest on the podcast.

1019
01:00:09.889 --> 01:00:10.436
Nice.

1020
01:00:10.437 --> 01:00:10.545
So,

1021
01:00:10.608 --> 01:00:10.795
yeah.

1022
01:00:11.092 --> 01:00:11.405
Peter.

1023
01:00:12.316 --> 01:00:28.921
co-developed there with a lot of researchers peer-reviewed studies governments around the world but there's also a lot of others so it's not so uncommon i mean when we speak of precision agriculture and so forth you know by a climate field view and all these guys they work

1024
01:00:29.046 --> 01:00:36.374
with the same that same basic thoughts and on the basic same infrastructure okay

1025
01:00:37.104 --> 01:00:40.490
Another part I picked up from the report on this topic,

1026
01:00:40.531 --> 01:00:40.771
on the

1027
01:00:41.533 --> 01:00:42.935
RFP index,

1028
01:00:43.775 --> 01:00:44.537
it says that

1029
01:00:46.357 --> 01:00:48.263
RFP can enable harmonizing,

1030
01:00:48.365 --> 01:00:48.982
monitoring,

1031
01:00:49.185 --> 01:00:49.709
reporting,

1032
01:00:49.724 --> 01:00:52.615
and verification structure for a blended...

1033
01:00:53.406 --> 01:00:55.548
public-private transition finance system.

1034
01:00:56.929 --> 01:01:10.725
I've been to a few conferences where people talk about this concept of blended public-private finance and I have to admit that I don't really understand it and so this may be a great opportunity for me to learn something new,

1035
01:01:11.147 --> 01:01:13.585
if you could explain what it means.

1036
01:01:14.147 --> 01:01:15.788
Let's take a specific example,

1037
01:01:16.007 --> 01:01:18.022
let's take some

1038
01:01:19.006 --> 01:01:20.988
Usually we now say supply shed,

1039
01:01:21.109 --> 01:01:28.715
but let's say some bioregion or some municipality where we have for simplicity,

1040
01:01:28.793 --> 01:01:29.238
let's say,

1041
01:01:29.277 --> 01:01:30.277
100 farmers.

1042
01:01:31.660 --> 01:01:33.043
And we actually,

1043
01:01:33.762 --> 01:01:34.840
the local mayor,

1044
01:01:35.918 --> 01:01:42.590
the people have an interest in all of the farms going on the regeneration journey.

1045
01:01:43.610 --> 01:01:46.112
Maybe it's a flood-prone region,

1046
01:01:47.053 --> 01:01:53.877
so they need better infiltration capacities of the fields around the houses as fast as possible.

1047
01:01:54.401 --> 01:01:54.518
Then,

1048
01:01:54.557 --> 01:01:54.940
of course,

1049
01:01:54.941 --> 01:01:55.705
there's other interests.

1050
01:01:55.706 --> 01:01:59.127
They could buy the food from the farms locally and so forth.

1051
01:01:59.947 --> 01:02:07.729
And now we basically today the farmer is there and then he's getting some money from the public.

1052
01:02:07.901 --> 01:02:11.151
So they are getting some common agriculture policy money.

1053
01:02:12.078 --> 01:02:15.741
They are getting maybe some offer for some carbon credits.

1054
01:02:16.724 --> 01:02:32.599
Maybe they are getting some offer for some water credits because a local water supplier is also for either having problems with the quantity of the water or there are too many pesticides or nitrogen in

1055
01:02:32.600 --> 01:02:33.099
the water.

1056
01:02:34.005 --> 01:02:41.067
And then maybe also the farmer is getting an offer from his bank for reduced interests.

1057
01:02:41.674 --> 01:02:44.974
on their loan if they do something more sustainable.

1058
01:02:46.057 --> 01:02:48.416
The problem is now the farmer has a revenue,

1059
01:02:48.455 --> 01:02:55.197
let's say something around 2000 bucks per hectare and each of them is offering a few bucks.

1060
01:02:55.814 --> 01:03:00.557
But for every buck the farmer has to do a new round of paperwork.

1061
01:03:01.494 --> 01:03:10.713
For every buck someone is prescribing the farmer what to do and they do it because they are getting the buck.

1062
01:03:11.990 --> 01:03:20.619
So they have basically zero headspace for focusing on what they should be doing and what they are the best agents in our society of,

1063
01:03:21.377 --> 01:03:24.963
trying to understand how they can heal their soils and work with nature.

1064
01:03:25.947 --> 01:03:27.666
So what we want to do is,

1065
01:03:28.439 --> 01:03:29.408
if all of them...

1066
01:03:30.318 --> 01:03:36.050
could agree on the same basic language in terms of the data that we need from the farmer.

1067
01:03:36.968 --> 01:03:40.218
If then the same data is designed in a way that actually,

1068
01:03:40.296 --> 01:03:40.679
firstly,

1069
01:03:40.734 --> 01:03:43.843
that data helps the farmer to farm more with nature.

1070
01:03:45.124 --> 01:03:46.593
And then we can all put...

1071
01:03:47.382 --> 01:04:04.681
in the money in the pot and the farmer gets it without having to do so much paperwork without being told what to do because that inhibits pedagogically the farmer's capacity to innovate in the future and adapt to his context and

1072
01:04:04.713 --> 01:04:09.150
then we have a public private partnership

1073
01:04:09.386 --> 01:04:09.766
Which is,

1074
01:04:10.007 --> 01:04:10.147
yeah,

1075
01:04:10.487 --> 01:04:13.110
just ugly language we got to today.

1076
01:04:14.050 --> 01:04:14.350
I see.

1077
01:04:14.569 --> 01:04:14.710
Yeah,

1078
01:04:14.831 --> 01:04:15.073
okay.

1079
01:04:15.772 --> 01:04:19.038
And so this index helps,

1080
01:04:19.655 --> 01:04:31.132
this financing system helps and indicates sort of the results of what the farmer is doing rather than at the source prescribing what he should do.

1081
01:04:32.611 --> 01:04:33.572
Exactly.

1082
01:04:33.652 --> 01:04:39.076
We hope that it contributes to a coalescing of all of us who are in this space.

1083
01:04:39.459 --> 01:04:45.099
The bank has its way of looking at the practices they want for sustainability.

1084
01:04:45.724 --> 01:04:51.631
Maybe the off-taker has its way already of looking into what they define as regenerative.

1085
01:04:52.256 --> 01:04:57.740
Maybe the water agency needs reduced pesticides and less plowing.

1086
01:04:58.278 --> 01:05:03.003
Maybe the flood insurer also needs less plowing and some earthworks or whatever.

1087
01:05:03.803 --> 01:05:15.354
And so that we can all speak the same language without being reductionistic but giving the capacity to the local context to grow new kinds of diversity.

1088
01:05:17.512 --> 01:05:21.455
Is there anything else you'd like to mention about this report?

1089
01:05:21.496 --> 01:05:23.977
Anything that's worth talking about still?

1090
01:05:24.559 --> 01:05:26.160
You can read me like an oven book.

1091
01:05:27.559 --> 01:05:27.824
Yes,

1092
01:05:28.020 --> 01:05:28.442
totally.

1093
01:05:28.981 --> 01:05:29.840
Because there is a...

1094
01:05:30.481 --> 01:05:31.645
Which I didn't see coming,

1095
01:05:31.723 --> 01:05:32.004
which,

1096
01:05:32.067 --> 01:05:32.270
I mean,

1097
01:05:32.324 --> 01:05:36.918
that's the beauty of collecting that data and then looking where we stand,

1098
01:05:36.965 --> 01:05:37.090
no?

1099
01:05:37.918 --> 01:05:42.981
And we had already the topic of the S-curve today a little bit and not photosynthesis.

1100
01:05:43.574 --> 01:05:45.387
There's one figure in the report which...

1101
01:05:46.684 --> 01:05:48.065
To my humble understanding,

1102
01:05:48.086 --> 01:05:53.730
it is one of the most hopeful figures we have seen as humanity,

1103
01:05:54.851 --> 01:05:56.133
definitely as Europeans.

1104
01:05:57.351 --> 01:06:08.070
Because you see in that figure how much photosynthesis per year and hectare the pioneering farmers do on average.

1105
01:06:09.236 --> 01:06:18.444
And we always compare a field of a pioneering farmer through three random fields of other farmers in the same pedoclimatic regions.

1106
01:06:18.522 --> 01:06:22.030
So the same conditions for growing photosynthesis.

1107
01:06:23.569 --> 01:06:24.007
And then,

1108
01:06:24.733 --> 01:06:25.093
you know,

1109
01:06:27.007 --> 01:06:27.694
what's interesting,

1110
01:06:28.522 --> 01:06:34.803
if you're a farmer who's already very advanced in your knowledge of new production methodologies,

1111
01:06:35.007 --> 01:06:35.241
or

1112
01:06:36.068 --> 01:06:38.828
a farmer more still in the old ways.

1113
01:06:40.090 --> 01:06:47.492
A bad year is a bad year for a good farmer as it's for the other farmers because that depends on climate and nature.

1114
01:06:47.493 --> 01:06:57.914
If we had too early frost or shitty rain so it was too hot or a drought you know that's something that influences photosynthesis always a lot.

1115
01:06:59.289 --> 01:07:01.836
And we always see in the curve so we start

1116
01:07:02.756 --> 01:07:03.637
with about 5%

1117
01:07:03.997 --> 01:07:07.142
more photosynthesis in 2018.

1118
01:07:07.143 --> 01:07:10.927
And the curve goes of the normal farmers and the pioneering farmers,

1119
01:07:11.044 --> 01:07:12.349
and they grow always.

1120
01:07:12.427 --> 01:07:13.349
So then in the end,

1121
01:07:13.364 --> 01:07:14.450
we are at 8%.

1122
01:07:15.185 --> 01:07:19.091
But always when the average farmers go down,

1123
01:07:19.919 --> 01:07:22.294
the pioneering farmers also go down.

1124
01:07:22.388 --> 01:07:23.700
So when it's a bad year,

1125
01:07:24.044 --> 01:07:26.935
they also sometimes produce less than the year before,

1126
01:07:27.060 --> 01:07:28.325
not because it was a bad year.

1127
01:07:28.857 --> 01:07:30.169
And now in the last year,

1128
01:07:31.364 --> 01:07:33.806
We see the almighty decoupling.

1129
01:07:35.730 --> 01:07:38.952
The average farmers have a worse year than before.

1130
01:07:39.874 --> 01:07:42.234
And the pioneering farmers keep increasing.

1131
01:07:43.398 --> 01:07:45.999
So we are hitting some exponential point.

1132
01:07:46.000 --> 01:07:48.116
If you look at the S-curve of grass,

1133
01:07:48.663 --> 01:07:49.226
for example,

1134
01:07:49.227 --> 01:07:51.741
or any successional forest ecosystems.

1135
01:07:53.070 --> 01:07:55.882
So I think those pioneering farmers which...

1136
01:07:57.040 --> 01:07:58.301
Started around the same time,

1137
01:07:58.321 --> 01:07:59.902
maybe those fields are now 10,

1138
01:08:00.043 --> 01:08:00.844
15 years,

1139
01:08:01.383 --> 01:08:05.606
maybe some a little bit shorter in regenerating management.

1140
01:08:05.770 --> 01:08:08.988
They basically hit the inflection point of the S-curve.

1141
01:08:09.809 --> 01:08:14.090
And we did that while climate change is getting tougher and tougher.

1142
01:08:14.418 --> 01:08:14.684
You know,

1143
01:08:14.715 --> 01:08:16.106
there are also those who tell us,

1144
01:08:16.184 --> 01:08:16.402
oh,

1145
01:08:16.934 --> 01:08:17.543
climate change,

1146
01:08:17.559 --> 01:08:20.871
we can't put any new carbon into soils because...

1147
01:08:22.272 --> 01:08:25.035
Due to climate changes getting more difficult,

1148
01:08:25.836 --> 01:08:28.636
actually we see we are just getting started.

1149
01:08:29.718 --> 01:08:31.324
The indicator you're talking about here,

1150
01:08:31.363 --> 01:08:35.847
is the total RFP result or it's just photosynthesis,

1151
01:08:35.965 --> 01:08:36.168
right?

1152
01:08:36.222 --> 01:08:36.402
Okay,

1153
01:08:36.403 --> 01:08:45.808
so you're seeing that photosynthesis is increasing on average for the pioneer farmers in a year where it's decreasing everywhere else.

1154
01:08:46.215 --> 01:08:46.496
Yes,

1155
01:08:47.121 --> 01:08:48.371
and that's the first time.

1156
01:08:48.784 --> 01:08:52.549
They didn't manage to do that from 2018 until 22,

1157
01:08:53.467 --> 01:08:54.932
and now they are able to do it.

1158
01:08:55.291 --> 01:08:56.654
Somehow it clicked this year.

1159
01:08:57.373 --> 01:08:58.037
Something happened.

1160
01:09:00.459 --> 01:09:09.459
Maybe the fact that they're now grouped together in an alliance where they can learn from each other and feel part of a family,

1161
01:09:09.460 --> 01:09:10.053
of a community.

1162
01:09:10.240 --> 01:09:10.646
Who knows?

1163
01:09:11.428 --> 01:09:11.928
Who knows?

1164
01:09:12.006 --> 01:09:14.287
But that was 23 to 24.

1165
01:09:14.412 --> 01:09:16.115
We just had some video calls.

1166
01:09:16.131 --> 01:09:17.834
That's too much to say.

1167
01:09:18.452 --> 01:09:18.633
Yeah,

1168
01:09:19.115 --> 01:09:19.335
okay,

1169
01:09:19.436 --> 01:09:20.218
but that's very,

1170
01:09:20.298 --> 01:09:21.562
very encouraging.

1171
01:09:24.221 --> 01:09:29.146
Especially when we know that we need to build resilience in the face of climate change,

1172
01:09:29.685 --> 01:09:32.412
to know that it's possible to some extent.

1173
01:09:34.529 --> 01:09:36.131
Not only to some extent,

1174
01:09:36.490 --> 01:09:43.779
it's to the extent that we can be humbly sitting here saying we have no idea to what extent,

1175
01:09:43.982 --> 01:09:44.264
you know,

1176
01:09:44.342 --> 01:09:45.185
because today,

1177
01:09:46.545 --> 01:09:47.607
Matteo Mazzola,

1178
01:09:47.748 --> 01:09:47.998
okay,

1179
01:09:48.060 --> 01:09:50.842
he grew an agroforestry system with Paulownia,

1180
01:09:51.060 --> 01:09:51.826
which are now...

1181
01:09:52.865 --> 01:09:56.608
10 meters tall who knows maybe his daughter in

1182
01:09:56.948 --> 01:10:13.104
45 years is running an agroforestry system with some pine trees you know 60 meters tall and back as they were many years back in turtle island the sky is the limit literally almost

1183
01:10:13.948 --> 01:10:14.307
must

1184
01:10:16.973 --> 01:10:17.413
Hi again,

1185
01:10:17.673 --> 01:10:20.635
thank you so much for listening this far into the conversation.

1186
01:10:21.193 --> 01:10:22.232
If you're still here,

1187
01:10:22.373 --> 01:10:27.857
it means that you really deeply care about regenerating our planet and like me,

1188
01:10:27.959 --> 01:10:31.553
you believe that regenerative agriculture is one of the key solutions to do so.

1189
01:10:32.475 --> 01:10:32.982
Personally,

1190
01:10:33.342 --> 01:10:35.404
I've invested all of my time,

1191
01:10:35.482 --> 01:10:40.654
all of my energy and creativity of the last two years doing this podcast because

1192
01:10:41.092 --> 01:10:45.561
I really deeply believe in regenerative agriculture and I want to help.

1193
01:10:45.997 --> 01:10:47.779
this movement grow in my own way,

1194
01:10:48.420 --> 01:10:50.022
with my own tools and my own skills.

1195
01:10:50.460 --> 01:10:51.463
And I'm not a farmer,

1196
01:10:51.502 --> 01:10:52.424
I'm not an agronomist,

1197
01:10:52.425 --> 01:10:53.284
I'm not a scientist,

1198
01:10:53.285 --> 01:10:54.444
I'm not any of these things,

1199
01:10:54.522 --> 01:10:58.147
but I have microphones and cameras and a lot of curiosity and that's why

1200
01:10:58.631 --> 01:11:00.631
I decided to start the Deep Seed podcast.

1201
01:11:01.413 --> 01:11:01.913
Anyways,

1202
01:11:02.178 --> 01:11:07.319
if you enjoy the Deep Seed podcast and you would like to support me and my work and help the Deep Seed grow,

1203
01:11:07.991 --> 01:11:09.803
you can do that in just a few seconds.

1204
01:11:10.381 --> 01:11:10.585
One,

1205
01:11:10.788 --> 01:11:14.788
you can click on the Deep Seed page and click on the follow or subscribe button.

1206
01:11:15.241 --> 01:11:15.569
And two...

1207
01:11:15.829 --> 01:11:17.711
If you'd like to go one small extra step,

1208
01:11:17.712 --> 01:11:20.031
you can also leave me a five-star review.

1209
01:11:20.894 --> 01:11:29.445
These two actions will actually make a huge difference for the podcast and help the algorithms bring these important conversations in front of more people.

1210
01:11:29.984 --> 01:11:31.422
So thank you so much in advance.

1211
01:11:31.523 --> 01:11:32.758
I really appreciate it.

1212
01:11:33.461 --> 01:11:34.992
And now let's get back to the conversation.

1213
01:11:36.726 --> 01:11:41.851
I'd like to move on to kind of the second big chapter of this discussion.

1214
01:11:42.661 --> 01:11:45.121
Which is the common agricultural policy,

1215
01:11:45.921 --> 01:11:48.601
because I know it's a huge topic.

1216
01:11:49.484 --> 01:11:49.703
First,

1217
01:11:49.722 --> 01:11:53.207
maybe you could sort of tell us,

1218
01:11:53.964 --> 01:11:56.222
people like me who are still kind of new to these topics,

1219
01:11:56.863 --> 01:11:57.644
what the CAP is.

1220
01:11:59.222 --> 01:12:00.847
What's the kind of the history of the CAP,

1221
01:12:01.066 --> 01:12:02.785
what it is and why it's so important?

1222
01:12:04.207 --> 01:12:04.332
Yeah,

1223
01:12:04.379 --> 01:12:06.925
the history of the CAP is basically...

1224
01:12:09.097 --> 01:12:15.984
It's a big part of what makes us European today in the sense that we understand ourselves as Europeans.

1225
01:12:17.585 --> 01:12:18.148
We at EARA,

1226
01:12:18.249 --> 01:12:22.671
we don't understand ourselves as Europeans with regard to the European Union,

1227
01:12:22.749 --> 01:12:24.710
but of the whole continent.

1228
01:12:25.890 --> 01:12:28.312
But after the Second World War,

1229
01:12:29.093 --> 01:12:33.874
we started with basically a steel cartel,

1230
01:12:34.578 --> 01:12:37.890
which is a legislative policy route.

1231
01:12:38.713 --> 01:12:39.835
of the European Union,

1232
01:12:40.737 --> 01:12:43.983
which was kind of forced upon us by the Americans,

1233
01:12:44.081 --> 01:12:50.995
so that the Germans wouldn't get too easy free again to making new bombs of fascism.

1234
01:12:53.973 --> 01:12:54.954
The French were like,

1235
01:12:54.994 --> 01:13:00.118
that's a little bit unfair because we have much less steel than the Germans.

1236
01:13:00.220 --> 01:13:01.622
We have a lot more agriculture.

1237
01:13:01.981 --> 01:13:05.427
So let's do also a common agricultural policy,

1238
01:13:05.520 --> 01:13:07.669
not only a common steel policy.

1239
01:13:08.669 --> 01:13:14.270
And the Americans resisted that from the very beginning because we Europeans before.

1240
01:13:15.557 --> 01:13:31.310
the second world war first world war all those hundred like since the industrial revolution we were never able to feed ourselves and we were dependent on russian wheat we were dependent on american wheat and other imports and

1241
01:13:31.372 --> 01:13:43.200
they actually wanted to keep that and then we had the common agriculture policy which enabled us europeans to become food self-sufficient by in the beginning paying farmers.

1242
01:13:44.257 --> 01:13:47.458
for what they had produced if the market price,

1243
01:13:48.259 --> 01:13:48.958
the demand,

1244
01:13:49.497 --> 01:13:49.798
fell,

1245
01:13:50.657 --> 01:13:52.442
so that we could artificially,

1246
01:13:52.895 --> 01:13:53.919
by public policy,

1247
01:13:54.060 --> 01:14:00.044
keep the demand up so that farmers wouldn't go bankrupt if global prices fell.

1248
01:14:01.341 --> 01:14:07.060
And then at some point we had a reform because the World Trade Organization told us that's unfair.

1249
01:14:08.257 --> 01:14:09.198
market practices.

1250
01:14:09.838 --> 01:14:14.082
We are creating an artificial competitive advantage for our farmers.

1251
01:14:15.383 --> 01:14:21.332
And then we switched to paying the farmers for the agricultural land they have.

1252
01:14:22.028 --> 01:14:23.114
And now lately,

1253
01:14:23.215 --> 01:14:24.012
last 20 years,

1254
01:14:24.074 --> 01:14:29.481
we try to pay them also for the ecosystem services they provide.

1255
01:14:30.324 --> 01:14:35.668
While it ought to be mentioned throughout that time why the CAP did build this

1256
01:14:36.697 --> 01:14:39.000
Food self-sufficiency for us Europeans,

1257
01:14:39.920 --> 01:14:40.902
at the same time,

1258
01:14:41.543 --> 01:14:48.351
it basically helped to degrow the food self-sufficiency of our sisters and brothers in Africa,

1259
01:14:48.789 --> 01:14:51.375
because we then dumped our,

1260
01:14:52.195 --> 01:14:54.617
we basically also had export subsidies,

1261
01:14:55.476 --> 01:14:58.914
so that the milk that we here produced.

1262
01:15:00.137 --> 01:15:01.918
in way more than we could eat,

1263
01:15:02.520 --> 01:15:09.266
would arrive in Africa on some village market to a price that no one could compete with,

1264
01:15:09.469 --> 01:15:13.172
even although their labor costs would be much lower than here.

1265
01:15:13.586 --> 01:15:20.539
And then the local farmer had to close because they were buying the cheapest milk and not the local farmer.

1266
01:15:22.049 --> 01:15:22.210
Okay,

1267
01:15:22.270 --> 01:15:23.592
so let's continue the story.

1268
01:15:24.013 --> 01:15:25.095
You said that the

1269
01:15:25.435 --> 01:15:30.367
WTO put pressure on Europe with the cap to change the system.

1270
01:15:30.368 --> 01:15:31.109
There was a reform.

1271
01:15:31.726 --> 01:15:32.390
When was that?

1272
01:15:33.148 --> 01:15:34.390
I think that was around the

1273
01:15:34.929 --> 01:15:35.054
90s.

1274
01:15:36.234 --> 01:15:36.515
And then...

1275
01:15:37.340 --> 01:15:39.844
bringing us to today around the

1276
01:15:40.785 --> 01:15:54.697
90s we had a shift and then slowly while not only paying the farmers for the land they kept in agricultural production also for

1277
01:15:55.544 --> 01:15:58.947
what they would do for nature or less harmful.

1278
01:15:59.028 --> 01:16:03.455
So first it was called greening measures and eco-schemes,

1279
01:16:03.635 --> 01:16:06.611
agriculture and environmental climate measures.

1280
01:16:06.697 --> 01:16:09.940
And there's an infinite list of acronyms,

1281
01:16:10.377 --> 01:16:11.893
AECMs and so forth.

1282
01:16:12.627 --> 01:16:15.065
And basically they work all the same way.

1283
01:16:16.705 --> 01:16:19.315
We again per hectare say,

1284
01:16:19.471 --> 01:16:19.752
okay,

1285
01:16:20.268 --> 01:16:20.955
dear farmer,

1286
01:16:21.471 --> 01:16:23.018
if you do a flower strip,

1287
01:16:23.740 --> 01:16:32.707
This flower strip costs you X amount of money in seeds and you could have also planted wheat so you lose some income.

1288
01:16:32.973 --> 01:16:36.051
So let's say that was about

1289
01:16:36.551 --> 01:16:37.652
250 euros.

1290
01:16:37.777 --> 01:16:45.723
So now you get 250 euros per hectare if you plant a flower strip or if you do some other stuff.

1291
01:16:46.176 --> 01:16:53.348
Always a practice and we tell you to do it and we offer you some money for it.

1292
01:16:54.140 --> 01:16:55.482
And you can take it or leave it.

1293
01:16:56.482 --> 01:16:58.986
That's basically how our CAP is today.

1294
01:16:59.767 --> 01:16:59.966
Okay,

1295
01:17:00.005 --> 01:17:00.927
so two things.

1296
01:17:00.986 --> 01:17:03.708
One is sort of Hector-based subsidies.

1297
01:17:04.568 --> 01:17:06.372
And the second one is these payments for...

1298
01:17:07.154 --> 01:17:08.818
Measures you do on those Hectors.

1299
01:17:09.412 --> 01:17:10.482
These really are practices,

1300
01:17:10.529 --> 01:17:10.716
right?

1301
01:17:11.497 --> 01:17:14.404
If you do this in this way at this time of year,

1302
01:17:14.982 --> 01:17:16.138
then you will get this extra money.

1303
01:17:16.529 --> 01:17:17.029
Exactly.

1304
01:17:17.497 --> 01:17:17.716
Right.

1305
01:17:18.622 --> 01:17:19.201
How would you...

1306
01:17:20.108 --> 01:17:22.030
Imagine changing that system.

1307
01:17:22.069 --> 01:17:23.712
What's the vision of

1308
01:17:24.331 --> 01:17:26.636
IARA for changing the cap?

1309
01:17:27.737 --> 01:17:35.401
Basically bringing the innovations in the mindset of the regeneration movement into policy.

1310
01:17:36.511 --> 01:17:42.932
Because paying the farmers for the specific practices is innovation inhibiting.

1311
01:17:44.057 --> 01:17:45.839
And the farmers are not able to.

1312
01:17:46.792 --> 01:17:47.974
do what they need to do.

1313
01:17:48.475 --> 01:17:49.697
So for example we have,

1314
01:17:50.959 --> 01:18:00.115
let's say there's a practice here in Belgium actually on cover crops and then there's a specific date by which you need to have planted the cover crops.

1315
01:18:01.279 --> 01:18:06.654
With climate change maybe it was raining three weeks in a row.

1316
01:18:08.408 --> 01:18:16.002
Now the farmer needs to go out to get that money because it's actually a lot of money relatively to what they can earn sometimes.

1317
01:18:16.682 --> 01:18:19.026
So we can even do more harm with...

1318
01:18:20.508 --> 01:18:40.190
money we pay for practices while of course also completely inhibiting the farmer wanting to learn to understand okay when is the perfect mix for seeding i can go out with the tractor without doing compaction there will be a nice sprouting of the cover crop and so forth that's

1319
01:18:40.284 --> 01:18:46.971
a pedagogical problem and we want to say again very simple outcomes Thanks.

1320
01:18:48.312 --> 01:18:50.134
We don't prescribe you anything,

1321
01:18:50.215 --> 01:18:50.594
farmer.

1322
01:18:50.955 --> 01:18:53.258
You are the expert of your farm,

1323
01:18:53.438 --> 01:18:55.117
of your local context.

1324
01:18:55.879 --> 01:18:59.945
You want to bring this farm to the next generation.

1325
01:19:00.602 --> 01:19:07.813
You want to help society have healthy food and a resilience in climate change.

1326
01:19:09.938 --> 01:19:16.453
So we just look at your whole year photosynthesis and soil cover with the satellites.

1327
01:19:17.700 --> 01:19:19.642
And we look at it in two ways.

1328
01:19:21.623 --> 01:19:26.947
We look at the total amount you produce and how well you improved to last year.

1329
01:19:27.807 --> 01:19:35.799
Because like this we can be fair to the pioneering farmers who are already producing the most for us.

1330
01:19:36.642 --> 01:19:41.439
But we also have an even higher obligation almost.

1331
01:19:42.221 --> 01:19:44.580
Because it's our taxpayer money who's paying that,

1332
01:19:44.627 --> 01:19:44.752
no?

1333
01:19:45.908 --> 01:19:51.567
For the young farmers or new farmers that are taking over a farm that is degraded,

1334
01:19:52.251 --> 01:20:00.255
we want to give these people the biggest support possible to regenerate as fast as possible.

1335
01:20:01.208 --> 01:20:03.255
And there we look very simply,

1336
01:20:03.333 --> 01:20:10.661
we say you are regenerating if you improve photosynthesis and soil cover year over year.

1337
01:20:11.596 --> 01:20:15.120
That's also why we actually did a large part of this study,

1338
01:20:15.200 --> 01:20:26.630
because we wanted to prove that photosynthesis and soil cover are good enough proxies to measure for all of the other things we can measure,

1339
01:20:26.669 --> 01:20:27.599
like pesticides,

1340
01:20:27.677 --> 01:20:28.411
nitrogen use,

1341
01:20:28.412 --> 01:20:28.911
and so forth,

1342
01:20:29.052 --> 01:20:30.833
which we cannot measure in the CAP,

1343
01:20:32.130 --> 01:20:34.520
because we don't have enough money to measure it,

1344
01:20:35.505 --> 01:20:40.020
and we don't have access to that data as our public bodies.

1345
01:20:41.630 --> 01:20:41.790
Okay,

1346
01:20:41.810 --> 01:20:43.171
so you're not using the full

1347
01:20:44.394 --> 01:20:46.296
RFP system.

1348
01:20:46.753 --> 01:20:48.015
That's much more complex,

1349
01:20:48.116 --> 01:20:50.878
but you're focusing on these two outcomes.

1350
01:20:51.620 --> 01:20:52.378
Photosynthesis,

1351
01:20:52.823 --> 01:20:53.284
soil cover,

1352
01:20:53.339 --> 01:21:04.675
because they're good enough to prove that there is regeneration happening and therefore reward farmers who do improve these outcomes.

1353
01:21:05.847 --> 01:21:08.316
But they are free to choose how they want to achieve that.

1354
01:21:08.472 --> 01:21:09.191
They're free to...

1355
01:21:09.970 --> 01:21:12.272
to find out what works best for their context,

1356
01:21:12.313 --> 01:21:12.973
for their land,

1357
01:21:13.034 --> 01:21:13.793
for their system,

1358
01:21:14.754 --> 01:21:16.696
depending on the weather and things like that.

1359
01:21:17.297 --> 01:21:17.899
Exactly.

1360
01:21:18.055 --> 01:21:25.344
And we choose it like this because we have to be also real politically feasible.

1361
01:21:26.211 --> 01:21:29.727
So its policy is very path dependent.

1362
01:21:30.626 --> 01:21:30.986
You know,

1363
01:21:31.487 --> 01:21:35.830
our bureaucrats are not the people who embrace radical changes.

1364
01:21:37.213 --> 01:21:44.944
So we want to offer something to them which can make sense and seems feasible for them.

1365
01:21:46.279 --> 01:21:48.990
So let's say a Regenified

1366
01:21:49.944 --> 01:21:50.928
Certification

1367
01:21:52.194 --> 01:21:58.272
Methodology, or a Soil Capital Assessment for a Supply Chain,

1368
01:21:59.459 --> 01:21:59.569
um

1369
01:22:00.874 --> 01:22:06.698
of a corporate customer is much more granular in the data.

1370
01:22:09.081 --> 01:22:17.870
But in terms of what our CAP payment agencies and policy design bureaucrats can deal with,

1371
01:22:19.948 --> 01:22:20.870
it's on the moon.

1372
01:22:21.667 --> 01:22:27.620
We are just saying you're already paying farmers for every hectare of land they have.

1373
01:22:28.554 --> 01:22:38.527
Now just look with your own satellites on them and adapt the amount you pay them to how much photosynthesis and soil cover you see.

1374
01:22:39.363 --> 01:22:43.769
So simple enough to actually put in practice that it could happen,

1375
01:22:43.925 --> 01:22:44.738
technically speaking.

1376
01:22:45.675 --> 01:22:49.441
And politically from a kind of political discourse,

1377
01:22:49.519 --> 01:22:51.394
while at the same time good enough.

1378
01:22:52.814 --> 01:22:59.542
To plant that seed in all of the minds of the farmers which have yet to engage on regeneration.

1379
01:22:59.620 --> 01:23:00.523
Because in the end,

1380
01:23:00.761 --> 01:23:01.542
very simply,

1381
01:23:02.300 --> 01:23:07.066
what all the pioneers are doing is increasing photosynthesis and soil cover.

1382
01:23:07.292 --> 01:23:08.448
If you're doing mob grazing,

1383
01:23:08.449 --> 01:23:09.589
if you're doing cover crops,

1384
01:23:09.636 --> 01:23:10.948
if you're doing undersown crops,

1385
01:23:10.995 --> 01:23:11.933
if you're doing no-till,

1386
01:23:11.948 --> 01:23:13.011
if you're doing agroforestry,

1387
01:23:13.480 --> 01:23:17.433
all of that in some way or another is increasing photosynthesis and soil cover.

1388
01:23:19.422 --> 01:23:22.686
So if the idea is to start from the existing

1389
01:23:23.367 --> 01:23:24.426
Hector-based system,

1390
01:23:24.887 --> 01:23:28.328
but then we modify the amounts based on these outcomes,

1391
01:23:29.094 --> 01:23:30.750
there will be some winners and some losers,

1392
01:23:31.813 --> 01:23:32.016
right?

1393
01:23:33.633 --> 01:23:35.922
How do we get the losers to agree to this?

1394
01:23:37.638 --> 01:23:37.999
Yeah,

1395
01:23:38.439 --> 01:23:40.701
because then we ask for more.

1396
01:23:41.121 --> 01:23:41.844
Because,

1397
01:23:42.164 --> 01:23:42.785
as you said,

1398
01:23:43.523 --> 01:23:48.566
if we just pay those people who already own the most land,

1399
01:23:49.129 --> 01:23:50.012
the most money,

1400
01:23:51.168 --> 01:23:53.191
that's not really socially regenerating,

1401
01:23:53.277 --> 01:23:53.574
is it?

1402
01:23:54.652 --> 01:24:02.059
We still want to also incentivize the big landowners to go towards regeneration.

1403
01:24:03.387 --> 01:24:04.184
We also...

1404
01:24:05.414 --> 01:24:11.780
propose that those payment rates per hectare are adjusted with discounts and bonuses.

1405
01:24:12.459 --> 01:24:14.862
You can think like a progressive income tax.

1406
01:24:15.323 --> 01:24:18.229
If you earn a million euros per year,

1407
01:24:18.307 --> 01:24:19.065
maybe you pay

1408
01:24:20.010 --> 01:24:21.346
40% income tax.

1409
01:24:21.510 --> 01:24:22.307
If I'm doing

1410
01:24:22.979 --> 01:24:24.151
20,000 a year,

1411
01:24:24.198 --> 01:24:26.135
then I'm paying maybe 50%

1412
01:24:26.588 --> 01:24:27.057
or nothing.

1413
01:24:28.557 --> 01:24:29.885
And that's the same for the farmer.

1414
01:24:29.979 --> 01:24:32.963
So if you are a very small farmer...

1415
01:24:34.586 --> 01:24:38.490
You get multipliers on your performance-based payment.

1416
01:24:39.252 --> 01:24:40.514
If you're a very big farmer,

1417
01:24:41.213 --> 01:24:45.397
you get always a little bit of discount on your payments.

1418
01:24:46.115 --> 01:24:50.537
And then we want to do the same for young and new farmers to get a bonus.

1419
01:24:52.490 --> 01:24:53.240
And then still,

1420
01:24:53.928 --> 01:24:54.147
yes.

1421
01:24:54.787 --> 01:24:55.084
Yeah,

1422
01:24:55.225 --> 01:25:01.412
that makes a lot of sense from a neutral perspective of someone who wished to see more regeneration happening.

1423
01:25:02.098 --> 01:25:17.842
all around but as far as i understand the big land owners are very influential they have a lot of influence in farming unions in policy making so

1424
01:25:18.217 --> 01:25:27.248
if they're the ones who are going to be losing from this system how do you get that approved how do you get that into policy with them

1425
01:25:28.310 --> 01:25:47.422
opposition to you with the broad catch-all social movement because we all know we can talk a lot about and do research on policy design and how we would like to have the policy but of course in the end we need to create the political pressure to push it through and

1426
01:25:47.423 --> 01:25:55.281
for that it's important to understand that at the brussels level now we are just doing the framework on how the cap

1427
01:25:57.610 --> 01:26:03.722
How then the CAP really arrives at the farmer is decided in Paris,

1428
01:26:04.382 --> 01:26:04.964
in Berlin,

1429
01:26:05.464 --> 01:26:05.901
in Rome.

1430
01:26:07.026 --> 01:26:08.573
We have now two years.

1431
01:26:09.296 --> 01:26:18.706
to build a movement that is led and guided by our most amazing farmers.

1432
01:26:19.823 --> 01:26:22.932
But we really believe that this regeneration narrative,

1433
01:26:23.268 --> 01:26:24.167
as we started,

1434
01:26:24.948 --> 01:26:25.417
peace,

1435
01:26:26.698 --> 01:26:27.057
health,

1436
01:26:28.588 --> 01:26:30.979
brings out and can unite.

1437
01:26:31.844 --> 01:26:33.325
All of the different factions,

1438
01:26:34.085 --> 01:26:35.505
from the peace movement,

1439
01:26:35.707 --> 01:26:36.824
the women movement,

1440
01:26:36.867 --> 01:26:37.906
the youth movement,

1441
01:26:37.945 --> 01:26:39.226
the climate movement,

1442
01:26:39.808 --> 01:26:45.769
if they all understand regeneration and regenerative agriculture as we here discussed it today,

1443
01:26:46.691 --> 01:26:48.769
then we need to mount a struggle,

1444
01:26:48.847 --> 01:26:50.722
a march on Rome,

1445
01:26:51.832 --> 01:27:00.425
when it's time decided in the parliament in Rome how the common agriculture policy will look in Italy for the next seven years.

1446
01:27:01.088 --> 01:27:05.668
And that will still take two to three years until we're at that decision point.

1447
01:27:06.148 --> 01:27:09.230
And we are now trying to start and plant the seed.

1448
01:27:09.254 --> 01:27:12.808
We are more at the inception style stage right now.

1449
01:27:13.371 --> 01:27:16.871
Because if we want them to decide like this in three years,

1450
01:27:18.519 --> 01:27:18.769
you know,

1451
01:27:18.894 --> 01:27:20.457
they are still in a different world.

1452
01:27:21.847 --> 01:27:27.972
They don't talk about photosynthesis or about more everything we discussed about the research.

1453
01:27:28.191 --> 01:27:29.347
When we discuss it there,

1454
01:27:29.441 --> 01:27:30.019
first of all,

1455
01:27:30.035 --> 01:27:30.410
we have to...

1456
01:27:30.436 --> 01:27:45.971
two hours of plain doubt like that's not possible that's only possible on that farm but on all the other farms it's not possible you know they don't even our corporate supply chains now believe it's

1457
01:27:46.049 --> 01:27:59.682
possible on every farm our bureaucrats are much still further behind unfortunately you're hopeful that within the next two to three years you will be able to build a big enough movement to make that change?

1458
01:28:01.324 --> 01:28:04.588
I am very hopeful that the rootstock,

1459
01:28:05.690 --> 01:28:06.049
you know,

1460
01:28:07.029 --> 01:28:08.971
is a uniting one.

1461
01:28:09.276 --> 01:28:09.854
We can see.

1462
01:28:10.393 --> 01:28:17.846
If we are then able to already graft the nice fruit tree on top of it in two,

1463
01:28:17.940 --> 01:28:20.361
three years in all of the European nations,

1464
01:28:21.236 --> 01:28:21.940
probably not.

1465
01:28:22.800 --> 01:28:29.407
But I think trying it is worth the learning journey and will grow with it.

1466
01:28:29.868 --> 01:28:31.048
That's also a very,

1467
01:28:31.665 --> 01:28:32.447
very nice image.

1468
01:28:35.329 --> 01:28:38.493
Is there anything else you'd like to add on the topic of the CAP?

1469
01:28:38.532 --> 01:28:41.157
Any important points that we haven't mentioned yet?

1470
01:28:42.079 --> 01:28:42.204
Yeah,

1471
01:28:42.282 --> 01:28:44.236
I would ask.

1472
01:28:44.282 --> 01:28:44.564
I mean,

1473
01:28:44.626 --> 01:28:45.704
it's very technical,

1474
01:28:45.767 --> 01:28:46.204
but it's...

1475
01:28:47.804 --> 01:28:52.187
Article 39 of our Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union.

1476
01:28:53.831 --> 01:28:55.792
And as Europeans,

1477
01:28:57.738 --> 01:28:59.316
it's really,

1478
01:28:59.433 --> 01:29:05.394
really important to understand what the Cup means for us and our future,

1479
01:29:06.019 --> 01:29:13.425
because it was always at the heart of geopolitical struggle.

1480
01:29:14.516 --> 01:29:17.759
And now we are bombarded with so much information,

1481
01:29:17.798 --> 01:29:18.140
you know,

1482
01:29:18.220 --> 01:29:18.662
we think

1483
01:29:19.181 --> 01:29:29.513
AI is deciding how we live tomorrow and we have no agency in the world that has started or supported in our name and so forth.

1484
01:29:31.646 --> 01:29:35.099
if we come together to fight for

1485
01:29:35.756 --> 01:29:39.741
how we support and enable our farmers to grow our food,

1486
01:29:40.261 --> 01:29:43.464
that's the most liberatory act we can do.

1487
01:29:44.702 --> 01:29:49.929
And I hope that through a movement building with youth,

1488
01:29:50.030 --> 01:29:50.694
with women,

1489
01:29:50.835 --> 01:29:52.194
with peace movements,

1490
01:29:52.913 --> 01:29:55.522
and through this peace among the farmers,

1491
01:29:56.819 --> 01:30:03.491
we can stop sliding into fascism and regenerate

1492
01:30:04.220 --> 01:30:19.939
into the more liberatory democracies that so many amazing pharma movements here in Europe have tried to grow before us and whose great history we will try again.

1493
01:30:21.236 --> 01:30:24.393
Well I sure hope that will move towards there.

1494
01:30:25.112 --> 01:30:51.865
the right side of history here the right side is a dangerous side saying the right side but when we're talking about a liberatory regenerative movement or a fascist one i mean i feel pretty safe in in choosing which side i believe is right yes um i just have two more questions before we close this amazing conversation first of all but thank you so much for all this incredible knowledge and for taking the time really appreciate it um

1495
01:30:53.870 --> 01:31:01.573
If the EU gave you one minute on the floor of parliament to speak directly to every policymaker,

1496
01:31:01.991 --> 01:31:02.554
what would you say?

1497
01:31:05.616 --> 01:31:13.648
I would ask them if they believe that we,

1498
01:31:14.569 --> 01:31:15.819
as Europeans,

1499
01:31:16.288 --> 01:31:20.132
as federalizing people of that continent,

1500
01:31:21.460 --> 01:31:22.773
have an obligation.

1501
01:31:24.522 --> 01:31:36.384
to grow the peace and the health of our sisters and brothers and of our children and of the future generations that are to come.

1502
01:31:37.962 --> 01:31:41.946
And if they not,

1503
01:31:44.821 --> 01:31:50.821
I would ask them to refocus on a common...

1504
01:31:51.770 --> 01:32:06.681
agricultural policy that regrows and regenerates our european democracies and people instead of attacking other people blaming other people and exploiting

1505
01:32:07.088 --> 01:32:14.931
most of european people and last question on a lighter note

1506
01:32:17.738 --> 01:32:22.502
If you could organize a dinner party and invite any three people present or past,

1507
01:32:23.643 --> 01:32:24.463
who would you invite,

1508
01:32:24.725 --> 01:32:27.131
why and what would you cook for them?

1509
01:32:30.772 --> 01:32:35.600
I'm already ashamed because three male names come to my mind and of course

1510
01:32:36.944 --> 01:32:37.897
I would hope I'm...

1511
01:32:40.942 --> 01:32:48.591
So I would say three names in the full conscious that there is a huge women movement behind them.

1512
01:32:48.630 --> 01:32:56.259
It's just because we know his story that we don't know those names.

1513
01:32:57.434 --> 01:33:04.134
And I would invite some of these pharma leaders of these great liberatory pharma movements.

1514
01:33:04.197 --> 01:33:06.455
So I would invite maybe Thomas Münzer,

1515
01:33:07.119 --> 01:33:14.111
who was one of the leaders of the pharma wars in southern Germany in the

1516
01:33:14.611 --> 01:33:15.205
16th century.

1517
01:33:16.658 --> 01:33:17.705
Gerard Wynne Stanley,

1518
01:33:17.783 --> 01:33:22.080
who was the leader of the true levelers pharma movement during the

1519
01:33:23.361 --> 01:33:25.845
Civil War of Cromwell.

1520
01:33:27.970 --> 01:33:28.651
And

1521
01:33:29.933 --> 01:33:32.196
I think he's called Joaquin Costa,

1522
01:33:32.774 --> 01:33:42.087
who had the education and food regeneration farmer movement in Spain in the late

1523
01:33:42.563 --> 01:33:43.142
19th century.

1524
01:33:44.134 --> 01:33:48.868
And I would cook what we nowadays cook on our tiny,

1525
01:33:49.149 --> 01:33:49.806
humble...

1526
01:33:50.770 --> 01:33:54.694
not so quickly regenerating farm yet in

1527
01:33:55.393 --> 01:33:57.237
Sicily for lunch,

1528
01:33:58.378 --> 01:33:59.139
working lunch,

1529
01:33:59.561 --> 01:34:14.311
which is pasta from local grain with ricotta from local farm with dried tomatoes and some veggies we usually put.

1530
01:34:15.218 --> 01:34:16.061
And olive oil.

1531
01:34:17.124 --> 01:34:17.624
Of course.

1532
01:34:17.702 --> 01:34:18.218
Of course.

1533
01:34:19.154 --> 01:34:20.394
Maybe a glass of red wine.

1534
01:34:21.094 --> 01:34:22.494
Wine could be nice,

1535
01:34:22.535 --> 01:34:22.695
yes.

1536
01:34:23.394 --> 01:34:23.976
Some coffee.

1537
01:34:24.996 --> 01:34:25.394
Brilliant.

1538
01:34:25.797 --> 01:34:26.457
Thank you so much,

1539
01:34:26.637 --> 01:34:26.957
Simon.

1540
01:34:27.652 --> 01:34:28.777
It's been a real pleasure.

1541
01:34:29.574 --> 01:34:30.480
Thank you for having me.