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Welcome back to the Deep Seed podcast.

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Today's episode is absolutely packed with useful information and incredible stories from someone who has spent most of his life studying regenerative food systems.

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His name is Roger Schulte.

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He's a researcher and professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands,

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the number one university in the world for agroecology.

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The overarching theme

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of our conversation is redesigning the future of farming and food.

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And to illustrate the conversation,

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Roger uses real world examples from the Lighthouse Farm Network.

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And that's a network of farms from all corners of the world that have been selected specifically by Roger and his team at the university because they are pioneers and innovators and they are demonstrating that alternatives to conventional farming systems can be

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more resilient,

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more profitable,

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and just better for farmers,

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for consumers,

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for biodiversity,

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and just for the planet in general.

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This episode was made in partnership with Soul Capital.

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I'm your host,

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Raphael,

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and this is the Deep Seed Podcast.

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Hi Roger.

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Hi Raphael.

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Thanks a lot.

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Yeah,

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welcome to Wageningen.

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Yeah,

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thanks a lot for taking the time to meet with me for this interview on the Deep Seat podcast.

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It's great having you.

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Thanks a lot.

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For a little bit of context for people listening,

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we are at

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Wageningen University.

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Is that how you pronounce it?

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That's right.

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Wageningen University and Research.

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Yeah,

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the full title.

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So it's a university that combines research institutes and the university.

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Great.

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And I know that it's renowned worldwide for its work on

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agriculture,

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food systems and...

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Yeah,

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we're a relatively small university actually.

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We're one faculty university,

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the Faculty of Life Sciences,

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but within that area Wageningen is very well known and if you believe some rankings it is and has been the number one in the world for quite a while.

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Nice.

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Could you start by briefly introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about your personal and professional journey?

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Sure.

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My name is Roger,

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Roger Schulte.

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I'm a professor of the Farming Systems Ecology Group here at Wageningen.

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I guess my journey really,

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where we are now,

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my journey really started in

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Ethiopia, of all places.

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And I wasn't working for Wageningen yet,

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but as part of my previous work,

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I was brought to a community in Ethiopia that was famous for the way they were farming.

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And famous for the ways that they managed their landscape.

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Now,

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when I landed at the local airport there in Mekelle in northern Ethiopia,

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I actually found that hard to believe,

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because when you arrive there,

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it's more or less a moon-like landscape that you have to drive through for two hours.

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And it's barren soil,

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it's stone,

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it is eroded,

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it's harsh in the sunshine.

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And you see some farmers trying to make a living out of that land,

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but you wonder really how that is possible.

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And until we came to the atzpi.

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community,

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as they are known.

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And it's hard to describe in words,

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but it's almost an emotional experience where literally you scale a mountain pass and then you look down into this valley.

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And it is this green,

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lush valley full of trees,

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full of activity,

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full of people,

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full of houses,

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full of crops.

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And it really,

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really struck me for the first time,

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wow,

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these people are doing something radically different from...

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all their neighbors in their neighboring communities,

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what is it?

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What is it that they're doing differently that they can turn this moon landscape into an oasis?

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And that's where the first time my interest was awakened in terms of what people can do in a positive sense when they put their minds to it.

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Then I thought there must be other places in the world that are like this.

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And we started looking for them.

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We started looking for these.

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positive stories,

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these positive exemplars where people against the odds,

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it should be impossible,

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but somehow that managed to break the rules and found positive solutions.

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And that's where what we call them lighthouse farms,

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because they're like beacons on the horizon,

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shining a light for others to follow.

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That's where the idea was born of the lighthouse farms and how we've brought them together in the global network of lighthouse farms.

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That's the origin story,

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if you like.

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Right,

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yeah.

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I love the name,

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by the way.

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Lighthouse Farms is a beautiful poetic term,

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right?

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Thank you.

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So sometimes a little bit too poetic,

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because at times people then,

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after I've explained everything,

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they say,

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where's the lighthouse?

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But it is metaphorically a lighthouse.

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Yeah,

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but then you can explain and people can picture it.

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Exactly.

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It's hard to forget.

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Yeah.

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Ahead of this interview,

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I asked you which topics you were the most passionate about.

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And you answered?

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In one sentence,

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we take an on-farm perspective rooted in science to redesign the future of farming and food.

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Yeah.

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Could you please unpack that sentence for us?

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Yes,

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that's a bit of a mouthful,

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isn't it?

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Let me give you two answers,

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Raphael.

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I'll first give you my personal story to that and then what we do as a group.

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Let's start with the on-farm perspective because there's actually a personal reason for that.

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In that

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I dabbled a little bit in farming.

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as a student myself.

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I studied,

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happened to study here at this university and I was a bit of a nerd.

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So I made sure I always passed my exams throughout the year because in those days that meant you'd have a three month holiday.

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And

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I always used those three months to go to Ireland,

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to the west of Ireland,

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where I worked on a farm as a summer job.

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I was milking goats and making goat cheese.

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And at the time there was a lot of excitement about that because it...

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had just become clear that goat's milk can be used for lactose intolerant people.

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So it was a very exciting time.

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And I learned a huge amount from that experience,

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even though it was only a summer job.

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But I learned to see the world through a farmer's eyes.

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And farmers don't think in terms of a practice that they need to adopt or a new measure that they need to implement.

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Farmers very much think in terms of...

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farming systems.

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They have a system that has evolved,

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that they have developed,

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that works for them.

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And that system,

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they have to be experts in so many things.

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They have to know about crops,

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they have to know about animals,

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they have to know about finance,

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they have to know about marketing,

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they have to know about health and safety.

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And of course,

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now they also have to know about water quality,

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about greenhouse gases,

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about soil carbon.

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But they have to somehow combine that.

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all inside their head and then turn that into a management of their actual farm.

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Now,

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I still carry that experience with me in how to think like a farmer.

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And that is quite different from what we see policymakers,

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industries,

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also NGOs,

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asking from farmers.

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They often come with individual measures,

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like you should do mintillage or you should do.

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one thing or the other,

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and then they want to roll it out over so many hectares or so many farms.

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But in many cases,

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if a farmer is to adopt a certain practice,

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minimum tillage,

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that has implications for their whole farming system,

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and they have to think that through.

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Now,

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we want to make sure that we take that approach within our science.

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We start with the farming system.

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What works?

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What works here for this farmer?

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What doesn't work?

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Why does it not work?

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What are the obstacles that need to be removed before the farmer can adopt a certain practice?

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So that is the on-farm perspective.

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We always start by thinking like farmers.

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Then we move to the science part.

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And in our group,

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we tell stories about farmers'experiences.

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But there are already so many stories out there on the internet,

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on LinkedIn.

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on YouTube.

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On the Deep Seat Podcast.

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On the Deep Seat Podcast.

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And how can we know which stories are based on fact and which stories based on fiction,

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if I say it disrespectfully,

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but which are stories that are nice stories,

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but don't stand up to scrutiny,

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which are the stories that will stand up to scrutiny.

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Now that's where we come in as scientists and where we underpin all our stories with scientific research.

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And we do that in the form of master's research or PhD thesis,

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but we make sure that all our experiences,

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all our narratives are firmly rooted in science.

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So that's the scientific part.

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And the last part?

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The last part,

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the redesign of farming and food.

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Yes.

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Well,

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you could say that the whole university here around us is working on sustainability and depending on how you define regenerative,

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and we'll come to that.

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A lot of people are working on more sustainable practices.

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Within our group,

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we distinguish ourselves by what we call radical redesign.

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That's what we do as a group.

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And let me explain that term.

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That is the opposite of what we call nudging.

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Most research,

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most groups work on what we call nudging.

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And nudging is about doing things a little bit better every day,

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a little bit more efficient,

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a little bit greener.

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Great work.

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Needs to continue.

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But we specialize.

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in the opposite.

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We say,

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okay,

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but what are the needs of society?

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What are the needs of farmers?

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What are the needs of the planet in 2030,

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2040,

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2050?

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And how do those needs differ between continents,

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between soils,

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between diets?

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And what kind of farming systems do we need to design that meet those needs?

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And...

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Then we work backwards.

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What do we need to do now to get there by 2040?

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So that's the radical redesign bit.

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Okay,

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so instead of trying to improve farming little by little by small improvements here and there,

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you're trying to think about how we can shift completely,

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change mindset,

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change the system so that you can have a radical change.

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If it was that easy that we could help farmers

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transition bit by bit to a future that is needed,

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it would have already been done.

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There is a reason why that is difficult.

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It is because farmers are locked into their current trajectory,

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into their current farming system.

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It's very simple.

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It's about 10 years ago that the EU phased out the milk quota,

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for example,

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and that allowed farmers to expand their milk production.

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Now,

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00:11:05.088 --> 00:11:10.373
many dairy farmers responded by that by increasing their cow numbers and getting the finance for that.

270
00:11:10.933 --> 00:11:11.413
from a bank,

271
00:11:11.453 --> 00:11:12.514
from agricultural banks,

272
00:11:12.514 --> 00:11:13.895
say the Rabobank or other banks,

273
00:11:14.595 --> 00:11:15.595
for the next 20 years,

274
00:11:15.635 --> 00:11:17.896
they're paying off that finance,

275
00:11:17.976 --> 00:11:18.837
that investment.

276
00:11:20.237 --> 00:11:21.458
They've invested in sheds.

277
00:11:21.478 --> 00:11:24.199
They've invested in very high-yielding cows.

278
00:11:25.099 --> 00:11:29.061
They cannot just replace all that tomorrow while they're still paying off.

279
00:11:29.561 --> 00:11:31.982
It takes years to redesign buildings.

280
00:11:32.102 --> 00:11:36.925
It takes many years to breed towards a different type of production system.

281
00:11:38.501 --> 00:11:39.201
More importantly,

282
00:11:39.321 --> 00:11:41.682
farmers cannot do that on their own.

283
00:11:41.722 --> 00:11:47.724
They cannot just wake up in the morning and start a completely new farming system that requires different finance,

284
00:11:47.764 --> 00:11:48.504
different markets.

285
00:11:48.944 --> 00:11:49.644
They need help.

286
00:11:49.704 --> 00:11:51.925
So they're locked in to the current system.

287
00:11:52.725 --> 00:12:07.169
And where we help is by designing an alternative systems and then working backwards who needs to do what to help the farmers now unlock from their current position into a future that's sustainable for them.

288
00:12:07.781 --> 00:12:08.581
and for society.

289
00:12:10.242 --> 00:12:10.502
I see,

290
00:12:10.742 --> 00:12:10.942
yes.

291
00:12:11.522 --> 00:12:13.463
I have a bit of a maybe a silly question,

292
00:12:13.523 --> 00:12:15.563
but I think it's a great place to start here.

293
00:12:16.503 --> 00:12:19.324
Why do we need to redesign the food systems?

294
00:12:19.564 --> 00:12:19.804
I mean,

295
00:12:19.824 --> 00:12:21.125
I go to any supermarkets,

296
00:12:21.165 --> 00:12:22.545
there's maybe a three or four at a

297
00:12:22.945 --> 00:12:26.486
300 meters radius around my flat in Brussels.

298
00:12:26.866 --> 00:12:28.107
They're all packed with foods,

299
00:12:28.807 --> 00:12:29.427
all year long.

300
00:12:29.827 --> 00:12:30.827
It seems to be working great.

301
00:12:30.907 --> 00:12:32.288
Why do we need to redesign it?

302
00:12:32.368 --> 00:12:33.548
It's a great question.

303
00:12:33.688 --> 00:12:36.129
And we often hear that and we often say,

304
00:12:36.585 --> 00:12:37.766
the food system is broken.

305
00:12:37.846 --> 00:12:38.166
But then,

306
00:12:38.587 --> 00:12:38.907
is it?

307
00:12:39.708 --> 00:12:40.808
And as you say,

308
00:12:40.808 --> 00:12:43.811
you go to the supermarket and food has never been so plentiful,

309
00:12:43.851 --> 00:12:45.112
so cheap and so diverse.

310
00:12:45.572 --> 00:12:48.094
And even within the COVID lockdowns,

311
00:12:48.435 --> 00:12:51.717
food was the one thing that more or less stayed plentiful,

312
00:12:51.918 --> 00:12:52.938
diverse and cheap.

313
00:12:53.759 --> 00:12:54.259
However,

314
00:12:55.280 --> 00:12:57.722
that is from a consumer's perspective,

315
00:12:58.423 --> 00:12:59.984
the current food system is working.

316
00:13:00.705 --> 00:13:04.528
But there's two other actors for whom it's not working.

317
00:13:04.628 --> 00:13:05.889
One is actually farmers themselves.

318
00:13:06.337 --> 00:13:08.758
Because farmers themselves all around the world,

319
00:13:08.818 --> 00:13:09.598
not just in Europe,

320
00:13:09.618 --> 00:13:10.519
but all around the world,

321
00:13:10.619 --> 00:13:15.501
are finding themselves squeezed now between the many demands of society.

322
00:13:15.701 --> 00:13:17.081
Because on the one hand,

323
00:13:17.141 --> 00:13:18.502
consumers want food,

324
00:13:18.662 --> 00:13:21.223
choose food that is cheap and plentiful.

325
00:13:21.843 --> 00:13:22.764
But on the other hand,

326
00:13:22.904 --> 00:13:23.924
they're demanding,

327
00:13:24.024 --> 00:13:27.126
increasingly demanding for sustainability credentials,

328
00:13:27.166 --> 00:13:28.706
for food safety credentials.

329
00:13:29.347 --> 00:13:30.567
And the companies,

330
00:13:30.587 --> 00:13:34.949
the food companies pass all that pressure and that responsibility on to the farmers.

331
00:13:35.209 --> 00:13:37.090
for the farmers to do something differently.

332
00:13:37.190 --> 00:13:39.592
And farmers find themselves with their back against the wall,

333
00:13:39.992 --> 00:13:40.753
with their mortgage,

334
00:13:41.193 --> 00:13:42.614
with their current infrastructure,

335
00:13:43.455 --> 00:13:45.516
being asked to do something completely different.

336
00:13:45.896 --> 00:13:46.517
So that's one.

337
00:13:47.758 --> 00:13:52.381
The second actor for whom the current food system is not working is,

338
00:13:52.361 --> 00:13:52.681
of course,

339
00:13:52.681 --> 00:13:53.102
the planet.

340
00:13:53.802 --> 00:13:55.403
And we see that in Europe,

341
00:13:55.543 --> 00:13:57.845
we're not meeting our environmental targets,

342
00:13:58.225 --> 00:14:00.607
we're not meeting our climate commitments,

343
00:14:01.127 --> 00:14:03.549
but also in other continents we see...

344
00:14:03.945 --> 00:14:06.486
We still see large-scale deforestation,

345
00:14:06.586 --> 00:14:08.347
we see land degradation,

346
00:14:08.447 --> 00:14:11.108
degradation of good quality land degrading,

347
00:14:11.248 --> 00:14:11.789
eroding,

348
00:14:12.429 --> 00:14:14.290
which is simply not sustainable in the long term.

349
00:14:14.610 --> 00:14:17.251
Not even to maintain current food production,

350
00:14:17.491 --> 00:14:20.053
let alone increase it to feed a growing population.

351
00:14:20.853 --> 00:14:21.513
Makes a lot of sense,

352
00:14:21.513 --> 00:14:21.693
yes.

353
00:14:21.773 --> 00:14:24.855
And I can think of a third actor who it's not working for.

354
00:14:25.315 --> 00:14:25.815
It's the people,

355
00:14:25.815 --> 00:14:26.456
the consumers,

356
00:14:26.916 --> 00:14:29.017
not in terms of obviously having cheap...

357
00:14:29.357 --> 00:14:47.473
abandoned food but in terms of health we have a big health crisis that is also related to the food system we have the dual health crisis of this unfortunately growing undernourishment again in parts of the world and of course the overnourishment in many western parts of the world in

358
00:14:47.473 --> 00:14:55.861
our email exchanges you highlighted the word resilience as maybe the most important concept you said that resilience

359
00:14:56.061 --> 00:14:57.084
is the new efficiency.

360
00:14:57.245 --> 00:14:57.405
Yeah.

361
00:14:57.987 --> 00:14:59.071
Could you elaborate on that?

362
00:14:59.392 --> 00:14:59.552
Yeah,

363
00:14:59.893 --> 00:15:00.074
yeah.

364
00:15:00.896 --> 00:15:03.083
We've lived for...

365
00:15:03.800 --> 00:15:04.920
about 80 years now,

366
00:15:05.140 --> 00:15:07.541
with the efficiency paradigm.

367
00:15:07.821 --> 00:15:09.522
And for good reason.

368
00:15:09.722 --> 00:15:14.923
I think if we want to critique and change the current food system,

369
00:15:14.963 --> 00:15:20.545
we also have to understand where it came from and why it is as it is.

370
00:15:20.685 --> 00:15:24.126
And then we know what we can change and why we should change it.

371
00:15:24.806 --> 00:15:25.646
And in Europe,

372
00:15:25.646 --> 00:15:26.146
of course,

373
00:15:26.266 --> 00:15:32.268
the whole food system emerged in response to and guided by the Common Agricultural Policy in Europe.

374
00:15:32.268 --> 00:15:32.388
SL.

375
00:15:33.016 --> 00:15:34.797
But that had a good reason,

376
00:15:34.917 --> 00:15:43.599
because the Common Agricultural Policy came directly from the hunger that ravaged across Europe at the end of the Second World War.

377
00:15:44.339 --> 00:15:51.621
And sometimes I have to remind myself and our students that we're one generation away from hunger in Europe,

378
00:15:51.741 --> 00:15:52.582
large-scale hunger.

379
00:15:52.662 --> 00:15:52.962
Actually,

380
00:15:53.042 --> 00:15:53.482
in fact,

381
00:15:54.102 --> 00:15:59.143
my own mother experienced that in the last year of 1945,

382
00:15:59.704 --> 00:16:01.304
where there was no food.

383
00:16:01.544 --> 00:16:03.605
in the towns and the villages in Europe.

384
00:16:04.026 --> 00:16:05.827
And as a two-year-old child,

385
00:16:06.167 --> 00:16:07.608
as many other children,

386
00:16:08.388 --> 00:16:11.630
she was shipped to farms in the region that they didn't know,

387
00:16:11.690 --> 00:16:18.294
but they were handed over to farmers because babies were handed over to farmers because farmers still had a little bit of food on their farm.

388
00:16:19.595 --> 00:16:24.238
My mother's first memory is actually after the war was over,

389
00:16:24.598 --> 00:16:26.680
her parents collecting her from the farm.

390
00:16:27.544 --> 00:16:28.705
but not being able to spend,

391
00:16:28.765 --> 00:16:30.206
she wanted to spend time with her parents,

392
00:16:30.206 --> 00:16:30.726
of course,

393
00:16:30.766 --> 00:16:31.546
my parents are back,

394
00:16:32.007 --> 00:16:38.350
but her parents couldn't spend time with her because first they had to put in two days labor to pay the farmer for feeding their baby.

395
00:16:38.850 --> 00:16:42.412
Now that is a story that's unimaginable in this day and age,

396
00:16:42.612 --> 00:16:44.153
but it's only a generation away.

397
00:16:45.214 --> 00:16:49.556
From that came the pledge of the Common Agricultural Policy,

398
00:16:50.257 --> 00:16:51.818
this will never happen again in Europe.

399
00:16:53.699 --> 00:16:54.239
From now on,

400
00:16:54.279 --> 00:16:55.1000
we will always be able to feed ourselves.

401
00:16:56.380 --> 00:16:59.202
And that's where the drive for the efficiency came in.

402
00:17:00.103 --> 00:17:01.644
Getting the most out of the land,

403
00:17:01.704 --> 00:17:04.486
getting the most food and feeding the people.

404
00:17:05.747 --> 00:17:06.327
In a way,

405
00:17:07.468 --> 00:17:12.851
it has been more than a success story because Europe is now a net exporter of food.

406
00:17:13.652 --> 00:17:13.792
Well,

407
00:17:13.872 --> 00:17:15.914
with that comes also,

408
00:17:16.794 --> 00:17:17.154
of course,

409
00:17:17.154 --> 00:17:19.616
the export of problems and also the problems,

410
00:17:19.616 --> 00:17:20.777
the environmental problems,

411
00:17:21.137 --> 00:17:23.859
where we've started to use resources beyond our means.

412
00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:25.160
So that's number one.

413
00:17:26.228 --> 00:17:34.713
Number two is that we have really moved into a pathway of,

414
00:17:35.033 --> 00:17:36.634
in order to get efficient production,

415
00:17:36.914 --> 00:17:37.915
you need to specialize.

416
00:17:38.375 --> 00:17:43.498
Because if you're good at a step in the food system or in the value chain,

417
00:17:43.919 --> 00:17:47.801
you need to make sure that you do that as efficiently as possible.

418
00:17:47.901 --> 00:17:49.302
You focus only on that.

419
00:17:49.362 --> 00:17:52.404
You cut out all the other things that are less efficient.

420
00:17:53.120 --> 00:17:58.403
And you specialize with your entire farm on a commodity or a step in the food system.

421
00:17:58.983 --> 00:18:04.546
And that has led to this large-scale industrialized agriculture that we have today.

422
00:18:06.047 --> 00:18:12.411
That works on the condition that your environment is stable,

423
00:18:13.471 --> 00:18:14.892
that your climate is stable,

424
00:18:15.473 --> 00:18:18.314
that your policy environment is stable,

425
00:18:18.694 --> 00:18:20.375
that your demand is stable.

426
00:18:21.656 --> 00:18:23.157
a given environment,

427
00:18:23.638 --> 00:18:30.184
there is an optimum efficiency and you can fine-tune it to meet that efficiency.

428
00:18:31.005 --> 00:18:32.046
But now we see a change.

429
00:18:32.866 --> 00:18:33.287
70,

430
00:18:33.527 --> 00:18:36.730
80 years into the Common Agricultural Policy,

431
00:18:37.170 --> 00:18:42.355
we see suddenly that environment is wobbling and is wobbling a lot.

432
00:18:43.076 --> 00:18:44.557
And we can think of climate change.

433
00:18:45.378 --> 00:18:45.978
10 years ago,

434
00:18:46.118 --> 00:18:47.360
climate change was something.

435
00:18:47.940 --> 00:18:49.401
that was an outcome of our models,

436
00:18:49.481 --> 00:18:50.261
of our predictions,

437
00:18:50.301 --> 00:18:52.302
something we talked about as a future thing.

438
00:18:53.242 --> 00:18:53.422
Now,

439
00:18:53.862 --> 00:18:55.023
with climate change is here,

440
00:18:55.103 --> 00:18:55.703
it's everywhere,

441
00:18:55.783 --> 00:18:56.503
every continent,

442
00:18:56.664 --> 00:18:57.844
every season we see it.

443
00:18:58.304 --> 00:19:00.585
And farmers are the first to experience it.

444
00:19:00.685 --> 00:19:02.346
They're at the front line of climate change.

445
00:19:03.606 --> 00:19:05.607
We see unstable policies,

446
00:19:05.707 --> 00:19:07.388
we see policy fluctuations,

447
00:19:07.448 --> 00:19:11.630
we see supply chain disruptions on a scale that we haven't seen before.

448
00:19:12.470 --> 00:19:14.411
We see war in Europe,

449
00:19:14.971 --> 00:19:17.512
which has had a direct impact.

450
00:19:17.832 --> 00:19:23.477
impact on energy prices and very closely tied to energy prices are fertilizer prices.

451
00:19:23.757 --> 00:19:28.681
Fertilizer prices have doubled and or tripled in some cases over the last two years.

452
00:19:29.782 --> 00:19:33.946
And suddenly that means that that optimum efficiency has changed.

453
00:19:34.606 --> 00:19:37.128
Because if your price of fertilizer is doubled,

454
00:19:37.529 --> 00:19:41.792
that means that your farming system is not financially efficient anymore.

455
00:19:42.573 --> 00:19:46.116
And you need to start looking for a new optimum efficiency.

456
00:19:46.416 --> 00:19:47.417
But before you get there,

457
00:19:47.457 --> 00:19:48.718
something else has changed again.

458
00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:52.281
And all these shocks are becoming the norm.

459
00:19:52.642 --> 00:19:56.825
The shock used to be something that could happen that would disturb the status quo.

460
00:19:57.066 --> 00:19:58.727
And you try and get back to the status quo.

461
00:19:59.408 --> 00:20:00.649
But there is no more status quo.

462
00:20:02.270 --> 00:20:11.374
That means that farmers now need to get ready and need to enable themselves to deal with any shocks,

463
00:20:11.494 --> 00:20:13.355
whether they're abiotic in terms of weather,

464
00:20:13.735 --> 00:20:15.836
biotic in terms of pests and diseases,

465
00:20:16.336 --> 00:20:19.797
or socioeconomic in terms of prices and supply chain disruptions.

466
00:20:20.117 --> 00:20:22.198
They have to be ready for the next shock.

467
00:20:22.298 --> 00:20:23.739
And that is what resilience is.

468
00:20:24.359 --> 00:20:27.821
So that's why we say resilience is the new efficiency,

469
00:20:28.201 --> 00:20:30.742
where we've worked on efficiency for the last 80 years.

470
00:20:31.182 --> 00:20:36.003
Now we're entering an era where resilience takes that place.

471
00:20:36.864 --> 00:20:39.904
And does that make sense from an economic perspective as well?

472
00:20:41.665 --> 00:20:41.885
Well,

473
00:20:42.405 --> 00:20:47.086
it depends what you mean by an economic perspective.

474
00:20:47.826 --> 00:20:53.428
If we've optimized the net margin for farmers under stable conditions,

475
00:20:54.068 --> 00:20:57.849
and we used to deal with shocks in the form of insurance,

476
00:20:58.509 --> 00:21:00.670
where you'd pay for that security.

477
00:21:00.950 --> 00:21:02.291
to return to the status quo.

478
00:21:02.691 --> 00:21:10.435
But now we see many insurance companies already pulling out of covering climate shocks because it becomes unaffordable.

479
00:21:10.835 --> 00:21:14.697
So now the question is not how do I optimize my net margin?

480
00:21:15.118 --> 00:21:15.378
Yes,

481
00:21:15.638 --> 00:21:17.659
I do want to have a living as a farmer,

482
00:21:18.199 --> 00:21:19.560
but I also want security.

483
00:21:19.960 --> 00:21:24.723
I want security that I can absorb the next shock and that I won't be wiped out.

484
00:21:25.083 --> 00:21:27.825
That is equally important to my net profit.

485
00:21:28.765 --> 00:21:28.925
Okay,

486
00:21:29.005 --> 00:21:29.265
I see.

487
00:21:29.946 --> 00:21:30.506
I want to...

488
00:21:30.674 --> 00:21:32.659
Come back to that phrase that we started with,

489
00:21:32.779 --> 00:21:33.019
right?

490
00:21:33.521 --> 00:21:34.262
And the three parts,

491
00:21:34.282 --> 00:21:35.425
the on-farm approach,

492
00:21:36.066 --> 00:21:37.309
the science approach,

493
00:21:37.369 --> 00:21:41.118
and then how we use that to redesign the food systems and take them one by one.

494
00:21:41.734 --> 00:21:45.016
So you mentioned the global network of Lighthouse Farms before.

495
00:21:45.956 --> 00:21:50.478
I'd love to dig a little bit deeper into that because it sounds very interesting.

496
00:21:51.158 --> 00:21:51.298
Well,

497
00:21:52.039 --> 00:21:55.360
maybe you could start by telling us a little bit about that initiative,

498
00:21:55.460 --> 00:21:56.141
where it came from,

499
00:21:56.361 --> 00:21:58.162
what are the objectives and so on.

500
00:21:59.102 --> 00:21:59.582
As I said,

501
00:22:00.443 --> 00:22:00.863
Raphaël,

502
00:22:01.063 --> 00:22:03.044
the story started in Ethiopia,

503
00:22:03.824 --> 00:22:07.366
in that catchment that clearly was doing something different.

504
00:22:08.070 --> 00:22:10.471
than all the other communities around them.

505
00:22:10.511 --> 00:22:11.552
And that started me thinking.

506
00:22:12.333 --> 00:22:14.094
And when you think about it,

507
00:22:14.214 --> 00:22:18.976
there are about 550 million farmers in the world.

508
00:22:19.837 --> 00:22:24.800
And I suddenly realized these farmers know the pressures that are coming.

509
00:22:25.280 --> 00:22:28.802
They know that climate change is threatening their livelihoods.

510
00:22:29.282 --> 00:22:32.904
They're very well aware of the demands of society,

511
00:22:33.044 --> 00:22:35.666
that society wants something different in farming.

512
00:22:36.762 --> 00:22:41.963
Then you have 550 million farmers who get up every day thinking,

513
00:22:42.404 --> 00:22:43.464
what can I do differently?

514
00:22:43.584 --> 00:22:44.424
What can I change?

515
00:22:45.885 --> 00:22:50.006
And when half a billion people try to think of solutions every day,

516
00:22:50.226 --> 00:22:54.847
some of them are bound to come up with ideas that we haven't thought of yet,

517
00:22:54.867 --> 00:22:56.047
that you haven't thought of yet,

518
00:22:56.107 --> 00:22:57.748
that policymakers haven't thought of yet,

519
00:22:58.128 --> 00:22:58.868
but that work.

520
00:23:00.088 --> 00:23:05.950
And we made it our job in the Farming Systems Ecology Group to find those farmers.

521
00:23:06.250 --> 00:23:06.971
around the world.

522
00:23:07.291 --> 00:23:07.912
In some cases,

523
00:23:07.952 --> 00:23:08.992
they're individual farms.

524
00:23:09.393 --> 00:23:10.113
In some cases,

525
00:23:10.173 --> 00:23:12.355
they're communities of smallholder farmers.

526
00:23:12.576 --> 00:23:13.156
In some cases,

527
00:23:13.176 --> 00:23:16.259
they're a network of farmers that work together.

528
00:23:17.159 --> 00:23:26.387
And we brought them together and we specifically looked at the diversity of solutions that they bring to the table.

529
00:23:26.988 --> 00:23:30.511
Because there's one thing that we're very clear on,

530
00:23:30.811 --> 00:23:33.874
there is no single solution for farming worldwide.

531
00:23:34.330 --> 00:23:40.295
It's not as if we're coming up with one technology or one practice or one principle that can be applied everywhere.

532
00:23:40.415 --> 00:23:43.877
We need many solutions for many different soils,

533
00:23:44.057 --> 00:23:45.018
many different climates,

534
00:23:45.078 --> 00:23:47.080
many different farm sizes,

535
00:23:47.700 --> 00:23:48.341
different crops,

536
00:23:48.401 --> 00:23:49.221
different diets,

537
00:23:49.281 --> 00:23:50.402
different cultures.

538
00:23:51.103 --> 00:23:56.947
So we brought together different farms that represent that diversity of solutions.

539
00:23:56.987 --> 00:23:58.248
Some are very large scale,

540
00:23:58.548 --> 00:24:00.670
thousands of hectares and very high tech.

541
00:24:01.014 --> 00:24:03.976
a lot of concrete and steel and technological solutions.

542
00:24:04.676 --> 00:24:09.019
Others are very much ecologically focused,

543
00:24:09.299 --> 00:24:11.480
are very much looking at nature-based solutions.

544
00:24:11.540 --> 00:24:13.421
Some are smallholder communities,

545
00:24:13.862 --> 00:24:17.023
others are larger communities.

546
00:24:17.704 --> 00:24:19.245
Some are led by women,

547
00:24:19.365 --> 00:24:20.265
some are led by men,

548
00:24:20.806 --> 00:24:23.627
some focus explicitly on regenerative,

549
00:24:23.947 --> 00:24:27.309
others focus on things like circularity or organic.

550
00:24:28.670 --> 00:24:33.273
We want to have that diversity of solutions so that for every farmer in the world,

551
00:24:33.974 --> 00:24:36.596
there's one lighthouse farm that inspires them.

552
00:24:36.996 --> 00:24:38.377
That's what I think.

553
00:24:38.997 --> 00:24:39.938
I never thought of that.

554
00:24:40.158 --> 00:24:41.099
That's a great idea.

555
00:24:41.519 --> 00:24:44.802
And that doesn't necessarily need to be the lighthouse farm that's closest to them,

556
00:24:45.622 --> 00:24:47.363
but it's the rule-breaking,

557
00:24:47.403 --> 00:24:49.045
the thinking differently,

558
00:24:49.465 --> 00:24:50.806
that is the inspiring part.

559
00:24:52.482 --> 00:24:54.062
I hope you're enjoying this conversation.

560
00:24:54.082 --> 00:24:59.264
I'm just taking a very short break to tell you about the official partner of the podcast,

561
00:24:59.544 --> 00:25:00.284
Soil Capital.

562
00:25:01.264 --> 00:25:05.306
Soil Capital is a company that supports the transition to regenerative agriculture,

563
00:25:05.486 --> 00:25:10.227
and they do that by financially rewarding farmers who improve the health of their soils.

564
00:25:11.207 --> 00:25:13.308
They're a company I've been following for a long time,

565
00:25:13.508 --> 00:25:18.209
and I'm actually really proud to be partnering with them for the Deep Seed podcast.

566
00:25:19.069 --> 00:25:20.890
If you'd like to learn more about them,

567
00:25:21.130 --> 00:25:23.731
I will leave a link in the description of this episode.

568
00:25:25.812 --> 00:25:32.875
Could you provide specific examples of lighthouse farms that have managed to successfully improve their resilience to climate change?

569
00:25:33.295 --> 00:25:34.356
Yeah.

570
00:25:37.317 --> 00:25:39.718
There's three examples that come to mind,

571
00:25:39.798 --> 00:25:40.759
unsurprisingly.

572
00:25:41.079 --> 00:25:41.199
No,

573
00:25:41.259 --> 00:25:41.759
actually four.

574
00:25:42.620 --> 00:25:43.400
Unsurprisingly,

575
00:25:43.620 --> 00:25:45.241
all of them are in the Global South.

576
00:25:46.181 --> 00:25:47.942
Very well documented.

577
00:25:48.302 --> 00:26:01.506
is our lighthouse farm community in Indonesia that we'll actually be traveling to this summer that has really worked on what is called complex rice systems where instead of growing monocultures of rice,

578
00:26:01.566 --> 00:26:02.906
which are highly productive,

579
00:26:03.606 --> 00:26:06.167
but also highly sensitive to shocks,

580
00:26:06.227 --> 00:26:06.947
climate shocks,

581
00:26:07.287 --> 00:26:09.908
dry weather or wet weather or price shocks,

582
00:26:10.328 --> 00:26:13.149
you can see that the income of those farmers is like a yo-yo.

583
00:26:14.069 --> 00:26:17.170
We have worked with the University of Brabijaya

584
00:26:17.410 --> 00:26:25.655
in Java to develop complex rice systems where farmers combine the growing of rice with the growing of azolla,

585
00:26:25.775 --> 00:26:27.636
that's a nitrogen fixing water plant,

586
00:26:27.796 --> 00:26:30.117
a little bit like white clover for the rice paddies,

587
00:26:30.297 --> 00:26:30.757
if you like,

588
00:26:31.498 --> 00:26:38.461
where they work with ducks to control the pests and diseases and also to produce some protein in the form of eggs and duck meat,

589
00:26:39.322 --> 00:26:43.024
where they grow fish to do the same trick on the water,

590
00:26:43.764 --> 00:26:46.686
and border plants to diversify the diet.

591
00:26:47.006 --> 00:26:52.350
but also to create habitats for natural enemies on the bunds around the rice paddies.

592
00:26:53.170 --> 00:26:53.290
Now,

593
00:26:53.631 --> 00:26:56.373
with data we've collected with the university there,

594
00:26:56.433 --> 00:27:01.216
they've collected many years'data on the performance of those systems.

595
00:27:01.917 --> 00:27:05.559
And in terms of productivity and yield,

596
00:27:06.260 --> 00:27:08.241
they are equal to the monocultures.

597
00:27:08.861 --> 00:27:12.224
In terms of diversity of diet that they provide,

598
00:27:12.584 --> 00:27:14.025
they're much more diverse.

599
00:27:14.906 --> 00:27:15.046
But...

600
00:27:15.346 --> 00:27:17.347
especially in terms of resilience,

601
00:27:18.128 --> 00:27:20.269
they're far less prone to shocks,

602
00:27:20.690 --> 00:27:23.972
individual price shocks or indeed individual climate shocks.

603
00:27:24.252 --> 00:27:25.653
And when you say equal yields,

604
00:27:25.733 --> 00:27:28.755
that's including all of the different outputs from the diverse system,

605
00:27:28.956 --> 00:27:30.076
including the meat,

606
00:27:30.176 --> 00:27:30.617
the eggs,

607
00:27:30.737 --> 00:27:31.998
the fish and all of that?

608
00:27:32.338 --> 00:27:35.880
Or is it just talking about the rice itself and the discounts extra?

609
00:27:36.981 --> 00:27:39.983
If you look at the rice yields per se,

610
00:27:40.524 --> 00:27:43.826
what we see is that on average through the years,

611
00:27:44.162 --> 00:27:45.243
the yields are equal.

612
00:27:45.603 --> 00:27:51.926
There's always a year where the monocultures perform better and reach that theoretical maximum yield,

613
00:27:52.327 --> 00:27:55.468
and that is very difficult for the complex rice systems to yield.

614
00:27:55.748 --> 00:27:58.110
And that is often the one quoted for monocultures.

615
00:27:58.430 --> 00:28:00.471
This is the yields we can reach.

616
00:28:01.212 --> 00:28:02.292
But in the monocultures,

617
00:28:02.292 --> 00:28:07.535
the rice yields also drop more sharply when there is a climate shock or a pest or a disease.

618
00:28:07.815 --> 00:28:08.616
So overall,

619
00:28:08.756 --> 00:28:09.496
over the years,

620
00:28:09.676 --> 00:28:12.458
the yields are similar of the complex rice systems.

621
00:28:12.966 --> 00:28:14.526
with the other benefits on top.

622
00:28:15.087 --> 00:28:15.407
On top,

623
00:28:15.587 --> 00:28:16.087
added to that.

624
00:28:16.187 --> 00:28:16.367
Okay,

625
00:28:16.427 --> 00:28:17.807
that's considerable.

626
00:28:18.047 --> 00:28:18.167
Yeah.

627
00:28:18.868 --> 00:28:21.968
And that is the nice thing where we say rooted in science,

628
00:28:22.008 --> 00:28:23.809
because I can tell you that is a story,

629
00:28:24.469 --> 00:28:29.270
but we actually have the scientific papers and the data and the tables that show that,

630
00:28:29.470 --> 00:28:30.651
yeah,

631
00:28:30.991 --> 00:28:31.591
that's the case.

632
00:28:32.451 --> 00:28:35.012
And that's something that you've seen replicated in other places?

633
00:28:35.092 --> 00:28:36.372
Because if it's so successful,

634
00:28:36.872 --> 00:28:40.553
why are not more farmers in the region starting to replicate it?

635
00:28:41.054 --> 00:28:42.174
That's a really good question.

636
00:28:42.634 --> 00:28:46.415
And that's the big question we get all the time is what is referred to as scaling.

637
00:28:46.495 --> 00:28:47.455
How do we scale this?

638
00:28:47.776 --> 00:28:48.576
Very nice system,

639
00:28:48.916 --> 00:28:50.056
very nice community.

640
00:28:50.316 --> 00:28:51.357
How can we scale this?

641
00:28:51.737 --> 00:28:51.857
Now,

642
00:28:51.997 --> 00:28:55.298
this is where we see a lot of companies coming in,

643
00:28:56.558 --> 00:29:03.460
see a lot of governments coming in and they ask how we have now you have 100 hectares or 1,000 hectares of complex rice system.

644
00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:04.220
Next year,

645
00:29:04.220 --> 00:29:05.261
we want 100,000.

646
00:29:05.281 --> 00:29:05.901
And the year after,

647
00:29:05.901 --> 00:29:06.501
we want a million.

648
00:29:06.541 --> 00:29:07.241
How do we do that?

649
00:29:08.682 --> 00:29:09.182
And we say.

650
00:29:10.640 --> 00:29:11.561
That's not how it works.

651
00:29:11.801 --> 00:29:13.662
It's not copy and paste.

652
00:29:13.902 --> 00:29:15.183
When you start scaling,

653
00:29:15.223 --> 00:29:19.386
you really need to adapt those systems to local conditions.

654
00:29:19.827 --> 00:29:22.608
And that is what we've also done with our friends in Indonesia.

655
00:29:23.009 --> 00:29:25.891
There's a science in that where you work with the farmers,

656
00:29:26.211 --> 00:29:27.392
which elements work here,

657
00:29:27.792 --> 00:29:28.773
what needs to change,

658
00:29:29.273 --> 00:29:30.194
how would you do it?

659
00:29:30.574 --> 00:29:32.555
And then with farmer field schools,

660
00:29:32.675 --> 00:29:38.479
the farmers together experiment and teach each other these locally relevant rice systems.

661
00:29:39.080 --> 00:29:39.200
Now.

662
00:29:39.756 --> 00:29:46.862
Such is the demand around the world to learn about scaling and about successes that we've actually started

663
00:29:47.362 --> 00:29:48.283
Lighthouse Farm Academy,

664
00:29:48.824 --> 00:29:52.427
where we teach what we teach for students in our master's course.

665
00:29:52.447 --> 00:29:58.251
We have a two-year master's course where we teach these things for the next generation of decision makers.

666
00:29:58.992 --> 00:30:02.195
But for the current generation of decision makers,

667
00:30:02.235 --> 00:30:03.055
people in companies,

668
00:30:03.356 --> 00:30:04.116
in policy,

669
00:30:04.316 --> 00:30:05.157
in NGOs,

670
00:30:05.537 --> 00:30:07.619
they don't have two years'time to do a master's.

671
00:30:07.639 --> 00:30:08.520
So we started to...

672
00:30:08.820 --> 00:30:12.683
condensed our program into a program for professional education.

673
00:30:12.683 --> 00:30:14.485
It's called the Lighthouse Farm Academy,

674
00:30:15.466 --> 00:30:19.509
where we bring the participants to these lighthouse farms,

675
00:30:19.910 --> 00:30:21.511
where we teach them these elements,

676
00:30:21.551 --> 00:30:22.192
for example,

677
00:30:22.252 --> 00:30:25.274
of scaling this summer in Indonesia.

678
00:30:25.955 --> 00:30:26.956
The nice thing,

679
00:30:27.256 --> 00:30:29.258
where they actually get to experience it on the ground.

680
00:30:29.718 --> 00:30:34.442
And the really exciting thing is that the week after we've taught that in a course,

681
00:30:34.502 --> 00:30:36.004
we'll actually go with the...

682
00:30:36.384 --> 00:30:39.785
Indonesian government officials and the university to Kalimantan,

683
00:30:40.325 --> 00:30:41.265
a different island,

684
00:30:41.626 --> 00:30:46.167
to see how can we scale these complex rice systems in a different island,

685
00:30:46.227 --> 00:30:47.667
in a different environment,

686
00:30:47.787 --> 00:30:49.188
in a different cultural setting.

687
00:30:49.488 --> 00:30:51.548
So then we have to put in practice what we teach.

688
00:30:52.269 --> 00:30:54.689
That's going to be a really exciting prospect.

689
00:30:55.249 --> 00:30:55.390
Yeah,

690
00:30:55.650 --> 00:30:55.850
very.

691
00:30:56.650 --> 00:30:57.590
Do you have any more stories?

692
00:30:58.050 --> 00:30:58.770
That was a great one.

693
00:30:58.770 --> 00:31:03.572
I would love to hear more on-farm stories of improved resilience.

694
00:31:04.348 --> 00:31:04.488
Well,

695
00:31:04.808 --> 00:31:06.069
I'm just back from Ethiopia,

696
00:31:07.270 --> 00:31:14.296
where actually it is northern Ethiopia is now has been literally through hell.

697
00:31:15.017 --> 00:31:15.757
They've had droughts,

698
00:31:16.017 --> 00:31:17.118
unprecedented droughts.

699
00:31:17.819 --> 00:31:23.403
They've had a plague of desert locusts that has ravaged the fields.

700
00:31:23.824 --> 00:31:24.704
But most importantly,

701
00:31:24.784 --> 00:31:30.329
they've been through a grueling and horrible civil war where more than a million people have died.

702
00:31:31.090 --> 00:31:33.772
And they have somehow have.

703
00:31:34.600 --> 00:31:38.123
had to deal with all these shocks at the same time,

704
00:31:38.483 --> 00:31:40.064
all within the space of two,

705
00:31:40.145 --> 00:31:40.745
three years.

706
00:31:41.626 --> 00:31:41.906
And

707
00:31:43.027 --> 00:31:47.931
I've come back from there both horrified in what they had to put up with,

708
00:31:48.371 --> 00:31:55.117
but also amazed by the resolve that they had to find solutions,

709
00:31:55.277 --> 00:31:58.019
to come up with solutions to survive all these shocks.

710
00:31:58.359 --> 00:32:03.904
And there's a lot that we can learn from those communities in terms of working together.

711
00:32:04.768 --> 00:32:05.909
in terms of,

712
00:32:06.710 --> 00:32:06.850
yeah,

713
00:32:06.970 --> 00:32:09.412
the resolve of if we don't do this,

714
00:32:09.872 --> 00:32:10.973
then there is no future.

715
00:32:11.013 --> 00:32:12.395
So we have to do it.

716
00:32:13.115 --> 00:32:13.355
And

717
00:32:13.876 --> 00:32:16.238
I was introduced with a beautiful story to

718
00:32:16.718 --> 00:32:17.339
Atto Hawi.

719
00:32:17.339 --> 00:32:19.661
That's the local name for it.

720
00:32:19.641 --> 00:32:20.301
It means Mr.

721
00:32:20.361 --> 00:32:20.681
Spark.

722
00:32:21.582 --> 00:32:28.408
And he is a community leader in one of the catchments that is severely threatened by climate change.

723
00:32:28.988 --> 00:32:31.270
Either droughts or when it rains,

724
00:32:31.571 --> 00:32:33.092
there's such severe rains that...

725
00:32:33.272 --> 00:32:34.473
everything erodes away.

726
00:32:34.473 --> 00:32:38.594
You have these massive gullies where just everything is flushed away.

727
00:32:40.495 --> 00:32:40.995
A while ago,

728
00:32:41.136 --> 00:32:43.937
the government officials came to his village and he was the leader,

729
00:32:44.257 --> 00:32:44.737
and they said,

730
00:32:44.817 --> 00:32:46.498
we need to evacuate your village.

731
00:32:47.218 --> 00:32:48.659
We're giving up hope for your village,

732
00:32:48.699 --> 00:32:49.739
it's going to erode away.

733
00:32:49.799 --> 00:32:52.381
We need to move your entire community to town,

734
00:32:52.781 --> 00:32:57.623
where we will build a community for you because of the droughts and because of the floods.

735
00:32:59.083 --> 00:32:59.464
And Mr.

736
00:32:59.484 --> 00:33:00.024
Sparks said,

737
00:33:01.140 --> 00:33:01.900
How is that possible?

738
00:33:01.940 --> 00:33:06.341
How can both droughts and floods be threats when they're each other's opposites,

739
00:33:06.541 --> 00:33:07.982
when they cancel each other out?

740
00:33:08.302 --> 00:33:08.742
And he said,

741
00:33:09.062 --> 00:33:12.463
let me show you that we can cancel each other out.

742
00:33:12.923 --> 00:33:14.724
So together with his community,

743
00:33:14.804 --> 00:33:19.225
he set on a program of where they caught the water and they,

744
00:33:20.605 --> 00:33:21.926
through infiltration holes,

745
00:33:22.346 --> 00:33:23.326
through storage,

746
00:33:23.446 --> 00:33:27.487
water storage that they built themselves with hand tools,

747
00:33:28.027 --> 00:33:29.148
with check dams,

748
00:33:29.248 --> 00:33:30.508
they managed to regulate.

749
00:33:30.708 --> 00:33:31.168
The water,

750
00:33:31.228 --> 00:33:38.674
they're quite simple dams made of stones and concrete that slow the water down and then the sediment settles within the dams.

751
00:33:39.435 --> 00:33:46.020
And by replanting areas for infiltration with grasses and with acacia trees.

752
00:33:47.782 --> 00:33:49.463
In northern Ethiopia,

753
00:33:49.643 --> 00:33:58.030
the key to that all is that every person in the community donates or dedicates 50 labor days to their community each year.

754
00:33:58.290 --> 00:34:00.092
So basically one day a week is...

755
00:34:00.352 --> 00:34:01.313
where they work together,

756
00:34:01.553 --> 00:34:04.335
they donate their labor to do community projects.

757
00:34:04.355 --> 00:34:07.498
Because one farmer cannot regulate the water coming from the mountain,

758
00:34:07.838 --> 00:34:10.140
but together they've shown that they can.

759
00:34:11.400 --> 00:34:19.965
I'll fast forward to this year where the local town that they were supposed to move to came to their village and said,

760
00:34:20.265 --> 00:34:25.808
we're going to put a deep well here because you have so much groundwater for our town.

761
00:34:26.508 --> 00:34:27.729
And the community leader said,

762
00:34:28.530 --> 00:34:29.030
very well,

763
00:34:29.210 --> 00:34:30.050
we're going to pay for it.

764
00:34:30.871 --> 00:34:33.432
And they managed to convince the town.

765
00:34:33.432 --> 00:34:38.915
The town is now paying 50,000 euros a year to the community for producing clean water.

766
00:34:40.176 --> 00:34:44.737
because they've managed to capture that little bit of rainwater that falls in these big deluges.

767
00:34:44.937 --> 00:34:45.878
They managed to put them,

768
00:34:45.918 --> 00:34:46.578
as he says,

769
00:34:47.158 --> 00:34:49.138
a rich man puts his money in the bank.

770
00:34:49.519 --> 00:34:53.840
I put my water in the ground so I can withdraw it later with interest.

771
00:34:54.400 --> 00:34:57.761
And now they're selling their groundwater to the town.

772
00:34:57.821 --> 00:35:07.943
And that is a remarkable story from a community that the government had given up on and wanted to move to a community that is now not only providing food,

773
00:35:08.124 --> 00:35:09.784
but also water to the people.

774
00:35:10.120 --> 00:35:11.180
What an incredible story.

775
00:35:11.801 --> 00:35:12.161
Amazing.

776
00:35:12.221 --> 00:35:13.461
Thank you for sharing it.

777
00:35:13.722 --> 00:35:13.922
Yeah.

778
00:35:14.202 --> 00:35:17.983
It just feels good to hear good stories like this one sometimes.

779
00:35:18.043 --> 00:35:22.465
Like the world we live in is harsh sometimes and we hear a lot of bad news coming from the

780
00:35:23.746 --> 00:35:25.866
TVs and newspapers and online.

781
00:35:25.887 --> 00:35:28.448
And it's great to see that there's good news as well.

782
00:35:29.788 --> 00:35:31.289
And often,

783
00:35:31.369 --> 00:35:31.989
Raphael,

784
00:35:34.250 --> 00:35:39.112
the most hopeful stories come from the most desperate places or what we think of.

785
00:35:39.604 --> 00:35:40.785
as desperate places.

786
00:35:41.305 --> 00:35:42.966
It is the Iraqs,

787
00:35:43.167 --> 00:35:51.572
the Ethiopias and the Columbias of this world where we find the most inspired people because they know that change is needed.

788
00:35:51.612 --> 00:35:53.774
You don't have to have a discussion with them,

789
00:35:54.254 --> 00:35:57.196
oh do we need a transition or is change needed?

790
00:35:57.817 --> 00:35:58.317
They're there,

791
00:35:58.717 --> 00:36:01.199
they're at the front line and they're doing it.

792
00:36:02.420 --> 00:36:08.104
How does that impact your personal wellbeing and feeling of

793
00:36:08.680 --> 00:36:08.920
hope,

794
00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:11.101
maybe happiness in the world.

795
00:36:11.181 --> 00:36:11.621
Because you're,

796
00:36:11.681 --> 00:36:12.342
as a scientist,

797
00:36:12.382 --> 00:36:17.844
you're confronted with the reality of what is happening right now with climate change,

798
00:36:18.024 --> 00:36:20.025
environmental destruction,

799
00:36:20.545 --> 00:36:21.786
loss of biodiversity,

800
00:36:22.206 --> 00:36:23.526
the issues with the food systems.

801
00:36:23.827 --> 00:36:27.288
So you're well aware of the severity of the situation.

802
00:36:27.968 --> 00:36:28.629
At the same time,

803
00:36:28.689 --> 00:36:36.572
you're directly connected to a lot of changemakers and people who are doing amazing things and to a lot of students who are here.

804
00:36:36.912 --> 00:36:37.613
learning about this,

805
00:36:37.773 --> 00:36:39.294
trying to come up with solutions as well.

806
00:36:39.334 --> 00:36:40.695
So you have a bit of both.

807
00:36:40.955 --> 00:36:43.397
How does that work for you personally?

808
00:36:44.258 --> 00:36:44.398
Yeah.

809
00:36:44.839 --> 00:36:46.580
How does it work for me personally?

810
00:36:48.261 --> 00:36:48.381
Yeah,

811
00:36:48.421 --> 00:36:50.003
there's two answers to that question,

812
00:36:50.063 --> 00:36:50.503
Raphael.

813
00:36:50.803 --> 00:36:52.585
At a deeply personal level,

814
00:36:53.826 --> 00:36:57.769
you're absolutely right that when I look at the headlines,

815
00:36:57.869 --> 00:37:00.671
when I look at the figures at the conferences,

816
00:37:01.612 --> 00:37:02.553
when I look at LinkedIn,

817
00:37:02.593 --> 00:37:05.936
it's very easy to get depressed because it all seems to

818
00:37:06.856 --> 00:37:10.998
There's bad news and then there's a discussion about us and them in various formats,

819
00:37:11.018 --> 00:37:13.099
whoever is us and whoever is them.

820
00:37:13.819 --> 00:37:19.701
And I have to remind myself that actually it's just a layer,

821
00:37:20.081 --> 00:37:21.262
a layer of society.

822
00:37:21.962 --> 00:37:22.622
Most people,

823
00:37:22.682 --> 00:37:24.463
when you actually talk to people one-on-one,

824
00:37:24.783 --> 00:37:26.184
most people are really good,

825
00:37:26.524 --> 00:37:27.404
are really kind.

826
00:37:27.524 --> 00:37:30.446
Most people would look after someone in need.

827
00:37:30.986 --> 00:37:33.847
Most people do have good ideas.

828
00:37:34.347 --> 00:37:36.088
And it's there where we have to...

829
00:37:36.752 --> 00:37:42.035
find the hope and the inspiration is actually in the everyday interactions.

830
00:37:42.595 --> 00:37:43.616
Most farmers

831
00:37:44.136 --> 00:37:46.497
I talk to want to do the right thing.

832
00:37:46.858 --> 00:37:50.1000
Most industry people that I talk to want to do the right thing.

833
00:37:51.380 --> 00:37:56.263
And it's about finding those positive sparks of inspiration.

834
00:37:57.343 --> 00:37:59.044
But everyone is searching.

835
00:37:59.244 --> 00:37:59.804
Everyone is,

836
00:37:59.945 --> 00:38:01.665
and no one can solve it on their own.

837
00:38:01.926 --> 00:38:03.366
And that's why we all get frustrated,

838
00:38:03.366 --> 00:38:05.147
because we know that change is needed.

839
00:38:05.187 --> 00:38:06.368
We know we need to be part of it.

840
00:38:06.388 --> 00:38:22.359
part of the change we need to be part of the solution but how it's so limited in what i can do and that is where the second part of my answer is how does it affect me is we've made it our mission to connect all these different actors with each other and

841
00:38:22.579 --> 00:38:35.588
to equip them all with the same knowledge base the same stories because together it's amazing what can be achieved and that's where we bring literally bring people together in the lighthouse farm academy where they

842
00:38:35.868 --> 00:38:36.348
online,

843
00:38:36.368 --> 00:38:37.669
they get the same knowledge base,

844
00:38:37.970 --> 00:38:42.573
and then they spend a week together at one of the lighthouse farms in what we call a lighthouse lab.

845
00:38:42.654 --> 00:38:48.458
That's a week-long workshop where they get a common challenge that together they have to solve.

846
00:38:48.999 --> 00:38:54.023
And we see really nice sparks of inspiration coming from that,

847
00:38:54.063 --> 00:38:55.324
where people who would normally,

848
00:38:55.624 --> 00:38:59.007
who probably on LinkedIn or Twitter would be arguing with each other,

849
00:38:59.367 --> 00:39:03.190
suddenly have a common cause and start working together after the workshop,

850
00:39:03.410 --> 00:39:04.271
independent from us,

851
00:39:04.351 --> 00:39:05.252
but in the real world.

852
00:39:05.652 --> 00:39:07.194
New connections are being made.

853
00:39:07.514 --> 00:39:09.156
That's where I got my inspiration from.

854
00:39:09.456 --> 00:39:10.117
That's amazing.

855
00:39:11.690 --> 00:39:12.731
Talking about connections,

856
00:39:13.071 --> 00:39:18.635
I'm pretty sure that there's actually one of the farms from the network has been on the Deep Seed podcast in the past.

857
00:39:18.916 --> 00:39:21.658
And for people who have been listening to the past episodes,

858
00:39:21.798 --> 00:39:25.641
just to connect the dots between what we're discussing here and that episode,

859
00:39:25.641 --> 00:39:25.921
that was

860
00:39:26.582 --> 00:39:30.745
La Jonquera in Spain with Alfonso Chico de Guzman.

861
00:39:30.865 --> 00:39:32.406
And it's also a beautiful water story.

862
00:39:35.448 --> 00:39:37.470
It's interesting that you mentioned that because

863
00:39:38.231 --> 00:39:41.454
we're very much kindred spirits with Yannick and Alfonso.

864
00:39:41.994 --> 00:39:45.798
They really take the on-farm approach in their Regeneration Academy.

865
00:39:46.358 --> 00:39:50.602
We take the scientific grounding approach from the university here.

866
00:39:51.203 --> 00:39:54.786
I told you we have a Lighthouse Farm lab in Indonesia this summer.

867
00:39:55.427 --> 00:39:56.008
In November,

868
00:39:56.448 --> 00:39:57.449
we'll meet up at

869
00:39:57.849 --> 00:40:02.654
Yannick and Alfonso's farm for a Lighthouse Farm lab specifically dedicated to...

870
00:40:02.694 --> 00:40:06.175
to regenerative agriculture and indeed this water story.

871
00:40:06.275 --> 00:40:07.615
And to make the cycle complete,

872
00:40:07.955 --> 00:40:12.617
we'll also have colleagues and farm advisors from Ethiopia,

873
00:40:12.977 --> 00:40:15.057
from the community that I just told you about,

874
00:40:15.157 --> 00:40:20.899
coming to Spain both to teach and to learn on regenerative agriculture.

875
00:40:21.599 --> 00:40:23.440
And who else is taking part in these,

876
00:40:24.160 --> 00:40:24.660
how do you call them?

877
00:40:25.440 --> 00:40:26.300
Lighthouse Farm Labs.

878
00:40:26.480 --> 00:40:26.921
The labs.

879
00:40:27.161 --> 00:40:27.441
Yeah,

880
00:40:27.481 --> 00:40:27.821
the labs.

881
00:40:27.821 --> 00:40:28.621
They last for a week,

882
00:40:28.621 --> 00:40:28.921
you said?

883
00:40:29.061 --> 00:40:29.721
They last for a week.

884
00:40:29.801 --> 00:40:30.121
A week.

885
00:40:30.201 --> 00:40:31.982
So who participates in these?

886
00:40:32.742 --> 00:40:34.524
We have had participants,

887
00:40:34.864 --> 00:40:36.145
very diverse participants,

888
00:40:36.265 --> 00:40:37.306
exactly how we like it.

889
00:40:37.946 --> 00:40:39.907
So we've had people from the food industry.

890
00:40:40.508 --> 00:40:42.829
We've people from the financial institutes.

891
00:40:43.750 --> 00:40:46.072
We've had people from ministries.

892
00:40:46.312 --> 00:40:47.933
We've had people from NGOs.

893
00:40:48.313 --> 00:40:50.134
We've had people who are very large,

894
00:40:50.214 --> 00:40:54.838
who have inherited large areas of land from their parents,

895
00:40:55.318 --> 00:40:56.819
but haven't farmed yet themselves.

896
00:40:57.540 --> 00:40:59.401
But they know they want to do it differently,

897
00:40:59.781 --> 00:41:00.962
but they don't know where to start.

898
00:41:01.182 --> 00:41:07.304
So they come to our labs and we really foster this diversity because people,

899
00:41:07.704 --> 00:41:09.884
they don't just learn from us or from the farmer.

900
00:41:09.924 --> 00:41:12.165
They learn from each other and we learn from them.

901
00:41:12.545 --> 00:41:14.026
If I talk to a banker,

902
00:41:14.486 --> 00:41:17.167
I find out that maybe a solution that I've come up with,

903
00:41:17.227 --> 00:41:17.347
oh,

904
00:41:17.347 --> 00:41:19.007
you should just have to provide a loan.

905
00:41:19.547 --> 00:41:21.308
It's not that easy for a bank to do that.

906
00:41:21.368 --> 00:41:22.828
They also have their realities,

907
00:41:22.928 --> 00:41:25.609
but they may come up with another solution that I haven't thought of yet.

908
00:41:26.169 --> 00:41:29.450
So it is really this diversity that we treasure.

909
00:41:29.970 --> 00:41:32.131
Are you still looking for people to join these labs?

910
00:41:32.952 --> 00:41:35.193
We still have a few places available for this autumn,

911
00:41:35.233 --> 00:41:35.413
yes.

912
00:41:35.593 --> 00:41:35.793
Right.

913
00:41:35.833 --> 00:41:38.014
So if anyone listening is interested,

914
00:41:38.154 --> 00:41:40.075
then where can they find information about this?

915
00:41:40.496 --> 00:41:42.057
Lighthouse Farm Academy Wageningen.

916
00:41:42.217 --> 00:41:43.177
You will find it on Google.

917
00:41:43.637 --> 00:41:43.878
Great.

918
00:41:44.058 --> 00:41:44.398
Yeah.

919
00:41:44.398 --> 00:41:46.679
And in the description of this episode then.

920
00:41:47.479 --> 00:41:47.980
Fantastic.

921
00:41:49.481 --> 00:41:51.462
So that was for the on-farm approach.

922
00:41:52.242 --> 00:41:54.323
And maybe we can move on to the next part,

923
00:41:54.363 --> 00:41:56.404
which is rooted in science.

924
00:41:58.185 --> 00:41:59.286
My first question.

925
00:42:00.302 --> 00:42:03.184
is how are you measuring,

926
00:42:03.324 --> 00:42:03.865
monitoring,

927
00:42:04.105 --> 00:42:04.906
collecting data?

928
00:42:05.246 --> 00:42:07.027
What kind of data are you collecting?

929
00:42:07.087 --> 00:42:08.848
And then what are you doing with that data?

930
00:42:09.069 --> 00:42:09.209
Yeah,

931
00:42:10.169 --> 00:42:11.310
and that's a question we get a lot,

932
00:42:11.811 --> 00:42:12.211
Raphael.

933
00:42:13.472 --> 00:42:15.133
And I think it's good to first of all say,

934
00:42:15.633 --> 00:42:19.256
we are not in the business of certification of farms.

935
00:42:19.777 --> 00:42:25.160
So the lighthouse farms don't have a certificate that their data meets these thresholds.

936
00:42:25.481 --> 00:42:26.762
That is not what it's about.

937
00:42:27.450 --> 00:42:30.413
There's enough other labels out there that do exactly that,

938
00:42:30.453 --> 00:42:31.694
that we don't want to compete with.

939
00:42:32.935 --> 00:42:34.216
The second question is,

940
00:42:34.656 --> 00:42:36.057
what would you measure?

941
00:42:36.277 --> 00:42:36.417
Now,

942
00:42:36.618 --> 00:42:41.862
that is a hot topic that we are involved in through various research projects,

943
00:42:41.922 --> 00:42:43.743
very large scale research projects,

944
00:42:44.124 --> 00:42:51.770
because you're not the only one asking how can we measure success or how can we measure regenerative agriculture?

945
00:42:52.190 --> 00:42:54.252
We've had similar questions from Deloitte,

946
00:42:54.552 --> 00:42:56.434
their sustainability unit that wants to...

947
00:42:56.834 --> 00:42:59.136
work with food companies to help their transition.

948
00:42:59.196 --> 00:43:00.016
And they also asked,

949
00:43:00.296 --> 00:43:00.957
what are the figures?

950
00:43:01.017 --> 00:43:06.281
What should we measure to know whether farms and food companies are regenerative or not?

951
00:43:07.521 --> 00:43:09.183
That depends on the context.

952
00:43:09.983 --> 00:43:13.686
Many people are looking for a list of indicators,

953
00:43:13.866 --> 00:43:16.508
of very simple indicators that they can measure worldwide,

954
00:43:17.108 --> 00:43:20.871
and that then tells them how green a certain farming system is.

955
00:43:21.711 --> 00:43:23.172
I'm afraid it's not that simple.

956
00:43:23.212 --> 00:43:24.513
It would be really nice,

957
00:43:24.533 --> 00:43:25.334
and science has been

958
00:43:25.594 --> 00:43:28.576
trying for tens of years to come up with such short lists.

959
00:43:29.296 --> 00:43:33.398
But the problem is that what you measure and what you call success,

960
00:43:33.678 --> 00:43:34.039
first of all,

961
00:43:34.039 --> 00:43:36.620
depends on what you want and what is important to you.

962
00:43:37.140 --> 00:43:38.101
Is it biodiversity?

963
00:43:38.221 --> 00:43:39.301
Is it greenhouse gases?

964
00:43:39.462 --> 00:43:40.562
Is it water quality?

965
00:43:40.722 --> 00:43:41.743
Is it all of the above?

966
00:43:42.743 --> 00:43:43.304
But secondly,

967
00:43:43.324 --> 00:43:44.985
it also depends on where you are.

968
00:43:45.665 --> 00:43:46.665
And one example,

969
00:43:46.705 --> 00:43:47.866
very simple example there,

970
00:43:47.906 --> 00:43:54.570
is people often propose that we should use soil carbon as a measure of how the regenerative system is.

971
00:43:55.474 --> 00:44:01.337
But what is good soil carbon depends hugely where you are.

972
00:44:01.597 --> 00:44:03.658
If you are on Yannick's farm or on Alphonse's farm,

973
00:44:04.318 --> 00:44:06.259
then if you have 1% or 2% carbon,

974
00:44:06.579 --> 00:44:08.900
you're doing well in such an arid climate.

975
00:44:09.200 --> 00:44:11.941
And you get a lot of benefit from that 2% of carbon.

976
00:44:12.902 --> 00:44:13.722
If you're in Finland...

977
00:44:14.630 --> 00:44:16.151
You're probably on soils that have 40,

978
00:44:16.231 --> 00:44:16.491
50%,

979
00:44:16.992 --> 00:44:18.613
sometimes even up to 80% carbon,

980
00:44:18.633 --> 00:44:19.393
the peat soils.

981
00:44:20.214 --> 00:44:23.336
And does that mean that soil management is in order?

982
00:44:23.416 --> 00:44:23.536
No,

983
00:44:23.536 --> 00:44:27.018
it just means you're on a high carbon soil in a very cold and wet climate.

984
00:44:27.299 --> 00:44:29.620
It's not an indicator of how green you are.

985
00:44:29.620 --> 00:44:31.662
It's an indicator of your environment.

986
00:44:32.022 --> 00:44:34.584
So that's a very extreme example.

987
00:44:34.664 --> 00:44:40.047
The fact that the Finnish soil has 80% carbon doesn't mean it's a better soil than the Spanish soil.

988
00:44:40.628 --> 00:44:43.990
So we need to interpret all the different indicators.

989
00:44:44.230 --> 00:44:45.151
in their context.

990
00:44:45.511 --> 00:44:57.160
What we have developed and what our colleagues in the university are currently testing at very large scale across Europe in a big European research project is,

991
00:44:57.300 --> 00:45:08.448
can we come up with a framework for how to select the right indicators that is transparent and that follows clear guidelines on who should be involved?

992
00:45:08.888 --> 00:45:10.950
How do we set objectives together?

993
00:45:11.190 --> 00:45:15.213
How do we select the right indicators together to make sure,

994
00:45:15.353 --> 00:45:16.154
on the one hand,

995
00:45:16.795 --> 00:45:21.839
that we allow for different indicators in different parts,

996
00:45:22.039 --> 00:45:23.160
in different farming systems,

997
00:45:23.220 --> 00:45:24.161
different parts of the world.

998
00:45:24.581 --> 00:45:25.582
But at the same time,

999
00:45:26.122 --> 00:45:28.704
that we avoid that in 10 years time,

1000
00:45:29.165 --> 00:45:30.946
we come up with nice data and people say,

1001
00:45:31.026 --> 00:45:31.146
oh,

1002
00:45:31.146 --> 00:45:31.967
that's greenwashing.

1003
00:45:32.007 --> 00:45:33.668
You've just cherry picked your data.

1004
00:45:33.989 --> 00:45:38.712
We do need to make sure that we can select indicators that's not cherry picking,

1005
00:45:39.053 --> 00:45:40.474
but that is guided.

1006
00:45:40.654 --> 00:45:41.594
by the best science.

1007
00:45:42.114 --> 00:45:47.656
So the selection process needs to be harmonized between companies,

1008
00:45:47.716 --> 00:45:48.416
between countries,

1009
00:45:48.456 --> 00:45:49.476
between farming systems.

1010
00:45:49.857 --> 00:45:51.957
But which indicators are selected,

1011
00:45:52.517 --> 00:45:57.919
we need to make sure that we have flexibility and that they're useful also to the farmers.

1012
00:45:58.679 --> 00:45:58.899
Okay,

1013
00:45:58.939 --> 00:45:59.059
yeah,

1014
00:45:59.059 --> 00:45:59.919
it's very difficult.

1015
00:45:59.999 --> 00:46:03.580
But a lot of people have spoken to a lot of different organizations,

1016
00:46:03.600 --> 00:46:06.301
they're all working on their own different indicators.

1017
00:46:06.641 --> 00:46:07.902
And so how do you talk to each other?

1018
00:46:07.942 --> 00:46:08.942
How do you make that work?

1019
00:46:09.182 --> 00:46:10.643
in terms of regulations,

1020
00:46:10.903 --> 00:46:11.303
subsidy,

1021
00:46:11.544 --> 00:46:12.044
markets,

1022
00:46:12.684 --> 00:46:13.345
all of these things.

1023
00:46:13.485 --> 00:46:15.426
You kind of need universal,

1024
00:46:15.606 --> 00:46:19.049
ideally universal indicators that you can use,

1025
00:46:19.109 --> 00:46:19.329
right?

1026
00:46:19.829 --> 00:46:22.031
I'm not sure we need universal indicators.

1027
00:46:22.031 --> 00:46:22.451
At the moment,

1028
00:46:22.471 --> 00:46:23.191
it's the Wild West.

1029
00:46:23.812 --> 00:46:30.736
And anyone can accuse anyone else of cherry picking and saying you just picked those indicators because they suited you.

1030
00:46:31.477 --> 00:46:34.499
And we need to make sure we can't do that.

1031
00:46:34.679 --> 00:46:38.662
So we need the process of selecting the indicators needs to be transparent.

1032
00:46:39.082 --> 00:46:41.744
and needs to be clear what choices are made and why they're made.

1033
00:46:42.825 --> 00:46:45.426
That doesn't mean we come up with the same indicators.

1034
00:46:45.426 --> 00:46:46.727
I'll give you another example.

1035
00:46:47.107 --> 00:46:48.849
If we work on greenhouse gases,

1036
00:46:49.269 --> 00:46:54.332
two countries that struggle with greenhouse gases from agriculture are Ireland and India.

1037
00:46:55.173 --> 00:47:01.777
Both have a big challenge set for them that they need to reduce methane emissions.

1038
00:47:02.218 --> 00:47:03.018
Now in Ireland,

1039
00:47:03.158 --> 00:47:05.260
methane emissions come from the rumen of the cows.

1040
00:47:06.180 --> 00:47:06.641
In India,

1041
00:47:06.961 --> 00:47:08.582
most methane comes from the rice paddies.

1042
00:47:09.262 --> 00:47:10.643
that emit methane from the soil.

1043
00:47:11.464 --> 00:47:11.604
Now,

1044
00:47:11.964 --> 00:47:13.905
if you want metrics of success,

1045
00:47:13.986 --> 00:47:14.946
how do you measure that?

1046
00:47:15.066 --> 00:47:15.226
Well,

1047
00:47:15.306 --> 00:47:15.887
in Ireland,

1048
00:47:16.347 --> 00:47:17.908
you probably have an inventory.

1049
00:47:18.249 --> 00:47:19.449
You start your indicators,

1050
00:47:19.469 --> 00:47:21.651
an inventory of how many cows you have,

1051
00:47:21.731 --> 00:47:22.732
what breeds they are,

1052
00:47:23.172 --> 00:47:24.293
what feed do they get,

1053
00:47:24.353 --> 00:47:26.995
because that can determine how much methane they emit.

1054
00:47:27.395 --> 00:47:28.796
So you use those indicators.

1055
00:47:29.737 --> 00:47:34.120
They're useless in measuring methane from rice paddies in India.

1056
00:47:34.400 --> 00:47:37.082
There you look at what is the size of our rice paddies.

1057
00:47:37.406 --> 00:47:37.986
how long,

1058
00:47:38.186 --> 00:47:41.107
what period of time in the year are they underwater.

1059
00:47:41.587 --> 00:47:42.948
You can measure that from space.

1060
00:47:43.048 --> 00:47:44.548
You use satellite imagery.

1061
00:47:44.908 --> 00:47:49.790
You come up with very different indicators for the same impact category,

1062
00:47:50.350 --> 00:47:50.990
for methane,

1063
00:47:51.010 --> 00:47:52.291
for greenhouse gas emissions.

1064
00:47:53.131 --> 00:47:57.192
The key is how you select those indicators needs to be transparent.

1065
00:47:57.492 --> 00:48:00.873
That there are different indicators for the same problem is inevitable.

1066
00:48:01.434 --> 00:48:01.614
Okay,

1067
00:48:01.774 --> 00:48:02.054
I see.

1068
00:48:02.754 --> 00:48:04.795
There's a bit of a long-winded,

1069
00:48:05.435 --> 00:48:06.315
scientific answer,

1070
00:48:06.675 --> 00:48:12.877
but that is at the heart of the debate that we have with governments and also with industry.

1071
00:48:12.917 --> 00:48:16.619
And there are efforts on both sides to harmonize these approaches.

1072
00:48:16.679 --> 00:48:25.982
So the European Commission has just funded a very large project called Benchmarks to do that across Europe for policy questions.

1073
00:48:26.438 --> 00:48:27.079
And at the same time,

1074
00:48:27.079 --> 00:48:30.001
we're also working with World Business Council for Sustainable Development,

1075
00:48:30.241 --> 00:48:31.622
who's trying to do the same for business.

1076
00:48:32.143 --> 00:48:33.164
We tell them the same story.

1077
00:48:33.744 --> 00:48:33.984
Right.

1078
00:48:34.445 --> 00:48:39.369
I had a conversation a few weeks ago here in the Netherlands with a farmer called Anne van Leeuwen.

1079
00:48:39.909 --> 00:48:41.691
She's part of the EARA network,

1080
00:48:41.871 --> 00:48:44.093
the quite recent network of regenerative farmers.

1081
00:48:44.774 --> 00:48:47.456
And they worked on a proposal for reforming the cap.

1082
00:48:47.636 --> 00:48:50.078
And I asked her about indicators.

1083
00:48:50.298 --> 00:48:52.160
And if I remember correctly,

1084
00:48:52.220 --> 00:48:54.222
there's two things that she mentioned was one was

1085
00:48:54.978 --> 00:48:58.545
She talked about biomass production and about soil life.

1086
00:48:59.267 --> 00:49:00.950
Are these two indicators you find interesting?

1087
00:49:00.990 --> 00:49:04.657
And can you tell us maybe the pros and cons of using these indicators?

1088
00:49:05.519 --> 00:49:05.819
Yes.

1089
00:49:06.864 --> 00:49:07.644
Biomass is,

1090
00:49:07.644 --> 00:49:08.105
of course,

1091
00:49:08.225 --> 00:49:09.445
a measure of many things.

1092
00:49:09.605 --> 00:49:10.746
It's a measure of productivity,

1093
00:49:11.086 --> 00:49:14.847
but also it's a measure of the greenness of a landscape,

1094
00:49:15.188 --> 00:49:17.148
which usually the greener,

1095
00:49:17.148 --> 00:49:18.289
the more biomass you have,

1096
00:49:18.669 --> 00:49:21.610
the fewer problems you have with your soil or with biodiversity.

1097
00:49:22.731 --> 00:49:22.931
Also,

1098
00:49:23.431 --> 00:49:23.991
soil life,

1099
00:49:24.051 --> 00:49:27.613
soil biodiversity is key to everything that's in the soil.

1100
00:49:28.153 --> 00:49:28.913
But they are,

1101
00:49:29.754 --> 00:49:30.454
I would call them,

1102
00:49:31.594 --> 00:49:33.055
they're not indicators per se.

1103
00:49:33.855 --> 00:49:35.096
Soil life is important.

1104
00:49:35.932 --> 00:49:36.993
It's a cornerstone,

1105
00:49:37.013 --> 00:49:40.074
I would call it a cornerstone of regenerative agriculture.

1106
00:49:40.675 --> 00:49:43.656
But how do you know how much soil life you have?

1107
00:49:44.096 --> 00:49:45.097
You need to go a step further.

1108
00:49:45.277 --> 00:49:46.318
What is it you're going to count?

1109
00:49:46.878 --> 00:49:48.559
Is it microbial biomass?

1110
00:49:48.659 --> 00:49:49.439
Is it nematodes?

1111
00:49:49.479 --> 00:49:50.240
Is it earthworms?

1112
00:49:50.360 --> 00:49:51.400
Is it respiration?

1113
00:49:51.561 --> 00:49:51.821
Is it,

1114
00:49:52.141 --> 00:49:53.321
what are your indicators?

1115
00:49:53.642 --> 00:50:00.305
And then I go back to the same principle that to measure soil life in Spain,

1116
00:50:00.345 --> 00:50:01.146
in an arid soil,

1117
00:50:01.526 --> 00:50:05.068
you'll need to count different things and look at different things.

1118
00:50:05.572 --> 00:50:08.174
than when you measure soil life in the Netherlands.

1119
00:50:08.695 --> 00:50:09.476
Or for example,

1120
00:50:10.096 --> 00:50:13.399
in many temperate soils you could count earthworms.

1121
00:50:13.759 --> 00:50:14.960
But if you go to a peat soil,

1122
00:50:15.281 --> 00:50:16.041
there's no earthworms.

1123
00:50:16.241 --> 00:50:17.843
There's just no earthworms in peat soil.

1124
00:50:17.863 --> 00:50:19.604
Doesn't mean it's a badly managed soil,

1125
00:50:19.604 --> 00:50:23.227
but you need to look at a different type of soil life there.

1126
00:50:23.568 --> 00:50:27.811
It's the frustrating thing about agroecology and about these complex systems,

1127
00:50:27.871 --> 00:50:28.052
right?

1128
00:50:28.092 --> 00:50:29.433
It's that they are complex.

1129
00:50:29.993 --> 00:50:31.174
And we'd all love to...

1130
00:50:31.935 --> 00:50:32.836
We would all love to...

1131
00:50:33.364 --> 00:50:55.790
have a simple answer and say this makes sense everyone agrees this makes sense let's change things so that we take these indicators into account and let's go it's so much more complicated than that and that's that's a bit of a it makes it harder i guess to transition towards these systems you hit the nail on the head that is where i actually get excited where it gets complicated is where i get excited and rather

1132
00:50:55.850 --> 00:51:01.392
than being scared of the complexity we all have to lean into it in fact

1133
00:51:02.292 --> 00:51:12.015
One of the outcomes of our first five years of Lighthouse Farms is we've looked at common ingredients amongst the Lighthouse Farms,

1134
00:51:12.075 --> 00:51:13.515
despite all their diversity.

1135
00:51:13.615 --> 00:51:15.696
They're different in every aspect.

1136
00:51:16.176 --> 00:51:19.937
What are the common ingredients that they share that make them successful?

1137
00:51:20.537 --> 00:51:26.359
And the first one that we came across is they all make use of the power of complexity.

1138
00:51:26.699 --> 00:51:28.339
They don't step away from complexity,

1139
00:51:28.659 --> 00:51:29.940
they lean into the complexity.

1140
00:51:30.720 --> 00:51:32.161
and purposeful complexity,

1141
00:51:32.302 --> 00:51:34.604
not just throwing things together randomly,

1142
00:51:34.704 --> 00:51:36.465
but designing a complex system.

1143
00:51:36.465 --> 00:51:39.948
I already mentioned the complex rice systems in Indonesia,

1144
00:51:40.349 --> 00:51:46.234
where they've combined these components almost as Lego blocks to build something that is more robust.

1145
00:51:46.674 --> 00:51:49.637
But we also see it in the Netherlands with the strip cropping.

1146
00:51:50.037 --> 00:51:52.740
We see it in Brazil with the agroforestry.

1147
00:51:53.941 --> 00:51:57.504
It's complex and it comes at a...

1148
00:51:57.804 --> 00:51:57.924
Well,

1149
00:51:57.984 --> 00:51:58.385
first of all,

1150
00:51:58.365 --> 00:52:01.667
the complexity gives us the best of both worlds in all those cases.

1151
00:52:01.687 --> 00:52:05.030
It gives us food and it gives us those ecosystem services.

1152
00:52:05.871 --> 00:52:09.934
They come with one big trade-off and that is they're difficult to manage.

1153
00:52:10.514 --> 00:52:13.737
It's very difficult because you have to think of so many things.

1154
00:52:14.397 --> 00:52:18.901
And that's where we come back to that combination of science and farmers.

1155
00:52:19.562 --> 00:52:20.682
Because as scientists,

1156
00:52:20.783 --> 00:52:25.667
it's our job to look at the generic rules or the generic relationships.

1157
00:52:26.247 --> 00:52:27.308
But we need a farmer.

1158
00:52:27.588 --> 00:52:29.489
to make sense of it on their soil,

1159
00:52:29.809 --> 00:52:31.670
on their part of the earth,

1160
00:52:31.991 --> 00:52:32.951
in their reality.

1161
00:52:33.331 --> 00:52:35.933
Because no one knows that reality better than farmers.

1162
00:52:35.973 --> 00:52:37.434
And that's where we need to work together.

1163
00:52:37.474 --> 00:52:41.236
And that's where the whole concept of living labs has now arisen across

1164
00:52:41.616 --> 00:52:45.598
Europe, where science and farmers work together for exactly that purpose.

1165
00:52:46.099 --> 00:52:46.359
I see.

1166
00:52:47.059 --> 00:52:48.200
Coming back to the science part,

1167
00:52:48.220 --> 00:52:51.021
and we drifted towards the indicator.

1168
00:52:51.762 --> 00:52:53.663
It was such an important conversation.

1169
00:52:53.783 --> 00:52:54.804
I'm glad we went there.

1170
00:52:54.864 --> 00:52:55.104
So the

1171
00:52:55.524 --> 00:53:12.198
specifically indicators and how do we communicate about that but what kind of science are you doing like you mentioned master students phd students working on different thesis like what kind of science is happening within the lighthouse farm network network yes yeah yeah

1172
00:53:12.198 --> 00:53:23.748
i've already mentioned the research in indonesia where we actually studied all those different permutations of complex rice systems and which ones performed best under under which conditions

1173
00:53:24.088 --> 00:53:30.771
That's one example of a very elaborate PhD study supported by many master's students,

1174
00:53:30.851 --> 00:53:32.652
also from Bravujaya University,

1175
00:53:33.072 --> 00:53:38.114
where we can put facts and figures and tables underneath our stories to underpin our stories.

1176
00:53:38.774 --> 00:53:38.934
Now,

1177
00:53:38.994 --> 00:53:46.797
we've also just finished a similar study for the agroforestry farms in Brazil that we're working with.

1178
00:53:47.398 --> 00:53:49.899
And the question there was,

1179
00:53:50.299 --> 00:53:53.360
we see many different types of agroforestry emerging.

1180
00:53:53.840 --> 00:53:58.967
from very simple ones with just trees in rows with crops or silver pasture between them,

1181
00:53:59.447 --> 00:54:00.148
to very,

1182
00:54:00.288 --> 00:54:02.731
very complex systems where you don't even,

1183
00:54:02.851 --> 00:54:06.776
you literally can't see the trees from the wood anymore because you think you're walking through a jungle,

1184
00:54:06.876 --> 00:54:09.340
even though every plant is a crop or has a function.

1185
00:54:10.668 --> 00:54:13.089
That comes with that trade-off of management and labor,

1186
00:54:13.169 --> 00:54:14.190
those complex systems.

1187
00:54:14.390 --> 00:54:15.391
And for that PhD,

1188
00:54:15.591 --> 00:54:16.431
the question was,

1189
00:54:16.892 --> 00:54:18.933
is there an optimum level of complexity?

1190
00:54:19.393 --> 00:54:24.896
Is there a point where a farm has enough complexity and is still manageable by an individual farmer?

1191
00:54:25.436 --> 00:54:27.417
And what is that level of complexity?

1192
00:54:27.797 --> 00:54:27.917
Now,

1193
00:54:27.917 --> 00:54:28.678
of course,

1194
00:54:30.219 --> 00:54:34.261
the answer is always more complex than the original question.

1195
00:54:34.321 --> 00:54:35.361
It depends on where you are,

1196
00:54:35.361 --> 00:54:36.342
it depends on where you want.

1197
00:54:36.782 --> 00:54:39.744
But that research led to a certain prototyping.

1198
00:54:40.164 --> 00:54:43.686
of different types of agroforestry that farmers can choose from,

1199
00:54:44.306 --> 00:54:46.187
depending on their own circumstances.

1200
00:54:47.287 --> 00:54:48.467
They're just two examples,

1201
00:54:48.608 --> 00:54:49.008
Raphael.

1202
00:54:49.208 --> 00:54:49.668
In total,

1203
00:54:49.888 --> 00:54:50.728
we have 14

1204
00:54:51.069 --> 00:54:52.369
PhD candidates,

1205
00:54:52.429 --> 00:54:53.690
theses being researched,

1206
00:54:53.730 --> 00:54:56.151
being written on the different lighthouse farms,

1207
00:54:56.351 --> 00:54:58.252
some on individual lighthouse farms.

1208
00:54:58.712 --> 00:55:02.153
Others also look across lighthouse farms at a certain theme.

1209
00:55:02.433 --> 00:55:03.033
For example,

1210
00:55:03.074 --> 00:55:08.976
we now have a PhD on the science of carbon farming across multiple...

1211
00:55:09.260 --> 00:55:15.063
lighthouse farm communities in Europe and great diversity of stories that come out of there.

1212
00:55:15.583 --> 00:55:17.485
Some of the stories are focused at farm level,

1213
00:55:18.145 --> 00:55:27.110
but sometimes we also look then at what would be the implications if we were to implement it at this regional or national level.

1214
00:55:27.450 --> 00:55:31.872
And one example of that is in our lighthouse farm in Finland,

1215
00:55:32.413 --> 00:55:37.735
where it's actually one of the farmers themselves has done a PhD with us on their own farm.

1216
00:55:38.256 --> 00:55:38.556
But then

1217
00:55:38.944 --> 00:55:41.445
didn't just look at the workings of their own farm.

1218
00:55:41.485 --> 00:55:46.148
They also looked at if we were to copy and paste this across the region,

1219
00:55:46.248 --> 00:55:46.888
would it work?

1220
00:55:47.369 --> 00:55:47.809
If not,

1221
00:55:48.029 --> 00:55:48.429
why not?

1222
00:55:48.489 --> 00:55:50.730
What needs to change in terms of policy?

1223
00:55:50.810 --> 00:55:54.312
What needs to change in terms of businesses for that to work?

1224
00:55:54.332 --> 00:55:58.655
And what would Finland look like if we all were to follow this example?

1225
00:56:00.135 --> 00:56:03.837
I'm really glad that you're still listening this far into the episode.

1226
00:56:04.598 --> 00:56:08.520
And I hope that you're enjoying it and that you're gaining value from this conversation.

1227
00:56:09.836 --> 00:56:13.879
If you'd like to support my work and help the Deep Seat podcast grow,

1228
00:56:14.579 --> 00:56:16.701
I have just a really small favor to ask,

1229
00:56:16.781 --> 00:56:17.702
something that only takes

1230
00:56:18.082 --> 00:56:19.123
5 or 10 seconds.

1231
00:56:19.883 --> 00:56:23.226
Whichever platform you are using right now to listen to this episode,

1232
00:56:23.666 --> 00:56:26.968
just click on the Deep Seat page and hit the follow button.

1233
00:56:27.729 --> 00:56:31.251
If you've done that already and would like to go just one small extra step,

1234
00:56:31.692 --> 00:56:32.852
you can also leave me a

1235
00:56:33.253 --> 00:56:33.953
5-star rating.

1236
00:56:34.414 --> 00:56:35.374
If you think I deserve it,

1237
00:56:35.434 --> 00:56:35.855
of course.

1238
00:56:37.015 --> 00:56:37.696
Thank you so much.

1239
00:56:38.124 --> 00:56:39.405
and let's get back to the conversation.

1240
00:56:41.985 --> 00:56:44.987
So we've talked about the on-farm approach,

1241
00:56:45.367 --> 00:56:46.687
we've talked about the science,

1242
00:56:47.407 --> 00:56:49.028
so let's move on to the last part,

1243
00:56:49.628 --> 00:56:52.249
redesigning the farming and food.

1244
00:56:54.490 --> 00:56:57.851
In a previous episode with Chuck de Lidekerk from Soil Capital,

1245
00:56:58.511 --> 00:56:59.672
I asked him the question

1246
00:57:00.644 --> 00:57:03.706
can we transition every piece of land to regenerative agriculture?

1247
00:57:04.306 --> 00:57:05.407
And his answer was,

1248
00:57:06.087 --> 00:57:07.248
I don't think we have a choice.

1249
00:57:08.348 --> 00:57:09.149
What do you think about that?

1250
00:57:10.029 --> 00:57:10.769
Very interesting.

1251
00:57:11.390 --> 00:57:12.450
It depends a little bit.

1252
00:57:12.691 --> 00:57:13.511
What do I think about it?

1253
00:57:13.511 --> 00:57:18.193
It depends a little bit what you consider in the regenerative agriculture.

1254
00:57:18.213 --> 00:57:19.454
And that's a big debate at the moment.

1255
00:57:19.914 --> 00:57:30.120
I hear many different concepts of what regenerative is that range from almost business as usual.

1256
00:57:30.740 --> 00:57:31.681
just a little bit different,

1257
00:57:32.341 --> 00:57:34.742
to complete deep green transition.

1258
00:57:35.822 --> 00:57:36.523
For that reason,

1259
00:57:36.583 --> 00:57:36.943
actually,

1260
00:57:37.383 --> 00:57:39.964
because we heard so many different definitions,

1261
00:57:40.244 --> 00:57:41.625
and to get a bit of clarity,

1262
00:57:41.685 --> 00:57:48.868
we actually did a very extensive scientific literature review on definitions of regenerative agriculture.

1263
00:57:49.488 --> 00:57:56.131
And we brought that together in what we call the scientific definition for regenerative agriculture,

1264
00:57:56.171 --> 00:57:59.512
which is basically where it's an approach.

1265
00:57:59.880 --> 00:58:07.087
to sustainability that takes soil and soil management as the starting point for a transition,

1266
00:58:07.287 --> 00:58:08.348
looking after the soil.

1267
00:58:09.540 --> 00:58:19.723
to improve ecosystem service delivery with the aspiration to also improve on farmers'livelihoods and social well-being.

1268
00:58:19.943 --> 00:58:22.764
And there's three layers in that definition.

1269
00:58:23.164 --> 00:58:31.266
What we found is that regenerative agriculture is very well defined in terms of soil management and soil practices.

1270
00:58:31.426 --> 00:58:33.286
It's literally on solid ground there.

1271
00:58:33.787 --> 00:58:38.948
It starts the journey towards sustainability by making sure that the soil is in order.

1272
00:58:39.148 --> 00:58:41.529
that you already referred to soil life,

1273
00:58:41.849 --> 00:58:42.609
to soil quality,

1274
00:58:42.749 --> 00:58:44.189
soil health is the new phrase.

1275
00:58:45.490 --> 00:58:49.171
The purpose is to regenerate ecosystems,

1276
00:58:49.611 --> 00:58:52.692
to make sure that we not only do things less bad,

1277
00:58:53.052 --> 00:58:56.013
but actually improve on biodiversity,

1278
00:58:56.133 --> 00:58:57.333
improve on water quality,

1279
00:58:57.413 --> 00:58:58.793
improve on the atmosphere.

1280
00:59:00.074 --> 00:59:04.795
But then that third layer is often just aspirational,

1281
00:59:05.115 --> 00:59:08.796
in order to improve farmers'livelihoods and social well-being.

1282
00:59:09.377 --> 00:59:10.438
That is often mentioned,

1283
00:59:10.678 --> 00:59:14.543
but without any practical guidance on how that can be achieved.

1284
00:59:14.983 --> 00:59:17.486
And we know from our lighthouse farms in

1285
00:59:17.947 --> 00:59:25.436
Spain and in Ethiopia that social elements are actually crucial to the success of regenerative agriculture,

1286
00:59:25.476 --> 00:59:27.098
both in Spain and the inlands.

1287
00:59:27.699 --> 00:59:27.819
Well,

1288
00:59:27.859 --> 00:59:28.380
you've been there.

1289
00:59:28.960 --> 00:59:30.121
the dry inlands of Spain.

1290
00:59:30.401 --> 00:59:32.202
I haven't been there in person unfortunately.

1291
00:59:32.663 --> 00:59:35.445
Alfonso came to Brussels for a conference and I had a chance to meet him there,

1292
00:59:35.565 --> 00:59:36.185
but I would love to.

1293
00:59:36.365 --> 00:59:36.605
Yes,

1294
00:59:36.946 --> 00:59:38.627
well you should visit it because,

1295
00:59:39.107 --> 00:59:43.590
but also in Ethiopia it is this working together.

1296
00:59:43.830 --> 00:59:47.293
It's very difficult for one farmer to change their soil in their environment,

1297
00:59:47.393 --> 00:59:49.294
but working together that is possible.

1298
00:59:50.395 --> 00:59:57.1000
So for us there is a bit of work left to be done there by science and by practice to make that social element also central to regenerative.

1299
00:59:58.764 --> 01:00:01.725
But that also points at that,

1300
01:00:01.945 --> 01:00:02.646
in our view,

1301
01:00:03.346 --> 01:00:07.048
regenerative in the more narrow definition that we put forward,

1302
01:00:07.348 --> 01:00:14.331
there's a place for that where soil is the entry point to improvements in sustainability.

1303
01:00:14.531 --> 01:00:16.192
So it is very,

1304
01:00:16.372 --> 01:00:17.352
very relevant.

1305
01:00:17.472 --> 01:00:25.956
And it also has originated in many cases in areas where threats to soil quality or erosion or desertification.

1306
01:00:26.176 --> 01:00:28.957
were the main threat to agricultural sustainability.

1307
01:00:29.517 --> 01:00:29.878
Indeed,

1308
01:00:29.998 --> 01:00:31.798
in the Spains of this world,

1309
01:00:31.959 --> 01:00:33.539
in the United States,

1310
01:00:33.719 --> 01:00:33.839
in

1311
01:00:34.440 --> 01:00:39.182
Ethiopia, that is where the soil is literally either washed away or blown away.

1312
01:00:39.882 --> 01:00:43.363
And where if you want to rebuild agriculture,

1313
01:00:43.363 --> 01:00:45.184
if you want to regenerate the landscape,

1314
01:00:45.584 --> 01:00:46.685
you start with the soil.

1315
01:00:47.925 --> 01:00:53.908
We recognize that there's also other approaches to sustainability or deep sustainability.

1316
01:00:54.816 --> 01:00:59.797
with the same objectives that use many of the same ingredients,

1317
01:00:59.957 --> 01:01:00.898
the same principles,

1318
01:01:01.418 --> 01:01:02.638
many of the same practices,

1319
01:01:02.898 --> 01:01:04.299
but combine them in a different way.

1320
01:01:05.059 --> 01:01:11.521
And we've recently looked into five of those approaches that somehow have found traction with the big,

1321
01:01:11.761 --> 01:01:14.021
with the FAOs and the World Banks of this world.

1322
01:01:14.121 --> 01:01:15.582
And regenerative is one of them.

1323
01:01:16.462 --> 01:01:17.102
Circularity,

1324
01:01:17.342 --> 01:01:20.283
circular agriculture is a very hot topic as well.

1325
01:01:20.503 --> 01:01:21.143
Agroecology,

1326
01:01:21.203 --> 01:01:23.004
you mentioned it yourself.

1327
01:01:23.944 --> 01:01:27.887
Climate smart agriculture or carbon farming is being talked about a lot.

1328
01:01:28.627 --> 01:01:30.088
And organic is,

1329
01:01:30.108 --> 01:01:30.929
of course,

1330
01:01:31.289 --> 01:01:37.133
one of the oldest and the only truly globally certified form of sustainable agriculture.

1331
01:01:37.833 --> 01:01:41.036
What we've done is we've looked at all of them.

1332
01:01:41.096 --> 01:01:43.677
What do they share in common and how do they differ?

1333
01:01:44.458 --> 01:01:53.544
And how do they all use a different entry point or a different recipe to combine those same ingredients to come up with a movement?

1334
01:01:53.744 --> 01:01:59.408
or farming systems and which are most relevant in which parts of the world.

1335
01:02:00.008 --> 01:02:04.091
So it worries me a bit when governments,

1336
01:02:04.992 --> 01:02:06.013
the European Commission,

1337
01:02:06.733 --> 01:02:10.976
industry or NGOs sign up to one shade of green,

1338
01:02:11.437 --> 01:02:12.097
as we call it,

1339
01:02:12.217 --> 01:02:18.562
and want to roll that out across the whole world and start competing with momentum,

1340
01:02:18.662 --> 01:02:19.322
with initiative,

1341
01:02:19.422 --> 01:02:20.163
sometimes funding,

1342
01:02:20.603 --> 01:02:21.924
with other shades of green that...

1343
01:02:22.144 --> 01:02:23.625
actually have the same objectives,

1344
01:02:24.206 --> 01:02:25.847
but use a different entry point.

1345
01:02:26.207 --> 01:02:29.329
We shouldn't have discussions about which is better.

1346
01:02:29.869 --> 01:02:31.130
Is it circular agriculture?

1347
01:02:31.150 --> 01:02:33.032
Is it organic or is it regenerative?

1348
01:02:33.072 --> 01:02:34.393
We shouldn't have those discussions.

1349
01:02:34.433 --> 01:02:39.736
We should see how can we all work together to achieve the same objectives.

1350
01:02:39.977 --> 01:02:40.717
In some cases,

1351
01:02:40.737 --> 01:02:41.678
we choose this approach.

1352
01:02:41.918 --> 01:02:42.598
In other cases,

1353
01:02:42.618 --> 01:02:43.739
we choose a different label.

1354
01:02:44.740 --> 01:02:45.480
Same objectives.

1355
01:02:45.821 --> 01:02:47.622
What would these objectives be?

1356
01:02:48.683 --> 01:02:50.484
When you look at the five that I mentioned,

1357
01:02:50.704 --> 01:02:53.388
It is always to get the best of those both worlds.

1358
01:02:53.508 --> 01:02:54.309
It's to produce food,

1359
01:02:54.529 --> 01:03:01.880
but at the same time to look after our planet and to look after our farmers and to look after the society in terms of diversity of food.

1360
01:03:03.202 --> 01:03:04.664
Some put the emphasis...

1361
01:03:05.196 --> 01:03:07.958
on different impact category as we call them.

1362
01:03:08.179 --> 01:03:13.103
Of course climate smart farming or carbon farming put the emphasis on the climate,

1363
01:03:13.303 --> 01:03:17.847
the climate benefits and actually in the climate science all the other things,

1364
01:03:18.247 --> 01:03:18.908
water quality,

1365
01:03:19.028 --> 01:03:21.590
biodiversity are called co-benefits.

1366
01:03:22.551 --> 01:03:27.275
A co-benefit of the climate action which I think is underplaying their importance a bit.

1367
01:03:27.935 --> 01:03:33.240
But similarly regenerative farming takes the soil as the starting point and takes the others.

1368
01:03:33.560 --> 01:03:35.101
as the resulting benefits.

1369
01:03:35.321 --> 01:03:35.601
I see,

1370
01:03:35.721 --> 01:03:35.861
yeah.

1371
01:03:36.281 --> 01:03:37.521
But one definition,

1372
01:03:38.161 --> 01:03:43.043
one broader definition of regenerative agriculture could be just that it's regenerating instead of degrading,

1373
01:03:43.343 --> 01:03:43.563
right?

1374
01:03:44.223 --> 01:03:45.464
And so if you're regenerating,

1375
01:03:45.464 --> 01:03:47.224
if you're improving biodiversity,

1376
01:03:47.724 --> 01:03:49.145
improving soil health,

1377
01:03:49.645 --> 01:03:50.445
improving water,

1378
01:03:51.025 --> 01:03:51.705
improving things,

1379
01:03:51.885 --> 01:03:52.686
you are regenerating.

1380
01:03:53.286 --> 01:03:58.147
So you mentioned these common objectives that all of these types of farming have.

1381
01:03:58.607 --> 01:03:58.908
In a way,

1382
01:03:58.948 --> 01:03:59.988
they're all regenerative,

1383
01:04:00.128 --> 01:04:00.328
right?

1384
01:04:02.184 --> 01:04:04.445
If you take a broad definition of regenerative,

1385
01:04:05.125 --> 01:04:09.366
then all of them are regenerative because they all contribute to the other objectives.

1386
01:04:09.827 --> 01:04:21.830
Be careful that you don't take too broad a definition because then a lot would be counted as regenerative that I think you and I don't really call regenerative.

1387
01:04:21.930 --> 01:04:22.150
Right,

1388
01:04:22.230 --> 01:04:22.610
okay.

1389
01:04:23.350 --> 01:04:24.111
In my view,

1390
01:04:24.251 --> 01:04:29.072
a farm that uses less pesticides than before.

1391
01:04:29.452 --> 01:04:32.294
is not necessarily straight away a regenerative farm.

1392
01:04:33.074 --> 01:04:36.496
So we have to be careful that we don't cast the definition too wide.

1393
01:04:37.176 --> 01:04:38.957
Then we venture into greenwashing.

1394
01:04:39.398 --> 01:04:39.638
I see.

1395
01:04:39.838 --> 01:04:40.018
Okay,

1396
01:04:40.178 --> 01:04:40.298
yeah,

1397
01:04:40.358 --> 01:04:40.538
sure.

1398
01:04:41.439 --> 01:04:43.760
So the big question,

1399
01:04:44.520 --> 01:04:49.924
because I've had all these conversations on the podcast about the need to transition to these more regenerative food systems,

1400
01:04:51.304 --> 01:04:52.065
agroecological,

1401
01:04:52.125 --> 01:04:52.705
climate smart,

1402
01:04:52.725 --> 01:04:53.786
or whatever you want to call them.

1403
01:04:54.586 --> 01:04:55.687
And the big question is always,

1404
01:04:56.067 --> 01:04:56.847
how do we get there?

1405
01:04:57.368 --> 01:04:57.628
What is...

1406
01:04:58.320 --> 01:04:58.860
lacking today?

1407
01:04:58.900 --> 01:05:02.861
What is missing and what is stopping us from scaling these faster?

1408
01:05:04.662 --> 01:05:09.063
I think one thing that we've really stumbled across,

1409
01:05:09.263 --> 01:05:11.384
a stumbling block that we've stumbled across,

1410
01:05:12.184 --> 01:05:16.125
is that in many of the initiatives that are put forward,

1411
01:05:16.185 --> 01:05:18.546
whether they're policies or industry initiatives,

1412
01:05:19.286 --> 01:05:20.946
the point of initiative,

1413
01:05:21.526 --> 01:05:27.168
the onus for action is almost always put at the feet of the farmers.

1414
01:05:27.924 --> 01:05:30.966
It's the farmers that have to do something differently,

1415
01:05:31.466 --> 01:05:32.947
have to do a different practice,

1416
01:05:32.967 --> 01:05:34.308
a different type of cropping,

1417
01:05:34.348 --> 01:05:35.768
a different type of rotation,

1418
01:05:36.169 --> 01:05:36.829
you name it.

1419
01:05:38.430 --> 01:05:39.250
If it was easy,

1420
01:05:40.411 --> 01:05:45.954
if it was as profitable as many of those initiatives promise it to be,

1421
01:05:46.654 --> 01:05:48.235
farmers would have already done it.

1422
01:05:50.216 --> 01:05:51.097
In many cases,

1423
01:05:51.857 --> 01:05:56.460
there's reasons why it is not possible for farmers.

1424
01:05:56.956 --> 01:05:59.517
to make a change in the current climate,

1425
01:05:59.617 --> 01:06:00.778
literally the current climate,

1426
01:06:01.078 --> 01:06:04.359
but also the current policy and business environment.

1427
01:06:04.739 --> 01:06:12.602
Because we have to realize that the entire policy environment and the business environment have evolved to serve the current,

1428
01:06:13.143 --> 01:06:14.103
if efficient,

1429
01:06:14.543 --> 01:06:18.245
industrial farming model that we've developed over the last 80 years.

1430
01:06:18.605 --> 01:06:23.087
So it's not there to serve a change in farm practices.

1431
01:06:24.307 --> 01:06:25.187
In our research,

1432
01:06:25.528 --> 01:06:26.268
we have shown

1433
01:06:26.608 --> 01:06:36.012
that in many cases it makes more sense to put the point of initiative at one of the many actors that surround the farmers.

1434
01:06:36.072 --> 01:06:46.756
We've done mapping exercises of how many actors surround a farm and have an opinion or have a piece of information that they're sending to farmers about what farmers should do differently.

1435
01:06:47.016 --> 01:06:48.937
In many cases it is 10,

1436
01:06:49.317 --> 01:06:49.677
20,

1437
01:06:50.338 --> 01:06:56.140
up to 100 different actors that tell farmers what to do and it's up to the farmer to make sense of it.

1438
01:06:57.101 --> 01:06:58.202
In many cases,

1439
01:06:58.962 --> 01:07:02.705
it makes sense to first put the point of initiative,

1440
01:07:02.725 --> 01:07:03.906
the point of change,

1441
01:07:04.306 --> 01:07:07.729
with one of those actors before it reaches the farmer.

1442
01:07:08.150 --> 01:07:13.874
Because those actors think of an advisory service or a company or a feed company.

1443
01:07:14.535 --> 01:07:19.158
They have the resources to put a team of experts on a certain topic.

1444
01:07:19.198 --> 01:07:22.661
I'll give you one example from Latvia where we examined that.

1445
01:07:23.102 --> 01:07:25.644
Where do farmers get their information from?

1446
01:07:26.124 --> 01:07:27.245
And we asked them,

1447
01:07:27.605 --> 01:07:29.505
when do you get your information on productivity,

1448
01:07:29.946 --> 01:07:31.446
the information on climate change,

1449
01:07:31.726 --> 01:07:33.447
the information on biodiversity?

1450
01:07:33.887 --> 01:07:34.868
Very simple questions.

1451
01:07:34.908 --> 01:07:36.568
And we mapped all the different actors.

1452
01:07:37.509 --> 01:07:39.670
The information on productivity,

1453
01:07:40.650 --> 01:07:43.831
they really trusted their farm advisory services.

1454
01:07:43.911 --> 01:07:46.292
They had a great relationship with their advisors,

1455
01:07:46.292 --> 01:07:50.454
who is the state body that advises the farmers on how to farm.

1456
01:07:51.715 --> 01:07:54.976
But the advisors only advised the farmers on...

1457
01:07:55.196 --> 01:07:55.856
productivity.

1458
01:07:56.497 --> 01:07:57.097
And when we ask,

1459
01:07:57.157 --> 01:08:00.319
where do you get your information on greenhouse gases or biodiversity,

1460
01:08:00.740 --> 01:08:01.921
they would say things like,

1461
01:08:02.181 --> 01:08:02.301
oh,

1462
01:08:02.301 --> 01:08:04.262
I got that knowledge from my neighbor,

1463
01:08:04.302 --> 01:08:05.303
my neighbor told me that,

1464
01:08:05.723 --> 01:08:10.947
or I saw a clip on YouTube of a farmer in Italy that did that and I copied it.

1465
01:08:11.227 --> 01:08:11.347
Now,

1466
01:08:11.367 --> 01:08:12.027
that worries me.

1467
01:08:12.267 --> 01:08:17.091
A farmer in Latvia copying a farmer in Italy because they've seen a YouTube clip,

1468
01:08:17.391 --> 01:08:19.492
that worries me because Latvia is very,

1469
01:08:19.572 --> 01:08:21.914
very different climate and soils than Italy.

1470
01:08:23.098 --> 01:08:24.119
In our research,

1471
01:08:24.299 --> 01:08:27.781
the recommendation that we made to the government was,

1472
01:08:28.281 --> 01:08:34.024
rather than putting the onus of change at the feet of your farmers when it comes to climate change and biodiversity,

1473
01:08:34.625 --> 01:08:35.045
first,

1474
01:08:35.845 --> 01:08:40.008
the point of initiative of the first change is in your advisory services.

1475
01:08:40.668 --> 01:08:41.809
Train your advisors.

1476
01:08:41.989 --> 01:08:44.610
Train your advisors in climate issues.

1477
01:08:44.750 --> 01:08:47.492
Train your advisors in biodiversity.

1478
01:08:47.632 --> 01:08:50.614
Or appoint new advisors that are trained in those.

1479
01:08:51.134 --> 01:08:54.215
because farmers already trust the advisors.

1480
01:08:54.655 --> 01:08:57.256
They already trust the information they give.

1481
01:08:57.936 --> 01:08:59.716
And now the advisors,

1482
01:08:59.916 --> 01:09:02.757
because it's not one advisor who has to do that,

1483
01:09:02.837 --> 01:09:04.718
but the whole advisory body,

1484
01:09:05.138 --> 01:09:12.320
they have the person power to integrate all this knowledge into coherent advice that makes sense from a production point of view,

1485
01:09:12.440 --> 01:09:14.080
from a climate change point of view,

1486
01:09:14.100 --> 01:09:15.561
and from a biodiversity point of view.

1487
01:09:16.081 --> 01:09:16.501
Together,

1488
01:09:16.561 --> 01:09:20.062
they have the capacity to come up with good plans and good advice.

1489
01:09:20.382 --> 01:09:23.724
that they then can share to the farmers who already trust them.

1490
01:09:24.085 --> 01:09:28.408
So that is one example of where if we want to make a change,

1491
01:09:29.048 --> 01:09:33.732
we need to stop putting always the point of action at the feet of the farmers,

1492
01:09:34.072 --> 01:09:36.453
but first look at what can we do?

1493
01:09:38.035 --> 01:09:39.596
Not what should the farmer do for us,

1494
01:09:40.316 --> 01:09:44.659
but what can we do to help the farmer make the transition?

1495
01:09:45.740 --> 01:09:47.221
In that example,

1496
01:09:47.661 --> 01:09:48.262
how do you make...

1497
01:09:48.786 --> 01:10:06.234
them accountable like the agronomist and the you said put the point of initiative with them training them is a great start i'm sure but how do you incentivize them to to go beyond that and to really try and help the farmers improve their their farming system for the better of the environment and yeah

1498
01:10:06.715 --> 01:10:13.478
yeah there's two roots and they're often a little bit in conflict with each other at the end of the day that's

1499
01:10:14.138 --> 01:10:19.443
That responsibility lies with you and me and all other individuals in society.

1500
01:10:19.963 --> 01:10:24.547
There's the route of business incentivization through companies,

1501
01:10:24.647 --> 01:10:25.728
through the supply chains,

1502
01:10:25.768 --> 01:10:26.669
through the value chain,

1503
01:10:27.029 --> 01:10:33.975
where consumers demand from a company that they work on their sustainability,

1504
01:10:33.995 --> 01:10:37.978
and the company then works with farmers to incentivize green practices.

1505
01:10:38.039 --> 01:10:38.699
That's one route.

1506
01:10:38.919 --> 01:10:40.421
The other one is through policy.

1507
01:10:40.921 --> 01:10:41.221
Through...

1508
01:10:42.250 --> 01:10:44.251
where policies are put in place to,

1509
01:10:44.371 --> 01:10:44.911
for example,

1510
01:10:44.931 --> 01:10:45.871
train the advisors,

1511
01:10:45.891 --> 01:10:46.791
the farm advisors,

1512
01:10:46.851 --> 01:10:49.492
who then train the farmers in certain practices.

1513
01:10:50.252 --> 01:10:57.054
The problem is that most of us have a split personality because we are both consumers and we are citizens.

1514
01:10:57.934 --> 01:10:58.975
And as citizens,

1515
01:10:59.515 --> 01:11:00.035
we want,

1516
01:11:00.535 --> 01:11:01.555
and who vote,

1517
01:11:02.295 --> 01:11:03.936
if we're lucky enough to live in a democracy,

1518
01:11:04.016 --> 01:11:04.476
we vote.

1519
01:11:05.456 --> 01:11:07.677
We're quite inclined to vote for green policies,

1520
01:11:08.617 --> 01:11:09.697
but then we're also consumers.

1521
01:11:10.318 --> 01:11:11.758
And then we're quite inclined to vote for the

1522
01:11:11.818 --> 01:11:14.359
inclined to go for price at the end of the day.

1523
01:11:15.139 --> 01:11:18.181
And that those two don't add up yet.

1524
01:11:18.321 --> 01:11:23.863
And we see that a lot of challenges are actually at the intersection of business,

1525
01:11:24.023 --> 01:11:24.963
of the value chain,

1526
01:11:25.624 --> 01:11:27.845
and territorial initiatives.

1527
01:11:27.865 --> 01:11:28.745
And by territorial,

1528
01:11:28.745 --> 01:11:29.365
I mean policy.

1529
01:11:29.625 --> 01:11:32.066
So national or Europe-wide policies.

1530
01:11:32.607 --> 01:11:34.047
To get those aligned,

1531
01:11:34.467 --> 01:11:37.469
that's a really big task that still needs to be cracked.

1532
01:11:38.949 --> 01:11:40.690
New Zealand has tried it.

1533
01:11:41.202 --> 01:11:42.203
and keeps trying,

1534
01:11:42.863 --> 01:11:50.087
where they have policies that make the dairy companies responsible for all their greenhouse gas emissions,

1535
01:11:50.147 --> 01:11:52.929
including the on-farm emissions,

1536
01:11:52.969 --> 01:11:54.029
greenhouse gas emissions.

1537
01:11:54.550 --> 01:12:02.354
And now it's in the interest of the dairy processor to work with the farmers to reduce their carbon footprint,

1538
01:12:02.574 --> 01:12:04.916
and the advice is coming from the same person,

1539
01:12:05.036 --> 01:12:08.758
a coherent advice on productivity and greenhouse gas emissions.

1540
01:12:09.886 --> 01:12:10.226
However,

1541
01:12:10.446 --> 01:12:11.187
in New Zealand,

1542
01:12:11.207 --> 01:12:11.827
unfortunately,

1543
01:12:11.867 --> 01:12:15.709
it's a bit of a yo-yo movement because it depends on who is in government,

1544
01:12:15.769 --> 01:12:18.731
whether that policy is instated or withdrawn.

1545
01:12:19.331 --> 01:12:23.534
And we yet have to see it fully implemented and see the benefits of that.

1546
01:12:23.914 --> 01:12:25.475
That's a key issue,

1547
01:12:25.595 --> 01:12:25.915
isn't it?

1548
01:12:25.995 --> 01:12:28.937
Is that nature works in a very,

1549
01:12:28.997 --> 01:12:30.057
very long timeline.

1550
01:12:30.217 --> 01:12:31.438
Yeah.

1551
01:12:31.598 --> 01:12:32.979
And politics works in very,

1552
01:12:33.059 --> 01:12:34.120
very short cycles.

1553
01:12:34.220 --> 01:12:34.340
Yeah.

1554
01:12:34.560 --> 01:12:36.481
And these two don't really work well together.

1555
01:12:37.161 --> 01:12:37.642
Absolutely.

1556
01:12:38.102 --> 01:12:38.222
Yeah.

1557
01:12:38.542 --> 01:12:45.727
And we see that playing out also when we do take the long timelines,

1558
01:12:45.807 --> 01:12:46.868
like we have with,

1559
01:12:46.888 --> 01:12:47.408
for example,

1560
01:12:47.428 --> 01:12:52.932
the IPCC and many of the other very large policies that do allow for time.

1561
01:12:54.013 --> 01:12:59.416
Then the challenge is to keep the momentum up and actually how do you turn that into action?

1562
01:12:59.456 --> 01:13:00.737
Because if you take more time,

1563
01:13:01.257 --> 01:13:01.478
well,

1564
01:13:01.838 --> 01:13:04.620
it also allows you to take more time before you take action.

1565
01:13:04.900 --> 01:13:05.861
So that is,

1566
01:13:06.161 --> 01:13:07.562
we're now at the heart of the...

1567
01:13:08.254 --> 01:13:11.420
of the big challenges that we have yet to crack as society.

1568
01:13:12.001 --> 01:13:12.201
Right,

1569
01:13:12.381 --> 01:13:12.562
okay.

1570
01:13:13.904 --> 01:13:15.607
It's been such an amazing conversation so far,

1571
01:13:15.727 --> 01:13:16.408
don't want it to end,

1572
01:13:16.568 --> 01:13:20.295
but we're gonna have to start moving towards the conclusion.

1573
01:13:22.658 --> 01:13:25.739
What is your vision for the future of food and farming,

1574
01:13:25.999 --> 01:13:26.520
let's say in

1575
01:13:27.140 --> 01:13:28.040
10, 20 years time?

1576
01:13:29.181 --> 01:13:30.301
I get that question a lot,

1577
01:13:30.361 --> 01:13:30.782
Raphael,

1578
01:13:30.982 --> 01:13:35.944
and I used to be a lot more certain in my answer than I am now.

1579
01:13:36.644 --> 01:13:38.405
The world is becoming more unpredictable.

1580
01:13:39.085 --> 01:13:42.827
What I do see is that agriculture,

1581
01:13:43.287 --> 01:13:48.929
food and land will become the hottest talks going forward.

1582
01:13:49.469 --> 01:13:50.570
They will get hotter and hotter.

1583
01:13:51.194 --> 01:13:55.715
because they will affect more parts of society in different ways.

1584
01:13:56.496 --> 01:13:57.536
We see big shifts,

1585
01:13:57.616 --> 01:13:59.256
we see big movements,

1586
01:13:59.676 --> 01:14:01.097
we see a lot of tensions.

1587
01:14:01.777 --> 01:14:11.160
We also see tensions not only in terms of the efficiency model and the more resilient community-based model,

1588
01:14:11.240 --> 01:14:12.540
but we also see tensions,

1589
01:14:12.600 --> 01:14:13.200
for example,

1590
01:14:13.280 --> 01:14:18.662
with green initiatives clashing with indigenous land rights.

1591
01:14:19.002 --> 01:14:23.743
where areas of land are being bought or being reserved for carbon offsetting,

1592
01:14:24.284 --> 01:14:29.545
that clashes with the rights of indigenous people or smallholder farmers.

1593
01:14:30.846 --> 01:14:31.826
And at the same time,

1594
01:14:31.826 --> 01:14:35.787
we see also land grabbing for large-scale monocultural food production.

1595
01:14:35.847 --> 01:14:39.848
So we see all sorts of tensions and turmoil in that world.

1596
01:14:40.889 --> 01:14:44.250
And maybe we need to go through that phase.

1597
01:14:46.170 --> 01:14:53.033
One important aspect of a transition or of doing things differently is what is called unfreezing.

1598
01:14:53.233 --> 01:14:57.175
You first have to unlock to unfreeze the current status quo.

1599
01:14:57.295 --> 01:14:58.455
We have to,

1600
01:14:59.436 --> 01:15:01.717
as long as we're still asking the question,

1601
01:15:02.257 --> 01:15:04.098
why would we need to change?

1602
01:15:04.138 --> 01:15:04.338
Why?

1603
01:15:04.658 --> 01:15:06.939
Then we're not ready yet for the change.

1604
01:15:07.299 --> 01:15:13.021
So maybe this turmoil makes it clear that business as usual is not an option,

1605
01:15:13.421 --> 01:15:14.562
that we all agree on that.

1606
01:15:15.446 --> 01:15:15.706
And

1607
01:15:16.907 --> 01:15:22.952
I think now we make the decisions about what will come next.

1608
01:15:23.052 --> 01:15:25.014
The seeds are being planted now.

1609
01:15:26.095 --> 01:15:26.615
I don't,

1610
01:15:26.635 --> 01:15:27.356
as I said earlier,

1611
01:15:27.396 --> 01:15:28.637
I don't have one solution.

1612
01:15:28.657 --> 01:15:29.578
I don't have one seed.

1613
01:15:30.278 --> 01:15:35.102
So we are trying to encourage the many actors in the world,

1614
01:15:35.642 --> 01:15:37.464
whether they're smallholders or big business,

1615
01:15:37.544 --> 01:15:41.787
we work with everyone to start planting the good diversity of good seeds now.

1616
01:15:42.748 --> 01:15:43.989
So in 20 years time,

1617
01:15:44.049 --> 01:15:44.770
there's good growth.

1618
01:15:45.030 --> 01:15:45.150
Yeah,

1619
01:15:46.311 --> 01:15:49.912
it reminded me of a phrase from another Dutch farmer

1620
01:15:50.412 --> 01:15:52.693
I had on the podcast recently called Jeroen Klompe.

1621
01:15:53.114 --> 01:15:54.274
Okay.

1622
01:15:54.274 --> 01:15:59.376
He said that the system is like a huge ship that is not steerable.

1623
01:15:59.636 --> 01:15:59.796
Yeah.

1624
01:16:00.837 --> 01:16:03.998
And we're going to hit the iceberg at high speed.

1625
01:16:04.378 --> 01:16:04.538
Yeah.

1626
01:16:04.699 --> 01:16:07.820
And he said things need to get a lot worse before they actually can get better.

1627
01:16:08.980 --> 01:16:10.861
So I was wondering if that's something you agree with.

1628
01:16:11.221 --> 01:16:12.222
Because you said it yourself,

1629
01:16:12.242 --> 01:16:12.562
we need...

1630
01:16:12.942 --> 01:16:14.743
quite a radical shift.

1631
01:16:15.103 --> 01:16:16.784
We need people to be ready for that shift,

1632
01:16:16.824 --> 01:16:18.244
but it doesn't seem to be the case yet,

1633
01:16:18.385 --> 01:16:20.125
despite the science,

1634
01:16:20.506 --> 01:16:21.106
the IPCC,

1635
01:16:21.586 --> 01:16:23.567
despite the obvious climate change.

1636
01:16:24.327 --> 01:16:31.251
So is there any way we can have this radical shift without hitting the iceberg first?

1637
01:16:32.751 --> 01:16:38.014
I hope that by having the turmoil now and the discussions now,

1638
01:16:38.834 --> 01:16:45.416
that were in time to redesign the ship into a fleet of more agile ships.

1639
01:16:46.116 --> 01:16:46.576
Lifeboats,

1640
01:16:46.596 --> 01:16:47.236
yeah.

1641
01:16:47.356 --> 01:16:47.876
Lifeboats,

1642
01:16:48.037 --> 01:16:48.337
yeah.

1643
01:16:48.337 --> 01:16:49.017
And lighthouses.

1644
01:16:49.337 --> 01:16:50.177
And lighthouses,

1645
01:16:50.237 --> 01:16:51.918
yeah.

1646
01:16:51.958 --> 01:16:52.238
Yeah,

1647
01:16:52.238 --> 01:16:53.498
and then you come full circle.

1648
01:16:53.558 --> 01:16:53.938
Yeah,

1649
01:16:54.398 --> 01:16:54.718
nice,

1650
01:16:55.038 --> 01:16:55.299
nice.

1651
01:16:55.979 --> 01:17:02.100
If you could give one piece of advice to young people interested in pursuing a career in sustainable agriculture,

1652
01:17:02.621 --> 01:17:03.101
what would it be?

1653
01:17:03.781 --> 01:17:05.561
I'm asked that question a lot by the students actually,

1654
01:17:05.561 --> 01:17:07.362
because many of them

1655
01:17:08.230 --> 01:17:10.331
do pursue a career in stand-by culture,

1656
01:17:10.351 --> 01:17:12.532
whether that is in policy or business,

1657
01:17:12.652 --> 01:17:17.734
or indeed some of them actually start farming themselves and new entrants into the farms.

1658
01:17:19.255 --> 01:17:20.575
Two things that I would,

1659
01:17:20.815 --> 01:17:21.556
that I always say.

1660
01:17:22.016 --> 01:17:36.062
One is enrich yourself and your experience by working on farms and try and work on a diversity of farms and not just the lighthouse farms or the ecological pearls that are out there.

1661
01:17:36.382 --> 01:17:37.743
But also everyday farms.

1662
01:17:37.943 --> 01:17:38.864
Try and enrich us.

1663
01:17:38.924 --> 01:17:42.907
Try and learn why things are as they are.

1664
01:17:43.567 --> 01:17:44.468
First learn the rules,

1665
01:17:44.568 --> 01:17:45.949
because then you know how to break them.

1666
01:17:46.689 --> 01:17:47.730
In that kind of sense.

1667
01:17:48.430 --> 01:17:54.955
I see students who do that and who find it much easier to place all the concepts in reality.

1668
01:17:54.995 --> 01:17:58.537
To relate reality to the concepts that we're teaching.

1669
01:17:59.118 --> 01:18:00.619
So that is the first piece of advice.

1670
01:18:00.999 --> 01:18:03.221
And the second one is connect,

1671
01:18:03.281 --> 01:18:03.601
connect,

1672
01:18:03.661 --> 01:18:04.021
connect.

1673
01:18:04.702 --> 01:18:05.082
When the.

1674
01:18:05.322 --> 01:18:06.917
particularly when you start a new farm.

1675
01:18:07.614 --> 01:18:08.674
can be quite lonely,

1676
01:18:08.754 --> 01:18:09.935
can be quite isolating,

1677
01:18:09.955 --> 01:18:12.696
but also quite vulnerable if you're trying to do it on your own.

1678
01:18:13.316 --> 01:18:15.416
And the successful students,

1679
01:18:15.617 --> 01:18:18.677
I don't know if you've come across Howard from the Beasterhof.

1680
01:18:19.618 --> 01:18:21.798
He's one of our students who started his own farm.

1681
01:18:22.559 --> 01:18:25.980
And their success of him and Cloudy,

1682
01:18:26.060 --> 01:18:26.600
his partner,

1683
01:18:27.100 --> 01:18:33.042
is that they connected to all the different answers who all were able to contribute a piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

1684
01:18:33.822 --> 01:18:34.463
that they needed,

1685
01:18:34.543 --> 01:18:35.444
whether it's markets,

1686
01:18:35.504 --> 01:18:37.205
whether it's the change in regulations,

1687
01:18:37.285 --> 01:18:39.107
whether it is a labor requirement.

1688
01:18:39.567 --> 01:18:51.778
Everyone was able to offer them something that their job was to manage all these pieces and all these connections rather than trying to have to plow through it all by themselves.

1689
01:18:53.299 --> 01:18:56.602
The last question I ask this question to all of my guests at the end,

1690
01:18:56.662 --> 01:18:57.422
more of a fun one.

1691
01:18:58.844 --> 01:19:01.446
If you could organize a dinner party and...

1692
01:19:02.074 --> 01:19:05.737
invite any three people from past or present,

1693
01:19:06.677 --> 01:19:07.618
who would you invite,

1694
01:19:08.118 --> 01:19:08.338
why,

1695
01:19:08.819 --> 01:19:10.680
and what would you cook for them?

1696
01:19:12.081 --> 01:19:13.162
It's a really tough question,

1697
01:19:13.202 --> 01:19:13.542
Raphael.

1698
01:19:13.542 --> 01:19:15.263
Of all the questions you send to me,

1699
01:19:15.323 --> 01:19:16.344
that's the toughest one,

1700
01:19:16.344 --> 01:19:17.985
because there's so many interesting people.

1701
01:19:18.585 --> 01:19:19.906
I would actually choose,

1702
01:19:20.126 --> 01:19:21.707
I make a point,

1703
01:19:21.827 --> 01:19:29.132
try and make a point in my own life to also keep looking outside my own bubble and my own direct research interests.

1704
01:19:29.132 --> 01:19:29.633
It's really,

1705
01:19:30.413 --> 01:19:31.514
I also need to...

1706
01:19:31.870 --> 01:19:34.932
keep myself grounded so that I don't float away in my bubble,

1707
01:19:35.112 --> 01:19:35.632
if you like.

1708
01:19:36.533 --> 01:19:39.574
One way of doing that is very much through music.

1709
01:19:40.194 --> 01:19:40.935
I like music.

1710
01:19:41.155 --> 01:19:43.636
I understand your background is in music.

1711
01:19:44.297 --> 01:19:44.537
And

1712
01:19:45.277 --> 01:19:45.958
I sing in a choir.

1713
01:19:46.278 --> 01:19:47.038
And beautiful,

1714
01:19:47.318 --> 01:19:48.499
I like all sorts of music,

1715
01:19:48.579 --> 01:19:53.962
but beautiful music brings me closer to real life again and why we're here and what's needed.

1716
01:19:54.762 --> 01:20:00.225
One particular composer that I think masters that is from Estonia.

1717
01:20:00.365 --> 01:20:01.546
It's Part Usberg.

1718
01:20:02.054 --> 01:20:03.795
And I would love to have dinner with him,

1719
01:20:04.296 --> 01:20:06.638
just because it's a world I know very little about,

1720
01:20:06.698 --> 01:20:08.719
how his creative process,

1721
01:20:08.819 --> 01:20:09.660
how does that work?

1722
01:20:10.541 --> 01:20:16.866
Another way in which I try to keep grounding myself is by reading things outside my area of work.

1723
01:20:17.666 --> 01:20:22.810
And a book I was particularly taken by is Clara Anderson.

1724
01:20:23.531 --> 01:20:24.131
Have you read that?

1725
01:20:24.171 --> 01:20:25.032
Have you come across it?

1726
01:20:25.092 --> 01:20:27.714
It's about the near future and the butch.

1727
01:20:28.278 --> 01:20:30.319
how robots interact with society.

1728
01:20:30.359 --> 01:20:35.282
And it's beautifully and very subtly written by Kazao Ishiguro.

1729
01:20:35.282 --> 01:20:38.364
I have to write down his name because I've never met him.

1730
01:20:39.025 --> 01:20:41.686
But it is beyond the eye.

1731
01:20:42.807 --> 01:20:47.590
He paints a future that is neither utopian or dystopian.

1732
01:20:48.391 --> 01:20:50.012
It's neither one or the other.

1733
01:20:50.192 --> 01:20:51.493
It is just what it is.

1734
01:20:51.953 --> 01:20:53.534
And he does that in such a...

1735
01:20:53.894 --> 01:21:06.263
subtle way where also the beauty is found in the little things rather than the big things that I would love to also learn more about how he sees the world and how he comes to those to that writing.

1736
01:21:07.403 --> 01:21:11.566
And I'm going to finish up with a lady called Teber.

1737
01:21:12.567 --> 01:21:20.172
She is a community leader in the Ethiopian catchment that we started this conversation with.

1738
01:21:21.013 --> 01:21:22.333
And as I told you,

1739
01:21:22.434 --> 01:21:22.874
she's been

1740
01:21:23.238 --> 01:21:24.099
With her community,

1741
01:21:24.199 --> 01:21:26.280
she's guided her community through war,

1742
01:21:26.900 --> 01:21:27.640
through plagues,

1743
01:21:27.901 --> 01:21:28.841
through climate change.

1744
01:21:29.822 --> 01:21:32.103
And yet when I visited,

1745
01:21:32.403 --> 01:21:35.525
she shared bread and honey and drinks with me.

1746
01:21:36.385 --> 01:21:40.568
And her spark of inspiration is,

1747
01:21:40.668 --> 01:21:41.428
at the end of the day,

1748
01:21:41.548 --> 01:21:42.329
what it's all about.

1749
01:21:42.929 --> 01:21:43.209
It's,

1750
01:21:44.110 --> 01:21:46.871
I work for people like her because she's,

1751
01:21:47.171 --> 01:21:47.832
you and I talk,

1752
01:21:48.732 --> 01:21:49.953
she's making the future.

1753
01:21:51.494 --> 01:21:51.874
Beautiful.

1754
01:21:52.414 --> 01:21:55.276
And it sounds like a very nice company to have for a dinner.

1755
01:21:55.637 --> 01:21:55.977
Thank you.

1756
01:21:56.818 --> 01:21:56.938
Yeah,

1757
01:21:56.978 --> 01:21:57.678
and I probably,

1758
01:21:58.139 --> 01:21:58.959
going back to your question,

1759
01:21:58.980 --> 01:21:59.620
what I would cook,

1760
01:21:59.920 --> 01:22:01.942
I like to think I make a mean pokeball.

1761
01:22:02.002 --> 01:22:03.223
So that's probably what I would do.

1762
01:22:03.523 --> 01:22:04.064
Very nice.

1763
01:22:05.745 --> 01:22:06.486
Thank you so much,

1764
01:22:06.906 --> 01:22:07.146
Roger,

1765
01:22:07.206 --> 01:22:08.067
for taking the time.

1766
01:22:08.307 --> 01:22:08.587
Thank you,

1767
01:22:08.627 --> 01:22:09.028
Raphael.

1768
01:22:09.448 --> 01:22:10.169
Such a great time.

1769
01:22:10.289 --> 01:22:10.729
It's been a lot of fun.

1770
01:22:10.729 --> 01:22:13.291
This conversation with you is such an honor and pleasure.

1771
01:22:13.511 --> 01:22:14.312
Thanks a lot.

1772
01:22:14.552 --> 01:22:14.672
Yeah,

1773
01:22:14.793 --> 01:22:15.093
thank you.