What if I told you that every time you buy cheap food at the supermarket,
you're actually paying for it twice?
Once at the checkout,
of course,
but then once again in a way that you don't really see through the taxes you pay each year.
If you think that regenerative and organic foods are too expensive,
this episode will probably completely change your mind.
I am joined today by Adele Jones,
one of the most influential voices
in sustainable and regenerative agriculture to uncover the real cost of cheap food why our food system is broken and how we could fix it if you don't care about what you eat about your health or about the future of our planet look
away now but if you're ready to take the red pill and learn the uncomfortable truth about our food system i highly recommend you listen to this episode until the end this episode was made in partnership with soil capital i'm your host
Raphael and this is the Deep Seat Podcast.
Hi Adele,
could you please introduce yourself briefly for the listeners so that we can get to know you a little bit better before we get deeper into the conversation?
Absolutely and hi thank you for having me.
It's a real pleasure to be on the podcast.
My name's Adele.
I until very recently was executive director of an organization called the Sustainable Food Trust.
which maybe we can get into in a little bit more detail in a little while.
But
I am now working as a freelance food and farming advisor,
and I also help out on our farm in Wales where we farm sheep and beef mostly.
Could you maybe take us back to a moment in your life,
a specific story that you could tell us that shaped your path towards regenerative agriculture and food systems in general?
Yeah,
so I actually come from a farming family.
Um...
my family on my dad's side had a farm in Shropshire,
which is a County here in the UK,
um,
kind of Midlands to the West.
and it was a mixed farm.
I always,
I was probably too young to be honest,
to really know what was going on when,
when we had the farm and it was sold when I was fairly young,
but I suppose it was always in my blood.
Um,
and I always had that sort of itch inside me to,
to,
to follow back our family history.
Um,
so I didn't actually grow up on a farm.
I grew up in the,
in the countryside,
but not actively farming.
Um,
and I was always fascinated by two things when I was growing up,
mud,
the soil,
dirt,
whatever you want to call it,
building dens or digging holes and putting water in and seeing what bugs came out.
Always had muddy hands looking at,
looking at the soil and,
um,
and what was going on there.
and secondly,
measuring things,
which is a bit of a weird,
um,
obsession,
but,
it started when I was 16.
The first project I did as part of my GCSEs was to measure biodiversity in different habitats and then I carried that on and did another topic when I was doing my A-levels where I looked at,
again,
biodiversity in different habitats and then my university degree I focused in on measuring soil carbon change across habitat succession,
in this case at heathlands going from forest to heathlands.
So I was always
really fascinated by a what's happening in the ground but b measuring change and I suppose that was actually the thing that led me to food and agriculture was that fascination of how things can change over time and how you can measure that progress and so it was a little bit of circumstance right place right time that
after university after doing a couple of jobs
I stumbled across the sustainable food trust after many failed interviews elsewhere and started volunteering
as an unpaid intern,
basically helping them organise an event at the time.
And that was it.
The rest was history and I have learnt so,
so much over the last
14 or so years during that time.
Yeah,
12 years is a long time.
Could you maybe explain what the Sustainable Food Trust is and does?
Absolutely.
So the Sustainable Food Trust was started in 2012 by a man called Patrick Holden who was and is very
involved and significant in the global sustainable agriculture movement,
specifically in organics.
So Patrick used to run an organisation in the UK called The Soil Association,
which is our biggest organic inspection agency,
and also does advocacy around organic farming.
So he was a real figure in farming,
the organic farming movement.
But he basically decided in around 2010 that the time was right for various reasons for him to pursue
what the whole of agriculture could do to transition towards more sustainable farming.
So obviously looking at organic as perhaps the gold standard,
but thinking how do we help everyone go on this journey?
journey and that's where the sustainable food trust was born um so it was started in 2012 it got charitable status in 2013 and that's that's when i joined um and actually i think that's wrong i think i think it was the year before that uh but
its mission is to accelerate the transition to sustainable agriculture on a global scale and we use sustainable as a word
because although you could say it doesn't go far enough,
perhaps it's been tainted a little bit in recent years.
We try and be term agnostic a little bit when we're talking about transitioning to future food and farming systems.
I think sometimes words like regenerative,
even agroecology,
climate smart,
nature friendly farming,
they can they can create tension where there doesn't need to be.
And we would much rather focus on
using perhaps the broad term sustainable agriculture,
but really focusing on things like soil health,
water quality,
animal health and welfare,
social well-being of farmers as the North Star for where we want to go.
And then we kind of interchange the words depending on which groups we're talking to.
So that's our mission basically,
to work with everyone to transition to sustainable agriculture systems.
And
I still refer to the Sustainable Food Trust as we and our because...
although I don't officially work for them anymore,
it feels like part of my DNA.
And actually I'm still doing some work for them.
So for the purpose of this podcast,
I'll probably describe the Sustainable Food Trust as something I'm still involved in because the reality is you can't leave an organization like that ever.
Yeah,
okay.
Okay.
That makes a lot of sense.
And you said that the primary mission was to accelerate the transition to sustainable farming or regenerative forms of farming,
whatever you want to call them.
How's that going?
Oh,
good question.
I think in some...
yes,
let's start with the bad news.
We're not moving fast enough,
it's really clear.
Agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to biodiversity loss,
climate change,
water quality going down and of course human health being one of the biggest costs,
I suppose you could say,
with global agricultural systems.
I think that's clear.
And if anything,
I'd say we're still getting worse rather than getting better.
And so in that sense,
it can feel sometimes a little demoralising.
You're putting all your energy into this work and it feels like the world is conspiring against you.
And obviously,
in part,
that's due to difficult politics or conflict or big climate events making,
you know,
everything's kind of weighted against this transition slightly.
And yet...
It has the decisive advantage of there being no alternative.
We have no other choice but to transition to more regenerative food and farming systems.
Otherwise,
I think the future of humanity is at huge risk probably sooner than we think.
So the good news is that I think in the last 10 years,
maybe even the last five years since COVID,
there has been the most monumental mindset shift in the way that people think about food and farming.
think and talk about agriculture.
And that may not have yet filtered through to kind of everyday people buying food on the ground,
partly because I don't think they're yet empowered to think about it and make different decisions.
But I think certainly in conversations I've been involved with,
with government,
with big companies,
with small companies,
big farmers,
small farmers,
there's a new sense of consciousness,
I think,
about agriculture.
like we can't carry on as we have done.
How do we shift things?
And
I've been in conversations with some of the,
you know,
the largest food companies in the world that you may perceive to be kind of evil beasts and perhaps some of them are,
but they are really genuinely now thinking about this and it's more from their perspective around the idea of risk and resilience of their long-term business.
So it might not be quite for the same reasons that everyone is thinking about this,
but
I think mindsets...
are shifting and that is probably you know one of the biggest things that has to change first so in that sense i feel really positive about the future because like the conditions are all lining up we just need to fit them all together now and make it happen right yeah that's
summed up really well the way i feel about about it as well i've been in this space for only a couple of years i'm still a bit of a regen baby but i found i found it to be both incredibly um
inspiring and hopeful and exciting,
and also very frustrating.
Because the first thing I did was discover these amazing solutions to some of the biggest problems we have in the world,
and solutions that seem to make sense on every possible level.
including economic as well,
which is often the issue when we talk about sustainability and climate and stuff.
And so that gives me so much energy,
so much hope and excitement for these solutions.
But then in the last couple of years,
I've seen very little progress.
It's moving,
it's bubbling up,
there's things happening,
but the speed is very slow.
And that gets me really,
really frustrated that we have these solutions ready.
I mean,
they can improve,
we can improve the science,
the innovation,
technology,
all of that.
But
it's there,
it's ready to scale.
And we're not quite doing it yet.
You said there's a whole bunch of reasons for that.
But if you had to pick one thing that's blocking us from going sort of faster with this transition?
I think the reality is,
and as much as I wish sometimes this wasn't the case,
I think money economics is the biggest barrier we still face.
And you're right.
It's like
probably coming out of COVID,
there was a huge amount of energy,
a huge amount of investment in regenerative agriculture.
Since then,
obviously,
various global events have taken place and
I would say that's made the economics even more challenging than they were before.
So we've,
I think,
for example,
I can't remember the statistics,
but all these new sustainability jobs were created a few years ago in companies where these roles didn't exist before.
And I think quite a lot of those jobs have been lost because suddenly...
We're back to kind of looking at the bottom line again and keeping businesses alive.
And then,
of course,
sustainability slips down the to-do list,
which it shouldn't do,
but it's still the case that it isn't always top priority.
And I think economics is so difficult because our global economic system is operating on completely distorted values and values
What we as society perceive to be important in monetary terms doesn't necessarily align with the long-term resilience of our planet,
basically.
So
I'm talking here about a discipline we refer to called true cost accounting,
where as well as what we account for in normal terms,
how much money you make,
how much money you lose,
we also look at how you can value money.
things that are not traditionally valued by society,
things like soil health,
like good animal welfare,
like good mental health of farmers or farm workers.
And actually,
if you start to place where appropriate,
and sometimes it's not appropriate,
but where appropriate,
if you start to place a value on those things and then start to attribute that value to where it's coming from,
it then suddenly shifts the economics entirely on its head,
Traditionally,
the best business model at the moment is to produce as much food as you can at as low as possible cost.
Don't worry about the environmental health impacts,
someone else will pick up that tab.
True cost accounting effectively does the opposite.
It factors in both the negative and the positive,
what we call externalities,
external costs,
and puts them on a balance sheet so if you are doing things to rebuild your soil health,
that's a green.
kind of positive cost on your balance sheet.
If you are doing things to pollute your water,
that's a negative cost on your balance sheet and it creates thus an adjusted balance sheet for farms,
for businesses,
for individual people based on your real cost to the environment and society and I think that's where when you start to think about economics and financial barriers in that way,
you suddenly think
the things that are stopping us at the moment are not it's not really the reality it's it's our perceived reality of what of what is financially important to us and so i in long conclusion to your question uh i think finances and economics represents the biggest barrier right now but
it also doesn't make any sense okay i'm gonna i'm gonna see if i understood this correctly right the economics is the biggest barrier um but it shouldn't be because you've
Well,
you mentioned true cost accounting.
And if I understand what you mean by that is that there is the price of food that we pay at the till at the supermarket or so.
And there's the whole hidden cost of food.
That's what we still pay,
but not directly at the till.
So things like health care,
mental health,
having to clean up ecosystems that are polluted,
dealing with climate change because of greenhouse gas emissions,
things like that.
Right.
It has an actual cost.
It's not just a made up invention.
Because we care about the butterflies,
then we should add value to that.
It's more,
it actually costs something to society.
Exactly.
We're actually paying for destructive agriculture,
intensive agriculture already in ways that we don't realise.
So to put it simply,
the Sustainable Food Trust released a report in 2017.
It was updated in 2019 called The Hidden Cost of UK Food.
And it found that at the very minimum for every £1 you spend in the supermarket...
you're paying another pound in ways you don't realise to clean up the cost of that largely conventional food.
It might be in your water bill to take nitrates out the water.
It might be to pay for the National Health Service.
It might be to pay for government subsidies,
which then subsidise intensive agriculture again.
So it's this weirdly destructive cycle where we think food is cheap,
but it's actually very expensive in most cases.
Whereas if you flip that on its head and you look at
you know,
genuinely regenerative,
sustainable,
healthy,
nutritious food.
I'm not suggesting it should necessarily be cheaper than it is at the moment.
And that's a whole conversation in itself,
but it shouldn't be so disproportionately expensive compared to the cheap food,
which is not really cheap at the moment because of the environmental and social costs.
So one pound,
you spend another pound.
Actually,
the Rockefeller Foundation found in their similar report that it was $1 for every $3.
So you
spend one dollar and you pay three dollars to clean up the costs so it's somewhere you know in that region is huge okay so whenever you spend one pound on your food at the shop there's between one and three
pounds of extra costs to society that you pay for with taxpayer money.
You're paying for it in another way we just don't realise.
It's massive,
it's huge,
especially considering that the part of what you pay at a supermarket that goes to the farmer is quite small.
I remember figures that are under 10%.
I don't remember the exact figures,
I don't know if you have any to share but I have sort of 7-8%
in mind,
I'm not sure I'm correct on this.
No,
I think you're right and I think different commodities are different and depends if you're
selling direct,
obviously you'll get a larger percentage but it's tiny proportions of the cost goes back to the farmer.
It's absolutely mind-blowingly unfair.
And so if by,
I don't know,
helping and incentivising farmers to change the way they farm,
to farm in harmony with nature,
to help regenerating,
rebuilding biodiversity in nature,
storing carbon,
doing all these amazing things that cost us triple,
sometimes up to triple the
the amount we pay for food,
right?
It would cost a tiny,
tiny fraction to solve that problem at the source with the farmer by helping farmers rather than cleaning up the mess at the end.
Totally.
An example is here in the UK,
at least,
and I think in Europe,
we're probably one of the worst countries for this at the moment.
But diet related ill health is our second biggest cost to
if you recycled even 10%
of that money back to farmers to help them produce more healthy,
nutritious food,
and then incentivize more of that food to go into schools and hospitals and care homes and prisons,
I don't know the figures but you could save the NHS so much more money than it is costing to clean up negative health externalities.
Which just makes so much sense but it requires long-term thinking which as we know
governments especially,
but businesses are not very good at putting into practice.
And so we've just got to get better at making the case,
telling the stories and also showcasing examples of where things have happened which can genuinely result in a positive change and make it an election issue,
a buying customer,
buying issue.
There's so many things we've got to do.
Okay.
Well let's do that.
Let's talk about examples.
Do you have any to share?
Well
I mean an interesting one.
I,
earlier this year went to
Bhutan which is a country in between
India and Chinese Tibet.
And it was totally non-work related.
I went on a walking trip with some friends which was absolutely unbelievable.
It's a very unique country as many people know because it's the only country in the world that doesn't measure its success on GDP gross national product.
It measures its success on gross national happiness,
and they have a happiness index.
And that is how every decision that the government and monarchy—it's a kind of quasi-democracy-monarchy situation there—every decision they make for the country is based on:
will this make our people happier and healthier?
Will this make our wildlife happier and healthier?
Will this clean our rivers?
Will this result in more clean energy for the country?
You could sort of say,
okay,
well it's a tiny country.
It receives a lot of money from the World Bank and the Indian government.
So it's a little...
Of course they don't have to maybe be so reliant on gross national product that other countries do.
But actually it was so inspiring to speak to local people.
And the other amazing thing about it is that they've kind of been cut off from the rest of the world for such a long time.
People only really started going in the sort of
70s and 80s,
very tiny amounts of people,
and they're very restrictive on tourism.
So the country has kind of operated as it has done for hundreds of years,
and it hasn't really changed.
They have a very simple diet,
they kind of eat the same thing the whole time,
it's based on what they grow,
it's very tasty,
and they're really happy.
The people...
yeah,
they're very healthy.
Their kids eat all local food.
They have a bit of an issue these days with young people perhaps starting to realise that there is a world out there and wanting to go to places like Australia and so they're trying to figure out a way to bring people back to the country but it really inspired me seeing
how thriving that country was and how actually possible it is to do something different
And it's a real microcosm of a place,
but
I kind of came away from those 10 days walking in the mountains thinking an alternative parallel universe is possible.
I've just seen it.
What is happening there that we could do differently in the places where we live?
Me going there was true cost accounting in practice and one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen.
Coming back to the Sustainable Food Trust and the 12 years you spent there,
what would you say is your proudest achievement there?
So in terms of my proudest achievement at the Sustainable Food Trust,
I think my real passion,
and it comes back to...
why I got into all of this is a project called the Global Farm Metric,
which we started back in
2016-ish. And it really came from this principle of true cost accounting where we were starting to think,
how do we place a value on things that we don't value as society in monetary terms where we can?
And there were a few different initiatives starting there.
to pop up at the time.
One was called TEAB AgriFood,
which is a very long acronym.
It was funded by the UN Environment Programme and it stands for the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity in agriculture and food.
Catchy.
So it was initially called TEAB Ag,
which we vetoed.
So it's called
TEAB AgriFood.
And it's an amazing,
amazing initiative that is still running now.
And they,
back in the early days,
20,
maybe sort of 16,
17,
they commissioned a load of true cost studies.
So we looked at the true cost of palm oil,
the true cost of fisheries,
true cost of beef,
the true cost of sugar,
like all these different commodities basically and got different consultants around the world to undertake these analysis of products
of the true cost of these products.
At the end of it,
we realised we might have had six or seven different really interesting studies like the true cost of rice is this,
the true cost of beef is this.
But because every one of the consultancies or academic teams had used a different framework to measure the impact,
they were almost non-comparable and kind of not that useful because how can you go to a policymaker and say,
well,
we think it might be this,
but this study also says this because they used a different framework.
The same is true for things like carbon accounting now.
And that really led us to think,
hmm,
surely there needs to be a common language and a common framework for measuring impact before we can then start to think about monetizing for true cost accounting purposes.
And surely that framework,
if it's going to influence farmers,
should be designed by farmers so that it actually helps them transition rather than imposes something on them.
And so that's how the Global Farm Metric as it is now known was born.
We pulled together a group of farmers and said,
look,
let's not reinvent the wheel here.
What are the best things that you already record?
Audits that you already do,
which as we know,
farmers are not generally fond of their audits,
but just asking them,
okay,
what's actually useful to you that you already send off to various people?
15 days maybe,
not consecutively,
over the course of a year or so,
designing this framework.
Which many iterations later is now what we call the global farm metric.
It was the idea in its very early days was taken up by a politician we had in this country called Michael Gove who was Secretary of State for DEFRA,
our
Department of Agriculture and Food and Rural Affairs.
And he thought it was a good idea.
He sort of announced it in a speech and I was then seconded into government for a year to work on it,
to bring this idea to life.
How can we have a harmonised set of metrics that everyone uses to measure sustainability on farm?
Not just focusing on one thing like carbon or nature but really looking at the holistic nature of what happens on a farm in economic,
environmental and a social sense.
And how can we use that framework to then measure things like the success of farming policies or transparency in the supply chain,
or how banks should finance farmers?
Everyone is using the same framework and same language to make those decisions.
So we can all agree that we're going in this direction rather than
12 different directions depending on people's interests.
So
I mean it's really gone from strength to strength and it's been an incredibly difficult project to take forward because
We,
the Sustainable Food Trust,
were only ever the conduits of the idea.
It had to be designed by farmers and then everyone that would make use of that information and data.
So it's been an incredibly collaborative effort,
many back and forths,
many wins,
many fails.
But now it's...
It's actually often not by name.
The framework is popping up now everywhere.
So
I'd say we've done our job inspiring and catalyzing other people to think it's their idea.
And I can say that now I'm not employed by the Sustainable Food Trust.
Most sort of frameworks that you'll see published at the moment are in some way based on the Global Farm Metrics.
So I feel really proud.
I have to sometimes hone back the
We did that,
but it's fine.
I mean,
that's success at the end of the day.
So that's my proudest.
Amazing.
Yeah.
So I love that it started with farmers and that it includes different things like socioeconomics as well.
Could you just tell us maybe a little bit more about the kind of things that are measured and the kind of indicator that this gives you as an output at the end?
Yeah.
So as I said,
the framework...
is holistic in nature.
It covers economic,
environmental and social outcomes.
It has 12 categories of assessment at a high level.
And those are relatively high levels.
So it talks about soil health,
nature and biodiversity,
farmers and farm workers,
for example.
And wherever possible,
we do try and use outcome metrics rather than practices because I think that sort of information is going to become more and more useful.
So by outcome metrics,
changes in soil organic matter over time,
rather than relying so much on things like,
oh,
if you plant that cover crop,
you're likely to have this average increase in your soil organic matter.
So ultimately we do do both because at the moment it's quite hard to measure everything at an outcome level.
It's quite expensive and time consuming also.
But that's where I think things like technology,
satellite imagery,
AI,
probe,
apps on your phone to measure bird noises.
That's where these sort of outcome metrics,
I think,
will start to actually now be scaled quite quickly.
So yes,
we look at like keystone species,
for example,
try and do a calculation based on the number of different bird species and ideally the abundance that's harder to measure.
And hopefully that should give farmers and businesses a hard piece of information upon which to
change decision making or introduce a new idea onto the farm and see what happens over time.
Okay,
yeah.
You said it earlier,
we need to find a way to all speak the same language,
right?
And this sounds fairly difficult or complicated or even expensive for farmers to measure all of that and to have some kind of system where all this can be
put in.
And how do you imagine that becoming then,
you know,
a common tool that's used by all farmers so that we can all speak the same language?
I would absolutely love to say,
I think we can make this really easy for farmers and they won't have to,
you know,
lift a finger and we'll just have all this information.
I unfortunately don't think it's the case.
I think part of the big mindset shift we need to go on together is that data and information is
is in itself going to become a commodity in food and farming,
which is really,
really valuable.
And using the terminology public money for public goods,
I think data is a public good.
So I think so many people are going to make use of,
for example,
the carbon footprint of a farm.
It shouldn't be up to the farmer to pay for that and for the burden all to be on them.
We need to make sure that this really valuable information that different people in the supply chain and value chain will make use of
is there's an incentive for the farmer to collect it basically.
So I think supplying data should become almost like a kind of commodity in the supply chain,
not to the same extent where farmers become commodity slaves as they have done with food or with products they supply.
But I think we need to start seeing data as not just a nice-to-have or something that farmers should do because they think it's the right thing to do,
but actually as something which is really valuable and that we should be paying for.
And then I think there will be tools and technology which will make it slicker and easier over time.
And that will also make a big difference.
But first,
we need to get the fundamentals and the architecture right.
Okay,
yeah.
So instead of just putting it all on the farmer to measure,
to pay for it,
energy and time doing that,
it should be more of a whole supply chain thing,
including public funding,
private companies.
So that everyone together agrees that we need to fund this because it's useful for the whole supply chain.
Yeah,
totally.
I mean,
this sort of data,
for example,
will feed into company emissions reporting,
scope three emissions as they're sometimes referred to.
And companies will start,
I think,
to compete on sustainability grounds.
Therefore,
that sort of information is incredibly valuable to them.
And so there should be a carrot there for farmers so that...
give us this information,
we'll give something back to you.
I think that's how agriculture has worked and I don't see why we shouldn't do the same for data.
I really hope that you're enjoying this conversation so far.
Let me just take a few seconds to tell you about the official partner of the Deep Seed podcast,
Soil Capital.
So,
Soil Capital is a company that accelerates the transition to regenerative agriculture by financially rewarding farmers who improve things like soil health and biodiversity.
If you'd like to learn more about them,
I will leave a link in the description of this episode.
Now let's get back to the conversation.
We hear a lot about the term food security.
What does it really mean in your view?
I think obviously it means producing enough food to feed what is inevitably a growing population.
But the part of the term or the conversation that might sometimes be missing is food.
But what about long-term resilience?
What about making sure we have food security for tomorrow as well as in
20, 50,
100 years'
time?
And so that's where regenerative agriculture really comes to play effectively because we're not just thinking about the solution now because actually you can't implement regenerative farming overnight.
What we're really thinking about is how we produce food in a way which can feed our children and grandchildren.
And a common...
pushback I suppose you'll have to that is yes but of course regenerative organic uh more sustainable whichever term farming you you want to describe won't produce as much food like you need more land area to produce the same amount of food how on earth are you ever going to feed a
population which is you know going like this in most parts of the world um and that was a question we really lent into at the Sustainable Food Trust because it's it was always the pushback
Like this is just a pipe dream you have.
Like it's a really nice picture in your mind,
but it's not the reality.
We need intensive production to produce calories.
And so we started a project called Feeding Britain from the Ground Up.
And again,
we used the UK as a case study because it's an interesting place with lots of different farming types all happening in the same country.
But also we feel strongly that as an organization based in the UK,
We've got to try and figure out what's right at home before we start going to other places and figuring out what's right in other places.
So what we did was we divided up the UK into small kind of area dimensions,
blocks basically and looked at the different farming systems that could thrive in a regenerative sense in those different places.
And so we had all these different farming types,
mostly mixed farming wherever possible,
because we took nitrogen fertilizer out of the equation entirely in our model.
So mostly mixed farming to build resilience,
sorry,
to build fertility in a natural way.
But in some places it's just not possible to grow naturally.
to grow crops for example,
so permanent pasture and grazing is the best land use in certain parts of the UK.
So we had all these different farming types and looked at what regenerative farming would look like if the whole country transitioned.
And it really was about mixing it up.
It was taking pasture and grassland rotations back into the arable east of the UK
arable fruit and vegetable production back into the west and really just jumbling it all back up again to how it used to be they used to for example be grain mills thousands of grain mills across wales there's almost none now because virtually very
few farms grow arable crops because it's just become sort of the done thing that you you grow grass and you graze animals in wales that's what you do there it's very good for growing grass but actually there's a huge amount of
um land in in places like wales which is very appropriate for growing crops we just don't have the processing infrastructure anymore to to turn those crops into things that we can eat um so the report basically said no you can we just need to mix everything up and
then interestingly we looked at how much food and in what ratios those farms would produce in the uk so again like all the different farming types lots of calculations lots of
moving different scenarios around.
And basically we found that we could maintain,
if not increase our national food security with regenerative agriculture in the UK with three conditions.
Firstly,
as a population,
we need to eat a little bit less.
And I think that's generally sort of,
like it's not particularly controversial thing to say.
I think we do over consume slightly.
We waste a hell of a lot less.
We waste up to 50%
of our food at farm level.
within the supply chain and at home.
50%?
Yeah,
up to 50%.
It sort of depends slightly which sector you're looking at.
But it's like between a third and 50%
of the food we produce.
That is crazy.
And if we even reduce the amount of waste by half,
I don't know how many more calories that would mean at the end of the day,
but it's a huge amount.
So we need to waste way less.
And thirdly,
we need to change what we eat.
because actually we are not eating within the carrying capacity of our landscape here in the UK.
We eat for example way too much intensive pork and poultry.
That pork and poultry requires grain from the UK,
but also grain from all over the place or from overseas.
And that's an incredibly unsustainable model.
And basically because we were transitioning the farms in the model to mixed farming
The amount of grain in total that we were producing on farms in the UK actually fell quite significantly.
But we weren't too worried about that because we said,
well,
actually,
we can still eat the same amount of grain as a population as we do now.
What needs to go down is the amount of that grain that we're feeding to animals.
So pork and poultry came down by 80 percent in our model.
Beef and lamb remained roughly the same because they are so important.
For a country that can produce grass in a sustainable way,
in a temperate country,
building fertility using grazing and animals is incredibly important.
Maybe we can get into that a bit more in a minute.
So beef and lamb remained roughly the same,
which perhaps is a surprise because often when you think about meat,
it's the red meat which gets the worst press.
Whereas we were saying,
no,
it's the white meat that we need to get rid of mostly in this country.
And then,
of course,
more fruit,
more local fruit and vegetables,
more nut trees,
more agroforestry.
And yeah,
it was it was an incredibly interesting study because I think it
I think it provided a,
you know,
perhaps slightly rustic in some in some cases.
But it provided an alternative vision for the future to some of the other reports that have come out.
And actually,
since then...
There have been various reports which have complemented our results and they might have used a slightly different data set,
but it's not vastly different to what we came out with.
So I think it is possible.
You just need to view the future differently.
And instead of looking at why can't things happen at the moment because it's hard for various reasons,
we just said,
no,
let's just look at what's going on.
what would happen in an ideal world,
not worry about why that can't happen because it's difficult.
And actually we found it was completely possible to grow enough regenerative food to feed a population.
So very exciting.
That's amazing That's amazing.
So you were trying to prove that you can feed the entire of the UK?
Not entirely because we are an overpopulated country so we maintain - we're about 60%
self-sufficient in the UK.
So it's maintaining if not actually going slightly above that.
In the current system,
how do you count,
for example,
all of the ghost acres for grain or other crops that are grown abroad to feed British animals?
Do you still consider that to be produced in Britain for UK?
No,
I mean,
in our model,
we looked at only feed that could be grown in the UK to support animals.
the livestock which we believe to be part of the solution.
So,
we took shadow acres out of the equation basically,
which is why pork and poultry came down by so much.
So yeah,
but the current system,
when people are asking can you feed the whole population,
can you feed the world with regenerative agriculture?
But often we're not really taking into consideration the fact that we already need way more land abroad somewhere to be farmed so that we can feed ourselves here,
right?
Exactly,
exactly.
It's just another of these things that
isn't quite as it seems when you dig below the surface.
Okay,
yeah.
We can maybe talk a little bit more about livestock farming.
It's such a divisive topic I found in the regenerative space.
I come more from a background of being more of an animals rights activist,
environmentalist,
whatever you want to call it.
And
I've grown to appreciate the nuance of the topic because over the last two years,
I've visited a lot of farms and I've met a lot of farmers who include animals as part of the systems.
And I've seen the amazing potential that this has for ecosystem health and biodiversity,
soil health and all of that.
So yeah,
I find the debate often very polarized on social media and online and on media.
And I found that actually the truth is a lot more nuanced.
And I thought maybe you could help us unpack all of that.
Yes,
you're definitely right.
It's very nuanced conversation.
And this is also a topic which has come a hugely long way in the last 10 years.
I mean,
I'd say it was probably 10 years ago that the sort of vegan movement,
let's say,
really kicked off and people became much more conscious about the animal products they were eating.
All these documentaries came out and suddenly,
you know,
it felt like the world went
wild.
I think probably still the percentage of people that were actually eating vegan food was very small,
but there was this real sort of buzz around veganism.
And of course then the market caught on and they developed all these plant-based foods,
which we now realise are full of crap basically.
And I think that market has kind of since gone down again and people are much more conscious about,
yes,
of course we need to eat more plant-based food.
And of course in total,
meat consumption globally,
you know everywhere.
But actually it's not,
you know just calling it meat is much like saying eat less plants.
It's way too simplistic.
We need to really dig into what type of meat and how it was grown and that's where we see livestock coming in as a really important part of the solution.
So specifically as we were talking about before mixed farming really being the future I see of agriculture.
When you take out inputs such as nitrogen fertilizer,
you need to build soil fertility in a natural way.
And you need to have crop rotations to restore the soil before you then plant grains,
wheat,
barley,
rye,
maize,
whatever it might be.
You need to have a period of rest and a period of fertility building to build the soil back up.
And that period can be significantly sped up and actually much more effective if you're grazing animals during that period of rest.
It also allows the farmer to make money when effectively the field is in a fallow period,
you could say.
Which is obviously really important,
like farms have to make money.
Not only that,
but animals that graze on grass are much healthier for us to eat than animals that are raised on grain.
They are herbivores at the end of the day.
They are meant to digest cellulose.
They are not meant to digest carbohydrates.
So naturally it's intuitive for us to think.
"Hmm,
maybe I should eat an animal that was eating what it was meant to eat."
And there's a saying which I like:
"You are what you eat ate."
And I think that's really important to think about.
So if you graze animals on grass in a mixed farming system or on permanent pasture,
which is also very valuable as habitat,
if managed in the right way,
they are an incredibly important tool for us to build soil
fertility and of course soil fertility means potentially more carbon,
more water,
more biodiversity.
So we have to think of these animals as tools I think.
And of course an outcome of using those tools is that we have an incredibly nutritious product where,
and I say this like very,
it's a very important point that that can't happen in every place in the world.
It's not possible to grow grass and crops in every place in the world.
Therefore,
we shouldn't be trying to put these animals in feedlots in the middle of the desert.
That's not where they should be.
We need to think about where am I?
Where do I live?
Where am I visiting?
And how do I consume products which are part of the toolkit that farmers have to grow regenerative food or the outcome of regenerative food and farming systems?
So how can we eat the landscape which is?
within which we are in.
And for a place like here in the UK and much of Western Europe,
where we grow grass very well,
which is an incredibly important crop,
eating those red meat products from grass-based systems is important.
But absolutely that does not mean we should be eating intensive livestock that's being fed on grain.
That sort of production really needs to be phased out because it just makes no sense for so many reasons.
Yeah,
absolutely.
I think that's what frustrates me the most about this debate sometimes.
When I see people arguing,
I try not to get into it too much online.
But it's that on the one hand,
I can see climate activists and animal rights activists,
environmentalists,
that group having very,
very good arguments to say,
well,
intensive livestock farming is disastrous.
It's really,
really bad.
Massive land footprint issues.
massive environmental impacts,
greenhouse gas emissions and the whole ethical part also which is huge.
I mean they have very very good arguments to say we should do everything we can to reduce or eliminate that completely.
On the other side of the spectrum you have these regenerative farmers who are doing mixed farming,
who are doing these sort of holistic grazing systems and I visited many of them and I see these animals living in
dreamland,
you know,
having beautiful lives.
And obviously,
there's still need to slaughter them at the end,
which is,
you know,
it's hard for me to accept,
but this is its life.
And they're doing an amazing job at regenerating ecosystems are producing great quality food,
you know,
and so,
So there's definitely a world where both are possible,
where we can get rid of and reduce completely intensive farming while we can accept that animals need to be part of the whole farming ecosystem.
And these two shouldn't be fighting,
but more like coexisting and collaborating and finding ways to work together towards a better food system.
Yeah,
absolutely.
There's so many factors here.
I think
I was reminded of the right animals in the right place this last week
because I've been recently doing some work with an organisation called Menorca Preservation which as the name suggests is an organisation on Menorca and they do various things including ocean conservation,
reducing plastics,
clean energy and agriculture and I've been working with them to develop a strategy for their agriculture and 95%
over 95%
in fact of
Menorca's useful agricultural land area is dedicated to
dairy farming,
which is mad.
It's a tiny island.
You would never think that it supports that much dairy,
but it does because there used to be at least a really strong market for the cheese that they produce.
And they still do produce a lot of cheese,
but the conventional milk price is becoming tighter and tighter.
So suddenly these farms,
which once were making a huge amount of money are perhaps making less.
And the interesting thing is that in the pursuit of productivity,
you know,
And Frisian cows were bought to the island several decades ago,
basically,
because they used to have a local breed that they used called the Menorquin cow.
It's a sort of browny red colour that's been there since 2000 BC on the island.
They can see evidence of the cow being there since then.
But they're not as productive as the sort of traditional Frisian breeds that we use in larger intensive dairy farms in most of Europe or,
in fact,
the world.
And so it was problematic.
deemed to be appropriate to effectively phase out the local cow and instead bring in these Friesians because they could produce more milk and therefore produce more cheese.
Now,
several decades later,
they're realising that the feed costs for these Friesians are so high and those costs are forever going up basically because it's costing more to produce that feed.
Also,
water usage is enormous and water is a huge issue on the island.
And so suddenly this,
you know,
what we thought was like profit coming from these Friesian cows is actually being eroded by all the other costs that the farmers are having to pay for to keep these animals going.
On the other hand,
you see these,
the few remaining Menorcan cows on the island,
and I actually saw a herd where they were both mixed together in the same field.
They can survive on air,
basically.
That's what they're designed to do.
They eat very poor quality forage.
They can eat stuff from the woodlands.
They can eat almost like dead grass during the summer.
And they look so healthy compared to the Friesians because they're on that island.
Epigenetic,
we call it epigenetic adaptation has allowed them to adapt so well to that place and the heat and the dry.
They are the right animals in the right place.
And yet we phase them out in pursuit of so-called productivity opportunities.
to bring in this other breed and we now obviously need to take it the other way and bring the local Menorcan breed back
Which is part of the strategy that I'm working on which is completely fascinating and it's like a such you know I saw these two cows standing next to each other and the Friesian was
Like kind of ribby and you could see it needed a bit more concentrate in its diet to be able to survive and look well And the Menorcan was almost looking fat in comparison.
And you just think man,
okay,
like,
you know,
I
What have we done here?
We've meddled so much and the right animal in the right place is so important.
And again,
that's where true cost accounting,
but also just a regenerative mindset around finances as well comes into play.
It's not just about how much you produce and how much money you make from what you produce,
but it's about all the costs involved,
both physical costs,
environmental costs,
social costs.
And actually when you start to factor those in things like the local breed,
which may be less productive,
um,
make a hell of a lot more sense in that place.
Yeah,
and talking about the other potential costs,
I guess that's an island that also relies a lot on tourism and having so many dairy farms on an island like this must have an impact on the ecosystem,
on the water,
on the coast,
right?
So there's probably a huge loss that's not being factored in in tourism and other things of the sort,
right?
Yeah,
exactly.
Water,
for example,
pollution for example water extraction um and you know biodiversity it's yeah it's we really need to help that island transition back to a more mixed approach because it's so beautiful so many people want to go there and the type of people that go there are actually the ones that potentially could afford to pay a bit more for good local food yeah
yeah for sure um there's something else that caught my attention in what you said is that uh you talked about the quality of the food produced
a cow that's grazing healthy pasture rather than fed grain it produces healthier meat at the end and that's the whole topic of nutrient density now that's kind of gaining more traction and attention is one that i really really find interesting
as well um and i i saw a
posts that you wrote on LinkedIn quite recently saying that,
you asked the question,
what if we paid farmers based on nutrition per hectare?
So yeah,
maybe you could explain what inspired that post.
Yeah,
I mean,
I think it goes back to the,
I call it regenerative finance mindset.
It's not a very catchy term,
but we pay farmers effectively for yield per acre or yield per hectare at the moment.
and or liters per kilogram of product,
it's really based on how much you can produce on as little as possible area effectively.
That obviously doesn't take into account at all the nutritional benefit or detriment of that product.
And this again comes back to we're paying for the cleanup of bad food and leading to bad health when in fact we could be paying farmers to produce highly nutritious food and perhaps instead of having farmers
you know,
500 cows.
You could have 200 cows but produce really,
really good quality milk and they should be paid for that quality rather than quantity and the same is absolutely true if not more true for fruit and vegetables and fresh products like that.
So I think if you paid farmers for nutrition per hectare,
again,
you would completely shift the business model away from just produce as much as you can,
don't worry about the environmental and health costs and instead really think about
how you factor those health externalities in that source and pay for the cause rather than the symptom.
So it's really exciting.
It's obviously an area where we need a lot more data because there's been some academic studies looking at,
as you said,
the difference between grass fed meat and grain fed meat.
It's fairly well established how those different systems result in different nutritional benefits or disadvantages.
It's all to do,
I won't go into the detail,
but it's all to do with omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratios.
A bit geeky.
But basically grass fed,
i.e.
feeding cows what they should be eating,
shock creates a more nutritious and healthy product for us to eat.
There needs to be more research on different farming systems and their result on nutrition in tomatoes,
for example,
or vegetables.
it's quite difficult still at the moment to kind of create a causative link between regenerative farming means more nutrition because regenerative farming is not a black and white you know you're a genitive or you're not it's it's a it's a way of thinking and it's a spectrum of approaches and
therefore you know at the moment unless you're measuring individual tomatoes or carrots whatever it might be it's a little difficult to say this system is definitely going to create more nutritious products but i think we'll get there but in terms of sort of
outcome based mindset,
if we were measuring nutrition per hectare or ton or something like that rather than just the weight or the volume.
And we could see which farms or which producers are producing higher quantity of nutrients.
Yeah,
all of the minerals,
the vitamins,
the polyphenols,
we need to be healthy,
not just calories.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Then I mean,
potentially,
we could reward that because if we me as a consumer,
If I have the choice between two carrots and I see that one of them has like four times more nutrients,
vitamins,
polyphenols,
all of that.
I know this is what's going to nourish me,
that's going to make me healthy.
And so I'm going to be inclined to pay more for that.
Yeah,
totally.
And I think,
yeah,
imagine going around and you have some app on your phone or even better,
it's even more clear somehow when you're in the shops.
as you say,
the different levels of micronutrients as well as macronutrients.
And really giving people,
empowering people to be able to make a different decision based on that is incredibly exciting.
And there's so many interesting projects to call out a couple.
The Bionutrient Food Association in the States is looking at sort of spectrometer that can measure nutrition.
The Periodic Table of Food Initiative,
which is
funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation,
is an incredible detailed initiative looking at different nutritional compositions of different food groups.
So there's some amazing work going on and I feel like we're near a breakthrough on this.
The other key thing is to make sure that it's not just the people in society who earn more money that are able to have access to this food.
It's really,
really important that we find ways
ideally through government incentives,
I would say,
to make sure everyone in society has access to healthy,
nutritious food from schools all the way through to people cooking in their homes and eating out in restaurants.
So that's also obviously an incredibly important part of the conversation.
Yeah,
I really feel like with the whole concept of true cost accounting.
if that really takes off,
then healthy food would become the norm.
It wouldn't be more expensive because if you take into consideration all of these externalities,
all of these extra costs,
then conventional food grown with a very intensive extractive system would become so much more expensive.
Exactly.
And since we already have regenerative farmers right now proving that they can produce similar amounts,
better quality but while being regenerative,
they would be able to keep producing for a certain
similar price,
maybe a little bit higher or something,
but similar price than now.
So now they would be much more competitive,
right?
Even cheaper.
And if they're so much cheaper than the conventionally produced foods,
why continue doing conventional agriculture at all?
So I mean,
maybe this is completely,
I don't know,
utopic.
Maybe,
but
I think it's absolutely doable.
And you're right,
you know,
it might completely flip it on its head where cheap
intensively produce food at the moment becomes more expensive than sustainable regenerative alternatives,
or it might just level out the differential.
I don't,
as I said earlier,
I don't think we should suggest that food should become cheaper because actually until the last year or so,
food is the only global commodity that hasn't increased with inflation,
increase in price with inflation.
And farmers earn so little that I think we need to find ways of increasing fairness in the supply chain
But also making sure we're valuing food for what it is.
We pay partly because the world is different now and our lives are different,
but as a percentage of our annual or weekly income,
what we spend on food is so much less compared to what it was back in the 70s and 80s.
So we should value food for what it is providing us and what it's,
you know,
the benefit it's providing to the landscape.
And therefore I don't think food should become cheaper,
but we should find ways of helping everyone.
have access.
Yes,
and again with this true cost accounting mindset we mentioned earlier this extra pound up to three extra pounds of cost to society for every pound spent at the till if some of that money even just a very small percentage of this went back to the farmer who farms in a way that gives
us all of these amazing benefits then well the farmer would get paid better.
Yeah totally
Revolutionary Makes so much sense.
But...
Yeah,
it really does make so much sense.
And
I'm chair of a group called the True Cost Accounting Accelerator and we're about to launch an action plan based on a big event that happened at the FAO earlier this year.
So I hope that will put a bit of a pathway in place for how do we really mainstream true cost accounting.
It cannot just be a niche amongst weird people like me who...
think that this is really important.
We have to get this mindset of thinking about what we value and how we value it into the boardroom of every company in the world,
every government ministry in the world.
And slowly,
I think once everyone starts to do it,
it will become the norm.
But you have to find the leaders and the people that are willing to stick their necks out the companies.
For example,
like Tony's Chocolony,
they have done a true cost analysis of their supply chain
We need companies like that who are willing to break the mold and take risks,
because then other companies look and think,
oh,
they're doing that.
Maybe we should too.
So it's a chain reaction.
It feels like the companies,
businesses,
they're not the ones who have the biggest incentives to take action there.
Because right now,
not having to pay for the hidden cost of food is very profitable for them,
right?
So if we start taking all of this into account,
it might be a bit more difficult for them.
So wouldn't that?
the solution come more from policymakers,
from governments?
Yeah,
you're totally right.
At the moment there's a lack of regulation around what we call the polluter payers principle,
so making sure those who pollute are held financially accountable and I think that regulation needs to come from government and that will shift practices in the private sector.
However,
I think the same is true for government as it is for companies.
The pressure needs to come from people,
it needs to come from
Governments are just the same as companies in that if they don't feel the pressure from their electorate,
in the same way that companies,
if they don't feel the pressure from their customers,
they probably won't shift.
And therefore we,
as people working in the non-profit sector or working to advise companies or governments,
we really need to think about how we shift everyone,
how we shift normal people,
how this becomes a voting issue or a buying issue.
so that individual people,
even if in a very small way,
start to put pressure on these big players.
I think,
and it's something we've been looking at this at the Sustainable Food Trust alongside other partners is how do we create a live aid scale campaign around food?
Basically,
we had
Comic Relief.
It still exists now,
which was a huge fundraising campaign.
There used to be a TV event every year here in the UK,
and they would raise lots of money on that night and lots of celebrities involved,
lots of musicians.
and that went to fund all sorts of different poverty and aid charities around the world,
or initiatives around the world.
And that then led to the government increasing the aid budget from 5%
to 7%,
which unfortunately has now gone back down.
But it shows the power of people,
right?
And I think we need a campaign on that scale with celebrities,
musicians,
to really make food exciting,
But also make the solutions really tangible.
And I think that's what we struggle with,
with food and farming is it so complicated by nature because it uses nature and nature is complicated that we struggle with the silver bullet kind of what's the headline?
What's the TikTok thing that's going to be 20 seconds?
What's the billboard phrase?
And it's hard.
It's really hard with food and farming.
So what do we tell people?
What's the tagline?
It's all very well saying,
buy regenerative food.
But how do they buy regenerative food?
It's really hard.
So we need a public campaign,
but we also need to give people the information upon which to think a little bit differently or make a different decision when they're buying food.
So it's all these factors that need to come together.
Yeah.
It's a general problem I find that we live in such a complicated society.
We build complexity on top of complexity.
We have these interconnected global systems.
Right.
and you have the food system,
but you have like energy systems,
you have economics.
And all of that has become so incredibly complicated that any solutions,
even though we have so many amazing solutions,
any solution will by nature be complicated and hard to explain to people.
And unfortunately,
in politics,
populist people who find the simplest problem and the simplest solutions are the one that people will listen to the most.
And so yeah,
you're right,
finding the right way of framing this.
of getting people involved would be amazing.
Yeah,
absolutely.
And I think probably if there is a thing which is going to really win hearts and minds,
it's health.
We are undeniably selfish beings,
all of us.
And I think as much as we like to think everyone will care about the environment and animal welfare and things like that,
I do actually think it's ourselves and the health of our children probably that is going to really move people.
And so it's obviously interesting watching what's happened in America with the Make America Healthy Maha movement,
which has so many issues attached to it.
I don't want to begin to go into it,
but it's interesting that there's a wave of mostly moms in this case saying we don't want to feed our kids crap or we don't want to give us kids weight loss drugs because they're eating all this rubbish.
And I think that's interesting.
And I think perhaps as we move forward.
I hasten to say,
towards ever further right politics in various places.
Maybe there's a sort of Maha type opportunity to bring health back into the conversation.
So let's see.
We'll see.
I am so happy that you're still here with us this far into the conversation.
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I really appreciate it.
Now,
let's get back to this conversation.
What do you think about the whole sort of land sparing versus land sharing debates?
Maybe we could just first recap what this is about.
But I keep seeing information about this,
and I wanted to ask you what you think.
Yeah,
it's one of those...
It's one of those slightly unhelpfully opposing views,
I suppose.
So land sharing being farming in harmony with nature.
Can we have food production and nature operating as one and indivisible beautiful situation where we have food production and all the insects and the birds and all the soil health operating together?
And then land sparing
On the other hand is where you produce as much food as you can quite intensively,
often using chemical inputs to improve productivity.
But naturally that has the impact of removing nature and wildlife from that place.
And instead you just have it around the edges so you have a nice field margin.
or a nice hedge to kind of provide habitat for animals but effectively separate it.
Rewilding is another example of land sparing,
where you're saying:
"Let's spare this land,
let's rewild this area here so that we can have a nature reserve over here",
basically.
So you intensify,
use less amount of land to produce your food,
so you free up land for rewilding?
Exactly,
yeah.
Use the most productive land quote-unquote to produce as much food as we can
so that we can spare land for nature.
We can have more land,
which is purely for nature.
And I mean,
I definitely sign up more to the land sharing camp.
Absolutely.
I think it is totally possible.
I see it on our own farm at home.
We have these herbal lays that the sheep graze and there are so many bees and pollinators and insects and birds and everything eating each other like a natural food web happening in those fields that you just think,
wow.
I mean,
it's totally possible to layer on top these different land uses effectively and have nature and food production operating together.
But also there are areas of land that are best suited for pure nature.
Like,
you know,
the true kind of very high uplands are,
I agree with
George Monbiot,
who many of your listeners will know as the sort of incredibly charismatic and articulate man.
journalists who thinks that we should get rid of all upland farming because it's killing the nature.
And to be honest with you,
I sometimes agree.
I look at the mountains which we have on our farm effectively in Wales and think there's not a hell of a lot of nature up there.
And it's not actually because there's too many animals.
There is sheep grazing all over the place but it's not because there's too many of them.
It's just because they're completely unmanaged basically.
In the Alps
They have,
I always forget the name of the herdsmen basically which have multiple different people's herds at a time and their job is to move them on and make sure that they're constantly grazing a different area of land and they've got enough water and things to survive.
But it means you are giving the landscape time to rest and recover and that's why we see those beautiful pictures and images of wildflowers
and shrubs and trees in the Alps,
whereas the mountains here in the UK are often green deserts,
basically.
And yeah,
it's just about management.
It's not actually about numbers of animals.
So it's fascinating.
So yeah,
I mean,
in conclusion,
I don't think it's quite as black and white as we must be land sharing or we must be land sparing.
But I definitely feel it's possible to have food and nature together.
And that's what we should aim for.
As always,
it's about nuance and understanding what's right for what context.
And well,
we talked earlier about also what we eat,
what we produce.
And in that debate,
I find that it's also helpful to remind people of the land footprint of certain types of foods,
including a lot of animal foods that take a huge amount of land.
And if we switch to more plant-based,
I'm not saying all,
but if we change what we eat,
we could actually eat on less land.
That land could be shared with biodiversity in this kind of mixed farming systems.
And then we would also free up some land for nature to be left alone.
Absolutely.
And I think we can be super creative with this.
We can reduce our meat consumption as well as eating more vegetables grown in a regenerative way.
I love the products that are starting to come out,
which...
mix meat and peas for example together in a burger I think they're absolutely delicious like why don't we do that more um we just need to be creative and really think about as we were talking about before what can we grow productively in our landscape without going
over the carrying capacity of that place in environmental and social terms um and so when when thinking about solutions what's the right farming systems in this place that's what we have to think about and that
Hopefully,
we'll be lots of farming with nature,
but also some areas that should just be left to do their own thing.
Great.
Maybe one or two last questions to close the conversation?
If there's like one important key message you'd like people to leave us with today,
what would you say?
I think the most important thing we can all do is collaborate.
We...
We'll never find the solutions to the regenerative agriculture transition or how to eat more healthily,
how to provide healthy food to everyone in society if we don't work together.
By working together I mean people within food and agriculture but also outside of.
I was recently doing some research looking at other
sectors that have successfully merged private sector funding,
funding from businesses and government to move projects forward.
Because at the moment it feels like we either have things that are funded by government or things that are funded by business and we need to bring more diverse income streams into farming.
So looking at projects where different funding streams have led to a really positive output and that's...
I was looking at things like renewable energy,
actually transport in various parts of the world and research.
And I think we need to learn from outside of food and farming as well and bring in experts who perhaps have a different view.
I met a young farmer in Menorca last week who was an architect and he's just come into farming.
And the way he is thinking about designing that farm in a regenerative way,
you can just totally see is how he was thinking about designing a building in a sustainable way,
layering on top.
um different enterprises and how they fit together uh and how they depend on each other and actually it really made me think god we need people who haven't necessarily come from food and farming to bring fresh ideas and thinking into the sector and so i think collaboration across uh
different industries um but also within groups um inside food and farming is is absolutely key
over the next hopefully months and years to come to help figure out these really complicated problems.
Wow yes and talking about the future actually we talked about your past working for the Sustainable
Food Trust and you said that you started freelancing recently what do you envision for the future for yourself?
Very recently so at this moment I left the Sustainable Food Trust six weeks ago so it's all very very fresh and in fact
I've actually just been doing something for the Sustainable Food Trust today.
So I'm still working with them,
which is absolutely fantastic.
I love that organisation and what they stand for.
So I'm definitely still hoping to take forward various bits of work with them.
I mentioned the project I'm doing in Menorca with Menorca Preservation,
which is fantastic.
And my hope is,
at least for the time being,
I'll see how things go.
But my hope is to help organisations,
groups,
initiatives
planning and thinking.
I'm not a massively good detail person.
I'm better at sort of zooming out and seeing how things fit together,
looking at complicated situations and figuring out what the solutions could be.
And so
I think that's where my strengths are.
And
I'm working with a few organisations.
I'm working with a brilliant company who are looking at local food procurement,
basically connecting local authorities,
schools,
hospitals.
prisons,
etc.
with local farmers and improving transparency in supply chains.
So that's a really exciting project.
And those are the sorts of things I love.
How do we tackle these difficult problems?
How do I work with people that
I really like and I'm lucky to have a great network that I've built with the Sustainable Food Trust.
So
I just want to learn and hopefully help where I can.
Yeah.
One very last question I want to ask you.
I didn't mention this yet,
but I'm in the UK for nine days recording nine different episodes.
And I thought it would be fun to ask each guest at the end of the interview to ask one question for the next guest.
And tomorrow I'm interviewing
Professor Tim Benton.
And yeah,
I was wondering if you had a question in mind that you might want to ask him?
Hmm.
Yes,
lots of questions always for Tim.
He's a
He's a great mind.
And often perhaps with the views of the Sustainable Food Trust,
we haven't always aligned on the way forward.
But I think that's healthy.
So I think my question to him is,
do you think farming in the future will continue to rely on nature and natural processes to thrive?
Or do you think we are going down a route of ever more intensification technology development?
AI,
and perhaps less and less we will rely on nature to grow our food.
It's not the way I hope we go.
But I'm interested in his views,
your views,
Tim,
on whether you think nature or technology will drive us going forward?
Very interesting.
So I'll ask the question tomorrow and the listeners will find out the answer in next week's episode then.
Thank you so much,
Adele,
for your time.
I absolutely loved this conversation.
It was amazing.
Thank you.
Likewise.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for having me.