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What if I told you that every time you buy cheap food at the supermarket,

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you're actually paying for it twice?

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Once at the checkout,

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of course,

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but then once again in a way that you don't really see through the taxes you pay each year.

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If you think that regenerative and organic foods are too expensive,

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this episode will probably completely change your mind.

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I am joined today by Adele Jones,

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one of the most influential voices

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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

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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

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Raphael and this is the Deep Seat Podcast.

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Hi Adele,

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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?

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Absolutely and hi thank you for having me.

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It's a real pleasure to be on the podcast.

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My name's Adele.

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I until very recently was executive director of an organization called the Sustainable Food Trust.

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which maybe we can get into in a little bit more detail in a little while.

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But

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I am now working as a freelance food and farming advisor,

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and I also help out on our farm in Wales where we farm sheep and beef mostly.

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Could you maybe take us back to a moment in your life,

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a specific story that you could tell us that shaped your path towards regenerative agriculture and food systems in general?

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Yeah,

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so I actually come from a farming family.

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Um...

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my family on my dad's side had a farm in Shropshire,

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which is a County here in the UK,

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um,

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kind of Midlands to the West.

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and it was a mixed farm.

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I always,

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I was probably too young to be honest,

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to really know what was going on when,

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when we had the farm and it was sold when I was fairly young,

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but I suppose it was always in my blood.

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Um,

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and I always had that sort of itch inside me to,

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to,

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to follow back our family history.

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Um,

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so I didn't actually grow up on a farm.

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I grew up in the,

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in the countryside,

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but not actively farming.

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Um,

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and I was always fascinated by two things when I was growing up,

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mud,

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the soil,

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dirt,

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whatever you want to call it,

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building dens or digging holes and putting water in and seeing what bugs came out.

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Always had muddy hands looking at,

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looking at the soil and,

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um,

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and what was going on there.

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and secondly,

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measuring things,

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which is a bit of a weird,

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um,

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obsession,

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but,

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it started when I was 16.

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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,

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again,

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biodiversity in different habitats and then my university degree I focused in on measuring soil carbon change across habitat succession,

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in this case at heathlands going from forest to heathlands.

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So I was always

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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

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after university after doing a couple of jobs

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I stumbled across the sustainable food trust after many failed interviews elsewhere and started volunteering

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as an unpaid intern,

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basically helping them organise an event at the time.

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And that was it.

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The rest was history and I have learnt so,

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so much over the last

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14 or so years during that time.

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Yeah,

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12 years is a long time.

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Could you maybe explain what the Sustainable Food Trust is and does?

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Absolutely.

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So the Sustainable Food Trust was started in 2012 by a man called Patrick Holden who was and is very

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involved and significant in the global sustainable agriculture movement,

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specifically in organics.

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So Patrick used to run an organisation in the UK called The Soil Association,

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which is our biggest organic inspection agency,

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and also does advocacy around organic farming.

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So he was a real figure in farming,

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the organic farming movement.

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But he basically decided in around 2010 that the time was right for various reasons for him to pursue

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what the whole of agriculture could do to transition towards more sustainable farming.

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So obviously looking at organic as perhaps the gold standard,

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but thinking how do we help everyone go on this journey?

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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

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its mission is to accelerate the transition to sustainable agriculture on a global scale and we use sustainable as a word

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because although you could say it doesn't go far enough,

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perhaps it's been tainted a little bit in recent years.

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We try and be term agnostic a little bit when we're talking about transitioning to future food and farming systems.

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I think sometimes words like regenerative,

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even agroecology,

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climate smart,

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nature friendly farming,

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they can they can create tension where there doesn't need to be.

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And we would much rather focus on

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using perhaps the broad term sustainable agriculture,

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but really focusing on things like soil health,

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water quality,

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animal health and welfare,

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social well-being of farmers as the North Star for where we want to go.

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And then we kind of interchange the words depending on which groups we're talking to.

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So that's our mission basically,

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to work with everyone to transition to sustainable agriculture systems.

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And

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I still refer to the Sustainable Food Trust as we and our because...

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although I don't officially work for them anymore,

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it feels like part of my DNA.

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And actually I'm still doing some work for them.

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So for the purpose of this podcast,

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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.

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Yeah,

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okay.

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Okay.

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That makes a lot of sense.

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And you said that the primary mission was to accelerate the transition to sustainable farming or regenerative forms of farming,

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whatever you want to call them.

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How's that going?

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Oh,

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good question.

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I think in some...

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yes,

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let's start with the bad news.

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We're not moving fast enough,

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it's really clear.

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Agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to biodiversity loss,

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climate change,

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water quality going down and of course human health being one of the biggest costs,

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I suppose you could say,

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with global agricultural systems.

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I think that's clear.

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And if anything,

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I'd say we're still getting worse rather than getting better.

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And so in that sense,

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it can feel sometimes a little demoralising.

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You're putting all your energy into this work and it feels like the world is conspiring against you.

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And obviously,

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in part,

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that's due to difficult politics or conflict or big climate events making,

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you know,

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everything's kind of weighted against this transition slightly.

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And yet...

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It has the decisive advantage of there being no alternative.

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We have no other choice but to transition to more regenerative food and farming systems.

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Otherwise,

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I think the future of humanity is at huge risk probably sooner than we think.

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So the good news is that I think in the last 10 years,

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maybe even the last five years since COVID,

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there has been the most monumental mindset shift in the way that people think about food and farming.

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think and talk about agriculture.

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And that may not have yet filtered through to kind of everyday people buying food on the ground,

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partly because I don't think they're yet empowered to think about it and make different decisions.

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But I think certainly in conversations I've been involved with,

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with government,

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with big companies,

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with small companies,

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big farmers,

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small farmers,

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there's a new sense of consciousness,

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I think,

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about agriculture.

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like we can't carry on as we have done.

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How do we shift things?

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And

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I've been in conversations with some of the,

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you know,

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the largest food companies in the world that you may perceive to be kind of evil beasts and perhaps some of them are,

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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.

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So it might not be quite for the same reasons that everyone is thinking about this,

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but

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I think mindsets...

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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

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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

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inspiring and hopeful and exciting,

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and also very frustrating.

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Because the first thing I did was discover these amazing solutions to some of the biggest problems we have in the world,

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and solutions that seem to make sense on every possible level.

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including economic as well,

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which is often the issue when we talk about sustainability and climate and stuff.

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And so that gives me so much energy,

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so much hope and excitement for these solutions.

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But then in the last couple of years,

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I've seen very little progress.

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It's moving,

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it's bubbling up,

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there's things happening,

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but the speed is very slow.

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And that gets me really,

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really frustrated that we have these solutions ready.

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I mean,

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they can improve,

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we can improve the science,

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the innovation,

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technology,

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all of that.

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But

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it's there,

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it's ready to scale.

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And we're not quite doing it yet.

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You said there's a whole bunch of reasons for that.

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But if you had to pick one thing that's blocking us from going sort of faster with this transition?

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I think the reality is,

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and as much as I wish sometimes this wasn't the case,

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I think money economics is the biggest barrier we still face.

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And you're right.

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It's like

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probably coming out of COVID,

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there was a huge amount of energy,

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a huge amount of investment in regenerative agriculture.

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Since then,

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obviously,

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various global events have taken place and

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I would say that's made the economics even more challenging than they were before.

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So we've,

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I think,

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for example,

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I can't remember the statistics,

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but all these new sustainability jobs were created a few years ago in companies where these roles didn't exist before.

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And I think quite a lot of those jobs have been lost because suddenly...

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We're back to kind of looking at the bottom line again and keeping businesses alive.

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And then,

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of course,

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sustainability slips down the to-do list,

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which it shouldn't do,

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but it's still the case that it isn't always top priority.

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And I think economics is so difficult because our global economic system is operating on completely distorted values and values

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What we as society perceive to be important in monetary terms doesn't necessarily align with the long-term resilience of our planet,

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basically.

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So

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I'm talking here about a discipline we refer to called true cost accounting,

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where as well as what we account for in normal terms,

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how much money you make,

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how much money you lose,

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we also look at how you can value money.

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things that are not traditionally valued by society,

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things like soil health,

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like good animal welfare,

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like good mental health of farmers or farm workers.

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And actually,

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if you start to place where appropriate,

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and sometimes it's not appropriate,

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but where appropriate,

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if you start to place a value on those things and then start to attribute that value to where it's coming from,

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it then suddenly shifts the economics entirely on its head,

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Traditionally,

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00:12:48.164 --> 00:12:53.746
the best business model at the moment is to produce as much food as you can at as low as possible cost.

256
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Don't worry about the environmental health impacts,

257
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someone else will pick up that tab.

258
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True cost accounting effectively does the opposite.

259
00:13:02.648 --> 00:13:05.009
It factors in both the negative and the positive,

260
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what we call externalities,

261
00:13:07.390 --> 00:13:08.410
external costs,

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00:13:09.610 --> 00:13:13.592
and puts them on a balance sheet so if you are doing things to rebuild your soil health,

263
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that's a green.

264
00:13:15.276 --> 00:13:17.197
kind of positive cost on your balance sheet.

265
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If you are doing things to pollute your water,

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that's a negative cost on your balance sheet and it creates thus an adjusted balance sheet for farms,

267
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for businesses,

268
00:13:27.763 --> 00:13:41.011
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,

269
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you suddenly think

270
00:13:42.852 --> 00:14:00.379
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

271
00:14:00.380 --> 00:14:12.064
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

272
00:14:12.284 --> 00:14:12.424
Well,

273
00:14:12.624 --> 00:14:14.145
you mentioned true cost accounting.

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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.

275
00:14:21.386 --> 00:14:23.987
And there's the whole hidden cost of food.

276
00:14:24.487 --> 00:14:25.948
That's what we still pay,

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00:14:26.788 --> 00:14:28.068
but not directly at the till.

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00:14:28.228 --> 00:14:29.929
So things like health care,

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00:14:30.209 --> 00:14:30.789
mental health,

280
00:14:32.349 --> 00:14:34.690
having to clean up ecosystems that are polluted,

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dealing with climate change because of greenhouse gas emissions,

282
00:14:37.971 --> 00:14:38.451
things like that.

283
00:14:38.511 --> 00:14:38.711
Right.

284
00:14:39.031 --> 00:14:40.091
It has an actual cost.

285
00:14:40.112 --> 00:14:41.872
It's not just a made up invention.

286
00:14:41.992 --> 00:14:43.453
Because we care about the butterflies,

287
00:14:43.533 --> 00:14:44.734
then we should add value to that.

288
00:14:44.774 --> 00:14:45.094
It's more,

289
00:14:45.514 --> 00:14:47.095
it actually costs something to society.

290
00:14:47.495 --> 00:14:47.875
Exactly.

291
00:14:48.055 --> 00:14:51.137
We're actually paying for destructive agriculture,

292
00:14:51.197 --> 00:14:54.539
intensive agriculture already in ways that we don't realise.

293
00:14:54.599 --> 00:14:56.300
So to put it simply,

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00:14:57.161 --> 00:15:00.603
the Sustainable Food Trust released a report in 2017.

295
00:15:00.604 --> 00:15:03.864
It was updated in 2019 called The Hidden Cost of UK Food.

296
00:15:05.205 --> 00:15:09.968
And it found that at the very minimum for every £1 you spend in the supermarket...

297
00:15:10.488 --> 00:15:15.791
you're paying another pound in ways you don't realise to clean up the cost of that largely conventional food.

298
00:15:16.171 --> 00:15:19.353
It might be in your water bill to take nitrates out the water.

299
00:15:19.773 --> 00:15:22.135
It might be to pay for the National Health Service.

300
00:15:22.675 --> 00:15:25.577
It might be to pay for government subsidies,

301
00:15:25.597 --> 00:15:27.898
which then subsidise intensive agriculture again.

302
00:15:28.398 --> 00:15:32.660
So it's this weirdly destructive cycle where we think food is cheap,

303
00:15:32.761 --> 00:15:35.922
but it's actually very expensive in most cases.

304
00:15:36.863 --> 00:15:38.844
Whereas if you flip that on its head and you look at

305
00:15:39.004 --> 00:15:39.244
you know,

306
00:15:39.284 --> 00:15:40.565
genuinely regenerative,

307
00:15:40.605 --> 00:15:41.105
sustainable,

308
00:15:41.185 --> 00:15:41.425
healthy,

309
00:15:41.485 --> 00:15:42.205
nutritious food.

310
00:15:43.126 --> 00:15:47.348
I'm not suggesting it should necessarily be cheaper than it is at the moment.

311
00:15:47.368 --> 00:15:49.589
And that's a whole conversation in itself,

312
00:15:50.189 --> 00:15:54.411
but it shouldn't be so disproportionately expensive compared to the cheap food,

313
00:15:54.451 --> 00:15:58.312
which is not really cheap at the moment because of the environmental and social costs.

314
00:15:59.373 --> 00:16:00.153
So one pound,

315
00:16:00.193 --> 00:16:01.054
you spend another pound.

316
00:16:01.154 --> 00:16:01.394
Actually,

317
00:16:01.414 --> 00:16:06.296
the Rockefeller Foundation found in their similar report that it was $1 for every $3.

318
00:16:06.376 --> 00:16:06.616
So you

319
00:16:06.776 --> 00:16:19.060
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

320
00:16:19.794 --> 00:16:23.855
pounds of extra costs to society that you pay for with taxpayer money.

321
00:16:24.195 --> 00:16:25.796
You're paying for it in another way we just don't realise.

322
00:16:25.797 --> 00:16:26.296
It's massive,

323
00:16:26.596 --> 00:16:27.136
it's huge,

324
00:16:27.716 --> 00:16:33.898
especially considering that the part of what you pay at a supermarket that goes to the farmer is quite small.

325
00:16:34.278 --> 00:16:37.879
I remember figures that are under 10%.

326
00:16:38.339 --> 00:16:39.619
I don't remember the exact figures,

327
00:16:39.620 --> 00:16:42.380
I don't know if you have any to share but I have sort of 7-8%

328
00:16:42.381 --> 00:16:42.700
in mind,

329
00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:44.021
I'm not sure I'm correct on this.

330
00:16:44.481 --> 00:16:44.601
No,

331
00:16:44.602 --> 00:16:49.442
I think you're right and I think different commodities are different and depends if you're

332
00:16:49.682 --> 00:16:50.303
selling direct,

333
00:16:50.343 --> 00:16:56.308
obviously you'll get a larger percentage but it's tiny proportions of the cost goes back to the farmer.

334
00:16:56.348 --> 00:16:59.410
It's absolutely mind-blowingly unfair.

335
00:16:59.971 --> 00:17:01.232
And so if by,

336
00:17:01.492 --> 00:17:01.832
I don't know,

337
00:17:02.012 --> 00:17:04.594
helping and incentivising farmers to change the way they farm,

338
00:17:04.635 --> 00:17:06.416
to farm in harmony with nature,

339
00:17:06.476 --> 00:17:08.458
to help regenerating,

340
00:17:08.518 --> 00:17:10.559
rebuilding biodiversity in nature,

341
00:17:10.619 --> 00:17:11.280
storing carbon,

342
00:17:11.360 --> 00:17:15.864
doing all these amazing things that cost us triple,

343
00:17:16.745 --> 00:17:17.846
sometimes up to triple the

344
00:17:18.466 --> 00:17:19.787
the amount we pay for food,

345
00:17:19.847 --> 00:17:20.067
right?

346
00:17:21.768 --> 00:17:23.069
It would cost a tiny,

347
00:17:23.129 --> 00:17:30.493
tiny fraction to solve that problem at the source with the farmer by helping farmers rather than cleaning up the mess at the end.

348
00:17:30.793 --> 00:17:31.173
Totally.

349
00:17:31.853 --> 00:17:33.934
An example is here in the UK,

350
00:17:34.275 --> 00:17:34.775
at least,

351
00:17:35.215 --> 00:17:36.676
and I think in Europe,

352
00:17:36.716 --> 00:17:39.958
we're probably one of the worst countries for this at the moment.

353
00:17:40.058 --> 00:17:44.080
But diet related ill health is our second biggest cost to

354
00:17:48.174 --> 00:17:50.435
if you recycled even 10%

355
00:17:50.816 --> 00:17:53.978
of that money back to farmers to help them produce more healthy,

356
00:17:54.038 --> 00:17:54.738
nutritious food,

357
00:17:55.198 --> 00:18:00.602
and then incentivize more of that food to go into schools and hospitals and care homes and prisons,

358
00:18:02.103 --> 00:18:08.887
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.

359
00:18:09.007 --> 00:18:13.990
Which just makes so much sense but it requires long-term thinking which as we know

360
00:18:15.002 --> 00:18:15.842
governments especially,

361
00:18:15.882 --> 00:18:18.544
but businesses are not very good at putting into practice.

362
00:18:19.184 --> 00:18:22.305
And so we've just got to get better at making the case,

363
00:18:22.365 --> 00:18:31.809
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,

364
00:18:31.949 --> 00:18:33.010
a buying customer,

365
00:18:33.050 --> 00:18:33.650
buying issue.

366
00:18:33.730 --> 00:18:34.951
There's so many things we've got to do.

367
00:18:34.991 --> 00:18:35.191
Okay.

368
00:18:35.791 --> 00:18:36.592
Well let's do that.

369
00:18:36.593 --> 00:18:37.532
Let's talk about examples.

370
00:18:37.533 --> 00:18:38.492
Do you have any to share?

371
00:18:39.173 --> 00:18:39.413
Well

372
00:18:40.193 --> 00:18:41.214
I mean an interesting one.

373
00:18:43.350 --> 00:18:43.470
I,

374
00:18:44.090 --> 00:18:44.951
earlier this year went to

375
00:18:45.671 --> 00:18:50.332
Bhutan which is a country in between

376
00:18:51.233 --> 00:18:52.673
India and Chinese Tibet.

377
00:18:53.473 --> 00:18:55.454
And it was totally non-work related.

378
00:18:55.474 --> 00:18:59.555
I went on a walking trip with some friends which was absolutely unbelievable.

379
00:19:00.775 --> 00:19:08.858
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.

380
00:19:09.474 --> 00:19:12.595
It measures its success on gross national happiness,

381
00:19:13.115 --> 00:19:14.515
and they have a happiness index.

382
00:19:14.736 --> 00:19:26.319
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:

383
00:19:26.919 --> 00:19:28.960
will this make our people happier and healthier?

384
00:19:29.060 --> 00:19:31.460
Will this make our wildlife happier and healthier?

385
00:19:31.540 --> 00:19:32.661
Will this clean our rivers?

386
00:19:33.221 --> 00:19:35.482
Will this result in more clean energy for the country?

387
00:19:37.442 --> 00:19:38.383
You could sort of say,

388
00:19:38.483 --> 00:19:38.743
okay,

389
00:19:38.823 --> 00:19:39.844
well it's a tiny country.

390
00:19:40.084 --> 00:19:45.327
It receives a lot of money from the World Bank and the Indian government.

391
00:19:45.347 --> 00:19:45.927
So it's a little...

392
00:19:46.307 --> 00:19:51.811
Of course they don't have to maybe be so reliant on gross national product that other countries do.

393
00:19:52.011 --> 00:19:57.894
But actually it was so inspiring to speak to local people.

394
00:19:58.014 --> 00:20:03.658
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.

395
00:20:04.218 --> 00:20:06.099
People only really started going in the sort of

396
00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:07.539
70s and 80s,

397
00:20:07.540 --> 00:20:08.820
very tiny amounts of people,

398
00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:11.021
and they're very restrictive on tourism.

399
00:20:12.502 --> 00:20:16.703
So the country has kind of operated as it has done for hundreds of years,

400
00:20:16.704 --> 00:20:18.204
and it hasn't really changed.

401
00:20:18.644 --> 00:20:19.905
They have a very simple diet,

402
00:20:19.965 --> 00:20:22.026
they kind of eat the same thing the whole time,

403
00:20:22.066 --> 00:20:23.406
it's based on what they grow,

404
00:20:24.947 --> 00:20:25.687
it's very tasty,

405
00:20:26.467 --> 00:20:27.368
and they're really happy.

406
00:20:27.488 --> 00:20:27.928
The people...

407
00:20:30.349 --> 00:20:30.949
yeah,

408
00:20:31.189 --> 00:20:31.890
they're very healthy.

409
00:20:33.166 --> 00:20:34.928
Their kids eat all local food.

410
00:20:36.249 --> 00:20:51.302
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

411
00:20:52.143 --> 00:20:59.710
how thriving that country was and how actually possible it is to do something different

412
00:21:01.107 --> 00:21:02.949
And it's a real microcosm of a place,

413
00:21:03.009 --> 00:21:03.129
but

414
00:21:03.970 --> 00:21:10.517
I kind of came away from those 10 days walking in the mountains thinking an alternative parallel universe is possible.

415
00:21:10.657 --> 00:21:11.778
I've just seen it.

416
00:21:14.100 --> 00:21:18.645
What is happening there that we could do differently in the places where we live?

417
00:21:19.754 --> 00:21:23.778
Me going there was true cost accounting in practice and one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen.

418
00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:29.703
Coming back to the Sustainable Food Trust and the 12 years you spent there,

419
00:21:30.824 --> 00:21:34.888
what would you say is your proudest achievement there?

420
00:21:38.511 --> 00:21:42.375
So in terms of my proudest achievement at the Sustainable Food Trust,

421
00:21:42.395 --> 00:21:43.696
I think my real passion,

422
00:21:43.716 --> 00:21:44.937
and it comes back to...

423
00:21:45.838 --> 00:21:49.939
why I got into all of this is a project called the Global Farm Metric,

424
00:21:51.260 --> 00:21:53.700
which we started back in

425
00:21:56.901 --> 00:22:01.842
2016-ish. And it really came from this principle of true cost accounting where we were starting to think,

426
00:22:03.663 --> 00:22:09.324
how do we place a value on things that we don't value as society in monetary terms where we can?

427
00:22:10.865 --> 00:22:15.166
And there were a few different initiatives starting there.

428
00:22:15.226 --> 00:22:16.787
to pop up at the time.

429
00:22:17.387 --> 00:22:19.288
One was called TEAB AgriFood,

430
00:22:19.428 --> 00:22:21.168
which is a very long acronym.

431
00:22:21.549 --> 00:22:29.792
It was funded by the UN Environment Programme and it stands for the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity in agriculture and food.

432
00:22:30.872 --> 00:22:31.153
Catchy.

433
00:22:31.733 --> 00:22:34.494
So it was initially called TEAB Ag,

434
00:22:34.614 --> 00:22:36.255
which we vetoed.

435
00:22:36.355 --> 00:22:36.915
So it's called

436
00:22:37.435 --> 00:22:38.335
TEAB AgriFood.

437
00:22:38.976 --> 00:22:40.576
And it's an amazing,

438
00:22:41.337 --> 00:22:44.118
amazing initiative that is still running now.

439
00:22:44.778 --> 00:22:45.158
And they,

440
00:22:46.219 --> 00:22:47.540
back in the early days,

441
00:22:47.580 --> 00:22:47.860
20,

442
00:22:48.401 --> 00:22:49.822
maybe sort of 16,

443
00:22:49.902 --> 00:22:50.362
17,

444
00:22:50.402 --> 00:22:53.664
they commissioned a load of true cost studies.

445
00:22:53.724 --> 00:22:56.046
So we looked at the true cost of palm oil,

446
00:22:56.066 --> 00:22:57.867
the true cost of fisheries,

447
00:22:57.967 --> 00:22:58.808
true cost of beef,

448
00:22:58.828 --> 00:23:01.710
the true cost of sugar,

449
00:23:01.790 --> 00:23:13.758
like all these different commodities basically and got different consultants around the world to undertake these analysis of products

450
00:23:14.030 --> 00:23:15.851
of the true cost of these products.

451
00:23:17.112 --> 00:23:17.832
At the end of it,

452
00:23:17.833 --> 00:23:23.816
we realised we might have had six or seven different really interesting studies like the true cost of rice is this,

453
00:23:23.876 --> 00:23:25.296
the true cost of beef is this.

454
00:23:25.657 --> 00:23:30.879
But because every one of the consultancies or academic teams had used a different framework to measure the impact,

455
00:23:31.260 --> 00:23:37.643
they were almost non-comparable and kind of not that useful because how can you go to a policymaker and say,

456
00:23:37.723 --> 00:23:37.863
well,

457
00:23:37.864 --> 00:23:38.964
we think it might be this,

458
00:23:39.004 --> 00:23:42.206
but this study also says this because they used a different framework.

459
00:23:43.130 --> 00:23:45.431
The same is true for things like carbon accounting now.

460
00:23:46.071 --> 00:23:47.691
And that really led us to think,

461
00:23:48.131 --> 00:23:48.271
hmm,

462
00:23:48.912 --> 00:23:57.894
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.

463
00:23:58.714 --> 00:24:00.295
And surely that framework,

464
00:24:00.595 --> 00:24:02.855
if it's going to influence farmers,

465
00:24:03.056 --> 00:24:09.857
should be designed by farmers so that it actually helps them transition rather than imposes something on them.

466
00:24:12.430 --> 00:24:15.532
And so that's how the Global Farm Metric as it is now known was born.

467
00:24:16.232 --> 00:24:19.054
We pulled together a group of farmers and said,

468
00:24:19.314 --> 00:24:19.494
look,

469
00:24:19.714 --> 00:24:20.995
let's not reinvent the wheel here.

470
00:24:21.055 --> 00:24:23.396
What are the best things that you already record?

471
00:24:24.617 --> 00:24:25.957
Audits that you already do,

472
00:24:26.098 --> 00:24:26.718
which as we know,

473
00:24:26.798 --> 00:24:29.119
farmers are not generally fond of their audits,

474
00:24:29.179 --> 00:24:30.380
but just asking them,

475
00:24:30.780 --> 00:24:30.940
okay,

476
00:24:31.020 --> 00:24:37.064
what's actually useful to you that you already send off to various people?

477
00:24:41.566 --> 00:24:42.647
15 days maybe,

478
00:24:43.167 --> 00:24:44.789
not consecutively,

479
00:24:44.869 --> 00:24:46.070
over the course of a year or so,

480
00:24:46.731 --> 00:24:48.612
designing this framework.

481
00:24:50.074 --> 00:24:54.458
Which many iterations later is now what we call the global farm metric.

482
00:24:56.239 --> 00:25:04.426
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,

483
00:25:05.547 --> 00:25:05.668
our

484
00:25:06.008 --> 00:25:08.010
Department of Agriculture and Food and Rural Affairs.

485
00:25:09.451 --> 00:25:10.532
And he thought it was a good idea.

486
00:25:11.292 --> 00:25:16.197
He sort of announced it in a speech and I was then seconded into government for a year to work on it,

487
00:25:16.478 --> 00:25:17.759
to bring this idea to life.

488
00:25:17.819 --> 00:25:22.423
How can we have a harmonised set of metrics that everyone uses to measure sustainability on farm?

489
00:25:23.104 --> 00:25:29.851
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,

490
00:25:30.011 --> 00:25:31.813
environmental and a social sense.

491
00:25:33.650 --> 00:25:39.953
And how can we use that framework to then measure things like the success of farming policies or transparency in the supply chain,

492
00:25:40.433 --> 00:25:42.234
or how banks should finance farmers?

493
00:25:42.854 --> 00:25:46.716
Everyone is using the same framework and same language to make those decisions.

494
00:25:47.276 --> 00:25:49.817
So we can all agree that we're going in this direction rather than

495
00:25:50.998 --> 00:25:53.979
12 different directions depending on people's interests.

496
00:25:54.039 --> 00:25:54.159
So

497
00:25:55.560 --> 00:26:01.022
I mean it's really gone from strength to strength and it's been an incredibly difficult project to take forward because

498
00:26:02.178 --> 00:26:02.298
We,

499
00:26:02.638 --> 00:26:03.499
the Sustainable Food Trust,

500
00:26:03.500 --> 00:26:05.139
were only ever the conduits of the idea.

501
00:26:06.520 --> 00:26:11.502
It had to be designed by farmers and then everyone that would make use of that information and data.

502
00:26:11.642 --> 00:26:14.063
So it's been an incredibly collaborative effort,

503
00:26:14.964 --> 00:26:16.044
many back and forths,

504
00:26:16.124 --> 00:26:16.785
many wins,

505
00:26:16.845 --> 00:26:17.625
many fails.

506
00:26:18.966 --> 00:26:19.666
But now it's...

507
00:26:20.186 --> 00:26:23.569
It's actually often not by name.

508
00:26:23.849 --> 00:26:25.710
The framework is popping up now everywhere.

509
00:26:27.232 --> 00:26:27.352
So

510
00:26:27.872 --> 00:26:33.997
I'd say we've done our job inspiring and catalyzing other people to think it's their idea.

511
00:26:34.217 --> 00:26:36.979
And I can say that now I'm not employed by the Sustainable Food Trust.

512
00:26:37.859 --> 00:26:42.923
Most sort of frameworks that you'll see published at the moment are in some way based on the Global Farm Metrics.

513
00:26:42.924 --> 00:26:44.004
So I feel really proud.

514
00:26:44.784 --> 00:26:46.426
I have to sometimes hone back the

515
00:26:47.034 --> 00:26:47.554
We did that,

516
00:26:47.855 --> 00:26:48.915
but it's fine.

517
00:26:48.975 --> 00:26:49.196
I mean,

518
00:26:49.496 --> 00:26:50.677
that's success at the end of the day.

519
00:26:51.477 --> 00:26:53.599
So that's my proudest.

520
00:26:53.659 --> 00:26:54.019
Amazing.

521
00:26:54.079 --> 00:26:54.239
Yeah.

522
00:26:54.399 --> 00:27:01.404
So I love that it started with farmers and that it includes different things like socioeconomics as well.

523
00:27:02.585 --> 00:27:11.171
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?

524
00:27:11.512 --> 00:27:11.632
Yeah.

525
00:27:12.332 --> 00:27:13.673
So as I said,

526
00:27:13.893 --> 00:27:14.574
the framework...

527
00:27:15.515 --> 00:27:16.576
is holistic in nature.

528
00:27:16.596 --> 00:27:17.336
It covers economic,

529
00:27:17.396 --> 00:27:19.638
environmental and social outcomes.

530
00:27:20.058 --> 00:27:22.741
It has 12 categories of assessment at a high level.

531
00:27:23.201 --> 00:27:25.403
And those are relatively high levels.

532
00:27:25.423 --> 00:27:26.784
So it talks about soil health,

533
00:27:26.904 --> 00:27:27.845
nature and biodiversity,

534
00:27:28.085 --> 00:27:29.366
farmers and farm workers,

535
00:27:29.406 --> 00:27:30.087
for example.

536
00:27:31.548 --> 00:27:32.609
And wherever possible,

537
00:27:32.610 --> 00:27:40.516
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.

538
00:27:41.096 --> 00:27:42.557
So by outcome metrics,

539
00:27:43.578 --> 00:27:45.579
changes in soil organic matter over time,

540
00:27:46.340 --> 00:27:49.883
rather than relying so much on things like,

541
00:27:50.443 --> 00:27:50.563
oh,

542
00:27:50.583 --> 00:27:52.144
if you plant that cover crop,

543
00:27:52.204 --> 00:27:55.867
you're likely to have this average increase in your soil organic matter.

544
00:27:56.547 --> 00:28:01.931
So ultimately we do do both because at the moment it's quite hard to measure everything at an outcome level.

545
00:28:02.151 --> 00:28:04.693
It's quite expensive and time consuming also.

546
00:28:05.234 --> 00:28:06.975
But that's where I think things like technology,

547
00:28:07.175 --> 00:28:08.636
satellite imagery,

548
00:28:09.437 --> 00:28:09.897
AI,

549
00:28:10.778 --> 00:28:11.218
probe,

550
00:28:11.778 --> 00:28:13.820
apps on your phone to measure bird noises.

551
00:28:14.381 --> 00:28:16.483
That's where these sort of outcome metrics,

552
00:28:16.503 --> 00:28:16.763
I think,

553
00:28:16.963 --> 00:28:19.145
will start to actually now be scaled quite quickly.

554
00:28:21.147 --> 00:28:21.667
So yes,

555
00:28:21.668 --> 00:28:23.069
we look at like keystone species,

556
00:28:23.089 --> 00:28:23.889
for example,

557
00:28:24.770 --> 00:28:30.495
try and do a calculation based on the number of different bird species and ideally the abundance that's harder to measure.

558
00:28:31.656 --> 00:28:37.862
And hopefully that should give farmers and businesses a hard piece of information upon which to

559
00:28:39.066 --> 00:28:44.448
change decision making or introduce a new idea onto the farm and see what happens over time.

560
00:28:44.449 --> 00:28:44.608
Okay,

561
00:28:44.848 --> 00:28:45.568
yeah.

562
00:28:45.808 --> 00:28:47.449
You said it earlier,

563
00:28:48.029 --> 00:28:50.190
we need to find a way to all speak the same language,

564
00:28:50.590 --> 00:28:50.850
right?

565
00:28:51.510 --> 00:28:59.933
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

566
00:29:01.284 --> 00:29:01.625
put in.

567
00:29:02.325 --> 00:29:06.888
And how do you imagine that becoming then,

568
00:29:07.449 --> 00:29:07.689
you know,

569
00:29:07.729 --> 00:29:11.091
a common tool that's used by all farmers so that we can all speak the same language?

570
00:29:12.572 --> 00:29:13.953
I would absolutely love to say,

571
00:29:14.433 --> 00:29:17.516
I think we can make this really easy for farmers and they won't have to,

572
00:29:18.036 --> 00:29:18.276
you know,

573
00:29:18.336 --> 00:29:20.518
lift a finger and we'll just have all this information.

574
00:29:20.878 --> 00:29:22.459
I unfortunately don't think it's the case.

575
00:29:22.959 --> 00:29:29.664
I think part of the big mindset shift we need to go on together is that data and information is

576
00:29:29.904 --> 00:29:33.147
is in itself going to become a commodity in food and farming,

577
00:29:33.167 --> 00:29:33.707
which is really,

578
00:29:33.727 --> 00:29:34.408
really valuable.

579
00:29:35.108 --> 00:29:38.491
And using the terminology public money for public goods,

580
00:29:38.851 --> 00:29:40.172
I think data is a public good.

581
00:29:40.293 --> 00:29:43.815
So I think so many people are going to make use of,

582
00:29:43.855 --> 00:29:44.416
for example,

583
00:29:44.716 --> 00:29:46.157
the carbon footprint of a farm.

584
00:29:47.598 --> 00:29:51.722
It shouldn't be up to the farmer to pay for that and for the burden all to be on them.

585
00:29:52.122 --> 00:29:58.908
We need to make sure that this really valuable information that different people in the supply chain and value chain will make use of

586
00:30:00.048 --> 00:30:03.831
is there's an incentive for the farmer to collect it basically.

587
00:30:03.911 --> 00:30:09.096
So I think supplying data should become almost like a kind of commodity in the supply chain,

588
00:30:09.636 --> 00:30:17.282
not to the same extent where farmers become commodity slaves as they have done with food or with products they supply.

589
00:30:17.903 --> 00:30:25.189
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,

590
00:30:25.769 --> 00:30:28.692
but actually as something which is really valuable and that we should be paying for.

591
00:30:29.440 --> 00:30:34.402
And then I think there will be tools and technology which will make it slicker and easier over time.

592
00:30:34.422 --> 00:30:36.043
And that will also make a big difference.

593
00:30:36.083 --> 00:30:37.164
But first,

594
00:30:37.165 --> 00:30:39.725
we need to get the fundamentals and the architecture right.

595
00:30:40.325 --> 00:30:40.585
Okay,

596
00:30:40.725 --> 00:30:40.845
yeah.

597
00:30:41.166 --> 00:30:45.167
So instead of just putting it all on the farmer to measure,

598
00:30:45.348 --> 00:30:46.028
to pay for it,

599
00:30:47.048 --> 00:30:48.289
energy and time doing that,

600
00:30:48.729 --> 00:30:50.770
it should be more of a whole supply chain thing,

601
00:30:50.830 --> 00:30:52.891
including public funding,

602
00:30:53.571 --> 00:30:54.492
private companies.

603
00:30:55.292 --> 00:30:59.933
So that everyone together agrees that we need to fund this because it's useful for the whole supply chain.

604
00:31:00.174 --> 00:31:00.294
Yeah,

605
00:31:00.414 --> 00:31:00.754
totally.

606
00:31:00.794 --> 00:31:01.074
I mean,

607
00:31:01.754 --> 00:31:02.494
this sort of data,

608
00:31:02.534 --> 00:31:03.154
for example,

609
00:31:03.194 --> 00:31:06.836
will feed into company emissions reporting,

610
00:31:06.936 --> 00:31:10.357
scope three emissions as they're sometimes referred to.

611
00:31:11.857 --> 00:31:13.998
And companies will start,

612
00:31:14.058 --> 00:31:14.358
I think,

613
00:31:14.378 --> 00:31:16.078
to compete on sustainability grounds.

614
00:31:16.118 --> 00:31:16.538
Therefore,

615
00:31:16.618 --> 00:31:18.799
that sort of information is incredibly valuable to them.

616
00:31:19.539 --> 00:31:22.140
And so there should be a carrot there for farmers so that...

617
00:31:22.924 --> 00:31:23.885
give us this information,

618
00:31:23.965 --> 00:31:24.945
we'll give something back to you.

619
00:31:25.126 --> 00:31:31.170
I think that's how agriculture has worked and I don't see why we shouldn't do the same for data.

620
00:31:32.751 --> 00:31:35.252
I really hope that you're enjoying this conversation so far.

621
00:31:35.693 --> 00:31:40.456
Let me just take a few seconds to tell you about the official partner of the Deep Seed podcast,

622
00:31:41.036 --> 00:31:41.697
Soil Capital.

623
00:31:42.377 --> 00:31:42.497
So,

624
00:31:42.557 --> 00:31:52.104
Soil Capital is a company that accelerates the transition to regenerative agriculture by financially rewarding farmers who improve things like soil health and biodiversity.

625
00:31:52.480 --> 00:31:53.821
If you'd like to learn more about them,

626
00:31:53.841 --> 00:31:56.103
I will leave a link in the description of this episode.

627
00:31:56.323 --> 00:31:58.245
Now let's get back to the conversation.

628
00:31:59.005 --> 00:32:01.948
We hear a lot about the term food security.

629
00:32:03.289 --> 00:32:05.991
What does it really mean in your view?

630
00:32:07.172 --> 00:32:14.098
I think obviously it means producing enough food to feed what is inevitably a growing population.

631
00:32:15.239 --> 00:32:21.224
But the part of the term or the conversation that might sometimes be missing is food.

632
00:32:21.644 --> 00:32:23.085
But what about long-term resilience?

633
00:32:23.125 --> 00:32:26.127
What about making sure we have food security for tomorrow as well as in

634
00:32:26.647 --> 00:32:27.467
20, 50,

635
00:32:27.487 --> 00:32:28.228
100 years'

636
00:32:28.268 --> 00:32:28.588
time?

637
00:32:29.569 --> 00:32:40.975
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.

638
00:32:41.115 --> 00:32:46.879
What we're really thinking about is how we produce food in a way which can feed our children and grandchildren.

639
00:32:47.639 --> 00:32:48.840
And a common...

640
00:32:49.340 --> 00:33:06.109
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

641
00:33:06.129 --> 00:33:17.736
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

642
00:33:17.956 --> 00:33:20.397
Like this is just a pipe dream you have.

643
00:33:20.437 --> 00:33:22.378
Like it's a really nice picture in your mind,

644
00:33:22.458 --> 00:33:24.459
but it's not the reality.

645
00:33:24.479 --> 00:33:26.640
We need intensive production to produce calories.

646
00:33:27.700 --> 00:33:33.242
And so we started a project called Feeding Britain from the Ground Up.

647
00:33:33.262 --> 00:33:33.602
And again,

648
00:33:33.903 --> 00:33:43.006
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.

649
00:33:43.667 --> 00:33:46.708
But also we feel strongly that as an organization based in the UK,

650
00:33:47.468 --> 00:33:53.073
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.

651
00:33:54.274 --> 00:34:00.320
So what we did was we divided up the UK into small kind of area dimensions,

652
00:34:00.508 --> 00:34:07.793
blocks basically and looked at the different farming systems that could thrive in a regenerative sense in those different places.

653
00:34:09.714 --> 00:34:11.916
And so we had all these different farming types,

654
00:34:11.976 --> 00:34:14.037
mostly mixed farming wherever possible,

655
00:34:14.678 --> 00:34:18.800
because we took nitrogen fertilizer out of the equation entirely in our model.

656
00:34:19.681 --> 00:34:22.043
So mostly mixed farming to build resilience,

657
00:34:22.443 --> 00:34:22.603
sorry,

658
00:34:22.604 --> 00:34:24.664
to build fertility in a natural way.

659
00:34:26.626 --> 00:34:29.948
But in some places it's just not possible to grow naturally.

660
00:34:30.649 --> 00:34:32.150
to grow crops for example,

661
00:34:32.210 --> 00:34:37.315
so permanent pasture and grazing is the best land use in certain parts of the UK.

662
00:34:37.996 --> 00:34:45.424
So we had all these different farming types and looked at what regenerative farming would look like if the whole country transitioned.

663
00:34:45.444 --> 00:34:47.446
And it really was about mixing it up.

664
00:34:47.486 --> 00:34:52.911
It was taking pasture and grassland rotations back into the arable east of the UK

665
00:34:54.156 --> 00:35:09.000
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

666
00:35:09.080 --> 00:35:21.484
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

667
00:35:22.184 --> 00:35:39.597
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

668
00:35:39.657 --> 00:35:49.904
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

669
00:35:50.632 --> 00:35:52.333
moving different scenarios around.

670
00:35:53.053 --> 00:35:55.795
And basically we found that we could maintain,

671
00:35:55.915 --> 00:36:02.559
if not increase our national food security with regenerative agriculture in the UK with three conditions.

672
00:36:03.219 --> 00:36:03.659
Firstly,

673
00:36:04.019 --> 00:36:04.780
as a population,

674
00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:06.101
we need to eat a little bit less.

675
00:36:06.141 --> 00:36:08.782
And I think that's generally sort of,

676
00:36:09.603 --> 00:36:11.504
like it's not particularly controversial thing to say.

677
00:36:11.544 --> 00:36:13.184
I think we do over consume slightly.

678
00:36:14.045 --> 00:36:15.706
We waste a hell of a lot less.

679
00:36:15.886 --> 00:36:16.927
We waste up to 50%

680
00:36:17.467 --> 00:36:19.388
of our food at farm level.

681
00:36:19.648 --> 00:36:21.569
within the supply chain and at home.

682
00:36:22.229 --> 00:36:22.950
50%?

683
00:36:22.951 --> 00:36:23.070
Yeah,

684
00:36:23.150 --> 00:36:24.151
up to 50%.

685
00:36:24.351 --> 00:36:27.232
It sort of depends slightly which sector you're looking at.

686
00:36:27.372 --> 00:36:30.574
But it's like between a third and 50%

687
00:36:30.854 --> 00:36:31.855
of the food we produce.

688
00:36:31.915 --> 00:36:32.975
That is crazy.

689
00:36:34.696 --> 00:36:38.178
And if we even reduce the amount of waste by half,

690
00:36:39.879 --> 00:36:43.041
I don't know how many more calories that would mean at the end of the day,

691
00:36:43.161 --> 00:36:44.522
but it's a huge amount.

692
00:36:44.562 --> 00:36:45.943
So we need to waste way less.

693
00:36:46.583 --> 00:36:47.123
And thirdly,

694
00:36:47.183 --> 00:36:48.424
we need to change what we eat.

695
00:36:49.480 --> 00:36:55.425
because actually we are not eating within the carrying capacity of our landscape here in the UK.

696
00:36:56.746 --> 00:37:00.409
We eat for example way too much intensive pork and poultry.

697
00:37:01.289 --> 00:37:04.592
That pork and poultry requires grain from the UK,

698
00:37:04.812 --> 00:37:07.374
but also grain from all over the place or from overseas.

699
00:37:07.394 --> 00:37:09.676
And that's an incredibly unsustainable model.

700
00:37:10.396 --> 00:37:15.180
And basically because we were transitioning the farms in the model to mixed farming

701
00:37:15.380 --> 00:37:21.125
The amount of grain in total that we were producing on farms in the UK actually fell quite significantly.

702
00:37:21.926 --> 00:37:23.787
But we weren't too worried about that because we said,

703
00:37:23.807 --> 00:37:23.927
well,

704
00:37:23.928 --> 00:37:24.248
actually,

705
00:37:25.269 --> 00:37:29.112
we can still eat the same amount of grain as a population as we do now.

706
00:37:29.872 --> 00:37:33.035
What needs to go down is the amount of that grain that we're feeding to animals.

707
00:37:33.255 --> 00:37:37.179
So pork and poultry came down by 80 percent in our model.

708
00:37:39.180 --> 00:37:43.084
Beef and lamb remained roughly the same because they are so important.

709
00:37:43.804 --> 00:37:47.587
For a country that can produce grass in a sustainable way,

710
00:37:47.647 --> 00:37:48.568
in a temperate country,

711
00:37:50.309 --> 00:37:53.491
building fertility using grazing and animals is incredibly important.

712
00:37:53.531 --> 00:37:55.453
Maybe we can get into that a bit more in a minute.

713
00:37:56.553 --> 00:37:58.435
So beef and lamb remained roughly the same,

714
00:37:58.495 --> 00:38:01.857
which perhaps is a surprise because often when you think about meat,

715
00:38:01.937 --> 00:38:04.379
it's the red meat which gets the worst press.

716
00:38:05.900 --> 00:38:06.601
Whereas we were saying,

717
00:38:06.621 --> 00:38:06.721
no,

718
00:38:06.722 --> 00:38:06.841
no,

719
00:38:06.901 --> 00:38:09.863
it's the white meat that we need to get rid of mostly in this country.

720
00:38:11.824 --> 00:38:12.064
And then,

721
00:38:12.065 --> 00:38:12.425
of course,

722
00:38:12.485 --> 00:38:12.905
more fruit,

723
00:38:12.965 --> 00:38:14.206
more local fruit and vegetables,

724
00:38:14.286 --> 00:38:15.307
more nut trees,

725
00:38:16.347 --> 00:38:17.288
more agroforestry.

726
00:38:19.449 --> 00:38:20.810
And yeah,

727
00:38:20.910 --> 00:38:23.993
it was it was an incredibly interesting study because I think it

728
00:38:25.374 --> 00:38:28.696
I think it provided a,

729
00:38:28.816 --> 00:38:29.997
you know,

730
00:38:30.057 --> 00:38:32.679
perhaps slightly rustic in some in some cases.

731
00:38:32.719 --> 00:38:37.702
But it provided an alternative vision for the future to some of the other reports that have come out.

732
00:38:38.042 --> 00:38:38.503
And actually,

733
00:38:38.643 --> 00:38:39.123
since then...

734
00:38:40.524 --> 00:38:45.368
There have been various reports which have complemented our results and they might have used a slightly different data set,

735
00:38:45.468 --> 00:38:48.631
but it's not vastly different to what we came out with.

736
00:38:48.931 --> 00:38:49.892
So I think it is possible.

737
00:38:49.893 --> 00:38:53.034
You just need to view the future differently.

738
00:38:53.054 --> 00:38:58.018
And instead of looking at why can't things happen at the moment because it's hard for various reasons,

739
00:38:58.058 --> 00:38:58.579
we just said,

740
00:38:59.179 --> 00:38:59.299
no,

741
00:38:59.319 --> 00:38:59.439
no,

742
00:38:59.559 --> 00:39:00.320
let's just look at what's going on.

743
00:39:00.348 --> 00:39:01.949
what would happen in an ideal world,

744
00:39:02.530 --> 00:39:05.572
not worry about why that can't happen because it's difficult.

745
00:39:06.013 --> 00:39:11.497
And actually we found it was completely possible to grow enough regenerative food to feed a population.

746
00:39:11.657 --> 00:39:13.559
So very exciting.

747
00:39:13.560 --> 00:39:14.940
That's amazing That's amazing.

748
00:39:14.980 --> 00:39:19.304
So you were trying to prove that you can feed the entire of the UK?

749
00:39:19.824 --> 00:39:24.508
Not entirely because we are an overpopulated country so we maintain - we're about 60%

750
00:39:25.109 --> 00:39:26.089
self-sufficient in the UK.

751
00:39:26.470 --> 00:39:28.932
So it's maintaining if not actually going slightly above that.

752
00:39:31.674 --> 00:39:32.395
In the current system,

753
00:39:32.435 --> 00:39:33.455
how do you count,

754
00:39:34.256 --> 00:39:34.756
for example,

755
00:39:35.077 --> 00:39:42.243
all of the ghost acres for grain or other crops that are grown abroad to feed British animals?

756
00:39:42.244 --> 00:39:46.867
Do you still consider that to be produced in Britain for UK?

757
00:39:47.267 --> 00:39:47.427
No,

758
00:39:47.428 --> 00:39:47.607
I mean,

759
00:39:48.148 --> 00:39:48.708
in our model,

760
00:39:49.349 --> 00:39:53.392
we looked at only feed that could be grown in the UK to support animals.

761
00:39:53.412 --> 00:39:55.673
the livestock which we believe to be part of the solution.

762
00:39:55.793 --> 00:39:55.913
So,

763
00:39:55.914 --> 00:39:58.515
we took shadow acres out of the equation basically,

764
00:39:59.015 --> 00:40:01.316
which is why pork and poultry came down by so much.

765
00:40:01.737 --> 00:40:02.217
So yeah,

766
00:40:02.657 --> 00:40:04.218
but the current system,

767
00:40:05.018 --> 00:40:07.900
when people are asking can you feed the whole population,

768
00:40:07.920 --> 00:40:10.221
can you feed the world with regenerative agriculture?

769
00:40:10.222 --> 00:40:19.286
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,

770
00:40:19.406 --> 00:40:19.527
right?

771
00:40:19.547 --> 00:40:19.947
Exactly,

772
00:40:20.107 --> 00:40:20.527
exactly.

773
00:40:20.567 --> 00:40:22.028
It's just another of these things that

774
00:40:22.228 --> 00:40:24.710
isn't quite as it seems when you dig below the surface.

775
00:40:25.270 --> 00:40:25.470
Okay,

776
00:40:25.830 --> 00:40:25.970
yeah.

777
00:40:26.491 --> 00:40:29.472
We can maybe talk a little bit more about livestock farming.

778
00:40:29.532 --> 00:40:35.256
It's such a divisive topic I found in the regenerative space.

779
00:40:35.776 --> 00:40:39.918
I come more from a background of being more of an animals rights activist,

780
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:41.039
environmentalist,

781
00:40:41.339 --> 00:40:42.240
whatever you want to call it.

782
00:40:43.024 --> 00:40:43.384
And

783
00:40:43.825 --> 00:40:47.548
I've grown to appreciate the nuance of the topic because over the last two years,

784
00:40:47.608 --> 00:40:53.052
I've visited a lot of farms and I've met a lot of farmers who include animals as part of the systems.

785
00:40:53.053 --> 00:40:58.136
And I've seen the amazing potential that this has for ecosystem health and biodiversity,

786
00:40:58.457 --> 00:40:59.417
soil health and all of that.

787
00:40:59.478 --> 00:41:01.099
So yeah,

788
00:41:01.920 --> 00:41:06.523
I find the debate often very polarized on social media and online and on media.

789
00:41:07.044 --> 00:41:09.726
And I found that actually the truth is a lot more nuanced.

790
00:41:09.786 --> 00:41:12.168
And I thought maybe you could help us unpack all of that.

791
00:41:13.412 --> 00:41:13.733
Yes,

792
00:41:14.173 --> 00:41:14.873
you're definitely right.

793
00:41:15.314 --> 00:41:17.295
It's very nuanced conversation.

794
00:41:17.555 --> 00:41:22.579
And this is also a topic which has come a hugely long way in the last 10 years.

795
00:41:22.639 --> 00:41:22.899
I mean,

796
00:41:24.180 --> 00:41:28.463
I'd say it was probably 10 years ago that the sort of vegan movement,

797
00:41:28.583 --> 00:41:29.064
let's say,

798
00:41:29.704 --> 00:41:34.267
really kicked off and people became much more conscious about the animal products they were eating.

799
00:41:34.888 --> 00:41:37.790
All these documentaries came out and suddenly,

800
00:41:37.810 --> 00:41:38.851
you know,

801
00:41:39.231 --> 00:41:40.732
it felt like the world went

802
00:41:40.932 --> 00:41:41.332
wild.

803
00:41:41.352 --> 00:41:47.215
I think probably still the percentage of people that were actually eating vegan food was very small,

804
00:41:47.275 --> 00:41:50.496
but there was this real sort of buzz around veganism.

805
00:41:50.516 --> 00:41:54.518
And of course then the market caught on and they developed all these plant-based foods,

806
00:41:54.578 --> 00:41:57.339
which we now realise are full of crap basically.

807
00:41:58.279 --> 00:42:03.121
And I think that market has kind of since gone down again and people are much more conscious about,

808
00:42:03.642 --> 00:42:03.822
yes,

809
00:42:03.842 --> 00:42:05.963
of course we need to eat more plant-based food.

810
00:42:05.983 --> 00:42:07.323
And of course in total,

811
00:42:09.652 --> 00:42:10.993
meat consumption globally,

812
00:42:11.554 --> 00:42:12.314
you know everywhere.

813
00:42:13.836 --> 00:42:14.636
But actually it's not,

814
00:42:14.736 --> 00:42:18.499
you know just calling it meat is much like saying eat less plants.

815
00:42:18.900 --> 00:42:20.161
It's way too simplistic.

816
00:42:20.241 --> 00:42:29.709
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.

817
00:42:30.609 --> 00:42:38.616
So specifically as we were talking about before mixed farming really being the future I see of agriculture.

818
00:42:39.096 --> 00:42:41.837
When you take out inputs such as nitrogen fertilizer,

819
00:42:42.978 --> 00:42:46.059
you need to build soil fertility in a natural way.

820
00:42:47.459 --> 00:42:52.942
And you need to have crop rotations to restore the soil before you then plant grains,

821
00:42:53.082 --> 00:42:53.282
wheat,

822
00:42:53.462 --> 00:42:53.722
barley,

823
00:42:53.802 --> 00:42:54.162
rye,

824
00:42:54.362 --> 00:42:54.622
maize,

825
00:42:54.642 --> 00:42:55.443
whatever it might be.

826
00:42:56.363 --> 00:43:00.625
You need to have a period of rest and a period of fertility building to build the soil back up.

827
00:43:01.365 --> 00:43:07.908
And that period can be significantly sped up and actually much more effective if you're grazing animals during that period of rest.

828
00:43:08.588 --> 00:43:12.950
It also allows the farmer to make money when effectively the field is in a fallow period,

829
00:43:12.951 --> 00:43:13.490
you could say.

830
00:43:14.691 --> 00:43:15.831
Which is obviously really important,

831
00:43:15.971 --> 00:43:17.032
like farms have to make money.

832
00:43:18.732 --> 00:43:19.353
Not only that,

833
00:43:19.433 --> 00:43:26.616
but animals that graze on grass are much healthier for us to eat than animals that are raised on grain.

834
00:43:27.116 --> 00:43:28.677
They are herbivores at the end of the day.

835
00:43:28.697 --> 00:43:30.377
They are meant to digest cellulose.

836
00:43:30.417 --> 00:43:32.879
They are not meant to digest carbohydrates.

837
00:43:33.459 --> 00:43:36.080
So naturally it's intuitive for us to think.

838
00:43:36.280 --> 00:43:36.400
"Hmm,

839
00:43:36.580 --> 00:43:39.182
maybe I should eat an animal that was eating what it was meant to eat."

840
00:43:39.823 --> 00:43:41.224
And there's a saying which I like:

841
00:43:41.805 --> 00:43:43.366
"You are what you eat ate."

842
00:43:44.647 --> 00:43:46.549
And I think that's really important to think about.

843
00:43:47.329 --> 00:43:52.233
So if you graze animals on grass in a mixed farming system or on permanent pasture,

844
00:43:52.253 --> 00:43:54.115
which is also very valuable as habitat,

845
00:43:55.096 --> 00:43:56.197
if managed in the right way,

846
00:43:57.177 --> 00:44:00.240
they are an incredibly important tool for us to build soil

847
00:44:00.348 --> 00:44:04.511
fertility and of course soil fertility means potentially more carbon,

848
00:44:04.932 --> 00:44:05.552
more water,

849
00:44:06.533 --> 00:44:07.414
more biodiversity.

850
00:44:08.395 --> 00:44:11.177
So we have to think of these animals as tools I think.

851
00:44:11.617 --> 00:44:20.104
And of course an outcome of using those tools is that we have an incredibly nutritious product where,

852
00:44:20.745 --> 00:44:22.186
and I say this like very,

853
00:44:22.187 --> 00:44:26.169
it's a very important point that that can't happen in every place in the world.

854
00:44:26.329 --> 00:44:29.372
It's not possible to grow grass and crops in every place in the world.

855
00:44:29.888 --> 00:44:30.368
Therefore,

856
00:44:32.990 --> 00:44:37.893
we shouldn't be trying to put these animals in feedlots in the middle of the desert.

857
00:44:38.294 --> 00:44:39.194
That's not where they should be.

858
00:44:39.835 --> 00:44:41.756
We need to think about where am I?

859
00:44:41.776 --> 00:44:42.377
Where do I live?

860
00:44:42.417 --> 00:44:43.257
Where am I visiting?

861
00:44:43.397 --> 00:44:54.064
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?

862
00:44:54.985 --> 00:44:59.228
So how can we eat the landscape which is?

863
00:44:59.412 --> 00:45:00.313
within which we are in.

864
00:45:01.634 --> 00:45:04.737
And for a place like here in the UK and much of Western Europe,

865
00:45:04.937 --> 00:45:06.178
where we grow grass very well,

866
00:45:06.218 --> 00:45:08.100
which is an incredibly important crop,

867
00:45:09.301 --> 00:45:13.204
eating those red meat products from grass-based systems is important.

868
00:45:13.745 --> 00:45:19.770
But absolutely that does not mean we should be eating intensive livestock that's being fed on grain.

869
00:45:20.350 --> 00:45:24.674
That sort of production really needs to be phased out because it just makes no sense for so many reasons.

870
00:45:25.355 --> 00:45:25.475
Yeah,

871
00:45:26.275 --> 00:45:26.696
absolutely.

872
00:45:27.672 --> 00:45:30.454
I think that's what frustrates me the most about this debate sometimes.

873
00:45:31.575 --> 00:45:32.456
When I see people arguing,

874
00:45:32.616 --> 00:45:34.717
I try not to get into it too much online.

875
00:45:35.378 --> 00:45:36.999
But it's that on the one hand,

876
00:45:37.039 --> 00:45:41.643
I can see climate activists and animal rights activists,

877
00:45:41.663 --> 00:45:42.363
environmentalists,

878
00:45:42.383 --> 00:45:45.405
that group having very,

879
00:45:45.485 --> 00:45:47.607
very good arguments to say,

880
00:45:47.867 --> 00:45:48.047
well,

881
00:45:48.428 --> 00:45:51.130
intensive livestock farming is disastrous.

882
00:45:51.330 --> 00:45:51.910
It's really,

883
00:45:51.970 --> 00:45:52.371
really bad.

884
00:45:52.911 --> 00:45:54.172
Massive land footprint issues.

885
00:45:54.952 --> 00:45:56.333
massive environmental impacts,

886
00:45:56.453 --> 00:46:01.535
greenhouse gas emissions and the whole ethical part also which is huge.

887
00:46:01.575 --> 00:46:06.978
I mean they have very very good arguments to say we should do everything we can to reduce or eliminate that completely.

888
00:46:07.958 --> 00:46:12.040
On the other side of the spectrum you have these regenerative farmers who are doing mixed farming,

889
00:46:12.520 --> 00:46:21.004
who are doing these sort of holistic grazing systems and I visited many of them and I see these animals living in

890
00:46:21.536 --> 00:46:21.977
dreamland,

891
00:46:22.057 --> 00:46:22.297
you know,

892
00:46:22.517 --> 00:46:23.379
having beautiful lives.

893
00:46:23.380 --> 00:46:23.739
And obviously,

894
00:46:23.979 --> 00:46:26.643
there's still need to slaughter them at the end,

895
00:46:26.683 --> 00:46:26.984
which is,

896
00:46:27.044 --> 00:46:27.284
you know,

897
00:46:27.945 --> 00:46:29.006
it's hard for me to accept,

898
00:46:29.086 --> 00:46:30.428
but this is its life.

899
00:46:32.311 --> 00:46:37.257
And they're doing an amazing job at regenerating ecosystems are producing great quality food,

900
00:46:37.818 --> 00:46:38.059
you know,

901
00:46:38.499 --> 00:46:38.820
and so,

902
00:46:40.048 --> 00:46:43.309
So there's definitely a world where both are possible,

903
00:46:43.349 --> 00:46:50.693
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.

904
00:46:50.733 --> 00:46:53.174
And these two shouldn't be fighting,

905
00:46:53.234 --> 00:46:58.916
but more like coexisting and collaborating and finding ways to work together towards a better food system.

906
00:46:59.296 --> 00:46:59.496
Yeah,

907
00:46:59.776 --> 00:47:00.357
absolutely.

908
00:47:00.677 --> 00:47:02.057
There's so many factors here.

909
00:47:03.378 --> 00:47:03.758
I think

910
00:47:04.298 --> 00:47:07.960
I was reminded of the right animals in the right place this last week

911
00:47:08.941 --> 00:47:20.489
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,

912
00:47:20.789 --> 00:47:21.729
reducing plastics,

913
00:47:22.050 --> 00:47:29.235
clean energy and agriculture and I've been working with them to develop a strategy for their agriculture and 95%

914
00:47:29.515 --> 00:47:30.556
over 95%

915
00:47:30.696 --> 00:47:31.376
in fact of

916
00:47:32.797 --> 00:47:37.060
Menorca's useful agricultural land area is dedicated to

917
00:47:37.304 --> 00:47:37.945
dairy farming,

918
00:47:39.006 --> 00:47:39.486
which is mad.

919
00:47:39.506 --> 00:47:40.607
It's a tiny island.

920
00:47:40.608 --> 00:47:42.949
You would never think that it supports that much dairy,

921
00:47:43.009 --> 00:47:47.753
but it does because there used to be at least a really strong market for the cheese that they produce.

922
00:47:49.654 --> 00:47:51.216
And they still do produce a lot of cheese,

923
00:47:51.276 --> 00:47:55.019
but the conventional milk price is becoming tighter and tighter.

924
00:47:55.119 --> 00:47:56.160
So suddenly these farms,

925
00:47:56.200 --> 00:47:59.823
which once were making a huge amount of money are perhaps making less.

926
00:48:00.703 --> 00:48:05.708
And the interesting thing is that in the pursuit of productivity,

927
00:48:05.728 --> 00:48:06.228
you know,

928
00:48:06.228 --> 00:48:11.309
And Frisian cows were bought to the island several decades ago,

929
00:48:11.409 --> 00:48:11.870
basically,

930
00:48:11.930 --> 00:48:16.531
because they used to have a local breed that they used called the Menorquin cow.

931
00:48:16.611 --> 00:48:21.752
It's a sort of browny red colour that's been there since 2000 BC on the island.

932
00:48:21.792 --> 00:48:23.973
They can see evidence of the cow being there since then.

933
00:48:25.113 --> 00:48:32.935
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,

934
00:48:32.936 --> 00:48:33.235
in fact,

935
00:48:33.236 --> 00:48:33.695
the world.

936
00:48:34.456 --> 00:48:35.956
And so it was problematic.

937
00:48:36.016 --> 00:48:48.423
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.

938
00:48:48.443 --> 00:48:48.563
Now,

939
00:48:49.083 --> 00:48:50.004
several decades later,

940
00:48:50.044 --> 00:48:58.488
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.

941
00:48:59.469 --> 00:48:59.649
Also,

942
00:48:59.949 --> 00:49:03.531
water usage is enormous and water is a huge issue on the island.

943
00:49:05.248 --> 00:49:06.269
And so suddenly this,

944
00:49:06.369 --> 00:49:06.609
you know,

945
00:49:06.610 --> 00:49:16.716
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.

946
00:49:17.657 --> 00:49:18.417
On the other hand,

947
00:49:18.737 --> 00:49:19.598
you see these,

948
00:49:20.058 --> 00:49:22.740
the few remaining Menorcan cows on the island,

949
00:49:22.780 --> 00:49:25.962
and I actually saw a herd where they were both mixed together in the same field.

950
00:49:26.883 --> 00:49:27.924
They can survive on air,

951
00:49:28.184 --> 00:49:28.624
basically.

952
00:49:28.684 --> 00:49:29.765
That's what they're designed to do.

953
00:49:29.925 --> 00:49:32.387
They eat very poor quality forage.

954
00:49:32.388 --> 00:49:33.968
They can eat stuff from the woodlands.

955
00:49:34.368 --> 00:49:36.970
They can eat almost like dead grass during the summer.

956
00:49:37.510 --> 00:49:41.993
And they look so healthy compared to the Friesians because they're on that island.

957
00:49:42.893 --> 00:49:43.594
Epigenetic,

958
00:49:43.834 --> 00:49:51.319
we call it epigenetic adaptation has allowed them to adapt so well to that place and the heat and the dry.

959
00:49:52.759 --> 00:49:55.221
They are the right animals in the right place.

960
00:49:55.641 --> 00:49:59.984
And yet we phase them out in pursuit of so-called productivity opportunities.

961
00:50:00.444 --> 00:50:05.389
to bring in this other breed and we now obviously need to take it the other way and bring the local Menorcan breed back

962
00:50:06.229 --> 00:50:14.977
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

963
00:50:15.758 --> 00:50:24.926
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.

964
00:50:25.726 --> 00:50:26.567
And you just think man,

965
00:50:26.627 --> 00:50:26.847
okay,

966
00:50:26.887 --> 00:50:27.068
like,

967
00:50:27.148 --> 00:50:27.428
you know,

968
00:50:27.448 --> 00:50:27.568
I

969
00:50:27.916 --> 00:50:28.856
What have we done here?

970
00:50:29.477 --> 00:50:33.238
We've meddled so much and the right animal in the right place is so important.

971
00:50:33.718 --> 00:50:34.039
And again,

972
00:50:34.079 --> 00:50:35.339
that's where true cost accounting,

973
00:50:35.599 --> 00:50:39.921
but also just a regenerative mindset around finances as well comes into play.

974
00:50:40.321 --> 00:50:44.363
It's not just about how much you produce and how much money you make from what you produce,

975
00:50:44.403 --> 00:50:46.444
but it's about all the costs involved,

976
00:50:47.064 --> 00:50:48.124
both physical costs,

977
00:50:48.284 --> 00:50:49.265
environmental costs,

978
00:50:49.365 --> 00:50:50.125
social costs.

979
00:50:50.845 --> 00:50:54.347
And actually when you start to factor those in things like the local breed,

980
00:50:54.407 --> 00:50:55.928
which may be less productive,

981
00:50:56.448 --> 00:50:56.788
um,

982
00:50:57.612 --> 00:51:00.293
make a hell of a lot more sense in that place.

983
00:51:00.793 --> 00:51:01.853
Yeah,

984
00:51:01.854 --> 00:51:04.334
and talking about the other potential costs,

985
00:51:04.434 --> 00:51:13.697
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,

986
00:51:13.717 --> 00:51:14.337
on the water,

987
00:51:14.637 --> 00:51:15.177
on the coast,

988
00:51:15.237 --> 00:51:15.477
right?

989
00:51:16.378 --> 00:51:23.039
So there's probably a huge loss that's not being factored in in tourism and other things of the sort,

990
00:51:23.139 --> 00:51:23.300
right?

991
00:51:23.400 --> 00:51:23.560
Yeah,

992
00:51:23.680 --> 00:51:24.080
exactly.

993
00:51:24.240 --> 00:51:24.560
Water,

994
00:51:24.561 --> 00:51:24.900
for example,

995
00:51:25.100 --> 00:51:44.731
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

996
00:51:45.191 --> 00:51:53.075
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

997
00:51:54.736 --> 00:52:12.550
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

998
00:52:12.551 --> 00:52:15.412
as well um and i i saw a

999
00:52:15.881 --> 00:52:18.523
posts that you wrote on LinkedIn quite recently saying that,

1000
00:52:19.083 --> 00:52:19.923
you asked the question,

1001
00:52:20.524 --> 00:52:23.666
what if we paid farmers based on nutrition per hectare?

1002
00:52:25.046 --> 00:52:25.447
So yeah,

1003
00:52:25.507 --> 00:52:28.528
maybe you could explain what inspired that post.

1004
00:52:29.509 --> 00:52:29.629
Yeah,

1005
00:52:29.669 --> 00:52:29.889
I mean,

1006
00:52:30.409 --> 00:52:32.831
I think it goes back to the,

1007
00:52:32.891 --> 00:52:34.952
I call it regenerative finance mindset.

1008
00:52:34.953 --> 00:52:35.973
It's not a very catchy term,

1009
00:52:36.073 --> 00:52:41.976
but we pay farmers effectively for yield per acre or yield per hectare at the moment.

1010
00:52:43.669 --> 00:52:46.130
and or liters per kilogram of product,

1011
00:52:46.730 --> 00:52:50.811
it's really based on how much you can produce on as little as possible area effectively.

1012
00:52:52.331 --> 00:52:59.653
That obviously doesn't take into account at all the nutritional benefit or detriment of that product.

1013
00:52:59.673 --> 00:53:12.957
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

1014
00:53:13.325 --> 00:53:13.585
you know,

1015
00:53:14.266 --> 00:53:15.146
500 cows.

1016
00:53:15.166 --> 00:53:17.527
You could have 200 cows but produce really,

1017
00:53:17.627 --> 00:53:29.174
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.

1018
00:53:29.814 --> 00:53:33.036
So I think if you paid farmers for nutrition per hectare,

1019
00:53:33.936 --> 00:53:34.177
again,

1020
00:53:34.197 --> 00:53:37.899
you would completely shift the business model away from just produce as much as you can,

1021
00:53:37.999 --> 00:53:42.021
don't worry about the environmental and health costs and instead really think about

1022
00:53:42.353 --> 00:53:49.518
how you factor those health externalities in that source and pay for the cause rather than the symptom.

1023
00:53:50.539 --> 00:53:51.539
So it's really exciting.

1024
00:53:51.839 --> 00:53:58.044
It's obviously an area where we need a lot more data because there's been some academic studies looking at,

1025
00:53:58.264 --> 00:53:58.704
as you said,

1026
00:53:59.185 --> 00:54:01.706
the difference between grass fed meat and grain fed meat.

1027
00:54:02.227 --> 00:54:11.313
It's fairly well established how those different systems result in different nutritional benefits or disadvantages.

1028
00:54:11.813 --> 00:54:12.274
It's all to do,

1029
00:54:12.434 --> 00:54:13.415
I won't go into the detail,

1030
00:54:13.416 --> 00:54:17.378
but it's all to do with omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratios.

1031
00:54:17.939 --> 00:54:18.879
A bit geeky.

1032
00:54:19.660 --> 00:54:21.001
But basically grass fed,

1033
00:54:21.462 --> 00:54:21.582
i.e.

1034
00:54:22.342 --> 00:54:23.824
feeding cows what they should be eating,

1035
00:54:25.245 --> 00:54:28.828
shock creates a more nutritious and healthy product for us to eat.

1036
00:54:30.490 --> 00:54:36.975
There needs to be more research on different farming systems and their result on nutrition in tomatoes,

1037
00:54:36.995 --> 00:54:37.516
for example,

1038
00:54:37.517 --> 00:54:38.136
or vegetables.

1039
00:54:39.301 --> 00:54:55.808
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

1040
00:54:55.848 --> 00:55:07.733
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

1041
00:55:08.333 --> 00:55:10.554
outcome based mindset,

1042
00:55:10.934 --> 00:55:18.316
if we were measuring nutrition per hectare or ton or something like that rather than just the weight or the volume.

1043
00:55:18.796 --> 00:55:23.757
And we could see which farms or which producers are producing higher quantity of nutrients.

1044
00:55:23.877 --> 00:55:24.138
Yeah,

1045
00:55:24.318 --> 00:55:25.158
all of the minerals,

1046
00:55:25.159 --> 00:55:25.778
the vitamins,

1047
00:55:25.779 --> 00:55:26.478
the polyphenols,

1048
00:55:26.479 --> 00:55:27.338
we need to be healthy,

1049
00:55:27.699 --> 00:55:28.859
not just calories.

1050
00:55:28.979 --> 00:55:29.419
Exactly.

1051
00:55:29.439 --> 00:55:30.899
Yeah.

1052
00:55:30.900 --> 00:55:31.820
Then I mean,

1053
00:55:31.920 --> 00:55:32.340
potentially,

1054
00:55:32.480 --> 00:55:36.041
we could reward that because if we me as a consumer,

1055
00:55:36.665 --> 00:55:44.871
If I have the choice between two carrots and I see that one of them has like four times more nutrients,

1056
00:55:45.011 --> 00:55:45.431
vitamins,

1057
00:55:45.471 --> 00:55:46.032
polyphenols,

1058
00:55:46.033 --> 00:55:46.592
all of that.

1059
00:55:47.793 --> 00:55:49.314
I know this is what's going to nourish me,

1060
00:55:49.334 --> 00:55:50.255
that's going to make me healthy.

1061
00:55:51.015 --> 00:55:53.898
And so I'm going to be inclined to pay more for that.

1062
00:55:54.098 --> 00:55:54.218
Yeah,

1063
00:55:54.638 --> 00:55:54.978
totally.

1064
00:55:55.899 --> 00:55:56.640
And I think,

1065
00:55:56.660 --> 00:55:56.780
yeah,

1066
00:55:56.840 --> 00:56:00.502
imagine going around and you have some app on your phone or even better,

1067
00:56:00.602 --> 00:56:02.924
it's even more clear somehow when you're in the shops.

1068
00:56:04.589 --> 00:56:04.969
as you say,

1069
00:56:04.989 --> 00:56:08.511
the different levels of micronutrients as well as macronutrients.

1070
00:56:10.131 --> 00:56:12.512
And really giving people,

1071
00:56:12.773 --> 00:56:19.275
empowering people to be able to make a different decision based on that is incredibly exciting.

1072
00:56:19.295 --> 00:56:22.217
And there's so many interesting projects to call out a couple.

1073
00:56:22.377 --> 00:56:27.899
The Bionutrient Food Association in the States is looking at sort of spectrometer that can measure nutrition.

1074
00:56:28.780 --> 00:56:31.301
The Periodic Table of Food Initiative,

1075
00:56:31.361 --> 00:56:31.721
which is

1076
00:56:32.913 --> 00:56:34.815
funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation,

1077
00:56:35.855 --> 00:56:43.461
is an incredible detailed initiative looking at different nutritional compositions of different food groups.

1078
00:56:43.761 --> 00:56:47.463
So there's some amazing work going on and I feel like we're near a breakthrough on this.

1079
00:56:49.004 --> 00:56:58.851
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.

1080
00:56:59.351 --> 00:56:59.712
It's really,

1081
00:56:59.752 --> 00:57:01.393
really important that we find ways

1082
00:57:02.253 --> 00:57:04.695
ideally through government incentives,

1083
00:57:04.735 --> 00:57:05.155
I would say,

1084
00:57:06.075 --> 00:57:08.557
to make sure everyone in society has access to healthy,

1085
00:57:08.617 --> 00:57:14.080
nutritious food from schools all the way through to people cooking in their homes and eating out in restaurants.

1086
00:57:14.780 --> 00:57:18.722
So that's also obviously an incredibly important part of the conversation.

1087
00:57:19.322 --> 00:57:19.462
Yeah,

1088
00:57:20.403 --> 00:57:23.845
I really feel like with the whole concept of true cost accounting.

1089
00:57:25.779 --> 00:57:26.840
if that really takes off,

1090
00:57:27.400 --> 00:57:29.222
then healthy food would become the norm.

1091
00:57:29.642 --> 00:57:34.426
It wouldn't be more expensive because if you take into consideration all of these externalities,

1092
00:57:34.846 --> 00:57:35.967
all of these extra costs,

1093
00:57:36.488 --> 00:57:43.774
then conventional food grown with a very intensive extractive system would become so much more expensive.

1094
00:57:43.854 --> 00:57:44.274
Exactly.

1095
00:57:45.075 --> 00:57:49.718
And since we already have regenerative farmers right now proving that they can produce similar amounts,

1096
00:57:49.818 --> 00:57:52.260
better quality but while being regenerative,

1097
00:57:53.541 --> 00:57:55.423
they would be able to keep producing for a certain

1098
00:57:55.671 --> 00:57:56.291
similar price,

1099
00:57:56.311 --> 00:57:57.572
maybe a little bit higher or something,

1100
00:57:57.573 --> 00:57:58.892
but similar price than now.

1101
00:57:58.952 --> 00:58:01.333
So now they would be much more competitive,

1102
00:58:01.353 --> 00:58:01.633
right?

1103
00:58:02.573 --> 00:58:03.073
Even cheaper.

1104
00:58:03.093 --> 00:58:05.774
And if they're so much cheaper than the conventionally produced foods,

1105
00:58:05.854 --> 00:58:08.755
why continue doing conventional agriculture at all?

1106
00:58:08.875 --> 00:58:09.655
So I mean,

1107
00:58:09.675 --> 00:58:10.575
maybe this is completely,

1108
00:58:10.576 --> 00:58:13.496
I don't know,

1109
00:58:13.536 --> 00:58:13.876
utopic.

1110
00:58:14.596 --> 00:58:14.836
Maybe,

1111
00:58:14.916 --> 00:58:15.517
but

1112
00:58:15.857 --> 00:58:17.137
I think it's absolutely doable.

1113
00:58:18.077 --> 00:58:18.497
And you're right,

1114
00:58:18.837 --> 00:58:19.638
you know,

1115
00:58:19.698 --> 00:58:24.199
it might completely flip it on its head where cheap

1116
00:58:24.767 --> 00:58:30.312
intensively produce food at the moment becomes more expensive than sustainable regenerative alternatives,

1117
00:58:30.372 --> 00:58:32.393
or it might just level out the differential.

1118
00:58:33.454 --> 00:58:33.815
I don't,

1119
00:58:34.095 --> 00:58:34.795
as I said earlier,

1120
00:58:34.835 --> 00:58:40.760
I don't think we should suggest that food should become cheaper because actually until the last year or so,

1121
00:58:41.101 --> 00:58:44.724
food is the only global commodity that hasn't increased with inflation,

1122
00:58:44.824 --> 00:58:46.185
increase in price with inflation.

1123
00:58:47.086 --> 00:58:53.091
And farmers earn so little that I think we need to find ways of increasing fairness in the supply chain

1124
00:58:53.711 --> 00:58:56.892
But also making sure we're valuing food for what it is.

1125
00:58:57.793 --> 00:59:01.294
We pay partly because the world is different now and our lives are different,

1126
00:59:01.354 --> 00:59:05.356
but as a percentage of our annual or weekly income,

1127
00:59:06.116 --> 00:59:12.719
what we spend on food is so much less compared to what it was back in the 70s and 80s.

1128
00:59:13.199 --> 00:59:16.400
So we should value food for what it is providing us and what it's,

1129
00:59:16.680 --> 00:59:16.920
you know,

1130
00:59:16.921 --> 00:59:18.941
the benefit it's providing to the landscape.

1131
00:59:19.481 --> 00:59:21.222
And therefore I don't think food should become cheaper,

1132
00:59:21.282 --> 00:59:23.223
but we should find ways of helping everyone.

1133
00:59:23.491 --> 00:59:24.211
have access.

1134
00:59:24.212 --> 00:59:24.472
Yes,

1135
00:59:25.172 --> 00:59:45.783
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

1136
00:59:45.784 --> 00:59:51.486
us all of these amazing benefits then well the farmer would get paid better.

1137
00:59:51.846 --> 00:59:52.647
Yeah totally

1138
00:59:53.043 --> 00:59:54.724
Revolutionary Makes so much sense.

1139
00:59:55.724 --> 00:59:55.964
But...

1140
00:59:58.505 --> 00:59:58.645
Yeah,

1141
00:59:58.805 --> 01:00:00.225
it really does make so much sense.

1142
01:00:00.265 --> 01:00:00.385
And

1143
01:00:01.185 --> 01:00:10.668
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.

1144
01:00:10.968 --> 01:00:17.890
So I hope that will put a bit of a pathway in place for how do we really mainstream true cost accounting.

1145
01:00:17.910 --> 01:00:21.751
It cannot just be a niche amongst weird people like me who...

1146
01:00:22.351 --> 01:00:23.512
think that this is really important.

1147
01:00:23.872 --> 01:00:32.076
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,

1148
01:00:32.497 --> 01:00:34.658
every government ministry in the world.

1149
01:00:35.378 --> 01:00:36.179
And slowly,

1150
01:00:36.439 --> 01:00:38.300
I think once everyone starts to do it,

1151
01:00:39.000 --> 01:00:39.981
it will become the norm.

1152
01:00:40.261 --> 01:00:45.364
But you have to find the leaders and the people that are willing to stick their necks out the companies.

1153
01:00:46.024 --> 01:00:46.444
For example,

1154
01:00:46.464 --> 01:00:47.725
like Tony's Chocolony,

1155
01:00:48.306 --> 01:00:50.607
they have done a true cost analysis of their supply chain

1156
01:00:51.327 --> 01:00:55.450
We need companies like that who are willing to break the mold and take risks,

1157
01:00:55.990 --> 01:00:57.751
because then other companies look and think,

1158
01:00:57.851 --> 01:00:57.991
oh,

1159
01:00:58.051 --> 01:00:58.531
they're doing that.

1160
01:00:58.571 --> 01:00:59.292
Maybe we should too.

1161
01:00:59.512 --> 01:01:01.333
So it's a chain reaction.

1162
01:01:02.293 --> 01:01:04.955
It feels like the companies,

1163
01:01:05.135 --> 01:01:05.515
businesses,

1164
01:01:05.795 --> 01:01:09.437
they're not the ones who have the biggest incentives to take action there.

1165
01:01:09.537 --> 01:01:10.178
Because right now,

1166
01:01:10.518 --> 01:01:13.700
not having to pay for the hidden cost of food is very profitable for them,

1167
01:01:13.780 --> 01:01:14.020
right?

1168
01:01:14.520 --> 01:01:16.481
So if we start taking all of this into account,

1169
01:01:16.482 --> 01:01:17.802
it might be a bit more difficult for them.

1170
01:01:18.262 --> 01:01:19.123
So wouldn't that?

1171
01:01:19.323 --> 01:01:21.725
the solution come more from policymakers,

1172
01:01:21.785 --> 01:01:22.385
from governments?

1173
01:01:22.725 --> 01:01:22.906
Yeah,

1174
01:01:22.946 --> 01:01:23.686
you're totally right.

1175
01:01:23.687 --> 01:01:28.990
At the moment there's a lack of regulation around what we call the polluter payers principle,

1176
01:01:29.050 --> 01:01:38.596
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.

1177
01:01:39.197 --> 01:01:39.637
However,

1178
01:01:39.757 --> 01:01:43.540
I think the same is true for government as it is for companies.

1179
01:01:43.920 --> 01:01:45.781
The pressure needs to come from people,

1180
01:01:45.941 --> 01:01:46.722
it needs to come from

1181
01:01:48.471 --> 01:01:53.953
Governments are just the same as companies in that if they don't feel the pressure from their electorate,

1182
01:01:54.353 --> 01:01:55.674
in the same way that companies,

1183
01:01:55.694 --> 01:01:57.775
if they don't feel the pressure from their customers,

1184
01:01:58.495 --> 01:01:59.736
they probably won't shift.

1185
01:02:01.036 --> 01:02:03.117
And therefore we,

1186
01:02:03.637 --> 01:02:10.080
as people working in the non-profit sector or working to advise companies or governments,

1187
01:02:10.360 --> 01:02:13.861
we really need to think about how we shift everyone,

1188
01:02:13.862 --> 01:02:15.042
how we shift normal people,

1189
01:02:15.422 --> 01:02:17.843
how this becomes a voting issue or a buying issue.

1190
01:02:18.768 --> 01:02:20.491
so that individual people,

1191
01:02:20.571 --> 01:02:22.113
even if in a very small way,

1192
01:02:22.233 --> 01:02:24.838
start to put pressure on these big players.

1193
01:02:25.779 --> 01:02:26.259
I think,

1194
01:02:26.319 --> 01:02:38.129
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?

1195
01:02:38.309 --> 01:02:38.750
Basically,

1196
01:02:40.631 --> 01:02:40.931
we had

1197
01:02:41.332 --> 01:02:41.952
Comic Relief.

1198
01:02:41.992 --> 01:02:43.033
It still exists now,

1199
01:02:43.714 --> 01:02:45.675
which was a huge fundraising campaign.

1200
01:02:45.895 --> 01:02:48.257
There used to be a TV event every year here in the UK,

1201
01:02:49.659 --> 01:02:53.822
and they would raise lots of money on that night and lots of celebrities involved,

1202
01:02:53.842 --> 01:02:54.823
lots of musicians.

1203
01:02:55.083 --> 01:03:00.768
and that went to fund all sorts of different poverty and aid charities around the world,

1204
01:03:00.828 --> 01:03:02.009
or initiatives around the world.

1205
01:03:02.309 --> 01:03:06.432
And that then led to the government increasing the aid budget from 5%

1206
01:03:06.433 --> 01:03:07.073
to 7%,

1207
01:03:07.213 --> 01:03:09.215
which unfortunately has now gone back down.

1208
01:03:10.415 --> 01:03:11.556
But it shows the power of people,

1209
01:03:11.757 --> 01:03:11.997
right?

1210
01:03:12.057 --> 01:03:15.940
And I think we need a campaign on that scale with celebrities,

1211
01:03:16.040 --> 01:03:16.801
musicians,

1212
01:03:17.601 --> 01:03:19.283
to really make food exciting,

1213
01:03:20.375 --> 01:03:22.396
But also make the solutions really tangible.

1214
01:03:22.416 --> 01:03:23.877
And I think that's what we struggle with,

1215
01:03:23.917 --> 01:03:33.801
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?

1216
01:03:34.341 --> 01:03:37.342
What's the TikTok thing that's going to be 20 seconds?

1217
01:03:38.983 --> 01:03:41.384
What's the billboard phrase?

1218
01:03:42.444 --> 01:03:42.985
And it's hard.

1219
01:03:43.225 --> 01:03:44.765
It's really hard with food and farming.

1220
01:03:44.966 --> 01:03:45.986
So what do we tell people?

1221
01:03:46.626 --> 01:03:47.547
What's the tagline?

1222
01:03:48.447 --> 01:03:49.328
It's all very well saying,

1223
01:03:49.368 --> 01:03:50.429
buy regenerative food.

1224
01:03:50.509 --> 01:03:52.270
But how do they buy regenerative food?

1225
01:03:52.410 --> 01:03:53.191
It's really hard.

1226
01:03:53.912 --> 01:03:55.413
So we need a public campaign,

1227
01:03:55.473 --> 01:04:02.799
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.

1228
01:04:03.279 --> 01:04:04.961
So it's all these factors that need to come together.

1229
01:04:05.561 --> 01:04:05.702
Yeah.

1230
01:04:07.103 --> 01:04:11.326
It's a general problem I find that we live in such a complicated society.

1231
01:04:11.366 --> 01:04:13.688
We build complexity on top of complexity.

1232
01:04:13.848 --> 01:04:16.811
We have these interconnected global systems.

1233
01:04:16.851 --> 01:04:17.071
Right.

1234
01:04:17.283 --> 01:04:18.303
and you have the food system,

1235
01:04:18.323 --> 01:04:19.644
but you have like energy systems,

1236
01:04:19.645 --> 01:04:20.864
you have economics.

1237
01:04:21.265 --> 01:04:24.906
And all of that has become so incredibly complicated that any solutions,

1238
01:04:24.907 --> 01:04:26.787
even though we have so many amazing solutions,

1239
01:04:28.307 --> 01:04:33.410
any solution will by nature be complicated and hard to explain to people.

1240
01:04:34.030 --> 01:04:37.011
And unfortunately,

1241
01:04:37.012 --> 01:04:37.611
in politics,

1242
01:04:37.671 --> 01:04:43.834
populist people who find the simplest problem and the simplest solutions are the one that people will listen to the most.

1243
01:04:43.874 --> 01:04:44.654
And so yeah,

1244
01:04:44.774 --> 01:04:45.054
you're right,

1245
01:04:45.134 --> 01:04:46.735
finding the right way of framing this.

1246
01:04:47.163 --> 01:04:49.625
of getting people involved would be amazing.

1247
01:04:50.225 --> 01:04:50.385
Yeah,

1248
01:04:50.746 --> 01:04:51.186
absolutely.

1249
01:04:51.306 --> 01:04:57.390
And I think probably if there is a thing which is going to really win hearts and minds,

1250
01:04:57.430 --> 01:04:57.911
it's health.

1251
01:04:58.551 --> 01:05:02.114
We are undeniably selfish beings,

1252
01:05:02.234 --> 01:05:02.654
all of us.

1253
01:05:02.934 --> 01:05:09.479
And I think as much as we like to think everyone will care about the environment and animal welfare and things like that,

1254
01:05:09.499 --> 01:05:15.003
I do actually think it's ourselves and the health of our children probably that is going to really move people.

1255
01:05:16.143 --> 01:05:22.167
And so it's obviously interesting watching what's happened in America with the Make America Healthy Maha movement,

1256
01:05:22.247 --> 01:05:24.168
which has so many issues attached to it.

1257
01:05:24.688 --> 01:05:26.469
I don't want to begin to go into it,

1258
01:05:26.609 --> 01:05:39.036
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.

1259
01:05:40.577 --> 01:05:41.558
And I think that's interesting.

1260
01:05:41.559 --> 01:05:43.699
And I think perhaps as we move forward.

1261
01:05:44.895 --> 01:05:45.736
I hasten to say,

1262
01:05:45.816 --> 01:05:49.678
towards ever further right politics in various places.

1263
01:05:50.919 --> 01:05:55.782
Maybe there's a sort of Maha type opportunity to bring health back into the conversation.

1264
01:05:56.503 --> 01:05:58.464
So let's see.

1265
01:05:58.644 --> 01:05:59.545
We'll see.

1266
01:05:59.625 --> 01:05:59.945
We'll see.

1267
01:06:00.826 --> 01:06:04.829
I am so happy that you're still here with us this far into the conversation.

1268
01:06:05.169 --> 01:06:09.452
If you enjoy listening to the Deep Seat podcast and you'd like to support me and my work,

1269
01:06:09.572 --> 01:06:14.115
you can actually do that in just a few seconds by clicking on the like button.

1270
01:06:14.455 --> 01:06:18.097
and subscribe buttons just down here at the bottom of your screen.

1271
01:06:18.597 --> 01:06:20.539
Thank you so much for your love and support.

1272
01:06:20.599 --> 01:06:21.899
I really appreciate it.

1273
01:06:22.800 --> 01:06:23.040
Now,

1274
01:06:23.380 --> 01:06:24.921
let's get back to this conversation.

1275
01:06:26.662 --> 01:06:31.305
What do you think about the whole sort of land sparing versus land sharing debates?

1276
01:06:32.145 --> 01:06:34.747
Maybe we could just first recap what this is about.

1277
01:06:34.807 --> 01:06:37.709
But I keep seeing information about this,

1278
01:06:37.749 --> 01:06:39.069
and I wanted to ask you what you think.

1279
01:06:40.250 --> 01:06:40.390
Yeah,

1280
01:06:40.430 --> 01:06:41.151
it's one of those...

1281
01:06:41.871 --> 01:06:49.017
It's one of those slightly unhelpfully opposing views,

1282
01:06:49.237 --> 01:06:49.758
I suppose.

1283
01:06:49.798 --> 01:06:54.222
So land sharing being farming in harmony with nature.

1284
01:06:54.302 --> 01:07:08.554
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?

1285
01:07:08.654 --> 01:07:09.695
And then land sparing

1286
01:07:10.135 --> 01:07:13.280
On the other hand is where you produce as much food as you can quite intensively,

1287
01:07:13.380 --> 01:07:16.365
often using chemical inputs to improve productivity.

1288
01:07:16.986 --> 01:07:22.254
But naturally that has the impact of removing nature and wildlife from that place.

1289
01:07:22.294 --> 01:07:25.739
And instead you just have it around the edges so you have a nice field margin.

1290
01:07:25.919 --> 01:07:30.503
or a nice hedge to kind of provide habitat for animals but effectively separate it.

1291
01:07:31.764 --> 01:07:35.226
Rewilding is another example of land sparing,

1292
01:07:35.286 --> 01:07:35.847
where you're saying:

1293
01:07:36.327 --> 01:07:37.348
"Let's spare this land,

1294
01:07:37.388 --> 01:07:40.810
let's rewild this area here so that we can have a nature reserve over here",

1295
01:07:41.011 --> 01:07:41.451
basically.

1296
01:07:41.531 --> 01:07:42.932
So you intensify,

1297
01:07:43.372 --> 01:07:45.274
use less amount of land to produce your food,

1298
01:07:45.294 --> 01:07:47.716
so you free up land for rewilding?

1299
01:07:47.717 --> 01:07:47.896
Exactly,

1300
01:07:48.036 --> 01:07:48.156
yeah.

1301
01:07:48.276 --> 01:07:51.919
Use the most productive land quote-unquote to produce as much food as we can

1302
01:07:52.239 --> 01:07:54.080
so that we can spare land for nature.

1303
01:07:54.081 --> 01:07:54.941
We can have more land,

1304
01:07:54.961 --> 01:07:56.202
which is purely for nature.

1305
01:07:56.942 --> 01:07:57.503
And I mean,

1306
01:07:58.103 --> 01:08:00.505
I definitely sign up more to the land sharing camp.

1307
01:08:00.585 --> 01:08:01.125
Absolutely.

1308
01:08:01.525 --> 01:08:02.906
I think it is totally possible.

1309
01:08:02.926 --> 01:08:04.948
I see it on our own farm at home.

1310
01:08:05.348 --> 01:08:21.018
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,

1311
01:08:21.659 --> 01:08:21.919
wow.

1312
01:08:21.999 --> 01:08:22.219
I mean,

1313
01:08:22.220 --> 01:08:29.386
it's totally possible to layer on top these different land uses effectively and have nature and food production operating together.

1314
01:08:30.947 --> 01:08:35.131
But also there are areas of land that are best suited for pure nature.

1315
01:08:35.371 --> 01:08:35.731
Like,

1316
01:08:35.751 --> 01:08:35.991
you know,

1317
01:08:36.912 --> 01:08:39.935
the true kind of very high uplands are,

1318
01:08:40.395 --> 01:08:41.156
I agree with

1319
01:08:41.836 --> 01:08:43.258
George Monbiot,

1320
01:08:43.259 --> 01:08:49.263
who many of your listeners will know as the sort of incredibly charismatic and articulate man.

1321
01:08:49.367 --> 01:08:54.630
journalists who thinks that we should get rid of all upland farming because it's killing the nature.

1322
01:08:55.431 --> 01:08:56.211
And to be honest with you,

1323
01:08:56.231 --> 01:08:58.112
I sometimes agree.

1324
01:08:58.412 --> 01:09:05.536
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.

1325
01:09:06.097 --> 01:09:08.738
And it's not actually because there's too many animals.

1326
01:09:08.798 --> 01:09:12.500
There is sheep grazing all over the place but it's not because there's too many of them.

1327
01:09:12.520 --> 01:09:15.142
It's just because they're completely unmanaged basically.

1328
01:09:16.062 --> 01:09:16.883
In the Alps

1329
01:09:17.399 --> 01:09:19.020
They have,

1330
01:09:19.021 --> 01:09:34.111
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.

1331
01:09:34.932 --> 01:09:44.539
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

1332
01:09:45.055 --> 01:09:46.716
and shrubs and trees in the Alps,

1333
01:09:46.816 --> 01:09:50.838
whereas the mountains here in the UK are often green deserts,

1334
01:09:50.878 --> 01:09:51.278
basically.

1335
01:09:51.458 --> 01:09:52.078
And yeah,

1336
01:09:52.238 --> 01:09:53.259
it's just about management.

1337
01:09:53.319 --> 01:09:55.140
It's not actually about numbers of animals.

1338
01:09:55.760 --> 01:09:56.640
So it's fascinating.

1339
01:09:57.921 --> 01:09:58.201
So yeah,

1340
01:09:58.221 --> 01:09:58.781
I mean,

1341
01:09:58.881 --> 01:09:59.522
in conclusion,

1342
01:09:59.542 --> 01:10:03.784
I don't think it's quite as black and white as we must be land sharing or we must be land sparing.

1343
01:10:05.605 --> 01:10:09.446
But I definitely feel it's possible to have food and nature together.

1344
01:10:09.466 --> 01:10:10.787
And that's what we should aim for.

1345
01:10:11.707 --> 01:10:12.167
As always,

1346
01:10:12.248 --> 01:10:15.009
it's about nuance and understanding what's right for what context.

1347
01:10:16.109 --> 01:10:17.830
And well,

1348
01:10:17.831 --> 01:10:20.571
we talked earlier about also what we eat,

1349
01:10:20.651 --> 01:10:21.611
what we produce.

1350
01:10:21.771 --> 01:10:22.612
And in that debate,

1351
01:10:22.732 --> 01:10:30.395
I find that it's also helpful to remind people of the land footprint of certain types of foods,

1352
01:10:32.016 --> 01:10:36.618
including a lot of animal foods that take a huge amount of land.

1353
01:10:36.638 --> 01:10:39.419
And if we switch to more plant-based,

1354
01:10:39.739 --> 01:10:40.379
I'm not saying all,

1355
01:10:43.200 --> 01:10:45.381
but if we change what we eat,

1356
01:10:45.441 --> 01:10:47.902
we could actually eat on less land.

1357
01:10:48.122 --> 01:10:52.784
That land could be shared with biodiversity in this kind of mixed farming systems.

1358
01:10:52.804 --> 01:10:56.766
And then we would also free up some land for nature to be left alone.

1359
01:10:57.086 --> 01:10:57.546
Absolutely.

1360
01:10:57.566 --> 01:10:59.747
And I think we can be super creative with this.

1361
01:11:00.127 --> 01:11:06.110
We can reduce our meat consumption as well as eating more vegetables grown in a regenerative way.

1362
01:11:06.430 --> 01:11:08.591
I love the products that are starting to come out,

1363
01:11:08.631 --> 01:11:08.791
which...

1364
01:11:09.275 --> 01:11:26.010
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

1365
01:11:26.050 --> 01:11:36.599
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

1366
01:11:37.099 --> 01:11:37.499
Hopefully,

1367
01:11:37.579 --> 01:11:39.121
we'll be lots of farming with nature,

1368
01:11:39.141 --> 01:11:42.823
but also some areas that should just be left to do their own thing.

1369
01:11:44.344 --> 01:11:44.564
Great.

1370
01:11:45.665 --> 01:11:48.887
Maybe one or two last questions to close the conversation?

1371
01:11:51.029 --> 01:11:54.832
If there's like one important key message you'd like people to leave us with today,

1372
01:11:54.932 --> 01:11:55.532
what would you say?

1373
01:11:58.274 --> 01:12:03.518
I think the most important thing we can all do is collaborate.

1374
01:12:04.638 --> 01:12:04.759
We...

1375
01:12:05.855 --> 01:12:12.003
We'll never find the solutions to the regenerative agriculture transition or how to eat more healthily,

1376
01:12:12.103 --> 01:12:16.348
how to provide healthy food to everyone in society if we don't work together.

1377
01:12:17.389 --> 01:12:21.854
By working together I mean people within food and agriculture but also outside of.

1378
01:12:23.156 --> 01:12:25.739
I was recently doing some research looking at other

1379
01:12:25.959 --> 01:12:31.802
sectors that have successfully merged private sector funding,

1380
01:12:31.882 --> 01:12:34.883
funding from businesses and government to move projects forward.

1381
01:12:35.203 --> 01:12:46.508
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.

1382
01:12:46.568 --> 01:12:52.071
So looking at projects where different funding streams have led to a really positive output and that's...

1383
01:12:52.439 --> 01:12:53.939
I was looking at things like renewable energy,

1384
01:12:54.019 --> 01:12:57.260
actually transport in various parts of the world and research.

1385
01:12:58.021 --> 01:13:03.722
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.

1386
01:13:04.882 --> 01:13:10.404
I met a young farmer in Menorca last week who was an architect and he's just come into farming.

1387
01:13:10.804 --> 01:13:14.625
And the way he is thinking about designing that farm in a regenerative way,

1388
01:13:14.865 --> 01:13:19.426
you can just totally see is how he was thinking about designing a building in a sustainable way,

1389
01:13:20.207 --> 01:13:21.107
layering on top.

1390
01:13:22.147 --> 01:13:39.074
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

1391
01:13:39.514 --> 01:13:47.838
different industries um but also within groups um inside food and farming is is absolutely key

1392
01:13:51.119 --> 01:13:55.824
over the next hopefully months and years to come to help figure out these really complicated problems.

1393
01:13:57.005 --> 01:14:03.011
Wow yes and talking about the future actually we talked about your past working for the Sustainable

1394
01:14:03.611 --> 01:14:08.396
Food Trust and you said that you started freelancing recently what do you envision for the future for yourself?

1395
01:14:09.377 --> 01:14:16.003
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

1396
01:14:16.083 --> 01:14:18.984
I've actually just been doing something for the Sustainable Food Trust today.

1397
01:14:19.064 --> 01:14:20.485
So I'm still working with them,

1398
01:14:20.525 --> 01:14:21.885
which is absolutely fantastic.

1399
01:14:22.786 --> 01:14:24.787
I love that organisation and what they stand for.

1400
01:14:24.887 --> 01:14:29.048
So I'm definitely still hoping to take forward various bits of work with them.

1401
01:14:30.229 --> 01:14:33.190
I mentioned the project I'm doing in Menorca with Menorca Preservation,

1402
01:14:33.930 --> 01:14:35.191
which is fantastic.

1403
01:14:35.371 --> 01:14:37.212
And my hope is,

1404
01:14:37.672 --> 01:14:38.612
at least for the time being,

1405
01:14:38.632 --> 01:14:39.533
I'll see how things go.

1406
01:14:39.753 --> 01:14:43.014
But my hope is to help organisations,

1407
01:14:43.094 --> 01:14:43.374
groups,

1408
01:14:43.414 --> 01:14:44.995
initiatives

1409
01:14:45.803 --> 01:14:46.644
planning and thinking.

1410
01:14:47.665 --> 01:14:50.847
I'm not a massively good detail person.

1411
01:14:51.528 --> 01:14:54.590
I'm better at sort of zooming out and seeing how things fit together,

1412
01:14:55.111 --> 01:14:59.775
looking at complicated situations and figuring out what the solutions could be.

1413
01:14:59.975 --> 01:15:00.295
And so

1414
01:15:00.856 --> 01:15:02.177
I think that's where my strengths are.

1415
01:15:02.497 --> 01:15:02.997
And

1416
01:15:03.758 --> 01:15:05.459
I'm working with a few organisations.

1417
01:15:05.480 --> 01:15:10.944
I'm working with a brilliant company who are looking at local food procurement,

1418
01:15:11.184 --> 01:15:13.206
basically connecting local authorities,

1419
01:15:13.286 --> 01:15:13.586
schools,

1420
01:15:13.626 --> 01:15:14.127
hospitals.

1421
01:15:14.915 --> 01:15:15.275
prisons,

1422
01:15:15.315 --> 01:15:15.456
etc.

1423
01:15:16.416 --> 01:15:20.458
with local farmers and improving transparency in supply chains.

1424
01:15:21.459 --> 01:15:23.340
So that's a really exciting project.

1425
01:15:24.801 --> 01:15:27.162
And those are the sorts of things I love.

1426
01:15:28.303 --> 01:15:30.024
How do we tackle these difficult problems?

1427
01:15:30.424 --> 01:15:31.384
How do I work with people that

1428
01:15:31.845 --> 01:15:36.747
I really like and I'm lucky to have a great network that I've built with the Sustainable Food Trust.

1429
01:15:36.827 --> 01:15:36.948
So

1430
01:15:38.168 --> 01:15:41.510
I just want to learn and hopefully help where I can.

1431
01:15:41.830 --> 01:15:43.011
Yeah.

1432
01:15:43.707 --> 01:15:45.228
One very last question I want to ask you.

1433
01:15:46.229 --> 01:15:47.130
I didn't mention this yet,

1434
01:15:47.190 --> 01:15:50.412
but I'm in the UK for nine days recording nine different episodes.

1435
01:15:50.652 --> 01:15:58.177
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.

1436
01:15:58.678 --> 01:15:59.798
And tomorrow I'm interviewing

1437
01:16:00.219 --> 01:16:01.339
Professor Tim Benton.

1438
01:16:01.880 --> 01:16:02.640
And yeah,

1439
01:16:02.841 --> 01:16:06.183
I was wondering if you had a question in mind that you might want to ask him?

1440
01:16:07.103 --> 01:16:08.104
Hmm.

1441
01:16:09.065 --> 01:16:09.325
Yes,

1442
01:16:09.645 --> 01:16:11.487
lots of questions always for Tim.

1443
01:16:11.567 --> 01:16:11.847
He's a

1444
01:16:12.167 --> 01:16:12.967
He's a great mind.

1445
01:16:13.608 --> 01:16:18.370
And often perhaps with the views of the Sustainable Food Trust,

1446
01:16:18.371 --> 01:16:20.510
we haven't always aligned on the way forward.

1447
01:16:20.511 --> 01:16:21.411
But I think that's healthy.

1448
01:16:22.531 --> 01:16:25.152
So I think my question to him is,

1449
01:16:25.913 --> 01:16:35.096
do you think farming in the future will continue to rely on nature and natural processes to thrive?

1450
01:16:35.576 --> 01:16:41.999
Or do you think we are going down a route of ever more intensification technology development?

1451
01:16:42.183 --> 01:16:42.643
AI,

1452
01:16:43.524 --> 01:16:49.448
and perhaps less and less we will rely on nature to grow our food.

1453
01:16:49.668 --> 01:16:50.829
It's not the way I hope we go.

1454
01:16:51.029 --> 01:16:54.152
But I'm interested in his views,

1455
01:16:54.212 --> 01:16:54.652
your views,

1456
01:16:54.692 --> 01:16:54.912
Tim,

1457
01:16:56.073 --> 01:17:00.956
on whether you think nature or technology will drive us going forward?

1458
01:17:01.417 --> 01:17:02.077
Very interesting.

1459
01:17:02.838 --> 01:17:09.082
So I'll ask the question tomorrow and the listeners will find out the answer in next week's episode then.

1460
01:17:10.691 --> 01:17:11.292
Thank you so much,

1461
01:17:11.332 --> 01:17:11.572
Adele,

1462
01:17:11.573 --> 01:17:12.073
for your time.

1463
01:17:12.113 --> 01:17:13.535
I absolutely loved this conversation.

1464
01:17:13.555 --> 01:17:14.215
It was amazing.

1465
01:17:14.255 --> 01:17:14.856
Thank you.

1466
01:17:14.936 --> 01:17:15.397
Likewise.

1467
01:17:15.398 --> 01:17:16.478
It's been an absolute pleasure.

1468
01:17:16.558 --> 01:17:17.499
Thank you so much for having me.