WEBVTT

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So we are Terramai,

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we are a 562 hectare property.

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We do regenerative agriculture in a holistic way and one of our goals is to be self-sustainable in every aspect of our operation.

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We are fighting desertification,

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which has four pillars.

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The first is the natural,

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which disappears immediately if you don't take care of it.

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The second is the economical,

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because without nature there is no economy.

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Without economy,

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there is no society.

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And without society,

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the worst thing disappears,

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which is culture.

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The whole scope of this project was really to find a place where we feel home,

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where we feel safe,

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and with a little bit of control,

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of the knowledge that we will live for further generations on how to cope with this whole mess,

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not being so dependent on others.

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So that's the work we are doing.

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We want to share it with the world.

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Welcome back to the Deep Seed Podcast.

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If you're interested in regenerative agriculture,

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you've definitely come to the right place.

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Because this week I am visiting the most impressive and the most ambitious regenerative farm I've ever seen.

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It's located in Portugal,

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close to the Spanish border.

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It's called Terramay and they do absolutely everything.

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So we'll talk about...

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market gardening,

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about compost,

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about agroforestry,

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about holistic management of cows and pigs and chickens.

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And there's just so much in this episode,

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so much knowledge,

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so much passion,

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so many stories.

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I definitely recommend listening until the end.

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Let's just get into it and you'll see what I mean.

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This episode was made in partnership with Soil Capital.

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I am your host,

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Raphael,

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and this is the Deep Seed Podcast.

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Well,

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I'm Anna de Brito and you are?

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David de Brito,

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of course.

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And we arrived at Terramai six years ago.

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So when we arrived here,

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we realized that this was kind of a deserted area in terms of you didn't have a lot of people working here.

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You didn't have a lot of things going on.

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And we realized we really want to implement a project of regenerative agriculture and sustainable.

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hospitality.

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At least 80%

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of the products that we are using while we're building,

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while we're cooking,

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while we're serving the community will come from our property,

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so that's something that we are striving for.

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In our restaurants right now we have two,

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we're already doing that.

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In Raia we even have a 92%

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of self-sustainability.

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And at the farm...

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Because of this impact of the restaurants and the hospitality concept that we have,

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we have to produce everything.

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So we produce vegetables,

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fruits,

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cereals,

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meat of many kinds,

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milk,

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olive oil.

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We transform products.

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We have our own concept for a big town like Lisbon with preheated meals.

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And that is our whole approach.

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So to be as self-sustainable as possible,

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regenerative as possible.

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and to bring as much food to the plate of our clients and partners and our own restaurants that represent regenerative agriculture in a manner that it's it's pure we start this farm tour with the market garden which is located just across the street from the main farm buildings this

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looks a little bit different from what i'm used to when i'm visiting market gardens usually you get these very neat rows with one maybe two crops per row

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and very clean and neat paths separating the rows.

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But this is different,

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this is a lot wilder.

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This looks like a kind of crazy diverse vibrant thriving ecosystem really.

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And to the untrained eye this might look messy but in reality everything has been designed carefully to maximize the health of the ecosystem,

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the health of the soil and ultimately the quality of the ingredients produced.

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Well,

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quite essentially when we started Teramai we knew that we had to build a market garden in a high top because we had the pre-existences and that's where we're going to build up our hotel.

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So you never do your garden in the top of a hill.

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It has some advantages like everything in life but it's not the most common place to do it and we had no soil at all at

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Teramai. So the first thing we did because we wanted to have the garden close to

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to the hotel so it's the the zone zero and one from permaculture we started to work with raised beds and we got soil from many different places from the property different kinds of soils also to experiment with it and

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the first year we could only work on raised beds because we really had no soil so we don't have profile a b and c it's just mother rock and where we are right now this This is the result of five years of work.

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where we deliver 85 tons of vegetables per year to some of the best gardens in Portugal.

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We are a micro seasonal market garden concept.

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We don't have winter houses,

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so we produce everything from the seed to the final plant.

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The plants are always exposed to the natural conditions of the weather,

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so we don't make that compromise.

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And we like to do something we call a polyculture within the polyculture.

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Be it raised bed or now these lines that we are seeing right here right now,

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we always have different cultures in the same line or next to one another.

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So after five years we have a lot of associations that we know that will work,

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that will profilerate,

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but also will change or give some very positive nuance in taste and texture to some of the vegetables that we are selling to the best restaurants in Portugal.

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So our clients are mostly

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Michelin-starred restaurants that can search for the best products and have the high skilled hands to transform it into a moment of pure magic.

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So that's why we can also get some of our investment back because the price of our market gardening is very high.

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So we cannot compete with normal industrial production companies.

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To achieve this level of quality in your vegetables you need very good soil.

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Definitely.

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Could you talk us through the process of going from no soil to a really healthy soil with a vibrant microbial community in the soil that is nourishing your vegetables and producing such a high quality of food?

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Well,

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you always have to take it holistically.

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You have to do many things to achieve that objective.

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But in the end,

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of course,

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the more exposed the plant is and the better the soil the plant is living in,

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the more dense minerally.

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the plant will be.

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And I do believe that if we think of plants and the soil microbiome and the human microbiota,

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it's everything almost the same.

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So when you think that the plant is more tasteful or the aroma is stronger,

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that means that your bacteria within your gut are just calling and craving for it.

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So everything walks together.

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In my opinion,

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the most important thing when you're doing a regenerative market gardening is that you have to know that per hectare you need 20 tons of organic matter.

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And that's when you start working.

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You have to find a way to produce within your collective effort,

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holistic effort,

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a way to produce this amount of organic matter.

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Because without that you're not regenerative.

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You might be sustainable,

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but most likely degenerative.

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Because

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every market gardening,

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it's a super intensive community of plants growing and lands that is being used.

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So that is a little bit the the most difficult part to produce the organic matter and to know how to be regenerative.

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There are many techniques.

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I think Terra Mai,

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we are not pioneers on anything besides the will and the responsibility of building up 20 tons of organic matter that will keep our soils healthy.

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So that's

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our main focus not to lose that track because we don't buy anything on the outside so all of these beautiful bags of black turf that some of our friends are using while saying they're doing regenerative market gardening we don't do that we do the real thing when

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you say producing 20 tons of organic matter per hectare you mean what do you mean exactly so if you have one hectare of a

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Market Garden.

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At least in our experience here,

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and I think it adapts to many others as well,

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mostly in the south of Europe where we have much bigger temperature amplitudes,

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a lot of agents that are washing away the soils and most of the nutrients that we could keep on them.

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That has to be your focus because every time you take a product out of a line,

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to let it rest you have to

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feed the line back again you have to cover it give it time three to six months without without doing photosynthesis so that you have so so much grass is growing afterwards when you're replanting and reproducing so in

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our case what that means is that we have to use our chicken our pigs our cows our horses and everything that we're not using at our restaurants and and other prediction units so that we can re-bring it to our...

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market garden.

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Okay,

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so what you're saying is that instead of bringing bags of compost from outside of the farm,

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you work within the farm to find nutrients that you need to feed the soil in your market garden.

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Because obviously every time you harvest a vegetable and you take it out of the farm,

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you're taking nutrients out.

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Exactly.

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That's what you're saying,

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right?

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Exactly.

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But so it only works because you have other operations on the farm.

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Yes,

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imagine if you're developing a one hectare market gardening and you're just using that hectare,

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it's going to be impossible.

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Of course,

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you need somebody bringing that input to you.

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Of course,

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you can have partnerships and everything.

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But at Terramai,

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we do our chicken express compost,

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which is something that happens between 45 and 60 days that you can input in the garden again.

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we have 16

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horses that are roaming freely but we always have two in a box so that we can collect the organic matter they're bringing us,

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their presence.

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The same happens with our 80 mother cows and the rest of the whole bovines we have and animals.

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And we also do other things like Terra Preta,

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we have a vermicompostor,

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we do bazillions of composté,

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so it's a whole integrative way of looking at it.

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knowing that if you take out you have to give back and that terrami that's that's what makes us a little bit different than all of the other regenerative farms we're not just producing one thing regeneratively we're doing it holistically so we produce the vegetables the animals we have the restaurants and all of this circle circular

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not just economy but but organization gives us

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the potential to do that,

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which is very complicated because 20 tons of organic matter are really a lot,

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you cannot underestimate it.

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And so would you say that it's almost impossible to be truly regenerative if you don't have a diversified operation that allows you to feed each other,

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you know,

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the fact that you have animals to bring in the nutrients here,

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that you have this to feed the restaurant,

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that the restaurant scraps then feed your animals,

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that's just one example of all the things you're doing here.

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Well,

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I wouldn't be fundamentalist because that fundamentalism and absolutism doesn't bring us anything in any topic.

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Nevertheless,

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in our operation,

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that is a reality.

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If I would be a farmer in Holland with one hectare,

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just like I said,

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of course,

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I would have some friends that I trust doing different kinds of job that would bring that input.

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Or my choice would be to buy it from an organic turf production,

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industrial production unit.

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I don't know,

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there's many options.

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But of course,

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if it's...

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It's integrative,

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it's much more interesting because you have the full control of what you're doing.

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Nevertheless,

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we are very privileged to have 500 hectares and a diversified production unit and,

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of course,

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also the investment that allows us to be a lab and to develop these over the years to achieve those objectives.

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If I would be depending on my market gardening to be profitable within a year,

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I would have to approach it in a different kind of way.

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On the edge of the market garden,

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there is a parcel with dozens of chickens running around.

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Between the chickens and the garden,

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we find what David calls the Chicken Compost Express.

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A simple yet brilliant design to turn organic matter and chicken manure into amazing compost in only

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6 weeks time.

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This is the primary source of compost for the market garden and one of the key secrets behind its success.

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Back to the micro seasonal market gardening that we are doing without any plastic,

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without any inputs from the outside.

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One of the most important things that we have is that from our two restaurants and our digital business,

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where we do around 800,000 revenue in total over the year,

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we can get all of the rest products that we have into one of the most brilliant things that we developed in the last couple.

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of years,

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which is our chicken compost express.

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This means that everything that we're using at the restaurants,

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at the farm that we are not selling,

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so all of the veggie rests and even meat because most people don't know but chicken are the last living dinosaurs on planet earth.

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What we do is very simple,

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so we bring everything that we're not selling or the rest from the restaurant,

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we put it in the first pile,

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that's where the chicken come out.

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And of course they're not always dependent on this kind of food.

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We also have our own grain that we produce,

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that we give them at night.

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And every second day they have access to fresh grass and aromatics in our mandala place over there.

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So we just open a different door.

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But besides that,

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they start working over there.

243
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We move the compost or the manure and the rest of the food every day into different piles.

244
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and it

245
00:15:14.324 --> 00:15:17.947
It moves towards the end of the production,

246
00:15:18.449 --> 00:15:21.492
depending on the weather and the humidity that we have in the air,

247
00:15:21.531 --> 00:15:29.261
the amount of rain and all of these very demanding and dynamic aspects of our production.

248
00:15:29.761 --> 00:15:33.543
We might as well use water to give some humidity to the compost.

249
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But the beauty of it is that within 45 days to 60 days we get to an end product that looks like that.

250
00:15:43.120 --> 00:15:48.960
That means the brilliant part of this kind of compost is that you can use it immediately again.

251
00:15:49.601 --> 00:15:55.019
So while you have to wait for months when you're doing it with cow manure or with horse manure,

252
00:15:55.425 --> 00:16:00.402
you really have to let it sit for six months or one year depending on what it is,

253
00:16:00.777 --> 00:16:02.308
here we can be really fast.

254
00:16:02.980 --> 00:16:06.402
So that's why I'm really happy that we have these ladies.

255
00:16:06.605 --> 00:16:08.902
We have around 200 chickens.

256
00:16:09.308 --> 00:16:10.386
This is just a part of it.

257
00:16:11.167 --> 00:16:11.527
Of course,

258
00:16:11.528 --> 00:16:12.386
they produce eggs,

259
00:16:12.449 --> 00:16:12.574
but...

260
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this is the main goal so to to really produce very fast big amounts of of compost that we can reintegrate in our horticulture we now start heading further away from the main farm building and from the market garden we walk for maybe three or four minutes until we arrive at one of the many different agroforestry systems here on the farm since

261
00:16:35.097 --> 00:16:41.128
you're listening to this in audio format i'm going to try and paint a picture of what this looks like for you

262
00:16:42.144 --> 00:17:02.939
So basically you have rows of densely planted fruit and nut trees and these rows are planted in key line design 12 meters apart from each other and between the rows of trees you get this you have first a strip of wildflowers in the middle you have a cover crop in this case it's a fava bean then

263
00:17:02.970 --> 00:17:08.048
you get another strip of wildflowers and then you arrive at the end of the 12 meters to the other

264
00:17:08.455 --> 00:17:09.423
Row of Trees.

265
00:17:10.420 --> 00:17:10.660
Okay,

266
00:17:10.740 --> 00:17:14.726
we're standing now in the middle of your agroforestry system.

267
00:17:14.765 --> 00:17:15.105
One of them.

268
00:17:15.566 --> 00:17:15.945
One of them?

269
00:17:16.226 --> 00:17:16.465
Okay,

270
00:17:16.925 --> 00:17:18.828
could you tell us more about it?

271
00:17:18.992 --> 00:17:19.211
Okay,

272
00:17:19.226 --> 00:17:23.015
so we have over five to five different tree species.

273
00:17:23.156 --> 00:17:29.461
Within every species of tree we have five different typologies because we are not building for the big industry.

274
00:17:29.632 --> 00:17:32.554
So we want to build for our restaurants and our hotels.

275
00:17:32.555 --> 00:17:36.726
So we want ripe fruit over a long period of time,

276
00:17:37.007 --> 00:17:37.820
so that we don't have to...

277
00:17:38.144 --> 00:17:57.783
pick all of the fruit at the same time and work it and also because we want that diversity so imagine if you'd be a guest at our restaurants or even our hotel in a space time of 15 days you could experiment different types of pitches for instance and we think that's quite pleasant and interesting also

278
00:17:57.845 --> 00:18:06.173
because like this we also have an enhanced biodiversity and the beauty of this is that right now we're going to intensify the agroforest

279
00:18:06.656 --> 00:18:23.685
So we're going to bring some more lines to make it more dense now that the first phase of the of the system is integrated and what we are seeing here are just two lines of trees which are integrated with some fava beans for the peak so this is not the normal fava we consume as humans they are for the peak and

280
00:18:23.686 --> 00:18:34.576
we have on the left and on the right side some grass that will be cutted now to put back into the line of trees and these will just be rolled down with a tractor

281
00:18:34.996 --> 00:18:38.779
so that we can put as much hydrogen into the soil.

282
00:18:39.720 --> 00:18:47.451
So this is a completely self-functional system and the beauty of it is that we can also introduce animals.

283
00:18:48.005 --> 00:18:53.740
So after we put the grasses down and lower these down some grass will come out again and we'll make,

284
00:18:54.474 --> 00:19:04.287
we'll bring our chicken tractors again and normally we're speaking in six hectares of this agroforestry we can have around a hundred birds for four months which is quite...

285
00:19:04.934 --> 00:19:06.340
productive and interesting.

286
00:19:06.976 --> 00:19:15.248
The other thing that is interesting is that while we are producing perennial cultures that we can also put in the lines of trees we do stuff like tomatoes,

287
00:19:15.787 --> 00:19:17.083
aromatic herbs,

288
00:19:18.966 --> 00:19:19.466
you name it.

289
00:19:19.591 --> 00:19:25.287
That's in between lines we can produce real fava beans or potatoes,

290
00:19:25.333 --> 00:19:26.677
we can do strawberries.

291
00:19:26.708 --> 00:19:35.240
So as far as we get from our house that's where we have the intensive regenerative market gardening.

292
00:19:35.460 --> 00:19:37.360
and here starts the super extensive.

293
00:19:37.941 --> 00:19:40.982
So this is where we produce around 10 tons of potato per year.

294
00:19:41.802 --> 00:19:42.681
This is where we do it.

295
00:19:43.560 --> 00:19:44.560
Or even the tomatoes,

296
00:19:44.966 --> 00:19:45.841
this is where we do it.

297
00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:53.989
So we try not to use the soil as a basis but already a system that is working,

298
00:19:54.380 --> 00:19:55.521
that is perennial,

299
00:19:55.849 --> 00:19:59.942
and then we just add the seeds and use the structure that we built for that purpose.

300
00:19:59.943 --> 00:20:03.286
So like this we don't have to to dig anything.

301
00:20:03.712 --> 00:20:10.480
We are working under the principles of succession agroforestry and syntropic agriculture.

302
00:20:10.538 --> 00:20:17.984
So the most beautiful thing about this orchard is not properly that we are doing a system that many other people are doing.

303
00:20:18.405 --> 00:20:29.851
The beautiful thing I think is that in Portugal normally Ernst Goetsch would say that every orchard has to be planted from north to south so that you have maximal sun exposure for photosynthesis.

304
00:20:30.260 --> 00:20:31.882
That is not our problem in Alentejo.

305
00:20:32.142 --> 00:20:35.805
What we really need to think and sort out is the water.

306
00:20:36.347 --> 00:20:41.808
So instead of doing these north to south lines we did it in keyline,

307
00:20:42.855 --> 00:20:51.801
which is a method that allows you to adjust a little bit the level curves and like this we can withhold much more water.

308
00:20:51.863 --> 00:20:53.035
It's super effective,

309
00:20:53.160 --> 00:20:56.613
it's very cheap and that's something that I would advise to everybody to do.

310
00:20:57.328 --> 00:21:01.152
as long as they have the mechanics of the orchard under control.

311
00:21:01.652 --> 00:21:05.793
So if you are completely depending on a tractor to go around and do the whole work,

312
00:21:05.816 --> 00:21:08.137
of course this method is not the best,

313
00:21:09.098 --> 00:21:12.340
but if you do it like we do with almost no intervention,

314
00:21:13.309 --> 00:21:15.668
everything almost done by hand,

315
00:21:16.199 --> 00:21:25.152
then it's really amazing the enhance of of the water infiltration that you can do by designing your orchard like this.

316
00:21:26.432 --> 00:21:27.392
that's the most beautiful.

317
00:21:27.752 --> 00:21:44.602
The rest is like most other people are doing so different canopy sizes and different functions within the line trees that lose leaves in the summer and give light to the others that have a

318
00:21:44.618 --> 00:21:48.399
lower straight so we just follow the books adapted to our reality.

319
00:21:50.289 --> 00:21:54.993
I think that what is really curious about our intervention is the key line design.

320
00:21:55.340 --> 00:21:59.003
and that you produce a lot of food annuals within the system.

321
00:22:00.925 --> 00:22:04.292
You said that you have 55 different species of trees growing.

322
00:22:04.293 --> 00:22:08.714
Do you also have pioneer trees that are just there for boosting the ecosystem but without producing any?

323
00:22:09.214 --> 00:22:11.691
So we have the first two always.

324
00:22:12.472 --> 00:22:20.941
I don't recall the name in English but the first really grows as you can see in the images quite quite fast.

325
00:22:21.616 --> 00:22:22.497
That's the first pioneer,

326
00:22:22.558 --> 00:22:28.202
then we have a second one that has the same or will achieve the same height,

327
00:22:28.261 --> 00:22:29.745
but it will take much longer.

328
00:22:31.003 --> 00:22:43.034
And that's when we come to the part which is a little bit of hocus-pocus in the successive agroforestry design or even also syntropic agriculture.

329
00:22:43.331 --> 00:22:50.831
Because what we do is that when the second tree achieves the height that we understand is important for us,

330
00:22:51.192 --> 00:23:03.746
We start doing also epic cuttings in the first trees so that they send a message of stress to all of the other living organisms in the soil and the succession starts to happen.

331
00:23:03.808 --> 00:23:07.324
So when we planted these trees we used mycorrhizae,

332
00:23:07.325 --> 00:23:14.871
so we put all of the the roots into mycorrhizae and they were planted like this just to support this element of communication.

333
00:23:17.824 --> 00:23:18.558
You get like a

334
00:23:19.528 --> 00:23:20.969
a different atmosphere,

335
00:23:21.070 --> 00:23:28.355
different shades than you get in a different place because we are really creating an ecosystem that it's not common to see anywhere.

336
00:23:28.379 --> 00:23:32.519
It's really making a mimic of nature in a very productive way.

337
00:23:33.183 --> 00:23:37.769
So I really advise this to everybody that wants to do a regenerative,

338
00:23:37.800 --> 00:23:48.957
sustainable or organic approach to their orchards and the only limitations you have is how do you structure yourself industrially so if you're selling for a supermarket and you need the

339
00:23:49.132 --> 00:23:52.436
perfect ripe fruit in that day of the year,

340
00:23:53.737 --> 00:23:57.381
these will be much more expensive and technically demanding.

341
00:23:58.037 --> 00:24:00.803
But if you have an approach of farm to table,

342
00:24:00.865 --> 00:24:03.045
if you have your direct customers,

343
00:24:04.428 --> 00:24:08.467
the output you take is much more than the input because everything is living from the same system.

344
00:24:08.795 --> 00:24:09.811
As I was saying before,

345
00:24:10.451 --> 00:24:12.295
this that we are planting here,

346
00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:14.295
it's feeding the soil.

347
00:24:15.008 --> 00:24:31.261
these herbs that we have here is what is going to cover our lines during the summer so everything is very integrative and while you're pruning you're doing the same yeah so it makes a lot of sense it's very beautiful it's very motivating but of course it takes

348
00:24:31.292 --> 00:24:39.729
a lot of of work and attention and knowledge and then it's time for instance here we're looking at artemisia a grass

349
00:24:40.656 --> 00:24:42.318
Because we are now designing a new system,

350
00:24:42.538 --> 00:24:47.783
we are doing it with Mark from Quinta das Abelhas in

351
00:24:48.123 --> 00:24:48.826
Freixo do Maio.

352
00:24:49.443 --> 00:24:49.982
He's amazing,

353
00:24:50.029 --> 00:24:55.232
I think he's the most known disciple from from a syntropic agriculture.

354
00:24:55.709 --> 00:25:02.420
He's trying to make just what they were doing in Orros de Agua in Bahia in Brazil in a

355
00:25:02.810 --> 00:25:04.654
Mediterranean context.

356
00:25:05.185 --> 00:25:09.545
And it is insane because as we know trees are the only living being that

357
00:25:09.908 --> 00:25:14.371
can change the climate in a small place.

358
00:25:15.394 --> 00:25:17.137
Through expiration,

359
00:25:17.215 --> 00:25:18.117
transpiration,

360
00:25:18.500 --> 00:25:21.437
they can create their own climate.

361
00:25:21.937 --> 00:25:23.320
And that's what we are hoping here.

362
00:25:23.383 --> 00:25:23.765
Of course,

363
00:25:23.805 --> 00:25:24.500
very careful,

364
00:25:24.961 --> 00:25:26.531
without many expectations,

365
00:25:26.969 --> 00:25:27.641
but we believe so.

366
00:25:27.750 --> 00:25:30.391
And this Artemisia is quite interesting because it's a perennial.

367
00:25:31.031 --> 00:25:32.062
It has a lot of potential.

368
00:25:32.109 --> 00:25:33.016
It's very healthy as well.

369
00:25:33.469 --> 00:25:35.734
But it's one of these herbs that you can have in your line.

370
00:25:36.068 --> 00:25:40.574
and will allow you not to have so much spontaneous growth of other cultures.

371
00:25:41.093 --> 00:25:47.918
So it will take some of the minerals that most of the spontaneous herbs we have here need,

372
00:25:48.277 --> 00:25:51.105
and it will make a cover crop which is beautiful,

373
00:25:51.285 --> 00:25:53.722
aromatic and helping in many senses.

374
00:25:53.769 --> 00:25:55.285
So not just with the herbs,

375
00:25:55.629 --> 00:25:57.254
but also if you smell it,

376
00:25:59.347 --> 00:26:02.613
it's really an all-round,

377
00:26:02.754 --> 00:26:03.519
let's call it,

378
00:26:03.520 --> 00:26:04.332
or a round-up.

379
00:26:05.184 --> 00:26:12.046
because it performs in many ways also with little animals and things that normally are a problem for trees.

380
00:26:12.484 --> 00:26:13.085
It helps a lot.

381
00:26:13.124 --> 00:26:17.070
So you learn some tricks to reduce your work,

382
00:26:17.531 --> 00:26:20.546
but it's pretty intense and everything gets back to the same.

383
00:26:20.570 --> 00:26:27.929
So what is the most important is that you give back to the trees and to your soil always what you took out.

384
00:26:27.992 --> 00:26:33.117
So you have to be much more worried about what you're putting in after you take out.

385
00:26:33.663 --> 00:26:33.835
Yeah.

386
00:26:34.968 --> 00:26:35.929
in this kind of products.

387
00:26:35.968 --> 00:26:37.089
Because if you fail in that,

388
00:26:37.208 --> 00:26:38.611
then you cannot produce anymore.

389
00:26:38.630 --> 00:26:40.068
That's the most important.

390
00:26:40.150 --> 00:26:40.290
Yeah,

391
00:26:40.849 --> 00:26:42.767
so people say you are what you eat,

392
00:26:42.892 --> 00:26:44.970
but then your trees are what you feed them to.

393
00:26:45.587 --> 00:26:45.814
Yes,

394
00:26:46.470 --> 00:26:47.212
I heard lately,

395
00:26:47.853 --> 00:26:52.079
so we are producing a festival called Soil to Soul in Switzerland and Portugal,

396
00:26:52.611 --> 00:26:55.157
and we say that you are what you eat.

397
00:26:55.767 --> 00:26:58.329
And lately I heard a guy that started a different concept,

398
00:26:58.392 --> 00:27:00.454
but then he finalized his speech by saying,

399
00:27:01.454 --> 00:27:03.314
so maybe we are what

400
00:27:04.268 --> 00:27:05.529
what we ate,

401
00:27:06.370 --> 00:27:06.591
ate.

402
00:27:06.610 --> 00:27:09.054
Which is already very awkward and irritating to hear.

403
00:27:09.554 --> 00:27:11.054
Because when you say we are what we eat,

404
00:27:11.097 --> 00:27:13.315
it goes back to the soil.

405
00:27:13.839 --> 00:27:14.315
Definitely,

406
00:27:14.316 --> 00:27:14.534
you know,

407
00:27:14.581 --> 00:27:20.581
it's a philosophical way of saying if you don't respect where you come from or what you step into,

408
00:27:21.753 --> 00:27:22.487
it won't be good.

409
00:27:23.440 --> 00:27:26.534
And that's the base of life and our existence and of course we forgot it.

410
00:27:27.050 --> 00:27:30.581
So we are what we eat and yeah,

411
00:27:31.034 --> 00:27:31.409
that's it.

412
00:27:31.878 --> 00:27:33.222
But it goes much deeper.

413
00:27:33.868 --> 00:27:39.250
to the soil and to the soul than just what we are conventionally eating every day.

414
00:27:39.328 --> 00:27:40.668
So it's much more than that.

415
00:27:42.512 --> 00:27:44.090
Another thing that we eat is also hope.

416
00:27:44.793 --> 00:27:48.129
That's also one of the things that keeps us moving.

417
00:27:48.410 --> 00:27:50.254
And that's part of what you're doing here.

418
00:27:50.817 --> 00:27:53.817
It's not just regenerating the ecosystem on your farm,

419
00:27:54.567 --> 00:27:55.129
but it's also...

420
00:27:55.692 --> 00:27:55.879
Well,

421
00:27:55.880 --> 00:27:56.676
it's a drop of hope.

422
00:27:57.817 --> 00:27:59.176
I was a consultant,

423
00:27:59.177 --> 00:28:01.207
so I was kind of an arse-fader before.

424
00:28:02.128 --> 00:28:04.253
I did everything to make money,

425
00:28:04.775 --> 00:28:08.743
not knowing that I was harming other people sometimes.

426
00:28:09.489 --> 00:28:09.689
And

427
00:28:10.430 --> 00:28:11.329
I stumbled upon a

428
00:28:11.970 --> 00:28:15.349
TED talk from Alan Saver where he was talking about desertification.

429
00:28:15.950 --> 00:28:20.071
And it came quite clear to me that desertification is not only natural.

430
00:28:20.134 --> 00:28:21.931
So without nature there is no economy.

431
00:28:22.610 --> 00:28:23.688
And if you have no economy,

432
00:28:24.056 --> 00:28:27.579
people have to move somewhere else to find their labor,

433
00:28:27.657 --> 00:28:28.595
to find some food,

434
00:28:28.657 --> 00:28:30.266
to find something to subsist.

435
00:28:30.673 --> 00:28:32.876
Without people we don't have society.

436
00:28:33.438 --> 00:28:35.360
And the problem is that if you don't have society,

437
00:28:35.376 --> 00:28:36.548
you also don't have culture.

438
00:28:37.073 --> 00:28:43.839
And that's what we've been gathering in the last 12,000 years since we are farmers and since the halocene came towards us.

439
00:28:46.519 --> 00:28:56.737
Changed everything and I just realized by having three kids that I didn't want it to work anymore just to make the money I was making which was good and it was comfortable and it was brilliant.

440
00:28:57.534 --> 00:29:04.019
But I said from that moment on it was around six years before we bought and founded the farm,

441
00:29:04.081 --> 00:29:04.503
Terramai.

442
00:29:05.630 --> 00:29:11.877
that I wanted to do something positive for the future of my kids because this land doesn't belong to us,

443
00:29:12.295 --> 00:29:21.951
it was lent to us by our succession so we have to give it in a better condition or at least the same to our children,

444
00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:25.810
then we just got it for ourselves.

445
00:29:25.811 --> 00:29:28.592
So in that sense that's the work we're doing here,

446
00:29:28.607 --> 00:29:32.779
so we're trying to create a drop of hope.

447
00:29:33.485 --> 00:29:37.148
that shows that it's possible to do regenerative agriculture while healing the soil,

448
00:29:37.851 --> 00:29:45.539
bringing communities back to desertified locations with a strong circular economy that is self-sustainable.

449
00:29:45.640 --> 00:29:49.945
So it's not about being multi-millionaires with regenerative agriculture,

450
00:29:49.946 --> 00:29:51.117
you can do it in a different way.

451
00:29:51.476 --> 00:29:54.445
I think it's easier to lose money with agriculture than to make it.

452
00:29:55.742 --> 00:30:03.133
And hopefully to motivate a lot of people to become farmers and to carry on this work which which is so essential.

453
00:30:03.361 --> 00:30:08.281
for the future because in the whole of Europe you have less than 10%

454
00:30:08.344 --> 00:30:09.864
of the farmers are under 40.

455
00:30:10.442 --> 00:30:12.145
In Portugal that goes down to six.

456
00:30:12.785 --> 00:30:16.707
If we speak of parity there are three percent of women farming in Europe.

457
00:30:17.028 --> 00:30:19.582
That's nothing because agriculture is not sexy.

458
00:30:20.379 --> 00:30:23.098
And regenerative agriculture which nobody believes in,

459
00:30:23.223 --> 00:30:26.129
that's always the first question in conventions.

460
00:30:26.504 --> 00:30:29.145
Could you feed the world with regenerative agriculture?

461
00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:29.707
Of course not.

462
00:30:30.410 --> 00:30:30.520
But

463
00:30:30.809 --> 00:30:34.514
it's not because regenerative agriculture doesn't have everything we need to do it.

464
00:30:34.994 --> 00:30:37.037
It's just because only 8%

465
00:30:37.038 --> 00:30:41.037
of the farmers in Europe are doing organic farming and 2%

466
00:30:41.459 --> 00:30:48.068
of them are using regenerative skill set or tools.

467
00:30:48.928 --> 00:30:55.834
So if we would enhance regenerative farming or this way of being in the world to a much bigger scale,

468
00:30:56.178 --> 00:30:57.428
of course it would be possible.

469
00:30:57.881 --> 00:30:58.662
And not only

470
00:30:59.041 --> 00:31:00.422
because there would be food enough,

471
00:31:00.803 --> 00:31:14.918
but also because one tomato from regenerative agriculture might have at least eight times as much nutrient and vitamin density as any other food that we might intake.

472
00:31:15.575 --> 00:31:26.934
Plus it doesn't have all of the antibiotics and bullshit that big companies that are the ones that are producing the seeds that feed us and the medicaments that are healing us.

473
00:31:28.089 --> 00:31:31.190
It's a completely dead end the way we are farming today,

474
00:31:31.768 --> 00:31:36.729
from the seed to the methods and the food and the medicaments that are treating us,

475
00:31:37.128 --> 00:31:40.815
because it's not going to work many years anymore.

476
00:31:40.831 --> 00:31:42.136
There will be a collapse very soon.

477
00:31:42.253 --> 00:31:43.190
It makes no sense.

478
00:31:43.354 --> 00:31:45.128
So that's why we are here,

479
00:31:45.815 --> 00:31:53.018
to prove that it is possible to have a kind of a circular economy that will allow us to...

480
00:31:54.097 --> 00:32:01.490
prepare mankind for a dramatic raise on temperature and a weather

481
00:32:05.569 --> 00:32:07.751
complexity that we humans will never understand.

482
00:32:08.151 --> 00:32:09.372
Because,

483
00:32:09.653 --> 00:32:10.012
for instance,

484
00:32:10.013 --> 00:32:10.973
in Portugal this year,

485
00:32:11.735 --> 00:32:16.262
we were having heavy rains of 20 millimeters in the first of May.

486
00:32:16.723 --> 00:32:18.302
In the last 10 years that never happened.

487
00:32:19.380 --> 00:32:22.505
And it's not that it's good or bad,

488
00:32:22.739 --> 00:32:29.630
we just have to understand what is going to happen and start to develop strategies that will allow us to take the best out of it when it happens.

489
00:32:30.704 --> 00:32:31.184
I have to say

490
00:32:31.604 --> 00:32:35.024
I completely agree with you and that's the exact reason why I'm here today.

491
00:32:35.544 --> 00:32:50.876
I also changed career and I'm spending all my time trying to bring the stories of pioneer regenerative farmers to as many people as possible because I am convinced that we need to advance as many people as possible to learn how to farm

492
00:32:50.907 --> 00:32:54.845
regeneratively because we're going to need it for future generations.

493
00:32:54.846 --> 00:32:55.266
So for sure,

494
00:32:55.282 --> 00:32:59.485
I completely agree with that and it's great too.

495
00:32:59.992 --> 00:33:06.057
to see people like you who are leading the way and showing that it's possible to produce a high quantity of food,

496
00:33:06.378 --> 00:33:07.378
high quality of food,

497
00:33:07.960 --> 00:33:09.124
high nutrient density,

498
00:33:09.624 --> 00:33:11.507
regenerating the ecosystem at the same time,

499
00:33:12.100 --> 00:33:12.804
creating jobs,

500
00:33:12.921 --> 00:33:13.546
local jobs.

501
00:33:14.366 --> 00:33:28.343
Because we forget a lot that agriculture was the first culture that mankind talked about or at least the first translation in that sense and it's the base of everything because I also believe that that's how we developed into mankind.

502
00:33:28.515 --> 00:33:29.327
It was because

503
00:33:29.656 --> 00:33:58.462
our real brain is not exactly here it's the gut and and it tells through feeding ourselves that we developed ourselves because we developed a memory you know um and in that sense the only thing that we we have to do because it's not even that we are learning new techniques in many cases we are going back to something that we knew before the only problem is that we're forgetting it because most of us are living in a kind of a fight between the real life and the digital world and

504
00:33:58.964 --> 00:34:05.692
The digital world is very crazy because it gives you the feeling that you don't need to know shit because you have everything,

505
00:34:05.833 --> 00:34:07.434
all of the power of the world in your hand.

506
00:34:07.911 --> 00:34:08.676
And it's not true.

507
00:34:09.676 --> 00:34:13.020
We are completely depending on many factors.

508
00:34:13.356 --> 00:34:14.020
In Portugal,

509
00:34:14.083 --> 00:34:16.614
just happened two days ago before we are here together,

510
00:34:17.161 --> 00:34:22.114
we had a cutout of power which was general in the whole country and also Spain.

511
00:34:22.708 --> 00:34:26.145
And who can tell us that that is not going to happen again?

512
00:34:26.192 --> 00:34:27.630
And if it happens for four days,

513
00:34:27.676 --> 00:34:28.411
you know what happens?

514
00:34:28.892 --> 00:34:29.773
There is no internet,

515
00:34:30.233 --> 00:34:31.033
there is no light,

516
00:34:31.414 --> 00:34:32.275
there is no food,

517
00:34:32.656 --> 00:34:33.897
there is no transportation,

518
00:34:34.236 --> 00:34:34.959
there is no shit.

519
00:34:35.377 --> 00:34:40.885
So either you are in a self-sufficient environment or you'll have a lot of problems.

520
00:34:41.322 --> 00:34:44.971
And that's what we have to think as well globally,

521
00:34:45.408 --> 00:34:48.189
is to go out of this vanity,

522
00:34:48.752 --> 00:34:51.049
insane craziness of globalization,

523
00:34:51.408 --> 00:34:52.736
because it's not going to work anymore.

524
00:34:53.314 --> 00:34:54.564
So we have every land,

525
00:34:55.111 --> 00:34:56.002
every continent.

526
00:34:56.674 --> 00:34:58.018
It doesn't mean that we have to stop.

527
00:34:58.244 --> 00:35:13.156
communicating and sharing and proliferating together but it means that we have to have some level of self-sustainability so that we can ensure our subsistence when problems that we cannot control come towards us.

528
00:35:13.836 --> 00:35:24.836
And that will happen even more often in the future and sometimes we just forget that we are completely depending on what these insane and crazy

529
00:35:25.756 --> 00:35:30.780
a succession of events that brought us to the Earth as a living...

530
00:35:33.444 --> 00:35:34.702
I don't even know how to say it,

531
00:35:34.749 --> 00:35:38.812
but to exist in a universe where we are alone,

532
00:35:39.913 --> 00:35:43.687
it's depending on other things than ourselves.

533
00:35:44.530 --> 00:35:45.421
So we have to be humble,

534
00:35:46.093 --> 00:35:49.343
and instead of taking the most out of the land,

535
00:35:49.780 --> 00:35:52.405
we have to nurture it and be part of the system.

536
00:35:53.564 --> 00:35:54.905
That's what we are doing here.

537
00:35:55.226 --> 00:35:56.287
We do a lot of mistakes,

538
00:35:56.487 --> 00:35:57.389
we lose a lot of money.

539
00:36:00.529 --> 00:36:01.572
But it never felt so good.

540
00:36:04.877 --> 00:36:05.674
Awesome!

541
00:36:05.675 --> 00:36:06.096
That was great,

542
00:36:06.174 --> 00:36:06.596
that was great.

543
00:36:06.635 --> 00:36:06.916
Love it,

544
00:36:07.260 --> 00:36:07.518
love it.

545
00:36:07.596 --> 00:36:08.080
It's amazing.

546
00:36:10.172 --> 00:36:16.497
I now leave David and meet with Elias who is in charge of the livestock operation here at Terramay.

547
00:36:17.540 --> 00:36:24.969
He jumps onto a quad bike and we follow him with the car for about seven or eight minutes until we arrive in a beautiful place.

548
00:36:25.626 --> 00:36:30.016
Imagine rolling hills of pastures dotted with beautiful old oak trees.

549
00:36:30.485 --> 00:36:31.469
The grass is high,

550
00:36:31.798 --> 00:36:32.110
lush.

551
00:36:32.564 --> 00:36:39.172
super vibrant and full of colors because there are so many different species of flowers in bloom at this time of year.

552
00:36:40.152 --> 00:36:40.551
And there,

553
00:36:40.730 --> 00:36:41.777
eating this beautiful grass,

554
00:36:41.793 --> 00:36:43.457
is a large herd of cows.

555
00:36:44.011 --> 00:36:46.980
So Elias proceeds to move them to the next plot.

556
00:36:47.355 --> 00:36:48.418
And when he's finished,

557
00:36:48.636 --> 00:36:50.183
we start our conversation.

558
00:36:52.308 --> 00:36:52.480
Yeah,

559
00:36:52.511 --> 00:36:53.527
so we're with the cows here.

560
00:36:54.605 --> 00:36:56.605
We have the breed that's called Mertulenga.

561
00:36:56.855 --> 00:36:57.230
It's from

562
00:36:57.605 --> 00:37:00.386
Mertula, like a city south of here.

563
00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:04.603
There is an old breed that is highly adapted to that climate,

564
00:37:04.663 --> 00:37:07.124
meaning it's a small cow with short legs,

565
00:37:07.988 --> 00:37:09.585
has less water consumption.

566
00:37:10.367 --> 00:37:12.054
They are like the goats of the cows.

567
00:37:12.913 --> 00:37:17.281
They don't have problems with steep hills or an environment that is more challenging.

568
00:37:18.453 --> 00:37:20.703
They continue grazing even with 40 degrees.

569
00:37:20.796 --> 00:37:23.515
Like they are really robust.

570
00:37:24.468 --> 00:37:26.031
In three years working here,

571
00:37:26.718 --> 00:37:28.828
I think two times a cow was sick.

572
00:37:29.608 --> 00:37:30.853
Like we don't have any problems,

573
00:37:30.954 --> 00:37:32.119
they give birth alone,

574
00:37:32.761 --> 00:37:33.222
they're very...

575
00:37:35.161 --> 00:37:51.775
yeah it's a very strong cow the downside is a bit they're very shy they can be yeah nervous in small spaces they turn quickly aggressive and so it's not the easiest cow to handle although it's they seem very chill now um

576
00:37:51.994 --> 00:38:03.088
but also by the type of management since we're working very close with them and moving them almost daily and they adapt and getting more calm like compared to when i started here they were way more nervous

577
00:38:04.313 --> 00:38:05.594
They occur in three colors.

578
00:38:05.855 --> 00:38:06.275
You have the

579
00:38:06.877 --> 00:38:10.338
Maliadu, that's with the white base and then the brown dots.

580
00:38:11.318 --> 00:38:12.181
You have Roussillio,

581
00:38:12.381 --> 00:38:16.607
when the brown and white kind of mingle into each other,

582
00:38:16.787 --> 00:38:18.388
like this one over here for example.

583
00:38:19.545 --> 00:38:21.474
And then you have Vermelio,

584
00:38:21.537 --> 00:38:23.959
that are the brown ones.

585
00:38:25.318 --> 00:38:30.334
They are now since two years completely grass-fed,

586
00:38:30.381 --> 00:38:31.037
grass-finished,

587
00:38:31.099 --> 00:38:32.896
meaning there's no food.

588
00:38:33.329 --> 00:38:51.267
not even hay or whatever coming from outside except the neighbor where we sometimes cut the grass because he's not doing it and then we have some hay but it's all from here yeah meat-wise it's not the easiest to cook and because they are athletes they don't have much intermuscular fat and um yeah

589
00:38:51.408 --> 00:39:02.939
it's a special it's a special taste yeah you said that they're in very good health yeah you attribute that to the breed or to the management of both both i would say yeah

590
00:39:03.181 --> 00:39:22.077
yeah sure yeah how does this type of management contribute to the health of the cows so we're working in a holistic or multi-paddock grazing system or call it what you want to call it um meaning we keep them close together we move them regularly to prevent over grazing and

591
00:39:22.078 --> 00:39:29.327
to imitate what ruminants would do in the in the wild with predators keeping them together so here it's us and since there are no predators

592
00:39:30.145 --> 00:39:34.790
Meaning they eat very diverse because they are in this group effect.

593
00:39:35.051 --> 00:39:36.993
It's like having eight siblings on the table.

594
00:39:36.994 --> 00:39:39.454
You don't choose anymore what you eat,

595
00:39:39.477 --> 00:39:40.212
you just eat.

596
00:39:41.032 --> 00:39:42.954
So meaning they have a very diverse diet.

597
00:39:42.977 --> 00:39:45.297
They don't nibble only on certain plants.

598
00:39:45.383 --> 00:39:47.626
They usually eat more diverse,

599
00:39:47.657 --> 00:39:50.626
which is a key factor of nutrients in the meat too.

600
00:39:51.860 --> 00:39:55.235
They don't get any medication except the mandatory vaccines.

601
00:39:56.938 --> 00:39:59.469
We stopped de-warming them since they are moving.

602
00:40:00.001 --> 00:40:00.642
All the time,

603
00:40:00.722 --> 00:40:01.563
the life cycle of...

604
00:40:02.945 --> 00:40:04.607
Until the parasite in the shit develops,

605
00:40:04.626 --> 00:40:05.446
the cow is already gone.

606
00:40:05.888 --> 00:40:09.653
Like there is no chance that the worm can keep on going.

607
00:40:10.294 --> 00:40:17.138
Could you give us a little bit more technical detail about how you plan your rotational grazing system,

608
00:40:17.325 --> 00:40:20.138
the size of the paddocks compared to the number of cows,

609
00:40:20.200 --> 00:40:21.169
how long you leave them,

610
00:40:21.325 --> 00:40:22.200
how often you move them,

611
00:40:22.325 --> 00:40:22.685
all of that?

612
00:40:22.997 --> 00:40:27.294
So the whole farm is divided into sectors which have different sizes.

613
00:40:27.341 --> 00:40:29.153
It's more like where we have fixed fencing.

614
00:40:29.645 --> 00:40:33.865
and also what makes sense from looking at the land,

615
00:40:33.927 --> 00:40:35.205
from water access and so on.

616
00:40:36.127 --> 00:40:41.744
And they always enter a sector which then is divided again by electric fencing like we see here.

617
00:40:42.525 --> 00:40:43.830
And depending on the season,

618
00:40:43.869 --> 00:40:45.408
depending on the number of cows,

619
00:40:45.681 --> 00:40:49.744
and depending on what we want right now from the land,

620
00:40:50.025 --> 00:40:53.150
and the size and the frequency of moving changes.

621
00:40:53.837 --> 00:40:57.572
So for example right now we are in the end of the growing season.

622
00:40:57.993 --> 00:41:13.807
but this year we still like yesterday we still had rain end of april and we have perfect temperatures now around 20 degrees um it's amazing for grass so i don't want the cow to go very slow and eat until the ground because

623
00:41:13.831 --> 00:41:26.940
i want the the regeneration to happen really quick so i can go another time so now we have the last pastures where i will go one more time and soon i will start my last round which then is very slow very tiny the the the paddocks

624
00:41:27.285 --> 00:41:43.166
so that the cow eats and tramples everything so we have a nice layer of mulch on the on the soil but right now i just want them to light graze eat the tops do some disturbance and then out again so that the grass can still one more time regrow until we enter

625
00:41:43.167 --> 00:41:49.064
the summer okay so how do you decide all of these different factors how do you know

626
00:41:49.573 --> 00:42:09.067
how long to leave them for and how many to have in what size and all of that what's do you monitor that do you have a specific we have a plan we have a grazing plan and then we have different factors for example in the beginning of the season you have still slow grass growth especially especially this year for example december we didn't have any rain and

627
00:42:09.068 --> 00:42:12.614
then you want to gain time right so you make also the past just small

628
00:42:13.910 --> 00:42:15.431
you try to like then

629
00:42:15.851 --> 00:42:28.828
I was counting hours like I tried to let them as long as possible in there before moving to gain a day or two at one point and then now there's abundance of food so as I explained you want to trust it's always about to

630
00:42:30.685 --> 00:42:34.848
What's best for the soil and how can I generate more food in a natural way,

631
00:42:35.328 --> 00:42:35.750
obviously.

632
00:42:36.313 --> 00:42:41.578
And then of course there are appointments like the doctor is coming or we wean or whatever.

633
00:42:41.633 --> 00:42:42.821
So you have all these appointments,

634
00:42:42.822 --> 00:42:43.516
you have holidays,

635
00:42:43.555 --> 00:42:44.500
people are going to holidays.

636
00:42:44.501 --> 00:42:47.180
So maybe then you also have to adapt a little bit,

637
00:42:47.899 --> 00:42:51.243
making the pastures bigger or go slower or whatever suits.

638
00:42:52.383 --> 00:42:56.789
And then you write your plan with all your appointments and important things happening.

639
00:42:57.008 --> 00:42:59.977
And hope the weather is playing around.

640
00:43:00.961 --> 00:43:24.442
along and yeah then you write your plan and hope that it works more or less okay yeah it's a system that works very well especially in um because this farm is very uh how to say heterogene like it's very diverse like you have steep hills you have some places that are more flat you have places with more trees

641
00:43:24.520 --> 00:43:27.754
with less trees like it's a very it's it's hard to manage

642
00:43:28.433 --> 00:43:48.551
a land that's hard to manage because it's extremely diverse and the cows are especially this breed is a very nice tool to get to all the spots because most of the farm is only suitable for grazing with the right animal because as i said it's deep rocky whatever and they never broke a leg or whatever they're they're

643
00:43:48.552 --> 00:43:52.004
very well adapted as i said already and you can scale it like if it's

644
00:43:52.637 --> 00:44:09.814
80 or 120 cows or 200 there are some points where you have way more work but in general it's not changing much and this is also why this is very interesting because of the scalability compared to other operations where every hectare more means another employee and

645
00:44:09.830 --> 00:44:22.126
this is what makes it very different different interesting yeah does it take a lot of work to manage the cows to move them every day to to deal with no uh if i would only do the cars it wouldn't be a full-time unemployment.

646
00:44:22.829 --> 00:44:22.949
Yeah.

647
00:44:23.490 --> 00:44:24.371
With daily moving.

648
00:44:25.212 --> 00:44:25.373
Yeah.

649
00:44:25.732 --> 00:44:29.255
As soon as the cows have learned the system,

650
00:44:29.955 --> 00:44:30.435
if they know,

651
00:44:30.517 --> 00:44:30.697
okay,

652
00:44:30.736 --> 00:44:31.939
when the guy comes and shouts,

653
00:44:31.940 --> 00:44:32.416
we move,

654
00:44:32.455 --> 00:44:33.400
so they play along,

655
00:44:34.103 --> 00:44:37.580
then it's quite easy on a daily basis.

656
00:44:38.166 --> 00:44:44.095
I think it's one of the most important or most effective ways to do regeneration because of the scalability.

657
00:44:45.830 --> 00:44:48.673
A lot of land is not suited for anything else than animals.

658
00:44:49.939 --> 00:44:50.595
It's important to

659
00:44:51.097 --> 00:45:06.008
integrate the animals again we destroyed so much of nature's natural functions that we have to again bring that back to the land and since everything is fenced off there are no predators anymore we have now to play a key

660
00:45:06.133 --> 00:45:19.024
role in that and yeah if you eat meat or not there's nothing bad about this and it's important to integrate animal in the landscapes more and more yeah i think it's

661
00:45:19.853 --> 00:45:22.496
Very rewarding job to do.

662
00:45:23.557 --> 00:45:23.776
Sweet.

663
00:45:24.037 --> 00:45:24.197
Yeah.

664
00:45:25.440 --> 00:45:32.604
Another quick drive and we arrive at another spot where maybe 40 or 50 black pigs are there hanging out.

665
00:45:33.705 --> 00:45:35.268
When Elias arrives with the quad,

666
00:45:35.432 --> 00:45:37.791
they just run after him and follow him around,

667
00:45:38.432 --> 00:45:40.026
visibly very excited to see him.

668
00:45:41.260 --> 00:45:41.416
Yeah,

669
00:45:41.510 --> 00:45:42.963
so we have black pigs.

670
00:45:44.157 --> 00:45:47.220
The most important thing for these pigs is the Montanera,

671
00:45:47.620 --> 00:45:48.542
the time from

672
00:45:48.921 --> 00:45:50.683
September, October to

673
00:45:51.144 --> 00:45:51.886
February, March,

674
00:45:52.027 --> 00:45:53.925
when all the acorns drop from the trees.

675
00:45:55.050 --> 00:45:59.628
This is where the pig thrives the most and this is also by the end of that time you want to butcher them.

676
00:46:00.550 --> 00:46:02.738
Do you also sort of graze them rotationally,

677
00:46:03.472 --> 00:46:05.456
change the pastures every so often?

678
00:46:05.894 --> 00:46:06.675
Yeah,

679
00:46:06.706 --> 00:46:13.066
here it's more like an extensive grazing system I was talking about the sectors so so far they move between sectors.

680
00:46:15.222 --> 00:46:19.507
I want to experiment more with electric fencing,

681
00:46:20.027 --> 00:46:24.034
but especially during the acorn season they are extremely focused on the acorns.

682
00:46:24.534 --> 00:46:28.417
And respecting fencing is a difficult thing.

683
00:46:29.620 --> 00:46:31.433
So far they move between the sectors.

684
00:46:32.105 --> 00:46:34.824
So they have a wider space to move through.

685
00:46:35.230 --> 00:46:35.730
And slower,

686
00:46:35.902 --> 00:46:36.324
way slower.

687
00:46:36.386 --> 00:46:37.277
And also with the pigs.

688
00:46:37.449 --> 00:46:39.167
And during summer they stay at one spot.

689
00:46:40.089 --> 00:46:41.183
So they will move again,

690
00:46:41.730 --> 00:46:42.542
but then they stay...

691
00:46:43.177 --> 00:47:00.388
somewhere down at Alkeva where they have easy access to water and because this is then the main problem in summer they can't cool their bodies without water so it makes it way more difficult to keep them moving in the summer when some of the lakes dry out and and so on and

692
00:47:00.513 --> 00:47:12.481
also the pig likes as very strong habits like where they sleep where they shit where they do whatever so also a daily movement is maybe harder to like

693
00:47:12.853 --> 00:47:21.867
adapt them to it whilst with the cows for example it's easier so this is also why we move in sectors so they have at least two or three weeks at one

694
00:47:22.393 --> 00:47:26.213
bigger place where they wander around before then they move to the next one.

695
00:47:26.473 --> 00:47:30.094
They don't overgraze so quickly because they dig,

696
00:47:30.156 --> 00:47:30.973
they eat insects,

697
00:47:31.035 --> 00:47:32.191
they eat a little flower here,

698
00:47:32.215 --> 00:47:33.332
then they find an acorn.

699
00:47:33.418 --> 00:47:37.355
It's not like they have their favorite grass which they continuously overgraze.

700
00:47:38.355 --> 00:47:41.215
I don't know if you saw that hillside.

701
00:47:41.262 --> 00:47:45.402
They can open the soil quite a lot and then you have to be careful with that.

702
00:47:45.661 --> 00:47:48.024
That can be helpful because it can activate the seed bank,

703
00:47:48.623 --> 00:47:53.868
it can help to get some of the grass away,

704
00:47:53.993 --> 00:47:56.071
so the young trees have more space to grow.

705
00:47:56.953 --> 00:48:00.836
But there's also a big danger of erosion if they're too long at one spot,

706
00:48:00.977 --> 00:48:06.625
you have this moon landscapes with a lot of erosion.

707
00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:10.000
And so you said that once a year they eat the acorns,

708
00:48:10.047 --> 00:48:12.766
maybe you could explain that in a bit more detail and explain the...

709
00:48:13.117 --> 00:48:28.675
you know the ecosystem we're in now and as far as i know this whole montado system with the with the with the oaks um yeah it's man-made and these pigs kind of developed or extremely well adapted to to eating these acorns they

710
00:48:28.753 --> 00:48:41.878
can transform it extremely well and this is when they take on weight like crazy and it also um like in the taste of the meat you have this nuttiness um which

711
00:48:42.069 --> 00:48:58.384
people love a lot this is why they buy the the ham from it um so that's the most important thing with these pigs that they that they have access to to the acorns yeah it's a way of making the most of resources you have on the farm since it's a montado ecosystem you have these

712
00:48:58.478 --> 00:49:04.634
oak trees some of them give acorns and very few there's very few things you can actually do with these acorns

713
00:49:05.275 --> 00:49:09.775
There are like Fréjodomeo for example,

714
00:49:09.790 --> 00:49:10.337
they have a big

715
00:49:11.749 --> 00:49:26.763
they have a beautiful montado and they harvest them and they make flour out of it coffee there are a lot of products you can do it's very healthy for human consumption too but since our montado is has suffered a lot from

716
00:49:27.161 --> 00:49:38.591
i think over generations already we were talking about the goats they were roaming around freely here for a lot of time before we for the farm got founded we have a bit of a problem with the trees we have a lot of old

717
00:49:38.821 --> 00:50:04.152
trees which are slowly dying and we have this generational gap to the younger trees so it would make sense to start collecting acorns here because you need a dense montar with a lot of acorns on the ground and then with some kind of machinery you can you can pick a lot okay so because the the land here before you arrived and started this management i mean you the i mean teramai yeah as a as a team the the

718
00:50:04.465 --> 00:50:08.970
The land was being overgrazed for a long time by goats.

719
00:50:09.091 --> 00:50:09.552
Therefore,

720
00:50:09.970 --> 00:50:14.255
the old big trees that were already there were well established and protected.

721
00:50:14.615 --> 00:50:16.958
But all of the younger ones were prevented from growing.

722
00:50:17.677 --> 00:50:20.716
That's why you don't have this succession of young trees.

723
00:50:21.857 --> 00:50:27.701
And I guess by using this kind of management with pigs and using the acorns in that way,

724
00:50:28.451 --> 00:50:33.138
focus more on regenerating the ecosystem and on the pig production rather than

725
00:50:33.969 --> 00:50:52.190
the acorn production itself exactly yeah i guess the important part here is that they can activate seed banks what i was saying if you have a very dense layer of grass and the cows go through and they open up the soil a bit you often see young oaks not having problems going through a thick layer of of grass and

726
00:50:52.534 --> 00:51:02.690
the pigs they don't touch young trees really maybe accidentally they dig one out but what i observed that's not really an issue and when they open these spots you often see some

727
00:51:03.029 --> 00:51:06.553
young oaks that are still standing and now suddenly have a lot of space and light.

728
00:51:07.213 --> 00:51:07.752
And then again,

729
00:51:08.155 --> 00:51:09.514
they eat different things than the cows.

730
00:51:09.515 --> 00:51:10.776
So if you have them first,

731
00:51:10.998 --> 00:51:14.201
they will already eliminate some of the acorns.

732
00:51:14.819 --> 00:51:16.701
You make a better use of what you have,

733
00:51:17.186 --> 00:51:17.905
to put it like that.

734
00:51:18.506 --> 00:51:23.436
So they will eat what is most important to them and then the cow comes and they will just cut the rest.

735
00:51:24.264 --> 00:51:25.576
They're quite complementary to each other.

736
00:51:25.639 --> 00:51:27.170
They have a different impact on the soil,

737
00:51:27.171 --> 00:51:27.717
on the land.

738
00:51:27.889 --> 00:51:29.155
I think in this different system,

739
00:51:29.951 --> 00:51:30.170
yeah.

740
00:51:32.097 --> 00:51:37.340
Another very cool thing about this farm is that it is located alongside the Alkeva lake.

741
00:51:37.816 --> 00:51:43.137
And Anna and David have invested in a boat to offer an extra experience to guests coming to the farm.

742
00:51:43.676 --> 00:51:46.199
Anna takes us on a boat trip to reach one of their restaurants.

743
00:51:46.840 --> 00:51:47.801
And halfway through,

744
00:51:47.957 --> 00:51:49.144
we stop for a quick chat.

745
00:51:50.566 --> 00:51:51.082
So basically,

746
00:51:51.129 --> 00:51:52.254
we are on the Alkeva.

747
00:51:52.394 --> 00:51:55.488
It's the biggest artificial lake in Europe.

748
00:51:55.863 --> 00:51:56.566
It was created,

749
00:51:56.769 --> 00:51:57.363
I'm not quite sure,

750
00:51:57.364 --> 00:51:58.301
I think 15 years ago,

751
00:51:58.863 --> 00:51:59.957
15 to 18 years ago.

752
00:52:01.645 --> 00:52:21.842
yeah you see from here it's it's portugal it's the border to portugal and there's spain so it's based on the on the river guardiana river guardiana which uh yeah basically starts in spain and when passes through portugal and it's always the it has always been the border river between portugal and spain so

753
00:52:21.920 --> 00:52:27.889
cool so we're really here in the middle like we're in the water on one side we have portugal on the other side we have spain

754
00:52:28.560 --> 00:52:29.141
How cool is that?

755
00:52:29.681 --> 00:52:29.962
Exactly.

756
00:52:29.981 --> 00:52:30.481
And as you see,

757
00:52:30.522 --> 00:52:31.724
there's almost like nothing.

758
00:52:31.763 --> 00:52:32.124
You see,

759
00:52:32.585 --> 00:52:33.866
it's just hills,

760
00:52:33.964 --> 00:52:34.526
trees,

761
00:52:34.905 --> 00:52:35.366
nature,

762
00:52:35.706 --> 00:52:38.288
but you don't see a lot of buildings.

763
00:52:38.289 --> 00:52:39.390
So it's not really developed.

764
00:52:40.233 --> 00:52:41.116
And I think it's amazing.

765
00:52:41.117 --> 00:52:42.069
And you hear the silence.

766
00:52:42.437 --> 00:52:42.554
Yeah,

767
00:52:42.555 --> 00:52:43.397
you can go fishing.

768
00:52:43.835 --> 00:52:45.194
There's a lot of water activities,

769
00:52:45.241 --> 00:52:47.819
which we also are currently involving with a small boat.

770
00:52:48.304 --> 00:52:49.319
We also have two canoes.

771
00:52:49.320 --> 00:52:52.069
So whoever visits us and is our guest,

772
00:52:52.085 --> 00:52:57.476
there's always a possibility to make a canoe trip or to take the boat to the restaurant.

773
00:52:57.724 --> 00:52:58.825
or have a picnic or something.

774
00:52:58.846 --> 00:52:59.145
So yeah,

775
00:52:59.146 --> 00:53:01.508
we also tailor specific experiences,

776
00:53:01.547 --> 00:53:04.730
which we combine with food and sustainable gastronomy on the boat,

777
00:53:04.812 --> 00:53:07.851
because we think it's a very nice experience connecting people with nature.

778
00:53:08.398 --> 00:53:09.953
And it's beautiful.

779
00:53:10.719 --> 00:53:15.789
So this is a another way to diversify your business model you have.

780
00:53:16.086 --> 00:53:16.305
Sure,

781
00:53:16.508 --> 00:53:16.805
different.

782
00:53:17.180 --> 00:53:17.601
Definitely,

783
00:53:17.648 --> 00:53:21.945
because I think regenerative agriculture is our main base core,

784
00:53:22.008 --> 00:53:22.195
right?

785
00:53:22.226 --> 00:53:23.336
That's the core operations.

786
00:53:23.351 --> 00:53:24.336
That's why we came here.

787
00:53:24.383 --> 00:53:25.336
it's all about the farm

788
00:53:25.711 --> 00:53:26.648
I really want to show that

789
00:53:27.004 --> 00:53:45.861
regenerative agriculture is possible to put it in practice and we are actually living it but also you need to show it to people right you need to have people over you need to receive guests you need to give them the possibility to to be part of the whole things to participate in workshops to go to the garden to be part of a harvest so basically it's our

790
00:53:45.924 --> 00:53:55.018
interpretation of connection with nature and connection to regenerative agriculture and sustainable hospitality there's also a certain um

791
00:53:55.752 --> 00:53:56.833
I won't say craziness,

792
00:53:57.735 --> 00:54:02.239
but you really need to focus on that and you really need to believe that it's possible,

793
00:54:02.739 --> 00:54:04.458
that this is going to flourish one day,

794
00:54:04.520 --> 00:54:04.661
right?

795
00:54:04.662 --> 00:54:06.004
And that this is actually working.

796
00:54:06.622 --> 00:54:11.786
And so there's a lot of courage from all of us involved to really say,

797
00:54:11.833 --> 00:54:12.114
okay,

798
00:54:12.536 --> 00:54:14.270
let's really try to walk the talk.

799
00:54:14.536 --> 00:54:15.848
Let's really try to change something.

800
00:54:16.098 --> 00:54:17.286
Let's really do that step,

801
00:54:17.661 --> 00:54:18.067
move here,

802
00:54:18.411 --> 00:54:20.114
and try to show that it's possible.

803
00:54:21.161 --> 00:54:23.754
But it's a massive change in your life.

804
00:54:23.952 --> 00:54:38.950
right you're going from the city having kids to moving to a different country in a very remote area starting a farm from scratch it's a completely different life it's a big step so first of all where did the decision come from and

805
00:54:38.951 --> 00:54:48.450
and then how did you experience all of that big change for us it was clear okay david is portuguese so we always there was always the connection right and i lived uh four years in lisbon in my

806
00:54:48.872 --> 00:54:52.341
20s so i i really admire the country i really love the i think there's a

807
00:54:52.452 --> 00:55:11.151
great life quality in this and we were we already had two kids uh that time in berlin and i thought like okay they're very how can i say conditioned in the urbanized reality right they they wake up and it's always like no no no no no no no it's red light you cannot go here you cannot do this so it's always no restricted and

808
00:55:11.166 --> 00:55:21.838
i think like there is more specifically to the next generation which has to in front a lot of challenges there is climate change there is i mean let's not go into that because those are really probably

809
00:55:22.544 --> 00:55:23.786
be too much for this format,

810
00:55:23.825 --> 00:55:25.026
but it's a very,

811
00:55:26.608 --> 00:55:27.788
I wouldn't say frightening,

812
00:55:27.807 --> 00:55:29.050
but challenging reality,

813
00:55:29.132 --> 00:55:32.651
which my kids are going to face and the next generation is going to face.

814
00:55:33.495 --> 00:55:35.776
So I think it's really important that they connect to nature,

815
00:55:35.800 --> 00:55:38.425
that they know where they're coming from and that they know how to,

816
00:55:39.487 --> 00:55:41.284
that they grow strong in a way.

817
00:55:41.518 --> 00:55:43.159
And we wanted to give them that possibility.

818
00:55:43.190 --> 00:55:45.284
We really wanted to give them the possibility to nourish,

819
00:55:45.831 --> 00:55:49.878
to be connected and to thrive in a natural ecosystem and know that.

820
00:55:50.476 --> 00:55:53.740
And it's a skill set which is really important for them to have.

821
00:55:54.878 --> 00:55:55.500
And yeah,

822
00:55:55.800 --> 00:55:58.886
we talked about this and Thomas was really enthusiastic.

823
00:55:59.207 --> 00:55:59.668
And of course,

824
00:55:59.669 --> 00:56:00.285
when Thomas said,

825
00:56:00.347 --> 00:56:00.527
okay,

826
00:56:00.589 --> 00:56:00.886
let's go,

827
00:56:01.988 --> 00:56:03.207
the whole plan grew a bit bigger.

828
00:56:04.191 --> 00:56:07.347
So then we were traveling around,

829
00:56:07.394 --> 00:56:08.957
visited a lot of different properties,

830
00:56:09.582 --> 00:56:13.378
also in Agar with different properties and possibilities in whole Portugal.

831
00:56:13.878 --> 00:56:14.003
Yeah,

832
00:56:14.004 --> 00:56:18.503
and actually fall in love with this beautiful spot here in the Landraal,

833
00:56:18.566 --> 00:56:19.347
because it's really...

834
00:56:19.892 --> 00:56:21.233
really far away from a lot of things.

835
00:56:21.234 --> 00:56:22.495
It has the connection to Spain.

836
00:56:23.937 --> 00:56:25.979
It has these two kilometers of water line.

837
00:56:26.780 --> 00:56:26.897
Yeah.

838
00:56:27.038 --> 00:56:28.144
So it was the perfect setup.

839
00:56:28.644 --> 00:56:28.862
Amazing.

840
00:56:29.081 --> 00:56:29.198
Yeah,

841
00:56:29.245 --> 00:56:29.823
but for sure.

842
00:56:29.886 --> 00:56:33.808
And David was always the one really pushing for it ideologically.

843
00:56:33.909 --> 00:56:34.128
Like,

844
00:56:34.183 --> 00:56:34.409
okay,

845
00:56:34.464 --> 00:56:35.347
we really have to go there.

846
00:56:35.370 --> 00:56:36.292
We have to make a change.

847
00:56:36.870 --> 00:56:37.933
And really,

848
00:56:38.495 --> 00:56:42.542
really wanted to be one of the pioneers in making the difference and walking the talk.

849
00:56:43.823 --> 00:56:44.589
But when we arrived,

850
00:56:44.590 --> 00:56:45.058
of course,

851
00:56:45.073 --> 00:56:46.417
This came coming from Berlin.

852
00:56:46.573 --> 00:56:47.261
I'm from Berlin.

853
00:56:47.745 --> 00:56:48.886
It was a difference.

854
00:56:48.996 --> 00:57:13.554
a very strong difference and um yeah i told the story before but i think it's funny to tell again so we arrived here and there was this caretaker caretaker couple um working with us and i was like okay we are really remote and where are we exactly how's this going to happen how's this going to turn out and there was a moment we were playing with the kids outside in the garden and she said like everybody shut up and i said kids be silent be silent and she just put her foot on the ground and she took

855
00:57:13.585 --> 00:57:16.898
up a snake with her bare hand lighted a cigarette and said you

856
00:57:16.936 --> 00:57:33.490
kids come over it's time for you guys to learn about snakes so i said like wow this is a lot of calamity jane power and i really need to adapt to that reality but in the end it's it's it's beautiful and it's really interesting because if you move out of your comfort zone you really

857
00:57:34.466 --> 00:57:39.268
You grow and you realize that there's so much power within you and all of us,

858
00:57:39.706 --> 00:57:42.710
which is like kind of covered up when you're always living the routine.

859
00:57:43.444 --> 00:57:47.491
Is it hard sometimes being so far away from bigger cities,

860
00:57:47.569 --> 00:57:48.710
from more people,

861
00:57:48.811 --> 00:57:49.889
more urban areas?

862
00:57:50.835 --> 00:57:51.085
Sure,

863
00:57:51.413 --> 00:57:51.616
sure.

864
00:57:52.069 --> 00:57:54.803
It's not always just a romanticized version.

865
00:57:55.303 --> 00:57:55.944
Definitely not.

866
00:57:56.007 --> 00:57:58.725
There's a lot of moments of questioning.

867
00:57:59.170 --> 00:58:02.834
Is this the right decision or also loneliness because you're very far away,

868
00:58:02.875 --> 00:58:04.254
you're very not connected.

869
00:58:04.593 --> 00:58:08.218
I'm not so much connected like I was before to my family,

870
00:58:08.359 --> 00:58:09.000
my sister,

871
00:58:09.461 --> 00:58:10.062
my friends.

872
00:58:10.320 --> 00:58:12.523
So of course there is this lack of social life.

873
00:58:13.023 --> 00:58:14.625
But yes,

874
00:58:14.703 --> 00:58:21.773
in the last two or three years I really felt this changing because we worked so hard for it to grow and for this whole project to thrive.

875
00:58:22.211 --> 00:58:26.382
And I think we made it somehow possible to attract really interesting,

876
00:58:26.461 --> 00:58:26.695
very...

877
00:58:27.074 --> 00:58:28.976
inspiring people which are working with us,

878
00:58:29.357 --> 00:58:31.099
so and which joined the project,

879
00:58:31.139 --> 00:58:31.338
right?

880
00:58:31.658 --> 00:58:34.041
So you met Elias and you met Lena,

881
00:58:34.303 --> 00:58:38.064
you met a lot of people already on our farm and on the different places.

882
00:58:38.642 --> 00:58:39.885
And with all of these people,

883
00:58:40.228 --> 00:58:46.166
with all of our friends and people which are working with us and fighting with us to make this project work,

884
00:58:46.650 --> 00:58:47.213
this would never,

885
00:58:48.119 --> 00:58:48.572
never work.

886
00:58:49.010 --> 00:58:50.963
And it doesn't matter how many millions you would put in it.

887
00:58:51.213 --> 00:58:51.572
In the end,

888
00:58:51.603 --> 00:58:53.056
it's the people who believe in it.

889
00:58:53.478 --> 00:58:54.322
It's the true energy,

890
00:58:54.838 --> 00:58:55.494
the people.

891
00:58:56.174 --> 00:58:56.775
push into it,

892
00:58:57.375 --> 00:58:57.896
put into it.

893
00:58:59.457 --> 00:59:01.481
After this wonderful moment on the lake,

894
00:59:01.699 --> 00:59:02.981
we arrive at Raya,

895
00:59:03.403 --> 00:59:05.961
one of the two restaurants opened by Anna and David.

896
00:59:07.086 --> 00:59:08.508
While the chef prepares our meals,

897
00:59:08.547 --> 00:59:14.610
we take this opportunity to talk about the sustainable gastronomy part of the operation here at Terramai.

898
01:01:15.718 --> 01:01:15.898
Well,

899
01:01:15.958 --> 01:01:18.520
so we decided three years ago to open Raya,

900
01:01:18.641 --> 01:01:19.221
the restaurant,

901
01:01:20.184 --> 01:01:20.743
first of all,

902
01:01:20.782 --> 01:01:22.746
because we already had created the farm.

903
01:01:22.766 --> 01:01:24.543
The first farm operations were running.

904
01:01:24.848 --> 01:01:25.809
We had the animals,

905
01:01:26.028 --> 01:01:26.848
the chicken,

906
01:01:26.910 --> 01:01:30.231
the cows and our market gardening already implemented.

907
01:01:30.535 --> 01:01:32.989
And we saw everything growing and it was already there.

908
01:01:33.551 --> 01:01:34.520
And yeah,

909
01:01:34.521 --> 01:01:34.817
we were,

910
01:01:35.004 --> 01:01:35.379
of course,

911
01:01:35.380 --> 01:01:38.442
developing ways to make it work in terms of sales.

912
01:01:38.942 --> 01:01:41.879
And we had an important restaurant and great restaurant partners,

913
01:01:41.926 --> 01:01:43.504
which are our partners until today.

914
01:01:44.274 --> 01:01:44.655
from MIGA,

915
01:01:44.755 --> 01:01:45.356
from Encanto,

916
01:01:45.455 --> 01:01:48.518
very nice chefs and very nice restaurants,

917
01:01:48.780 --> 01:01:49.799
sustainable restaurants.

918
01:01:50.080 --> 01:01:50.381
Of course,

919
01:01:50.440 --> 01:01:53.600
Lara and Todd from Lisbon and also in Evora,

920
01:01:53.662 --> 01:01:54.545
a lot of nice partners.

921
01:01:54.764 --> 01:01:55.428
So we sold,

922
01:01:55.429 --> 01:02:01.405
we started selling our products basically to these kind of restaurant partners.

923
01:02:03.045 --> 01:02:08.983
But also since we were challenging the garden and the whole farm project itself,

924
01:02:09.280 --> 01:02:12.217
we were also challenging ourselves in terms of,

925
01:02:12.576 --> 01:02:12.842
okay,

926
01:02:13.074 --> 01:02:29.197
regenerative agriculture is one part you want to do it's one main part of the whole project but the other is sustainable gastronomy and sustainable hospitality and we really thought we want to make our own experiences in that in that field and we also wanted a concrete outlet and

927
01:02:29.291 --> 01:02:35.088
and then it was funny then the mayor from Alendral came to us and said well we're developing this great um Prae Fluvial,

928
01:02:35.182 --> 01:02:38.713
so it's a beach place here at the

929
01:02:39.838 --> 01:02:41.275
Azenis del Rey in Manxuntus.

930
01:02:41.998 --> 01:02:42.439
And he said,

931
01:02:42.499 --> 01:02:42.619
yeah,

932
01:02:42.679 --> 01:02:42.819
well,

933
01:02:42.839 --> 01:02:45.924
there's this restaurant and don't you guys want to do something with it?

934
01:02:45.943 --> 01:02:48.283
It's a very beautiful space.

935
01:02:48.826 --> 01:02:50.447
So probably it would be a good fit.

936
01:02:51.190 --> 01:02:51.666
And we're like,

937
01:02:51.690 --> 01:02:51.807
OK,

938
01:02:52.229 --> 01:02:53.611
it's quite of an operational hassle.

939
01:02:53.627 --> 01:02:53.947
And he said,

940
01:02:53.986 --> 01:02:54.252
but yeah,

941
01:02:54.268 --> 01:02:55.190
we jumped into it.

942
01:02:55.354 --> 01:02:58.354
And it was really a great experience.

943
01:02:59.354 --> 01:02:59.901
Challenging,

944
01:02:59.932 --> 01:03:00.416
of course,

945
01:03:00.494 --> 01:03:01.760
and not that easy,

946
01:03:02.697 --> 01:03:10.307
but amazing because we really had to get better and learn a lot how to to produce in accordance to a kitchen.

947
01:03:10.718 --> 01:03:12.700
and also to find the right people to work with,

948
01:03:12.740 --> 01:03:12.919
right?

949
01:03:12.960 --> 01:03:20.786
Because it's not usually you're a chef and design your menu and then you just order from macro or you order your stuff from wherever.

950
01:03:22.107 --> 01:03:23.107
And here it's different.

951
01:03:23.108 --> 01:03:31.325
So you really need to find these kind of chefs and people which are truly in this for real and really believe in this sustainable kind of gastronomy.

952
01:03:31.404 --> 01:03:31.779
And they say,

953
01:03:31.794 --> 01:03:31.919
no,

954
01:03:32.044 --> 01:03:34.700
I'm just cooking with whatever I get from the garden.

955
01:03:35.357 --> 01:03:37.200
And then this is also challenging,

956
01:03:37.247 --> 01:03:37.591
but very,

957
01:03:37.669 --> 01:03:38.404
very interesting.

958
01:03:39.138 --> 01:03:40.341
So how much of the food

959
01:03:40.658 --> 01:03:41.559
that's being cooked here,

960
01:03:41.599 --> 01:03:42.259
the restaurant,

961
01:03:42.560 --> 01:03:44.101
comes directly from your farm?

962
01:03:44.703 --> 01:03:45.742
So it's 90 percent.

963
01:03:47.226 --> 01:03:49.605
We have a reduced menu at Raya,

964
01:03:50.691 --> 01:03:51.347
very seasonal,

965
01:03:51.449 --> 01:03:52.167
micro seasonal.

966
01:03:52.191 --> 01:03:54.292
We change every three,

967
01:03:54.449 --> 01:03:58.214
four weeks basically or sometimes two months depending a bit on the season.

968
01:03:58.980 --> 01:03:59.324
And yeah,

969
01:03:59.339 --> 01:04:00.089
as I said before,

970
01:04:00.542 --> 01:04:01.839
what we don't grow in the farm,

971
01:04:02.292 --> 01:04:03.761
it won't show up here in the restaurant.

972
01:04:04.027 --> 01:04:04.480
And yeah,

973
01:04:04.481 --> 01:04:06.621
the other 10 percent of course is the river fish.

974
01:04:06.683 --> 01:04:08.480
We work with the local fishermen from here.

975
01:04:08.946 --> 01:04:12.010
And he's providing us with an amazing pipe perch from the lake,

976
01:04:12.450 --> 01:04:15.330
which is extremely delicious and culinary wise very,

977
01:04:15.834 --> 01:04:16.573
very interesting,

978
01:04:17.112 --> 01:04:18.455
very underestimated also.

979
01:04:19.494 --> 01:04:20.401
And yeah,

980
01:04:20.440 --> 01:04:22.377
and the rest is just a very small percentage of,

981
01:04:22.518 --> 01:04:22.901
I don't know,

982
01:04:22.963 --> 01:04:23.338
rice.

983
01:04:24.185 --> 01:04:25.947
and this kind of vinegar which we don't produce yet.

984
01:04:26.287 --> 01:04:26.568
Okay,

985
01:04:26.728 --> 01:04:26.888
yeah.

986
01:04:27.507 --> 01:04:40.886
You were mentioning earlier the fact that this area has been deserted by young people and people in general and you're part of a movement to bring back people to this area and the restaurant is part of that.

987
01:04:40.996 --> 01:04:41.902
Could you tell me more about that?

988
01:04:41.903 --> 01:04:42.121
Yeah,

989
01:04:42.183 --> 01:04:42.418
sure.

990
01:04:42.886 --> 01:04:46.339
Because I mean it's a fact for instance when our latest son was born,

991
01:04:46.433 --> 01:04:46.855
Raphael,

992
01:04:47.293 --> 01:04:48.543
is your same name,

993
01:04:49.027 --> 01:04:50.824
the old lady of the village was at you,

994
01:04:50.918 --> 01:04:51.793
she started to cry.

995
01:04:52.385 --> 01:04:52.886
And she said,

996
01:04:53.046 --> 01:04:53.226
wow,

997
01:04:53.246 --> 01:04:58.370
it's the first time since four or five years that a baby is born in this area.

998
01:04:59.070 --> 01:04:59.554
Of course,

999
01:04:59.613 --> 01:05:03.835
it's just old people that stayed behind and the young people just left to the cities.

1000
01:05:04.437 --> 01:05:08.421
And this is a demographic phenomenon you see everywhere around Europe.

1001
01:05:09.109 --> 01:05:10.156
And people feel very,

1002
01:05:11.218 --> 01:05:11.843
how can I say that,

1003
01:05:11.906 --> 01:05:13.499
left behind here.

1004
01:05:13.624 --> 01:05:14.484
And sometimes they feel,

1005
01:05:14.640 --> 01:05:17.609
it's a bit what my impression of the cultural impact here.

1006
01:05:18.015 --> 01:05:18.484
They feel that,

1007
01:05:18.593 --> 01:05:18.718
OK,

1008
01:05:19.156 --> 01:05:21.171
what the people in the government say and the politicians.

1009
01:05:21.465 --> 01:05:22.727
I don't believe anything anyway,

1010
01:05:22.807 --> 01:05:25.811
so they stay really closed in their own bubble.

1011
01:05:26.248 --> 01:05:27.010
And on the other hand,

1012
01:05:27.011 --> 01:05:29.494
you have these over-populized,

1013
01:05:30.377 --> 01:05:38.588
really dense centers in the cities where people also sometimes feel like in a hamster wheel because they're just running,

1014
01:05:38.619 --> 01:05:38.838
running,

1015
01:05:38.901 --> 01:05:39.119
running.

1016
01:05:39.135 --> 01:05:41.182
And why are you all doing all that?

1017
01:05:41.526 --> 01:05:43.541
So there's really a gap of a connection.

1018
01:05:43.869 --> 01:05:47.463
Where does all the food come from and how can you connect with nature?

1019
01:05:47.776 --> 01:05:49.229
And what does that do to you?

1020
01:05:49.669 --> 01:06:04.785
when you connect stronger with nature and that means it can be something very simple like going to the garden picking your own food and and washing your salad and just providing food for yourself and your family or your friends or whoever or just for yourself and

1021
01:06:04.824 --> 01:06:14.473
it's a very healing and inspiring and nourishing experience yeah yeah and in that sense we realized when we opened the place here.

1022
01:06:15.469 --> 01:06:17.350
This is a very left-behind area.

1023
01:06:17.469 --> 01:06:20.592
So the whole desertification part is happening in the soil.

1024
01:06:20.650 --> 01:06:21.670
It's happening in the country.

1025
01:06:21.752 --> 01:06:23.072
The soils are getting eroded.

1026
01:06:23.232 --> 01:06:25.912
This is what we talk about in the farm also.

1027
01:06:26.529 --> 01:06:33.193
But also the social desertification is a very big phenomenon and a big problem here because you don't have enough workers.

1028
01:06:33.194 --> 01:06:34.381
You don't have enough young talent.

1029
01:06:34.428 --> 01:06:39.021
People need to come back here and make this place thrive.

1030
01:06:39.553 --> 01:06:39.709
Yeah.

1031
01:06:39.959 --> 01:06:41.959
And that was also something we tried to do.

1032
01:06:42.037 --> 01:06:42.193
Yeah.

1033
01:06:42.568 --> 01:06:42.740
Yeah,

1034
01:06:43.178 --> 01:06:43.818
you're a bit like...

1035
01:06:44.357 --> 01:07:07.379
a pioneer tree right in a rebuilding ecosystem that is feeding you know the ecosystem that is building it back up so that other plants can come and thrive in that ecosystem right it's like the parallel i have in my head yes of course i mean yeah sure and and sometimes you also realize that these kind of projects they're bigger than yourself and of course first of all this would never be possible without all

1036
01:07:07.380 --> 01:07:10.817
of these people which are actually bringing their energy in here together.

1037
01:07:10.848 --> 01:07:11.036
I mean,

1038
01:07:11.037 --> 01:07:12.208
you guys are also coming here.

1039
01:07:12.692 --> 01:07:13.723
Something also must have...

1040
01:07:13.957 --> 01:07:33.256
kind of fascinated you or interested you to come here to visit us and to so we're having this conversation right now so yes people are interested in making a change and now the question is how should that work and yeah it definitely starts through coming together and talking about how we could make it happen actually so

1041
01:07:34.225 --> 01:07:41.663
now that you've integrated the restaurant as part of your business model and you have food going straight from the farm and to the restaurant

1042
01:07:43.302 --> 01:07:45.124
Do you also close a cycle with,

1043
01:07:45.343 --> 01:07:45.724
I don't know,

1044
01:07:45.804 --> 01:07:48.449
like food scraps and things like that going back to the farm,

1045
01:07:48.507 --> 01:07:49.589
being composted and so on?

1046
01:07:49.788 --> 01:07:49.988
Yes,

1047
01:07:50.050 --> 01:07:50.206
yes,

1048
01:07:50.269 --> 01:07:50.749
sure we do.

1049
01:07:51.472 --> 01:07:51.909
First of all,

1050
01:07:51.910 --> 01:07:55.995
because we think it's super important to get all the products which we have from the farm here.

1051
01:07:56.292 --> 01:07:59.136
So there's always a small part when we prepare the vegetables,

1052
01:07:59.137 --> 01:07:59.495
for instance,

1053
01:07:59.683 --> 01:08:00.980
that goes straight away to the chicken,

1054
01:08:01.199 --> 01:08:01.355
right?

1055
01:08:01.558 --> 01:08:02.777
You clean a bit and the first thing,

1056
01:08:03.245 --> 01:08:06.902
there's always the first selection goes to the animal and stays in the system.

1057
01:08:07.308 --> 01:08:07.745
But of course,

1058
01:08:07.746 --> 01:08:10.027
we have the leftovers here from the restaurant,

1059
01:08:10.527 --> 01:08:12.230
also the coffee leftovers.

1060
01:08:12.292 --> 01:08:12.667
leftovers.

1061
01:08:12.813 --> 01:08:16.254
where we have developed a quite complex and interesting,

1062
01:08:16.733 --> 01:08:17.455
really intriguing,

1063
01:08:17.494 --> 01:08:18.733
and for me personally,

1064
01:08:18.734 --> 01:08:20.693
a very fascinating compost system.

1065
01:08:21.236 --> 01:08:22.338
So on the farm,

1066
01:08:22.799 --> 01:08:27.838
all the leftovers from the restaurants are coming back and they're reintegrated in the cycle.

1067
01:08:28.494 --> 01:08:36.276
So they go to the chicken compost and then they got piled from one place to the other and the chickens are doing their part with the worms.

1068
01:08:36.572 --> 01:08:40.182
And it's a very interesting biomass which we create and it's a neutral,

1069
01:08:41.135 --> 01:08:42.104
It's a very organic.

1070
01:08:42.653 --> 01:08:58.567
very incredible soil enricher and it's such a power it's like a superfood for the garden and it's one of our key elements for the market gardens that's incredible so you're um you're organic regenerative circular yes and more

1071
01:08:58.568 --> 01:09:10.535
or less zero waste i mean yes going towards zero waste that's that's an impressive combination of different uh elements yeah yeah thank you no that was also the reason why we got rewarded with the wakama burmese sustainability prize last year

1072
01:09:11.189 --> 01:09:11.670
And yeah,

1073
01:09:11.710 --> 01:09:11.950
I mean,

1074
01:09:12.010 --> 01:09:12.350
of course,

1075
01:09:12.351 --> 01:09:14.112
we have to still get to get better.

1076
01:09:14.572 --> 01:09:21.580
And there's still a lot of optimization to do within the process of what we plant at the farm,

1077
01:09:21.838 --> 01:09:22.619
how to bring it here,

1078
01:09:23.065 --> 01:09:24.362
and the whole circle.

1079
01:09:24.658 --> 01:09:27.502
And I think it's important because if you are feeding people,

1080
01:09:27.799 --> 01:09:28.049
right,

1081
01:09:28.065 --> 01:09:29.768
and that is the main objective of a restaurant,

1082
01:09:30.065 --> 01:09:30.846
you're feeding people,

1083
01:09:31.237 --> 01:09:35.033
but you also have a responsibility through the planet and the next generation.

1084
01:09:35.049 --> 01:09:37.080
So you cannot just leave a trash bag.

1085
01:09:37.569 --> 01:09:39.972
pile of plastic garbage behind.

1086
01:09:41.212 --> 01:09:41.935
Back at the farm,

1087
01:09:42.173 --> 01:09:44.857
we catch the sunset over the lake with a glass of wine.

1088
01:09:44.876 --> 01:09:54.368
And I take this opportunity to ask a few more questions about the business model and some final words before closing this wonderful day and this wonderful experience.

1089
01:09:55.259 --> 01:09:57.165
I truly hope you enjoyed this episode.

1090
01:09:57.446 --> 01:10:00.071
If you want to make sure not to miss the next ones coming out,

1091
01:10:00.665 --> 01:10:00.837
well,

1092
01:10:00.868 --> 01:10:03.431
don't forget to click on the follow or subscribe button.

1093
01:10:03.931 --> 01:10:05.696
Thank you so much and see you soon.

1094
01:10:07.157 --> 01:10:12.261
So in the same way that a really healthy ecosystem is really diverse,

1095
01:10:12.702 --> 01:10:17.026
would you say that a healthy regenerative business also needs to be very diverse?

1096
01:10:17.027 --> 01:10:21.394
Is that the reason why you're trying to be so diversified in your business model?

1097
01:10:22.253 --> 01:10:22.370
No,

1098
01:10:23.058 --> 01:10:29.386
it's much easier to have a monoculture or an entrepreneurial monoculture than to have these.

1099
01:10:30.057 --> 01:10:31.657
super diversified business.

1100
01:10:31.658 --> 01:10:32.018
Of course,

1101
01:10:32.019 --> 01:10:33.178
if you are diversified,

1102
01:10:33.258 --> 01:10:34.699
if one thing is not working,

1103
01:10:34.719 --> 01:10:35.598
the other might work.

1104
01:10:35.617 --> 01:10:36.758
So you have a better balance.

1105
01:10:37.340 --> 01:10:42.297
But one thing is to do one thing or two or three or to do 250 like we do.

1106
01:10:43.203 --> 01:10:49.000
And that's the complex thing because the whole production is a science.

1107
01:10:49.781 --> 01:10:51.578
The whole transformation of it,

1108
01:10:51.719 --> 01:10:53.406
it's also a science.

1109
01:10:53.438 --> 01:10:57.078
The whole chain of value of that market is a science.

1110
01:10:57.359 --> 01:10:58.563
And then you still have to market it.

1111
01:10:59.657 --> 01:11:06.944
And if you have 100 products and you have to go through many ways and different kinds of fuels from different kinds of gaps,

1112
01:11:07.405 --> 01:11:08.682
it becomes very difficult.

1113
01:11:09.026 --> 01:11:10.768
Plus our price is very high.

1114
01:11:11.471 --> 01:11:21.791
So if I would advise any regenerative agriculture person that wants to make the change or to come into this business,

1115
01:11:21.838 --> 01:11:24.135
I would streamline it in one business,

1116
01:11:24.494 --> 01:11:28.510
I would make it profitable and then bring the next streamline carefully.

1117
01:11:28.937 --> 01:11:30.719
chosen within their own context.

1118
01:11:30.778 --> 01:11:36.767
So the possibilities are only depending on the capability of investment,

1119
01:11:36.768 --> 01:11:37.587
the infrastructure.

1120
01:11:37.603 --> 01:11:42.314
So this is a dream that can be pretty quickly a nightmare.

1121
01:11:42.571 --> 01:11:43.712
So you have to prepare yourself.

1122
01:11:43.751 --> 01:11:49.118
So what I would advise is depending on if you're buying a property or if you have a business,

1123
01:11:49.649 --> 01:11:50.493
make the change.

1124
01:11:50.524 --> 01:11:52.556
It makes sense in all aspects.

1125
01:11:52.603 --> 01:11:57.759
I could enumerate five in ten seconds but

1126
01:11:57.869 --> 01:12:03.411
To diversify as much as we do is not the best example because it takes a lot of investment.

1127
01:12:04.052 --> 01:12:11.333
It's very important to make one step after the other and to ask people that already made that path what are the opportunities.

1128
01:12:11.849 --> 01:12:24.911
But in every sense and means a regenerative operation makes completely sense because you do much less of the work unless you are doing market gardening.

1129
01:12:26.841 --> 01:12:29.263
and the output is much better.

1130
01:12:29.323 --> 01:12:31.266
So in that sense it's beautiful.

1131
01:12:31.286 --> 01:12:34.309
And then you keep on adding complexity if you want.

1132
01:12:34.630 --> 01:12:40.153
So that's what I would say regarding the economics of the operation.

1133
01:12:40.552 --> 01:12:41.216
Nevertheless,

1134
01:12:41.598 --> 01:12:47.786
the potential is immense because as we are putting together agriculture with tourism,

1135
01:12:48.598 --> 01:12:51.583
as soon as things start working together,

1136
01:12:52.083 --> 01:12:53.005
they are already working,

1137
01:12:53.052 --> 01:12:53.645
we already do.

1138
01:12:54.301 --> 01:12:58.966
very interesting revenue figures as well for such a small operation.

1139
01:12:59.728 --> 01:13:00.326
But the thing is,

1140
01:13:00.868 --> 01:13:06.236
as soon as things change and move and it becomes really circular,

1141
01:13:06.814 --> 01:13:09.275
then the revenue potential is immense.

1142
01:13:10.056 --> 01:13:11.525
There's this Indian proverb of,

1143
01:13:12.040 --> 01:13:14.368
we don't inherit the world from our ancestors,

1144
01:13:14.759 --> 01:13:16.228
we borrow it from our children.

1145
01:13:16.884 --> 01:13:17.931
And yeah,

1146
01:13:17.978 --> 01:13:20.087
this is a message that is to all of us.

1147
01:13:20.150 --> 01:13:23.665
So if each and every one of us takes a small...

1148
01:13:24.465 --> 01:13:53.950
small moment and and be aware of how we source our food how to make the difference how to inspire you guys are also here you're you're here to spread the message you're inspiring people thank you so much for hosting us here on the farm for a couple of days it's been absolutely beautiful we we loved it the place is beautiful the food is amazing you guys have been incredible hosts so thank you so much for that and thank you for sharing this knowledge with us and with all the listeners and the viewers of the deep seat podcast

1149
01:13:54.065 --> 01:13:54.326
Thank you.

1150
01:13:54.888 --> 01:13:55.570
Thank you very much.

1151
01:13:55.871 --> 01:13:56.252
Thank you.