WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.548 --> 00:00:02.149
Today I'm in Switzerland,

2
00:00:02.329 --> 00:00:04.650
just about 20 minutes outside of Zurich,

3
00:00:04.850 --> 00:00:07.652
to meet with a regenerative farmer called

4
00:00:08.072 --> 00:00:09.073
Peter Fröhlich.

5
00:00:09.873 --> 00:00:28.544
He transitioned his family farm to regenerative about 10 years ago and he offers a really unique and really interesting perspective because he's a farmer with hands-on experience but he's also a businessman with a scientific background and that allows him to bring together these three different elements.

6
00:00:29.020 --> 00:00:33.943
And we get into a really deep and detailed conversation about his farming system,

7
00:00:34.483 --> 00:00:35.604
about his rotation,

8
00:00:35.664 --> 00:00:38.105
about his use of machinery,

9
00:00:38.285 --> 00:00:40.666
of cover crops and many things like that.

10
00:00:40.967 --> 00:00:45.729
But at the heart of the conversation is the concept of outcome-based farming systems,

11
00:00:46.189 --> 00:00:53.173
where we talk about why it might be detrimental to focus too much on the tools and the practices of farming,

12
00:00:53.613 --> 00:00:58.096
and why it might be a better idea to focus more on the outcomes we expect from farming.

13
00:00:58.336 --> 00:01:02.599
and allow farmers to use every tool in the toolbox that they have to make that happen,

14
00:01:03.219 --> 00:01:05.140
but in a way that works for them,

15
00:01:05.340 --> 00:01:06.861
for their specific context,

16
00:01:06.941 --> 00:01:08.382
for their specific system,

17
00:01:08.442 --> 00:01:10.063
for their specific climate.

18
00:01:10.523 --> 00:01:12.845
I'm not going to tell you too much more in the introduction,

19
00:01:12.865 --> 00:01:13.385
but trust me,

20
00:01:13.505 --> 00:01:15.306
this is a really interesting conversation.

21
00:01:15.546 --> 00:01:17.147
I personally learned so much from it.

22
00:01:17.628 --> 00:01:21.230
We get quite deep and quite technical about a lot of key topics.

23
00:01:21.790 --> 00:01:23.191
So stick around until the end,

24
00:01:23.491 --> 00:01:24.952
and thank you for watching.

25
00:01:25.472 --> 00:01:28.216
This episode was made in partnership with Soil Capital.

26
00:01:28.977 --> 00:01:29.598
I'm your host,

27
00:01:29.738 --> 00:01:30.198
Raphael,

28
00:01:30.499 --> 00:01:32.081
and this is the Deep Seed Podcast.

29
00:01:40.673 --> 00:01:40.793
Hi,

30
00:01:40.833 --> 00:01:41.093
Peter.

31
00:01:42.014 --> 00:01:42.155
Hi,

32
00:01:42.195 --> 00:01:42.595
Raphael.

33
00:01:43.336 --> 00:01:45.718
And for a little bit of context for people listening,

34
00:01:45.838 --> 00:01:47.060
we are sitting right now

35
00:01:47.580 --> 00:01:49.762
20 minutes outside of Zurich in Switzerland,

36
00:01:50.663 --> 00:01:51.964
at your family farm,

37
00:01:52.104 --> 00:01:55.147
which you told me last night has been in your family for many generations.

38
00:01:55.147 --> 00:01:55.608
Is that right?

39
00:01:56.168 --> 00:01:56.368
Yeah,

40
00:01:56.448 --> 00:01:57.890
I don't know how far back,

41
00:01:58.050 --> 00:01:59.671
but probably to the Romans.

42
00:01:59.771 --> 00:02:01.693
So pretty long term.

43
00:02:02.954 --> 00:02:04.115
We know of the first

44
00:02:05.064 --> 00:02:08.027
records somewhere around the year 1000.

45
00:02:08.247 --> 00:02:12.011
And since then the family's here has been one farm got split up over time,

46
00:02:12.071 --> 00:02:12.511
obviously.

47
00:02:13.072 --> 00:02:13.512
But still,

48
00:02:13.552 --> 00:02:15.754
this part here is remaining as a family farm.

49
00:02:15.754 --> 00:02:15.874
Yeah,

50
00:02:16.195 --> 00:02:16.835
that's incredible.

51
00:02:17.076 --> 00:02:17.876
That's really incredible.

52
00:02:18.537 --> 00:02:22.281
And so you very kindly hosted us last night.

53
00:02:22.441 --> 00:02:23.221
Us is me,

54
00:02:23.782 --> 00:02:24.262
my wife,

55
00:02:24.342 --> 00:02:25.984
Natalia and my little dog Ginzu.

56
00:02:26.765 --> 00:02:29.808
And we just embarked on a six months journey across Europe to meet

57
00:02:30.356 --> 00:02:33.397
pioneer regenerative farmers all across Europe.

58
00:02:33.577 --> 00:02:35.278
And this is our very first stop.

59
00:02:35.478 --> 00:02:37.058
And you very kindly hosted us last night.

60
00:02:37.058 --> 00:02:37.738
So thank you for that.

61
00:02:37.978 --> 00:02:38.118
Yeah,

62
00:02:38.298 --> 00:02:38.919
that's great.

63
00:02:38.939 --> 00:02:39.659
It's great having you.

64
00:02:39.839 --> 00:02:40.759
Thanks for being here.

65
00:02:40.959 --> 00:02:42.020
So yeah,

66
00:02:42.680 --> 00:02:43.840
let's see what we can look into.

67
00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:46.301
Maybe we go to the fields even afterwards.

68
00:02:46.701 --> 00:02:47.021
Let's see.

69
00:02:47.601 --> 00:02:51.262
I like to start a conversation really strong with this one question.

70
00:02:51.982 --> 00:02:54.363
If there's one key message you'd like people to hear today,

71
00:02:55.904 --> 00:02:56.344
what would it be?

72
00:02:57.280 --> 00:02:57.480
Well,

73
00:02:57.981 --> 00:03:03.946
I would say it is that we as a society cannot fail on implementing regenerative agriculture,

74
00:03:04.426 --> 00:03:06.368
because that's our ecological income,

75
00:03:06.608 --> 00:03:06.989
I feel.

76
00:03:07.109 --> 00:03:11.493
So it's really something that matters enormously.

77
00:03:12.333 --> 00:03:14.795
And it's not only about the food,

78
00:03:15.276 --> 00:03:16.877
it's also about our environment.

79
00:03:18.118 --> 00:03:18.839
And actually,

80
00:03:21.061 --> 00:03:21.401
You know,

81
00:03:22.422 --> 00:03:27.205
I feel that we're currently when it comes to climate and biodiversity,

82
00:03:27.505 --> 00:03:31.688
more looking at what we lose and what our cost items are,

83
00:03:32.308 --> 00:03:33.869
and not so much on the revenue.

84
00:03:35.070 --> 00:03:35.210
And

85
00:03:35.830 --> 00:03:40.571
I'm sure that region ag is able to manage this in a way it has to be.

86
00:03:41.471 --> 00:03:48.213
So we should start to swap from just looking at cost into what's our revenue and also drive that one.

87
00:03:49.013 --> 00:03:52.314
You're talking about ecological income and revenue here.

88
00:03:52.374 --> 00:03:53.354
Could you expand on that?

89
00:03:53.974 --> 00:03:54.134
Yeah,

90
00:03:54.254 --> 00:03:58.395
so if you look at the state of our planet,

91
00:03:59.135 --> 00:04:00.556
or let's call it differently.

92
00:04:01.616 --> 00:04:08.419
biomass productivity of our earth is pretty much linked to our cost items.

93
00:04:08.959 --> 00:04:11.640
So if you see what we're using at a society,

94
00:04:12.481 --> 00:04:14.662
it's actually everything biomass based.

95
00:04:14.882 --> 00:04:17.683
So when you say using you mean everything we consume,

96
00:04:17.763 --> 00:04:18.263
products,

97
00:04:18.363 --> 00:04:18.703
energy,

98
00:04:18.763 --> 00:04:19.144
everything.

99
00:04:19.364 --> 00:04:22.925
And let's for example look into concrete,

100
00:04:22.925 --> 00:04:24.186
you could say okay stones.

101
00:04:24.826 --> 00:04:25.166
But no,

102
00:04:25.586 --> 00:04:27.347
because when you sit in front of that rock,

103
00:04:27.587 --> 00:04:29.048
how do you actually work it?

104
00:04:29.488 --> 00:04:41.491
you need biomass you need something to heat it that's either oil gas coal wood and so on and that's all biomass so people don't actually make the link of

105
00:04:42.416 --> 00:04:42.656
Oil,

106
00:04:42.816 --> 00:04:43.177
gas,

107
00:04:43.317 --> 00:04:43.717
coal,

108
00:04:44.137 --> 00:04:44.798
plastics,

109
00:04:44.898 --> 00:04:45.798
petrochemicals,

110
00:04:45.858 --> 00:04:46.659
medication,

111
00:04:47.760 --> 00:04:48.120
wood,

112
00:04:49.001 --> 00:04:50.942
any fiber that you could think of,

113
00:04:51.022 --> 00:04:51.742
textile,

114
00:04:52.003 --> 00:04:52.323
food,

115
00:04:52.603 --> 00:04:54.244
that this is all biomass-based.

116
00:04:54.705 --> 00:04:56.145
And even a concrete and iron,

117
00:04:56.186 --> 00:04:57.727
you couldn't work without biomass.

118
00:04:58.407 --> 00:05:01.709
So pretty much all we use is biomass-based.

119
00:05:04.390 --> 00:05:05.930
In history of Earth,

120
00:05:06.231 --> 00:05:08.671
compared to the peaks in biomass productivity,

121
00:05:09.671 --> 00:05:11.712
we have reached a level of less than 50%,

122
00:05:12.832 --> 00:05:14.433
constantly declining.

123
00:05:15.253 --> 00:05:16.653
And when that's what we use,

124
00:05:16.693 --> 00:05:18.374
then that's our ecological income.

125
00:05:19.034 --> 00:05:19.274
Okay,

126
00:05:19.374 --> 00:05:21.295
so you say productivity,

127
00:05:21.495 --> 00:05:22.275
so the amount,

128
00:05:23.075 --> 00:05:23.375
let's say,

129
00:05:23.515 --> 00:05:25.736
each year that the Earth is producing biomass,

130
00:05:26.516 --> 00:05:27.817
and how much we actually use.

131
00:05:28.097 --> 00:05:28.217
Yeah,

132
00:05:28.257 --> 00:05:29.217
if that's in balance,

133
00:05:29.317 --> 00:05:29.777
we're fine.

134
00:05:30.437 --> 00:05:32.698
Then there's no excess climate emissions.

135
00:05:33.482 --> 00:05:35.644
because you produce as much as you use,

136
00:05:35.904 --> 00:05:37.605
which puts it back in balance.

137
00:05:38.926 --> 00:05:39.347
Right now,

138
00:05:39.487 --> 00:05:44.011
farmers are just looking at the biomass productivity of the sellable yield,

139
00:05:44.931 --> 00:05:46.733
not of the entire plant productivity.

140
00:05:47.513 --> 00:05:53.838
And the slash in biomass productivity we have seen is mainly related to deforestation.

141
00:05:54.499 --> 00:05:57.281
And even when you look at latest climate calculations,

142
00:05:57.561 --> 00:06:02.646
that's still a large chunk land use change and deforestation obviously.

143
00:06:04.266 --> 00:06:12.950
So what we actually want to do is to create the awareness of the farmers that there's more than just a sellable yield.

144
00:06:13.690 --> 00:06:19.753
That you really should grow plants on every meter square on your farm every day to maximize its predictivity.

145
00:06:20.333 --> 00:06:21.573
And that's what Region Ag can do.

146
00:06:22.594 --> 00:06:22.814
Okay,

147
00:06:22.894 --> 00:06:25.655
so it's not just about producing the sellable crop.

148
00:06:25.935 --> 00:06:29.417
It's about producing biomass in every possible form.

149
00:06:29.677 --> 00:06:29.797
Yeah,

150
00:06:29.837 --> 00:06:32.038
and I would even call that ecosystem services.

151
00:06:32.178 --> 00:06:32.598
You can then...

152
00:06:33.446 --> 00:06:35.848
I see it on my farm when I look back.

153
00:06:36.909 --> 00:06:40.131
So with the biomass increase,

154
00:06:40.851 --> 00:06:42.092
with the more plant growth,

155
00:06:42.713 --> 00:06:44.214
you have also the biodiversity,

156
00:06:44.334 --> 00:06:44.854
the soil,

157
00:06:44.914 --> 00:06:45.875
everything coming back.

158
00:06:46.715 --> 00:06:48.256
So it's positively linked.

159
00:06:49.677 --> 00:06:52.659
So in many cases,

160
00:06:52.719 --> 00:06:55.741
we see extensification as a solution.

161
00:06:57.002 --> 00:07:00.444
And my personal belief is that that's a mistake.

162
00:07:00.964 --> 00:07:04.485
We need to have intense productivity on the fields,

163
00:07:04.986 --> 00:07:12.549
but we need to focus on the entire thing and then the ecosystem to have the positive effects more than the negative ones.

164
00:07:12.769 --> 00:07:13.510
And we can do that.

165
00:07:14.634 --> 00:07:19.157
So I can clearly demonstrate on my farm that with region ag approaches this is possible.

166
00:07:20.138 --> 00:07:24.721
But it's more complex than just doing a bit of no-till or doing a bit of cover crops.

167
00:07:25.201 --> 00:07:26.322
This goes much beyond this.

168
00:07:26.542 --> 00:07:26.742
Okay,

169
00:07:27.583 --> 00:07:29.244
I suggest that we come back to this.

170
00:07:29.524 --> 00:07:46.548
bit later because there's so much to discuss here but this was just an introduction question i like to ask and now we're going to rewind just a little bit and talk about you i'd love to hear more about your personal story okay my personal story so i i grew up on this farm um yeah

171
00:07:46.548 --> 00:07:55.830
um my life is all about all about farming let's say in the first place so i grew up here i started um

172
00:07:57.522 --> 00:08:05.224
yeah helping on the farm from little kid onwards i started doing farm work here like really

173
00:08:06.925 --> 00:08:24.109
10 years plus i was mostly on the farm next to being in school i could talk about child labor here but i had a good education so no worries it was all fun for me um and yeah

174
00:08:24.189 --> 00:08:25.570
i didn't actually

175
00:08:27.711 --> 00:08:29.873
I was doing an apprentice as a farmer,

176
00:08:30.493 --> 00:08:32.214
as you do it over here in Switzerland.

177
00:08:32.274 --> 00:08:35.176
So I was two years on different farms.

178
00:08:36.638 --> 00:08:41.061
One year I was on a farm that was one of the founders of

179
00:08:41.601 --> 00:08:42.202
IP Swiss.

180
00:08:42.282 --> 00:08:44.123
That's like an eco scheme in Switzerland.

181
00:08:45.704 --> 00:08:47.886
It's now more than 20,000 farmers.

182
00:08:47.906 --> 00:08:48.627
So more than

183
00:08:49.467 --> 00:08:52.389
30% of Swiss farmers are in that scheme.

184
00:08:54.246 --> 00:08:54.846
Which is great.

185
00:08:55.267 --> 00:08:55.607
And

186
00:08:56.007 --> 00:08:57.467
I learned a lot there already.

187
00:08:58.688 --> 00:09:01.388
And then I continued to study agronomics.

188
00:09:02.269 --> 00:09:05.070
I started to work first in the dairy industry in breeding.

189
00:09:05.330 --> 00:09:06.890
I was a passionate cow breeder.

190
00:09:08.110 --> 00:09:08.310
And

191
00:09:08.731 --> 00:09:14.512
I also owned some of the most prestigious cows of Switzerland.

192
00:09:15.293 --> 00:09:19.474
And then completely went for traveling to South America for a year.

193
00:09:20.402 --> 00:09:23.944
came back and then went into crop production.

194
00:09:24.085 --> 00:09:25.245
So I joined Syngenta,

195
00:09:26.506 --> 00:09:27.647
which some call the evil.

196
00:09:28.347 --> 00:09:29.308
I don't see it that way.

197
00:09:29.408 --> 00:09:33.911
It's just a business that's trying to help farmers to be productive.

198
00:09:35.232 --> 00:09:36.933
causes today too many side effects.

199
00:09:36.973 --> 00:09:38.914
So we need to become smarter than this one.

200
00:09:39.495 --> 00:09:42.176
But I was working there first in the crop protection part,

201
00:09:42.377 --> 00:09:47.060
but then also in trying to find a combination between crop protection and seeds.

202
00:09:47.500 --> 00:09:47.860
And then

203
00:09:49.081 --> 00:09:53.724
I studied or I did an MBA at the University of St.

204
00:09:53.744 --> 00:09:53.984
Gallen.

205
00:09:55.568 --> 00:10:02.793
and started my own company called AgriCircle that we want to transform now in a new venture called AgriPurpose,

206
00:10:03.574 --> 00:10:14.621
which shall become a purpose venture to actually serve the market in terms of outcome measures on how well you work with the ecosystem.

207
00:10:14.641 --> 00:10:17.604
So actually on outcomes of regenerative agriculture.

208
00:10:18.124 --> 00:10:18.344
Okay.

209
00:10:19.205 --> 00:10:22.347
And then how did you eventually come back to the family farm and

210
00:10:24.068 --> 00:10:40.963
take over the farm here well that was a process so i always wanted to do that um it was more about the money side so um and i think that's still a problem we have in general in farming i mean it's not the job it's the most important job on the planet i believe but

211
00:10:41.103 --> 00:10:45.767
earning a good living is hard so yeah i took advantage of

212
00:10:46.752 --> 00:10:50.054
all my curriculum and actually earned quite a lot of money.

213
00:10:51.435 --> 00:10:52.996
And yeah,

214
00:10:53.056 --> 00:10:59.321
then came back and started working on it alongside the AgriCircle venture.

215
00:11:01.542 --> 00:11:04.245
worked well at that time because my dad was helping me a lot.

216
00:11:04.365 --> 00:11:07.069
And also I had an employee here helping me.

217
00:11:08.030 --> 00:11:08.150
So

218
00:11:09.391 --> 00:11:12.495
I was pretty much doing the management but not too much more.

219
00:11:12.776 --> 00:11:15.379
And now my dad became older,

220
00:11:15.659 --> 00:11:16.460
I'm doing more and more.

221
00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:25.068
but it's actually a good complementary part to what I'm doing with AgriCircle and I'm starting to do with AgriPurpose because

222
00:11:25.748 --> 00:11:26.909
I'm working the soil,

223
00:11:27.049 --> 00:11:28.010
I'm working everything.

224
00:11:29.752 --> 00:11:41.302
My farm is also nice because it's like a valley so you can really see what's happening on both sides of it and you can see if something is not working well in a field very like you don't need to fly a drone you just see it.

225
00:11:44.392 --> 00:11:55.578
Knowing every meter square of that farm helps me a lot to relate it to satellite data and to what could be correlations that could actually work out.

226
00:11:56.078 --> 00:11:57.299
And I think that bridge,

227
00:11:57.1000 --> 00:11:59.060
that's what I'm doing well.

228
00:11:59.160 --> 00:12:02.542
And it's what I only can do by also working the whole thing.

229
00:12:03.563 --> 00:12:08.385
So there's benefits in what I'm doing in terms of me being on the land.

230
00:12:09.666 --> 00:12:10.226
So I think,

231
00:12:10.626 --> 00:12:10.747
yeah,

232
00:12:10.927 --> 00:12:12.487
that just makes it probably...

233
00:12:13.768 --> 00:12:16.570
more successful than what others can deliver.

234
00:12:16.791 --> 00:12:17.071
Okay,

235
00:12:17.131 --> 00:12:20.994
so you have this combination of being a farmer and working the land.

236
00:12:21.474 --> 00:12:21.855
Exactly.

237
00:12:22.715 --> 00:12:23.636
And at the same time,

238
00:12:24.317 --> 00:12:29.341
having this business and science aspects to the work you're doing as well.

239
00:12:29.821 --> 00:12:29.941
Yeah,

240
00:12:30.722 --> 00:12:33.144
and really looking into all these correlations and so on.

241
00:12:33.564 --> 00:12:36.086
If you're just looking at it from the data science piece,

242
00:12:36.787 --> 00:12:39.249
I still feel you miss out on a lot of things.

243
00:12:40.049 --> 00:12:43.072
Because not everything that you should know...

244
00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:46.482
about the land is in the data we have available today.

245
00:12:47.804 --> 00:12:50.666
So that's one side that helps me enormous.

246
00:12:50.766 --> 00:12:51.486
And the other one is,

247
00:12:52.167 --> 00:12:55.570
when I started to dig into regenerative agriculture,

248
00:12:56.230 --> 00:13:00.233
I really wanted to understand and measure what I'm doing,

249
00:13:00.474 --> 00:13:01.294
if that works,

250
00:13:01.975 --> 00:13:03.776
or if I'm just thinking it works,

251
00:13:03.836 --> 00:13:06.078
because between you think it works,

252
00:13:06.618 --> 00:13:07.419
and it works,

253
00:13:07.459 --> 00:13:08.360
there's a big difference.

254
00:13:09.752 --> 00:13:13.314
And I see that a lot on farms that they think it's great,

255
00:13:13.474 --> 00:13:14.935
but then we see it's not so great.

256
00:13:15.975 --> 00:13:16.675
Or the opposite,

257
00:13:16.895 --> 00:13:18.496
they think it's not so great,

258
00:13:18.536 --> 00:13:19.617
but it's actually great.

259
00:13:21.137 --> 00:13:26.160
And getting clear data and good feedback on that one is very helpful.

260
00:13:26.780 --> 00:13:26.980
Okay,

261
00:13:27.340 --> 00:13:30.822
so would you say that creating a healthy regenerative

262
00:13:31.122 --> 00:13:50.572
farming system is a balance of being a farmer and sensing what's happening on your farm on a daily basis and also having the data and the science and finding that right balance between these two but not rely too much on one or the other exactly i think that's it um if we want to be quick and and there's one thing that i see is we

263
00:13:50.872 --> 00:13:58.656
should not trust too much into science we should start to trust more the farmers because when it comes to regenerative agriculture

264
00:13:59.224 --> 00:14:01.345
Farmers are much ahead of scientists.

265
00:14:02.426 --> 00:14:09.070
And so scientists can only validate what farmers are doing because they know their job best.

266
00:14:09.711 --> 00:14:15.434
That's why I'm also a bit of anti-defining region ag in terms of tools or measures,

267
00:14:15.794 --> 00:14:21.558
in terms of tools or field tasks that farmers should kind of start doing,

268
00:14:22.118 --> 00:14:23.459
because there's much more to it.

269
00:14:27.841 --> 00:14:30.582
So to fill that with some knowledge.

270
00:14:30.642 --> 00:14:34.704
So when you look at farming here in this place,

271
00:14:34.984 --> 00:14:36.165
I have all my neighbors here.

272
00:14:36.225 --> 00:14:37.706
So it's a small,

273
00:14:38.767 --> 00:14:39.527
not even a village,

274
00:14:39.527 --> 00:14:40.307
just five farms.

275
00:14:40.868 --> 00:14:45.430
And each one has about the same characteristics,

276
00:14:45.470 --> 00:14:45.990
I would say.

277
00:14:47.891 --> 00:14:49.872
But when it comes to the soil carbon,

278
00:14:51.553 --> 00:14:52.854
still there was a big difference.

279
00:14:53.574 --> 00:14:54.635
So let's say...

280
00:14:55.307 --> 00:14:57.388
The farms had about the same amount of animals.

281
00:14:57.428 --> 00:14:59.288
They had about the same crops being grown.

282
00:15:00.028 --> 00:15:00.728
They had about,

283
00:15:02.689 --> 00:15:02.849
yeah,

284
00:15:03.049 --> 00:15:05.330
kind of the same soil tillage,

285
00:15:05.450 --> 00:15:07.070
the same varieties.

286
00:15:07.450 --> 00:15:08.831
Everything was pretty similar.

287
00:15:09.711 --> 00:15:14.432
But my dad was always the one that had more SOC in the soil than the neighbors.

288
00:15:15.653 --> 00:15:24.675
That means that a healthy soil is just more complex to achieve than using the right tools.

289
00:15:25.587 --> 00:15:31.730
It is really about almost some magic you need to perform to actually bring it to life.

290
00:15:33.250 --> 00:15:38.933
And that made me aware that there might be more than just toolkits that farmers should adopt.

291
00:15:39.173 --> 00:15:44.975
So that is one important angle that I always try to defend and make people aware of.

292
00:15:45.655 --> 00:15:49.657
Region Ag is not so much about the tools used.

293
00:15:50.437 --> 00:15:54.099
It's more about the contextualized implementation.

294
00:15:54.479 --> 00:16:19.035
of the different steps along the cycle the cropping cycle and that's much harder to to grasp than just some tools being being used and when you when you say tools you don't necessarily mean physical tools you mean um well i mean physical tools but it can be digital tools so it can be a plow it can be strip tail it can be no-till it can be cover crops it can be different

295
00:16:20.035 --> 00:16:39.606
fertilizers it can be microbiology compost tea whatever you need as activation micro minerals to be spread on leaves yeah it can be any of those tools in in our case i think what my dad made different to the neighbors is a bit more patience meaning

296
00:16:39.926 --> 00:16:48.611
never entering a soil when it's too wet not working it when it's too dry so that's you can do a lot by you

297
00:16:50.123 --> 00:16:51.104
you can actually,

298
00:16:52.925 --> 00:16:54.626
that's a bit strange maybe to many people,

299
00:16:54.666 --> 00:17:01.510
but you can actually build soil with a plow if you do it correctly compared to the status quo.

300
00:17:03.071 --> 00:17:05.893
And that's something that's not in a lot of people's heads,

301
00:17:06.193 --> 00:17:10.436
but it should be there because it's really about the how and not about the what too much.

302
00:17:10.876 --> 00:17:11.097
Okay,

303
00:17:11.417 --> 00:17:11.537
yeah,

304
00:17:12.077 --> 00:17:12.678
very interesting.

305
00:17:14.079 --> 00:17:16.100
Could you tell us a little bit more about the farm?

306
00:17:16.260 --> 00:17:17.901
How big is it and what is it?

307
00:17:17.901 --> 00:17:32.755
is your system like so we have a 30 hectare family farm around about um and we grow six crops on it so we have uh not a stable rotation but i'm checking that every that

308
00:17:33.015 --> 00:17:36.178
I'm never closer to having the same crop every four years.

309
00:17:37.379 --> 00:17:39.420
So we grow pumpkins,

310
00:17:40.081 --> 00:17:40.621
sugar beets,

311
00:17:40.762 --> 00:17:41.182
oilseed,

312
00:17:41.222 --> 00:17:41.622
grape,

313
00:17:41.762 --> 00:17:42.043
wheat,

314
00:17:42.203 --> 00:17:42.583
corn,

315
00:17:42.663 --> 00:17:43.564
some grassland.

316
00:17:44.605 --> 00:17:44.745
Yeah,

317
00:17:44.745 --> 00:17:46.086
and once in a while also barley,

318
00:17:46.246 --> 00:17:47.888
depending on the year.

319
00:17:49.209 --> 00:17:49.789
So pretty...

320
00:17:52.675 --> 00:18:13.648
special crops so it's pumpkins it's a vegetable that's not simple to grow and then yeah also oilseed rape sugar beets that's rather um i would say um not difficult but yeah others call it difficult crops to grow so they're they're a challenge in a sustainable system let's call it like this yeah

321
00:18:13.988 --> 00:18:18.311
i would love if we could dig a little bit deeper into this because for me this is still very new this you

322
00:18:18.351 --> 00:18:22.395
concept of rotation and why you choose certain crops in one border,

323
00:18:22.995 --> 00:18:24.056
depending on what market.

324
00:18:24.116 --> 00:18:30.542
So maybe you could go talk us through the different stages of your rotation and explain the thinking behind it.

325
00:18:31.463 --> 00:18:31.603
Yeah,

326
00:18:31.803 --> 00:18:32.043
I mean,

327
00:18:33.164 --> 00:18:37.128
what I'm trying to mix always is a spring crop with an autumn crop.

328
00:18:37.388 --> 00:18:44.475
So you have one year an autumn crop and the next one a spring crop that helps you to regenerate the soil better.

329
00:18:45.015 --> 00:18:47.258
So you can only have one cash crop a year?

330
00:18:47.638 --> 00:18:47.778
Yes.

331
00:18:47.899 --> 00:18:48.700
It's not possible to do?

332
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:49.080
No,

333
00:18:49.360 --> 00:18:51.323
it's not like in Brazil where they do two or three.

334
00:18:51.323 --> 00:18:52.564
Okay.

335
00:18:52.705 --> 00:18:56.509
Now we have one crop and then we have to cover crops in between.

336
00:18:57.550 --> 00:19:00.474
So in the past,

337
00:19:00.694 --> 00:19:03.598
how it worked is you were growing a kind of...

338
00:19:04.599 --> 00:19:20.929
cash crop and then you left the soil empty until the next one and then well with the winter crop you covered it over the winter one year and then the next year it was empty over winter and that we have changed from actually

339
00:19:21.189 --> 00:19:24.811
doing that to it being covered all the time

340
00:19:25.431 --> 00:19:26.693
And by all the time,

341
00:19:27.353 --> 00:19:29.095
I'm really talking all the time.

342
00:19:29.115 --> 00:19:30.016
So for example,

343
00:19:30.036 --> 00:19:38.506
we even do a no-till buckwheat after cereal harvest in July to then plant.

344
00:19:39.843 --> 00:19:42.424
oil seed rape in end of August.

345
00:19:42.724 --> 00:19:52.968
So that gives me a month for six weeks about to actually grow something and I don't leave my soil open for six weeks or my fields open for six weeks.

346
00:19:53.128 --> 00:19:56.929
And that buckwheat has time to grow or you use it specifically as a cover crop?

347
00:19:57.129 --> 00:19:57.829
It's a cover crop,

348
00:19:57.909 --> 00:19:59.990
it has time to become hip high.

349
00:20:01.266 --> 00:20:07.388
and I then use it to actually cover my soil so that I don't need a herbicide for the oilseed rape anymore.

350
00:20:07.688 --> 00:20:07.928
Okay.

351
00:20:08.569 --> 00:20:10.769
And what do you do with the buckwheat before you?

352
00:20:11.030 --> 00:20:11.330
Nothing.

353
00:20:11.530 --> 00:20:12.850
It's just like rolled down.

354
00:20:13.250 --> 00:20:14.971
You roll it down and then you...

355
00:20:15.391 --> 00:20:17.572
And then I plant the oilseed rape into it.

356
00:20:17.792 --> 00:20:17.972
Okay.

357
00:20:18.732 --> 00:20:20.313
That's one of the innovations we're doing.

358
00:20:20.333 --> 00:20:20.833
So this is,

359
00:20:22.013 --> 00:20:22.174
well...

360
00:20:23.514 --> 00:20:38.549
because others do till the soil and then they do a sub-sowing another crop into the OEC drape another crop mix and that's to my understanding less well it's different but it's working

361
00:20:38.629 --> 00:20:41.952
less well than what I'm doing yeah

362
00:20:44.070 --> 00:20:59.762
let's keep going uh you mentioned pumpkin pumpkins it's another one so usually pumpkins is leaving a lot of soil open so how i'm doing it is i usually do it after cereals so they get harvest july let's

363
00:20:59.762 --> 00:21:10.630
say this year and then i would do the pumpkins in may 2026 so they're pretty late so i'm doing a very

364
00:21:11.614 --> 00:21:17.136
quick growing first cover crop right after cereal harvest.

365
00:21:18.356 --> 00:21:27.079
And then I destroy that beginning of September for one that is actually growing over winter that I directly till into this.

366
00:21:27.479 --> 00:21:33.280
And I try to do that in a way that I have some biomass remaining that's dead,

367
00:21:34.221 --> 00:21:37.402
like big sticks and so on.

368
00:21:39.154 --> 00:21:46.238
because that's houses for insects to actually survive winter.

369
00:21:46.418 --> 00:21:50.801
So it's kind of like their house,

370
00:21:50.861 --> 00:21:51.421
let's call it.

371
00:21:52.141 --> 00:21:53.302
So I have that mixture.

372
00:21:53.462 --> 00:21:55.063
And then in spring,

373
00:21:55.223 --> 00:21:57.364
I actually fertilize the interim crop.

374
00:21:58.625 --> 00:21:59.846
That's my fertilization.

375
00:22:01.467 --> 00:22:03.488
And then that one,

376
00:22:03.528 --> 00:22:06.109
I kill it with glyphosate because you either have to...

377
00:22:08.242 --> 00:22:11.764
kind of till it because it's the grass that's surviving.

378
00:22:13.145 --> 00:22:18.589
So you have to go in with a rotary hoe or something or then you have to kill it with chemicals.

379
00:22:18.609 --> 00:22:23.012
So I use two liters of glyphosate to kill it and then I do strip till.

380
00:22:23.312 --> 00:22:23.953
into it so

381
00:22:24.373 --> 00:22:29.318
I only till the soil about 10 centimeters large every

382
00:22:29.958 --> 00:22:37.765
1 meter 40 and the rest I and then I drill the pumpkins into it roll it after this

383
00:22:38.950 --> 00:22:42.012
And then I actually have the cover crop covering the entire soil,

384
00:22:42.532 --> 00:22:43.953
the entire year almost.

385
00:22:45.014 --> 00:22:47.856
And the pumpkins growing nicely out of it.

386
00:22:47.996 --> 00:22:50.998
So that's also a way to do herbicide.

387
00:22:51.058 --> 00:22:51.218
Well,

388
00:22:51.278 --> 00:22:53.260
it's not herbicide free because I use...

389
00:22:54.440 --> 00:22:56.281
glyphosate to kill the grass.

390
00:22:56.461 --> 00:22:57.841
It's a rye actually.

391
00:22:59.361 --> 00:22:59.981
But yeah,

392
00:23:00.421 --> 00:23:00.541
so

393
00:23:00.921 --> 00:23:02.322
I always say some death,

394
00:23:02.482 --> 00:23:03.262
you need to die.

395
00:23:03.902 --> 00:23:04.162
Okay.

396
00:23:04.322 --> 00:23:04.442
Yeah.

397
00:23:04.482 --> 00:23:04.602
Yeah.

398
00:23:04.882 --> 00:23:05.802
That's so complex.

399
00:23:05.922 --> 00:23:09.383
Like you just described only one year of a rotation and there was so much going on there.

400
00:23:09.463 --> 00:23:11.464
So you mentioned that after you wheat in July,

401
00:23:11.564 --> 00:23:11.804
right?

402
00:23:12.204 --> 00:23:13.724
You planted a first cover crop.

403
00:23:14.824 --> 00:23:16.405
What do you plant then?

404
00:23:16.845 --> 00:23:18.545
It's a mix of 20 species,

405
00:23:18.745 --> 00:23:19.885
very quickly growing.

406
00:23:19.945 --> 00:23:21.766
A large part of it is

407
00:23:22.526 --> 00:23:23.446
Ostinian hemp.

408
00:23:23.686 --> 00:23:46.819
kind of i don't know the name anymore and it grows a shit loads of biomass okay like uh it's crazy it's it's becoming tractor high so like a two meter cover crop a lot of biomass and then i just drill um a second one into it over winter that has about 15 components into it yeah you mentioned the second one but i was wondering what the yeah

409
00:23:46.819 --> 00:23:52.462
i mean the first you know when you when you roll a plant and it has been flowering it usually dies

410
00:23:52.830 --> 00:24:05.221
because it has done its purpose kind of for to propagate so it has flowered when you roll it then it kind of more like a field so

411
00:24:06.522 --> 00:24:26.519
let me check if i understand so like later so after that first cover crop has grown properly and you want to um see them a second one into it yeah while you do that you also roll it down yeah and so you're planting the the second one while this one is being rolled down and it automatically dies because it's been exactly

412
00:24:26.780 --> 00:24:33.706
flowered already before when you don't have this thing with the grasses then it's pretty easy to to actually kill

413
00:24:34.126 --> 00:24:50.335
kill some plants when they have flowered so that's that's also something i could be doing for the overwintering piece that i would have something that would be flowering and not a grass but it's just not producing not even close in terms of biomass your

414
00:24:50.375 --> 00:24:58.920
grass or not no if you have no grass inside it's really like um if you grow a grass it's about you

415
00:24:59.256 --> 00:25:19.171
twice as much biomass that you can have in the same time okay and um that to me is very important because i'm looking after biomass okay you want to maximize biomass so the first the first cover crop is a mix of 20 different species i guess yeah it's first of all it covers the soil during that period very quickly especially in the summer when

416
00:25:19.191 --> 00:25:24.936
it's really hot and dry um it has all of these different benefits you have all different species some

417
00:25:25.512 --> 00:25:45.021
a high some low some big roots some wide roots and it really really works for you and then the second uh mix or second cover crop is more of a grass because you want to maximize biomass production exactly and it's also you know that the biggest sequestration we see is usually on grassland and

418
00:25:45.061 --> 00:25:52.424
what you're doing there is first of all you are um you are not tilling the soil anymore

419
00:25:53.296 --> 00:25:55.197
like nature would actually also do it.

420
00:25:55.398 --> 00:25:56.358
And then secondly,

421
00:25:56.538 --> 00:25:58.119
you have different growth phases.

422
00:25:59.020 --> 00:26:02.663
And I think it's important to have both if you want to build soil,

423
00:26:02.863 --> 00:26:05.404
not only to have the diversity,

424
00:26:05.865 --> 00:26:07.746
but also to have different growing phases.

425
00:26:07.846 --> 00:26:08.887
I think the more you have,

426
00:26:09.267 --> 00:26:09.928
the better it is.

427
00:26:09.988 --> 00:26:12.009
So I have a friend of mine,

428
00:26:12.069 --> 00:26:13.090
Gerhard Weisheupel,

429
00:26:13.130 --> 00:26:17.853
he's even going into three or four times that there is more regrowth.

430
00:26:18.634 --> 00:26:19.434
Not sure that's better.

431
00:26:19.794 --> 00:26:20.735
I don't know it actually.

432
00:26:20.855 --> 00:26:21.436
So it could be.

433
00:26:24.297 --> 00:26:37.262
so i think we should not only talk about cover crops but also how many times you have a regrowth over the year because that's adding into sequestration i believe regrowth of that cover crop yeah how

434
00:26:37.282 --> 00:26:51.708
does that work well you usually kill it then you plant the second one not in a way not in a way that you till the soil so how we're doing it is first of all we're not tilling the soil after cereals so it's a direct it's a no-till operation of the cover crop into it

435
00:26:51.888 --> 00:26:52.448
it,

436
00:26:52.849 --> 00:26:55.350
which we have seen is also better in dry conditions.

437
00:26:55.611 --> 00:26:57.072
So when you drill deep enough,

438
00:26:57.992 --> 00:26:58.873
it really always,

439
00:26:59.153 --> 00:27:00.714
even if there's almost no water,

440
00:27:00.714 --> 00:27:01.575
it gets it high.

441
00:27:03.296 --> 00:27:05.477
And then you directly drill the next one into it.

442
00:27:05.777 --> 00:27:09.459
So never any touch in terms of soil tillage,

443
00:27:09.559 --> 00:27:14.662
apart of the no-till drill that does a little bit of soil work,

444
00:27:14.722 --> 00:27:15.903
but really just a little bit.

445
00:27:16.103 --> 00:27:16.303
Okay.

446
00:27:16.863 --> 00:27:21.846
And then before you plant your next crop,

447
00:27:21.926 --> 00:27:23.127
which is the pumpkin,

448
00:27:23.687 --> 00:27:24.187
in this case,

449
00:27:24.527 --> 00:27:26.649
you said like there you need to kill the grass and the grass,

450
00:27:26.909 --> 00:27:27.229
it's like,

451
00:27:27.229 --> 00:27:28.289
there's no way around it.

452
00:27:28.269 --> 00:27:30.070
You need to kill it one way or another.

453
00:27:30.110 --> 00:27:32.232
And you said it's either you plow it in.

454
00:27:32.352 --> 00:27:32.992
A lot of plow.

455
00:27:33.372 --> 00:27:33.492
No.

456
00:27:33.972 --> 00:27:34.133
Well,

457
00:27:35.573 --> 00:27:36.454
there's three options.

458
00:27:36.674 --> 00:27:43.117
One is a rotary hole where you kind of just mix it with the soil.

459
00:27:43.197 --> 00:27:46.279
So you go like five to 10 centimeter deep and mix it in.

460
00:27:47.879 --> 00:27:48.960
I did that also.

461
00:27:49.040 --> 00:27:53.242
Then I usually use some microorganisms that I spray before that operation.

462
00:27:54.143 --> 00:27:55.003
And then I do that.

463
00:27:55.283 --> 00:27:55.583
And,

464
00:27:56.324 --> 00:27:56.464
uh,

465
00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:12.373
that's helping to digest the plant because now you're putting a lot of plant material into the soil and that's also not a natural process yeah so you're trying to help it with some microorganisms that this goes quicker that can really kick start the biology but

466
00:28:12.413 --> 00:28:26.024
the downside is you need to have about two weeks of the right weather that can play against you and you're leaving the soil open for two weeks about and then you drill the next one in and then it still has to grow yeah

467
00:28:26.364 --> 00:28:27.485
And when it's pumpkins,

468
00:28:27.645 --> 00:28:30.567
that means I have 1.40m of nothing.

469
00:28:31.027 --> 00:28:31.147
So,

470
00:28:31.227 --> 00:28:31.447
okay,

471
00:28:31.487 --> 00:28:33.629
I would have to sub-sow something into this.

472
00:28:34.149 --> 00:28:36.811
And I'm doing it just like I use 2 litres of glyphosate,

473
00:28:36.831 --> 00:28:37.811
which is really not a much.

474
00:28:38.572 --> 00:28:39.272
When you say 2 litres,

475
00:28:39.292 --> 00:28:40.153
is it per hectare?

476
00:28:40.553 --> 00:28:41.574
That's per hectare,

477
00:28:41.614 --> 00:28:41.734
yeah.

478
00:28:41.834 --> 00:28:44.235
That's 2 litres of glyphosate per hectare.

479
00:28:44.776 --> 00:28:45.176
So that's

480
00:28:46.877 --> 00:28:48.058
720g of active.

481
00:28:49.679 --> 00:28:50.439
In most cases,

482
00:28:50.519 --> 00:28:51.880
people use way more.

483
00:28:52.160 --> 00:29:11.597
way more but when you acidize it nicely and everything that's way enough and so the thinking is that if you look at the system as a whole everything you described here if you want the whole thing to work in this case you choose to use a little bit of glyphosate yeah a little bit of poison because it allows the whole system to click and to work and as a whole in

484
00:29:11.577 --> 00:29:20.645
the balance of the negative the small negative you get from that poison but all of the benefits you get from everything else it's worth it in the best well you know i i think

485
00:29:22.803 --> 00:29:28.387
What I see is establishing a crop how we do it today is a very unnatural process.

486
00:29:29.288 --> 00:29:30.449
And somehow you have to do that.

487
00:29:32.650 --> 00:29:33.591
I believe glyphosate,

488
00:29:33.992 --> 00:29:34.232
I mean,

489
00:29:34.352 --> 00:29:35.953
the glyphosate metabolites of it,

490
00:29:36.113 --> 00:29:37.254
not the glyphosate itself,

491
00:29:37.394 --> 00:29:38.475
but the first metabolite,

492
00:29:38.495 --> 00:29:39.416
which is called AMPA,

493
00:29:40.577 --> 00:29:46.442
is actually having antibiotical kind of properties.

494
00:29:46.702 --> 00:29:47.863
So it's an antibiotics.

495
00:29:48.723 --> 00:29:50.245
So you should be careful with it.

496
00:29:52.890 --> 00:29:57.893
My philosophy is you should never spray that on the soil because that's your digester.

497
00:29:58.014 --> 00:30:03.137
And we know taking antibiotics is not the best for your gut.

498
00:30:03.377 --> 00:30:04.578
So same for the soil.

499
00:30:04.678 --> 00:30:06.179
So you're trying to minimize this.

500
00:30:08.020 --> 00:30:10.964
And so I only sprayed on plants.

501
00:30:11.144 --> 00:30:12.726
It should be all green when you do it.

502
00:30:12.766 --> 00:30:14.528
That's the first principle.

503
00:30:15.349 --> 00:30:17.271
And then never more than three liters.

504
00:30:17.851 --> 00:30:18.092
Never,

505
00:30:18.912 --> 00:30:19.173
never.

506
00:30:19.293 --> 00:30:19.513
I mean,

507
00:30:19.533 --> 00:30:22.797
this is never sprayed on a crop you harvest.

508
00:30:23.998 --> 00:30:24.238
I mean,

509
00:30:24.258 --> 00:30:28.400
this is to me a complete no-go and it's done in many parts of the world.

510
00:30:29.200 --> 00:30:30.601
So it's called desiccation,

511
00:30:31.421 --> 00:30:32.902
where you try to dry a cereal.

512
00:30:34.142 --> 00:30:38.824
Or then it's the non-GMO crops where you spray it onto to kill the stuff in between.

513
00:30:38.884 --> 00:30:40.565
And it's known that when you do that,

514
00:30:41.465 --> 00:30:46.027
the mineral profile of the crop that you grow is changing.

515
00:30:46.727 --> 00:30:48.708
So you have less minerals in the food,

516
00:30:49.768 --> 00:30:50.309
which is bad.

517
00:30:50.489 --> 00:30:53.830
And so I think it's a lot about how we're going to use it.

518
00:30:53.910 --> 00:31:22.218
it so i don't see a proper use of the gmo part i think that's really bad we don't need it and i don't see it that it would be applied on soil so when you do these treatments in the summer where you have just a few bad weeds that you want to kill i mean this is a no-go there's also new technology where you could only spray it and the plants in this case like selective yeah you fly with a drone you detect it or you have sensors on the machine to detect it

519
00:31:22.338 --> 00:31:23.599
then it's also okay.

520
00:31:23.759 --> 00:31:24.019
But yeah,

521
00:31:24.139 --> 00:31:24.819
never on the soil.

522
00:31:24.819 --> 00:31:27.320
Because this is something that sparks a lot of debates,

523
00:31:27.380 --> 00:31:27.600
right?

524
00:31:27.600 --> 00:31:28.801
The whole glyphosate topic.

525
00:31:29.321 --> 00:31:30.221
And it's always,

526
00:31:30.521 --> 00:31:31.842
as most debates these days,

527
00:31:31.942 --> 00:31:35.443
very polarized between one side that will say this is toxic,

528
00:31:35.503 --> 00:31:36.324
this causes cancer,

529
00:31:36.344 --> 00:31:38.004
and this should be completely forbidden.

530
00:31:38.084 --> 00:31:39.025
And the other side that says,

531
00:31:39.705 --> 00:31:40.585
we don't have alternative,

532
00:31:40.585 --> 00:31:41.586
we need this for farming,

533
00:31:41.686 --> 00:31:42.446
and you can't do that.

534
00:31:42.526 --> 00:31:46.428
But what you're saying here is that there's a very nuanced in between.

535
00:31:47.728 --> 00:31:48.509
That makes more sense.

536
00:31:49.109 --> 00:31:49.229
Yeah,

537
00:31:49.269 --> 00:31:49.609
and it's,

538
00:31:49.709 --> 00:31:49.949
I mean,

539
00:31:50.449 --> 00:31:51.530
glyphosate is

540
00:31:51.850 --> 00:32:10.300
a pesticide yeah but when what i'm a bit confused about is we use a lot of herbicides in farming and it's actually the most eco-friendly herbicide that we have so let's say you take out the glyphosate what you're going to use is more poisonous more

541
00:32:11.421 --> 00:32:21.346
um and more cancerogenic everything so you're actually well let's say it's unnatural to spray something like this but then

542
00:32:22.551 --> 00:32:25.934
currently NGOs and everyone targets the best out of the bad.

543
00:32:27.356 --> 00:32:28.897
So maybe you should start with some,

544
00:32:29.057 --> 00:32:30.579
some others because they're really bad.

545
00:32:30.939 --> 00:32:31.099
Yeah.

546
00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:31.600
So,

547
00:32:31.600 --> 00:32:32.341
uh,

548
00:32:32.341 --> 00:32:32.901
yeah.

549
00:32:32.901 --> 00:32:38.226
And that's more of how I think what I'm trying to do in farming is to,

550
00:32:39.428 --> 00:32:39.768
um,

551
00:32:41.450 --> 00:32:45.474
use the least of the bad.

552
00:32:45.938 --> 00:32:48.141
So trying to actually,

553
00:32:48.261 --> 00:32:49.082
so for example,

554
00:32:49.162 --> 00:32:50.784
we went into laser weeding.

555
00:32:50.924 --> 00:32:54.168
So we have been killing weeds with lasers on this farm,

556
00:32:55.169 --> 00:32:57.432
actually on a friend's farm close to here.

557
00:32:58.974 --> 00:33:03.038
So that to me is the future for it,

558
00:33:03.058 --> 00:33:05.121
because let's face it,

559
00:33:05.201 --> 00:33:05.581
hoeing.

560
00:33:06.494 --> 00:33:08.775
It's a very bad operation.

561
00:33:09.815 --> 00:33:11.376
And especially on this farm,

562
00:33:12.136 --> 00:33:13.057
I don't like to hoe.

563
00:33:13.457 --> 00:33:14.037
What's hoeing?

564
00:33:14.717 --> 00:33:16.658
It's usually what you do to kill weeds.

565
00:33:17.579 --> 00:33:19.659
So you go in with iron,

566
00:33:20.720 --> 00:33:26.482
with a machine that actually tills the soil about two to three centimeters deep to kill the weeds.

567
00:33:27.223 --> 00:33:28.883
And you usually do that when it's dry.

568
00:33:29.363 --> 00:33:30.464
So you have a lot of dust,

569
00:33:30.944 --> 00:33:33.125
which is actually wind erosion.

570
00:33:33.525 --> 00:33:34.666
So you lose a lot of soil.

571
00:33:36.050 --> 00:33:39.634
And here we have all our fields are a bit,

572
00:33:41.736 --> 00:33:42.857
have some little slope.

573
00:33:43.577 --> 00:33:47.261
And what we see when there's a heavy rain after the tillage,

574
00:33:47.761 --> 00:33:48.903
we lose a lot of topsoil.

575
00:33:49.223 --> 00:33:50.284
It's getting washed away.

576
00:33:52.926 --> 00:33:55.006
I personally don't like hoeing at all.

577
00:33:55.486 --> 00:33:59.887
And that's more or less one of the main operations in organic farming.

578
00:34:00.527 --> 00:34:01.127
On this farm,

579
00:34:01.467 --> 00:34:01.988
very bad.

580
00:34:02.688 --> 00:34:05.908
So we're trying to minimize it or not do it.

581
00:34:08.689 --> 00:34:09.049
Yeah,

582
00:34:09.049 --> 00:34:13.310
and that just leaves you with a certain set of potential options.

583
00:34:14.330 --> 00:34:18.890
And I believe there we should really talk about what's the least of the bad.

584
00:34:18.950 --> 00:34:19.211
Because,

585
00:34:19.831 --> 00:34:20.271
for example,

586
00:34:20.311 --> 00:34:20.651
hoeing,

587
00:34:20.791 --> 00:34:21.611
you exposed the

588
00:34:23.751 --> 00:34:28.433
the dark soil and what then usually happens is that heats up a lot.

589
00:34:29.353 --> 00:34:30.313
So you have two effects.

590
00:34:30.613 --> 00:34:32.634
One is you kill the weeds,

591
00:34:32.854 --> 00:34:33.494
they dry out,

592
00:34:34.494 --> 00:34:37.415
but second you kill all the organics in the topsoil.

593
00:34:38.095 --> 00:34:50.379
So not organics but all the life because it heats up more than 40 degrees and we also die when we have more than 40 degrees so soil life is dying and when it's beyond 60 degrees which usually happens

594
00:34:50.971 --> 00:34:52.973
you start inactivating weed seeds.

595
00:34:53.614 --> 00:34:55.916
And that's what people like about it.

596
00:34:56.637 --> 00:34:58.238
But it's very bad for the soil.

597
00:34:58.699 --> 00:35:03.483
So we should start also thinking about all these things and their real impact,

598
00:35:03.724 --> 00:35:04.484
not just thinking,

599
00:35:04.604 --> 00:35:04.725
oh,

600
00:35:04.725 --> 00:35:06.326
the organic thing is great,

601
00:35:06.386 --> 00:35:07.367
and the other one is bad.

602
00:35:07.748 --> 00:35:11.011
It's really about balancing what is the...

603
00:35:11.415 --> 00:35:27.667
ecological impact of all that thing and how can I minimize all that in my operations which are by far not natural so establishing a crop as we do it today is not a natural process that's just something we do but it's far from being what nature would be doing

604
00:35:27.983 --> 00:35:28.103
Yeah,

605
00:35:28.903 --> 00:35:31.484
you could argue that farming is not a natural process.

606
00:35:32.444 --> 00:35:32.944
Well,

607
00:35:33.044 --> 00:35:33.565
there you come,

608
00:35:33.585 --> 00:35:34.265
what is natural,

609
00:35:34.265 --> 00:35:34.505
you know,

610
00:35:34.725 --> 00:35:37.065
what is artificial and all these discussions,

611
00:35:37.106 --> 00:35:41.107
but it's not a process that nature would actually do.

612
00:35:41.547 --> 00:35:41.687
Yeah,

613
00:35:42.087 --> 00:35:48.949
that it could be a great way to start talking about the concept of outcome based systems.

614
00:35:49.029 --> 00:35:49.649
Because here,

615
00:35:51.189 --> 00:35:52.450
we're talking about different tools,

616
00:35:52.830 --> 00:35:56.171
or different methods that we can use to get results.

617
00:35:56.631 --> 00:35:57.191
And whether it's

618
00:35:58.636 --> 00:35:59.136
plowing,

619
00:36:00.097 --> 00:36:00.477
weeding,

620
00:36:00.617 --> 00:36:00.978
howling,

621
00:36:01.818 --> 00:36:03.200
or if it's using some chemicals.

622
00:36:04.881 --> 00:36:05.121
And

623
00:36:06.502 --> 00:36:09.004
I hear more and more that instead of telling farmers,

624
00:36:09.084 --> 00:36:09.245
okay,

625
00:36:09.245 --> 00:36:09.885
you should do this,

626
00:36:09.885 --> 00:36:10.826
or you should not do that,

627
00:36:10.826 --> 00:36:12.527
or you should not use this product,

628
00:36:13.608 --> 00:36:15.109
we should just look at the outcome,

629
00:36:15.330 --> 00:36:17.131
what gives you the best outcome?

630
00:36:17.171 --> 00:36:19.453
Maybe you could explain that a little bit.

631
00:36:19.513 --> 00:36:19.673
Yeah,

632
00:36:19.893 --> 00:36:20.154
I mean,

633
00:36:20.574 --> 00:36:23.797
I'm one of the founding farmers of the European Alliance for Region Agiata.

634
00:36:25.598 --> 00:36:26.519
And now we have this

635
00:36:26.919 --> 00:36:27.159
I mean,

636
00:36:27.179 --> 00:36:27.459
there were

637
00:36:27.980 --> 00:36:29.281
70 farmers in a room,

638
00:36:29.321 --> 00:36:31.322
I would say some of the most advanced.

639
00:36:31.362 --> 00:36:31.602
I mean,

640
00:36:31.602 --> 00:36:32.322
there might be others.

641
00:36:32.503 --> 00:36:35.264
I'm not excluding here some others.

642
00:36:35.404 --> 00:36:36.525
We invite them to join,

643
00:36:36.585 --> 00:36:36.845
Yara.

644
00:36:38.786 --> 00:36:38.906
So,

645
00:36:39.427 --> 00:36:40.167
but what we have been,

646
00:36:41.188 --> 00:36:44.330
there's farmers from all spectrums.

647
00:36:44.650 --> 00:36:48.172
So it's like holistic management.

648
00:36:48.312 --> 00:36:51.114
It's like eco-scheme farming.

649
00:36:51.194 --> 00:36:52.095
It's organic.

650
00:36:52.255 --> 00:36:52.495
It's...

651
00:36:53.463 --> 00:36:54.383
conservation ag,

652
00:36:55.164 --> 00:36:56.584
all the streams are there.

653
00:36:58.265 --> 00:37:01.166
And we were about defining what region ag is.

654
00:37:01.306 --> 00:37:04.146
And we even struggled with the five or six principles,

655
00:37:04.186 --> 00:37:06.307
how they're defined by Gabe Brown and others.

656
00:37:07.027 --> 00:37:08.188
So what we said is,

657
00:37:08.368 --> 00:37:09.168
in a sense,

658
00:37:09.308 --> 00:37:12.629
region ag to these farmers or to us is,

659
00:37:14.110 --> 00:37:14.550
first of all,

660
00:37:14.630 --> 00:37:15.690
context specific.

661
00:37:16.050 --> 00:37:18.531
So it's different on my farm here close to Zurich.

662
00:37:19.175 --> 00:37:26.138
than it is somewhere in the south of France or in Portugal or up in Sweden or in the east anywhere.

663
00:37:26.178 --> 00:37:29.759
It can be even very different just 15 kilometers from here,

664
00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:31.360
which it is by the way.

665
00:37:33.601 --> 00:37:35.001
And then it's outcome based.

666
00:37:35.061 --> 00:37:42.184
So you really should check what is the things that are the result of your operations in terms of yield,

667
00:37:42.224 --> 00:37:43.245
in terms of inputs,

668
00:37:43.305 --> 00:37:45.246
in terms of biomass productivity,

669
00:37:45.306 --> 00:37:47.586
in terms of soil cover,

670
00:37:47.707 --> 00:37:48.767
soil health and so on.

671
00:37:50.831 --> 00:37:54.154
And it's a life enhancing process of continuous improvement.

672
00:37:55.435 --> 00:37:58.638
So you want to enhance the life on your farm.

673
00:37:59.939 --> 00:38:03.061
And the life is mainly in the soil.

674
00:38:03.341 --> 00:38:04.562
So we know today 60%

675
00:38:05.243 --> 00:38:10.487
of all the species and of all the life is below the surface.

676
00:38:12.259 --> 00:38:13.480
So first priority,

677
00:38:13.660 --> 00:38:14.240
soil health.

678
00:38:14.820 --> 00:38:20.162
And there actually the nice thing is most important with soil health is soil organic carbon.

679
00:38:21.083 --> 00:38:23.724
And that's then kind of linked to the climate debate.

680
00:38:24.284 --> 00:38:26.385
That's how a healthy soil is linked to climate.

681
00:38:27.265 --> 00:38:28.046
But not only this,

682
00:38:28.126 --> 00:38:32.388
because that's also the power of life in the soil,

683
00:38:32.408 --> 00:38:32.988
let's call it.

684
00:38:33.728 --> 00:38:35.229
And the more life there is in the soil,

685
00:38:35.889 --> 00:38:38.270
the more life is going to be created above it.

686
00:38:38.970 --> 00:38:39.831
Could you maybe just...

687
00:38:39.851 --> 00:38:40.351
Yeah.

688
00:38:41.575 --> 00:38:57.244
explain that in a little bit more detail the relationship between soil health and soil organic carbon and climate well so about 60 to 70 percent of the soil

689
00:38:57.305 --> 00:39:08.391
health is determined by the soil organic carbon that's in it and that's actually the humus so it's a complex thing that hard to define some people say

690
00:39:08.963 --> 00:39:09.984
It's not even existing,

691
00:39:10.024 --> 00:39:14.088
but so it's the soil organic carbon that's in the soil.

692
00:39:15.249 --> 00:39:15.369
Now,

693
00:39:15.409 --> 00:39:16.069
when you measure it,

694
00:39:16.189 --> 00:39:19.913
you go for a percentage of that soil organic matter in your soil.

695
00:39:21.194 --> 00:39:22.255
And you're also going,

696
00:39:22.695 --> 00:39:23.616
you need to give it a weight.

697
00:39:24.108 --> 00:39:26.569
So you're also going for a per volume weight.

698
00:39:27.070 --> 00:39:28.350
That's called the bulk density.

699
00:39:29.631 --> 00:39:31.112
When you measure bulk density,

700
00:39:32.012 --> 00:39:37.355
you're measuring more soil health parameters because the more dense your soil is,

701
00:39:38.096 --> 00:39:39.216
let's say you have soil A,

702
00:39:39.696 --> 00:39:40.257
stays the same.

703
00:39:40.257 --> 00:39:41.077
The more dense it is,

704
00:39:41.577 --> 00:39:42.918
the more compacted it is,

705
00:39:42.958 --> 00:39:45.219
the less water infiltration can happen,

706
00:39:45.560 --> 00:39:47.260
the diverse is the soil structure.

707
00:39:48.241 --> 00:39:49.922
That's something I see on my farm clearly.

708
00:39:49.962 --> 00:39:50.622
So there's a link.

709
00:39:50.682 --> 00:39:53.684
So actually by going for the soil organic carbon,

710
00:39:54.904 --> 00:39:58.006
you're measuring most of the soil health that you need to measure.

711
00:39:58.567 --> 00:40:03.930
And now when you have more soil organic carbon,

712
00:40:04.551 --> 00:40:08.613
that means you have taken carbon out of the air and put it into the soil.

713
00:40:09.834 --> 00:40:11.075
Right now we're doing the inverse.

714
00:40:11.755 --> 00:40:12.756
We're killing biomass,

715
00:40:12.796 --> 00:40:14.057
so we're deforesting,

716
00:40:14.617 --> 00:40:16.058
so we have deforestation.

717
00:40:16.879 --> 00:40:22.743
And then we even till the soil which reduces or just don't care about how much biomass is growing there.

718
00:40:22.803 --> 00:40:24.284
And then we kind of decreased the...

719
00:40:25.520 --> 00:40:27.641
the amount of soil organic carbon in the soil.

720
00:40:29.161 --> 00:40:35.383
And that's how it's linked to the climate because this releases CO2 and the right operations bring it back and enrich it in the soil.

721
00:40:35.923 --> 00:40:39.724
And on this planet you have only life where there's carbon.

722
00:40:40.425 --> 00:40:42.045
There's no life and there's no carbon.

723
00:40:43.186 --> 00:40:46.747
So more carbon in the soil means more life in the soil,

724
00:40:46.947 --> 00:40:47.907
more microbes,

725
00:40:48.487 --> 00:40:49.087
more fungi,

726
00:40:49.587 --> 00:40:50.208
more everything.

727
00:40:51.776 --> 00:40:57.861
Let me take a really short break from this awesome conversation to tell you about the official partner of the Deep Seed podcast,

728
00:40:57.921 --> 00:40:58.301
and that's

729
00:40:58.862 --> 00:40:59.502
Soil Capital.

730
00:41:00.423 --> 00:41:08.209
Soil Capital is a company that accelerates the transition to regenerative agriculture by financially rewarding farmers who improve the health of their soils.

731
00:41:08.770 --> 00:41:09.791
They're a really cool company.

732
00:41:10.011 --> 00:41:11.132
I'm a big fan of their work,

733
00:41:11.132 --> 00:41:14.094
and I'm super proud to be partnering with them for the Deep Seed podcast.

734
00:41:15.035 --> 00:41:15.195
Okay,

735
00:41:15.475 --> 00:41:15.996
that was great.

736
00:41:16.276 --> 00:41:20.499
Then let's get back to the outcome-based conversation.

737
00:41:21.684 --> 00:41:21.824
Yeah,

738
00:41:23.446 --> 00:41:23.967
outcome-based.

739
00:41:23.967 --> 00:41:25.769
So what we're doing,

740
00:41:26.971 --> 00:41:31.476
what we're trying to do is to work in the name of the farmer,

741
00:41:32.397 --> 00:41:33.839
but also not only the farmer.

742
00:41:33.919 --> 00:41:34.620
I think we have,

743
00:41:35.601 --> 00:41:36.663
when it comes to outcomes,

744
00:41:36.663 --> 00:41:37.924
you need to define what they are.

745
00:41:39.306 --> 00:41:40.287
And there's physics.

746
00:41:41.609 --> 00:41:48.014
But then there's also finding an agreement amongst the stakeholders that are having to drive this.

747
00:41:49.055 --> 00:41:52.798
What we identified is the stakeholders to drive this are the farmers,

748
00:41:53.559 --> 00:41:54.640
but it's also the industry.

749
00:41:55.844 --> 00:41:56.545
And then even more,

750
00:41:56.565 --> 00:42:06.993
it's all the NGOs that are there and trying to make a living out of it by sometimes objecting or at least checking that things are working well.

751
00:42:08.154 --> 00:42:08.855
And then obviously,

752
00:42:08.875 --> 00:42:12.878
it's always also the internal view of whatever company is that's the employees.

753
00:42:14.460 --> 00:42:17.162
So what we're trying to do is create

754
00:42:17.842 --> 00:42:18.583
Agri purpose,

755
00:42:18.603 --> 00:42:19.824
which is a purpose venture.

756
00:42:21.085 --> 00:42:24.508
So what it does is it splits the capital rights from the voting rights.

757
00:42:24.728 --> 00:42:26.929
So the voting rights you would have in a general assembly,

758
00:42:27.529 --> 00:42:29.529
the ones that decide what happens on a company.

759
00:42:30.250 --> 00:42:44.273
And we try to unite in this those four key stakeholder groups to then define with them which outcomes should be actually monitored and to find a way to define them,

760
00:42:44.814 --> 00:42:47.394
but to measure and validate them and to improve them.

761
00:42:48.535 --> 00:42:50.475
And I think something neutral like this,

762
00:42:50.555 --> 00:42:52.656
and we're looking there into just four buckets.

763
00:42:52.696 --> 00:42:53.296
So we look at.

764
00:42:53.536 --> 00:42:55.037
biomass productivity overall.

765
00:42:56.618 --> 00:42:58.258
We look at soil cover overall.

766
00:42:59.439 --> 00:43:00.439
We look at soil health,

767
00:43:00.760 --> 00:43:03.541
and that includes for us the soil organic carbon.

768
00:43:03.581 --> 00:43:06.762
So it's the bulk density plus the SOC percentages,

769
00:43:07.323 --> 00:43:09.504
but also pH and macronutrients,

770
00:43:09.664 --> 00:43:13.946
because long-term sequestration only happens when those are in balance too.

771
00:43:14.946 --> 00:43:16.307
And then last is the efficiency.

772
00:43:16.607 --> 00:43:18.268
So what's the yields you have produced?

773
00:43:18.692 --> 00:43:37.260
and then we only look into sellable yields meaning if you produce corn on your fields that you use to feed your cows we don't count it in because that's not something you sell so sellable yields that can be any crop it can be milk wool meat whatsoever eggs

774
00:43:39.272 --> 00:43:41.393
And then the inputs you have used for that.

775
00:43:41.954 --> 00:43:43.435
And we just look at six items.

776
00:43:43.495 --> 00:43:44.215
So it's fuel,

777
00:43:45.095 --> 00:43:45.656
it's energy,

778
00:43:46.736 --> 00:43:48.638
it's nutrients used.

779
00:43:48.638 --> 00:43:50.799
So that can be fodder purchased or sold,

780
00:43:51.459 --> 00:43:53.460
mineral fertilizer purchased or sold,

781
00:43:54.261 --> 00:43:57.122
or actually organics brought to the farm or taken from the farm.

782
00:43:57.242 --> 00:44:00.664
Always just what matters to us is the nutrients inside.

783
00:44:01.485 --> 00:44:01.765
Water,

784
00:44:03.086 --> 00:44:04.246
the crop protection use.

785
00:44:04.667 --> 00:44:06.908
We look at money because the stuff is value priced.

786
00:44:07.348 --> 00:44:09.253
So it's actually if you use less money,

787
00:44:09.755 --> 00:44:10.176
you have less,

788
00:44:10.356 --> 00:44:11.138
you have used less,

789
00:44:12.021 --> 00:44:12.663
it's harder to

790
00:44:13.804 --> 00:44:14.284
do it anyway,

791
00:44:14.724 --> 00:44:14.864
any,

792
00:44:15.185 --> 00:44:15.325
any,

793
00:44:15.745 --> 00:44:15.885
any,

794
00:44:16.485 --> 00:44:17.466
with any other stuff.

795
00:44:17.986 --> 00:44:19.166
And then it's the animal load,

796
00:44:19.306 --> 00:44:20.487
because if it's too low,

797
00:44:20.647 --> 00:44:22.008
it starts to harm soils.

798
00:44:22.248 --> 00:44:23.008
And if it's too high,

799
00:44:23.008 --> 00:44:24.889
it starts to create excess emissions.

800
00:44:25.749 --> 00:44:26.610
And that's pretty much it.

801
00:44:26.770 --> 00:44:28.491
So we tried to validate on this one.

802
00:44:28.791 --> 00:44:28.951
Okay,

803
00:44:29.031 --> 00:44:29.591
so sorry,

804
00:44:29.611 --> 00:44:30.711
there's so much information.

805
00:44:30.812 --> 00:44:31.132
Yeah,

806
00:44:31.132 --> 00:44:32.572
I want to make sure that everyone stays on board,

807
00:44:32.672 --> 00:44:33.433
including myself.

808
00:44:33.853 --> 00:44:34.053
Okay.

809
00:44:35.053 --> 00:44:35.754
I'd like to think that

810
00:44:37.414 --> 00:44:39.095
I'm in a good position to do these interviews,

811
00:44:39.135 --> 00:44:39.836
not because I am.

812
00:44:41.768 --> 00:44:42.829
knowledgeable about these topics,

813
00:44:42.909 --> 00:44:43.610
but because I'm not,

814
00:44:44.350 --> 00:44:47.453
so I can ask the silly questions and make sure that everyone stays on board with me.

815
00:44:48.794 --> 00:44:53.778
So you're trying to define the outcomes that we could build an outcome based system on.

816
00:44:55.499 --> 00:45:05.087
And here you're just citing all of the different metrics or the different things that you look at to define outcomes.

817
00:45:05.748 --> 00:45:06.668
And so you,

818
00:45:07.549 --> 00:45:09.010
let's go through them again really quickly.

819
00:45:09.451 --> 00:45:09.891
So you talk,

820
00:45:10.131 --> 00:45:11.012
first you talked about net

821
00:45:11.192 --> 00:45:30.144
primary productivity yeah it's the biomass productivity it's it's linked it's not exactly the primary productivity it's linked to the net primary productivity and what we know is that one is linked a lot to soil health so actually the more net primary productivity you have the

822
00:45:30.484 --> 00:45:36.428
the more soil organic carbon you have the healthier your soil and then you have this positive feedback loop finally

823
00:45:37.852 --> 00:45:40.994
So the intention is first maximize net primary productivity,

824
00:45:41.754 --> 00:45:42.634
then protect this.

825
00:45:42.694 --> 00:45:44.295
So the protect is the soil cover.

826
00:45:44.955 --> 00:45:49.397
Because what you should try to avoid is that your soil overheats more than 40 degrees.

827
00:45:49.877 --> 00:45:51.298
For that it needs to be covered.

828
00:45:52.018 --> 00:45:54.899
Never any dark part of the soil being exposed to the sun.

829
00:45:56.260 --> 00:46:01.062
Then it actually should not be exposed to water and wind erosion.

830
00:46:02.002 --> 00:46:02.843
And that's the cover.

831
00:46:03.143 --> 00:46:05.804
So the more time of the year it's covered,

832
00:46:05.904 --> 00:46:06.284
the better.

833
00:46:06.504 --> 00:46:09.066
And it doesn't count when you have planted something.

834
00:46:09.086 --> 00:46:16.572
The thing is when is actually there some green growing or some structures remaining from plants like that you can see with satellite.

835
00:46:17.913 --> 00:46:19.715
So these are the first two that we check.

836
00:46:20.255 --> 00:46:21.436
So again,

837
00:46:22.177 --> 00:46:22.697
biomass,

838
00:46:23.258 --> 00:46:24.419
which is biomass,

839
00:46:24.479 --> 00:46:28.482
which is linked to net primary productivity and soil cover and soil cover.

840
00:46:28.942 --> 00:46:31.925
And that gives you an indicator you get a certain results.

841
00:46:33.046 --> 00:46:35.167
So how we do it is we compare those

842
00:46:36.088 --> 00:46:38.210
values that the farm achieves with the neighborhood.

843
00:46:39.110 --> 00:46:40.732
So we do that automatically.

844
00:46:41.272 --> 00:46:41.752
Automatically?

845
00:46:41.912 --> 00:46:42.033
Yeah,

846
00:46:42.213 --> 00:46:44.254
and anywhere on the planet.

847
00:46:44.975 --> 00:46:46.056
With satellite data?

848
00:46:46.316 --> 00:46:46.436
Yeah.

849
00:46:46.996 --> 00:46:50.559
And that's the cool bit is when you compare the farm with its surroundings,

850
00:46:50.819 --> 00:46:52.801
it's actually always context-specific.

851
00:46:52.821 --> 00:46:55.683
So there the context-specific comes into the outcome-based.

852
00:46:56.784 --> 00:47:01.987
And then it's the continuous improvement because we want those numbers to be improving against the region.

853
00:47:02.868 --> 00:47:05.433
And think of it like algebra,

854
00:47:05.493 --> 00:47:09.962
like a formula kind of thing.

855
00:47:10.103 --> 00:47:12.868
And when you have things on both sides of the equation,

856
00:47:13.489 --> 00:47:13.990
they usually...

857
00:47:15.276 --> 00:47:17.657
Or you can just take them apart,

858
00:47:18.137 --> 00:47:18.617
take them away.

859
00:47:18.717 --> 00:47:20.878
So weather and stuff is all the same.

860
00:47:20.878 --> 00:47:26.439
So many things are kind of same farm to the region.

861
00:47:27.079 --> 00:47:29.680
So you're actually kind of unraveling the fog through this.

862
00:47:30.420 --> 00:47:36.162
And what we're then doing is we're always asking the farmer when he's underperforming or overperforming against the region,

863
00:47:37.002 --> 00:47:37.542
what he did.

864
00:47:38.363 --> 00:47:40.123
And the cool bit is with satellite data,

865
00:47:40.183 --> 00:47:41.644
you can look backwards seven,

866
00:47:41.744 --> 00:47:42.904
eight years now.

867
00:47:44.305 --> 00:48:00.322
meaning we can learn from the last seven eight years what he did okay and then what went well and what didn't and then you get the right focus to start where you need to start first to improve to actually maximize the outcomes yes

868
00:48:00.322 --> 00:48:05.688
so it's not only a measure it's also a very nice toolkit to focus and optimize you

869
00:48:06.076 --> 00:48:06.196
Yeah.

870
00:48:07.277 --> 00:48:08.958
And then we go and measure the soil carbon.

871
00:48:09.579 --> 00:48:10.079
Soil carbon?

872
00:48:10.119 --> 00:48:11.340
So that's soil sampling.

873
00:48:12.481 --> 00:48:13.262
So how does that work?

874
00:48:14.282 --> 00:48:15.243
So with the satellite,

875
00:48:15.243 --> 00:48:19.826
we look at the variation of your soil over the last seven years.

876
00:48:22.420 --> 00:48:26.302
Then through this we go and sample at the right places.

877
00:48:27.682 --> 00:48:31.104
Most do today that it's optimized for just soil carbon,

878
00:48:31.384 --> 00:48:36.446
but we know it's more so pH is as important for long-term sequestration as macronutrients,

879
00:48:36.466 --> 00:48:37.846
so we want it to be balanced.

880
00:48:38.927 --> 00:48:41.068
So we sample where there's most differences.

881
00:48:42.312 --> 00:48:58.677
and then that goes to the lab you get a result and with an ai we can then distribute it at 10 by 10 meter okay is that something easy to do for farmers to to take those samples and to well yeah no no we don't want farmers to take it the

882
00:48:58.717 --> 00:49:08.980
reason being is we have seen that they there is the potential to trick the system yeah so we don't want them to know exactly where the sampling happens um

883
00:49:09.504 --> 00:49:10.147
for a good reason.

884
00:49:10.949 --> 00:49:13.719
So it should be external providers doing that because it's

885
00:49:14.520 --> 00:49:14.960
finally,

886
00:49:15.161 --> 00:49:17.423
hopefully related to money.

887
00:49:18.223 --> 00:49:20.225
And then you need to have some safeguards in place.

888
00:49:20.525 --> 00:49:20.705
Okay.

889
00:49:21.266 --> 00:49:23.388
So we have a sampler doing that.

890
00:49:23.448 --> 00:49:25.830
It goes to the lab with the result and an AI.

891
00:49:25.850 --> 00:49:27.571
You get the high resolution soil data.

892
00:49:28.372 --> 00:49:32.856
Usually see that this can help with fertilization or as I do it,

893
00:49:32.936 --> 00:49:36.880
an optimization of the cover crops.

894
00:49:37.260 --> 00:49:38.381
So I make an example.

895
00:49:38.481 --> 00:49:41.684
When I see that I lack somewhere in phosphorus,

896
00:49:43.048 --> 00:49:43.928
Usually there's enough,

897
00:49:43.968 --> 00:49:45.329
it's just no plant available.

898
00:49:45.629 --> 00:49:49.011
So what I do is I focus with the cover crops on buckwheat,

899
00:49:49.231 --> 00:49:51.392
because that kind of frees up phosphorus,

900
00:49:51.472 --> 00:49:51.972
we know that.

901
00:49:52.052 --> 00:49:55.053
So I put in the mix additional buckwheat,

902
00:49:55.113 --> 00:49:56.294
when I know it's a problem there.

903
00:49:56.874 --> 00:49:57.974
Or when it's potassium,

904
00:49:58.014 --> 00:49:58.855
I put ceradella.

905
00:49:59.135 --> 00:50:00.195
So it's like the same,

906
00:50:00.756 --> 00:50:01.956
just for the other nutrients.

907
00:50:02.076 --> 00:50:06.278
So you can either do precision farming with all the technology,

908
00:50:06.358 --> 00:50:08.719
or you use nature to then balance the field.

909
00:50:09.599 --> 00:50:11.120
And you need to see and know that.

910
00:50:11.616 --> 00:50:13.119
even on small fields like mine,

911
00:50:13.159 --> 00:50:14.040
like two hectares,

912
00:50:14.902 --> 00:50:16.945
because there's sometimes huge differences.

913
00:50:17.246 --> 00:50:18.588
And then when you have the average,

914
00:50:19.931 --> 00:50:23.156
it's like having one arm in cold and one arm in hot water,

915
00:50:23.296 --> 00:50:25.200
you're just doing the wrong thing everywhere.

916
00:50:25.524 --> 00:50:28.885
So we're trying to actually get this addressed.

917
00:50:28.985 --> 00:50:29.705
That's what it does.

918
00:50:29.745 --> 00:50:34.666
So we see that farmers are moving quicker and it saves them about 100 euros per hectare per year.

919
00:50:34.727 --> 00:50:35.487
So it's a lot of money.

920
00:50:35.547 --> 00:50:36.307
It's a lot of money,

921
00:50:36.327 --> 00:50:36.987
yeah.

922
00:50:37.147 --> 00:50:41.328
But so you need a lot of different samples to be able for the model to get the highest results?

923
00:50:41.708 --> 00:50:41.848
Yeah,

924
00:50:41.888 --> 00:50:42.789
we need three per,

925
00:50:44.089 --> 00:50:44.629
as a minimum.

926
00:50:44.989 --> 00:50:45.950
So small fields,

927
00:50:46.010 --> 00:50:46.570
that's more,

928
00:50:46.630 --> 00:50:50.931
but we only go for one third of the fields because with the first step,

929
00:50:51.911 --> 00:50:55.032
we identify which soils are the least performing.

930
00:50:56.292 --> 00:51:16.826
and then usually you also there have the right focus so you start implementing where you have to do it first so the satellite data tells you where uh you have the biggest problems which are i have the biggest problems in the in kind of which fields yeah and there i do the most intense sampling so again it's the focus for the optimization yeah and

931
00:51:16.826 --> 00:51:24.612
then yeah the last bit is when you're maximizing that primary productivity protect what you have produced

932
00:51:24.936 --> 00:51:26.116
improve the soil health,

933
00:51:26.577 --> 00:51:28.857
then it's actually how efficiently have you achieved this.

934
00:51:29.898 --> 00:51:31.438
And there we look into the yields,

935
00:51:32.439 --> 00:51:33.719
but only the soil yields,

936
00:51:33.779 --> 00:51:38.861
because that's a better link to what are the calories you have produced for human consumption.

937
00:51:39.381 --> 00:51:40.282
It's not perfect,

938
00:51:40.462 --> 00:51:42.182
because you still can combine,

939
00:51:42.222 --> 00:51:42.682
let's say,

940
00:51:43.483 --> 00:51:44.723
corn or soy,

941
00:51:45.143 --> 00:51:46.144
and it goes into fodder.

942
00:51:48.044 --> 00:52:05.114
but it reduces already the all the intra farm kind of processes so let's see you you do corn silage and then you feed it to the cows again we do not care about this we only care then about the milk the meat the animals you have produced yes and

943
00:52:05.134 --> 00:52:15.380
i think that's a better link to what's the efficiency in terms of human food production and then we just check what have been the inputs that came from somewhere else

944
00:52:15.960 --> 00:52:32.507
to achieve all this okay and that we want to minimize so we want to maximize all the rest maximize the yield and minimize the inputs in our scheme is as long as you are actually improving on those four items you're in the scheme you

945
00:52:32.527 --> 00:52:34.248
can have one year down performance

946
00:52:35.828 --> 00:52:36.088
Okay,

947
00:52:36.248 --> 00:52:39.510
because that can always happen one step back to take two steps ahead.

948
00:52:40.431 --> 00:52:41.331
If you have two years,

949
00:52:41.371 --> 00:52:46.294
you need to book a consulting and establish an action plan on your farm to stay in the scheme.

950
00:52:46.494 --> 00:52:49.395
That's kind of how we were going to do it as AgriPurpose.

951
00:52:49.816 --> 00:52:52.677
You have to improve on each one of the four parameters?

952
00:52:52.997 --> 00:52:55.699
Or there's a one score that can combine them all?

953
00:52:55.879 --> 00:52:55.999
No,

954
00:52:56.199 --> 00:52:56.739
each one of them.

955
00:52:56.939 --> 00:52:57.460
Each one of them.

956
00:52:57.820 --> 00:53:00.822
There's not like a farm score with a formula that combines them.

957
00:53:01.002 --> 00:53:01.222
Well,

958
00:53:01.282 --> 00:53:01.582
you know,

959
00:53:01.942 --> 00:53:02.783
it's just a start,

960
00:53:02.823 --> 00:53:05.264
we might come to that conclusion that that's needed.

961
00:53:05.444 --> 00:53:07.186
but I see it on my farm.

962
00:53:07.266 --> 00:53:09.368
You can achieve improvements on all of them.

963
00:53:09.748 --> 00:53:09.948
Okay.

964
00:53:10.228 --> 00:53:10.869
If you're actually,

965
00:53:11.670 --> 00:53:15.133
and the cool bit about this is you cannot trick it.

966
00:53:16.474 --> 00:53:17.455
You cannot trick it.

967
00:53:18.196 --> 00:53:18.536
It's really,

968
00:53:18.576 --> 00:53:19.277
if you,

969
00:53:20.018 --> 00:53:22.460
and as we said earlier,

970
00:53:22.500 --> 00:53:24.502
there's a lot of positive coupling with,

971
00:53:24.822 --> 00:53:25.343
for example,

972
00:53:25.443 --> 00:53:25.683
NPP.

973
00:53:27.240 --> 00:53:28.121
I'll give you an example.

974
00:53:28.121 --> 00:53:33.483
So if you just grow one crop and you have a dry year and then one crop is sophisticated,

975
00:53:33.503 --> 00:53:34.724
it's kind of not so,

976
00:53:35.905 --> 00:53:36.065
well,

977
00:53:36.325 --> 00:53:38.846
let's say it's highly affected by drought,

978
00:53:39.447 --> 00:53:40.067
let's say corn,

979
00:53:40.948 --> 00:53:42.428
then you have a huge yield dip.

980
00:53:43.129 --> 00:53:44.289
But if you combine that,

981
00:53:44.590 --> 00:53:45.550
for example,

982
00:53:45.790 --> 00:53:48.772
with grassland or with,

983
00:53:48.892 --> 00:53:49.272
um,

984
00:53:50.073 --> 00:53:51.033
in this case,

985
00:53:51.033 --> 00:53:52.174
uh,

986
00:53:52.174 --> 00:53:55.776
I would say what's pretty stable against it is for example,

987
00:53:55.936 --> 00:53:56.136
um,

988
00:53:57.856 --> 00:53:59.078
Buckwheat is a good example.

989
00:53:59.158 --> 00:54:03.044
Just some crops that are really not so much affected by drought.

990
00:54:03.225 --> 00:54:04.527
You have a higher productivity.

991
00:54:05.348 --> 00:54:09.855
Meaning if you have a more diverse crop rotation over the years you have a higher productivity.

992
00:54:11.016 --> 00:54:13.260
If you have more interim crops or cover crops

993
00:54:13.896 --> 00:54:15.017
you have more MPP.

994
00:54:15.878 --> 00:54:17.099
If they're more diverse,

995
00:54:17.139 --> 00:54:21.283
you have a higher assurance that they grow and that they grow more biomass,

996
00:54:21.303 --> 00:54:22.684
so you have a higher productivity,

997
00:54:23.525 --> 00:54:27.808
meaning you have more diverse plants on your soil that interact with the soil.

998
00:54:28.709 --> 00:54:30.010
You have the root exudates,

999
00:54:30.310 --> 00:54:32.392
which then help to stimulate the soil life.

1000
00:54:32.933 --> 00:54:40.159
And we see that this stimulates also the above-ground biodiversity.

1001
00:54:41.400 --> 00:54:42.081
One thing I know,

1002
00:54:42.141 --> 00:54:42.642
for example,

1003
00:54:42.642 --> 00:54:43.523
is in Switzerland,

1004
00:54:43.783 --> 00:54:49.270
one additional plant is about 11 distinct insect species that come with it.

1005
00:54:49.871 --> 00:54:50.772
So if you grow more,

1006
00:54:51.453 --> 00:54:52.935
obviously you have much more insects.

1007
00:54:54.220 --> 00:54:55.641
And just one example,

1008
00:54:55.681 --> 00:54:56.661
I had a sampler,

1009
00:54:56.661 --> 00:55:00.003
a soil sampler on my fields this spring.

1010
00:55:00.183 --> 00:55:02.645
He was sampling in my neighbor's fields and in ours.

1011
00:55:03.765 --> 00:55:05.046
And in my fields,

1012
00:55:05.446 --> 00:55:07.247
they were really bothered by insects.

1013
00:55:08.068 --> 00:55:10.909
And it's always a good thing when you look upside when you see that.

1014
00:55:10.950 --> 00:55:12.130
So when you look to the sky,

1015
00:55:12.190 --> 00:55:14.291
because then you see all the insects flying around.

1016
00:55:15.512 --> 00:55:15.712
Okay,

1017
00:55:15.712 --> 00:55:16.813
so when they were doing the sampling,

1018
00:55:16.813 --> 00:55:17.773
that was really annoying for them.

1019
00:55:17.773 --> 00:55:19.094
There were so many insects on your farm.

1020
00:55:19.514 --> 00:55:20.635
And on the neighbor's farms,

1021
00:55:20.655 --> 00:55:21.575
it was just silent.

1022
00:55:22.616 --> 00:55:22.776
Yeah,

1023
00:55:23.036 --> 00:55:23.256
okay.

1024
00:55:23.757 --> 00:55:24.818
And that's the crazy bit.

1025
00:55:25.338 --> 00:55:27.179
It comes back real quick.

1026
00:55:27.739 --> 00:55:28.520
But it sounds like a very,

1027
00:55:28.600 --> 00:55:31.642
very strong methodology here in the strong system,

1028
00:55:31.662 --> 00:55:40.368
but it sounds also very complex and advanced and maybe in a way a bit elitist for a farmer who's maybe

1029
00:55:40.868 --> 00:55:58.633
interested in getting started with regenerative and let's imagine starts experimenting with a lot of these different methods to improve soil health using carbon crops improving biomass improving soil health but then gets a little bit of a productivity dip for example the first year even minor then

1030
00:55:58.713 --> 00:56:08.036
to be failing by the system's rules would be very frustrating and very yeah well you you know that you

1031
00:56:08.516 --> 00:56:09.417
there's the point here.

1032
00:56:12.118 --> 00:56:14.940
It could be but the point and most see a yield dip.

1033
00:56:15.260 --> 00:56:15.800
And yeah,

1034
00:56:16.381 --> 00:56:17.621
we have to account for that one.

1035
00:56:17.642 --> 00:56:18.982
But it's about the efficiency.

1036
00:56:19.262 --> 00:56:21.884
Most also use much less inputs when that's happened.

1037
00:56:22.965 --> 00:56:23.685
When it's happening.

1038
00:56:23.845 --> 00:56:25.806
So overall,

1039
00:56:25.846 --> 00:56:29.028
there's there's still in our scheme,

1040
00:56:29.048 --> 00:56:29.628
they're still fine.

1041
00:56:29.668 --> 00:56:33.371
But what I see is when you start,

1042
00:56:34.011 --> 00:56:35.032
let's say you do not till

1043
00:56:38.636 --> 00:56:41.478
It's not that you're suddenly a better farmer because you're using no-till.

1044
00:56:42.218 --> 00:56:45.059
Because you need to learn to do no-till.

1045
00:56:46.239 --> 00:56:47.540
And you need to do it properly.

1046
00:56:47.960 --> 00:56:50.201
And it's not the right fit in every situation.

1047
00:56:51.621 --> 00:56:53.542
And that brings you again back to outcomes.

1048
00:56:53.662 --> 00:56:55.663
Yet it's much simpler when you say,

1049
00:56:55.723 --> 00:56:58.544
I'll do cover crops and do this and then it's all great.

1050
00:56:59.308 --> 00:57:00.048
It's not how it works,

1051
00:57:00.088 --> 00:57:00.728
unfortunately.

1052
00:57:01.929 --> 00:57:03.669
Because you need to learn how to work,

1053
00:57:03.689 --> 00:57:04.229
for example,

1054
00:57:04.269 --> 00:57:06.050
with the reminder of the cover crops.

1055
00:57:06.930 --> 00:57:09.851
How do you use all that to maximize outcomes?

1056
00:57:11.211 --> 00:57:12.732
And that brings you back to the outcomes.

1057
00:57:14.252 --> 00:57:14.472
They,

1058
00:57:14.812 --> 00:57:15.493
as a farmer,

1059
00:57:15.793 --> 00:57:18.573
give you the guidance what you're doing well and what you're not.

1060
00:57:19.514 --> 00:57:22.775
And we see in our scheme that sometimes with a plow,

1061
00:57:23.515 --> 00:57:26.196
you're having much better performance than with an old-till drill.

1062
00:57:28.100 --> 00:57:28.800
And I believe,

1063
00:57:28.820 --> 00:57:29.961
that's my personal belief,

1064
00:57:30.081 --> 00:57:32.782
that we should stop thinking in these silos.

1065
00:57:33.262 --> 00:57:34.122
So if you do this,

1066
00:57:34.162 --> 00:57:34.942
you're a great farmer.

1067
00:57:35.022 --> 00:57:35.583
If you do that,

1068
00:57:35.643 --> 00:57:36.403
you're a great farmer.

1069
00:57:36.443 --> 00:57:36.563
No.

1070
00:57:37.763 --> 00:57:41.624
The art of the thing is that you do the right thing in the right situation.

1071
00:57:43.465 --> 00:57:51.808
And that's why my dad had more soil organic carbon than my neighbors doing the same things.

1072
00:57:53.032 --> 00:57:54.973
So it's not only about the tools,

1073
00:57:55.153 --> 00:57:57.174
it's about how you use them.

1074
00:57:58.315 --> 00:58:00.316
And there the outcomes help you too.

1075
00:58:00.856 --> 00:58:06.639
So I truly believe that when you go to how most people want to define regionality,

1076
00:58:06.859 --> 00:58:09.060
which are the tools,

1077
00:58:10.581 --> 00:58:12.722
that this is really counterproductive.

1078
00:58:13.683 --> 00:58:15.324
The point here is that...

1079
00:58:16.360 --> 00:58:17.741
Why is it counterproductive?

1080
00:58:18.041 --> 00:58:19.763
It's first because it's the how.

1081
00:58:20.744 --> 00:58:22.645
And you can even do bad with those tools,

1082
00:58:22.785 --> 00:58:23.686
but even worse.

1083
00:58:24.247 --> 00:58:26.649
First it starts like voluntary,

1084
00:58:28.070 --> 00:58:29.771
then you're getting some money for it,

1085
00:58:31.152 --> 00:58:32.553
and then you're tied into it.

1086
00:58:34.395 --> 00:58:37.938
And it could be for whatever reason a completely wrong thing to do.

1087
00:58:39.099 --> 00:58:40.840
But then since you're getting the money for it,

1088
00:58:40.940 --> 00:58:41.741
you're tied to it.

1089
00:58:42.962 --> 00:58:44.623
And you already see it here.

1090
00:58:45.472 --> 00:58:47.013
That's more than counterproductive,

1091
00:58:47.093 --> 00:58:53.619
because now you are actually supposed to do something that you as a farmer know it's not gonna work.

1092
00:58:54.852 --> 00:58:58.195
And that's just not something we should allow to happen.

1093
00:58:59.516 --> 00:59:05.422
But every time you start defining in an office what a farmer should be doing outside,

1094
00:59:05.822 --> 00:59:07.243
that's exactly what you do.

1095
00:59:08.404 --> 00:59:10.606
And we don't need office people telling farmers what to do.

1096
00:59:10.847 --> 00:59:14.170
They know what to do if they have the right outcomes as their targets.

1097
00:59:15.351 --> 00:59:16.492
So that's why I'm...

1098
00:59:17.416 --> 00:59:34.307
very defensive when it comes to someone defining tools to actually boost region region ag it might be good for a start yes to start the journey and so on but then it should not be binding so

1099
00:59:35.528 --> 00:59:41.471
and that is a bit of the tricky part in all this and all the definitions i see out there

1100
00:59:42.840 --> 00:59:47.444
We know through Rockefeller Foundation of more than 160 frameworks out there.

1101
00:59:48.285 --> 00:59:50.086
And most of them have two things in common.

1102
00:59:50.947 --> 00:59:51.727
Based on tools.

1103
00:59:52.848 --> 00:59:53.309
Second,

1104
00:59:55.210 --> 00:59:57.692
they're actually needing a lot of information.

1105
00:59:59.914 --> 01:00:01.195
And they add cost to that.

1106
01:00:01.315 --> 01:00:04.398
So because getting more data points is additional cost.

1107
01:00:05.038 --> 01:00:06.560
And additional cost...

1108
01:00:07.236 --> 01:00:14.602
It's not what you need when actually someone is not ready to pay more for regenerative products,

1109
01:00:15.382 --> 01:00:21.367
but you're already starting to do all the monitoring and asking for more to do,

1110
01:00:21.787 --> 01:00:22.748
which is more cost,

1111
01:00:24.229 --> 01:00:27.311
with not actually providing in the same time a higher price.

1112
01:00:29.092 --> 01:00:33.315
And I think that could make us really fail in RegenEgg and as I said at the beginning,

1113
01:00:34.448 --> 01:00:35.549
We cannot fail on this.

1114
01:00:36.030 --> 01:00:38.772
It's our ecological income of the future.

1115
01:00:40.054 --> 01:00:42.316
So we as a society have to get that right.

1116
01:00:42.636 --> 01:00:43.937
And farmers have to get it right.

1117
01:00:45.639 --> 01:00:48.181
Thank you so much for listening this far into the episode.

1118
01:00:48.202 --> 01:00:56.690
And thank you to all of you who have already subscribed to the Deep Seed podcast and who keep coming back week after week to listen to the latest conversations.

1119
01:00:57.090 --> 01:00:57.551
I really,

1120
01:00:57.591 --> 01:00:58.552
really appreciate it.

1121
01:00:59.160 --> 01:01:00.441
If you haven't subscribed yet,

1122
01:01:00.601 --> 01:01:01.981
this is your opportunity to do so.

1123
01:01:02.201 --> 01:01:07.244
It only takes about three seconds and it actually makes a huge difference for me and for the podcast.

1124
01:01:07.264 --> 01:01:10.685
So thank you so much in advance and let's get back to the conversation.

1125
01:01:11.786 --> 01:01:16.828
So now that we've described in detail the methodology,

1126
01:01:18.349 --> 01:01:21.870
maybe we could look at the business model that goes with it.

1127
01:01:24.131 --> 01:01:24.252
So.

1128
01:01:25.576 --> 01:01:26.077
First of all,

1129
01:01:26.137 --> 01:01:30.019
I said it's going to be a purpose venture that has like two benefits.

1130
01:01:30.480 --> 01:01:33.762
One is it's not about the investors.

1131
01:01:33.922 --> 01:01:36.144
It's really about the stakeholders that align.

1132
01:01:37.525 --> 01:01:46.591
So what that does is it takes the company kind of out of the shareholder value race.

1133
01:01:48.336 --> 01:01:51.717
bad for me because I could probably get wealthier if I wouldn't do it this way.

1134
01:01:52.937 --> 01:01:59.459
But it's like also a lot of money that would usually go out in dividends and so on that will stay in the process.

1135
01:02:00.900 --> 01:02:03.720
Then it's not being driven by individuals,

1136
01:02:03.800 --> 01:02:06.701
it's being driven by stakeholder groups.

1137
01:02:06.761 --> 01:02:07.762
So we said farmers,

1138
01:02:07.822 --> 01:02:08.602
retailers,

1139
01:02:09.682 --> 01:02:12.823
NGOs and employees at the same share.

1140
01:02:14.143 --> 01:02:14.264
So

1141
01:02:16.292 --> 01:02:33.968
that ensures that the money that this is really something that's for society and that's how i want to build it and the business model is going to be that there's a price per hectare and what is going to be delivered through this is actually this

1142
01:02:34.028 --> 01:02:41.715
continuous improvement but also then the carbon tracking the carbon like how much emission is there

1143
01:02:43.584 --> 01:02:48.249
And what that will lead to is kind of two markets to tap into.

1144
01:02:48.890 --> 01:02:52.234
One is when it's kind of produced this way,

1145
01:02:53.735 --> 01:03:01.204
we are now talking to the SAI platform and we have their letter of intent that they would give a purchase preference.

1146
01:03:01.584 --> 01:03:02.585
not a higher price yet,

1147
01:03:02.625 --> 01:03:08.729
but a purchase preference to produce that's produced regeneratively,

1148
01:03:09.469 --> 01:03:10.330
which is a big step.

1149
01:03:11.190 --> 01:03:16.394
Because today you can have produce that's produced regeneratively and

1150
01:03:16.454 --> 01:03:19.076
And still they go for something else for whatever reason.

1151
01:03:19.816 --> 01:03:22.638
So that would be binding that they buy those volumes,

1152
01:03:23.558 --> 01:03:24.239
which in fact,

1153
01:03:24.319 --> 01:03:25.159
to a certain extent,

1154
01:03:25.199 --> 01:03:25.1000
is a higher price.

1155
01:03:26.780 --> 01:03:29.582
But not one that materializes in a payment.

1156
01:03:29.622 --> 01:03:31.703
It's just like you get your volume sold.

1157
01:03:34.685 --> 01:03:41.289
And we also see that we can couple this with actually call it smart deals,

1158
01:03:41.949 --> 01:03:44.771
where you're still not getting a higher price,

1159
01:03:44.871 --> 01:03:46.032
but you're getting...

1160
01:03:48.147 --> 01:03:49.629
more of what you produce.

1161
01:03:50.353 --> 01:03:51.094
to be sellable.

1162
01:03:52.094 --> 01:03:53.215
So with potatoes,

1163
01:03:53.275 --> 01:03:53.736
what we would,

1164
01:03:53.796 --> 01:03:54.456
for example,

1165
01:03:54.476 --> 01:03:56.458
do is that a bit of the larger ones,

1166
01:03:56.458 --> 01:03:57.739
a bit of the smaller ones,

1167
01:03:58.540 --> 01:04:03.484
that you could still sell them at the normal A price.

1168
01:04:03.964 --> 01:04:05.666
So instead of them going into feed,

1169
01:04:05.826 --> 01:04:08.448
they would still go into human consumption.

1170
01:04:10.510 --> 01:04:15.314
Just to the level that it would not be more if kind of costly for the processors.

1171
01:04:15.874 --> 01:04:17.235
And you can do that with many,

1172
01:04:17.976 --> 01:04:19.317
with almost all vegetables.

1173
01:04:20.301 --> 01:04:39.894
uh with almost all fruits i would say for all fruits with with nuts with um with many things it's harder for the big grains and so on so they would need to find a solution but that will enable the region farmers to have more income and

1174
01:04:41.055 --> 01:04:43.276
that's kind of the business model okay i am

1175
01:04:44.937 --> 01:04:49.862
I need to get back over some of that because so you started by saying there's a price per hectare.

1176
01:04:50.082 --> 01:04:50.583
Yeah,

1177
01:04:50.803 --> 01:04:54.547
that's going to be a price per hectare for either the farmer or a processor.

1178
01:04:55.428 --> 01:04:57.290
We're not so sure yet where to target.

1179
01:04:58.851 --> 01:04:59.732
They would pay you.

1180
01:05:00.132 --> 01:05:00.853
They would pay us.

1181
01:05:01.073 --> 01:05:02.495
And then on the other side,

1182
01:05:02.535 --> 01:05:04.096
they would get the purchase reference.

1183
01:05:04.597 --> 01:05:04.817
Okay,

1184
01:05:04.857 --> 01:05:07.920
so which usually translates into somehow a higher price.

1185
01:05:10.390 --> 01:05:17.255
So the farmer first has to prove that methodology was used successfully using the metrics that we discussed before.

1186
01:05:17.335 --> 01:05:17.696
Exactly.

1187
01:05:18.436 --> 01:05:18.676
They,

1188
01:05:19.417 --> 01:05:20.198
for your services,

1189
01:05:20.678 --> 01:05:25.382
pay you per hectare price and then you take charge of selling their products?

1190
01:05:25.382 --> 01:05:25.502
No,

1191
01:05:25.522 --> 01:05:27.363
that's still the normal process,

1192
01:05:27.423 --> 01:05:31.426
but they would get the purchase preference from the buyers.

1193
01:05:32.247 --> 01:05:32.427
Okay,

1194
01:05:32.527 --> 01:05:34.108
so you kind of put a stamp on it.

1195
01:05:34.269 --> 01:05:34.729
Exactly.

1196
01:05:35.009 --> 01:05:38.452
saying we did the methodology and therefore it gets this preference.

1197
01:05:38.532 --> 01:05:38.873
Exactly.

1198
01:05:39.293 --> 01:05:41.235
So we call this approved regenerative.

1199
01:05:41.295 --> 01:05:45.659
So he would be approved regenerative and then the producer of that farm would have a preference.

1200
01:05:46.099 --> 01:05:46.299
Okay.

1201
01:05:47.120 --> 01:05:51.524
And potentially a smart deal which will lead to more money being on the table of the farmer.

1202
01:05:52.913 --> 01:05:57.314
It's kind of trying to establish it without the need of additional money.

1203
01:05:57.714 --> 01:06:00.635
You try to work with the money that's already in the system.

1204
01:06:01.576 --> 01:06:10.318
What you're doing is you're giving those farmers that are transitioning a bit of edge by having them selling a bit of a lower quality.

1205
01:06:10.478 --> 01:06:12.079
That doesn't matter for you at all,

1206
01:06:13.999 --> 01:06:16.480
which is just putting more money on the table of the farmer.

1207
01:06:16.520 --> 01:06:17.720
But overall in the market,

1208
01:06:17.800 --> 01:06:19.661
it's still financially neutral.

1209
01:06:20.421 --> 01:06:20.601
Okay.

1210
01:06:20.862 --> 01:06:21.502
That's the idea.

1211
01:06:23.124 --> 01:06:24.286
Have you started that program yet?

1212
01:06:24.766 --> 01:06:27.449
We are about to start it this or next month.

1213
01:06:27.830 --> 01:06:29.091
That's the idea.

1214
01:06:29.211 --> 01:06:32.375
So we're still into last funding,

1215
01:06:32.935 --> 01:06:39.042
but it looks like we're going to be successful and start it within a few weeks.

1216
01:06:42.393 --> 01:06:45.495
How do you make that attractive to farmers to join the program?

1217
01:06:45.955 --> 01:06:50.558
Because there's obviously a big shift that they need to make if they're conventional,

1218
01:06:50.618 --> 01:06:50.918
let's say,

1219
01:06:51.138 --> 01:06:54.880
and they need to change their system a lot,

1220
01:06:55.320 --> 01:06:56.861
learn a lot of new tools,

1221
01:06:56.981 --> 01:06:58.862
maybe invest in tools as well.

1222
01:06:59.342 --> 01:07:01.364
There's so much to be done for them.

1223
01:07:02.164 --> 01:07:05.566
Do you feel like the incentive is strong enough for them to do that?

1224
01:07:06.426 --> 01:07:06.586
Well,

1225
01:07:09.048 --> 01:07:09.668
in theory,

1226
01:07:10.289 --> 01:07:10.829
you're right.

1227
01:07:11.369 --> 01:07:12.149
In practice,

1228
01:07:12.389 --> 01:07:12.609
not.

1229
01:07:13.190 --> 01:07:17.571
So the point that the framework does is it gives you the right focus.

1230
01:07:18.991 --> 01:07:20.672
And it makes you start at the right place.

1231
01:07:22.412 --> 01:07:24.473
And we need constant improvement.

1232
01:07:24.753 --> 01:07:26.574
So we're not looking for the big shifts,

1233
01:07:26.794 --> 01:07:28.314
we're looking for the small steps.

1234
01:07:28.674 --> 01:07:33.036
So in a sense that what we're doing is not radical.

1235
01:07:34.876 --> 01:07:35.176
It's...

1236
01:07:37.237 --> 01:07:37.517
Also,

1237
01:07:39.058 --> 01:07:40.078
it's transactional.

1238
01:07:40.218 --> 01:07:43.139
It's not transformational in the short term.

1239
01:07:44.519 --> 01:07:46.820
But when you improve 3%

1240
01:07:47.260 --> 01:07:47.720
each year,

1241
01:07:47.920 --> 01:07:48.900
let's say 3%

1242
01:07:49.200 --> 01:07:49.741
each year,

1243
01:07:50.561 --> 01:07:52.501
you're twice as good in a lifetime.

1244
01:07:53.142 --> 01:07:57.103
So what we want them to do is to make the little steps,

1245
01:07:57.523 --> 01:07:58.483
but the right ones,

1246
01:07:59.483 --> 01:08:01.824
the ones that influence the outcomes the most.

1247
01:08:04.005 --> 01:08:04.265
And

1248
01:08:05.645 --> 01:08:05.765
So,

1249
01:08:07.607 --> 01:08:08.407
in a sense,

1250
01:08:08.688 --> 01:08:13.372
that makes it the least complex to actually embrace the journey.

1251
01:08:13.872 --> 01:08:15.313
Because you know where to start,

1252
01:08:16.354 --> 01:08:17.575
most likely how to do it,

1253
01:08:19.036 --> 01:08:20.958
and then that's also cost-efficient,

1254
01:08:21.058 --> 01:08:23.740
because you start at the right point with the right activities.

1255
01:08:26.342 --> 01:08:27.744
We have one more advantage,

1256
01:08:27.784 --> 01:08:29.785
which is the first year is baselining,

1257
01:08:29.945 --> 01:08:31.527
so you're in the program already,

1258
01:08:32.748 --> 01:08:33.629
and it gives you time.

1259
01:08:34.389 --> 01:08:49.459
and then you can have one down performance so in a sense year three is really what matters okay so you get some time and you're still already in the program and can earn maybe even more money already i believe that's

1260
01:08:50.131 --> 01:08:51.813
a great incentive to join.

1261
01:08:53.414 --> 01:08:54.195
But then you're right,

1262
01:08:54.435 --> 01:08:55.957
it's actually a bit of a trap.

1263
01:08:56.097 --> 01:08:57.158
Because once you're in,

1264
01:08:58.339 --> 01:09:00.742
you need to really change something.

1265
01:09:00.902 --> 01:09:01.102
It's,

1266
01:09:02.684 --> 01:09:02.944
you know,

1267
01:09:03.084 --> 01:09:05.186
you could do a bit of no-till with no effect.

1268
01:09:06.027 --> 01:09:06.808
That's not gonna work.

1269
01:09:07.028 --> 01:09:08.670
If your no-till has no effect,

1270
01:09:08.710 --> 01:09:09.491
you're not improving.

1271
01:09:10.607 --> 01:09:13.889
That means you need to find ways to improve.

1272
01:09:14.069 --> 01:09:17.231
And that's a different level than just putting some tool in action.

1273
01:09:18.272 --> 01:09:21.514
It's to use that tool and put it in action in the right way.

1274
01:09:21.674 --> 01:09:22.975
And that's a different level.

1275
01:09:23.035 --> 01:09:23.316
Yeah,

1276
01:09:23.356 --> 01:09:23.716
I agree.

1277
01:09:23.716 --> 01:09:24.736
Yeah.

1278
01:09:24.776 --> 01:09:25.417
So you get more...

1279
01:09:25.557 --> 01:09:27.019
time to perform,

1280
01:09:27.960 --> 01:09:29.262
but you will need to perform.

1281
01:09:30.083 --> 01:09:32.285
But I think that's also what we need as a society.

1282
01:09:32.445 --> 01:09:40.415
We need farmers to perform and we need to find ways to fund and start this without the need of additional farmers.

1283
01:09:40.415 --> 01:10:00.904
additional money because no one has just spare money somewhere that you can put into regeneration unfortunately it feels to me i don't know why but as a society like you said as a society we need this so that's that's an interesting point because then as a society we need this it's not just a farmer who needs to do this right it's all of us as a society and

1284
01:10:00.904 --> 01:10:05.987
you said we don't have extra money but we we know that we're spending a lot of money on the you

1285
01:10:06.547 --> 01:10:10.810
the negative externalities of certain forms of farming.

1286
01:10:10.830 --> 01:10:12.731
So it costs a lot of money to society.

1287
01:10:12.831 --> 01:10:18.714
So wouldn't it make sense to also incentivize this process?

1288
01:10:19.155 --> 01:10:19.335
Look,

1289
01:10:19.495 --> 01:10:20.075
absolutely.

1290
01:10:20.415 --> 01:10:23.477
But it's just not what I'm seeing happening.

1291
01:10:23.557 --> 01:10:28.880
So we're trying to make this scale without it.

1292
01:10:29.241 --> 01:10:30.061
It's much harder,

1293
01:10:30.201 --> 01:10:30.621
obviously.

1294
01:10:32.122 --> 01:10:33.003
But on the other hand...

1295
01:10:34.335 --> 01:10:48.419
I see schemes out there that are distributing money not having any impact because farmers are just tricking it and more than you think and do we need that to distribute money with no outcome?

1296
01:10:48.759 --> 01:10:52.360
So it's two-sided.

1297
01:10:53.680 --> 01:11:01.763
It's almost like you need this hedge that there are really outcomes improving and you're right you can try to then

1298
01:11:02.895 --> 01:11:06.519
get more money to these farmers with some tricks we tried to apply.

1299
01:11:08.080 --> 01:11:08.721
But finally,

1300
01:11:09.161 --> 01:11:10.222
this should have a price.

1301
01:11:11.343 --> 01:11:12.144
When when when,

1302
01:11:12.885 --> 01:11:13.685
let's call it the other way.

1303
01:11:14.746 --> 01:11:18.070
When farmers are saving the ass of our society,

1304
01:11:18.510 --> 01:11:20.372
they should be paid for this course.

1305
01:11:21.273 --> 01:11:22.594
And I got one problem here,

1306
01:11:22.754 --> 01:11:24.716
which is overall,

1307
01:11:25.336 --> 01:11:27.599
let's take the helicopter and fly up and then say,

1308
01:11:27.679 --> 01:11:27.799
hey,

1309
01:11:30.391 --> 01:11:32.712
Is the depletion of soil smart?

1310
01:11:35.553 --> 01:11:36.254
And I'm telling you,

1311
01:11:36.334 --> 01:11:36.554
yes,

1312
01:11:36.594 --> 01:11:36.934
it is.

1313
01:11:38.655 --> 01:11:47.599
The long-term kind of molecules of soil carbon is stable between nitrogen,

1314
01:11:47.719 --> 01:11:48.1000
phosphorus and carbon.

1315
01:11:49.960 --> 01:11:54.022
Releasing carbon from the soil frees up nitrogen and phosphorus.

1316
01:11:54.202 --> 01:11:55.603
That's free fertilizer.

1317
01:11:56.995 --> 01:12:03.543
So what actually farmers are doing by reducing the soil organic carbon is they're digging for fertilizer.

1318
01:12:04.684 --> 01:12:06.306
It's mining for fertilizer.

1319
01:12:07.728 --> 01:12:09.610
So that reduces their cost.

1320
01:12:10.755 --> 01:12:17.340
up to a certain point where that kicks back in terms of negative.

1321
01:12:17.600 --> 01:12:21.222
So in terms of yield instability,

1322
01:12:21.803 --> 01:12:23.324
low water infiltration,

1323
01:12:23.404 --> 01:12:23.924
erosion,

1324
01:12:24.545 --> 01:12:25.865
and all the things we see today.

1325
01:12:26.946 --> 01:12:27.487
But actually,

1326
01:12:27.707 --> 01:12:29.928
when you need to pay your bills quarterly,

1327
01:12:31.349 --> 01:12:32.630
that has not been a bad move.

1328
01:12:33.291 --> 01:12:35.412
So it kind of gave you edge.

1329
01:12:36.193 --> 01:12:37.273
So you're using a plow,

1330
01:12:37.594 --> 01:12:38.754
you're steering up the soil,

1331
01:12:39.815 --> 01:12:41.356
you're putting temperature into it,

1332
01:12:41.436 --> 01:12:42.797
you increase mineralization,

1333
01:12:43.017 --> 01:12:45.179
you deplete soil organic carbon,

1334
01:12:46.019 --> 01:12:48.861
free fertilizer for your plants and we see that it grows more.

1335
01:12:50.783 --> 01:12:53.425
And now what we do is we need to bring it back.

1336
01:12:54.105 --> 01:12:57.207
And by the way we need to bring the nutrients back because

1337
01:12:57.748 --> 01:12:58.969
N, P and

1338
01:12:59.909 --> 01:13:00.610
C not

1339
01:13:01.150 --> 01:13:01.270
K

1340
01:13:02.507 --> 01:13:08.751
and P and C are still there to form this molecule for the long-term carbon to be stored in the soil.

1341
01:13:10.372 --> 01:13:16.215
And when I now hear people saying that overall to regenerate is cheaper,

1342
01:13:16.355 --> 01:13:17.055
then I'm asking,

1343
01:13:17.095 --> 01:13:24.880
so how can it be cheaper to actually build something instead of mining it?

1344
01:13:26.221 --> 01:13:29.142
So do we need more money for farmers for regeneration?

1345
01:13:29.803 --> 01:13:30.003
Yes,

1346
01:13:30.003 --> 01:13:30.243
we do.

1347
01:13:31.279 --> 01:13:48.758
because we need to bring back what we have just used and mined as we do it with many other things thinking that's just a free lunch and that the party is going on forever we have come to the point where the party is starting to stop yeah

1348
01:13:48.778 --> 01:13:48.919
so

1349
01:13:52.959 --> 01:13:53.699
It's going to cost more.

1350
01:13:56.221 --> 01:14:04.266
And there is really my kind of message to the consumers.

1351
01:14:05.186 --> 01:14:09.149
We need to be ready to pay more for healthy and good food.

1352
01:14:10.449 --> 01:14:11.450
And in fact,

1353
01:14:11.510 --> 01:14:11.930
you're right,

1354
01:14:11.970 --> 01:14:15.012
we have externalities and we have also externalities of

1355
01:14:16.233 --> 01:14:31.520
health about us about our health and paying a bit more for food is also living healthier meaning spending less for doctors so not great news for the health industry but

1356
01:14:33.521 --> 01:14:39.485
So most likely we should think about the transfer of funds from the health industry to the food industry.

1357
01:14:39.885 --> 01:14:40.105
Right.

1358
01:14:41.286 --> 01:14:41.406
Yes,

1359
01:14:41.866 --> 01:14:45.309
maybe that's actually a really big opportunity because...

1360
01:14:46.229 --> 01:14:51.931
we have free or affordable healthcare systems in most countries in Europe,

1361
01:14:51.951 --> 01:14:52.291
at least.

1362
01:14:53.452 --> 01:14:55.853
So that's already money spent by the state.

1363
01:14:55.853 --> 01:14:57.374
It's already public money being spent.

1364
01:14:57.454 --> 01:15:03.696
And so if we could actually spend that money to help people buy healthy,

1365
01:15:03.976 --> 01:15:05.577
nutritious food that is good for their health,

1366
01:15:06.037 --> 01:15:09.298
which would reduce healthcare costs somewhere else,

1367
01:15:09.358 --> 01:15:11.559
maybe there's a lever for action there,

1368
01:15:11.579 --> 01:15:11.699
no?

1369
01:15:12.360 --> 01:15:12.920
Absolutely.

1370
01:15:12.960 --> 01:15:13.160
I mean,

1371
01:15:13.220 --> 01:15:14.360
it's not only that cost,

1372
01:15:14.380 --> 01:15:15.921
it's also all the subsidies we pay.

1373
01:15:16.001 --> 01:15:18.243
to farmers to make food cheap.

1374
01:15:19.263 --> 01:15:21.305
So yeah,

1375
01:15:21.345 --> 01:15:23.567
I believe there we have a big opportunity,

1376
01:15:23.707 --> 01:15:25.948
then we have a big opportunity with less waste.

1377
01:15:26.985 --> 01:15:27.225
I mean,

1378
01:15:27.265 --> 01:15:29.287
especially vegetables and so on,

1379
01:15:29.327 --> 01:15:32.009
we just lose way too much in all the process,

1380
01:15:32.910 --> 01:15:34.952
especially from the fridge of the consumer.

1381
01:15:36.153 --> 01:15:37.654
So I think there's a lot there.

1382
01:15:38.234 --> 01:15:41.997
Maybe just could give food a different value than it has today.

1383
01:15:42.838 --> 01:15:45.280
It would bring more money to the farmer growing it.

1384
01:15:46.525 --> 01:15:49.467
would be less extractive and more healthy.

1385
01:15:49.807 --> 01:15:49.947
So,

1386
01:15:50.848 --> 01:15:51.128
and that,

1387
01:15:51.428 --> 01:15:51.548
yeah,

1388
01:15:51.688 --> 01:15:56.291
that shows the power of regeneration and how important that is for the society.

1389
01:15:56.791 --> 01:15:59.392
It's not only that we need to solve this on the farm.

1390
01:16:00.805 --> 01:16:03.107
We need to solve this all in all.

1391
01:16:03.167 --> 01:16:03.468
And I mean,

1392
01:16:05.269 --> 01:16:05.529
you know,

1393
01:16:06.911 --> 01:16:11.835
it also starts to me with what is the value of the farmer in the society.

1394
01:16:12.456 --> 01:16:15.138
And today it's like almost nothing anymore.

1395
01:16:15.178 --> 01:16:15.438
Okay,

1396
01:16:15.438 --> 01:16:16.079
he stinks,

1397
01:16:16.139 --> 01:16:16.619
he's this,

1398
01:16:16.679 --> 01:16:17.180
he's that.

1399
01:16:18.961 --> 01:16:22.264
When actually it's the person managing our environment.

1400
01:16:23.261 --> 01:16:28.145
which we know is directly linked to our life expectancy,

1401
01:16:29.146 --> 01:16:29.987
the food we eat,

1402
01:16:30.207 --> 01:16:31.728
life expectancy and health.

1403
01:16:33.970 --> 01:16:36.793
And yeah,

1404
01:16:37.413 --> 01:16:43.498
so it's one of the most important people we should talk to and appreciate,

1405
01:16:44.159 --> 01:16:46.020
even probably more than scientists,

1406
01:16:46.561 --> 01:16:50.304
which we kind of think is more important.

1407
01:16:51.605 --> 01:16:52.565
And then also soil.

1408
01:16:53.085 --> 01:16:53.346
I mean,

1409
01:16:53.606 --> 01:16:54.606
soil is our life.

1410
01:16:54.706 --> 01:16:55.806
It's our kind of,

1411
01:16:56.747 --> 01:16:58.307
it's the source of life.

1412
01:16:59.647 --> 01:17:00.248
Just these

1413
01:17:01.248 --> 01:17:04.169
30 centimeters of soil organic carbon.

1414
01:17:04.949 --> 01:17:06.950
And we call that one in many times dirt.

1415
01:17:07.730 --> 01:17:11.471
So we call our life and what we get created of dirt.

1416
01:17:12.971 --> 01:17:16.953
Maybe not so smart to give it such a bad kind of nuance as a society.

1417
01:17:19.293 --> 01:17:19.593
So yeah,

1418
01:17:19.593 --> 01:17:23.017
I think there's big shifts we need to work on as society.

1419
01:17:23.797 --> 01:17:23.917
Yeah,

1420
01:17:24.198 --> 01:17:27.341
big work to be done in education as well and awareness.

1421
01:17:27.641 --> 01:17:28.121
Absolutely.

1422
01:17:28.121 --> 01:17:30.744
And I really hope to contribute to that with the podcast.

1423
01:17:30.784 --> 01:17:32.605
That's the great thing.

1424
01:17:32.806 --> 01:17:33.907
Yeah,

1425
01:17:33.907 --> 01:17:38.571
I'm sort of on the edge between trying to have very

1426
01:17:38.591 --> 01:17:56.795
very dense debt in depth conversations so that even professionals in the food systems could learn new things but i also want it to be accessible to a new audience who who might find this disinteresting and it's a it's a difficult exercise totally i see that i mean for yeah but

1427
01:17:56.795 --> 01:18:05.017
you see if you want to have in-depth conversations you can talk about a week just how you set a no-till drill

1428
01:18:05.981 --> 01:18:24.795
perfectly so yeah it's maybe not the level we should be going to in such a podcast so yeah your approach yeah um let's talk uh positives and maybe you could describe some of the things you've seen happening on your farm since you've transitioned

1429
01:18:24.795 --> 01:18:32.040
to regenerative that really made you think okay this is working this is making me like happy with what i'm doing

1430
01:18:33.229 --> 01:18:33.349
Oh,

1431
01:18:33.369 --> 01:18:33.950
there's a lot.

1432
01:18:34.130 --> 01:18:34.250
So,

1433
01:18:36.693 --> 01:18:36.813
well,

1434
01:18:36.854 --> 01:18:38.395
what I've seen is I made,

1435
01:18:38.896 --> 01:18:49.649
I made a very quick transition from conventional to actually totally regenerative.

1436
01:18:51.934 --> 01:18:56.438
probably too quick because I had quite some backlash in yield.

1437
01:18:56.538 --> 01:18:59.901
So it dropped too much compared to what I did.

1438
01:19:01.822 --> 01:19:05.926
So that also led me to the thinking it's a stepwise approach.

1439
01:19:07.047 --> 01:19:10.930
But you actually even if it's small steps you're taking,

1440
01:19:12.131 --> 01:19:14.473
the ecosystem reacts really quick.

1441
01:19:15.854 --> 01:19:18.896
So you see the soil getting darker very quickly.

1442
01:19:20.898 --> 01:19:27.163
You see soil structure being there very quickly.

1443
01:19:28.505 --> 01:19:31.147
Maybe not yet the SOC you would love to see,

1444
01:19:31.227 --> 01:19:34.930
but already the structure that it can start actually to accumulate.

1445
01:19:37.992 --> 01:19:40.094
You see insects coming back,

1446
01:19:40.214 --> 01:19:41.656
lots of animals coming back,

1447
01:19:43.817 --> 01:19:44.998
birds coming back.

1448
01:19:45.259 --> 01:19:47.400
So it's crazy,

1449
01:19:47.440 --> 01:19:48.301
but we have some...

1450
01:19:49.522 --> 01:19:53.723
some birds here and it's my neighbor and I doing region egg.

1451
01:19:55.684 --> 01:19:57.084
And the birds are 90%

1452
01:19:57.505 --> 01:19:59.105
of the time in our fields.

1453
01:19:59.685 --> 01:20:01.986
If you check it out,

1454
01:20:03.627 --> 01:20:06.087
they're in our fields and that's not coincidence.

1455
01:20:06.287 --> 01:20:08.328
So they find more food,

1456
01:20:09.729 --> 01:20:11.509
probably healthier food also for them.

1457
01:20:14.946 --> 01:20:15.166
Yeah,

1458
01:20:15.166 --> 01:20:18.267
I'm also measuring certain things in the soil,

1459
01:20:18.387 --> 01:20:23.149
so we clearly see that stuff is coming back very quickly.

1460
01:20:24.869 --> 01:20:28.390
I'm not afraid of any heavy rain incident anymore.

1461
01:20:28.891 --> 01:20:37.433
So we have some manholes where we try to catch water from the streets and then put it into the river.

1462
01:20:37.473 --> 01:20:38.634
I'm just almost like...

1463
01:20:40.442 --> 01:20:51.472
closing all of those because I want the water in my field compared to you did not want that water in your field before because it's just like infiltrated and you can use it.

1464
01:20:51.993 --> 01:20:53.554
It's like a big reservoir in your soil.

1465
01:20:53.594 --> 01:20:59.300
It's like a reservoir so you're harvesting the water instead of trying to get rid of it.

1466
01:21:00.741 --> 01:21:05.686
So yeah and then about input so I was able to

1467
01:21:06.922 --> 01:21:21.673
reduce a bit of fertilizer not too much because i want to build soil you need fertilizer we talked earlier you need fertilizer to build soil but i was able to reduce quite a part of it

1468
01:21:22.053 --> 01:21:33.481
20-30 percent because i'm collecting it from the air with the leguminosis and i reduced heavily in tillage so fuel use was

1469
01:21:34.322 --> 01:21:49.182
cut more than in half so really a lot less i lose much less machines so that's a cost that's a bit hidden but i'm almost at the point where i don't need a large tractor anymore just a small one

1470
01:21:49.914 --> 01:21:51.717
which is a huge cost for a farm,

1471
01:21:52.377 --> 01:21:53.739
especially of our size.

1472
01:21:56.603 --> 01:21:59.746
And I reduce pesticides by

1473
01:22:00.888 --> 01:22:04.813
70%. I still need them in oilseed rape.

1474
01:22:07.067 --> 01:22:11.309
Because that's just the yield drop is just way too high when you get rid of them.

1475
01:22:12.090 --> 01:22:12.910
And on the other hand,

1476
01:22:13.170 --> 01:22:15.812
oilseed rape is a crazy soil improver.

1477
01:22:16.572 --> 01:22:16.712
So

1478
01:22:17.833 --> 01:22:19.054
I want to keep it as a crop.

1479
01:22:21.035 --> 01:22:21.295
So yeah,

1480
01:22:21.315 --> 01:22:23.396
there's always the pros and the cons in everything.

1481
01:22:24.137 --> 01:22:25.357
That's what I'm trying to balance.

1482
01:22:25.377 --> 01:22:32.862
But the shift on the farm is crazy in terms of ecosystem services.

1483
01:22:33.734 --> 01:22:35.955
But it's also how I'm doing it,

1484
01:22:35.995 --> 01:22:39.197
the shift is also crazy in terms of how it's different to farm.

1485
01:22:39.737 --> 01:22:40.258
That farm.

1486
01:22:42.739 --> 01:22:45.921
It has nothing to do anymore with what we did before.

1487
01:22:48.362 --> 01:22:48.762
Not much,

1488
01:22:48.862 --> 01:22:49.223
actually.

1489
01:22:49.643 --> 01:22:56.106
So it's a very different approach to farming with different problems.

1490
01:22:57.367 --> 01:23:00.269
And as much as that's great,

1491
01:23:01.129 --> 01:23:02.310
the one downside is...

1492
01:23:04.399 --> 01:23:05.140
the old system

1493
01:23:05.840 --> 01:23:22.133
50 years of experience my dad myself the new system five to ten years of experience and that means you're just doing more mistakes so um yeah it's all that

1494
01:23:22.994 --> 01:23:27.939
context specific experience that's still lacking.

1495
01:23:29.260 --> 01:23:31.162
But the shifts on the farm are crazy.

1496
01:23:31.262 --> 01:23:34.045
So I would never want to go back to what it was before.

1497
01:23:35.370 --> 01:23:38.534
How has your father welcomed these changes?

1498
01:23:38.794 --> 01:23:43.038
He's been farming here for his whole life and his parents before him.

1499
01:23:44.760 --> 01:23:45.681
How did that go?

1500
01:23:47.643 --> 01:23:48.044
Not well.

1501
01:23:49.325 --> 01:23:52.468
But it's not even my dad who is the biggest problem.

1502
01:23:52.769 --> 01:23:53.950
It's the landowners.

1503
01:23:55.270 --> 01:23:55.390
So,

1504
01:23:57.731 --> 01:23:58.051
you know,

1505
01:23:58.631 --> 01:24:04.993
land in Switzerland is owned by at least half by non farmers,

1506
01:24:06.273 --> 01:24:06.994
older people.

1507
01:24:10.014 --> 01:24:18.437
And they just have a different opinion on what is good farming looking like.

1508
01:24:19.737 --> 01:24:20.598
And for many of them,

1509
01:24:20.718 --> 01:24:22.098
it's like Aidan McCullen

1510
01:24:22.202 --> 01:24:37.896
you know a nice field of wheat all plants the same no weeds that's how to do it and for that you need to have a high input you need to spray a lot and

1511
01:24:37.896 --> 01:24:48.665
the first thing you're doing with regeneration is to do less of it do cover crops and they look once this way once that way and in their eyes that's not looking great

1512
01:24:50.246 --> 01:24:52.369
So yeah,

1513
01:24:52.749 --> 01:24:54.171
lots of discussions with them,

1514
01:24:54.511 --> 01:24:55.772
even more than with my dad.

1515
01:24:57.354 --> 01:24:57.615
And yeah,

1516
01:24:57.675 --> 01:24:58.556
also for my dad,

1517
01:24:58.616 --> 01:25:02.440
it's a challenge because it's more this kind of looking back and thinking,

1518
01:25:02.440 --> 01:25:02.620
hey,

1519
01:25:02.921 --> 01:25:04.963
it's not that I have been doing everything wrong,

1520
01:25:05.003 --> 01:25:05.123
no?

1521
01:25:06.525 --> 01:25:07.165
So more like,

1522
01:25:07.926 --> 01:25:09.708
why is he doing everything so different?

1523
01:25:11.614 --> 01:25:12.875
Did I do everything wrong?

1524
01:25:12.955 --> 01:25:13.636
And I mean,

1525
01:25:13.676 --> 01:25:14.596
I was a good farmer,

1526
01:25:14.716 --> 01:25:18.940
so why should all that I've been doing be so bad?

1527
01:25:20.741 --> 01:25:22.422
And yet they have a different view on it.

1528
01:25:23.023 --> 01:25:23.463
Field,

1529
01:25:24.103 --> 01:25:24.944
perfect,

1530
01:25:25.424 --> 01:25:26.145
nothing in it,

1531
01:25:26.225 --> 01:25:26.845
just wheat.

1532
01:25:27.306 --> 01:25:31.188
I don't want that because you need communities of plants.

1533
01:25:31.389 --> 01:25:31.509
So

1534
01:25:35.872 --> 01:25:37.473
I think it's a completely different...

1535
01:25:39.878 --> 01:25:41.439
view on what good looks like.

1536
01:25:43.621 --> 01:25:44.001
And that's,

1537
01:25:44.001 --> 01:25:45.542
that's a challenge.

1538
01:25:46.143 --> 01:25:55.109
Because it's the entire farming community that needs to see that maybe good looks different than they think it should look like today.

1539
01:25:56.090 --> 01:25:59.913
And that's,

1540
01:26:00.153 --> 01:26:00.954
that's a challenge.

1541
01:26:02.575 --> 01:26:03.195
And you know,

1542
01:26:03.255 --> 01:26:03.796
in farming,

1543
01:26:03.816 --> 01:26:05.737
you have this kind of

1544
01:26:07.386 --> 01:26:14.332
self-cleaning environment where people try to bring you to the normal.

1545
01:26:16.093 --> 01:26:17.874
And I see a reason for that.

1546
01:26:17.994 --> 01:26:24.679
So if every farmer would become crazy innovative and do all the stuff they have in their mind,

1547
01:26:24.840 --> 01:26:31.725
and we would actually completely trash the yield of an entire season.

1548
01:26:34.178 --> 01:26:36.099
That's a huge problem for society.

1549
01:26:36.560 --> 01:26:40.883
That would mean no food being created,

1550
01:26:41.143 --> 01:26:42.404
or much less.

1551
01:26:42.704 --> 01:26:42.904
And,

1552
01:26:43.404 --> 01:26:43.584
well,

1553
01:26:43.584 --> 01:26:44.665
we can import still,

1554
01:26:44.765 --> 01:26:46.586
but if that would happen large scale,

1555
01:26:46.787 --> 01:26:48.628
that would be a threat to society.

1556
01:26:48.748 --> 01:26:58.615
So I think there's a reason that there's this tradition and kind of self-cleaning approach to these operations.

1557
01:26:59.355 --> 01:27:02.337
So by doing all this innovation,

1558
01:27:02.357 --> 01:27:03.458
you work against this.

1559
01:27:04.354 --> 01:27:13.998
But I think it's a very great safeguard that is in there for many things.

1560
01:27:14.218 --> 01:27:16.680
It's just in what we're doing now,

1561
01:27:17.320 --> 01:27:18.220
not very helpful.

1562
01:27:19.521 --> 01:27:20.321
But it's got to be there.

1563
01:27:21.642 --> 01:27:22.882
So it's not something bad.

1564
01:27:22.942 --> 01:27:25.143
We're working and we need to appreciate that.

1565
01:27:26.044 --> 01:27:27.824
Even as very innovative farmers,

1566
01:27:27.844 --> 01:27:30.145
we need to appreciate that these safeguards,

1567
01:27:30.185 --> 01:27:31.146
they're there for a reason.

1568
01:27:32.426 --> 01:27:33.807
It's actually exactly this,

1569
01:27:33.907 --> 01:27:38.189
that we cannot fail on a yield of an entire season.

1570
01:27:38.989 --> 01:27:40.149
We have to get it right.

1571
01:27:40.650 --> 01:27:42.350
It's not like an iPhone production.

1572
01:27:42.770 --> 01:27:42.911
Well,

1573
01:27:43.471 --> 01:27:44.111
some would care,

1574
01:27:44.171 --> 01:27:48.833
but nothing would happen if you cannot produce an iPhone this season.

1575
01:27:48.853 --> 01:27:49.894
You get it next season.

1576
01:27:51.394 --> 01:27:52.715
But if you do the same with food,

1577
01:27:52.975 --> 01:27:53.095
yeah,

1578
01:27:53.115 --> 01:27:53.955
you get it next year.

1579
01:27:54.335 --> 01:27:54.455
Well,

1580
01:27:54.495 --> 01:27:54.836
good luck.

1581
01:27:56.296 --> 01:27:56.416
Yeah,

1582
01:27:56.456 --> 01:27:57.457
okay.

1583
01:27:57.617 --> 01:27:57.797
Okay.

1584
01:28:00.830 --> 01:28:03.693
Can we talk a little bit about the economics of the farm?

1585
01:28:03.713 --> 01:28:07.897
Because you said that you reduced inputs in terms of fuel,

1586
01:28:08.457 --> 01:28:09.198
fertilizer,

1587
01:28:09.438 --> 01:28:10.219
pesticides.

1588
01:28:10.219 --> 01:28:12.201
So you have reduced costs on the one hand,

1589
01:28:12.201 --> 01:28:15.244
and you said that you can maybe look at having a smaller tractor.

1590
01:28:17.406 --> 01:28:19.728
You have increased costs on the other side,

1591
01:28:19.748 --> 01:28:19.968
I guess,

1592
01:28:20.028 --> 01:28:22.851
with all of the seeds you have to plant for your cover crops and things like that.

1593
01:28:22.871 --> 01:28:25.613
So how does your balance sheet look like now?

1594
01:28:27.515 --> 01:28:29.016
My balance sheet went through a dip.

1595
01:28:29.716 --> 01:28:32.498
I had no income from the farm for two years.

1596
01:28:33.638 --> 01:28:38.261
So nothing a normal farmer would be able to afford.

1597
01:28:38.862 --> 01:28:43.164
So that's why I'm also looking into these stepwise changes and not the radical ones.

1598
01:28:46.186 --> 01:29:06.817
so we need to be careful there and help them and i have been reducing a lot of cost in pesticides fuel and partly fertilizer but i've increased a lot in seeds so actually that's more or less quid pro quo so like i i just shifted around the the cost from a to b yeah

1599
01:29:07.038 --> 01:29:14.962
but that's why i mean that's because i'm using 20 species mixtures and so on and so forth i'm doing two not just one cover crop

1600
01:29:15.422 --> 01:29:16.263
growth phase.

1601
01:29:17.583 --> 01:29:20.264
So there's a lot of decisions I have taken to do that.

1602
01:29:20.525 --> 01:29:25.527
I invested quite heavily into new machines.

1603
01:29:26.767 --> 01:29:28.428
So on a small farm like mine,

1604
01:29:28.628 --> 01:29:29.809
30 hectares,

1605
01:29:29.909 --> 01:29:39.653
you have quite large cycles till you can replace a machine because you need to use it years on years to actually depreciate it.

1606
01:29:42.098 --> 01:29:43.319
and I had to invest more than

1607
01:29:43.679 --> 01:29:44.919
100k into new machines.

1608
01:29:46.300 --> 01:29:48.481
Compared to a normal investment cycle,

1609
01:29:48.501 --> 01:29:49.421
that would be more on the

1610
01:29:49.761 --> 01:29:52.142
20k side per year that you could afford.

1611
01:29:52.762 --> 01:29:53.843
So five times more.

1612
01:29:55.664 --> 01:29:55.924
Again,

1613
01:29:56.024 --> 01:29:59.845
you could probably more rent machines and do that differently too.

1614
01:30:00.946 --> 01:30:04.507
But it shows there's quite some cost chunks to digest.

1615
01:30:05.367 --> 01:30:05.828
All in all,

1616
01:30:05.928 --> 01:30:07.748
I would say from now onwards,

1617
01:30:07.828 --> 01:30:09.309
I'm set for more income.

1618
01:30:10.389 --> 01:30:11.490
But there has been a valley.

1619
01:30:12.470 --> 01:30:14.012
And yeah,

1620
01:30:14.312 --> 01:30:15.013
more income.

1621
01:30:15.613 --> 01:30:18.175
If I even have more income for the next five years,

1622
01:30:18.316 --> 01:30:20.478
I won't make up for the loss of the two years.

1623
01:30:21.859 --> 01:30:23.020
Got to keep that in mind.

1624
01:30:24.862 --> 01:30:25.382
And again,

1625
01:30:25.762 --> 01:30:26.263
overall,

1626
01:30:26.423 --> 01:30:29.446
I think regeneration will be a bit more expensive.

1627
01:30:30.887 --> 01:30:35.211
From what I told earlier about the depletion of nutrients from the soil,

1628
01:30:35.351 --> 01:30:38.134
getting free fertilizers versus bringing it back now.

1629
01:30:39.430 --> 01:30:42.893
So there's overarching a slightly higher price.

1630
01:30:45.696 --> 01:30:51.301
So somehow we got to find ways to remunerate the farmers a bit more for what he produces.

1631
01:30:52.101 --> 01:30:54.323
And I think there's enough money in the system.

1632
01:30:54.764 --> 01:30:56.305
If we tailor it correctly,

1633
01:30:56.305 --> 01:30:56.926
we can do that.

1634
01:30:57.666 --> 01:30:57.867
Okay.

1635
01:30:58.747 --> 01:31:00.489
When you look at the future and we know that we...

1636
01:31:01.730 --> 01:31:21.747
we're going to have a changing climate that swings harder and harder and a lot of instability in different aspects of society also economically maybe in terms of the price of inputs um do you feel though that despite the the challenges so far that you're better equipped to face these challenges i

1637
01:31:21.747 --> 01:31:30.034
mean that i'm sure about um and i also believe it's harder and harder the later you start the transition

1638
01:31:31.102 --> 01:31:33.324
because climate change starts to kick in.

1639
01:31:34.845 --> 01:31:35.966
And as I said earlier,

1640
01:31:36.127 --> 01:31:37.948
I'm not afraid of heat waves anymore.

1641
01:31:40.050 --> 01:31:41.131
They have a yield impact,

1642
01:31:41.151 --> 01:31:42.893
but not as big anymore.

1643
01:31:43.833 --> 01:31:46.055
I'm not afraid of water,

1644
01:31:46.416 --> 01:31:48.157
kind of heavy rains anymore.

1645
01:31:49.338 --> 01:31:50.239
Not a problem to me.

1646
01:31:54.166 --> 01:31:54.546
So yeah,

1647
01:31:55.187 --> 01:31:57.168
there's a lot it helps for.

1648
01:31:58.569 --> 01:32:02.772
So the long-term effect is totally positive that I'm sure about.

1649
01:32:02.952 --> 01:32:09.256
But there's this phase where you're going to make mistakes.

1650
01:32:09.296 --> 01:32:09.577
And I mean,

1651
01:32:10.737 --> 01:32:11.218
there's always,

1652
01:32:11.298 --> 01:32:11.438
ah,

1653
01:32:13.019 --> 01:32:15.000
we can help you with this with consultants.

1654
01:32:15.701 --> 01:32:16.001
I'm like,

1655
01:32:16.962 --> 01:32:17.182
tough.

1656
01:32:17.462 --> 01:32:19.503
Because it's not about the big things.

1657
01:32:19.583 --> 01:32:20.104
It's not about,

1658
01:32:20.244 --> 01:32:20.404
ah,

1659
01:32:20.424 --> 01:32:21.845
you should plant that cover crop.

1660
01:32:21.925 --> 01:32:22.045
No.

1661
01:32:23.578 --> 01:32:39.209
It's about did you drill it three centimeters deep or five or seven or just spread it or it's about this how and in one situation just spread it or to

1662
01:32:39.629 --> 01:32:39.930
kind of

1663
01:32:40.510 --> 01:32:56.517
trill it into the soil just a little can work in other places you need the five and then how do you set the machine that the furrow is nicely closed and all that stuff that's the stuff it is about it's the nitty-gritty it's the small things that

1664
01:32:56.557 --> 01:33:09.562
you set correctly or not that make it work or not and that's not too much of what the consultant is going to tell you it's it's more about your experience in the different situations and

1665
01:33:10.098 --> 01:33:15.542
conditions on actually how the things are working and how do you have to set the machines.

1666
01:33:17.183 --> 01:33:18.284
And then no one helps you.

1667
01:33:18.924 --> 01:33:21.887
This is your thing and that's where you will do the mistakes.

1668
01:33:22.087 --> 01:33:22.707
They will happen.

1669
01:33:23.508 --> 01:33:26.350
So it's more of a question how do you do that,

1670
01:33:26.610 --> 01:33:27.891
that you have the learning,

1671
01:33:28.251 --> 01:33:28.872
the hedge.

1672
01:33:29.192 --> 01:33:30.032
So this is again,

1673
01:33:30.673 --> 01:33:37.098
it gets back to doing small steps but the right ones and that's what we have to ensure.

1674
01:33:38.794 --> 01:33:39.354
Yeah.

1675
01:33:39.694 --> 01:33:45.477
And so you also mentioned the need for finding extra income sources for regenerative farmers.

1676
01:33:45.957 --> 01:33:48.938
What are the most promising avenues you've been exploring?

1677
01:33:49.639 --> 01:33:49.879
I mean,

1678
01:33:49.879 --> 01:33:50.119
to me,

1679
01:33:50.799 --> 01:33:51.119
you know,

1680
01:33:51.479 --> 01:33:54.320
with all the latest things with inflation and everything,

1681
01:33:54.421 --> 01:33:58.762
I don't see that people are yet ready to just pay more for food.

1682
01:33:59.042 --> 01:34:03.344
And we see this premium market that's like maximum 15%

1683
01:34:03.444 --> 01:34:04.104
of the market.

1684
01:34:05.085 --> 01:34:07.626
The rest is reluctant to pay more.

1685
01:34:08.242 --> 01:34:09.323
And that's a fact.

1686
01:34:10.604 --> 01:34:11.765
So the question here is,

1687
01:34:12.645 --> 01:34:23.734
what's the potential sources of money that you could kind of access without making it more expensive?

1688
01:34:25.435 --> 01:34:26.516
We talked about health,

1689
01:34:27.376 --> 01:34:28.237
but that's long term.

1690
01:34:28.997 --> 01:34:29.798
When you buy food,

1691
01:34:29.958 --> 01:34:31.339
that's a short term decision.

1692
01:34:35.526 --> 01:34:37.268
So what I see is really this,

1693
01:34:37.288 --> 01:34:38.629
we call it smart deals,

1694
01:34:38.689 --> 01:34:51.339
that you try to give preferred quality schemes or whatever to farmers that are into regeneration so that they can sell a higher share of what they have produced.

1695
01:34:54.222 --> 01:34:57.164
I believe that's how it's to be done.

1696
01:34:59.266 --> 01:34:59.426
Yeah,

1697
01:34:59.426 --> 01:35:03.952
and then another one is really like thinking about all the middlemen and all the,

1698
01:35:05.734 --> 01:35:05.855
yeah,

1699
01:35:05.955 --> 01:35:07.777
to shorten the supply chains.

1700
01:35:08.358 --> 01:35:08.618
I mean,

1701
01:35:08.658 --> 01:35:09.059
this is,

1702
01:35:10.861 --> 01:35:12.924
it's also a thing about aggregation,

1703
01:35:13.084 --> 01:35:17.590
but it's a lot more about market in transparency.

1704
01:35:19.114 --> 01:35:37.908
and the problem with market in transparency is that the people that are having a benefit of it will fight anything that makes things more transparent so but i believe that could be another source of uh uh

1705
01:35:37.908 --> 01:35:45.554
yeah access to money for farmers and then we have one less last thing which is i just

1706
01:35:46.938 --> 01:35:50.660
I'm very sure that too much food is wasted today.

1707
01:35:53.041 --> 01:35:54.522
And that's also consumer's money.

1708
01:35:56.643 --> 01:36:02.566
So having less waste and using that money for maybe paying a bit more,

1709
01:36:02.666 --> 01:36:04.647
so you're not spending more overall,

1710
01:36:05.867 --> 01:36:07.888
but you're spending more on the stuff you buy,

1711
01:36:08.008 --> 01:36:08.889
but then you eat it,

1712
01:36:08.929 --> 01:36:10.029
you actually eat it.

1713
01:36:12.466 --> 01:36:27.216
that i think would be also yeah creating a lot of money that's kind of a paradox right you said that people are not willing to pay more for good food and then people will waste a lot of that food that they buy cheap because it's so cheap that you then you think well

1714
01:36:27.316 --> 01:36:28.717
it's fine if I waste a little bit of it,

1715
01:36:29.037 --> 01:36:31.399
it goes bad in the fridge.

1716
01:36:31.519 --> 01:36:37.623
The dry bread you throw away or the salad that's just not so nice anymore or the vegetables,

1717
01:36:38.384 --> 01:36:41.286
instead of somehow using them still and so on and so forth.

1718
01:36:41.346 --> 01:36:42.567
Yeah,

1719
01:36:42.587 --> 01:36:42.767
tough.

1720
01:36:43.447 --> 01:36:45.669
I think their education comes into play again.

1721
01:36:46.229 --> 01:36:52.473
And we have cut back on all that education that we had in schooling when it comes to cooking and everything.

1722
01:36:53.778 --> 01:36:58.641
And today it's all about convenience and you do it and if it's not fitting you're throwing it away.

1723
01:36:59.282 --> 01:37:01.603
It's not about cooking a great meal anymore.

1724
01:37:02.584 --> 01:37:02.844
You know,

1725
01:37:03.204 --> 01:37:06.947
I think there's also some corrective actions we have to take.

1726
01:37:07.667 --> 01:37:08.588
How much do you want to...

1727
01:37:08.628 --> 01:37:16.333
to invest into the third language people should talk or actually some physics.

1728
01:37:16.473 --> 01:37:18.894
And it's great if you learn all this stuff.

1729
01:37:19.175 --> 01:37:23.617
But when you then miss out on the basic and that harms our society so much,

1730
01:37:24.518 --> 01:37:27.920
then I think we should start rethinking if we have taken the right measures.

1731
01:37:28.440 --> 01:37:29.121
Completely agree.

1732
01:37:29.381 --> 01:37:30.142
I completely agree.

1733
01:37:30.542 --> 01:37:34.945
And maybe education systems will need to change drastically in the coming years with AI and all of that.

1734
01:37:34.965 --> 01:37:36.265
And maybe that's an opportunity to...

1735
01:37:37.306 --> 01:37:41.971
to maybe leave out a little bit of the stuff that will be done also,

1736
01:37:42.391 --> 01:37:44.953
or that is not as necessary to a happy,

1737
01:37:45.054 --> 01:37:47.115
healthy human life anymore.

1738
01:37:47.676 --> 01:37:48.337
Um,

1739
01:37:48.617 --> 01:37:48.777
and,

1740
01:37:48.917 --> 01:37:49.598
and added,

1741
01:37:49.758 --> 01:37:51.900
added a bit more of the core essentials of life,

1742
01:37:52.621 --> 01:37:52.901
like.

1743
01:37:54.066 --> 01:38:15.464
nutrition and food and where the food comes from and community and relationships and things like that exactly and being able to to talk with each other and i just wanted to come back also to something else you said about transparency some sometimes i feel like when you're looking for the problems in society just suggest more transparency and look at who's fighting it you

1744
01:38:15.464 --> 01:38:21.730
might get a clue about where the problem lies i totally agree um but yeah anyway we

1745
01:38:22.586 --> 01:38:23.866
It's been an amazing conversation.

1746
01:38:23.886 --> 01:38:26.807
I feel like I could just keep talking to you about so many different things.

1747
01:38:27.288 --> 01:38:30.749
You are incredible with knowledge and your experience.

1748
01:38:30.769 --> 01:38:32.629
And so thank you so much for hosting me here.

1749
01:38:33.330 --> 01:38:37.831
Thanks a lot for sharing this incredible knowledge with the Deep Seed community.

1750
01:38:38.571 --> 01:38:39.272
And thank you very much.

1751
01:38:39.412 --> 01:38:39.852
Thanks a lot,

1752
01:38:39.932 --> 01:38:40.292
Raphael.

1753
01:38:41.021 --> 01:38:41.971
It's been great having you.