Welcome back to the Deep Seat Podcast.
Today
I decided to revisit a conversation I had with Alfonso Chico de Guzman from
La Junquera in Spain.
We've been hearing so much about the water problems in Spain in recent years and even more so in the last few weeks with the recent events in
Valencia.
And for that reason,
I thought it would be a good idea to revisit this conversation with Alfonso,
because he is located in a very difficult area where he's facing very,
very long dry periods,
followed by very heavy rains.
And he's been trying to tackle that issue head on for the last
10 years using regenerative methods,
regenerative hydrology.
So redesigning the landscape in a way that holds back the water,
slows it down and helps it seep into the ground and recharge the water systems.
So let's get into this conversation.
Thank you so much for listening,
for being here,
for caring about regenerating our planet.
As per usual,
this episode was made in partnership with Soil Capital.
I am your host Raphael and this is the Deep Seed Podcast.
Your farm,
La Jonquera,
has been in your family for many generations,
spanning 200 years.
And over the decades and even centuries,
it has been through a lot of transformations,
following the evolution of society,
I guess.
And noticeably...
it went from a more traditional mode of farming to what we call conventional farming.
And back in 2011,
it became organic.
And then more recently,
since you took over,
it became a regenerative farm.
I would love it if you could talk us through the evolution of the farm,
and in particular,
the transition between conventional and regenerative.
Yeah,
I think it has been going also a bit with
in a way,
of what society was asking for.
So basically until the 1960s,
it worked as a medieval place,
in a medieval management.
In a way,
there were more than 100 people living in the farm,
working the land with horses,
with mules,
and basically doing a type of farming of subsistence,
growing some grains and vegetables on the irrigated part.
And it was given also the landowner.
a percentage of that harvest.
It was...
And then the landowner,
depending on my grandfather or great-grandfather at the time or whoever was in charge then,
the main business though was not that,
but it was the esparto that they would manage directly.
And that is kind of how farms and things would work at the time.
But then in the late
50s, 60s machinery started to arrive and there was
a growing population,
a growing demand of more and more food.
And you were a superhero if you were a farmer that were producing a lot of food,
a lot of calories for society.
And that is when the green revolution,
they call it green,
it was not so green,
with all the chemicals coming in to produce as much as possible.
And that is when you were doing a really good job.
So they moved into that and they were very proud that with the first tractors that arrived in the area,
And with all of these inputs,
they were indeed producing very big amounts of food.
Then it changed to,
well,
first of all,
the lands started to get degraded a lot.
A lot of the structures that were in the land were moved.
For example,
a lot of terraces were moved.
A lot of parts of natural areas were cleared out to make into farming when tractors arrived.
Because,
yeah,
parts that were too steep or too stony to farm with mules,
then they were okay to do with tractors.
yeah that was uh i think a mistake because the first years they did give a harvest but after that yeah all the organic matter was washed down all the good soil was yeah was moved away by erosion and then uh yeah the a
lot of things the tractors started at some places like even tilling downhill because it was more convenient stuff like that i think it happened all over all over the area or maybe even the world and uh
Yeah,
you can see how that was a big,
big change that damaged the farm.
What's the problem with tilling downhill?
Well,
the problem with tilling downhill is that you're kind of creating very nice channels or canals for the water when it comes in hard.
it happens in our area,
to move as fast as possible and then move with it all of the fine particles,
organic matter and nice soil that we have.
It helps the water slide down the hill rather than if it was tilled horizontally,
it would create some horizontal channel where the water can actually be stopped and seep in the ground.
Yeah,
so for example there are some big plots,
well there are some small plots with terraces let's say,
and then those terraces were taken out
and the plot would be bigger and instead of tilling the way of the terraces which is horizontal it would be tilling downhill so you can imagine the disaster that happened in a few years in a few decades even in some parts then you i could see when i arrived the bedrock and
then when i asked the older people that that knew that farm more years ago they said yeah actually in here i asked for example why don't we have a terrace and said yeah
But that's kind of going backwards because here there used to be terraces.
Well,
that makes a lot of sense.
There used to be terraces and now there was bedrock.
And there is a plot that we actually,
we started making one swale and then we make three or four more.
I think we have five swales that are these trenches that follow the contour lines.
So kind of to make sure you're always horizontal.
And then when you go over with a tractor on the field,
you have to go parallel to those lines.
So,
yeah,
bye.
By that I think that plot when it had terraces the erosion was not too bad even though the plot is quite steep.
I think it's a bit over 10% steepness.
It's not crazy but with these conditions it is bad if you till downhill.
And now with all these swales and a few ponds that we made I think the erosion is almost gone.
This seems like a great example of something that can be implemented fairly easily but that has a big
positive impact.
Because if I understand correctly,
you didn't need to change your system.
You're still using the same machinery,
you're still growing the same crops.
But the change you made is that you dug swales in a few places in the landscape,
horizontal to the slope,
and that you're using the machinery following those lines now.
And that change alone is really making a big difference.
Yeah,
I think a lot of this
Things have more to do with the mindset than with the machinery.
I think,
yeah,
it's more a change of mind than a change of tools.
I think you can use the same tools like everything else to degrade or to do harm or to build or to do something better.
And well,
actually for these trenches,
we need we did need to buy one tool that is called a polydozer,
but
but it's not an expensive tool either.
And then with that,
because we could do it with an excavator,
but that would take much longer time and be a lot more expensive.
And with a polydoser was very much cheaper and faster to make these swales,
all of these trenches.
So we started building,
we rented out one and we built that swale,
then we built another,
and then we tried different sizes and different shapes and different,
with totally flat or a little bit of a steepness.
And after...
few times of trial and error then we we expanded on making many more and now yeah i haven't counted how many we have but i think we have at least 20 kilometers of these trenches over the farm do you see a lot of farmers in spain or in your area using
similar methods i think we made the first ones in spain eight or nine years ago but after that more people made some because
We actually,
some people borrowed our polydoser to make them and also other people,
yeah,
they hired their own machine and made them.
I don't know how many but at least I know a few farms that I've seen and I visited that they made these swales.
Could you give us a few examples of regenerative practices that you've implemented on your farm and that turned out to be success?
Yeah.
I could also give you many more of things that didn't work.
That was my next question.
Let's start with the positives.
Yeah,
I'll start with the positives.
First of all,
the swales that work really well.
So that is something
I was quite surprised that it worked as expected or even better.
It reduces erosion a lot or almost completely.
And it is not that expensive to do.
So that is one.
Another one is
leaving the straw of the grains on the ground when you harvest instead of harvesting it to make hay bales or straw bales
That works really well.
We've seen in the soil analysis in some plots that we've been doing,
reducing tillage,
adding organic matter and leaving this straw that,
yeah,
the organic matter is important to also add the nitrogen so this straw can decompose and then get into the ground.
And we've seen in some places where the organic matter content in six years of these practices have doubled.
Double doesn't mean going from 6 to 12.
In our case,
double means going from,
actually in that plot,
from 0.7 to 1.7.
And from 1 to...
some parts were 0.7,
some parts were 1,
and now a lot of the plot is 1.7% of organic matter,
which we're very proud of.
That's considerable in just six years.
You must be doing something right.
Yeah,
so that is...
and we have the control plots of the...
a neighbor that is doing conventional they're yeah basically the same plots just divided by a road and we did a project with a university checking not just the organic matter content but also the microbiology and yeah fertility
in general and also we have some pictures of after a rain event how in our plot a lot of things grew were growing and you would see some green stuff and the other one was bearing still so that is
That has been really nice to see also how some of these things that we felt with our senses,
yes this is working but now scientifically with all these tests and all of this help of researchers and universities and students,
now we have the data that it also shows that is that is working.
Besides those techniques,
well ponds as well,
we've been making from really small ponds to quite big,
more than a hundred of them.
And they work really well.
Also they work very differently each one,
but they all have a really good impact.
What's the idea behind ponds?
Slow down water,
infiltrate water,
create biodiversity hotspots.
Some of them only have water for a few days or weeks after it rains,
but that's enough for a lot of these Mediterranean plants and animals to use it.
and a lot of species of tots for example tots or toads i don't know how you call it frogs too yeah similar to frogs they only need water for a few weeks to get the eggs and get the tots out so you don't need them to be full of water all year round and in the summer some
of them have water in the summer and then you see a spectacular yeah like an oasis in the middle of the desert you see a lot of life going on there um but yeah all of them serve a purpose all of them yeah do
either improve biodiversity a lot or improve infiltration,
reduce erosion or generally all of the above.
And how do you choose where you start a pond?
Everywhere.
They try to make as many as possible everywhere but places that they are not too inconvenient for machinery to go through and if you see that it has the shape that you could make a little or a bigger dam there that could hold water and
yeah reduce the the speed of the flow when it rains uh hard then i make it i don't really check if uh the ground has this or that type of uh if it will hold water very well or not because i think it doesn't really matter i guess you're on your farm every day you can feel kind of where where it works and where it would fit yeah
the operation and um a really good advice that i i don't know if i saw it in a video or uh or i read it somewhere is when it rains
It is very typical in our area to go in the house and make migas.
Migas is a type of food with a gigantic pan.
You make it with flour and oil and it's very tasty.
So when it rains,
everyone goes into their houses and make migas.
And then a person,
a farmer that I read somewhere said,
actually,
when it rains,
get out,
go in your car or walk in or horse or whatever.
And yeah,
and that is the moment when you can see where the water flows.
I started doing that sometimes in the car,
sometimes with the two buddies on a horse,
which is also a lot of fun.
And last year we could also do it with a drone and that was even nicer.
So we could see not only with your eyes,
but also with the camera of the drone,
a lot of things that we didn't realize until we could see it with that view where the water is going and where you can hold it.
So technology,
is that something that you use a lot and that you find helpful in your
regenerative transition?
Yeah,
technology is definitely helping a lot.
We use as much as we can and it is definitely useful.
like everything else,
it's a tool.
You can use it for regenerate or to degenerate.
And we do have modern tractors with GPS.
We have also,
a few weeks ago or even a month ago,
we bought these no fence collars for the cows and it's a virtual fencing system.
It's amazing.
It saves so much time.
It helps so much to be able to use.
to graze parts that otherwise would be too difficult to fence with an electric fence.
And that is an amazing technology.
I imagine that it will grow a lot.
I have to be honest,
I had never heard about this technology yet.
So I'm really keen for you to explain even just in simple terms how it works.
So it is a collar you put on the cow.
So before they had this beautiful leather collars with a bell.
Now,
unfortunately,
we had to take those off even though they were very beautiful,
but you cannot have both now.
And then you put these colors that they have a solar panel,
they have a battery,
they're connected with phone signal and GPS.
And then with your phone,
you bring the cows to a plot.
You,
from the screen of your phone,
mark the limits of that plot where you don't want the cows to move.
Well,
like,
yeah,
you put the borders.
And then the cows,
if they get near the border,
they get a sound.
like kind of a music.
It's like,
something like that.
And then if they pass the border,
I think it sounds like one or two times.
And then after that,
it gives an electric pulse.
It is,
well,
I don't know how,
I haven't tried it on myself,
but it's quite effective for the cows.
And it takes them a few days to understand the system.
You do it with a real fence the first day so they understand,
okay,
what is going on.
And I also could see,
because you can monitor it on your phone,
every single cow,
what is going on,
how many times it got the sound,
how many times it got the pulse and all of that.
The first week they got the sound all the time.
They got the pulse,
I think,
yeah,
some a few times a day,
some every other day.
And after that,
I think we haven't got a cow getting the pulse in weeks.
Now they understand.
Now,
as soon as they hear the sound,
they understand.
And they kind of understand how the imaginary line goes.
So even the sound doesn't,
they don't hear it that much.
So it is really,
really good,
especially in a dry year like this.
There's many places that we would need weeks to fence with an electric fence or even farms of other people that is quite complicated to ask them to then go and fence it with this electric fence and take maybe a month.
When then.
the cows are only going to be able to graze there for a week.
So you cannot do it.
It's economically not viable at all.
Now with the colors,
there's no place too small or too far or too whatever to be able to go and graze it.
You mentioned earlier in the conversation that a lot of students are coming to your farm to study what you're doing,
but also to experiment with different things.
Do you have any examples of something that was tried out by students and turned out to work so well that you actually applied it to your farming system?
Yeah,
yeah.
So for example,
one is these vegetation strips that we leave in the middle of the line of trees that are about one and a half to two meters wide.
At the beginning,
the change was from the conventional tilling eight times a year between trees to moving to three times a year and only summer and winter,
summer and spring,
sorry.
And then with a student.
of the academy we started trying with these vegetation strips in the middle that are never touched so those are never tilled and and then yeah we saw it work really well so we expanded it to every plot we had so strip so you have rows of trees that you're planting like
trees almond trees for example or pistachio trees they are seven meters apart yeah the street and then in those seven meters in the middle you would leave a strip of about two meters wide
that is never touched,
never tilled.
And that is really good for erosion,
biodiversity,
holding soil,
creating soil.
And you're doing that every what,
other strip?
Every strip.
Every single strip?
Yeah.
So we,
the experiments were like that first.
Let's see,
half a meter wide,
five meters wide.
Some lines were all of the line,
like no till all of the line.
And then others are just everything tilled and depending on the time of the year.
And we saw,
yeah,
that now it's working really well to have these two meters wide in every line in all of the farm.
And now actually the new common agriculture policy.
They encouraged and they included it that if you do that,
they give you a bit more money in the subsidies of the common agriculture policy.
So that's a win-win for your operation and you get extra for doing it.
Yeah.
Right.
Maybe giving some ideas to other farmers listening to this podcast.
Yeah.
But it's great to see that practices that bring back biodiversity and resilience to farms are being supported by governments on the local,
national or European level.
What do you think about the subsidies that are available today?
Do you find them sufficient?
Do you think that farmers are rewarded enough for their regenerative efforts?
I think in this new common agriculture policy that is going to be implemented in the next years,
it has been definitely a step forward to support more sustainable and regenerative farming like this,
for example,
this
the specific technique of the vegetation strips.
We were doing it before anyway and now and a lot of people were saying like yeah but that is a problem because that is you have to change the tool and you have to adapt it and yeah I just rather continue like before or they
wouldn't maybe give that much importance to the soil erosion or to biodiversity or to the slow creation of soil in that part of the field.
And now it's been funny because a lot of local farmers have been coming to visit us to see how we made those strips last year,
because then there was a subsidy for it.
So everyone wanted to do that,
but they were not sure how to.
And then they came to see because ours are a few years old.
Some of them are seven years old or six years old that we did the first ones with the experiments.
So it shows that.
Subsidies can be such a massive lever for change,
right?
Because if you can give farmers that extra incentive to try something new and then it turns out that it works really well for them and they can just add that to their farming system for the long term,
then it's a big step in the right direction,
right?
Yeah,
yeah,
yeah.
And now you see many,
many,
many farms in our area,
many plots that now have these vegetation strips.
Before,
I think we were the only ones,
pretty much.
Now a lot of people have it.
And a lot of people were skeptical also and didn't do it.
But I'm sure that after seeing that,
yeah,
it doesn't do any harm,
we'll start doing it in a few years.
The fact that you had an opportunity to experiment with regenerative practices on the farm,
how much did that impact your motivation to come back,
take on the farm and give it all of your time and your energy?
I couldn't have stayed and managed.
a farm of a monoculture of grains for 40 years.
I would be doing something else.
I couldn't,
yeah,
I don't like that.
I really like the part of experimenting and trying new things.
Once something works,
actually I prefer to delegate it.
So the changes,
yeah,
I find they're quite exciting.
And here comes the mysterious piano music I like to put at the end of episodes so that I can talk about the key messages I want to highlight from the conversation.
But to be completely honest with you,
it's quite late.
I've been working all day and like most agricultural soils in Europe and in the world,
I'm exhausted.
So I'm just going to use this space to thank you so much for listening to this episode until the end and for...
Being you for being the kind of person who cares about regenerating our planets.
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Thank you so much for that.
Thank you for listening.
I wish you the best day or the best night,
depending on.
what time it is when you're listening to this and take care.