September 2, 2025 • 25 mins
“One of the things I learned through the course of my career is that people don't have any trust, confidence, or faith in you until they feel like you care about them and learn what they need.” —Mark Spoone
What if the key to a healthier planet and better food lies right beneath our feet? The way we treat our soil today could transform our future, making it richer and more sustainable for generations to come.
With a career spanning multiple industries, Mark Spoone has founded over ten companies and taken three public, all while maintaining a focus on sustainable practices. His latest venture, Living Water, aims to transform agriculture by revitalizing soil health, offering a fresh perspective on how we can nourish both our bodies and the earth.
Join Justine and Mark as they explore fresh insights into creating a positive environmental impact through innovative agricultural solutions, restoring soil health with beneficial microbes, enhancing crop health and nutrient density, the rapid improvements possible with regenerative farming, the growing recognition of sustainable practices, the link between soil health and food quality, the importance of teamwork in entrepreneurship, the cost-effectiveness of the Living Water system, the health benefits of nutrient-dense food, and addressing water conservation challenges in agriculture.
Meet Mark:
Mark Spoone is a seasoned entrepreneur with a diverse career spanning financial services, technology, strategic management, real estate, printing, beverage, hemp, artificial intelligence (AI), and agriculture. Known for his innovative approach to sustainable farming, he has founded over ten companies and led many others as CEO, General Manager, Director, or Board Member, successfully taking three companies public. His latest venture, Living Water, focuses on revitalizing soil health through biological fertilizers, aiming to reduce reliance on synthetic inputs and enhance nutrient density in crops. Mark's broad industry experience has provided him with invaluable learning opportunities and the chance to collaborate with some of the industry's finest experts. Driven by a passion for environmental sustainability and a commitment to positively impacting global food systems, he enjoys investing himself in challenges that align with his values.
Connect with NextGen Purpose:
Episode Highlights:
01:13 What is the Living Water?
05:41 Technology and Implementation
11:01 Impact on Soil and Food Quality
18:09 The Challenges Faced by Farmers and Their Need for Financial Support
21:55 Improving the Agronomic Landscape
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justine Reichman: (00:13):
Good morning, and welcome to Essential
Ingredients. I want to invite mynew friend, Mark, who is our
guest today, as well. Welcome toall of our listeners and viewers
that tune in each week. Becausewithout you, we're talking to no
one, so we're so glad to haveyou here. And you're going to be
excited to hear from Mark. He'san inspiration. He's the
quintessential entrepreneur. Haddone a variety of things, took a
(00:34):
circuitous path to get there.But ultimately, now a founder
and entrepreneur in theagriculture space. And I think
we're all going to learn a lot,both from his journey and what
he's trying to do. So welcome,Mark.
Mark Spoone: (00:47):
Thank you so much, Justine. I got to tell you, I'm
pretty excited about telling ourstory. Thank you enough for the
invite. I'm looking forward tosharing news, information and
insights in any way I can.
Justine Reichman: (01:00):
Awesome. My pleasure, Mark. It's great to
have you here. So before we evendig deep, let's just explain to
the audience, to the peopletuning in, to the people
listening, what is Living Water?
Mark Spoone: (01:13):
So Living Water, in its simplest of terms, it's a
biological fertilizer systemthat would reside on any farm.
It can work in your homeenvironment, but it's designed
and created to really work in anagricultural environment, so
large, commercial AG.Essentially what it does, in its
simplest of terms, what we do iswe bring mother nature back to
(01:38):
the soil. Over the last numberof years, the way that
conventional farming, pesticidesand everything has impacted our
soil, we've lost a lot of thevalue that soil has become dirt.
Living Water turns dirt backinto soil, and all the
associated benefits.
Justine Reichman: (01:54):
Now, I know why I think soil is important,
but I'm really curious. Why wassoil at the core of what you're
doing? Why is this your thing?
Mark Spoone: (02:03):
I'm a big fan of serendipity, and I really
believe in the idea thatconvergence takes place in very
odd, unusual ways. And so youhad mentioned that I've been a
serial entrepreneur, and I havebeen since probably the mid 90s.
This is my 12th, 13th or 14thstartup that I've done. I've
taken several companies, andI've been very, very fortunate
in my life. I'm at the stage nowwhere I have two teenage kids,
(02:26):
and I'm looking around at thestate of the world in a number
of ways. And it became reallyimportant to me that I wanted to
create something that was goingto change things and leave a
better footprint than what Istarted with. So I started
looking around with a couple ofassociates of mine, and we're
looking at getting into thepurchase of an organic
fertilizer company. So we wentout, we met the founders, the
(02:47):
owners, the company. And throughthe course of that, they're
farmers themselves. They've beenin the agricultural space for 40
years, and they had this conceptcalled Living Water. They
literally been working on it forfour or five years. And the day
before we got there, they hadjust built a website, and they
put it out there. So this isreally kind of a serendipitous
stumbling of sorts. We werelooking at getting something
(03:09):
that was going to be focused ona more natural way to feed the
food that we eat. Through thecourse of that, they shared with
us this idea and concept. Andsince then, which was probably
about two and a half years ago,I've just become a soil guy. I'm
a dirt guy. Now that Iunderstand it and the profound
impact that it has on humanhealth, on global health, I just
(03:30):
love everything about it. Soagain, serendipity was what
ruled the day, and I'm reallyglad it did.
Justine Reichman: (03:35):
This is super interesting. Here you are, you
have this new concept. You wantto build out. You want to figure
out, how am I going to solvethis problem? This happens at
this time now. All of a sudden,you have a way to do what you
were trying to do in your head,this conversation that was going
on, right? And here you are.You're an entrepreneur, and
you're talking to these people.So tell me, this guy was selling
(03:59):
his business. You had this ideaof what you wanted to do. How
did it all come together foryou?
Mark Spoone: (04:05):
Two brothers, Brandon and Brody, and they're
4th generation farmers. Theylive in Idaho and spend most of
their life farming with theirfamily. And through the course
of that, they started an organicfertilizer company, and they ran
into a lot of the samechallenges and issues that I
think most people see andrecognize. Over the course of
(04:25):
the last 50 years or so,conventional farming has been
completely immersed in the ideaof a chemical based application.
We have herbicides, pesticidesand synthetic fertilizers, and
we want to focus on organicallygrowing our food as much as
possible. And the thing theyrecognized was that conventional
(04:46):
farming has completely depletedsoil and turned it into dirt.
And so for me, the thing thatreally struck me, and I didn't
completely get this andunderstand it at the time, but
the reality of it is that thereare billions, if not trillions
of living little microbes in thedirt everywhere. You go out in
your backyard, you go in themiddle of the Amazon, you take a
scoop of dirt, and there's allthese little crawlies in there.
(05:07):
Microbes of billions andtrillions of counts. And what
happens is conventional farminghas a tendency to get rid of
weeds, get rid of bugs, get ridof everything in the soil. And
through the course of that, wereally start to kill that soil
microbiome, just like we have inour stomachs. The soil has a
microbiome. So essentially, whathappened was they recognized
(05:27):
that that was being depleted andgoing away. And they came up
with this concept of, why don'twe bring that back? Why don't we
reintroduce that? And there'sother companies that have
biological solutions. But whatthey did was come up with such a
unique and novel way that theymade it incredibly simple for
farmers to do this in a hypercost effective way. Biggest
(05:48):
challenge from farmers is costsand time.
Justine Reichman: (05:51):
Walk us through that technology, because
my understanding is Living Waterlets the farmers convert water
tanks into bioreactors that workwith the existing irrigation
system. So I think I've got acouple things. A, what does that
mean? B, I get that it allowsthem to dose beneficial bacteria
(06:16):
into the soil through thisirrigation system. So I can
picture it. It's comingtogether. It's putting it in
there, and then it's givingthose nutrients back, right? And
that doesn't exist in its formright now. This is not a thing
anywhere else, is it?
Mark Spoone: (06:35):
Not in the form that it's in. And so, I guess,
to give a little bit of clarity,the marketplace that creates
biologicals for people to putinto soil is big, huge and it's
growing. The challenge is thatthere is questionable validity
and efficacy of it. I'm going totry and keep this really basic
(06:58):
and simple. But if you thinkabout microbes, they're just
like fish, right? They need air,they need water, they need food.
So what we did is we recognizedthat a farmer going to a
fertilizer store and buying ajug of microbes probably isn't
going to have the same level ofefficiency as if I'm growing
microbes right next to my field,and I'm putting them in the
field while they're alive. Sothis system, we use the big term
(07:22):
$6 word, bioreactor. Abioreactor is a fish tank. In
its simplest of terms. Everyfarm in the country is going to
have an IBC tote. It's a great,big, giant, 265 gallon tote that
they get all kinds of nutrientsin. We have a kit that we can
turn that into a fish tank forall intents and purposes. The
kit goes on there. It has anaerator, a recirculating pump,
(07:44):
and a pump that connects it tothe irrigation. We have this
proprietary blend of varioustypes of microbes. They're in a
dry state. You pour them in thetank, the oxygen hits them, the
water hits them. They turnaround over about 24 hours,
you've got this incredibledensity of living microbes,
fungi, bacteria, beneficialinputs and everything. So every
(08:06):
time that farmer is puttingwater and irrigating his fields,
we're infusing billions andtrillions of living microbes
back into the soil. Once thosemicrobes hit the soil, they have
this symbiotic relationship withthe plants. So they feed the
plants, the plants feed them.
Justine Reichman: (08:24):
That's amazing. So you're working with
farmers, but are you going toother farmers too to talk to
them about this?
Mark Spoone: (08:30):
Every chance we get. If anybody will listen to
me, I'll tell you the story on abus, on an airplane, in
somebody's backyard. So we workreally, really hard.
Justine Reichman: (08:38):
What's their response? How are they taking
this?
Mark Spoone: (08:42):
It's interesting. I'd say there's been a really,
very noticeable evolution infarming over the course of the
last decade or so. I think mostpeople have heard of the term
regenerative farming.Regenerative farming is really
taking hold because people arestarting to understand and
recognize it. The way that we'vebeen doing things is probably
not going to serve us to keepdoing it that way. So
(09:04):
regenerative farming is theconcept of bringing living soil
back to the farm. So mostfarmers, they get the idea and
the concept. The idea of usshowing up with our system, it
can be a bit novel and a bitnew. But they get the basics,
the idea and the concept that,hey, if we can put living
microbes back in the soil, we'regoing to make a difference for
(09:26):
you on the farm.
Justine Reichman: (09:27):
And what does that look like? So there's an
expense attached, there's timeattached. It's just a new way of
looking at things for them to doit a little differently. So are
there any barriers for them thatthey see for this?
Mark Spoone: (09:41):
Over the course of time, as human beings, we get
used to doing things in aparticular way. And so when a
new idea or concept comes along,it takes a moment sometimes for
people to understand and adopt.The critical thing for us in
creating the system was farmersare some of the hardest working
people in the world. Dawn todusk every day, they have very
(10:03):
little time. They havecompounded issues now with farm
labor is becoming a real, realchallenge for them. So our
system is focused on a couple ofreally key things. Number one,
it's a set it and forget itsystem. We can set that up right
next to their pivot. It takesless than an hour to do it. The
setup cost for a farmer is zero.It costs them nothing. We'll
(10:26):
give them the kit. But what wedo ask is we ask them to
subscribe to our microbialservice for the entire season.
So they'll pay about 7 to $8 permonth per acre, and that cost
will actually cover the cost ofthe kit. So for them, the idea
of restoring their soil makes aton of sense. And now, we have a
very simple solution. It can beset up in an hour for zero cost
(10:49):
out of the gates, and 8,possibly $9 per month per acre.
So far, we've had tremendousadoption. We've grown 500% in
Justine Reichman: (10:55):
Wow, that's great to hear. I'm excited that
the last 12 months, so we'restarting to get the story sold.
they're so receptive, because Ido think that the more people do
this, the sooner we'll havebetter soil. Which leads me to
my question, it doesn't happenovernight. The soil doesn't
(11:16):
change overnight, right? Becauseyou still have the other soil
there, so you're adding thenutrients to it. But is that an
instantaneous thing? Or is therea runway until you feel like you
have soil that is robust andgoing to give us the nutrients,
minerals and all the differentthings that we need?
Mark Spoone: (11:36):
Generative farming is this concept where we have
very specific methods andtechniques that farmers will use
with the idea and intent that wewant to restore the soil. So
most regenerative farmingmethodologies can take three,
four, possibly five years to reestablish that soil microbiome.
gets really interesting.
Here's the thing that seemsreally off the charts and very
(11:59):
unbelievable to us even, is weare seeing a re establishment of
the soil microbiome in as littleas 120 days. We literally have
soil tests that show going fromthis to this in 120 days. And
we've had crop consultants andagronomists quote us almost
specifically and say that theseare the kinds of results that
(12:20):
normally take me three to fiveyears to get.
Justine Reichman: (13:07):
So how does it impact the soil? How does it
impact us? What kinds ofbenefits are we seeing? And if
we think long term, what doesthat impact look like with it
versus without it?
Mark Spoone: (13:19):
So from a food standpoint, you've probably
heard people talk about, hey, ifyou ate an apple in the 1950s
versus eating an apple today,it's a totally different
nutrient profile. They're right.They're accurate. Part of the
reason for that is farmers focuson, we have macros, right?
Carbohydrates, protein and fat.Farmers focus on their macros,
(13:40):
nitrogen, phosphorus andpotassium. What they don't focus
on are the micronutrients, andthat's where we get all of our
benefit. Not all, but a lot ofour benefit and value. By
bringing Mother Nature back withthis microbial soil microbiome,
what we're doing is we'reletting those little guys create
all the things that we need. Themanganese, the magnesium, the
copper, the zinc, all the thingsthat have been missing from our
(14:03):
food for so long. So what we'reseeing is almost a complete
restoration. I'll give you asmall example. Alfalfa is grown
many times as a feed for cattle.They'll actually measure the
nutrient value of alfalfa, andit's called a relative feed
value in 149 day study, in aside by side comparison. We
(14:24):
increased the nutrient value,the relative feed value by 46%
in 49 days. So our field withliving water was 46% better than
the standard field.
Justine Reichman: (14:36):
So what does better mean?
Mark Spoone: (14:38):
It means that just like you and I take a
multivitamin, and we'll sit downand make sure that we're getting
this full spectrum of Bs, and C,and E, and all the other things.
Food is a similar idea. Food hassome basic qualities. And within
those basic qualities, weinclude these micronutrients,
and that's where we should begetting. The vast majority of
our nutrition is from the foodwe. What living water does is it
(15:01):
allows the soil to entertainthese microbes, and allows them
to actually create, sustain andreinfuse all those
micronutrients back into thesoil so the plants can say, hey,
I got some. And they updatethat, and then we eat it.
Justine Reichman: (15:16):
I totally get that, and I'd love to hear that,
because I feel like we're losinga lot. I think we already have
digestive issues which allow usnot to metabolize it, metabolize
different things and really takethem in. So with that, if we're
fixing the soil and thennourishing the foods, the crops,
and then we're eating them, andthey have more nutrients, right?
Mark Spoone: (15:40):
I'm not qualified to give a firm answer from a
medical standpoint, but I cantalk to you from a reasonable
man perspective. If I'm eatingfood that's more nutrient dense,
that has more of the good thingsin it that my body needs
inherently and intrinsically.I'm assuming that I'm probably
going to be a healthier guy.What I would say is what we're
(16:00):
seeing, and this is anecdotallyand factually on farms. By us
bringing this Mother Nature bat,soil microbiome bat, what we're
doing is we're reducing theneed. We dramatically reducing
the need for synthetic inputslike herbicides and pesticides.
One small example, there's apotato field that we're working
(16:21):
with, and they have tremendousnematode damage. Nematodes exist
everywhere in the world, in thedirt all the time. By re
establishing the balance in thesoil, the nematodes stopped
attacking the potatoes. And as aresult, they no longer have to
use a nematicide. Nematicidesare really horrendously toxic.
So if we're not having to usenematicides, or herbicides, or
(16:43):
pesticides, or we candramatically reduce them, the
likelihood of that showing up inour food goes down.
Justine Reichman: (16:49):
I'm curious about something else. I know
that this is all part ofirrigation and putting it in
there. And one of thechallenges, I know we have a big
challenge here in California, itcan be a bit of a touchy subject
when we talk about water,watering plants and watering all
these different things. So haveyou come up against that at all?
(17:09):
Has that been a problem, aquestion, a concern that people
have brought up?
Mark Spoone: (17:14):
In a very potentially counterintuitive
way, the answer is yes and no.What I would tell you is, when
you have dirt that doesn't haveany soil organic carbon and it
doesn't have all thosemicrobials in it dirt, it's like
sand. It has very littlecapacity to hold water. By
reintroducing the soilmicrobiome, what we do is, on
(17:36):
average, we'll increase thesoils ability to hold water by
25 to 30%. So what happens is,instead of water going to the
soil and running off orevaporating, we now have a
significant increase in soilmoisture. The result is we need
less water. So that's one of thevery valuable benefits of
restoring soil, is we'reactually reducing the amount of
(17:58):
water that farmers need.
Justine Reichman: (17:59):
And then when I think about your journey here,
I think about all the differentthings that you did to get here.
And I'm curious, what do youpull on from your journey,
whether as an entrepreneur orwherever, that helped you today?
What are some of those keyskills that were transferable,
(18:20):
that are helping you in thisendeavor?
Mark Spoone: (18:22):
I started my career, professional career,
really working as a financialplanner, and it's a glorified
name for a salesperson. Really,what I did is I sold people
investment products, but I wasdoing it on a personal basis.
And one of the things I learnedthrough the course of that is
that people really don't haveany trust, confidence or faith
in you until they really feellike you care about them in what
(18:44):
they need and what they learn.And I think that set the tone
for me for a lot of what I didthe rest of my life. And so one
of the things that I think I'vetaken away the most and that
comes to bear the most, farmersare some of the hardest working
people in the world. Farming, byits nature, it's a gamble.
Everything they do every day isa gamble, and there's so many
things associated with farmingthat they just don't have
(19:07):
control over. And so they'rereally at the bottom of the
totem pole when it comes towho's making money in this food
chain. And for me, I started theNational Hemp Association
probably 10 years ago. And theidea and concept behind it was
we wanted to support farmers whowere interested in using
industrial hemp as a means tohelp restore and re establish
some of their financialsecurity. So through the course
(19:29):
of this, I'd say my biggestlesson is, if we can't find a
way to make sure that thatfarmer is getting direct value
and benefit, then we failed. Andthe downstream effects of that
are, obviously, if we're givinghim something that makes sense,
that saves him money, that makeshis life better, and he produces
a better crop. The downstreameffects are that you, me and
(19:50):
everybody else, we get to eatbetter food. And by the way,
we're capturing a ton of carbonin the soil. We're helping the
climate. So for me, that'sprobably my biggest takeaway,
Justine, is if we can't find away to make sure we're taking
care of the people, ourcustomers, at the end of it,
nothing else really matters forus.
Justine Reichman: (20:06):
I love that because it is personal, and
everybody's being thought of,the farmers being thought of,
the consumers being thought of,and it's really better for the
world and better for the planet.So to me, that resonates. And
I'm thinking about the listenersand the viewers that are tuning
in and thinking, okay, well,what would they ask now? What do
(20:27):
they want to know? Here you are.You're a serial entrepreneur.
You're building out thisamazing, purpose driven
business. And so maybe you couldshare three things in your
journey that maybe, becauseyou've had 14 startups, you do
differently now than you did inthe first two as lessons
learned.
Mark Spoone: (20:46):
So I think first and foremost, you've got to find
a group of people that havesimilar alignment about values,
what they care about, and a workethic. So I'd say that's one of
the most important things. Thesecond piece is really
empowering people to do whatthey need to do so they can be
successful. At the end of thejourney, everything everybody
does for the most part is avolunteer position. So if I
(21:09):
can't help people find ways,whether they're customers,
business partners or whoever Iwork with, to make sure that
they're getting everything theyneed, and they've got the
resources for me to besuccessful, then I failed. And I
think ultimately, the end of theday is kind of looking in the
mirror and asking myself thequestion, am I doing the right
things? Probably the three keythings for me is really relying
(21:31):
on the people around me,empowering them to make sure
they get what they need, andgiving them the tools to do it.
Justine Reichman: (21:37):
So now, you have this venture, and it's been
two years. And so when you lookahead five years from now,
what's the big goal here? Whatare you hoping to say?
Mark Spoone: (21:48):
So I want to make sure that I really bring this
up. There are seven of us inthis company. So we've all got
essentially a very, very evenequal state. We all have very
important, very specific roles.So I just happen to be in the
role that I'm in. But the restof the players and everybody on
this team, they're the ones thatare really creating the success.
What I'm doing is I'm justtrying to line the pieces up
(22:10):
along the way. So I really wantto make sure that everybody
understands that we couldn'thave gotten to where we are
without everybody's alignmentand investment. They're far more
important than I am in theoverall scheme of thing. And
again, my lifelong goal is I'vealways wanted to be the dumbest
guy in the room. That's kind ofwhat I strive for. And I think
in many of the meetingsinternally we have, that's
typically true. I've got somereally sharp, really smart
(22:32):
partners that make it happen. Socollectively as a team, I think
to answer your question aboutwhere we would like to be, we
would like to be as pervasiveand as covering as many acres as
we possibly can the world over.We recognize tremendous pressure
on farmers and on our globalfood supply chain. We know that
(22:56):
without equivocation, that thissolution, for all the reasons
that we're talking about, cancompletely change the entire
agronomic landscape and horizon.So our goal is to create success
for as many farmers as wereasonably possibly can, in any
way we can.
Justine Reichman: (23:14):
Thank you so much. Expect that the listeners
and the viewers will have lotsof questions. And I hope to be
able to share them with you sowe can provide more information
and answers to their questions.
Mark Spoone: (23:26):
Well, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. I
just I hope that your listenersreally start internalizing the
idea that as consumers, we havetremendous power and tremendous
sway with producers andmanufacturers. So for those
things that you guys think areimportant, particularly when it
comes to the stuff that we putinto our bodies, make sure you
talk to your local grocers. Makesure you talk to all the people
(23:48):
in your supply chain, and letthem know how important that is.
I appreciate the chance to catchup. We love telling our story.
You've got a tremendousfollowing and a tremendous
movement. You're leading, andwe're very, very happy to be a
part of it, so thank you somuch.
Justine Reichman: (24:03):
Thank you, Mark. And just before we say our
goodbyes, because you justmentioned this, to give our
listeners and our viewers twoquestions that maybe you could
share, that maybe they shouldask their grocers.
Mark Spoone: (24:16):
I always ask when we go to the store, whenever I
get a chance. I don't usually goto the information desk. But
whenever we go to our grocer andI find somebody in the aisle
that's actually stocking orworking, one of the things I
always ask is, what do you seefrom your organization? How
important is it to provide areally good, clean, healthy,
local food source? And Igenerally get a blank stare from
(24:39):
the person that's doing thestocking. But every once in a
while, I get some veryinteresting feedback, and it
helps me learn quite a bit moreabout of what the organizational
culture is. So I'd say that'sone thing. I think the other
thing that you can ask is askthe question, whenever you can
do you source locally, and ifyou do, ask them if there's
(24:59):
places that you can go tosupport some of those local
farmers.
Justine Reichman: (25:02):
Mark, thanks so much for sharing that. I'd
love to give our listeners andviewers a couple takeaways so
they can put things into actionfor themselves.
Mark Spoone: (25:12):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much. It's been a lot of
fun catching up, and just allthe best to you and all your
listeners. Thank you.
Justine Reichman: (25:17):
Likewise. Thank you again. And for those
tuning in today, if you'retuning in to the podcast, don't
forget that we also have a videocast that you can watch on our
YouTube channel atEssentialIngredients. And don't
forget, if you listen topodcasts, we are on all
podcasts, also called EssentialIngredients With Justine. And
we'd love you to follow,subscribe, like, leave us a
comment. We want to hear fromyou. You dictate the information
(25:40):
and the guests that we have thatcome each week, we want to give
you what you want. So tell us,we really want to hear from you.
Thanks again.
Good morning, and welcome to Essential
Ingredients. I want to invite mynew friend, Mark, who is our
guest today, as well. Welcome toall of our listeners and viewers
that tune in each week. Becausewithout you, we're talking to no
one, so we're so glad to haveyou here. And you're going to be
excited to hear from Mark. He'san inspiration. He's the
quintessential entrepreneur. Haddone a variety of things, took a
(00:34):
circuitous path to get there.But ultimately, now a founder
and entrepreneur in theagriculture space. And I think
we're all going to learn a lot,both from his journey and what
he's trying to do. So welcome,Mark.
Mark Spoone: (00:47):
Thank you so much, Justine. I got to tell you, I'm
pretty excited about telling ourstory. Thank you enough for the
invite. I'm looking forward tosharing news, information and
insights in any way I can.
Justine Reichman: (01:00):
Awesome. My pleasure, Mark. It's great to
have you here. So before we evendig deep, let's just explain to
the audience, to the peopletuning in, to the people
listening, what is Living Water?
Mark Spoone: (01:13):
So Living Water, in its simplest of terms, it's a
biological fertilizer systemthat would reside on any farm.
It can work in your homeenvironment, but it's designed
and created to really work in anagricultural environment, so
large, commercial AG.Essentially what it does, in its
simplest of terms, what we do iswe bring mother nature back to
(01:38):
the soil. Over the last numberof years, the way that
conventional farming, pesticidesand everything has impacted our
soil, we've lost a lot of thevalue that soil has become dirt.
Living Water turns dirt backinto soil, and all the
associated benefits.
Justine Reichman: (01:54):
Now, I know why I think soil is important,
but I'm really curious. Why wassoil at the core of what you're
doing? Why is this your thing?
Mark Spoone: (02:03):
I'm a big fan of serendipity, and I really
believe in the idea thatconvergence takes place in very
odd, unusual ways. And so youhad mentioned that I've been a
serial entrepreneur, and I havebeen since probably the mid 90s.
This is my 12th, 13th or 14thstartup that I've done. I've
taken several companies, andI've been very, very fortunate
in my life. I'm at the stage nowwhere I have two teenage kids,
(02:26):
and I'm looking around at thestate of the world in a number
of ways. And it became reallyimportant to me that I wanted to
create something that was goingto change things and leave a
better footprint than what Istarted with. So I started
looking around with a couple ofassociates of mine, and we're
looking at getting into thepurchase of an organic
fertilizer company. So we wentout, we met the founders, the
(02:47):
owners, the company. And throughthe course of that, they're
farmers themselves. They've beenin the agricultural space for 40
years, and they had this conceptcalled Living Water. They
literally been working on it forfour or five years. And the day
before we got there, they hadjust built a website, and they
put it out there. So this isreally kind of a serendipitous
stumbling of sorts. We werelooking at getting something
(03:09):
that was going to be focused ona more natural way to feed the
food that we eat. Through thecourse of that, they shared with
us this idea and concept. Andsince then, which was probably
about two and a half years ago,I've just become a soil guy. I'm
a dirt guy. Now that Iunderstand it and the profound
impact that it has on humanhealth, on global health, I just
(03:30):
love everything about it. Soagain, serendipity was what
ruled the day, and I'm reallyglad it did.
Justine Reichman: (03:35):
This is super interesting. Here you are, you
have this new concept. You wantto build out. You want to figure
out, how am I going to solvethis problem? This happens at
this time now. All of a sudden,you have a way to do what you
were trying to do in your head,this conversation that was going
on, right? And here you are.You're an entrepreneur, and
you're talking to these people.So tell me, this guy was selling
(03:59):
his business. You had this ideaof what you wanted to do. How
did it all come together foryou?
Mark Spoone: (04:05):
Two brothers, Brandon and Brody, and they're
4th generation farmers. Theylive in Idaho and spend most of
their life farming with theirfamily. And through the course
of that, they started an organicfertilizer company, and they ran
into a lot of the samechallenges and issues that I
think most people see andrecognize. Over the course of
(04:25):
the last 50 years or so,conventional farming has been
completely immersed in the ideaof a chemical based application.
We have herbicides, pesticidesand synthetic fertilizers, and
we want to focus on organicallygrowing our food as much as
possible. And the thing theyrecognized was that conventional
(04:46):
farming has completely depletedsoil and turned it into dirt.
And so for me, the thing thatreally struck me, and I didn't
completely get this andunderstand it at the time, but
the reality of it is that thereare billions, if not trillions
of living little microbes in thedirt everywhere. You go out in
your backyard, you go in themiddle of the Amazon, you take a
scoop of dirt, and there's allthese little crawlies in there.
(05:07):
Microbes of billions andtrillions of counts. And what
happens is conventional farminghas a tendency to get rid of
weeds, get rid of bugs, get ridof everything in the soil. And
through the course of that, wereally start to kill that soil
microbiome, just like we have inour stomachs. The soil has a
microbiome. So essentially, whathappened was they recognized
(05:27):
that that was being depleted andgoing away. And they came up
with this concept of, why don'twe bring that back? Why don't we
reintroduce that? And there'sother companies that have
biological solutions. But whatthey did was come up with such a
unique and novel way that theymade it incredibly simple for
farmers to do this in a hypercost effective way. Biggest
(05:48):
challenge from farmers is costsand time.
Justine Reichman: (05:51):
Walk us through that technology, because
my understanding is Living Waterlets the farmers convert water
tanks into bioreactors that workwith the existing irrigation
system. So I think I've got acouple things. A, what does that
mean? B, I get that it allowsthem to dose beneficial bacteria
(06:16):
into the soil through thisirrigation system. So I can
picture it. It's comingtogether. It's putting it in
there, and then it's givingthose nutrients back, right? And
that doesn't exist in its formright now. This is not a thing
anywhere else, is it?
Mark Spoone: (06:35):
Not in the form that it's in. And so, I guess,
to give a little bit of clarity,the marketplace that creates
biologicals for people to putinto soil is big, huge and it's
growing. The challenge is thatthere is questionable validity
and efficacy of it. I'm going totry and keep this really basic
(06:58):
and simple. But if you thinkabout microbes, they're just
like fish, right? They need air,they need water, they need food.
So what we did is we recognizedthat a farmer going to a
fertilizer store and buying ajug of microbes probably isn't
going to have the same level ofefficiency as if I'm growing
microbes right next to my field,and I'm putting them in the
field while they're alive. Sothis system, we use the big term
(07:22):
$6 word, bioreactor. Abioreactor is a fish tank. In
its simplest of terms. Everyfarm in the country is going to
have an IBC tote. It's a great,big, giant, 265 gallon tote that
they get all kinds of nutrientsin. We have a kit that we can
turn that into a fish tank forall intents and purposes. The
kit goes on there. It has anaerator, a recirculating pump,
(07:44):
and a pump that connects it tothe irrigation. We have this
proprietary blend of varioustypes of microbes. They're in a
dry state. You pour them in thetank, the oxygen hits them, the
water hits them. They turnaround over about 24 hours,
you've got this incredibledensity of living microbes,
fungi, bacteria, beneficialinputs and everything. So every
(08:06):
time that farmer is puttingwater and irrigating his fields,
we're infusing billions andtrillions of living microbes
back into the soil. Once thosemicrobes hit the soil, they have
this symbiotic relationship withthe plants. So they feed the
plants, the plants feed them.
Justine Reichman: (08:24):
That's amazing. So you're working with
farmers, but are you going toother farmers too to talk to
them about this?
Mark Spoone: (08:30):
Every chance we get. If anybody will listen to
me, I'll tell you the story on abus, on an airplane, in
somebody's backyard. So we workreally, really hard.
Justine Reichman: (08:38):
What's their response? How are they taking
this?
Mark Spoone: (08:42):
It's interesting. I'd say there's been a really,
very noticeable evolution infarming over the course of the
last decade or so. I think mostpeople have heard of the term
regenerative farming.Regenerative farming is really
taking hold because people arestarting to understand and
recognize it. The way that we'vebeen doing things is probably
not going to serve us to keepdoing it that way. So
(09:04):
regenerative farming is theconcept of bringing living soil
back to the farm. So mostfarmers, they get the idea and
the concept. The idea of usshowing up with our system, it
can be a bit novel and a bitnew. But they get the basics,
the idea and the concept that,hey, if we can put living
microbes back in the soil, we'regoing to make a difference for
(09:26):
you on the farm.
Justine Reichman: (09:27):
And what does that look like? So there's an
expense attached, there's timeattached. It's just a new way of
looking at things for them to doit a little differently. So are
there any barriers for them thatthey see for this?
Mark Spoone: (09:41):
Over the course of time, as human beings, we get
used to doing things in aparticular way. And so when a
new idea or concept comes along,it takes a moment sometimes for
people to understand and adopt.The critical thing for us in
creating the system was farmersare some of the hardest working
people in the world. Dawn todusk every day, they have very
(10:03):
little time. They havecompounded issues now with farm
labor is becoming a real, realchallenge for them. So our
system is focused on a couple ofreally key things. Number one,
it's a set it and forget itsystem. We can set that up right
next to their pivot. It takesless than an hour to do it. The
setup cost for a farmer is zero.It costs them nothing. We'll
(10:26):
give them the kit. But what wedo ask is we ask them to
subscribe to our microbialservice for the entire season.
So they'll pay about 7 to $8 permonth per acre, and that cost
will actually cover the cost ofthe kit. So for them, the idea
of restoring their soil makes aton of sense. And now, we have a
very simple solution. It can beset up in an hour for zero cost
(10:49):
out of the gates, and 8,possibly $9 per month per acre.
So far, we've had tremendousadoption. We've grown 500% in
Justine Reichman: (10:55):
Wow, that's great to hear. I'm excited that
the last 12 months, so we'restarting to get the story sold.
they're so receptive, because Ido think that the more people do
this, the sooner we'll havebetter soil. Which leads me to
my question, it doesn't happenovernight. The soil doesn't
(11:16):
change overnight, right? Becauseyou still have the other soil
there, so you're adding thenutrients to it. But is that an
instantaneous thing? Or is therea runway until you feel like you
have soil that is robust andgoing to give us the nutrients,
minerals and all the differentthings that we need?
Mark Spoone: (11:36):
Generative farming is this concept where we have
very specific methods andtechniques that farmers will use
with the idea and intent that wewant to restore the soil. So
most regenerative farmingmethodologies can take three,
four, possibly five years to reestablish that soil microbiome.
gets really interesting.
Here's the thing that seemsreally off the charts and very
(11:59):
unbelievable to us even, is weare seeing a re establishment of
the soil microbiome in as littleas 120 days. We literally have
soil tests that show going fromthis to this in 120 days. And
we've had crop consultants andagronomists quote us almost
specifically and say that theseare the kinds of results that
(12:20):
normally take me three to fiveyears to get.
Justine Reichman: (13:07):
So how does it impact the soil? How does it
impact us? What kinds ofbenefits are we seeing? And if
we think long term, what doesthat impact look like with it
versus without it?
Mark Spoone: (13:19):
So from a food standpoint, you've probably
heard people talk about, hey, ifyou ate an apple in the 1950s
versus eating an apple today,it's a totally different
nutrient profile. They're right.They're accurate. Part of the
reason for that is farmers focuson, we have macros, right?
Carbohydrates, protein and fat.Farmers focus on their macros,
(13:40):
nitrogen, phosphorus andpotassium. What they don't focus
on are the micronutrients, andthat's where we get all of our
benefit. Not all, but a lot ofour benefit and value. By
bringing Mother Nature back withthis microbial soil microbiome,
what we're doing is we'reletting those little guys create
all the things that we need. Themanganese, the magnesium, the
copper, the zinc, all the thingsthat have been missing from our
(14:03):
food for so long. So what we'reseeing is almost a complete
restoration. I'll give you asmall example. Alfalfa is grown
many times as a feed for cattle.They'll actually measure the
nutrient value of alfalfa, andit's called a relative feed
value in 149 day study, in aside by side comparison. We
(14:24):
increased the nutrient value,the relative feed value by 46%
in 49 days. So our field withliving water was 46% better than
the standard field.
Justine Reichman: (14:36):
So what does better mean?
Mark Spoone: (14:38):
It means that just like you and I take a
multivitamin, and we'll sit downand make sure that we're getting
this full spectrum of Bs, and C,and E, and all the other things.
Food is a similar idea. Food hassome basic qualities. And within
those basic qualities, weinclude these micronutrients,
and that's where we should begetting. The vast majority of
our nutrition is from the foodwe. What living water does is it
(15:01):
allows the soil to entertainthese microbes, and allows them
to actually create, sustain andreinfuse all those
micronutrients back into thesoil so the plants can say, hey,
I got some. And they updatethat, and then we eat it.
Justine Reichman: (15:16):
I totally get that, and I'd love to hear that,
because I feel like we're losinga lot. I think we already have
digestive issues which allow usnot to metabolize it, metabolize
different things and really takethem in. So with that, if we're
fixing the soil and thennourishing the foods, the crops,
and then we're eating them, andthey have more nutrients, right?
Mark Spoone: (15:40):
I'm not qualified to give a firm answer from a
medical standpoint, but I cantalk to you from a reasonable
man perspective. If I'm eatingfood that's more nutrient dense,
that has more of the good thingsin it that my body needs
inherently and intrinsically.I'm assuming that I'm probably
going to be a healthier guy.What I would say is what we're
(16:00):
seeing, and this is anecdotallyand factually on farms. By us
bringing this Mother Nature bat,soil microbiome bat, what we're
doing is we're reducing theneed. We dramatically reducing
the need for synthetic inputslike herbicides and pesticides.
One small example, there's apotato field that we're working
(16:21):
with, and they have tremendousnematode damage. Nematodes exist
everywhere in the world, in thedirt all the time. By re
establishing the balance in thesoil, the nematodes stopped
attacking the potatoes. And as aresult, they no longer have to
use a nematicide. Nematicidesare really horrendously toxic.
So if we're not having to usenematicides, or herbicides, or
(16:43):
pesticides, or we candramatically reduce them, the
likelihood of that showing up inour food goes down.
Justine Reichman: (16:49):
I'm curious about something else. I know
that this is all part ofirrigation and putting it in
there. And one of thechallenges, I know we have a big
challenge here in California, itcan be a bit of a touchy subject
when we talk about water,watering plants and watering all
these different things. So haveyou come up against that at all?
(17:09):
Has that been a problem, aquestion, a concern that people
have brought up?
Mark Spoone: (17:14):
In a very potentially counterintuitive
way, the answer is yes and no.What I would tell you is, when
you have dirt that doesn't haveany soil organic carbon and it
doesn't have all thosemicrobials in it dirt, it's like
sand. It has very littlecapacity to hold water. By
reintroducing the soilmicrobiome, what we do is, on
(17:36):
average, we'll increase thesoils ability to hold water by
25 to 30%. So what happens is,instead of water going to the
soil and running off orevaporating, we now have a
significant increase in soilmoisture. The result is we need
less water. So that's one of thevery valuable benefits of
restoring soil, is we'reactually reducing the amount of
(17:58):
water that farmers need.
Justine Reichman: (17:59):
And then when I think about your journey here,
I think about all the differentthings that you did to get here.
And I'm curious, what do youpull on from your journey,
whether as an entrepreneur orwherever, that helped you today?
What are some of those keyskills that were transferable,
(18:20):
that are helping you in thisendeavor?
Mark Spoone: (18:22):
I started my career, professional career,
really working as a financialplanner, and it's a glorified
name for a salesperson. Really,what I did is I sold people
investment products, but I wasdoing it on a personal basis.
And one of the things I learnedthrough the course of that is
that people really don't haveany trust, confidence or faith
in you until they really feellike you care about them in what
(18:44):
they need and what they learn.And I think that set the tone
for me for a lot of what I didthe rest of my life. And so one
of the things that I think I'vetaken away the most and that
comes to bear the most, farmersare some of the hardest working
people in the world. Farming, byits nature, it's a gamble.
Everything they do every day isa gamble, and there's so many
things associated with farmingthat they just don't have
(19:07):
control over. And so they'rereally at the bottom of the
totem pole when it comes towho's making money in this food
chain. And for me, I started theNational Hemp Association
probably 10 years ago. And theidea and concept behind it was
we wanted to support farmers whowere interested in using
industrial hemp as a means tohelp restore and re establish
some of their financialsecurity. So through the course
(19:29):
of this, I'd say my biggestlesson is, if we can't find a
way to make sure that thatfarmer is getting direct value
and benefit, then we failed. Andthe downstream effects of that
are, obviously, if we're givinghim something that makes sense,
that saves him money, that makeshis life better, and he produces
a better crop. The downstreameffects are that you, me and
(19:50):
everybody else, we get to eatbetter food. And by the way,
we're capturing a ton of carbonin the soil. We're helping the
climate. So for me, that'sprobably my biggest takeaway,
Justine, is if we can't find away to make sure we're taking
care of the people, ourcustomers, at the end of it,
nothing else really matters forus.
Justine Reichman: (20:06):
I love that because it is personal, and
everybody's being thought of,the farmers being thought of,
the consumers being thought of,and it's really better for the
world and better for the planet.So to me, that resonates. And
I'm thinking about the listenersand the viewers that are tuning
in and thinking, okay, well,what would they ask now? What do
(20:27):
they want to know? Here you are.You're a serial entrepreneur.
You're building out thisamazing, purpose driven
business. And so maybe you couldshare three things in your
journey that maybe, becauseyou've had 14 startups, you do
differently now than you did inthe first two as lessons
learned.
Mark Spoone: (20:46):
So I think first and foremost, you've got to find
a group of people that havesimilar alignment about values,
what they care about, and a workethic. So I'd say that's one of
the most important things. Thesecond piece is really
empowering people to do whatthey need to do so they can be
successful. At the end of thejourney, everything everybody
does for the most part is avolunteer position. So if I
(21:09):
can't help people find ways,whether they're customers,
business partners or whoever Iwork with, to make sure that
they're getting everything theyneed, and they've got the
resources for me to besuccessful, then I failed. And I
think ultimately, the end of theday is kind of looking in the
mirror and asking myself thequestion, am I doing the right
things? Probably the three keythings for me is really relying
(21:31):
on the people around me,empowering them to make sure
they get what they need, andgiving them the tools to do it.
Justine Reichman: (21:37):
So now, you have this venture, and it's been
two years. And so when you lookahead five years from now,
what's the big goal here? Whatare you hoping to say?
Mark Spoone: (21:48):
So I want to make sure that I really bring this
up. There are seven of us inthis company. So we've all got
essentially a very, very evenequal state. We all have very
important, very specific roles.So I just happen to be in the
role that I'm in. But the restof the players and everybody on
this team, they're the ones thatare really creating the success.
What I'm doing is I'm justtrying to line the pieces up
(22:10):
along the way. So I really wantto make sure that everybody
understands that we couldn'thave gotten to where we are
without everybody's alignmentand investment. They're far more
important than I am in theoverall scheme of thing. And
again, my lifelong goal is I'vealways wanted to be the dumbest
guy in the room. That's kind ofwhat I strive for. And I think
in many of the meetingsinternally we have, that's
typically true. I've got somereally sharp, really smart
(22:32):
partners that make it happen. Socollectively as a team, I think
to answer your question aboutwhere we would like to be, we
would like to be as pervasiveand as covering as many acres as
we possibly can the world over.We recognize tremendous pressure
on farmers and on our globalfood supply chain. We know that
(22:56):
without equivocation, that thissolution, for all the reasons
that we're talking about, cancompletely change the entire
agronomic landscape and horizon.So our goal is to create success
for as many farmers as wereasonably possibly can, in any
way we can.
Justine Reichman: (23:14):
Thank you so much. Expect that the listeners
and the viewers will have lotsof questions. And I hope to be
able to share them with you sowe can provide more information
and answers to their questions.
Mark Spoone: (23:26):
Well, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. I
just I hope that your listenersreally start internalizing the
idea that as consumers, we havetremendous power and tremendous
sway with producers andmanufacturers. So for those
things that you guys think areimportant, particularly when it
comes to the stuff that we putinto our bodies, make sure you
talk to your local grocers. Makesure you talk to all the people
(23:48):
in your supply chain, and letthem know how important that is.
I appreciate the chance to catchup. We love telling our story.
You've got a tremendousfollowing and a tremendous
movement. You're leading, andwe're very, very happy to be a
part of it, so thank you somuch.
Justine Reichman: (24:03):
Thank you, Mark. And just before we say our
goodbyes, because you justmentioned this, to give our
listeners and our viewers twoquestions that maybe you could
share, that maybe they shouldask their grocers.
Mark Spoone: (24:16):
I always ask when we go to the store, whenever I
get a chance. I don't usually goto the information desk. But
whenever we go to our grocer andI find somebody in the aisle
that's actually stocking orworking, one of the things I
always ask is, what do you seefrom your organization? How
important is it to provide areally good, clean, healthy,
local food source? And Igenerally get a blank stare from
(24:39):
the person that's doing thestocking. But every once in a
while, I get some veryinteresting feedback, and it
helps me learn quite a bit moreabout of what the organizational
culture is. So I'd say that'sone thing. I think the other
thing that you can ask is askthe question, whenever you can
do you source locally, and ifyou do, ask them if there's
(24:59):
places that you can go tosupport some of those local
farmers.
Justine Reichman: (25:02):
Mark, thanks so much for sharing that. I'd
love to give our listeners andviewers a couple takeaways so
they can put things into actionfor themselves.
Mark Spoone: (25:12):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much. It's been a lot of
fun catching up, and just allthe best to you and all your
listeners. Thank you.
Justine Reichman: (25:17):
Likewise. Thank you again. And for those
tuning in today, if you'retuning in to the podcast, don't
forget that we also have a videocast that you can watch on our
YouTube channel atEssentialIngredients. And don't
forget, if you listen topodcasts, we are on all
podcasts, also called EssentialIngredients With Justine. And
we'd love you to follow,subscribe, like, leave us a
comment. We want to hear fromyou. You dictate the information
(25:40):
and the guests that we have thatcome each week, we want to give
you what you want. So tell us,we really want to hear from you.
Thanks again.
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