246 - Erwin Westers - Supermarkets didn’t care about his quality so he focussed on selling seeds to other regenerative farmers - Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's all about soil biology, discovered our guest of
today after farming low-tilland with cover crops for over
five years, not without results,but not the impact he had hoped
he would have, until it clicked.
With the help of the Germanregenerative movement, they
started to focus on soil biologyBecause if it's not there, the
cover crops are not digested ontime to provide the

(00:21):
fertilization for your cash crop.
It almost sounds like magic,but you can really reduce your
inputs organic, manure, chemicalMPKs etc.
To almost zero and still,albeit unhealthy soils harvest
an interesting cash crop yearafter year.
And he argues that as long asbig distribution, supermarkets
etc.
Are not willing to pay anythingextra for quality and taste

(00:41):
Coming from soil-building farmsand he has the experience to
back this up it makes sense tofocus on the seed business
because there is a growingdemand for organic, biodynamic
seeds.
Most seeds in the organic andbiodynamic world come from
chemical agriculture and theyare not bred for healthy soils
which could explain some of theyield differences, but that's
for another time, in anotherpodcast and they're not open,
pollinated etc.

(01:01):
And these seed companies theseare not the big four are willing
to pay for quality and tastefor the end product.
Learn more about healthy seeds,healthy soils, healthy people,
epigenetics, taste, flavor andwhy there is so much to learn in
the German-speaking world onregeneration.
What are the connectionsbetween healthy farming

(01:27):
practices, healthy soil, healthyproduce, healthy gut and
healthy people?
Welcome to a special serieswhere we go deep into the
relationship betweenregenerative agriculture
practices that build soil,health and the nutritional
quality of the food we end upeating.
We unpack the current state ofscience, the role of investments
, businesses, nonprofits,entrepreneurs and more.
We're very happy with thesupport of the Grandham

(01:49):
Foundation for the protection ofthe environment for this series
.
The Grandham Foundation is aprivate foundation with a
mission to protect and conservethe natural environment.
Find out more ongrandhamfoundationorg or in the
links below.
Welcome to another episodetoday with a farmer from the

(02:19):
absolute northern edge of theNetherlands.
Welcome, erin.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Hey, thanks, koen, glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
And this episode has been not super long in the
making, but I've been lookingforward to this for quite a
while.
We met on the farm of a mutualfriend I'm going to say last
September, but maybe even beforethat and had some fascinating
conversations, of course, aboutsoil rotations and all of that,
but also about where yourinspiration comes from,
especially from theGerman-speaking world, and how

(02:48):
you're able to manage to focuson quality and to focus on
nutrient density, but notdirectly through selling food,
and so I really wanted to doubleclick on that and go deeper
into that.
So, first of all, let's paint abit of the picture of the
context, of your context.
Where do you farm?
Because the northern edge ofthe Netherlands doesn't mean a
lot to most people, I think,that are listening here.

(03:09):
So just paint a bit of apicture.
If you look out of your window,what do you see and what do you
?
What should people imagine whenthey think about your farm?
And, of course, this is audio,so let's make it nicely visual
for people that are listening tothis somewhere on a run or in a
car or painting or somethinglike that.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
So when I look out this window, I am in a house
that is above one and a halfmeter above the ground, because
this was built in 1870.
And back then all the wheatthat they grew was a lot taller
than the modern dwarf wheat, sothat, farmers, they were the
best of the world and the mostimportant of the world At least

(03:49):
that's what they self thoughtand they wanted to look over
their own crops.
So that's why they had to buildtheir house really high.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
I thought it was for, like, flood prevention or
something.
No, it's really best to.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
I think that they had a little bit to do with it, but
back then there were alreadythese these dykes around, and
it's not that it was unprotectedfrom the sea or anything, so it
was literally to be able tolook over your crop to the long
view, because this is a veryflat piece of land that you can
see in here, so you can lookvery far if you're high enough.

(04:24):
These are really enlightened andimportant farmers.
They were in all the citycouncils and in the water board
and, yeah, they really hadsomething to say and they felt
important and had a high seat intheir house and in the
community.

(04:44):
So when we look at the othersides of the farm, there's about
one and a half kilometers andthen there's the real sea
turning dyke and behind thatthere is the salt marsh, which
is also on our property, andthat's the sea turning dyke.
That is the real barrierbetween land and sea, so between

(05:06):
salt and sweet, as we call ithere in Holland.
And that is really the edge ofHolland, because there is no
land, agricultural land, morenorth, except for the islands.
So, yeah, we really have a seaclimate here and lots of

(05:29):
influence from the sea.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
And then just to pay the picture of how many hectares
and what kind of crops do yougrow, just to have an
understanding.
Of course we're going to divedeeper into that.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, we have around 120 hectares, of which 35 is on
the outside of the dyke, so it'scalled the salt marsh, and so
85 is agricultural land that wefarm Since 2000,.
We farm organic and the lastfour years biodynamic, and the

(06:03):
crops we grow are mostly forseed.
So we have seed potatoes, wehave radishes, we have grass,
nasturtium, kale.
What else is there?
There are a lot of seed cropswhich change every year.
It's just what the demands areand what the companies want.

(06:27):
We regrow that for them and asour consumption crops for people
to eat.
We have green peas and carrots.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
And do you remember?
Maybe it's been in you and thefarm of your parents and family
forever, but the focus on soil,I mean it's always been.
As every farmer, you focus onsoil, but slightly differently,
let's say, maybe compared tosome other farms.
Do you remember when that cameinto, came almost be the center

(06:58):
focus of your work?
Was it one moment?
Was it a journey?
How did that happen and why didyou decide to go organic and
beyond that, of course, tobiodynamic, which is quite a few
steps, I mean, compared to yourneighbors, I can imagine.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
I'm in the center of my 30s, so when the conversion
to organic happened, I was 16,and my father did that and I
just said I don't want to weedhow weeds all summer, so I don't
like this.
And then a couple years later Iwent to grad school and I
finished that and then I thought, yeah, I don't know what I want

(07:35):
to do in life.
And so I worked on the farm fora year that was in 2006.
And I really liked that thatyear and, yeah, decided this
might be something for me.
But since I did not have anagricultural education, I did
business school and laterpsychology.
I always had a kind ofdifferent, different view, just

(08:01):
like my father had, because backin 2000, it was really not
normal in this northern part ofHolland, where the farmers are
really conventional, to goorganic and the reactions were
well, we'll be watching you oryour fail, and this is your last
goodbye.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
This is your last goodbye.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
So and now, 20 years later, they say, oh, it's not
all bad, but that's the highestyou can get for a compliment
here.
So and then from 2000,.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
watching you weeding the whole season with your
children, yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
So from 2006, we started also doing things
different.
We left the plow in the shedand we tried minimum tillage and
working a lot with greenmanures, and what we found was,
when we're not tilling the soilso much and working with green
manures, that we needed less ofanimal manure.
And since we don't have our ownanimals, we thought we could

(09:01):
make a more efficient way offertilizing our crops with
homegrown green manures and westarted moving these green
manures from one field to theother and later on we thought
this also can be more efficientand try to green manures.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Is that the cover crop?

Speaker 2 (09:24):
The cover crop, yeah, green manure cover crop is the
same thing, and later on wethought maybe it's possible on
the same field to grow thesegreen fertilizers together with
the cash crop in season or offseason, after it's harvested.
And if we can do that really,really well and we have good

(09:46):
mixtures and good techniques fortermination and for composting
on the soil, so to say, thenmaybe we don't need to transport
this from one field to the next.
So first we wanted to eliminatethe transport of manure to our
farm and then we wanted toeliminate the transport in our

(10:08):
farm.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Between the fields yeah, exactly, and a lot of
water.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, because we saw that from the old knowledge of
organic farming this is how muchmanure you need for so much
nitrogen, et cetera, et ceterathat those rules and those
models are also computer models.
They did not fit if you did nottill the soil and if you had
the first cover crop.

(10:32):
So we found that you can havethese nutrients produced on the
field in such a high rate thatit would not be necessary to
import nutrients from outsidethe farm.
And this was a very, yeah,hopeful vision of how the future

(10:58):
of farming could be.
If we could just only buy seedsand diesel for the tractors and
that's it, and we can havecrops that have all the
nutrients they have from theirown farm and fields, then that
would be a very good,sustainable system to develop.

(11:24):
But the problem is there is notenough knowledge about this and
we had a kind of technical viewlike this much nutrients is in
the cover crops and we measuredthat and we measured how much
winter killing cost in nutrients.
So we measured before winter,when the cover crop was green,
and after winter, when it hadbeen frozen, how much is left,

(11:46):
and so we made calculations.
But that's a very technical andlinear approach and also we had
a very technical approach withthe machines.
This is how we kill it, sonothing grows again and we can
sow our cash crop.
But that has not so much to dowith what is the best for soil

(12:07):
and what is the best for soilbiology.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
The R view of we have to kill the cover crop, then we
grow something else.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah that's very human to do a very competition.
My father formerly like sayokay, I have this cover crop,
now I must kill it in the bestway possible so I can sow my
cash crop.
But actually it is much moreimportant to see your soil as a

(12:36):
microbial living organism,exactly Like you and when that
started, like, how does thatchange?
Yeah, well, we you're thinkingthat and you're doing mostly we
were about five years on the waywith almost no manure and and
other inputs, and then that wentwell.
In 50% of the times we had 100%of the yield, and in the other

(13:00):
50% of the times we had maybe30% of the yield, and and then
we wanted to the average didn'tlook so good, but if you.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, the average did not look so good.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
But we had enough positive experience that we said
, yeah, this is possible, but wesimply there is no knowledge it
was not able to come from, fromfrom books, from from
universities in Holland, becauseit sounds like magic, like you
only import or only bring on tothe farm.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Of course you're in a very fertile area and that's.
It is not a sandy soilsomewhere else.
But still you you're notbringing in a lot of
fertilization, or actually no,you bring in seeds.
Of course you have to diesel,you work to soil, etc, etc.
And then in a good chunk of thethe plots, you can actually
harvest a really nice amount andeven similar, the same yields

(13:52):
as before.
But then in the other plots itdidn't happen.
So then the question is, whywas that happening?
But at least it gives us amassive hope.
Like you said, this is a veryhopeful part, because you are
able to grow enough nutrients onthe soil, in the soil and
harvest a crop, and do that yearover year without bringing in
enormous amounts of manure, ofcourse, organic manure, etc.

(14:14):
But still you bring enormousamount of manure, which means
you bring nutrients from Brazil,from somewhere else, because
these cows ate something organic, but still exactly, and we did
not have a vegan background inthis.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
This and we I don't have a vegan lifestyle, but you
could call this a veganisticfarming system and we also knew
that in England there werecertifiers who had, or one
certifier right, a vegancertification.
Vegan organic network.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
So maybe they knew more.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, we had contact with them, and also in Germany
you had these phelos andbetriebe and they were out of
necessity that they did not havecattle or other animals nearby,
so they had to work withplant-based fertilizers and
there we got some knowledge, butstill we did not have a system

(15:08):
that was financially okay and wewanted to buy, we wanted to
build a new barn, and so we hadto go to a bank and we had to
have a more sustainablefinancial system, also because
sustainability has also, like,half of the time, 30%, 30%, the
other half hundred, it'ssustainability is not only
ecological, but also financially, Financial.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah and study business.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
So, and around that time, my father did a lot of
research in the internet andspend days and days.
I did not have the time, but hefound people all over the world
and also in Germany.
This group of people with twoadvisors who's called Deep
Marnese and Friedrich Wenz, whowere we were for the first time

(15:55):
on this course.
They gave in 2010.
And they were farmers who alsodid not work with manure and
worked a lot with cover cropsand minimum tillage, and they
gave courses on this topic, andso we thought we should go there
.
And we went there more than 10times on course and they also

(16:18):
evolved because they also founda system of only looking at what
machine and what cover crop andhow to kill was actually at
that end.
There was more to it and then,around 2014, they shifted the
focus, or they expanded theirfocus, also on the microbiology,
of course.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
So you were there basically when that happened,
yeah, and.
But it's interesting that youdidn't let like you found
something in 2010.
You went a number of times Atthat point.
Maybe you also felt, oh, thisis limited, but you didn't say,
you didn't turn around and wentlooking for something else.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
But somehow you were there in the transition with
that Because they also evolvedand they also had had had had
insights and and and, yeah,methods that that we also were
new to us, but but they alsowere in a dead end, as were we,
and together we found that thisbefore.

(17:12):
We just looked at soil biologyas, yeah, that's important and
they will converse these greenmanures into nutrients for the
crop, but and a much better viewat that there wasn't.
And around 2014, they shiftedalso to let's.
Let's have a good look at that.
And how can we shift theseprocesses?

(17:34):
In spring, when we want toterminate this cover crop for
our cash crop, it's often coldand wet or dry or whatever.
The circumstances are mostlynot ideal, and we want to have
this conversion of this covercrop to make fertilization for
the cash crop.
And how do we, how do we givethis, this process, a boost that

(17:57):
goes in the good direction?
And one of these implementsthat that that came about was
the use of herbal firmants.
It is like this kind of EM, sothis, this souri lactose
dominated product, lactic aciddominated products, and we make

(18:18):
that ourselves with molasses andherbs in the starter ferment
and by spraying that on thecover crops while incorporating,
we we can see that if it thenstays cold and wet, these
processes don't turn into arotting stage, because that is
really dangerous.
If you have a rotting stage ofthis cream manure and you want

(18:38):
to sow your, your cash crop,that is not compatible and will
give a lot of loss of your ofyour cash crop.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
So basically, you're cutting the cover crop, you're
incorporating it into the soil,yeah, and then you're spraying
it with this sort of starter mix, basically.
Yeah, and to get the to get itto kickstart the process of to
make sure it doesn't startrotting, yeah, and also the
kickstart, the process ofbasically turning it into the

(19:06):
nutrients and the fertilizationyou want and need.
And this is sort of a mini, amini kickstart or a mini place
to to start that process faster.
Because in spring often youhave, yeah, very challenging
whether it could be dry, itcould be super warm, it could be
very cold, it could be rainy,it could even be snow in some
cases.
So it's not ideal you don'thave a stable environment for

(19:29):
these cover crops to slowlydigest into the soil.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Exactly.
It's like you have thispopulation of 100 microbes in
your soil and like, 10 percentare good and 10 percent are bad
and the other 80 percent areopportunists and you want those
opportunists to help the goodones Right, and this is the
corum sensing and that's whatyou do with these herbal
firmants.
So next to that is veryimportant that this cover crop,

(19:53):
when you incorporate it, it hasto be with a special technique,
that it is left loosely on thesoil so it's not pressed,
because otherwise you also startrotting, and that that can take
place with a lot of oxygen,because that process is
unnatural.
Like in nature, a green plantdoes hardly ever get

(20:16):
incorporated, maybe when a deerstands on it.
A green leaf gets incorporated,but mostly it's dead leaves and
that material that lie in thesoil and decompose.
But that's too slow for us.
We want in two, three weeks tomake from a green crop, because
that's much better in winter tohave a green crop that does not

(20:36):
frost kill, but that's muchharder to get away in spring and
that's unnatural.
But we have this technique thatis very shallow and it mixes
the soil with the green manureand you get these clay particles
to be mixed with these sugarthat are still active in this

(20:57):
green plant and these aminoacids, and this creates this
clay humus bond in this toplayer where there's a lot of
oxygen and a lot of CO2 canexchange with the air.
And since we startedincorporating in that, way.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
How was the first time?
Like what was your experience,when you I mean probably high
hopes, but still like whathappened.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
We incorporate like we till for three centimeters
and we have this mixture of 50percent green manure and 50
percent soil.
It's very, very fine.
You really mix it and cut it inpieces and then when you come
two, three weeks later, the soilis loose until about 15, until
20 centimeters, and that isreally remarkable because you

(21:41):
only till three centimeters.
It is like we put our firstimplement through that layer and
it was like going with a knifethrough butter, like what
happened here.
And then we had this part ofthe field where we did not do
that technique and then therewas really hard and clumsy.
So it was really amazing Likein such a short time you can

(22:02):
change your soil to a greatcrumb structure.
If you really pay attention tohow does this conversion and
decomposition and how do youoptimize this?
How do you give thismicrobiology the right boost and
put it in the right directionthat it can work for you and
then it can till your soilwithout you having to put all

(22:25):
the diesel and all the iron inthe ground.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, it's.
3 to 15 is like 12 centimetersof quote-unquote free-term.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
It's amazing.
It's amazing and this techniqueis now implemented, I think, by
around 1500 farmers have takenthis course in the last 10 years
, and it's around 60,000hectares here in the German
speaking and Dutch speaking partof Europe that farmers are
familiar with in implementingthis technique, and there are a

(22:53):
lot of communities being formedwhere we fine-tune this
technique.
Like it's very wet, shoot a go,and what kind of machinery do
you have?
How do you make your herbalferments?
So that's all fine-tuning, youknow.
So, next to these herbalferments and these green manures
, which is a very important step, we also started working a lot

(23:14):
more with undersowing of covercrops.
So we have our cash crop thatcan be a radish for seed, and we
saw that.
At the same time we saw theradish, we saw also grasses,
clovers and herbs, and thatmixture has to be thought out
really good so that the seeds ofthe undersowing yeah, they stay

(23:36):
a little under, but they alsoshould not be unable to be
cleaned out with the radishseeds, for example.
But that's good to plan, that'snot that hard, and that way we
have growing.
Underneath the cash crop thatwill be ripening in through

(23:59):
September or August, we havethis vegetative crop that is
still photosynthesizing and inthe vegetative stage, it will
give a lot more of these rootexudates to the soil biology
than in the generative stateswhen it's producing seed,

(24:21):
because then it's taking fromthe soil, and so it's like you
don't turn off your solar panelin the middle of summer.
You know this example.
If you have solar panels, thenyou have these on your
smartphone, this app, and yousee, of course, over the whole
year, the most of the solarenergy is in the middle of June,
july, and it is so dumb foryour fields to turn off your

(24:48):
solar panel in that period.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
When you say, turn off your solar panel, how does
that translate to a plant?
Why are, because you havesomething in the fields, also
your neighbors, but basicallythey're not photosynthesis
anymore.
Or why do you say, do you have?

Speaker 2 (25:02):
it.
Yeah, you see, all these oneyear crops, these annuals or
these bi-annuals, like winterwheat or summer wheat, or all
these grains or mustard seedsthat grow in spring vegetative,
and then they switch, like theyturn on flowers and they produce

(25:24):
seeds.
From that stage that theyswitch to producing seeds, they
don't put as much root exudatesto the soil biology anymore,
because first they invest inthis cooperation and later they
take from that.
Which means basically that, asthey are not pumping the root

(25:47):
exudates into the soil anymore,if they're the only plant on
that field, they're not feedingthe soil and, of course, you can
imagine, in the last three orfour weeks of that plant's life
it is just drying down or dyingdown and of course then the
leaves, the photosynthesis ableleaves of that wheat, are drying

(26:09):
down.
So then there is nophotosynthesis anymore.
And then it's very important tohave this understory,
especially of grasses andclovers, that is vegetative, so
that is still in the stage ofdelivering a lot of root
exudates to the soil and if welet that understory stand after

(26:30):
harvest and all winter, then wehave almost one year of grass,
clover and herbs growing therewhile we produce our cash crop.
And that gives a lot ofopportunity for soil biology to
go undisturbed and form theselots of fungal networks.
Of course we help that a littleby inoculating with Johnson's

(26:52):
Sue extract and we use a lot ofcompostes, mainly for boosting
photosynthesis.
And all these methods alsodeliver a very good crumb
structure and we did not seethis crumb structure, especially
at our heavy soil in the firstfive to ten years that we did

(27:16):
minimum tillage in a lot ofcover crops and since we started
working with all these newlycalled regenerative methods we
saw an enormous improvement insoil structure and also we
started seeing on our soil teststhe improvement in organic

(27:37):
matter In the first ten years.
Without plowing and a lot ofcover crops, we only went from
1.8 to 2.
And we thought, yeah, we aredoing so much effort, this is
not enough.
And we also saw that at oursoil structure that all this
effort and it did not deliverthe results we want.

(27:57):
Yeah, it went too slowly.
And now in the last five to tenyears we had this rapid
improvement in soil structureand we went from 2 to 3.7 on
organic matter.
So that has really surprised us.
And could you say?

Speaker 1 (28:15):
that the key is like biology and just as a job to
extract is a specific way ofmaking compost.
Google it very interesting,just as a side note.
But so minerals and soilbiology is that what you just
said?

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, and just the pieces missing.
Yeah, exactly, but also thefocus on don't be dogmatic and
say I don't plow and I use covercrops and that's it, or I don't
use manure and that's then bydefinition a good thing.
No, that's not.
You should just try tounderstand the system.
Don't be dogmatic.

(28:49):
Of course, as a bio-dynamicfarmer, we don't use chemical
inputs.
We are dogmatic about that.
But all the other things, neversay never and be open for
everything and try to understandwhat's best for soil biology.
Try to be a microbial manager.
Just like you're making cheeseor wine or beer, you have to

(29:09):
manage these microbes and notthink I have this machine and
that kills all the green manure,so that's good, so I can.
So no, think what is best forthe soil to convert this green
manure into a fertilization forthe cash crop and how can I
steer this process in the rightdirection, and maybe what kind

(29:29):
of machine can fit my needs.
So don't think out of technique, but think out of the microbial
manager that you are and interms of what you're growing and
the market.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
You mentioned mostly seeds.
Has that been a, of course, aconscious decision, but a
decision you made, or that thecontext, let's say in the face
you're in as a farm in this willalways be probably in
transition, that seeds make mostsense, or how did you end up
growing seeds more than, let'ssay, crops directly for

(30:07):
consumers?
Of course, the seeds end upbeing corrupt for consumers, but
just at on another farm.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, we, I always look for opportunities.
So if there's a buyer who says,oh, I have a demand for this,
then I always call and alwayshave a talk and then see if
something fits.
So I always have my, my earsand my antenna out.
So to say so, in 2016, therewas this company called
Bingenheimer Zadgut, this Germanbiodynamic seed company

(30:36):
vegetable and flower seeds andwho said, oh, maybe we're
looking to expand.
And I directly said, oh, please, I'll come to you, because it's
always good to go there and totake that effort and to see each
other and not be just atelephone voice.
And from that time on we startedwith growing seeds and before

(30:57):
that I I found it a little bitproblematic that all the good
things that we thought we didwith soil and with our crops
were not so easy to be evaluatedby the markets.
So when we had a lot of carrotswe've grown carrots for more
than 20 years and we did a lotof trials, first with varieties

(31:20):
and later on also with with theregenerative measures, and we
just we measured also and plantsap and in other tests and also
in in taste tests that we didwith our family that we just we
had better tasting carrots thanwere in the supermarket, then
organic and then conventional.
Then we just we could buyanywhere.

(31:43):
We had better tasting carrots.
So I went to my main buyer andI said, well, I have these
better tasting carrots and canyou, can you please try
something with that?
And so he tried that and hesaid, yeah, but don't do that.
They're a little bit pointy andsome of them break easier.
So just take this standardvariety and do it in a standard

(32:04):
way.
That's what our machines areused to.
And our buyers I said okay, no,okay.
So we went, we went with thatand then three, four years later
, of course you have to hear it.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
You can only push so far If your main buyer says I
want a less pointy carrots of astandard variety with less and
does less flavor than yeah, youhave to follow yeah and in some
cases.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
I said, well, I can produce only these, these good
tasting carrots.
And yeah, but he said what?
What do I do with the rest?
Call them class beers orsomething?
And you cannot produce all thecarrots I need for the whole
year.
No, that's true, and I cannotproduce all year.
So that that was a little bitdead end and the only only
people who profited were thepeople who bought out her farm

(32:48):
store here.
So then three, four years later, the same buyer.
We were in a conversation andhe said, yeah, well, I have to
talk to you because this, thisgreat grocery store who we
deliver all the carrots toorganic in Holland, has given me
some complaints of consumersthat they did not find the

(33:08):
carrots organic sweet anymore.
And and that's a commoncomplaint, because the carrots
organically are grown the samevariety as conventional.
The organic farmers arefertilizing what organic manure,
at least as much as theconventional colleague on the
carrots, and we had also a lotof tastings, also with the

(33:30):
farmer communities that we couldnot separate in a blind taste
organic carrots from theconventional carrots.
So I said, yeah, that's logicalbecause of this and this and
this and, and you know, remembera couple of years back, I
mentioned this you tasty carrots.
Yeah, so.
So all right Now.
So now we can get a little moreconcrete on this.

(33:51):
And I want 10 cents more for mycarrots.
I say, oh, oh, oh, no, no, no,it's just a complaint and
everybody should do it for thesame price.
But it's just a complaint.
That should be sweeter.
I said, okay, well, this is adead end and because those
varieties and that's that's away of producing maybe cost a

(34:14):
little more, so we we need toevaluate it, but that simply was
not not possible then.
So and we found that that's timealso in the seeds producing
business, there is a differentrelationship between producer
and buyer.
There is you're at the samelevel.
So they're the reason we turnbiodynamic.

(34:35):
Because they said, well, wehave a lot more demand for that
seed and maybe that that fitsyou, because you don't use
animal manure very little andmaybe you should do a little
when you go biodynamic.
And since we were not dogmatic,that's fine.
So we did that.
And they are very interested inthe way we can produce seeds
that have a higher germinationrate.

(34:58):
I can say we did not have agermination rate of probably all
our seeds under 95%, which isreally high, and most crops have
98 or 99%.
So they're really interestedhow these regenerative practices
give this very good seedquality and they support me in

(35:23):
researching.
So they pay, for instance, fora plant sap and they pay for
other sampling, and then theyhave researchers on their
payroll who make these very goodresearch papers on that in
which we together grow.
And how do you say?

Speaker 1 (35:49):
Are you saying that the seed side is more
interesting for now for aninnovative and absolutely
cutting edge farmer likeyourself than growing food crops
?
And because there's moreattention?
There's attention for quality,germination rate and other
things, much more than.
Oh.
Yeah, I got complaints aboutthe flavor of the carrots, but

(36:12):
I'm actually not going to doanything about it.
Like if they get complaintsabout the seeds, it is of a
different level.
Is that what you're saying?
What you discovered in the lastyears?
That it actually at the momentis more interesting to grow with
regenerative practices, reallyhigh quality seeds and, let's
say, high quality crops.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, this is the way I feel it is.
This is a sector the seedsector in which I can get my how
do you say?
All my effort I put in to getyou can distinguish yourself.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yeah, I can get that evaluated.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
I can get that not only financially but also
personally.
I feel really evaluated in whatI do and that is very important
for the rest of the chainbecause when I perceive produce
from one hectare of radishesthat goes to I don't know a

(37:11):
thousand hectare of radishesthat are grown for people to eat
and we know from not only fromnutrients but also from
epigenetics that when they havea very good life here that seeds
that are grown, that they alsohave probably a better quality
of life at the farmer that growsthem for the people to eat.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Do you have contact with these farmers?
Yeah, a couple of them, becauseit's our children leaving a
farm.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
You hope they do care of them really well, otherwise
they might not get to the fullflourish they could be.
I have contact with a couple ofthem and the nicest thing about
these biorhylamic seed companiesthere are a couple they're
really open about that, so it'sall open pollinated seeds, so
they don't have hybrids.
We also grow hybrids for othercompanies, but they're very open

(38:03):
.
They also from in the catalogsays from every seed which
producer produced that.
And then at the end of thecatalog they have this section
where all these producers arenamed and there they are and
this is what they do and theseare the practices that make them
special.
So that's very, very open.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Farmers can pick and choose.
Yeah, exactly, I can call youeven like.
Hey, I noticed a very bigdifference with this radish,
exactly.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
And we know that can happen, because I think it was
2015 or 16, we had these seedpotatoes and we bought one sack
from a farmer at the one side ofthe town and one sack from the
other.
The one farmer did not have twosacks and the sack is at 1215

(38:53):
kilograms and we planned themnext together and all the
preparation were together andall the same, and at harvest we
have this harvest there where Istand on, so I see all the
potatoes at harvest and later inthe barn.
Of course, when sorting andselecting this one part of the
field that was from the onefarmer had 25% extra yield and

(39:16):
no disease in comparison to theother, while the planting
potatoes were exactly the same.
I did not see any differencethere and that was the first
indication that if that farmerdid something extra or better
with his seed potatoes and I buythese, I have a better yield

(39:37):
with his potatoes and I just buypotatoes for seed and I don't
get to pick these that yield 25%better with no disease.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
And I think there is still a great way to go because
it's massive the differencethat's yeah, because margins are
, and if it's new to you for ayear or not, if it's nutrients
or epigenetics, I don't know.
But when you say epigenetics,what do you mean?
Let's dive into another Likeyou have.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
I'm not an expert in that, but the way I understand
it is you have these.
You have this genetic blueprint,so to say, and some of these
genes can in a life cycle isalso for humans can be turned to
honor off.
So you have this blueprint, butnot all the switches are at a
one or zero and due to theenvironmental and that's also

(40:36):
what the farmer does, but alsothe climate, environmental
influences, some of the genescan be turned off or turned on.
And the way I understand it isthat if plant has a very good
growing conditions and it'streated very well and in Norway
that's with regenerativepractices then these epigenetic

(40:58):
alteration of the geneticblueprint gets to be a little
more positive than if it is in avery stress situation and in
that way this seeds can haveprobably but the research on
that is for us also still to doprobably a better growing result

(41:19):
the next year at the farm.
Who plants those seeds?

Speaker 1 (41:23):
And so basically we've seen that something.
There will be an interviewcoming on dairy cows.
Actually it's been in themaking for a while, but it comes
on the epigenetics and even thegenes are the same, in this
case in the potatoes orsomething like that, but you
won't see them expressed becausethey're not switched on, which
is very interesting as a thought, because of course in the whole

(41:45):
genetically modification train,let's say, they completely miss
that piece of like.
There might be genes in thatplant that we really like to,
but we cannot switch them on.
We don't have to put them in.
We actually there might alreadybe there, but with the right
circumstances, this great rightsoil conditions, right Growing
conditions.
I remember an interview with it,with then barber chef, then

(42:05):
barber I will link it belowwhere we were talking about a
corn that was able to fertilizeitself, but only in healthy
soils.
I'm just remembering it now andI thought that might be.
It was always there.
It just never had the rightswitches or nobody pressed the
switches, which opens up a wholenew discussion on what genes
are there.
And then how do you actuallyswitch them on and off?

(42:27):
And it turns out it seems likevery healthy growing conditions
are able to switch on and off alot of things that we really
like and does sort of away withthe need of starting to cut and
put things in, even though quoteunquote it's all claimed to be
safe.
But it opens up a whole newrealm, almost, of OK.

(42:49):
Which switches can we find andhow do we?
Not even we don't need to knowhow we switch them.
But if they switch on and get25 percent more yield, that's a
massive.
Or 98 percent or 99 germinationrate instead of 95.
That's a lot.
That's not something to be yetto sniff about.
Let's say so, the epigeneticside.
we're going to do moreinterviews around that because
it just seems an absolutelyfascinating piece of to get

(43:12):
results While doing practicesyou anyway wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yeah, you know, since we also produce hybrids, then
you get a male and a female line.
It's a lot harder in orimpossible in that kind of crop,
because that's that's everyyear.
You start from scratch and whenthese open pollinated varieties
, when we produce seed for otherfarmers and we also save seed
for ourselves and we produceseed from that, then that

(43:39):
variety is able to be a littleadjusted or to how do you say,
to learn from our circumstancesand to to grow and grow in that
and to develop a little.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
And which is much more known or normal in, let's
say, dairy and beef herds or wehave done interviews around that
with Fred Provance, like youknow that are hurt over time
like adjusts to thecircumstances there and if you
move it to a completelydifferent place it will suffer
greatly because it doesn't havethe knowledge anymore to pick
which.

(44:10):
Which herbs can you eat, whichgrasses yes, which grasses know
when, etc.
How to behave in a context, andyou're saying the same is with
seeds yeah, it's the same withseeds.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
And also, of course, the most of our buyers are from
these bio dynamic companies whoonly have open pollinated seeds
or hairland seeds, and of coursethey also have a lot more
diversity in their species, soin the varieties, and they also
try to how do you say to keepthese old varieties.

(44:42):
And they also encourage farmers.
And that's exactly the oppositeof the big seed companies that
work with hybrids.
They don't encourage farmers tosave their own seeds.
But these bio dynamic, openpollinated companies, they
encourage farmers to save theirown seeds for for reddish, for
example, because they say, ifyou save your own seed and you

(45:06):
know of course not every farmeris going to do that that variety
will be adjusted to yourlocation every year a little bit
better, and that's only betterfor the sustainability of food
production.
And still they have a goodbusiness model.
They also earn money.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Yeah, because you said the demand is there.
How has it been in the last,let's say, 10 years on the bio
dynamic seeds and the organicseeds in general?
You found good partners, whichmeans their business is good.
Otherwise they are able to paythe researchers and to write the
nice reports for you and theother growers.
So how, of course, as a partnerand a customer and, let's say,

(45:44):
and a supplier, but do you haveseen the market there to be, to
be interesting or to be, becausewe only hear the stories of the
big four or five or whateverthe number is, of very different
seeds.
Let's say, how's been the otherside?

Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, well, we saw with the corona times that we
have one big buyer who has about80% of what he sells is in
these very tiny sacks with Idon't know two grams or 10 seeds
and it goes in the gardens ofpeople and that sales amount

(46:21):
doubled.
So we also doubled with themand after Corona was gone,
people left their garden andstarted flying again, or I don't
know what.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
The psychological explanation is for that so and
those sales plummeted.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
So only the real fanatic gardeners stayed and so
that sales doubled and and andhalved again.
And that made us yeah, we hadthe need to diversify in that
and find new buyers and we foundthose, and the demand from the

(46:58):
professional gardeners is moreor less the same and, yeah, we
have about five seed companieswho buy from us and we have
around 20 different crops forseed.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah, and on the nutrient density, the quality
side, you say when they have agood life here, let's say a
better start.
Do you measure that as well atthe end when they go to, like
when the radishes are grown, goto the end consumer?
Because you say I have aconnection with a few of those
farmers that end up growing ourseeds to crop.

(47:32):
How have you looked into thatand how have you explored?

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Well, we do a lot of sampling and testing by
laboratories to see whatnutrients are in the crops, also
at harvest, during the growth,of course, and at harvest, and
it's only.
It's difficult to comparebecause you only have your own
seeds and there is just not abig database, also not by the
seed companies, of what theyhave.

(47:57):
They just have germinality.
How do you say it?
German ability.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
German ability figures, and that's it, and
that's the only thing you canvery, very one KPI, that's it.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, that's very, that's very hard and maybe some,
some, some kind of diseasethat's in there or not.
But but all these other factorsnot talking about epigenetics,
of course, I don't know ifthat's, if that's researchable,
but definitely not.
Not nutrients, they don't haveany data on that.

(48:34):
So when we have data, it'sstill hard to say that's good or
better or worse than than whatit should be or than than what's
what's normal, that's it.
There's no benchmark yet.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
And do you see like for yourself or for the farm in
the future, that it keeps beingor it stays mostly focused on
the seed side or in an idealworld?
And let's say you wanted tohave more 50, 50, like food
crops, of course, paid well forthe quality they are.
Or actually say I'm verycomfortable with the the seed

(49:08):
side of things because I'mactually touching so many
hectares and like one hectarehere could be 1000.
Like you said.
Actually, my impact is muchbigger and the research I can do
is much more comfortable.
If I'm not growing food, I'mgrowing the seed for the food?

Speaker 2 (49:20):
That's a very good question, because I often
thought about that, because inthe last five years it went from
5% seed to about 80% of thefarm that's grown for seed.
Only the carrots and the greenpeas are for for consumption, so
to say, and I feel that for meit's important to also have one

(49:41):
or two crops that people can eatand it's not to say that a
radish, right now I can eat it,and in one or two weeks, when it
starts bolting, I cannot eat itanymore.
It's not nice, but till thennow we eat it, and the same goes
for kale and the same goes forcucumbers and the same goes for
crests and all these crops.

(50:01):
So we eat it in the consumptionstates and then it starts
flowering and then you don't eatit anymore.
And we also.
I also want to taste thedifferences between what do I do
with compost tea or with foliarfertilization or with
inoculation at seed?
What's the consumptiondifference?
And then what's the seeddifference?
So we can have these two thingsin the one crop, because we

(50:23):
have the whole crop cycle wherea consumption grower would
harvest the radish at 30 daysand then you can only have in
that phase.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
You would like to also harvest, to do both the
seeds and the consumption.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Yeah that's what we do.
We test in the consumptionphase, so to say, and in the
seed phase, and so we alwayshave this connection, because
this plant for seed is alwaysgoing to this consumption phase
before it's at seed, and so wealways have that.
But I also think it's importantto have a real, only crop for

(51:03):
consumption, and right now it'scarrots and green peas, and well
, the potatoes are for seed, butwe also sell them at our farm
store.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
You have a bit of a mix, and you always probably
have a bit of a mix.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Yeah, yeah, and it's very good to also hear from the
customers here at the farm storetoo.
What do you think the sweetness?

Speaker 1 (51:26):
of the carrots.
Yeah, I know that's it.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
I know the sweetness of a carrot is a subjective
thing.
We've been busy with the tasteof carrots for a long time and
there is a certain category ofpeople, and I don't understand
why.
But they say, yeah, I don'tlike carrots that sweet.
No, it's too sweet for you.
Have these mashed potatoes withcarrots, like in Holland that's

(51:49):
really a Dutch cuisine to mashthem together in one pot.
Same you do with kale, you dowith sauerkraut and okay, it's
called Stamphoth, you know, ofcourse.
And they say in the Stamphothwe don't like the carrots that

(52:10):
sweet and there's a certainpercentage of which.
I think those people in thelast couple of decades have been
getting used to carrots thatjust aren't that sweet.
That's just the taste ofcarrots and we don't know how
good carrot tastes aromatically.
It's not just the sweetness,it's the aroma also, and they

(52:34):
just don't like that anymore.
So I think our taste isdegrading yeah degrading and the
question is which have we had.
It's a minority of people, butthere it is.
Can we reset the tone?

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Can we reset the tone ?
I think that's it.
Yeah, is there a problem?
But of course, as long as it'sa small minority, it's not so
bad for the reasons you know.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
you just, you lost the fight when someone's oh, we
have great tasting carrots.
You lost the fight when theystarted.
Yeah, it's so subjective.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
It's so sweet, fascinating, and, just to end
with a just to end, we're goingto ask a few questions, and
usually that it's a wholedifferent rabbit hole.
But as it's such a fascinatingangle, and I think it's the
first time, or one of the firsttime, we really and we should do
it more often but really talkabout seeds, what would be your,

(53:27):
of course, without givinginvestment advice, but what
would be your main takeaway for,let's say, the financial sector
, of people that are investingtheir own money or other
people's money, that arelistening to this and are
fascinated about the importanceof real good seeds?
Where should they look?
Where should they quote,unquote, dig deeper, what should
they read?
Where would you point them to,let's say, in their journey?

Speaker 2 (53:52):
That's a great question.
What I see?
These differences between thesebigger companies, as I said,
who only produce hybrids oroutside of your GMO seeds, who
are often owned by the chemicalcompanies, and these smaller

(54:15):
biodynamic or organic companies,who have also hybrids but
mostly open pollinated seeds,and they have a different
business model, but they're openin their genetic pool that they
have.
Everybody can take that and godevelop with that and breed with
that.
But these companies don't havethis big financial back support,

(54:41):
so to say, and they have a needfor keeping these old varieties
and breeding new openpollinated varieties with better
taste, who are better adjustedto organic circumstances,
because a lot of varieties inthe organic sector come from

(55:02):
conventional breeding withfertilizer.
So these are epigenetically bredin a system that is not organic
and some of them, with highresistances, are suitable for
organic.
But that's different thanbreeding for organic and that's
such a small sector.
The organic breeding sector.

(55:22):
That's breeding for organicpurposes and they really need
financial input.
I know a lot of breeders andthey're like monks.
They don't have any money andthey work and work out of
passion.
But they know that if they havea variety it's really small
because most of the organicsector is using conventional

(55:45):
varieties.
They're suitable for organic,they're not treated mostly not
organic seed and they just havesuch a small market to sell it
to that they don't have a bigprofit when they have a good
variety and that sector reallyneeds a lot of financial support
for our genetic diversity andalso for our food quality in the

(56:07):
future.
That work should really besupported.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
And just to get.
It's not a big elephant usuallyin this podcast.
But when you shared this storyand somebody said, yeah, so
great and good this biodynamicand organic, but what about
feeding the world and what aboutyields and production which is
interesting because we justdiscussed at the beginning the
whole I think it's always aninput output discussion we

(56:36):
should have, and we alwaysusually have, an output
discussion and you said, yeah,we don't bring in a lot of
nutrients from outside oractually close to zero.
But when somebody just throwsthis what about feeding the
world and yields, et cetera,discussion to you, what do you
normally say when you're at thedinner party or when you're
somewhere.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
That's a really different discussion, of course
Goen.
Have you read?

Speaker 1 (56:58):
this.
What's your go-to answer?
I'm asking for a threat, haveyou?

Speaker 2 (57:01):
read this book of this Dutchman called Mino-Smith.
He's also a biodynamic farmerand it's called I don't know if
I have it here to sustainablefuture farming in 2040, I guess.
Or put it in the next book.

(57:23):
Yeah, so it's in Dutch.
And this guy, he really tookthe effort, he went deep into
the research.
I remember you know it.
I've heard, I think, a book youshould read it, because I can
now talk with you about 10minutes about feeding the world
and all these figures.

(57:44):
In the West we only produce12.5% of the world food and how
much is spilled and all thesethings.
But he has all these figuresand the one that stood by me the
most is that in the 1950s, whena lot of the work was still
done by hand and by horses, themechanization came in

(58:05):
agriculture.
There was about.
I think and don't hold me onthese figures, it's all in this
book he really took the effortto get these figures right About
.
The input was 0.6 or 0.7 andthe output was 1.
So it was a net gain.
And right now the input is 1.5and the output is 1.

(58:31):
So we think we're all reallyefficient.
But if you see what kind ofinputs we have in fuel, but also
in fossil fuel that's used forthe production of fertilizer and
also of these chemicaladditives, it's also all made
from oil and all these machineryand all these rare earth metals

(58:56):
that are needed for all theseelectronics that are on tractors
and machines and whatever, ifyou all put that together this
is totally not an efficientsystem and that really stays by
me.
And of course you should thenask should you grow flowers?
What is the nutritional outputfrom that?

(59:20):
It's zero.
It gives a little joy to peopleand that's it.
In Holland there are a lot offlowers, like 10,000 hectares of
tulips.
We also grew tulips organicallyand all these inputs that go in
that.
Then no one eats them.
I know a lot of some of ourflower bulbs went to this very

(59:42):
expensive restaurant and theyhad flowers on the menu.
Yeah, okay, there were two orthree.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
That's all.
There's a different discussion.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
But I just know that the whole narrative of feeding
the world is, on a lot of ways,it's really easy to put aside
and show that that is not thecase in the Western part of the
world.
We do not feed the world, wesimply don't.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
I will put a link below.
I was looking if I can find abook in English, but I did find
a publication on the website ofWageningen University on the
input output or output input,and it's indeed staggering.
It went from a positive system,I think 1.04.
I see here output versus inputto like 0.16.
Yeah, the amount of kilo viewthe amount of energy going into

(01:00:32):
the system to get the caloriesout.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
A lot of people make calculation and it's not good,
simply not good.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
No, it's like one thing Actually.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Yes, but you're not the expert in that, but I just
know it's no this is Mino Smith.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
This is the publication.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
So it's a very I asked the question often because
I simply am looking fordifferent audiences, let's say
the different.
A different answer is needed,different context, and this is
one we didn't hear before but Ireally like.
So thank you.
Thank you for that.
And what if we switch the focusfor a second or from your side,

(01:01:08):
so no longer farmer and alsonot giving advice or direction
for investors, actually being aninvestor yourself?
What would you do if you had abillion euros to put to work?

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Oh, that's a lot.
So of course, you gave me thisquestion earlier and you asked
that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
I do all your guests.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
So I thought about this.
What really?
But what we really need on thisfarm and on other farmers that
are taking this regenerativejourney is we need real
agronomic insights and not onlysoil.
Biology is important andcomposting is good.
We cannot work with that.

(01:01:50):
How do we make this compost?
How do we apply, what kind ofpump do we need that we don't
damage the organisms All thatkind of really great details.
We need research on that, andI'm not saying that universities
should do this research.
Well, mostly it is that theuniversities take these initial

(01:02:12):
ideas of farmers and theyresearch that, but as they
research that in three or fouror five years, they take these
couple of factors hopefullymulti-factorial research and
they research that.
But this farmer, who has hiswhole life and private money
invested in his farm, who isworking on the system, is

(01:02:37):
changing this every year, or howdo you say?
Hopefully changing it for thebetter every year, so five years
later.
Yeah, he is in a reallydifferent direction.
So these farmers who are on theforefront, who put it all in,
like in a casino.
Put it all in every year, alltheir private money, everything.
If they lose one year of allcrops they are the bankrupt.

(01:02:59):
Of course they have the worstof the soil, but the liquid
funds are then gone.
They need support and they doall this for work and also
because they are growing all infinancially every year.
They also want to make thiswork with a very high motivation

(01:03:23):
.
When a researcher on a researchfarm has a failure on an
experiment, it's okay, I getpaid by the hour.
An innovative farmer has afailure, he cannot buy a new
chamber for his children.

(01:03:44):
That's what's here to matter.
We have five kids and we wantto renovate our house.
We have this building out inthe 1870s and there are not
enough rooms for these fivechildren, because in the 1870s
all these, they had big families.
They slept in these closets bedstatus.

(01:04:05):
So now we must make new chambersin the house when I have a
failure here.
My kids cannot sleep in a singlechamber, they have to sleep
together.
So that's very personal andthat gives a very high
motivation to really make itwork and to get all the books

(01:04:26):
and all the research and all thepodcasts, webinars, whatever of
all the experts to get the mostinformation to make it good.
And what the best for us is isreally agronomical information,
and we find that out of all thecommunities that are mostly
German speaking in Switzerland,austria and Germany, of these

(01:04:47):
farmers that also have takenthis German regenerative
approach that's really practical.
That tells you how to brew yourcompost tea, at what's the
temperature and how long andwhat to look for.
All these practical tools.

(01:05:07):
That is what you need, thesegrips, and we are by far not
there and we need support,financial support, to be able to
take more experiments and to gofurther here on farms of
farmers who are trying this, sowe can get further faster and so

(01:05:29):
that we learn from each other.
So these networks are reallyimportant and these farmers are
really important and we togetherneed financial support.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
So that's where you would put money to work and
invest is really on the peer topeer with really good practical
agronomic advice.
Peer to peer farmer side ofthings, Because that's where the
strength is and the speed is,and of course, universities can
back that up later by saying oh,we see in practice that it

(01:06:00):
works.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
The farmers say this is a working system, but it's
not in research.
Okay, then that can be backedup by research, hopefully.
But for the farmer that is notin the first place important.
In the first place it'simportant that he knows what he
can do and what he should do andwhat he can do and what he can
do now, yeah, what he can do,now, what he can adjust?

(01:06:21):
and what are these practicaltools?
Because if you make a covercrop mix, what should be in
there?
What plant families and whatmixture, sowing day, termination
strategy, all those things.
And then if you mix this withradish or with grass or with
potatoes or with carrots we makeeverywhere, we make undersauce
and also in carrots and potatoes, and what possibilities and
then you talk to the farmersfrom Switzerland and say, oh,

(01:06:47):
yeah, I do it with oats becausethat attracts the wireworm.
Oh, we also have wireworm,since we started a lot with
cover crops.
Oh, and that's maybe a goodtest.
And then we test that withtrips with oats and without oats
, and that way we get hopefullyfurther in the development a lot

(01:07:07):
quicker.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
And as a final question if you had a magic wand
and could change one thing overso you have the magic power to
change one thing overnight whatwould that?

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
be.
I would try to change thenarrative of conventional
farming and alternative farming,because what we do now is still
seen as an alternative type offarming.
But I see it as the way inwhich you're trying the most to

(01:07:42):
understand nature and to try tocooperate and steer that in the
right direction in a form thatyou also can get your crops out
of that.
And I see the other part offarming, what is now called
conventional or chemical farming.
And yeah, this is how we do itand nature should listen and

(01:08:02):
when we don't like this, we killthis.
So we first we place a lot offertilizer that pumps up the
plants.
Plants get sick, then we killthe disease or the plague and
that's called conventional andeverybody thinks that's normal
and we have to kill everythingand we can have every weeds
because that's a threat and Ithink that's all a sign of that.

(01:08:23):
Either your soil or your plantis not in balance and we know
that now.
But that's so logical and Iwould like that the narrative is
that that is logical, thatevery plague, disease or weed is
a sign of what we are doingwith these microbial systems in
our soil, in our plants, andthat that the way of farming

(01:08:46):
with nature in this regenerativeway is the normal way.
And okay, if people then wantto go with chemicals, then we
should call that just analternative way or a chemical
way.
But that is not.
That is not the normal naturalway.
And now it is.
Oh yeah, that's, that'salternative.
Oh yeah, what you do is veryspecial and, oh yeah, very kind

(01:09:07):
of weird, you know and that isso stupid because it's like,
like nature, we should not thinkthat is okay to use a new
implement machine that iskilling all the soil structure
in the top 10 centimeter justbecause this, this, this company

(01:09:27):
and this this constructor drawthis machine it is okay for a
farmer to use.
Now you should think what doesmy soil biology need and what
can I?
What can I implement so that Ibenefit soil biology and my crop
?
And maybe there is a implementmachine made for this, or I can

(01:09:48):
develop one, or I can have onemade and not.
This is a new machine.
Oh, okay, so that's a newtechnology in agriculture and
that is, by definition, what Iam allowed to use on my soil.
It's the other way around.
We're thinking out of techniqueand we're thinking so linear
because this is really a roundmodel.
It's a jing and young.

(01:10:08):
It's the farmer and the soil,it is the sun and the and the
plant.
That is the microorganism inthe soil and the plant.
It's all ying and young.
It's very round.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
And I'm doubting to ask a follow up question because
it's such a nice end.
What I have I actually wantedto you.
What do your neighbors nowthink?
Like are they I mean you, ofcourse, with your father going
organic and you were already abit weirdos, let's say, has this
as the view shifted?

(01:10:39):
Or as you have been going,let's say, deeper and deeper?
In the natural way, you alsobecome weird and maybe the
baseline shifted as well.
Like what are your neighborsthinking currently of your
operation?
Are some also in transition?
Are they curious about all thethings you make yourself on the
farm, probably more profitablethan some others, about

(01:10:59):
machinery and all of that?
Or are you still very much theweirdos in town?

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
No, that really has shifted because, as I explained,
in the first year it was reallyhard and people are thinking a
lot of bad things and now thereare a lot of good compliments
and interest in how we do thingsand a lot of farmers have gone
to minimum tillage here around,used a lot of cover crops and,

(01:11:26):
yeah, we see that shift is goinghere and our neighbors are
doing things of which I thoughtthat they would never do a
couple of years ago.
I think, yeah, something ismoving and I don't know if they
would say it in that way like,oh yeah, we see that it's
possible that you are doing it,we are doing it, that doesn't

(01:11:48):
matter, that's okay.
But you see a lot, and I talk alot of two conventional farmers
.
There's a term, again, I won'tsay chemical, that's so negative
, but I talk a lot to otherfarmers not all organic and they
are all very positive aboutwhat we do.
And then, when I explain alittle about the background and

(01:12:10):
how we try to focus on what soilbiology needs and what's good
for that, oh yeah, that's reallylogical.
And, of course, and yeah,plants should not always be sick
and yeah, we saw also in a verygood field that we did not have
to spray for disease, and ohyeah.
But if you think a littlefurther, then all those seeds

(01:12:30):
are planted and I think that'snice.
But I would really have, yeah,in my ideal view.
See that that has really scaledup a lot and I think these
communities of regenerativefarmers which we are connected
in a couple are really doing agood job, because there you have

(01:12:52):
practical info that goes fromfarmer to farmer, mostly online
or in WhatsApp groups.
That goes really fast and thatway you learn from each other,
and that farmer tells hisneighbor who is maybe not
regenerative yet, and he says ohand that way it spreads like
well, not like an oil, but itspreads really fast yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
And within those groups.
I'd like to ask you a questioninspired by John Kempf on where
do you think different?
Or where do you think differentand I like to ask it among your
peers, like when you're in theGerman speaking, let's say, the
deep end of the pool of theregenerative farmers who don't
have to be convinced about soillife, et cetera.
But do you notice sometimes,like if you go to the courses,

(01:13:38):
et cetera, where are youdifferent, you as Aaron the
farmer?
Where do you think differentthan your peers who are very
deep into this?

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
There is this whole regenerative model out of
Germany called negative and landwith shafts, and, dave, this
all describes how you should gowith the green manures and with
your minerals and compost these,and how you loosen your soil
and so further.
Also what you do with youranimal manure.

(01:14:10):
You also ferment that.
But, we on all these points, wetry to go the step further.
So, all right, we make compost.
There is this recipe, you canbuy this brewer and you have a
protocol for that.
But we want to know what's init.

(01:14:31):
So my dad took a cross-pocketcourse a couple years back and
now we check and we test withdifferent ingredients and
different brewing temperatures.
We developed our own brewertogether with his Swiss company
and we have a contact with that.
They come here and we go thereto Switzerland to talk about

(01:14:53):
them and to really deepen intoevery subject.
Also, with green manures, okay,you can get these standard mixes
.
These seed companies have thesestandard mixes and they work
fine.
They're set together by theseconsultants of the regenerative
agriculture in Germany.

(01:15:14):
But we want different mixes, wewant better mixes, we want to
optimize, we want more plantfamilies, we want to mix them
with seed crops.
So all these subjects you havefarmers who say, oh, I just
followed the protocol, and ofcourse that's also hard, and
also you learn things and youadjust a little.
But we have, so to say, a lotmore knobs that we want to fine

(01:15:36):
tune.
Call it 100, call it 1000 knobsthat we want to fine tune.
We want to fine tune everything.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
And did you ever get into the temptation or maybe you
did as well to start sellingsome of the mixes or your
knowledge in that way, or maybeadjusted machinery or to
basically sort of switch not tothe other side but be a
different actor in this space inthat sense?
Or maybe a mix is for yourneighbor, or something like that

(01:16:05):
, because at some point it'snice if every farmer does it,
but at the same time in yourcontext there might be neighbors
that you're much better, betterbrewer.
Why should I?

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
do all of that work.
That is it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
That's that ever like with the seeds.
Basically that's thedevelopment.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Last year, one, two years, we are really thinking
and talking with partners aboutspecial compost, the compost
brewer seed mixes, as you said,and knowledge in this red
generative community, maybe askind of a consultant.
But I find it really hardbecause I'm really modest and I

(01:16:42):
don't like to tell other peoplewhat to do or what they should
do, because I think we ourselvesare not here that.
But then they say, yeah, butyou have so much experience.
Yeah, yeah, same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
You don't want them to do something, mostly of how
it's not done.
But that's also good experience.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):
And no, we are really trying to find a way now and
how to do that.
For me it's the biggest fearthat I am a true farmer.
I sit on the tractor myself, Ibrew the compost team myself,
but I also do all the managingand all the learning and all the
contacts.
I do this myself.

(01:17:20):
So I have one employee who isin me and I have one loose
employee and then I have me, andI think that is important to
know when you are working withthis machine.
Incorporating cover crop orthis small piece is not right
yet and we should adjust, and soon and so on.
And I have a little bit of fear, when I go more in sharing and

(01:17:46):
maybe having compost to sell andputting more effort in that
more time, that I have less timein experiencing the farm yeah,
in being a farmer.

Speaker 1 (01:17:59):
I like being a farmer .
You used to have a successfulregent farm and now it's mostly
setting books and on stage.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
And also the development.
And that's what I heard fromsome consultants.
They say, yeah, I used to farma lot and have a lot of
experience, and now I take thatexperience again from other
farmers because I come there by,but I'm always traveling and
giving speeches, but all myexperience comes from other
farmers and maybe a garden orsomething, and for me that's

(01:18:26):
still all my experience comesfrom a farm and all the people I
tell or come here on courses,they say, yeah, but you're a
true farmer and what you say youreally had in your own hands.
So that's the most true that wecan get.
When we get from a consultant,yeah, maybe you just say
something or you heard somethingfrom another farmer there's

(01:18:49):
always a chance ofmiscommunication, of course, and
with us, with me, that's notthe case.
But if I only farm, then Icannot tell other people.
So there must be a kind of abalance in that.
Yeah, yeah, what's the balance?

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
That's new.
For me, that's new You're afarmer.
That's new.
You're impacting 1000 hectareswith a hectare of seed and it's
finding that equivalent in theknowledge and equivalent in the
inputs or other inputs, becauseseed are inputs as well, and I'm
sure you will.
I'm very thankful for you tocome here.
I know it's your first podcastever, so thank you for being

(01:19:24):
here and having that experiencewith us and thank you so much
for the work you do every day,obviously in the regenerative
space and coming here to shareabout it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
Yeah, it was a great opportunity, koen, and thanks
that you gave me the opportunityto do this.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
Thank you so much for listening all the way to the
end.
For the show notes and links wediscussed in this episode,
check out our website investingin RegenerativeEgrCulturecom.
Forward slash posts.
If you liked this episode, whynot share it with a friend or
give us a rating on ApplePodcasts?
That really helps.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.

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246 - Erwin Westers - Supermarkets didn’t care about his quality so he focussed on selling seeds to other regenerative farmers

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}246 - Erwin Westers - Supermarkets didn’t care about his quality so he focussed on selling seeds to other regenerative farmers