A conversation with Olivier Husson, engineer, system agronomist and agroecologist, working on a health approach based around the balance of Eh (electrons) and pH (protons) in soil, plants, microorganisms, animals, etc. Unbalanced Eh-pH conditions lead to poor nutrition and poor photosynthesis. As consequence, plants which lack energy and are being oxidised are attacked by pests and pathogens.
Everything starts with plants and optimal photosynthesis, but most plants are too sick to optimally turn sunlight into energy. So, they are not able to create or regenerate soils. This is a fascinating deep dive into healthy plants and non-healthy plants. In short, it is all about energy and energy we either get from photosynthesis or photosynthesis from a few million years ago, aka fossil fuels.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Everything starts with plants and optimal
photosynthesis, but most plantsare too sick to optimally turn
sunlight into energy, so they'renot able to create or
regenerate soils.
Join us for a fascinating deepdive into healthy plants and
non-healthy plants.
We talk about the balancebetween EH electrons and pH
protons In soil, plants,microorganisms, animals, etc.
(00:21):
Unbalanced EH-PH conditionslead to poor nutrition, poor
photosynthesis and, as aconsequence, plants like the
energy and are being oxidized.
And guess what happens next?
These plants are being attackedby pests and pathogens and need
to spend a lot of energy onfighting off these pests and
pathogens, which means theydon't have the energy to produce
healthy food.
(00:42):
In short, it's all about energyand the energy we either get
from photosynthesis or fromphotosynthesis from a few
million years ago, aka fossilfuels.
What are the connections betweenhealthy farming practices,
(01:04):
healthy soil, healthy produce,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
(01:25):
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 an engineer in
(01:55):
agronomy working on one healthan approach based on the balance
of electrons, ea and pH protonsin soil, plants, microorganisms
, animals, etc.
Welcome, olivier.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Hi, welcome.
Thank you Sorry.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And first of all shout out to Pierre Ville, who
introduced us.
I have a lot of questionsaround this because, as you know
, I'm not a soil nor animalexpert, and so I'm going to ask,
I think, very often what doesthat mean in plain English, and
can you explain that again?
But I think I used to that andyou've been in this place for so
long, so I always love to startwith a personal question and a
(02:30):
question how did you end upfocusing on soil and how did you
end up focusing on agricultureas a career path?
Because there are many otherpaths you could take, as an
engineer, for sure.
So what was it that triggeredyou into the fascination for
food, ag and soil?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, I don't know exactly.
I always wanted to be at workin agriculture.
I was lucky enough when Istarted my career to have some
bosses who told me that I wasnot allowed to specialize in
anything, so that's a very niceway to focus on what is the most
(03:07):
important.
I just try to be as efficientas possible, to change the
system and improve the way wegrow things and the way we can
keep our soil healthy.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
And do you remember when you noticed, or when it hit
you?
When you discovered, let's saythat the current way of farming
is not doing that, is doing theopposite.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Again.
I was really lucky to meetLucien Segui very early in my
career, so he's been working onconservation agriculture.
He was one of the pioneers inconservation agriculture.
He was working in Brazil but hecame to visit us several times
in Madagascar.
I spent most of my life intropical countries, in Vietnam,
(03:55):
in Madagascar, so Lucien wasreally a pioneer of conservation
agriculture and changing thesystem and showing how we need
to regenerate the soil and howthe plants are so important for
the system to work properly.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
It's interesting you mentioned that the plants as a
focus point.
Basically, the plants are sortof the entry, or the plants are
the key tool and I'm using twohere very deliberately, but of
course it's not fair but a keytool to build healthy soil.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yes, yes, yes, there's, there's.
It's clearly something we haveto stress more often is that all
the energy from the systemcomes from plants, from the
photosynthesis.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So actually it comes from the sun.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yes, it comes from the sun, but the sun on the bare
soil it's really oxidizing.
It's lots of, a lot of energy.
On the contrary, the energy ofthe sun is the energy for
photosynthesis if you haveplants.
So the plants are the key tocatch all the energy from the
sun and to inject it in thesystem and then the plants will
(05:12):
feed, the microorganism will andwe would.
All this energy will be used tofill in all the functions we
need to have for soil to workproperly.
So, especially on soil,structure is fundamental, is a
key point, and to keep to createand to keep a good soil
structure, you need plant roots,you need macrophona, earthworms
(05:35):
or they eat plants red nans andyou need microorganism that are
fed by the plants.
So all the energy from thesystem comes from the plants and
that's really one one thingthat strikes me in the one of
approach.
The one of approach was designedfirst by by veteran irons and
(05:56):
doctors in medicine, and thesoil and the plants are the last
piece in the puzzle they bringin.
And for me this is the opposite.
It's the plants are worth.
All the system relies on it.
It's without the plants.
We often hear that you needhealthy soil to have healthy
(06:20):
plants.
It's the opposite you needplants to have healthy soil and
healthy plants, and healthyplants any plants.
But first you need to catch theenergy to improve the soil
structure.
Then you can get healthy plantsthat will make healthy soil.
But really the first step is tohave plants growing.
(06:41):
You can grow plants withoutsoil.
You remove the plants from thesoil, you get a dessert.
Dessert with a scent only in afew months or years and depends
on the climate.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And so it's really an energy question.
Yes, I've heard people say likefarmers are basically solar
energy entrepreneurs and theyuse very small solar panels
which are leaves and need tocapture as much as possible and
as long as possible and aslayered as possible, almost to
not waste, basically like asingle ray of sunlight.
(07:17):
Like you need to capture asmuch as possible and that's why
you sent an email before.
Like plants have to grow asmuch as possible, as long as
possible and all over the year,which sort of goes against most
of conventional agriculturesystems at the moment.
But just to explain, how muchof a difference can that make in
terms of if an experience thatcomes to mind, or an example,
(07:38):
just to paint the picture a bitclearer, of how important plants
are to make the soil and howimportant to turn that like sort
of the key or the engine startswith plants taking sunlight and
then turning it into sugars andexodates, etc.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
How can you get it?
I'm not sure I understand yourquestion, In fact.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
No, you've worked in the tropics, in the Madagascar,
and like the difference betweentaking the plants first compared
to the conventional approach of, okay, any better soil to grow
a plant at all.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
The main difference between temperates and tropical
conditions is that in and intropical conditions, if you
don't work properly with nature,you can destroy the soil
extremely fast.
Within a few months, you getall your soil lost and then
wasted.
It's longer in temperateconditions, so that's a good
(08:36):
thing.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
We're finding out now .
Speaker 2 (08:37):
basically, yeah, but it's the same processes, that
it's just that in tropicalconditions they are faster and
quicker and stronger, so it'seasier to study them.
That's also one of the reasonswhy I'd like to work on the
tropical conditions, but at theend it's always the same If you
(08:58):
remove the energy from thesystem, nothing is working
anymore.
And mainly the soil structureis fundamental, and to keep the
soil structure you need energy.
You need to feed microbes, youneed to feed the earthworms, the
termites, all the ecologicalengineers, what we call them,
(09:20):
and if you stop feeding them,then you don't have the manpower
to sustain this structure.
And you also need the energy tomake the glues that keeps the
soil structure, all this fungithat will produce different kind
of sugar, but also glues thatwill sustain the structure.
(09:45):
We need a structure that willnot collapse in water, and all
this is energy.
And this is the main differencewe can see with conventional
system is that in a geologicalsystem, in regenerative
agriculture, the principle is tohave most of the energy of the
(10:10):
system coming from directphotosynthesis from the plant.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
In conventional agriculture we use fossil energy
, but it is very old solarenergy, but this is all again
coming from the photosynthesis.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, it's something like 100 million years ago.
So that's the main difference.
And the second main differenceis that, as I said, soil
structure is a key and withrotating tool, with iron and
fossil energy, you can recreatesome macro porosity for a while,
(10:51):
but it will not be stable.
But you cannot create the microporosity, the one, the small
pores where you can keep water,where you will have your water
reserve.
So that's another majordifference.
We use Fossil energy and we arenot able to make the soil
structure sufficient to keepwater.
(11:12):
When water is getting in, it'shitting us hard now.
It's a key.
It's really a key.
Also, now we need to store asmuch rainwater as possible and
the best way to store it is tohave good soil structure with
this micro pores that will storethe water, that will retain the
(11:33):
water, and this is made bymicro organism.
It's a very small pores and youcannot make them artificially,
mechanically, and do you?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
remember when the one health and the concept of
basically the one health came onyour path, when you started
looking also at the quality ofthe plants or the health of the
plants and then obviously, howto translate at some point into
humans or whoever consumes thoseplants.
With bleu blancueur, obviouslyit's very often goes through an
(12:08):
animal, the animal protein side.
But when almost this quality ornutrient density or health
piece became part of your work,was that from the beginning or
was that later on?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
No, at the beginning, we quite rapidly understood
that, with all my colleagues andfrom Syrat working in the team,
we understood that the plantswere the key and that we needed
to have as much as possible.
So we designed cropping systemin order to.
To announce this, and it's onlylater on when we started
(12:43):
working on the micronutrientsneeded for photosynthesis and
all this, and when I started towork on this redox approach,
which is basically based onenergy.
The redox is the electron, soit's the energy kept in the
(13:03):
electron, phs in the proton.
Basically, I see a plant like anitrogen plant.
Photosynthesis is mainlystoring energy in the form of
hydrogens, and it's hydrogen andoxygen.
(13:24):
It's all this pH story withelectron and proton.
Hydrogen is one electron andone proton, so when we add
Proton or electrons to thesystem, we we store energy and
the plant is the vision we arefrom photosynthesis.
(13:46):
We always talking about carbon.
We need to store carbon.
Co2 has no energy, so it's fullof and and diamond.
Diamond is pure carbon, but youdon't grow anything on carbon or
charcoal, so the importancethat the carbon in fact is the
(14:09):
storage unit is the compartmentof the battery and the but it's
not the battery itself and it'snot the energy but an empty
battery is useless, so you'resaying let's focus on the energy
, focus on the energy.
Yeah, focus on the.
The energy inside that is thecarbon is just the chance of
(14:31):
carbon, are just the compartmentto store energy.
So we need to look at all thehydrogen's that are stored and
also the, the aromatic cycles,because you have electrons also.
But mainly when you startlooking hydrogen versus oxygen,
you have a good idea for theamount of energy you have in
your, in your system, and it'swhat we need to look at in the,
(14:54):
in your mouse, in in all the, inall the functioning, in all the
components and and.
At the end it's this energythat you will get back in the in
your food okay and is that bitlike.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I remember from the first time we appear on Pierre.
We love Blancur.
He was saying the omega 3 6ratio is a really good proxy of
what happened in the value chainor in the chain and if soy has
been used or other things to, tounbalance that.
Are you saying that the EHPHbalance or non-balance,
unbalance is a really good proxyof everything else and that
(15:31):
that, like, if it's real wellbalanced, we can say that this
is a well functioning and doeswell functioning, mainly also in
the photosynthesis piece.
Because that's what we want.
We want an efficient plant thattakes in a lot of this solar
energy and not not take it in.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Basically, yeah, is it a good proxy for health yes,
but it's not always enough.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
But it's of course more complicated yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
You need to look at why it happens, because you, you
, in fact how do you measurethat or how do you look at it?
So we, we.
It takes quite a few times.
We took us five years to beable to measure properly because
the measurement in withelectrodes, for in
electrochemistry, the, themeasurement falls by the
(16:15):
electromagnetic field.
So it's getting more and morecomplicated to measure.
But we are developing for theplants.
We are measuring now throughinfrared spectrometer.
So we need in field, in field.
We need to calibrate for foreach plant.
It's what we are doing at themoment, but the measurement is
much faster and and and moreaccurate as I can imagine when
(16:39):
you take a leaf and send it tothe energy is gone, like it's
not.
It's irrelevant yeah, it has tobe unplanned yeah, we need to do
it at a certain time or in theday, because during the night
there was no photosynthesis, sothe in the morning, the, the
heat is dropping fast becausethe plant is getting energy from
(17:01):
the sun and so.
But the main problem is tomeasure the right scale for, for
, for the different processes,because all this is
compartmented in the plant.
For instance, it's not the samelevel in the roots or in the
leaves, it's not the same levelin the, the apoplasa and outside
(17:22):
the cell, inside the cell andin the mitochondria or in the
coroplast or in the.
So it's compartmentalized.
So that's that's difficulty,but but in plant physiology
there's a lot of publication onthis.
So it's it's not so difficultto have good information and and
(17:43):
, as agronomists, just measuringthe average level of the leaf
if you take the, always the sametype of leaf, because also
young leaves are oxidized andthen fully photosynthetically
active plants are leaves.
So so but once you understoodthis, it's rather easy to have
(18:08):
the measurement.
Now, especially with thespectrometer, we were able to
get get rain, quite a lot ofinformation at the moment,
especially for plants likegrapevine or wheat.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
So and then was it tell you?
What does it tell you as anagronomist and also, indirectly
or directly, the farmer?
Like let's say it's anunbalanced or let's start with
the balance, like it's abalanced reading you get and you
compare it in like this thislooks good, like is there,
doesn't mean the farmer doesn'thave to act and doesn't have to
(18:41):
do anything, or what.
What does it tell the agronomicpractice?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
basically, so that the it will tell you if the
plant has enough energy and ifyou can control the pH correctly
.
Because controlling pH is veryimportant and it costs energy.
You need to activate pumps thatthat consume ATP.
So you are, you need energy toregulate almost everything.
(19:06):
To absorb the nutrient, thesolubility of the nutrients
relies on EH and pH.
For most of them as well, thethe form of nitrogen, mineral
nitrogen, is based on EH and pHdiagrams and and it impacts all
the plant nutrition for many,many aspects and all the plant
(19:26):
physiology.
Absorption of nitrates is willoxidize a lot the plant and
alkalin ice a lot the plant.
Absorption of ammonium willacidify a lot the plant and and
the different type of pathogensand insect and pests.
They feed on plants that aretoo oxidized and, according to
(19:50):
different pH, each type ofpathogen or pest can develop or
can feed on on different partsof the of the plant and when
they are at EH and pH level thatthat should suit them.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
So basically, a plant will get attacked if parts of
the plant are not in balance interms of yeah, they are in
balance and they are oxidized.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
In fact, they lack energy.
And they lack energy becausefantasies, photosynthesis was
not a a sufficiency form and anaverage wheat field.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
If you walk into it, how bad is it?
Like a conventional, likethat's?
Let's not talk, but like, if,like, how unbalanced or how like
just comparing it to likereally well, let's say soil
focused farmers, like, what'sthe difference?
Is it night and day?
Are we talking in terms of like?
Just to understand for peoplethat don't do this very
regularly and see it in a lab orin the field like, how
(20:52):
different?
Like are they really sickplants compared to the other one
?
Or is the difference not somuch?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
so we're talking of a few tens of millivolts.
We measure EH is a measure of atension, of a voltage, so we
measure millivolts and we cansee difference between resistant
or tolerant plants andsusceptible plants.
It's around 20 millivolts.
(21:17):
So it's small differences weneed to measure and there's a
high variability.
And what?
What is the key, what isfundamental to understand, is
that when you have a compactedsoil with a poor soil structure,
as soon as it rains it's water,like the water as fixates
(21:37):
everything.
So the plants will get, theroots will not breathe, there
will be no oxygen for the roots,so the photosynthesis will go
down.
So the plant is under asphyxiaand the photosynthesis goes down
.
So the leaf, the ayurvedicparts, will oxidize because
photosynthesis is not efficient.
(21:58):
And as soon as this soil is dry, they get really oxidized and
then it's the opposite.
So for the plant it's almostimpossible to keep a balance,
because it goes from asphyxia toover oxidation within two days.
So that's that's the realproblem with compacted soil.
(22:18):
And then all the plantnutrition is deficient and all
the nutrients will not beabsorbed or not in the proper
form, and then they will beattacked and then they have to
fight.
So they have to use to spendenergy.
It's a vicious circle.
When the photosynthesis is notenough, is not functioning
(22:39):
enough, the plant will spend alot of energy just for for
nutrient absorption.
If the soil is oxidized, theplant needs to spend energy to
reduce around the the roots inthe rhizosphere, to reduce and
acidify, to get iron, to getmanganese, which are essential
elements for the photosynthesis.
So the plant has not enoughenergy and it needs to spend a
(23:02):
lot of energy to access to thenutrients.
And it will absorb nitrateswhen it's oxidized.
So it creates an imbalance onpH.
Ph will get alkalinized a lot.
So the plant needs to regulatethis and spend energy to do this
.
So it has no energy to producemore leaves, so no energy to
catch the sunlight to makephotosynthesis so.
(23:27):
So it's a vicious circle.
It's a spiral down, basicallyyes, and you go down and down
and then there's the plantproduce a little amount of
biomass, so there's littleenergy for the soil to keep the
soil structure, to feed themicroorganism, to feed the all
(23:48):
the macrophona.
So you, the structure gets down, spiraling down and down.
Once you have enough energy inthe plant, the photosynthesis,
you manage to produce enough,then you, you start upwards per
spiral, it's, it will improveand improve and the soil will be
more and more balanced.
So the plant will not need tospend energy to get access to
(24:12):
the nutrients, so it will can.
There will be highphotosynthesis, a lot of biomass
production, and then youimprove the soil structure and
and you go on like this.
So, so it's.
There's really threshold levels, when the soil has not enough
energy anymore.
The plants needs to to to bringin the energy in the system.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
So all the energy that she spent for this, she
will not have it to make newleaves so, and that means less
energy into the system because,as we learned, all the energy
comes from the leaves, have comefrom photosynthesis.
And what does it mean for thequality?
I mean, you mentioned wheat andgrapes, like in the end, like,
(24:55):
have you the step to the qualityand the quantity of the harvest
?
I can only imagine it's.
It's not good, but, like as a,do you have any anecdotal or in
general experience there what itmeans for what you end up
harvesting?
I can imagine a stressed plantis not gonna yield what you
wanted to yield, both inquantity and quality.
(25:15):
But what?
What have you seen there?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
so the it's again a matter of energy.
When the plant has enoughenergy, it can store it, making
lipids, making secondarymetabolites, making a lot of
antioxidants, oxidants, a lot ofentocyanin, of flavonoid, all
(25:38):
this energy rich elements, whenit has time, basically when it's
relaxed, when it's not stressedfor a survivor it has enough
energy to, to spend, to store it, and then this energy is
available when the plants wouldneed it.
When you have a week with acloudy sky where the
(26:01):
photosynthesis will go down,then the plant we can as enough
reserve to to to continuefeeding the microorganism in the
soil that are needed for fornutrient absorption, for water
prospection, for for many things.
So all the, all the stress inthe plants or in the living
(26:25):
organism are oxidizing stress.
So the plant will need to spendenergy to face the stress.
It can be a drought, it can bea nutrient deficiency, it can be
an attack by a pest.
All this is oxidizing, so it'sa loss of energy.
So if the plant has enoughenergy, it can, it can face this
(26:50):
without, without any anyproblem.
When it starts lacking energy,there's, it will spend.
There's two, two stages in fact.
A plant will produce a lot ofantioxidants, either when it has
(27:11):
a lot of energy and then it canstore it.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Or when it's under stress.
Or when it's under stress,because I've heard of stories I
never remember where, but it'sgood to stress them sometimes,
because then you get that yesit's good to stress them, I
never really understood that theplants, all the stress, are
oxidizing, so the defense isantioxidants.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
So, if you have If you stress the plants, it will
be obliged to spend the littleenergy it has to produce
antioxidants, otherwise the cellwill just be destroyed.
When it's too oxidized, thecell makes a cell death.
So you wanted an anecdote, johnKemp, who says Ask the the, how
(28:02):
do you call this?
The cannabis producer?
If they stress their plants tohave a lot of TSH?
No, they put them in perfectcondition so that they can.
They have a lot of energy andthey can store a lot of this
mid-secondarimitaballite.
So, seah, you have twodifferent ways.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
But the safer way, let's say, is to not miss, to
create the abundance.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
In fact, when a plant has not enough energy, it will
get attacked by different fungi,different bacteria, different.
It depends on the pH and on thelocation.
But the oxidation of the plant,the lack of energy of the plant
, will allow the pest or thepathogen to develop or to attack
(28:52):
or to digest when they areeating it.
So in such condition the wayfor the plant to defend itself
is also to kill locally.
By over oxidation.
It sends H2O2 around the fungithis green and Not green, sorry,
black or brown around the fungion a leaf, for instance.
(29:18):
So the plant has not enoughenergy to defend itself through
reduction, through antioxidants.
So it kills locally throughover oxidation.
So that's the only way for her.
There's not enough energy to bedigestible by the pest or
(29:39):
pathogen, so it gets reallyoxidized, just like making a
backfire or a counterfire tostop the fire.
So you destroy, you sacrificesome cells, you can avoid the
contamination of all the plants,and so locally it kills through
(30:01):
over oxidation and thensystemically it sends a signal
to the rest of the plants sayingwe are too oxidized and we are
attacked.
So now we grow less and we keepmore energy.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Okay still to protect it.
Basically triggers.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Which of?
Speaker 1 (30:21):
course, is not something you want as a grower.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
It's not something I want.
But then if we move back tothis one health approach,
constantly, the way conventionalsystem works, it's globally
oxidizing practices, so theplant gets oxidized, so you have
to protect and you help theplants to kill the DNA through
(30:49):
over oxidation.
Basically it's the main way forthe plant protection in
conventional system.
Some are different, but most ofthem are like this.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Meaning the agrochemicals you use spray, etc
.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Most of the fertilizer you use are oxidizing
.
Tilling the soil is oxidizingand not having plants all the
time is oxidizing because youdon't get the energy.
So that's the main strategy isto help.
The plant kills it's in methrough over oxidation.
But then the photosynthesis isproducing antioxidants.
(31:31):
So you go back to Narae wherethe different pathogen and pests
can thrive again.
So again you over oxidize, butat the end you get a product
that is oxidized, that has lowenergy level.
So when you think that, whenyou realize that digestive tube
(31:59):
or stomach, it's just like aroot that has been invaginated.
It's the same structure, thesame function.
In our belly, the animals intheir stomach, we grow some
microorganisms that will digestthe food we ingest.
The plant does the same.
The plant grows.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
It says not internally, it's inside out.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
But in topology, our digestive tube is the external
environment.
It's outside, it's open, it'san open air.
So what does that means thatthe food we absorb is the
(32:45):
equivalent for the plant of thesoil.
So when the plant is, Can weaccess it?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Can we?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
access it.
If we feed ourselves or theanimals with two oxidized plants
, we don't get enough energy.
And then we need to spendenergy to stabilize, to regulate
the pH and all the things, andthis you can measure in the room
(33:12):
and, of course, for instance,you have some document on this.
To regulate the pH you useenergy.
You use pH, proton, atp pumpsthat consume energy.
So you're getting more and moreoxidized.
So when you change the dietfrom a cow, from a diet rich in,
(33:36):
let's say, from green grass tocorn silage, you see an
acidification.
You say the vash is gettingacidosis, but the pH is
(33:57):
stabilizing.
At one level it drops but thenstabilizes.
And if you don't look at the EH, the redox potential, you don't
see that the cow is oxidizing.
It's our self.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
So basically you're saying you miss it because it
drops, but then it stays stable.
Even though the cow is workingreally hard and spending a lot
of energy on yes because there'sa physiological level under
which the pH doesn't go.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
It cannot go below this, otherwise nothing will
work.
The enzyme will not workanymore.
So the animals need to sustainthis pH level.
It's the minimum level at whichit can work and then for this
it spends more and more and moreenergy and when all the energy
is exhausted then it gets sickand with a lot of disease.
(34:47):
And we can find this also forhumans.
Do you have some review paper onCOVID-19 showing that it's
purely redox disease, not purelybut strongly redox disease,
where the virus just exhaustsyour antioxidant reserve.
(35:11):
If you have enough, then youcan fight, it's okay.
You don't feel it.
If you don't have enough, itgets exhausted and then the
reaction is to try to kill thevirus through over oxidation.
It's this cytokinein storm thatdrives you to the hospital and
(35:32):
then the long COVID is when youdon't recover your antioxidant
defense.
So all this is very welldescribed in this review paper.
So that's the interesting partalso in looking at this very
bio-energetics approach throughredox and pH, because you can
(35:52):
understand how it works in thesoil, how the soil structure is
fundamental to keep this balance, how it impacts the plant
nutrition, how it impacts theplant disease.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
It doesn't mean that our gut structure is fundamental
.
If we take the soil microbiomeand the gut microbiome, does
that equal?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
It works the same way .
It's the same structure, it'sthe same functions.
It's just not the samemicroorganism, it's not the same
level of functioning.
The plants are more reducedthan the animals.
All the energy comes from theplants, so if the reduction is
the accumulation of energy, soof the hydrogen especially.
(36:35):
So it's very specific.
Each organism and each part ofan organism in fact has a
specific EH pH level at which itworks.
Well, we need to sustain this.
You have locally this, but youalso have a lot of redox and pH
(36:57):
signal, systemic waves and a lotof information to transfer
through this.
So it's measuring, it.
It's a good proxy, but you needto understand the detail
functioning behind this.
But all the way, how it works,all the physiological changes it
(37:21):
creates in the plant, all theseare very well described in many
, many, many publications.
So we just gather differentthings that have been measured
since Redox and physiology.
It's the last 20 years only.
It's rather recent.
Ph is very old and the twoworks together.
(37:44):
You cannot look at one withoutlooking at the other one,
otherwise you cannot understand.
Well, really, that's the thingwe need to understand.
Oxidation in biology isdifferent than for the
electrochemistry.
Oxidation in biology is thegain of oxygen or the loss of
(38:07):
hydrogen.
In electrochemistry, oxidationis the loss of electron only.
So what counts in biology it'selectron and protons, not only
electrons.
But that's why seeing theplants as a nitrogen plant is
very important.
The photosynthesis, it's this.
(38:28):
We, with the plant, split waterin H plus so proton, electrons
and oxygen.
Then it vents the oxygen outand then it keeps the proton and
the electrons and it's theenergy.
It's and one proton plus one.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Basically, the hydrogen.
Hydrogen economy is alreadythere.
Yes, basically in agriculture.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, the only green hydrogen is the
plant.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
It's literally green in many cases.
And what does this mean?
A lot of this knowledge hasbeen here for a long time.
Some of it is relatively recent, but of course, 20 years is
also not super recent.
Like, do you see now, with thisattention or at least we see,
or I see more and more attentionfor this connection between
healthy soil, healthy plants, orhealthy plants and healthy soil
(39:21):
?
Maybe the order should bedifferent, let's say healthy
plants, healthy soil, healthyproduce, healthy guts and
healthy people?
Like, have you seen somethingshift in terms of attention over
the last years, as you've beenfollowing this for a while?
Like, is there some more,finally some more attention
growing, or is it still verynascent and extremely small?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
It remains rather small.
I must say that I have a verybiased perception of the
agriculture, especially inFrance.
I'm back to France since fiveyears ago only, but I'm doing a
lot of training on this aspectto farmers.
But the farmers coming to thesetrainings they are farmers that
(40:02):
have moved on a lot.
They it's not the usual farmers, so I only see very interesting
farmers.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
You see your bubble.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah, so that's why it's still very it has the
interest for the training ofthese grown.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
They're more people show up on the door, because
that's the sign.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yes and the now.
The important thing now is to,to transform the and the try is
that we have a very detailedtheory Now it's it's very strong
, robust and this now we need todesign, to, to, to, to get
sufficient information to makeit very practical for a farmer
to use a spectrometer to measure, measuring and saying, ok, I'm
(40:43):
balanced, it's OK, it has beencloudy, but no, no problem, my
soil is working well, the plantis OK.
Or the opposite, oh, it's reallyunbalanced.
Now I have to help the plant toto get reduced and it's.
It's where we will.
We are shifting to produce that, instead of oxidizing the plant
and helping to kill the, theadmins will help the plants to
(41:08):
gain energy and and and remainprotected against the, the
attacks, in fact.
So that's the.
That's really what we need todo now is to to describe
properly at which level we riskthis kind of pathogen or.
(41:29):
I'm working on data on on onthe mildew for on grape wine,
and it's a very huge problem.
It's very, very sensitive atthe moment, so there's less and
less chemicals to that areallowed.
There's a huge pressure,pressure on on on the wine
industry.
So how do you approach that?
Speaker 1 (41:50):
then Like what is it there also with with wine grapes
?
A lack of energy and a lack offor the synthesis to be able to
defend.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
So we we work a lot on the cover crops, showing the
importance of the cover cropsand also, in fact, the strategy
will always you always need toregenerate your soil.
If there's not a good soilstructure, the plant will be
permanently moving from beerit's, it's.
(42:19):
It's changing too fast.
You cannot control withspraying anything.
It's, it's very difficult.
So you need to the strategiesto regenerate your soil,
especially the soil structures.
For so for this you needorganic matter.
That means carbon, with energy,that, that carbon that has been
.
That's what we learned today.
(42:40):
So so it's, it's through organicmatter and all the things, and
and increasing the, the biomassproduction, the photosynthesis,
so so you need to increase thearea of the surface of
photosynthesis, so you need tohave more leaves of cover crops
and and using the winter periodand all the periods where
(43:03):
there's especially in in grapewine during all the winter
period, the autumn and thewinter, you absolutely need to
have a cover crop at that momentyou are using, because all the
grape wines don't have any.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
And so there's no activity, there's no competition
, there's no, there's no risk ofcompetition especially for
water.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
On the opposite, in autumn you have too much water,
so using this water to grow crop, to cover crop, is really
important.
So we're working on all thisaspect, but also improving the
water quality, improving thephotosynthesis.
There's a lot of manganese andiron will get not soluble as
(43:47):
soon as the soil gets oxidized.
So most of the growing periodin the south of France, for
instance, the soil to oxidizebecause they are dry and and so
there's deficiency in manganeseand iron and these two elements
are fundamental forphotosynthesis.
So the only way in that case isto spray foliar fertilizer in
(44:10):
reduced form, because iron andmanganese, they can be absorbed
only in their reduced form.
So if you apply them on the, onthe soil which is oxidized,
they will get oxidized and theplants will need to spend energy
to reduce it to get them.
So that's that's one of the wayto increase the the surface of
(44:32):
photosynthesis all year long asmuch as possible, and to make
photosynthesis more efficientthrough foliar fertilization and
and then help the plants to getmore energy through different
product that are reduced inacidic.
So we're reaching energy alldifferent maceration, all the
(44:56):
micro, micro, micro organic, theefficient micro organism and
all these things that are thatso we need to use different
levels.
The more the soil is degraded,the more we need to use
different levels to bring backenergy as fast as possible in
the system to pass somethreshold level, so that's all
(45:19):
the system will startfunctioning well.
Otherwise you you do just slowdown the degeneration of your
soil but you don't reallyregenerate it.
So that's that there's a hugedemand for for that at the
moment and in fact we need to toto get knowledge on what are
(45:45):
the exact level EHPH of a greatpoint leaves where you can feel
that there will be no problemfor for your plant or where you
will get mildew or virus ordifferent things.
So this is something that isused in fish farming already.
(46:06):
They know perfectly.
There's some software, theyknow perfectly at which level in
the water they measure in thewater, which level you risk
virus, where you risk differentpathogen, different parasite.
So they have all this knowledgethrough a lot of measurements
in the past decade.
So that's what we need to donow with the plants to get more
(46:29):
knowledge, and it's what themeasurement with the
spectrometer starting to to helpa lot, because it's it's too
long in electrochemicalmeasurements.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
No farmer can will ever do that.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Even for research, it has been a long, long, more
months of measuring.
So that's, that's a gamechanger to be able to measure
directly in the field.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
In a perfect bridge to to a question I always like
to ask if you had a magic wandand could change one thing
overnight.
Could be anything in the foodand agriculture space, so it
could be very broad, could bevery specific, like I need this
tech, technology to be anywhere,etc.
But could be also consciousness, could be taste, could be
carbon, anything you probablynot carbon.
(47:19):
But what would you do if youhad a magic power to change one
thing only overnight?
Speaker 2 (47:25):
It would be to get the way to measure more than pH
and riddles, but also themicronutrients and nitrogen
forms in the plant.
So that would be a way to do acomplete diagnosis of the plant
health with through, maybethrough infrared spectrometer.
(47:47):
We will be able to do this, butit will take a lot of time.
But if we add the ability to tomeasure very rapidly, not only
EHPH you know we callconductivity, which is the third
parameter which is importantbut also, in fact, ehph, will
give you the temperature and theblood pressure and then, if
(48:13):
it's okay, you think it's okay,it's not, it will find me it's.
If it's not okay, you need toanalyze more and to detail what
you have.
So it would be a blood analysis, the equivalent of blood
analysis.
So if we could do, subanalysisis something that is developing
and is really interesting, butthere's still a delay between
(48:33):
sending your leave, getting theresults.
So if I had a magic one, Iwould produce a tools that will
be able to tell you EHPHelectrical conductivity, but
also all the micronutrients andnitrogen forms and all these
things.
That would be really, really away to move forward fast for
(48:59):
farmers.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Unfortunately, you no longer have this magic power,
but you do have an investmentfund.
So you are not only trainingfarmers and, of course, working,
but you actually are suddenly,overnight, responsible for
putting quite a significantamount of money to work.
So I usually use the example of, let's say, a billion euros.
I don't need to know exact euroamounts, but I would love I
(49:23):
always like to ask it, because Ilike to know what people would
focus on.
What would be the few placesthey say I would absolutely
invest in this, I wouldabsolutely not invest in this
and I would absolutely invest inthat.
What would you focus on if youhad that amount?
Speaker 2 (49:36):
First training, a lot of training and to have enough
information.
So it would be a researchprogram that are designed.
One of the problem we have isthat we don't adjust the
recommendation to farmer to theactual degradation or
(50:01):
regeneration level of the field.
In fact, most of therecommendation of all, most of
the people who are sellingproduct, or most of the training
, they say you have to do thisor that.
But the transition toregenerative agriculture is not
linear.
It's slow.
(50:22):
It's really slow at thebeginning.
What your soil is reallydegraded and then you upgrade
fast and then you reach amaximum, so flat or so you will
not go over.
So it's kind of sigmoids.
And when you are on very, verydegraded soil, the strategy will
make plant growth and covercrop growth and all the things.
(50:45):
But if you just say we need tostop the fertilizer, we need to
stop plowing, soil dilation andeverything, when you are on very
degraded soil, if you don'tplow, if you don't bring
fertilizer, if you don't usechemicals, your plant will not
grow.
Okay, and plowing on a verydegraded soil will not damage it
(51:09):
a lot, it will allow the grainof your cover crop to grow.
But if you say, well, no, weshould stop plowing now,
everywhere then, all this verydegraded soil, we will never be
able to start your cover cropsand your cultivation of energy.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
You're saying don't be dramatic.
Yes, don't be dramatic, andit's the opposite.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
So plowing when you are on very, very degraded soil
is needed, and fertilizer andmany levels will be needed when
you are on very All to getplants going.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Basically, yes, yes, when you, as long as you get
plants going, everything isallowed.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
But it's you know, with the strategy to stop this,
because once you startregenerating your soil, plowing
a living soil is reallydestroying, applying excess
fertilizer is really destroying,pesticides are destroying.
So you need really to adjustthe recommendation and the
(52:10):
practice to the level ofdegradation or regeneration
where you are.
And this is not enough takeninto consideration because, also
, we lack information on this,so it's easier to say one
recommendation for all it's whatworks best on average, but it's
(52:33):
something that is needed insome condition, is dangerous, is
harmful in other conditions.
So you really have to adjust onthis and we need to develop
more knowledge on this, moreconsciousness on this, that you
really need to understand how itworks and to adapt the practice
(52:56):
and the strategy.
The strategy is always the sameyou need to regenerate your
soil and so for this you willneed to have more and more, as
much crops, as much leaves, asmuch photosynthesis as possible.
But the tactic depends on whereyou are on this trajectory of
(53:19):
restoration or degradation.
It's not the same at all.
You cannot plant somecompletely compacted soil.
You need to feed the plantswhen there's no elements in the
soil, you need to spray foliarfertilizer, you need to adjust
your fertilizer.
(53:40):
So all this really wouldrequire a lot of research work
but on a very nice we coulddesign a worldwide research
program taking this structure,very well structured around this
, and that would be.
(54:02):
The other part of this researchprogram would be to have
experiments how to use the bestdeorganic matter that we have.
For me, we need what do you?
Speaker 1 (54:18):
mean by that?
Speaker 2 (54:21):
Conservation agriculture with poor biomass
production.
It does not work okay Becauseyou don't regenerate enough the
soil, so spreading all yourbiomass all over the area
homogeneously.
It's working well when you haveenough and that you have passed
(54:42):
the threshold or above whichthere is working.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
You're saying at the beginning, when it's still
degraded, it's better toconcentrate.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yes, you need to concentrate the biomass so that
locally you will make the systemwork better than produce a lot
more biomass Get over thethresholds, and this is really,
really important to me.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
And have you looked into systems, especially when
you've worked a lot in thetropics, like the I always call
them sort of the extremeagroforestry systems, the syn
tropic side like really reallyintensive systems on the
agroforestry side a lot ofleaves, so a lot of
photosynthesis, a lot of biomass.
What do you see there?
What have you seen there?
(55:24):
And of course, we haven't seena lot of it in Europe, but
people are bringing it heredifferent layers, of course,
different places in time, butreally focused on getting the
engine going and reallyconcentrating it on the syntropy
, not the entropy.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
Yeah, so there's always will be a limit for the
temperature, the sunlight andthe water and the water.
But for water we can improve alot.
The water storage we throughsoil regeneration, that's
something we can improve a lot.
And through vegetation theplants make the rain also.
(56:01):
It's through evaporation isvery that's another series we're
doing a water cycle series.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
But it's exactly.
There's a very good message.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Yeah, it's very important to understand this is
that most of the rain comes fromthe evapotranspiration from the
plants.
So when we stop having plants,we stop evaporation and then we
don't have enough humidity inthe air so that we don't create
droplets.
So that's the important partalso.
(56:32):
But that's why we also need toconcentrate, to focus, and it's
why in Burkina, the extremecondition you was talking about,
the good extreme condition withagroforestry and a lot of
system and a lot of rain andeverything.
But the other side of theextreme is the extremely dry and
(56:53):
degraded condition and degradedsoil.
In Burkina Faso they have asystem called the ZYL system and
it's just a way to concentrate.
On one square meter theyharvest all the rain to move
through a kind of moon, halfmoon, bringing all the rain on
one spot.
It's just locally there theygather all the rain they make,
(57:20):
they use all the biomass, theyhave all the organic matter they
have and they just plant oneplant of maize, one plant of
bean per square meter.
But locally there they haveincrease and they have passed
this threshold where it can grow.
If you spray all the littleamount of rain on all the square
(57:45):
meter, you don't have enoughwater for the plant to grow.
If you don't concentrate thebiomass, you don't have the soil
improvement you need.
So for me the question is let'ssay you have 10 tons of biomass
(58:07):
avoidable per hectare.
What is the best use?
Is it to put it on half of thearea so that you have 20 tons
and you pass the threshold?
Is it 40 tons?
How much do you need to do?
But then you concentrate andthen you pass locally.
(58:27):
You pass the threshold.
You can produce much more andthen you can spread the expand
from there and that's that's akey, and it would be the sample
water, and for me, that's reallyreally important to show this
very clearly that it's notlinear and it's a sigmoids and
(58:48):
you have thresholds and if youdon't pass this threshold, you
just slow down the degradation.
So, above this, threshold.
Speaker 1 (58:59):
Above the threshold, a lot is possible.
Speaker 2 (59:01):
Yes, yes, it's amazing.
Above the threshold, everythinggets much easier, and then it
grows faster, and then it'sreally amazing how fast the
regeneration can be.
Speaker 1 (59:17):
And as a final question, which usually leads to
others but let's say, we'redoing this in front of a, so
you're no longer responsible forfor the investment fund, but
we're doing this in front of anaudience.
You might have done that aswell.
Amazing.
Mostly, of course, trainfarmers and people in the
agriculture space.
Well, let's say, we talk toinvestors and people in the
finance space could be pensionfunds, banks, people investing
(59:39):
their own money, etc.
And we're doing this in a liveaudience.
We're doing this in front of alive audience in a theater.
What would be your main messagethat you want them?
Of course, there's going to bea lot of information on stage.
What's your main message youwant them to remember when they
walk away from that room.
What would be your message?
Okay, if there's one thing youremember from this evening, it's
this that all the energy comesfrom the photosynthesis.
Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
So we have to do everything possible to increase
the photosynthesis Globally.
This works at almost all scales.
It's valid for the planetthat's what is is carrying with
all these fires and but all theenergy comes from the
photosynthesis.
The system, lacking energy,gets sick.
(01:00:27):
All the system may get sick.
It starts with the plants andthen the animals and then the
human.
So we need to regenerate thesoil and for this we need the
plants.
And we should not oppose thequantity, the productivity, with
(01:00:48):
the quality.
Okay, when you are in aconventional system where the
productivity is 4 through, it'slike an electrical system.
The voltage is going down, soyou lower down the resistance so
that you can produce a lot, butthen you empty your battery
faster.
(01:01:08):
It's what happened with oursystem.
So if you force theproductivity by with the
conventional system, then thequality will not follow, but the
productivity and the quality inthe system where, when you pass
this threshold level, when yoursoil is working properly, when
the ecosystem services areworking well, as I said, all the
(01:01:33):
energy comes from the system.
So the sustainability of thesystem relies on high
productivity and the qualityrelies on high productivity.
You will have high quality whenyou have plant with a lot of
energy.
If you have plant with a lot ofenergies because you have a
high productivity.
Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
So you're saying the yield once you cross thresholds
and once you have a healthy,functioning system and you catch
the soil energy you catch thesoil.
Energy yield is not a limitingfactor, let's say Definitely the
quality is.
Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
It's the opposite.
Sustainability relies on highproductivity.
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Which is interesting, because somehow the framing is
always in this phase, like, ah,okay, because the yield happened
, ah, yeah, but this is nice.
But how are we going to feedthe world?
We're not going to get askedthat question, but how?
And you basically saying that'snonsense.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
That's the summary.
Yes, if you just take afundamental energetic
perspective of this, all theenergy comes from the system.
So if the system is not with ahigh productivity, you don't
have enough energy to sustain itand, as we said, the plant with
high quality either when theyare very stressed or when they
(01:02:52):
have a lot of energy, so when?
they are very well and, by theway, when they are very stressed
, you will get a lot ofenzymatic antioxidants so that
they will help to remove thevery oxidized product, an
harmful product.
(01:03:13):
But you need to reload them andyou need to reload them with
non-anzymatic antioxidants andthis non-anzymatic antioxidant
it's.
You get them when you have ahigh productivity, a high when
you catch a lot of energy.
So, for me, a plant with a lotof super oxidized mutas or
(01:03:36):
catalytic antioxidant enzyme,it's a plant that is facing a
high stress, which still hasenough energy to produce this,
but it's not the best food?
Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
And to end with a personal question how has all
this knowledge changed yourpersonal eating?
Like what has changed in yourkitchen and on your plate.
Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
It's, of course.
The first thing is water.
I'm not drinking tap water.
I'm not drinking tap water withchloride and aluminium and all
these things.
It's oxidized water.
So water is very important partof the diet.
It's.
(01:04:24):
For a cow it's something like100 litres per day.
So if you water the cow withbad water, with oxidized water,
and it will make them sickclearly.
So water is the first thing I'mvery careful about and of
(01:04:45):
course I'm I'm it's notnecessarily organic food.
For me the difference betweenorganic and conventional, and in
conservation agriculture it'snot there.
(01:05:05):
For me, the difference is howmuch energy comes in the system.
So I prefer to eat.
Of course there will be thekind of food you eat.
I eat a lot of vegetables and Idon't stop eating meat at all,
(01:05:29):
it's just moderately.
But we need pasture land for theplanet and we need animals.
It's easier to regenerate soilwhen you have animals,
especially digests on your farm,because they transform the
organic matter in a way youwon't have in your soil.
(01:05:49):
They sustain microorganismsthat are needed and that you
won't get on away.
So the cattle raising is a veryimportant part for the for the
planet.
So we and for the food we needsome meat.
Of course we need meat that isproduced in better condition,
(01:06:15):
with for mainly on pasture andnot to.
That's also an interesting view.
Some plants they keepeverything for them and they are
excellent forages.
Some plants they bring a lot tothe soil through root exudates
and these plants are very goodfor soil regeneration, but they
are bad forages.
(01:06:35):
So this is something we need tounderstand.
Also, for my diet, I eat a lotof of vegetable fruits, not
necessarily organic, it's it'smore the weather produce.
I'm more on dealing with livingsoil, with the cover crops that
(01:06:57):
have been put in the system,the organic matter that has been
brought in the system.
That's more important for meand usually when you have plant
grown on this kind of soil,there's not too much pesticide.
So of course we need to reducethe pesticide.
But yeah, that's the main thingthat the diet trying to be
(01:07:21):
balanced.
It's balanced.
Also, you need diversity inwhat you eat.
Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
I want to thank you so much for taking the time
today to, first of all, for thework you do, obviously, and for
taking the time today to comehere and share about it.
It was absolutely fascinatingand I hope I learned a lot.
I hope the listeners as well.
So thank you so much, olivier,for coming here.
Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Oh, thanks a lot for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
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 regenderagriculturecom
forward slash posts.
If you liked this episode, whynot share it with a friend or
give us a rating on ApplePodcast?
That really helps.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.
Everything starts with plants and optimal
photosynthesis, but most plantsare too sick to optimally turn
sunlight into energy, so they'renot able to create or
regenerate soils.
Join us for a fascinating deepdive into healthy plants and
non-healthy plants.
We talk about the balancebetween EH electrons and pH
protons In soil, plants,microorganisms, animals, etc.
(00:21):
Unbalanced EH-PH conditionslead to poor nutrition, poor
photosynthesis and, as aconsequence, plants like the
energy and are being oxidized.
And guess what happens next?
These plants are being attackedby pests and pathogens and need
to spend a lot of energy onfighting off these pests and
pathogens, which means theydon't have the energy to produce
healthy food.
(00:42):
In short, it's all about energyand the energy we either get
from photosynthesis or fromphotosynthesis from a few
million years ago, aka fossilfuels.
What are the connections betweenhealthy farming practices,
(01:04):
healthy soil, healthy produce,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
(01:25):
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 an engineer in
(01:55):
agronomy working on one healthan approach based on the balance
of electrons, ea and pH protonsin soil, plants, microorganisms
, animals, etc.
Welcome, olivier.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Hi, welcome.
Thank you Sorry.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And first of all shout out to Pierre Ville, who
introduced us.
I have a lot of questionsaround this because, as you know
, I'm not a soil nor animalexpert, and so I'm going to ask,
I think, very often what doesthat mean in plain English, and
can you explain that again?
But I think I used to that andyou've been in this place for so
long, so I always love to startwith a personal question and a
(02:30):
question how did you end upfocusing on soil and how did you
end up focusing on agricultureas a career path?
Because there are many otherpaths you could take, as an
engineer, for sure.
So what was it that triggeredyou into the fascination for
food, ag and soil?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, I don't know exactly.
I always wanted to be at workin agriculture.
I was lucky enough when Istarted my career to have some
bosses who told me that I wasnot allowed to specialize in
anything, so that's a very niceway to focus on what is the most
(03:07):
important.
I just try to be as efficientas possible, to change the
system and improve the way wegrow things and the way we can
keep our soil healthy.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
And do you remember when you noticed, or when it hit
you?
When you discovered, let's saythat the current way of farming
is not doing that, is doing theopposite.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Again.
I was really lucky to meetLucien Segui very early in my
career, so he's been working onconservation agriculture.
He was one of the pioneers inconservation agriculture.
He was working in Brazil but hecame to visit us several times
in Madagascar.
I spent most of my life intropical countries, in Vietnam,
(03:55):
in Madagascar, so Lucien wasreally a pioneer of conservation
agriculture and changing thesystem and showing how we need
to regenerate the soil and howthe plants are so important for
the system to work properly.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
It's interesting you mentioned that the plants as a
focus point.
Basically, the plants are sortof the entry, or the plants are
the key tool and I'm using twohere very deliberately, but of
course it's not fair but a keytool to build healthy soil.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yes, yes, yes, there's, there's.
It's clearly something we haveto stress more often is that all
the energy from the systemcomes from plants, from the
photosynthesis.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So actually it comes from the sun.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yes, it comes from the sun, but the sun on the bare
soil it's really oxidizing.
It's lots of, a lot of energy.
On the contrary, the energy ofthe sun is the energy for
photosynthesis if you haveplants.
So the plants are the key tocatch all the energy from the
sun and to inject it in thesystem and then the plants will
(05:12):
feed, the microorganism will andwe would.
All this energy will be used tofill in all the functions we
need to have for soil to workproperly.
So, especially on soil,structure is fundamental, is a
key point, and to keep to createand to keep a good soil
structure, you need plant roots,you need macrophona, earthworms
(05:35):
or they eat plants red nans andyou need microorganism that are
fed by the plants.
So all the energy from thesystem comes from the plants and
that's really one one thingthat strikes me in the one of
approach.
The one of approach was designedfirst by by veteran irons and
(05:56):
doctors in medicine, and thesoil and the plants are the last
piece in the puzzle they bringin.
And for me this is the opposite.
It's the plants are worth.
All the system relies on it.
It's without the plants.
We often hear that you needhealthy soil to have healthy
(06:20):
plants.
It's the opposite you needplants to have healthy soil and
healthy plants, and healthyplants any plants.
But first you need to catch theenergy to improve the soil
structure.
Then you can get healthy plantsthat will make healthy soil.
But really the first step is tohave plants growing.
(06:41):
You can grow plants withoutsoil.
You remove the plants from thesoil, you get a dessert.
Dessert with a scent only in afew months or years and depends
on the climate.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And so it's really an energy question.
Yes, I've heard people say likefarmers are basically solar
energy entrepreneurs and theyuse very small solar panels
which are leaves and need tocapture as much as possible and
as long as possible and aslayered as possible, almost to
not waste, basically like asingle ray of sunlight.
(07:17):
Like you need to capture asmuch as possible and that's why
you sent an email before.
Like plants have to grow asmuch as possible, as long as
possible and all over the year,which sort of goes against most
of conventional agriculturesystems at the moment.
But just to explain, how muchof a difference can that make in
terms of if an experience thatcomes to mind, or an example,
(07:38):
just to paint the picture a bitclearer, of how important plants
are to make the soil and howimportant to turn that like sort
of the key or the engine startswith plants taking sunlight and
then turning it into sugars andexodates, etc.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
How can you get it?
I'm not sure I understand yourquestion, In fact.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
No, you've worked in the tropics, in the Madagascar,
and like the difference betweentaking the plants first compared
to the conventional approach of, okay, any better soil to grow
a plant at all.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
The main difference between temperates and tropical
conditions is that in and intropical conditions, if you
don't work properly with nature,you can destroy the soil
extremely fast.
Within a few months, you getall your soil lost and then
wasted.
It's longer in temperateconditions, so that's a good
(08:36):
thing.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
We're finding out now .
Speaker 2 (08:37):
basically, yeah, but it's the same processes, that
it's just that in tropicalconditions they are faster and
quicker and stronger, so it'seasier to study them.
That's also one of the reasonswhy I'd like to work on the
tropical conditions, but at theend it's always the same If you
(08:58):
remove the energy from thesystem, nothing is working
anymore.
And mainly the soil structureis fundamental, and to keep the
soil structure you need energy.
You need to feed microbes, youneed to feed the earthworms, the
termites, all the ecologicalengineers, what we call them,
(09:20):
and if you stop feeding them,then you don't have the manpower
to sustain this structure.
And you also need the energy tomake the glues that keeps the
soil structure, all this fungithat will produce different kind
of sugar, but also glues thatwill sustain the structure.
(09:45):
We need a structure that willnot collapse in water, and all
this is energy.
And this is the main differencewe can see with conventional
system is that in a geologicalsystem, in regenerative
agriculture, the principle is tohave most of the energy of the
(10:10):
system coming from directphotosynthesis from the plant.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
In conventional agriculture we use fossil energy
, but it is very old solarenergy, but this is all again
coming from the photosynthesis.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, it's something like 100 million years ago.
So that's the main difference.
And the second main differenceis that, as I said, soil
structure is a key and withrotating tool, with iron and
fossil energy, you can recreatesome macro porosity for a while,
(10:51):
but it will not be stable.
But you cannot create the microporosity, the one, the small
pores where you can keep water,where you will have your water
reserve.
So that's another majordifference.
We use Fossil energy and we arenot able to make the soil
structure sufficient to keepwater.
(11:12):
When water is getting in, it'shitting us hard now.
It's a key.
It's really a key.
Also, now we need to store asmuch rainwater as possible and
the best way to store it is tohave good soil structure with
this micro pores that will storethe water, that will retain the
(11:33):
water, and this is made bymicro organism.
It's a very small pores and youcannot make them artificially,
mechanically, and do you?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
remember when the one health and the concept of
basically the one health came onyour path, when you started
looking also at the quality ofthe plants or the health of the
plants and then obviously, howto translate at some point into
humans or whoever consumes thoseplants.
With bleu blancueur, obviouslyit's very often goes through an
(12:08):
animal, the animal protein side.
But when almost this quality ornutrient density or health
piece became part of your work,was that from the beginning or
was that later on?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
No, at the beginning, we quite rapidly understood
that, with all my colleagues andfrom Syrat working in the team,
we understood that the plantswere the key and that we needed
to have as much as possible.
So we designed cropping systemin order to.
To announce this, and it's onlylater on when we started
(12:43):
working on the micronutrientsneeded for photosynthesis and
all this, and when I started towork on this redox approach,
which is basically based onenergy.
The redox is the electron, soit's the energy kept in the
(13:03):
electron, phs in the proton.
Basically, I see a plant like anitrogen plant.
Photosynthesis is mainlystoring energy in the form of
hydrogens, and it's hydrogen andoxygen.
(13:24):
It's all this pH story withelectron and proton.
Hydrogen is one electron andone proton, so when we add
Proton or electrons to thesystem, we we store energy and
the plant is the vision we arefrom photosynthesis.
(13:46):
We always talking about carbon.
We need to store carbon.
Co2 has no energy, so it's fullof and and diamond.
Diamond is pure carbon, but youdon't grow anything on carbon or
charcoal, so the importancethat the carbon in fact is the
(14:09):
storage unit is the compartmentof the battery and the but it's
not the battery itself and it'snot the energy but an empty
battery is useless, so you'resaying let's focus on the energy
, focus on the energy.
Yeah, focus on the.
The energy inside that is thecarbon is just the chance of
(14:31):
carbon, are just the compartmentto store energy.
So we need to look at all thehydrogen's that are stored and
also the, the aromatic cycles,because you have electrons also.
But mainly when you startlooking hydrogen versus oxygen,
you have a good idea for theamount of energy you have in
your, in your system, and it'swhat we need to look at in the,
(14:54):
in your mouse, in in all the, inall the functioning, in all the
components and and.
At the end it's this energythat you will get back in the in
your food okay and is that bitlike.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I remember from the first time we appear on Pierre.
We love Blancur.
He was saying the omega 3 6ratio is a really good proxy of
what happened in the value chainor in the chain and if soy has
been used or other things to, tounbalance that.
Are you saying that the EHPHbalance or non-balance,
unbalance is a really good proxyof everything else and that
(15:31):
that, like, if it's real wellbalanced, we can say that this
is a well functioning and doeswell functioning, mainly also in
the photosynthesis piece.
Because that's what we want.
We want an efficient plant thattakes in a lot of this solar
energy and not not take it in.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Basically, yeah, is it a good proxy for health yes,
but it's not always enough.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
But it's of course more complicated yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
You need to look at why it happens, because you, you
, in fact how do you measurethat or how do you look at it?
So we, we.
It takes quite a few times.
We took us five years to beable to measure properly because
the measurement in withelectrodes, for in
electrochemistry, the, themeasurement falls by the
(16:15):
electromagnetic field.
So it's getting more and morecomplicated to measure.
But we are developing for theplants.
We are measuring now throughinfrared spectrometer.
So we need in field, in field.
We need to calibrate for foreach plant.
It's what we are doing at themoment, but the measurement is
much faster and and and moreaccurate as I can imagine when
(16:39):
you take a leaf and send it tothe energy is gone, like it's
not.
It's irrelevant yeah, it has tobe unplanned yeah, we need to do
it at a certain time or in theday, because during the night
there was no photosynthesis, sothe in the morning, the, the
heat is dropping fast becausethe plant is getting energy from
(17:01):
the sun and so.
But the main problem is tomeasure the right scale for, for
, for the different processes,because all this is
compartmented in the plant.
For instance, it's not the samelevel in the roots or in the
leaves, it's not the same levelin the, the apoplasa and outside
(17:22):
the cell, inside the cell andin the mitochondria or in the
coroplast or in the.
So it's compartmentalized.
So that's that's difficulty,but but in plant physiology
there's a lot of publication onthis.
So it's it's not so difficultto have good information and and
(17:43):
, as agronomists, just measuringthe average level of the leaf
if you take the, always the sametype of leaf, because also
young leaves are oxidized andthen fully photosynthetically
active plants are leaves.
So so but once you understoodthis, it's rather easy to have
(18:08):
the measurement.
Now, especially with thespectrometer, we were able to
get get rain, quite a lot ofinformation at the moment,
especially for plants likegrapevine or wheat.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
So and then was it tell you?
What does it tell you as anagronomist and also, indirectly
or directly, the farmer?
Like let's say it's anunbalanced or let's start with
the balance, like it's abalanced reading you get and you
compare it in like this thislooks good, like is there,
doesn't mean the farmer doesn'thave to act and doesn't have to
(18:41):
do anything, or what.
What does it tell the agronomicpractice?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
basically, so that the it will tell you if the
plant has enough energy and ifyou can control the pH correctly
.
Because controlling pH is veryimportant and it costs energy.
You need to activate pumps thatthat consume ATP.
So you are, you need energy toregulate almost everything.
(19:06):
To absorb the nutrient, thesolubility of the nutrients
relies on EH and pH.
For most of them as well, thethe form of nitrogen, mineral
nitrogen, is based on EH and pHdiagrams and and it impacts all
the plant nutrition for many,many aspects and all the plant
(19:26):
physiology.
Absorption of nitrates is willoxidize a lot the plant and
alkalin ice a lot the plant.
Absorption of ammonium willacidify a lot the plant and and
the different type of pathogensand insect and pests.
They feed on plants that aretoo oxidized and, according to
(19:50):
different pH, each type ofpathogen or pest can develop or
can feed on on different partsof the of the plant and when
they are at EH and pH level thatthat should suit them.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
So basically, a plant will get attacked if parts of
the plant are not in balance interms of yeah, they are in
balance and they are oxidized.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
In fact, they lack energy.
And they lack energy becausefantasies, photosynthesis was
not a a sufficiency form and anaverage wheat field.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
If you walk into it, how bad is it?
Like a conventional, likethat's?
Let's not talk, but like, if,like, how unbalanced or how like
just comparing it to likereally well, let's say soil
focused farmers, like, what'sthe difference?
Is it night and day?
Are we talking in terms of like?
Just to understand for peoplethat don't do this very
regularly and see it in a lab orin the field like, how
(20:52):
different?
Like are they really sickplants compared to the other one
?
Or is the difference not somuch?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
so we're talking of a few tens of millivolts.
We measure EH is a measure of atension, of a voltage, so we
measure millivolts and we cansee difference between resistant
or tolerant plants andsusceptible plants.
It's around 20 millivolts.
(21:17):
So it's small differences weneed to measure and there's a
high variability.
And what?
What is the key, what isfundamental to understand, is
that when you have a compactedsoil with a poor soil structure,
as soon as it rains it's water,like the water as fixates
(21:37):
everything.
So the plants will get, theroots will not breathe, there
will be no oxygen for the roots,so the photosynthesis will go
down.
So the plant is under asphyxiaand the photosynthesis goes down
.
So the leaf, the ayurvedicparts, will oxidize because
photosynthesis is not efficient.
(21:58):
And as soon as this soil is dry, they get really oxidized and
then it's the opposite.
So for the plant it's almostimpossible to keep a balance,
because it goes from asphyxia toover oxidation within two days.
So that's that's the realproblem with compacted soil.
(22:18):
And then all the plantnutrition is deficient and all
the nutrients will not beabsorbed or not in the proper
form, and then they will beattacked and then they have to
fight.
So they have to use to spendenergy.
It's a vicious circle.
When the photosynthesis is notenough, is not functioning
(22:39):
enough, the plant will spend alot of energy just for for
nutrient absorption.
If the soil is oxidized, theplant needs to spend energy to
reduce around the the roots inthe rhizosphere, to reduce and
acidify, to get iron, to getmanganese, which are essential
elements for the photosynthesis.
So the plant has not enoughenergy and it needs to spend a
(23:02):
lot of energy to access to thenutrients.
And it will absorb nitrateswhen it's oxidized.
So it creates an imbalance onpH.
Ph will get alkalinized a lot.
So the plant needs to regulatethis and spend energy to do this
.
So it has no energy to producemore leaves, so no energy to
catch the sunlight to makephotosynthesis so.
(23:27):
So it's a vicious circle.
It's a spiral down, basicallyyes, and you go down and down
and then there's the plantproduce a little amount of
biomass, so there's littleenergy for the soil to keep the
soil structure, to feed themicroorganism, to feed the all
(23:48):
the macrophona.
So you, the structure gets down, spiraling down and down.
Once you have enough energy inthe plant, the photosynthesis,
you manage to produce enough,then you, you start upwards per
spiral, it's, it will improveand improve and the soil will be
more and more balanced.
So the plant will not need tospend energy to get access to
(24:12):
the nutrients, so it will can.
There will be highphotosynthesis, a lot of biomass
production, and then youimprove the soil structure and
and you go on like this.
So, so it's.
There's really threshold levels, when the soil has not enough
energy anymore.
The plants needs to to to bringin the energy in the system.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
So all the energy that she spent for this, she
will not have it to make newleaves so, and that means less
energy into the system because,as we learned, all the energy
comes from the leaves, have comefrom photosynthesis.
And what does it mean for thequality?
I mean, you mentioned wheat andgrapes, like in the end, like,
(24:55):
have you the step to the qualityand the quantity of the harvest
?
I can only imagine it's.
It's not good, but, like as a,do you have any anecdotal or in
general experience there what itmeans for what you end up
harvesting?
I can imagine a stressed plantis not gonna yield what you
wanted to yield, both inquantity and quality.
(25:15):
But what?
What have you seen there?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
so the it's again a matter of energy.
When the plant has enoughenergy, it can store it, making
lipids, making secondarymetabolites, making a lot of
antioxidants, oxidants, a lot ofentocyanin, of flavonoid, all
(25:38):
this energy rich elements, whenit has time, basically when it's
relaxed, when it's not stressedfor a survivor it has enough
energy to, to spend, to store it, and then this energy is
available when the plants wouldneed it.
When you have a week with acloudy sky where the
(26:01):
photosynthesis will go down,then the plant we can as enough
reserve to to to continuefeeding the microorganism in the
soil that are needed for fornutrient absorption, for water
prospection, for for many things.
So all the, all the stress inthe plants or in the living
(26:25):
organism are oxidizing stress.
So the plant will need to spendenergy to face the stress.
It can be a drought, it can bea nutrient deficiency, it can be
an attack by a pest.
All this is oxidizing, so it'sa loss of energy.
So if the plant has enoughenergy, it can, it can face this
(26:50):
without, without any anyproblem.
When it starts lacking energy,there's, it will spend.
There's two, two stages in fact.
A plant will produce a lot ofantioxidants, either when it has
(27:11):
a lot of energy and then it canstore it.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Or when it's under stress.
Or when it's under stress,because I've heard of stories I
never remember where, but it'sgood to stress them sometimes,
because then you get that yesit's good to stress them, I
never really understood that theplants, all the stress, are
oxidizing, so the defense isantioxidants.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
So, if you have If you stress the plants, it will
be obliged to spend the littleenergy it has to produce
antioxidants, otherwise the cellwill just be destroyed.
When it's too oxidized, thecell makes a cell death.
So you wanted an anecdote, johnKemp, who says Ask the the, how
(28:02):
do you call this?
The cannabis producer?
If they stress their plants tohave a lot of TSH?
No, they put them in perfectcondition so that they can.
They have a lot of energy andthey can store a lot of this
mid-secondarimitaballite.
So, seah, you have twodifferent ways.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
But the safer way, let's say, is to not miss, to
create the abundance.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
In fact, when a plant has not enough energy, it will
get attacked by different fungi,different bacteria, different.
It depends on the pH and on thelocation.
But the oxidation of the plant,the lack of energy of the plant
, will allow the pest or thepathogen to develop or to attack
(28:52):
or to digest when they areeating it.
So in such condition the wayfor the plant to defend itself
is also to kill locally.
By over oxidation.
It sends H2O2 around the fungithis green and Not green, sorry,
black or brown around the fungion a leaf, for instance.
(29:18):
So the plant has not enoughenergy to defend itself through
reduction, through antioxidants.
So it kills locally throughover oxidation.
So that's the only way for her.
There's not enough energy to bedigestible by the pest or
(29:39):
pathogen, so it gets reallyoxidized, just like making a
backfire or a counterfire tostop the fire.
So you destroy, you sacrificesome cells, you can avoid the
contamination of all the plants,and so locally it kills through
(30:01):
over oxidation and thensystemically it sends a signal
to the rest of the plants sayingwe are too oxidized and we are
attacked.
So now we grow less and we keepmore energy.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Okay still to protect it.
Basically triggers.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Which of?
Speaker 1 (30:21):
course, is not something you want as a grower.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
It's not something I want.
But then if we move back tothis one health approach,
constantly, the way conventionalsystem works, it's globally
oxidizing practices, so theplant gets oxidized, so you have
to protect and you help theplants to kill the DNA through
(30:49):
over oxidation.
Basically it's the main way forthe plant protection in
conventional system.
Some are different, but most ofthem are like this.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Meaning the agrochemicals you use spray, etc
.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Most of the fertilizer you use are oxidizing
.
Tilling the soil is oxidizingand not having plants all the
time is oxidizing because youdon't get the energy.
So that's the main strategy isto help.
The plant kills it's in methrough over oxidation.
But then the photosynthesis isproducing antioxidants.
(31:31):
So you go back to Narae wherethe different pathogen and pests
can thrive again.
So again you over oxidize, butat the end you get a product
that is oxidized, that has lowenergy level.
So when you think that, whenyou realize that digestive tube
(31:59):
or stomach, it's just like aroot that has been invaginated.
It's the same structure, thesame function.
In our belly, the animals intheir stomach, we grow some
microorganisms that will digestthe food we ingest.
The plant does the same.
The plant grows.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
It says not internally, it's inside out.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
But in topology, our digestive tube is the external
environment.
It's outside, it's open, it'san open air.
So what does that means thatthe food we absorb is the
(32:45):
equivalent for the plant of thesoil.
So when the plant is, Can weaccess it?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Can we?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
access it.
If we feed ourselves or theanimals with two oxidized plants
, we don't get enough energy.
And then we need to spendenergy to stabilize, to regulate
the pH and all the things, andthis you can measure in the room
(33:12):
and, of course, for instance,you have some document on this.
To regulate the pH you useenergy.
You use pH, proton, atp pumpsthat consume energy.
So you're getting more and moreoxidized.
So when you change the dietfrom a cow, from a diet rich in,
(33:36):
let's say, from green grass tocorn silage, you see an
acidification.
You say the vash is gettingacidosis, but the pH is
(33:57):
stabilizing.
At one level it drops but thenstabilizes.
And if you don't look at the EH, the redox potential, you don't
see that the cow is oxidizing.
It's our self.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
So basically you're saying you miss it because it
drops, but then it stays stable.
Even though the cow is workingreally hard and spending a lot
of energy on yes because there'sa physiological level under
which the pH doesn't go.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
It cannot go below this, otherwise nothing will
work.
The enzyme will not workanymore.
So the animals need to sustainthis pH level.
It's the minimum level at whichit can work and then for this
it spends more and more and moreenergy and when all the energy
is exhausted then it gets sickand with a lot of disease.
(34:47):
And we can find this also forhumans.
Do you have some review paper onCOVID-19 showing that it's
purely redox disease, not purelybut strongly redox disease,
where the virus just exhaustsyour antioxidant reserve.
(35:11):
If you have enough, then youcan fight, it's okay.
You don't feel it.
If you don't have enough, itgets exhausted and then the
reaction is to try to kill thevirus through over oxidation.
It's this cytokinein storm thatdrives you to the hospital and
(35:32):
then the long COVID is when youdon't recover your antioxidant
defense.
So all this is very welldescribed in this review paper.
So that's the interesting partalso in looking at this very
bio-energetics approach throughredox and pH, because you can
(35:52):
understand how it works in thesoil, how the soil structure is
fundamental to keep this balance, how it impacts the plant
nutrition, how it impacts theplant disease.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
It doesn't mean that our gut structure is fundamental
.
If we take the soil microbiomeand the gut microbiome, does
that equal?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
It works the same way .
It's the same structure, it'sthe same functions.
It's just not the samemicroorganism, it's not the same
level of functioning.
The plants are more reducedthan the animals.
All the energy comes from theplants, so if the reduction is
the accumulation of energy, soof the hydrogen especially.
(36:35):
So it's very specific.
Each organism and each part ofan organism in fact has a
specific EH pH level at which itworks.
Well, we need to sustain this.
You have locally this, but youalso have a lot of redox and pH
(36:57):
signal, systemic waves and a lotof information to transfer
through this.
So it's measuring, it.
It's a good proxy, but you needto understand the detail
functioning behind this.
But all the way, how it works,all the physiological changes it
(37:21):
creates in the plant, all theseare very well described in many
, many, many publications.
So we just gather differentthings that have been measured
since Redox and physiology.
It's the last 20 years only.
It's rather recent.
Ph is very old and the twoworks together.
(37:44):
You cannot look at one withoutlooking at the other one,
otherwise you cannot understand.
Well, really, that's the thingwe need to understand.
Oxidation in biology isdifferent than for the
electrochemistry.
Oxidation in biology is thegain of oxygen or the loss of
(38:07):
hydrogen.
In electrochemistry, oxidationis the loss of electron only.
So what counts in biology it'selectron and protons, not only
electrons.
But that's why seeing theplants as a nitrogen plant is
very important.
The photosynthesis, it's this.
(38:28):
We, with the plant, split waterin H plus so proton, electrons
and oxygen.
Then it vents the oxygen outand then it keeps the proton and
the electrons and it's theenergy.
It's and one proton plus one.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Basically, the hydrogen.
Hydrogen economy is alreadythere.
Yes, basically in agriculture.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, the only green hydrogen is the
plant.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
It's literally green in many cases.
And what does this mean?
A lot of this knowledge hasbeen here for a long time.
Some of it is relatively recent, but of course, 20 years is
also not super recent.
Like, do you see now, with thisattention or at least we see,
or I see more and more attentionfor this connection between
healthy soil, healthy plants, orhealthy plants and healthy soil
(39:21):
?
Maybe the order should bedifferent, let's say healthy
plants, healthy soil, healthyproduce, healthy guts and
healthy people?
Like, have you seen somethingshift in terms of attention over
the last years, as you've beenfollowing this for a while?
Like, is there some more,finally some more attention
growing, or is it still verynascent and extremely small?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
It remains rather small.
I must say that I have a verybiased perception of the
agriculture, especially inFrance.
I'm back to France since fiveyears ago only, but I'm doing a
lot of training on this aspectto farmers.
But the farmers coming to thesetrainings they are farmers that
(40:02):
have moved on a lot.
They it's not the usual farmers, so I only see very interesting
farmers.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
You see your bubble.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah, so that's why it's still very it has the
interest for the training ofthese grown.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
They're more people show up on the door, because
that's the sign.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yes and the now.
The important thing now is to,to transform the and the try is
that we have a very detailedtheory Now it's it's very strong
, robust and this now we need todesign, to, to, to, to get
sufficient information to makeit very practical for a farmer
to use a spectrometer to measure, measuring and saying, ok, I'm
(40:43):
balanced, it's OK, it has beencloudy, but no, no problem, my
soil is working well, the plantis OK.
Or the opposite, oh, it's reallyunbalanced.
Now I have to help the plant toto get reduced and it's.
It's where we will.
We are shifting to produce that, instead of oxidizing the plant
and helping to kill the, theadmins will help the plants to
(41:08):
gain energy and and and remainprotected against the, the
attacks, in fact.
So that's the.
That's really what we need todo now is to to describe
properly at which level we riskthis kind of pathogen or.
(41:29):
I'm working on data on on onthe mildew for on grape wine,
and it's a very huge problem.
It's very, very sensitive atthe moment, so there's less and
less chemicals to that areallowed.
There's a huge pressure,pressure on on on the wine
industry.
So how do you approach that?
Speaker 1 (41:50):
then Like what is it there also with with wine grapes
?
A lack of energy and a lack offor the synthesis to be able to
defend.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
So we we work a lot on the cover crops, showing the
importance of the cover cropsand also, in fact, the strategy
will always you always need toregenerate your soil.
If there's not a good soilstructure, the plant will be
permanently moving from beerit's, it's.
(42:19):
It's changing too fast.
You cannot control withspraying anything.
It's, it's very difficult.
So you need to the strategiesto regenerate your soil,
especially the soil structures.
For so for this you needorganic matter.
That means carbon, with energy,that, that carbon that has been
.
That's what we learned today.
(42:40):
So so it's, it's through organicmatter and all the things, and
and increasing the, the biomassproduction, the photosynthesis,
so so you need to increase thearea of the surface of
photosynthesis, so you need tohave more leaves of cover crops
and and using the winter periodand all the periods where
(43:03):
there's especially in in grapewine during all the winter
period, the autumn and thewinter, you absolutely need to
have a cover crop at that momentyou are using, because all the
grape wines don't have any.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
And so there's no activity, there's no competition
, there's no, there's no risk ofcompetition especially for
water.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
On the opposite, in autumn you have too much water,
so using this water to grow crop, to cover crop, is really
important.
So we're working on all thisaspect, but also improving the
water quality, improving thephotosynthesis.
There's a lot of manganese andiron will get not soluble as
(43:47):
soon as the soil gets oxidized.
So most of the growing periodin the south of France, for
instance, the soil to oxidizebecause they are dry and and so
there's deficiency in manganeseand iron and these two elements
are fundamental forphotosynthesis.
So the only way in that case isto spray foliar fertilizer in
(44:10):
reduced form, because iron andmanganese, they can be absorbed
only in their reduced form.
So if you apply them on the, onthe soil which is oxidized,
they will get oxidized and theplants will need to spend energy
to reduce it to get them.
So that's that's one of the wayto increase the the surface of
(44:32):
photosynthesis all year long asmuch as possible, and to make
photosynthesis more efficientthrough foliar fertilization and
and then help the plants to getmore energy through different
product that are reduced inacidic.
So we're reaching energy alldifferent maceration, all the
(44:56):
micro, micro, micro organic, theefficient micro organism and
all these things that are thatso we need to use different
levels.
The more the soil is degraded,the more we need to use
different levels to bring backenergy as fast as possible in
the system to pass somethreshold level, so that's all
(45:19):
the system will startfunctioning well.
Otherwise you you do just slowdown the degeneration of your
soil but you don't reallyregenerate it.
So that's that there's a hugedemand for for that at the
moment and in fact we need to toto get knowledge on what are
(45:45):
the exact level EHPH of a greatpoint leaves where you can feel
that there will be no problemfor for your plant or where you
will get mildew or virus ordifferent things.
So this is something that isused in fish farming already.
(46:06):
They know perfectly.
There's some software, theyknow perfectly at which level in
the water they measure in thewater, which level you risk
virus, where you risk differentpathogen, different parasite.
So they have all this knowledgethrough a lot of measurements
in the past decade.
So that's what we need to donow with the plants to get more
(46:29):
knowledge, and it's what themeasurement with the
spectrometer starting to to helpa lot, because it's it's too
long in electrochemicalmeasurements.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
No farmer can will ever do that.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Even for research, it has been a long, long, more
months of measuring.
So that's, that's a gamechanger to be able to measure
directly in the field.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
In a perfect bridge to to a question I always like
to ask if you had a magic wandand could change one thing
overnight.
Could be anything in the foodand agriculture space, so it
could be very broad, could bevery specific, like I need this
tech, technology to be anywhere,etc.
But could be also consciousness, could be taste, could be
carbon, anything you probablynot carbon.
(47:19):
But what would you do if youhad a magic power to change one
thing only overnight?
Speaker 2 (47:25):
It would be to get the way to measure more than pH
and riddles, but also themicronutrients and nitrogen
forms in the plant.
So that would be a way to do acomplete diagnosis of the plant
health with through, maybethrough infrared spectrometer.
(47:47):
We will be able to do this, butit will take a lot of time.
But if we add the ability to tomeasure very rapidly, not only
EHPH you know we callconductivity, which is the third
parameter which is importantbut also, in fact, ehph, will
give you the temperature and theblood pressure and then, if
(48:13):
it's okay, you think it's okay,it's not, it will find me it's.
If it's not okay, you need toanalyze more and to detail what
you have.
So it would be a blood analysis, the equivalent of blood
analysis.
So if we could do, subanalysisis something that is developing
and is really interesting, butthere's still a delay between
(48:33):
sending your leave, getting theresults.
So if I had a magic one, Iwould produce a tools that will
be able to tell you EHPHelectrical conductivity, but
also all the micronutrients andnitrogen forms and all these
things.
That would be really, really away to move forward fast for
(48:59):
farmers.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Unfortunately, you no longer have this magic power,
but you do have an investmentfund.
So you are not only trainingfarmers and, of course, working,
but you actually are suddenly,overnight, responsible for
putting quite a significantamount of money to work.
So I usually use the example of, let's say, a billion euros.
I don't need to know exact euroamounts, but I would love I
(49:23):
always like to ask it, because Ilike to know what people would
focus on.
What would be the few placesthey say I would absolutely
invest in this, I wouldabsolutely not invest in this
and I would absolutely invest inthat.
What would you focus on if youhad that amount?
Speaker 2 (49:36):
First training, a lot of training and to have enough
information.
So it would be a researchprogram that are designed.
One of the problem we have isthat we don't adjust the
recommendation to farmer to theactual degradation or
(50:01):
regeneration level of the field.
In fact, most of therecommendation of all, most of
the people who are sellingproduct, or most of the training
, they say you have to do thisor that.
But the transition toregenerative agriculture is not
linear.
It's slow.
(50:22):
It's really slow at thebeginning.
What your soil is reallydegraded and then you upgrade
fast and then you reach amaximum, so flat or so you will
not go over.
So it's kind of sigmoids.
And when you are on very, verydegraded soil, the strategy will
make plant growth and covercrop growth and all the things.
(50:45):
But if you just say we need tostop the fertilizer, we need to
stop plowing, soil dilation andeverything, when you are on very
degraded soil, if you don'tplow, if you don't bring
fertilizer, if you don't usechemicals, your plant will not
grow.
Okay, and plowing on a verydegraded soil will not damage it
(51:09):
a lot, it will allow the grainof your cover crop to grow.
But if you say, well, no, weshould stop plowing now,
everywhere then, all this verydegraded soil, we will never be
able to start your cover cropsand your cultivation of energy.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
You're saying don't be dramatic.
Yes, don't be dramatic, andit's the opposite.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
So plowing when you are on very, very degraded soil
is needed, and fertilizer andmany levels will be needed when
you are on very All to getplants going.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Basically, yes, yes, when you, as long as you get
plants going, everything isallowed.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
But it's you know, with the strategy to stop this,
because once you startregenerating your soil, plowing
a living soil is reallydestroying, applying excess
fertilizer is really destroying,pesticides are destroying.
So you need really to adjustthe recommendation and the
(52:10):
practice to the level ofdegradation or regeneration
where you are.
And this is not enough takeninto consideration because, also
, we lack information on this,so it's easier to say one
recommendation for all it's whatworks best on average, but it's
(52:33):
something that is needed insome condition, is dangerous, is
harmful in other conditions.
So you really have to adjust onthis and we need to develop
more knowledge on this, moreconsciousness on this, that you
really need to understand how itworks and to adapt the practice
(52:56):
and the strategy.
The strategy is always the sameyou need to regenerate your
soil and so for this you willneed to have more and more, as
much crops, as much leaves, asmuch photosynthesis as possible.
But the tactic depends on whereyou are on this trajectory of
(53:19):
restoration or degradation.
It's not the same at all.
You cannot plant somecompletely compacted soil.
You need to feed the plantswhen there's no elements in the
soil, you need to spray foliarfertilizer, you need to adjust
your fertilizer.
(53:40):
So all this really wouldrequire a lot of research work
but on a very nice we coulddesign a worldwide research
program taking this structure,very well structured around this
, and that would be.
(54:02):
The other part of this researchprogram would be to have
experiments how to use the bestdeorganic matter that we have.
For me, we need what do you?
Speaker 1 (54:18):
mean by that?
Speaker 2 (54:21):
Conservation agriculture with poor biomass
production.
It does not work okay Becauseyou don't regenerate enough the
soil, so spreading all yourbiomass all over the area
homogeneously.
It's working well when you haveenough and that you have passed
(54:42):
the threshold or above whichthere is working.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
You're saying at the beginning, when it's still
degraded, it's better toconcentrate.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yes, you need to concentrate the biomass so that
locally you will make the systemwork better than produce a lot
more biomass Get over thethresholds, and this is really,
really important to me.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
And have you looked into systems, especially when
you've worked a lot in thetropics, like the I always call
them sort of the extremeagroforestry systems, the syn
tropic side like really reallyintensive systems on the
agroforestry side a lot ofleaves, so a lot of
photosynthesis, a lot of biomass.
What do you see there?
What have you seen there?
(55:24):
And of course, we haven't seena lot of it in Europe, but
people are bringing it heredifferent layers, of course,
different places in time, butreally focused on getting the
engine going and reallyconcentrating it on the syntropy
, not the entropy.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
Yeah, so there's always will be a limit for the
temperature, the sunlight andthe water and the water.
But for water we can improve alot.
The water storage we throughsoil regeneration, that's
something we can improve a lot.
And through vegetation theplants make the rain also.
(56:01):
It's through evaporation isvery that's another series we're
doing a water cycle series.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
But it's exactly.
There's a very good message.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
Yeah, it's very important to understand this is
that most of the rain comes fromthe evapotranspiration from the
plants.
So when we stop having plants,we stop evaporation and then we
don't have enough humidity inthe air so that we don't create
droplets.
So that's the important partalso.
(56:32):
But that's why we also need toconcentrate, to focus, and it's
why in Burkina, the extremecondition you was talking about,
the good extreme condition withagroforestry and a lot of
system and a lot of rain andeverything.
But the other side of theextreme is the extremely dry and
(56:53):
degraded condition and degradedsoil.
In Burkina Faso they have asystem called the ZYL system and
it's just a way to concentrate.
On one square meter theyharvest all the rain to move
through a kind of moon, halfmoon, bringing all the rain on
one spot.
It's just locally there theygather all the rain they make,
(57:20):
they use all the biomass, theyhave all the organic matter they
have and they just plant oneplant of maize, one plant of
bean per square meter.
But locally there they haveincrease and they have passed
this threshold where it can grow.
If you spray all the littleamount of rain on all the square
(57:45):
meter, you don't have enoughwater for the plant to grow.
If you don't concentrate thebiomass, you don't have the soil
improvement you need.
So for me the question is let'ssay you have 10 tons of biomass
(58:07):
avoidable per hectare.
What is the best use?
Is it to put it on half of thearea so that you have 20 tons
and you pass the threshold?
Is it 40 tons?
How much do you need to do?
But then you concentrate andthen you pass locally.
(58:27):
You pass the threshold.
You can produce much more andthen you can spread the expand
from there and that's that's akey, and it would be the sample
water, and for me, that's reallyreally important to show this
very clearly that it's notlinear and it's a sigmoids and
(58:48):
you have thresholds and if youdon't pass this threshold, you
just slow down the degradation.
So, above this, threshold.
Speaker 1 (58:59):
Above the threshold, a lot is possible.
Speaker 2 (59:01):
Yes, yes, it's amazing.
Above the threshold, everythinggets much easier, and then it
grows faster, and then it'sreally amazing how fast the
regeneration can be.
Speaker 1 (59:17):
And as a final question, which usually leads to
others but let's say, we'redoing this in front of a, so
you're no longer responsible forfor the investment fund, but
we're doing this in front of anaudience.
You might have done that aswell.
Amazing.
Mostly, of course, trainfarmers and people in the
agriculture space.
Well, let's say, we talk toinvestors and people in the
finance space could be pensionfunds, banks, people investing
(59:39):
their own money, etc.
And we're doing this in a liveaudience.
We're doing this in front of alive audience in a theater.
What would be your main messagethat you want them?
Of course, there's going to bea lot of information on stage.
What's your main message youwant them to remember when they
walk away from that room.
What would be your message?
Okay, if there's one thing youremember from this evening, it's
this that all the energy comesfrom the photosynthesis.
Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
So we have to do everything possible to increase
the photosynthesis Globally.
This works at almost all scales.
It's valid for the planetthat's what is is carrying with
all these fires and but all theenergy comes from the
photosynthesis.
The system, lacking energy,gets sick.
(01:00:27):
All the system may get sick.
It starts with the plants andthen the animals and then the
human.
So we need to regenerate thesoil and for this we need the
plants.
And we should not oppose thequantity, the productivity, with
(01:00:48):
the quality.
Okay, when you are in aconventional system where the
productivity is 4 through, it'slike an electrical system.
The voltage is going down, soyou lower down the resistance so
that you can produce a lot, butthen you empty your battery
faster.
(01:01:08):
It's what happened with oursystem.
So if you force theproductivity by with the
conventional system, then thequality will not follow, but the
productivity and the quality inthe system where, when you pass
this threshold level, when yoursoil is working properly, when
the ecosystem services areworking well, as I said, all the
(01:01:33):
energy comes from the system.
So the sustainability of thesystem relies on high
productivity and the qualityrelies on high productivity.
You will have high quality whenyou have plant with a lot of
energy.
If you have plant with a lot ofenergies because you have a
high productivity.
Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
So you're saying the yield once you cross thresholds
and once you have a healthy,functioning system and you catch
the soil energy you catch thesoil.
Energy yield is not a limitingfactor, let's say Definitely the
quality is.
Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
It's the opposite.
Sustainability relies on highproductivity.
Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Which is interesting, because somehow the framing is
always in this phase, like, ah,okay, because the yield happened
, ah, yeah, but this is nice.
But how are we going to feedthe world?
We're not going to get askedthat question, but how?
And you basically saying that'snonsense.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
That's the summary.
Yes, if you just take afundamental energetic
perspective of this, all theenergy comes from the system.
So if the system is not with ahigh productivity, you don't
have enough energy to sustain itand, as we said, the plant with
high quality either when theyare very stressed or when they
(01:02:52):
have a lot of energy, so when?
they are very well and, by theway, when they are very stressed
, you will get a lot ofenzymatic antioxidants so that
they will help to remove thevery oxidized product, an
harmful product.
(01:03:13):
But you need to reload them andyou need to reload them with
non-anzymatic antioxidants andthis non-anzymatic antioxidant
it's.
You get them when you have ahigh productivity, a high when
you catch a lot of energy.
So, for me, a plant with a lotof super oxidized mutas or
(01:03:36):
catalytic antioxidant enzyme,it's a plant that is facing a
high stress, which still hasenough energy to produce this,
but it's not the best food?
Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
And to end with a personal question how has all
this knowledge changed yourpersonal eating?
Like what has changed in yourkitchen and on your plate.
Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
It's, of course.
The first thing is water.
I'm not drinking tap water.
I'm not drinking tap water withchloride and aluminium and all
these things.
It's oxidized water.
So water is very important partof the diet.
It's.
(01:04:24):
For a cow it's something like100 litres per day.
So if you water the cow withbad water, with oxidized water,
and it will make them sickclearly.
So water is the first thing I'mvery careful about and of
(01:04:45):
course I'm I'm it's notnecessarily organic food.
For me the difference betweenorganic and conventional, and in
conservation agriculture it'snot there.
(01:05:05):
For me, the difference is howmuch energy comes in the system.
So I prefer to eat.
Of course there will be thekind of food you eat.
I eat a lot of vegetables and Idon't stop eating meat at all,
(01:05:29):
it's just moderately.
But we need pasture land for theplanet and we need animals.
It's easier to regenerate soilwhen you have animals,
especially digests on your farm,because they transform the
organic matter in a way youwon't have in your soil.
(01:05:49):
They sustain microorganismsthat are needed and that you
won't get on away.
So the cattle raising is a veryimportant part for the for the
planet.
So we and for the food we needsome meat.
Of course we need meat that isproduced in better condition,
(01:06:15):
with for mainly on pasture andnot to.
That's also an interesting view.
Some plants they keepeverything for them and they are
excellent forages.
Some plants they bring a lot tothe soil through root exudates
and these plants are very goodfor soil regeneration, but they
are bad forages.
(01:06:35):
So this is something we need tounderstand.
Also, for my diet, I eat a lotof of vegetable fruits, not
necessarily organic, it's it'smore the weather produce.
I'm more on dealing with livingsoil, with the cover crops that
(01:06:57):
have been put in the system,the organic matter that has been
brought in the system.
That's more important for meand usually when you have plant
grown on this kind of soil,there's not too much pesticide.
So of course we need to reducethe pesticide.
But yeah, that's the main thingthat the diet trying to be
(01:07:21):
balanced.
It's balanced.
Also, you need diversity inwhat you eat.
Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
I want to thank you so much for taking the time
today to, first of all, for thework you do, obviously, and for
taking the time today to comehere and share about it.
It was absolutely fascinatingand I hope I learned a lot.
I hope the listeners as well.
So thank you so much, olivier,for coming here.
Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Oh, thanks a lot for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
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 regenderagriculturecom
forward slash posts.
If you liked this episode, whynot share it with a friend or
give us a rating on ApplePodcast?
That really helps.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.
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