361 Herb Young - After 36 years at Bayer, growing regen citrus with 8x the nutrients - Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
we're definitely going.
So what we'll do, first of all,welcome.
Obviously could be late, couldbe early, wherever you are.
What we'll do in this veryuninformal agenda like structure
.
I received some questionsbeforehand, some people emailed
some questions beforehand andI'm um, definitely gonna ask,
answer them first and after thatplease feel free to answer or

(00:23):
ask your questions in the chatroom.
And because if we all unmute atthe same time it's going to be
quite a bit chaos and I will getto those questions and I will
ask for any clarifying parts, ifyou, you can obviously then
unmute yourself the moment I'mgetting to your question and
we'll just keep everybody mutefor now.
Thank you, laura.
In the call settings, that's agood question, but so far we

(00:45):
have done.
I think we have most peopleactually on the call already.
So we'll get started and I willtype, I will copy and paste the
questions we already got andinto the chat room so you can
actually see it.
And the first one is from trudy,which is a very deep one we can
spend more than an hour on,probably, which is a greater
obstacle to scaling upregenerative agriculture,

(01:07):
financing or cultural slash,educational issues like
resistance and obviously doingthings differently.
It might come as a surprise forsomebody that's been running
and investing in regenerativeagriculture and food podcast,
but I definitely think it's asecond part Financing.
It may sound not so easy tohear if you're currently raising

(01:29):
financing, if you're running afund, if you're running a farm
and you've tried to raisefinance, but it seems to be that
there's a lot of willingness,at least from investors, to get
active in the space.
Definitely a lot of educationneeded on the investor side of
things and let's actually getTrudy into the question or into
the waiting room, because I justsaw her joining.

(01:50):
So, trudy, thanks for joining.
We're actually just getting toyour question.
So I definitely think it's thesecond part and the cultural and
the educational part.
It's much more of a culturalshift than it is a finance shift
, probably first and foremost acultural one.
Why?
Because on the financing sidewe need to do a lot of education
for a lot of investors,obviously on how soil works, how

(02:12):
regen x works and the timing,the length, the flexibility etc.
But that we need to do ingeneral in impact investing and
I'm looking to frank who hasbeen doing that for the last 25
years.
When it comes to the receivingend of the investments.
There is a lot of work neededthere as well.
We have a structural seems tobe a structural shortage of good

(02:35):
projects to invest in.
It sounds horrible Again, ifyou're trying to raise money and
you cannot find anybody now.
It doesn't mean your productisn't good, but it might be that
the language you're using usingit might be that the
investability is not always thesame as running a good project.
And you should probably alsoreally wonder if you want to
raise any outside capital.
There.

(02:56):
There are a lot of stringsattached that comes with with
money and many people choose notto raise outside capital and
choose to to run it on, to growit on, cashflow bootstrap, et
cetera, et cetera.
So once you've made thatdecision to really do you want
to raise outside capital, thereare certain language things,
there are certain reportingwhich are not always easy for

(03:18):
farms because they're very, veryflexible, and there's a great
shortage of investable projects,funds, farmers, companies that
are really getting regenerativeagriculture to scale.
So I would say, definitely thegreater obstacle is currently
the cultural and educationalside of things.
Doesn't mean that we shouldn'tdo a lot of education on the

(03:39):
investor side of things, becausemy question usually is when is
the last time you talked to afarmer or visited a farm?
And that could be a while agoor never, which makes it very
difficult to run either a familyoffice or a fund or any kind of
financial institution thatclaims to be focused on
regenerative agriculture.
Trudy, does that answer yourquestion?
I muted you.

(04:00):
I muted you.
I was just explaining thequestion, so you didn't miss any
part of the answer.
I think so it's.
I think the bigger shift has tohappen on the food company level

(04:21):
, on the farm level, on all ofus as a consumer, to really
understand that what we believeto be the normal is is actually
something that we canfundamentally change in a
lifetime.
And that's quite a big thing toask from, uh, from all of us.
And there is the interest inthe podcast, interest in general
in, in finance.

(04:41):
These things is growingexponentially.
We just crossed 100,000downloads actually two days ago,
and 75% of that was last year.
So just to see the size of Idon't trust the stats too much
of SoundCloud, honestly, but itgives an idea.
The interest in the space isexploding and I think it's up to

(05:02):
us to create the structures,the infrastructure, the
pipelines, if you want, of thisspace to put that energy.
Part of that is money, part ofthat is time.
A lot of people reach out thatthey want to work in a space
where our job listings etc.
We have to channel that energybecause we need all of it.
We need to transitionabsolutely millions and millions

(05:25):
of farms and with thatobviously we need to get farmers
on that journey and thatrequires all.
So the finance.
I'm less worried about it.
I'm definitely worried, but I'mless worried about that
compared to our outlook towardsfood and ag.
And then we received a secondquestion I'm just going to mute
Trudy again which is a much morepractical one, and I'm of

(05:48):
Adrian actually and so how doesorganic farming differ from
RegenAg and would the transitionfrom one to the other be
relatively straightforward?
Again, this is one we canprobably spend two hours on and
there are people on the call andpeople I've interviewed that
can give a way better answer onthis.

(06:09):
The simple answer, as far as Iknow again, I'm not a farmer and
haven't run any regenerativefarms at scale ever is that the
traditional or the organicsystems we know now, especially
the larger scale, moreindustrial size, are much more.
They move from a conventionalsystem and they move, transition

(06:31):
to an organic one, basicallyswapping inputs and swapping do
a certain type of things not andanother basically changing a
set of inputs for another set.
So less chemical, lessbasically switching the input
side of things or the oil that'srunning the machine, but they
didn't really fundamentallychange the way they're operating

(06:51):
.
One big example is obviouslyplowing, which happens a lot
against weed pressure, whichdoesn't happen if you're running
an advanced regenerative system.
So the second part of thequestion does it make it easier
if you're organic and switchingfrom like?
Could it be a stepping stone?
I think in terms of mindset?
Definitely yes, because you areworking more with nature and

(07:12):
less against.
But I've seen many organicsystems that are absolutely not
regenerative and in some casesactually more destructive than
conventional systems.
So it's not either or it'sdefinitely.
We need to go way beyond ofactually at least the industrial
size organic we've lately seenand maybe go back to at least

(07:32):
the principles of the originalorganic.
But obviously take into accountthat we have made.
We've seen huge changes interms of technology, in terms of
understanding of soil, in termsof research.
We're not at the same placewhere we were 60 or 70, 80 years
ago.
We're in a very different place, so it's both a step forward
and backwards.
Adrian does it.
I don't see you on the screenbut that's because we have a few

(07:54):
.
Does it answer your question?
You should be able to unmuteyourself.
Where is Adrian?
Maybe he fell off the call.
Anyway, we're recording it.
I will let him know.
I see Martijn asked a questionin the chat.

(08:14):
The claims of many advocates ofRegenEgg seems to be too good to
be true Higher yield, highernutrition value and better for
the climate and environment.
What's the caveat?
Higher costs, agree, I thinkmany, especially lately we've
seen many, many articles written, many people basically claiming

(08:35):
that region egg is the toolthat will change everything
overnight and and obviously,soil will solve all the world
problems we can possibly imagine.
I think the caveat is is thatthat's simply not true, and
everything that sounds too goodto be true usually is too good
to be true.
It's not easy.
It requires a fundamental shiftof how we've been doing
agriculture in many cases for avery long time, not just the

(08:57):
last 40 years.
It's definitely possible to doat least equal.
We've seen examples now ofequal yields and if you compare
it on a crop by crop basis, thecomplex thing obviously is that
many of the region egg and,let's say, advanced farmers are
multi cropping and it's verydifficult to compare, to have an

(09:18):
honest corn to corn and let'ssay corn to corn research if
you're also doing two or threeother crops in the same rotation
.
So the yield part, we see thatthe most advanced ones
definitely get to the same,let's say, calories per acre or
per hectare as the conventionalones, obviously with a lot less
input.
So profitability is a hugedriver for many farms to make

(09:41):
the shift.
Because many are shifting yousee that very often in Australia
and the US because they simplythey hit a wall and they cannot
pay for inputs anymore.
So they go and look for otherways of running their farms.
It's not easy and fast.
I think.
The huge changes happen overtime and they're very, very

(10:02):
place dependent.
So almost every region has tofigure out what's the most
effective design here to storethe most carbon, restore the
most water or whatever you wantthat system to do.
And it's not easy toincorporate trees into a big
arable farm.
It's not easy to sell yourcrops partly directly, as many

(10:22):
will discover now in ourdiscovering in COVID.
It's not easy to um figure outthings that actually nobody has
ever figured out at that scale.
It's not easy to find machineryto harvest certain things.
It's very great to do it on ahectare where many things you
can do by hand, but what happensif you have 2 000 hectares?
What happens if you have 20 000?
What happens if you're superremote and you cannot sell

(10:42):
directly?
So the easiness, I think, isthe big caveat.
I would say most of thepotential benefits.
We still haven't reallyunderstood what happens if you
do this at scale, let's say afull region, a full island I've
heard stories about Mallorca andother places like what happens?
What actually happens to theclimate?
But basically the local climate, does it stabilize if you

(11:05):
change your monocrop corn fieldfor a multi-crop?
Does it, and we see some earlyresults in that.
But we have only literallyscratched the surface.
So I think the caveat andmartijn is really it's.
It's a fundamental shift and weshould not kid ourselves that
this is something that allfarmers and all consumers will
tomorrow knock on our doors andsay oh, oh, of course.

(11:25):
Why didn't I think about thisbefore?
It's a very fundamental shiftwhich requires a holistic
approach from financing, fromfunding, from grant, from tools,
from machinery, from seeds,input markets, consumers, the
whole spectrum, unfortunately,or maybe fortunately.
Actually Does that answer yourquestion?

(11:46):
I see a nodding on the screen.
We can honestly also spend anhour on just this.
Obviously, sorry, go ahead.

(12:08):
I would argue not.
If you look at the farmers thathave been wiped out by,
honestly, this year, the hugerains in the US where a lot of
farmers in the Midwest couldn'tplant, simply they couldn't get
on the land because it was toowet.
So I think we underestimate therisk of the current farming
system and it's being eithercovered by subsidies, covered by

(12:30):
crop insurance, that is, asubsidy covered by other things.
So I think we overestimate thereturns and underestimate the
risk of the current system.
And if you look at the veryadvanced region farmers, they
weather usually a lot betterwhen their neighbors are really
suffering.
So the risk part, I think, isactually very favorable because
you're much more resilient andin some cases even you could

(12:53):
argue anti-fragile, but that'sfor another call.
So I think the risk part isactually much more interesting
if you're building your biggestasset, which is, at the end,
soil.
But there's a price.
There's a price which is time.
There's a price to figure out.
There's a price of becomingmuch more entrepreneurial as a

(13:13):
farmer and going where probablynone of your neighbors and none
of the people.
I've heard stories of peoplethat started to switch and
started in the transition andtheir children were no longer
invited in the soccer team andthings like that.
So don't underestimate what itmeans to go through this, and I
think we all we are writingthese amazing articles, we're
recording podcasts, in my case,and we make it sound like it's a

(13:35):
walk in the park, but it'sdefinitely not.
So it's very easy from the cityto argue and my answer is
always go talk to farmers,listen, and probably we all
learn a lot.
Okay, I want to.
I saw Galaxy Note.
I don't see your name, but youunmuted yourself, which probably

(13:56):
means you wanna add somethingor ask something, or maybe not.
I will mute you.
Veerle, I saw you had aquestion If you're a beginning
investor in region ag, are therealready European funds out
there to invest in?
Can you describe the landscapeof various funds?
So my answer is usually itdepends, which is not a very

(14:18):
satisfying answer.
There are not so many.
There are not so many easyplaces where you, as a either
high net worth individual orretail investor or somewhere in
the middle can invest.
Today there are a lot of peopleworking on things, but a lot of
people have been frozen,obviously in the crazy time
we're in um.
So the answer is no, um I.
And the second part of thatanswer is it really depends what

(14:41):
you would like to do.
There are a number of fundsthat the strongest funds are.
The funds that have been in thespace for the longest time,
usually in the US and Australiahave been funds that have been
buying land and regenerating it,and that is a more of an
infrastructure play, verysimilar to renewable energy, and
those have had a track recordand many are raising the third

(15:02):
fund or fourth fund etc.
And actually raising quitelarge amounts.
We can have a long argumentabout land ownership and should
it be concentrated or not, and Ithink that's an argument we
need to have, but those havebeen the most advanced in the
space so far In terms of fundsthat help current farmers to
transition.
I've seen three experimentsmaybe so far, or three

(15:23):
experiments are in process, someare still under the radar and I
think we're going to see anexplosion and that would be very
interesting for people toinvest in, because then you can
invest alongside farmers and asthey're going through the
transition, without the landhaving to change ownership and
obviously without a lot of moneybeing tied into the land.
But there the answer is inEurope.
I haven't seen anything.
I've seen one crowd answer isin Europe.

(15:44):
I haven't seen anything.
I've seen one crowdfundingplatform in France, which so far
has only been open to Frenchspeaking, called Mimosa.
So M-I-I-I sorry M-O-S-A andthey have done small projects.
They're partnered with Danoneand Carrefour to help some of
their farmers transition.

(16:04):
So I'm guessing more of thatwill happen there, but so far,
in Europe at least, not an easyplace to go.
Please send me stuff if you'veseen things, but I have not
found too much.
I'm trying to obviously keep aneye on the sector, also here as

(16:28):
much as possible From Priska.
Does regenerative just refer tothe environmental aspect of
agriculture or can it also implyregenerative processes on
social, cultural and economicdimensions, like fostering
community building?
I think the clear answer.
I think it's a personal answer.
My answer is definitely yes.
I see it's very difficult to doregenerative agriculture and

(16:49):
not do and not hit a lot of thesocial aspects that we would
like to see in this world aswell, I have to get to see an
example where that, for instance, happened.
It really depends on the focusof the farmer, the focus of the
fund, the focus of the groupthat's running it, the trust, et
cetera.
But almost always I've seen avery close connection between

(17:11):
the environmental and the socialand I would strongly argue that
we should keep it that waybecause otherwise, why are we
doing it?
I think there's a veryinteresting angle if you look at
, obviously, the farmworker sideof things, which in some
countries is a much bigger issue, in some other countries a much
smaller issue, and which inmost regenerative farms are much

(17:35):
better treated.
Farmworkers are much bettertreated than not, but it's
definitely something that alsothe crazy blog post that it's
going to save the world oftenfocus on the carbon, the water
and the climate and not so muchon the social side of things.
I think a big potential impactwe'll see on the healthcare side
, which obviously is a socialpart as well, when we truly dive

(17:58):
deep into the nutrient densityof things and start to discover
which some early research now isshowing that this tomato being
grown organically you find inthe supermarket, or this tomato
grown regeneratively relativelynearby, are fundamentally
different products and they havevery different nutrient
contents and there you get a bitmore tying into the

(18:21):
too-good-to-be-true area.
But we're going to see a lot ofresearch coming out that a lot
of the food we thought was fullof nutrients is actually quite
empty and a lot of the food thatis grown very differently is
actually almost medicine.
So we're going to have thatdiscussion of food as medicine,
which is going to sound veryweird but it's going to be very
interesting and I think therethe social aspect is very strong

(18:44):
in terms of learning abilities,in terms of we are literally
what we eat, and a lot of.
There's research on prisonsthat when they started to
actually feed the prisoners,cook the prisoners good food, a
lot of the violence went downand things like that.
So I think we're going to seean explosion on food as medicine
measurement and really see thatconnection.

(19:05):
Healthy soil, healthy produce,healthy gut systems and healthy
people I mean think with yourgut probably comes obviously
from there.
Does it answer your question,priska?
I take that as a yes, gadi.
How do Regenec people andyourself see the concept of

(19:25):
hydroponic growth technology,which are, at least to some
degree, a closed circle of waterand materials, more efficient,
controlled, very suitable forcities, obviously closer to
consumers, eliminating much ofthe transportation, environment
and financial costs.
Also, here I think it depends.
I see a lot of space forhydroponic, especially on the

(19:51):
leafy green side of things.
So the salads, maybe sometomatoes and a lot of those,
many of them are not as energyefficient as you would like.
So I would, as an investor, Iwould always ask the question
show me the full circle, likeshow me how much input it
actually takes.
Obviously, anything grown thatdoesn't need a lot of

(20:12):
transportation is something tolook at.
But often in these systems theyclaim 100% closed loop with
either fish or something else,but there's always obviously
inputs going in because nothing.
I mean you need some kind offertilizer liquids, you need
something to grow plants.
They don't grow out of nothing,especially not in soil, not

(20:32):
outside soil.
So I would very much look atthe full input and output, like
how much energy, how much input?
Where is it coming from?
Is that a risk, potentially inpandemics, when suddenly a
certain fertilizer might not bedelivered anymore, etc.
Etc.
Etc.
And I have done, I think, maybeone interview on greenhouses and

(20:54):
slightly more controlledenvironment, also because there
are huge limitations of how muchwe can actually grow like how
much of our daily diet can wegrow in greenhouses or can we
grow inside?
Can we grow in hydroponicsystems?
And most of our calories comefrom a few crops unfortunately
wheat, rice, et cetera and theyalso occupy most of our land.

(21:15):
So if we want to have theimpact on carbon, on water, on
farm workers, on a lot ofhectares or acres, I think we're
going to look mostly actuallynot to the vegetables, but
mostly to tree crops, mostly toweed, mostly to large, broad
acre farms and land, becausethat's what occupies so much of

(21:35):
our planet, unfortunatelyObviously largely used for
animal feed, which is somethingthat fundamentally has to change
.
So I see a lot of potentialthere to reduce all the
chemicals, to reduce the tillage, reduce the fertilizer, and
obviously I applaud any workthat's being done in vegetables,
in leafy greens.
But I would really look at thefull input and output cycle,

(21:58):
because there's a lot.
I see some of these decks andwe come back to Martijn that
really seem too good to be true,like you, only you put a solar
panel and and these growbasically without inputs and
that's simply, I would argue,not possible, and so really
really have a deep understandingof that, but I think it's part

(22:18):
of the puzzle.
Maybe a small part, but it'sdefinitely part of the puzzle.
But it's definitely part of thepuzzle.
Thanks, kelly Alexandra.
What's most lacking on farm orfarmers on farm?
For farmers to require for thetransition towards regen from
conventional Data is obviouslyan issue in part that's not
available.
Testing soil is extremelydifficult.

(22:40):
And how to organize, enabledecision-making support for
farmers that brings all of thevariables, including
profitability and market access,together.
Who's leading in thistechnology?
So she sent two questions.
Let's answer the first onefirst.
I think decision-making supportis absolutely crucial.

(23:00):
There are an enormous amount ofapps coming on the market that
claim to do that.
I don't have the answer whichone actually works.
Probably it really depends onthe crop types where you are,
but I do have a few questions Iwould always ask any of these ag
tech companies Probably.
The first one is when is thelast time you talked to a farmer
and is there a farmer on yourboard?

(23:22):
Is there actually arepresentative of the group you
you're trying to reach?
And you'll be surprised youwould think all of all of them
at least have a co-founder likeyou cannot do this without
understanding your community ofgrain farmers in the midwest, or
you cannot do this withoutunderstanding your potato
growers in the netherlands, butyou'll be surprised how many
meaning very, very well.
But come out out of this fromwe have to digitalize the

(23:45):
farmers and coming out of itfrom a very we have to teach
them something and we will showthem how it's done, because they
are behind on X Y, z, you'll besurprised.
I know farmers that have boughtthe latest drones when they came
out and they were 15,000 eurosand have an amount of data that
you can just not even process tobegin with.
So there's definitely a hugeneed to help farmers decide.

(24:07):
They have a very limited amountof time.
They usually have 40, 50harvests and need to make huge
decisions on very thin margins.
So I don't know which ones aregoing to lead that.
I think we're going to see aspectrum of some case farmer led
, because they much betterunderstand what's there.
Obviously it's very differentthan running a tech company, but

(24:28):
I would be very careful with alot of ag tech companies and see
how much they actuallyunderstand and are part of the
regen ag movement and obviously,in your investment decisions,
always take into considerationthe investment advice of a few
forward-thinking region farmers.
They are very good at filteringthe noise from the actually

(24:49):
interesting things because theyneed to make those decisions
every day, and so tech is goingto be crucial.
I don't think we can all imaginewhat's going to be possible in
a number of years and fromrobotica to software to making
good farmers decisions what toplant where and why, which is
still a very underdevelopedpiece but it's going to be very
difficult to get a connectionwith a large amount of a group

(25:13):
of farmers big enough toactually make that a valuable
business without obviouslytaking the data, selling it off
and doing the traditional modelwhich has made farmers very,
let's say, skeptical ofoutsiders coming in with the
latest techno gizmo to help them.
Does it answer your firstquestion, alexander?
Yes.

(25:44):
Your second question on carbonmarket potential what are your
views on this?
How, when and who?
That's a really good questionwhere we can again spend an hour
on how I think most of themodels so far have been, or most

(26:05):
of the business so far havebeen, based on models either
Comet farm or some others I Idon't see and those models have
been based on a lot of academicresearch which has shown in the
past to really either veryunderestimate or not take into
consideration a lot of thecarbon parts.
So I see some test farmsactually which are profitable,

(26:28):
or commercial farms that aredoing twice the rate of what
Comet Farm predicted in terms ofcarbon sequestration.
It doesn't mean that they areright, it means that we just
don't know, and so I think we'regoing to see a lot of actually
to really try to actual measureit and not based on a model.
It's going to be very difficult.
So that probably answers yourwhen not tomorrow, but the

(26:51):
customers are going to want tosee this.
Customers are going to buycarbon credits, removal credits,
storage and I bought themthrough Nori, for instance, and
I actually have an interviewcoming out next week with Nori,
not to plug it, but they are.
They're definitely building apiece of the puzzle there, but
it's very.
I think customers, the frontrunners, all of us probably will
buy them because we just wantthis to happen.

(27:12):
But later stage, wherecustomers are going to ask for,
can you actually prove that thishas been stored and that this
has been stored over a long time, and then hopefully we're going
to see.
That's the second part of yourquestion.
What's the role of agroforestryinclusion in region farms and
we're going to see, hopefully,then a race for, okay, what's

(27:32):
the fastest sequestration farmwe can design, if that's what
you want, if you want mostbiomass, if you want most
produce, if you want most carbon.
I think we're going to seedifferent models compete and I
don't see why trees are notgoing to be part of that, for
all the extra benefits they have.
But obviously they have a hugebenefit on carbon and so I think
, until they are a part of themodels, or until we're going to

(27:55):
measure actual carbonsequestration and actually how
long that's going to be, you'regoing to measure actual carbon
sequestration and actually howlong that's going to be.
You're going to struggle onthat piece, but there will be a
lot of interest in the spacebecause people wake up daily for
the amount of what we canactually do in terms of soil
management, both above groundand underground, that the
interest for this is just goingto explode Again.
There's going to be a lot ofnoise, so it's going to be

(28:17):
asking the right questions andwho's actually actually farmers
first?
I think also here, who actuallyincludes farmers in the
decision making process and inthe design process?
Because, at the end of the day,you're not going to get
millions of farmers to sign upif you don't really and to
actually get them for to commitfor 10 or 15 years if you don't
really build this from theground up with farmers.
Does that answer your secondquestion, which is a huge issue?

(28:57):
Yeah, we're very early.

(29:25):
That's the.
I think the and there's a bigopen question will be just
carbon.
Will it be water?
Maybe moving first?
Will it be all three?
So biodiversity, carbon andwater.
What other?
Because we can make a wholelist of ecosystem services,
obviously around that.
So I'm going to move to Claude.

(29:47):
Is there a minimum dimension ofthe land to start thinking to
switch to region ag?
I don't think so.
I think there's.
I mean, probably a square meteris very small, but um, I, I
would say from the farmers, Iknow the principles, they're the
, the approaches um reallydiffer, obviously in terms of,

(30:09):
of context and place.
Could be a smallholder farmerin ghana, could be a large-scale
farmer in the midwest, but the,the principles are always the
same, which is about same, whichis about ground cover, which is
about very no or very littledisturbance of the soil, which
is about complex rotations bothin time and in place, meaning

(30:29):
both obviously over the years,but also in the same place,
meaning no monocultureapproaches.
So the principles of all thesefarmers, big and small, fully
organic or somewhere on the way,are usually the same, which
sort of indicates that it's aset of principles that could be
applied on a soccer field orcould be applied on your
backyard garden, which maybeallows you to do a lot more

(30:51):
things than you would otherwisenot be allowed, because you
basically can monitor veryeasily and do a lot of things by
hand and do a lot of things byhand.
So it seems to be all the wayfrom very intensive, small scale
permaculture to very extensivethousands of hectares of
agroforestry systems.
It seems to be scaling quitenicely, but it's very context
dependent and that makes it sodifficult for funds to operate,

(31:15):
for things to sell in, forinputs to develop, because it
really really really dependswhere you are, and that makes it
very tricky also to buildcompanies that could be huge,
because how many can you reallyserve with your input supply?
How many can you really help interms of training if your
approach maybe only works inthis bio region?

(31:37):
So it also challenged a lot ofthat.
But I don't think but pleasecorrect me if I'm wrong that
there's necessarily a dimensionsmall scale or large scale.
Obviously you want to becommercially farming.
That's a different discussion,but also there it depends on
context.
I've seen people verycomfortably getting a family
income of a very small plot andI've seen, obviously, farmers at

(32:01):
a huge scale that are not even,that are below the poverty line
.
So it really depends, frank.
What does regenerative farmingreally implies?
Is it biological Food sources,which I think are food forests,
or permaculture?
So it's primarily an approachof.

(32:21):
It could imply all of these,but it's a primarily approach to
a farmer or a land owner orland user to rebuilding soil.
Most soil are extremelydegraded and so it's a set of
principles, it's a set ofapproaches to to build basically
soil, and that could mean arange of different things.
Could be that you're applyingpermaculture.

(32:42):
I've seen many that are mixingthings.
They are using certainapproaches from permaculture,
they're using certain approachesfrom organic agriculture,
they're using certain approachesfrom food forests.
It really depends on thecontext, but it's keeping the
ground covered at all time,using complex rotations in time
and space.
No, or very, very low,depending on the location, but

(33:04):
usually no tillage and there'san element of probably at some
point integrating livestock intoa certain into the rotation,
but also that really depends onlocation.
So it's a context specific setwhich I usually say.
It goes way beyond organic.
But the very simple one is toask your farmer are you building

(33:24):
soil or not?
And the regen farmers isinteresting because you usually
have a very long discussion whenyou first met them, meet them,
not about their produce, notabout the oranges they grow, not
about whatever vegetables theygrow, but actually about their
soil.
So you can sort of spot theregenerative farmers because
they're more actually abouttheir soil.
So you can sort of spot theregenerative farmers because
they're more enthusiastic abouttheir soil growing than the
produce which sort of happens tobe a byproduct.

(33:45):
So it's quite interesting.
I've seen regenerativelivestock so actually a chicken
operation that have mainlytalked about grass and only
after an hour we somehow got tooh yeah, but I'm actually to
grow the grass, I'm using thisand this, this principles, um.
So it's an interesting, it's adifferent mindset, um, not

(34:05):
making it easier or less easy,obviously, than than organic.
But organic is much moreestablished in terms of do this,
this and this, and you can beorganic and don't do this in
terms of regenerative.
It's it's a bit more fluid, butit all comes down to generative.
It's a bit more fluid, but itall comes down to are you
building soil?
And are you building soil atleast in my case, at scale?
Willem shared a fund, aquaspark, which is very personal to me

(34:26):
because I used to work there.
Thank you for sharing that andI mean, I think it triggers an
interesting thought, in thesense that I've only interviewed
one or two, I think, butthere's a huge space we never
cover when we talk about regionag, which is obviously the
oceans, and there's an enormouspotential, from seaweed farming
to mix cropping also there, andI think we are only just

(34:50):
scratching the surface of whatis possible when we restore the
oceans.
And there you can ask exactlythe same question to any fish
investment or any oceaninvestment you might be
considering are you restoringthe oceans and, if so, how are
you measuring it?
Can you report on it?
And I think the potential therein terms of climate, in terms
of nutrients, in terms of fixingrunoff issues, is probably,

(35:13):
maybe even bigger than in allthe land area combined, because
it's just so much bigger.
And it turns out that, forinstance, there's some research
coming out in terms of whalesthat are sort of the grazers of
the ocean and actually storingan enormous amount of CO2 and
restoring just the whalepopulation would already help a
lot.
So there's a lot of thingsthere.

(35:33):
They see Zara on the call interms of seaweed, which she
knows much more about thatthere's to discover, discover
and actually they're veryinteresting connections between
farms runoff obviously, but alsofarms and the nearby ocean or
the nearby sea in terms ofseaweed which can be used as a
fertilizer and obviouslycaptures a lot of the runoff
Seaweed can obviously be eaten,and so there's a lot to discover

(35:54):
there.
I'm definitely planning to domore there, also considering my
history at AquaSpark and I see alink here which I will not
click on now Willem regenerativeresources, an American
organization looking for funds.
I will dive into that after.
Can you, yeah sure, which is anNGO?

(36:30):
Yeah, so there are definitelyplaces.
I would.
There are a lot of places tohave these discussions, but an
easy list.
There's Soil Wealth, which is abig report.
If somebody could put it in thechat that would be great but
it's mostly US and a very smallpercentage of the funds they
have listed are activelymeasuring soil health.
So I would always argue ask formeasurement, active measurement

(36:57):
of soil health, but it'sdefinitely growing like every
day.
I had a discussion two days agoabout a group that is launching
, now obviously paused, um aregenerative.
They call it sustainable, butit was for for different reasons
.
Let's say, regenerative publicuh, publicly listed um farmland
income trust on the london stockexchange won't be listed for

(37:20):
the next few weeks becausenothing is listed, but that
would mean that it's suddenlyaccessible for retail investors
and so there are a lot of peoplethinking about vehicles to make
this accessible and startfinancing this transition.
Thank you, willem, for sharingthose.
Okay, I was trying to catch upbecause otherwise we're never
going to get through this.
I see a question of Janessa.

(37:42):
A few of my Californian growersare looking.
I'm just quickly scanning itbecause otherwise I'm reading it
all.
So she's asking if there areany advisors, slash consultants,
that could help her Californiangrowers to switch.

(38:02):
So there are many, many I wouldquote unquote gurus in this
space and many advisors andconsultants.
It hasn't been organized verywell so far that you can easily
search and find who in your croptype, area, et cetera, is very
good.
So the answer is I don't know,and I know that Ag Talent, who I

(38:23):
interviewed, is trying to dothis mostly for the Australian
market, but I think wedefinitely need better
searchable directories et cetera.
I'm sure they are there, but Ihaven't seen too many.
Let's say, these consultantscome recommended lists or
something like that.
So that's actually anopportunity.
Like we need many of theseagronomists, independent, not

(38:44):
paid by the input companies tohelp growers and to help
corporatives or to help groupsof farmers to transition.
Actually, soil capital but it'svery European focused at the
moment is working on just thatto basically build an army of
independent agronomists thathave experience in region.
Ag are being trained to reallybe even more experienced and are

(39:06):
not paid by the input company,so are free to advise and not
basically have to sell anything,because usually these are
normally their salespeople.
So Soil Capital is working onit unfortunately not in in
California, but you might couldreach out to them to see if they
know anybody.

(39:26):
So Zara is asking a questionwhere do you see the role of
product innovation currentlywork?
I'm working on algae-based soilregeneration and drought
mitigation.
Are these opportunities outthere for early stage
innovations?
Do you know any farmers, groupsor organizations in Europe who
want to co-create?
I'm not a techie, I'm apermaculture gardener, so that's

(39:51):
a good question.
There are many far.
How do you would find you?
You're basically asking whatare, what could be, early
adopters of the work you'redoing?
Thank you, yeah, I think whatit really depends where you are,

(40:48):
but you're you're based in inWestern Europe, right?
Yeah, so it would definitely inin, in this case, in the
Netherlands.
Find groups like common land, orfind groups of farmers of
violence that are already atleast case in the Netherlands.
Find groups like Commonland, orfind groups of farmers of
Weiland that are already atleast somewhere in the
transition and to test with them.
I know a number of farmers thatactually have used, also in the

(41:08):
Netherlands, seaweed asfertilizer or are also using it,
obviously as a livestock feedingredient, which greatly
reduced the methane.
So it's finding those groups offarmers could be the food, yeah
, yeah.
So finding those groups ofearly adopters that are willing
to donate or make available oneor two hectares just to try a

(41:29):
few things.
And and they, yes, it's the thecommon land project just north
of Amsterdam, with a, with a biggroup of farmers.
So they are definitely, let'ssay, on the front end of this,
plus a lot of the farmers.
They would know all the otherfarmers in Europe, or in the
Netherlands as well, that arepotentially open to this.

(41:55):
Sure, and with you you mean youas a seaweed project, or me.

(42:23):
For me, I've very similar to myview on impact investing.
I've spent a lot of time tryingto convince people of certain
things.
I don't think that's veryeffective, so I decided to focus
on the front runners and tofocus on people that I'm always

(42:43):
happy to share something on soil, obviously, but to help the
front runners to go faster andto do more, because I think
we're going to see more changefaster.
If we had 100 years, I wouldn'tbe too worried, because most
farmers will at some pointdiscover and will start focusing
on.
We'll go deep into YouTube andfind Gabe Brown and others and
start learning and we'll be fine.
But we have 10, 15 years, soconvincing is going to take, at

(43:06):
least in my personal view, toolong, and so we either
incentivize through carbonpayments, offtake agreements and
other, or we partner with withthe front runners to to move
faster and communicate about it.
So we obviously create morefrontrunners otherwise and let's

(43:28):
go down the list, becauseotherwise, tekla, do you see big
opportunities in Ocean?
Yes, I think we alreadyanswered that, so let's keep
moving.
Sam, I'm the director of MeinStadstein, which is an urban
farm in Amsterdam, regen AgPrinciples.
We're looking for investmentsmainly for a center of

(43:49):
excellence on regen farming.
What would be the mostsufficient way to find
investments?
It's a very difficult questionbecause obviously the answer is
it depends.
Um.
I would argue mostly for anytype of um investments like this
, which is an urban farm locatedin amsterdam, to try to find it

(44:11):
as much as possible locally.
Um, you need people with aconnection locally.
I mean, it's one thing ifyou're in the middle of nowhere
in the center of France andmaybe locally there's not so
much capital around, but in thiscase you're in Amsterdam, which
is obviously one of thefinancial centers of Europe, and
I would really try to findpeople with a connection to this

(44:31):
space and try to figure out ifyou're honestly looking for an
investment or a grant or a mix,and get first of all very, very,
very clear what you're lookingfor and why because it's the
first question any funder orinvestor will ask and then
really search for a localconnection, because you're going
to need that to to compete withany other investment decks etc.

(44:53):
That investors are going to get.
Does it answer your question,sam?
I saw you unmuted.
But get really, really clearwhat you need it for and why.

(45:15):
Because maybe you don't and andsmart investors will will see
through that immediately.
I see many people to say I amgonna raise capital, I need to
raise capital, but after two orthree questions of why, why?
Why?
Probably it's not the case, orprobably they don't need it, or
there are other ways to raisecapital or to to grow and scale.
Thanks, jeff.

(45:52):
Um, the publicly listed company.
It's not publicly listed.
They were supposed to launchI'm looking at the day a month
ago which obviously got shelved.
So I I hope to do an interviewanytime soon.
They are thinking aboutsomewhere this year.
So no listed yet.
You can search, but I don'tthink you will find it.
Maybe I mean they're public butthey're not publicly listed yet
.
Then we get to Willem.
There is a list of consultants.

(46:15):
I will look into that.
Eltinitiative.
So for consultants Janconsultants, janessa villain,
put something in the in the chatbox if you want to have a look.
Alexandra john kempf definitelyinteresting to speak with.
I had him on the phoneyesterday.
Actually very interesting guy,john kempf, a very interesting
podcast for anybody interestedin podcasts.
Otherwise you're not here.

(46:35):
Um on um, his company is calledadvancing eco agriculture and
they do a lot of work also incalifornia.
So, um, I cannot I haven'tworked with him in terms of as a
consultant, so I cannot as afarmer, but definitely somebody
to uh, um, to reach out, tochuck also in has been on the
podcast of.
So capital knows him well.

(46:56):
Um, yeah, and we actually metin oakland at the investment the
regenerative food systeminvestment forum.
So that, thank you, alexandra,for sharing that.
So Capital knows him well.
Yeah, and we actually met inOakland at the investment the
Regenerative Food SystemInvestment Forum.
So thank you, alexandra, forsharing that Interesting podcast
.
They share a lot, they share alot of webinars, they share a
lot of information, and that'sactually the list.
So if anybody has anotherquestion, please unmute yourself
.
Oh, there's another one, yours.

(47:18):
Can you sketch severalscenarios of how a transition to
region I could look like interms of time?
And yours, can you unmuteyourself and maybe?
Thank you, yeah, sure, so Iwouldn't be doing this if I

(48:15):
didn't think it would make aconsiderable carbon difference
in the next 10 to 15 years,because that's probably pretty
much the window we have.
The answer is, again, it reallydepends on the farm and the
location.
We've seen, or I've seen,changes, especially if you have.

(48:36):
It also depends on the climate.
Obviously, stuff grows a lotfaster in tropics, where things
happen a lot faster.
So if you're looking for thefastest growth of soil or
biomass of anything, definitelypick the climate to do that.
The climate is extremelyimportant to that.
But if you're looking for themost degraded soils, you
probably get to the areas whichhas been farmed the longest.

(48:57):
And so if you want the biggestbang for your buck, probably you
will look at heavily degradedsoil that have been in
conventional, chemical drivenagriculture for the longest and
bring in quite a bit of biomass,which is a lot of compost, and
start to figure out okay, what'sthe quickest one?
I want to do, but it reallydepends.

(49:17):
If you need to live off thecashflow during that transition,
obviously you make smallersteps.
If you need to live off thecash flow during that transition
, obviously you make smallersteps.
If you have a 10-year window ora five-year window, you don't
need any cash flow out of thebusiness.
You can also do certain thingsthat otherwise you can't.
So it can go quite fast.
We've seen changes in produce,in levels of zinc, et cetera, in
one or two seasons and fromchanging management practices.

(49:40):
But to really build up trees, tobuild up advanced agroforestry
systems especially not in thetropics you need seven to ten
years because it takes time forthe trees to grow.
We can speed it up in a lot ofways by changing the tree
planting methods, by selectingother types, etc.
So it's both fast and slow andreally depending on the location
.
But I think you would besurprised, if you visit the most

(50:02):
advanced one, how fast thingscan go.
Um, if we get the rightprocesses, mostly in systems in
place.
But it's a lot of knowledgethat we're developing now in
terms of what's actually thespeed of things we can do.
And and it's constantlysurprised me of how fast things
are Um, but it if you have atypical grain field and you're
going to switch to a 10 yearrotation and you're bringing in

(50:25):
five or 10 types of cover crops,it will take a bit of time
before the soil starts torecover from all the chemicals
and starts to actually slowlylive again.
It might take three to fiveyears just to get through the
shock of less fertilizer and toget through the shock of less
chemicals.
So it really depends what youstart with.
If you want to have the fastestcarbon, it usually ends up

(50:48):
being, like Alex Fundermentioned, some kind of system
with trees involved and you needfast growing species in a mix
with others, et cetera.
Does that answer your question?
I see Julia sent anotherquestion by email which I'm not
going to check now so I will getback to that.

(51:09):
There is a farmland read whichI'm also not going to click on
it, but thank you, augusto, forsharing.
I will have a look.
Not sure if they have a strongregen ag focus when they don't
mention anything.
They don't, but it's.
I'm always happy to be to besurprised, obviously.
And martin is asking what budgetwould be required to set up a

(51:30):
large scale region farm in thenetherlands and what would be
reasonable annual returnexpectations.
That's a question I reallydon't know.
I know the.
I think the average hectarecosts are about 80 to 90 000, so
it depends what you mean bylarge scale.
But that's if you want to buyland.
That's pretty much what you'relooking at.
And then you need still thecapital on top of that to to

(51:54):
obviously start makinginvestments.
I'm seeing, in terms of annualreturn, that's maybe some.
I see some funds now orvehicles that are being set up
in the US and they're targeting,let's say, eight to 12% on an
annual basis, which is partlycoming from the produce, partly

(52:14):
from the asset growing in orgetting a higher valuation.
So those are the numbers theyare looking at and they're
raising capital, which seemsthat investors are liking that,
and what that would mean in theNetherlands, I don't know,
because I don't think anybodyhas done that and you'll be
figuring out.
What are the offtake agreementsneeded?
Who's buying?
Is somebody buying the carbon,which obviously influences your

(52:37):
return quite a bit because it'sfree extra cash?
Are you going for a 10-yearsystem, which means you involve
a lot of trees, which means youhave to wait?
Do you need to live with thecash flow?
It's an interesting exercise.
I think some people inNetherlands would be interested
to look at that.
It really depends on large scale.
If you're buying land, a lot ofyour money will be locked into

(52:57):
buying the land, and that justlimits what you can do.
That's one of the reasons I'mnot focusing only, for instance,
on large funds that are raisingcapital to buy land, because I
think there's a limit of howmuch money there's available to
get into those funds, even ifthey raise 10 billion, et cetera
, how much actual land can webuy and thus influence with that
is limited.

(53:18):
And if you look at systems orprocesses or vehicles that are
working with farmers, thispotential to scale is much
higher because you don't need tobuy the land and you don't have
, obviously, the wholediscussion on land ownership.
So there's definitely there's alot of learnings in these large
funds because they operate at alarge scale, but I think
there's also sort of naturallimit of how much they can
actually raise and how muchhectares and acres we can

(53:41):
influence with that.
But we need them, I think, interms of lessons learned.
We need them in terms of CO2now we need them in terms of
large offtake agreements.
There's a lot of people goingto be trained on those farms to
do this at scale, which isabsolutely essential because we
don't have enough farmers thatare able to do this
multi-cropping, very complexrotations of 15 types of cover

(54:02):
crops, mixing in with, et cetera, et cetera.
There are not many people thatcan do that and want to do that
honestly, at remote locations,et cetera.
So I think a lot of the capitalwill be locked into the land,
which is maybe something toconsider if you want to have the
most impact.
Anastasia, hello from Greece.
We grow cherries and figs.
If anybody or anyone isinterested, let's connect.

(54:24):
So definitely anybody that'sinterested in cherries and figs,
maybe from Mediterraneancountries, please connect with
Anastasia.
Alexandra is a longerconversation, which is
interesting because we're on topof the hour.
The investment thesis forrewilding very interesting
question it as one of the mostlistened episodes.
Definitely read the book if youhaven't.

(54:44):
Uh, isabella tree obviouslyshe's called tree.
Um, fascinating book.
Anything you thought, anythingI thought at least, about nature
, was being debunked.
I think 15 times in that bookalone.
Um, and thought about rewildingmanagement how much do you have
to do and how much you kind ofdo, how fast can nature come
back?
So it comes back to yourquestion, yours and I think

(55:05):
there's a very interesting caseof integrating rewilding into
rotations.
So there are two cases.
I think there's a veryinteresting to integrate
rewilding into rotations.
What would happen if youmanaged rewilding?
So it's not just putting afence and wait, but actually
manage the process and integratecertain things and actually
speed up the process ofrewilding.
What if that will be part of a20-year rotation?

(55:27):
So you have a 20-year rewildingand then you go back to
regenerative ag for a few yearsand you go back to so you sort
of move in and out.
What would that mean fornutrient levels?
I think that's a very like whatwould the produce do when that
comes off the land.
And I think it's the second partand we talked a bit about that
in the interview is how do youintegrate this into farms, into

(55:49):
pieces that are not extremelyproductive?
How do you rewild pieces ofyour farm, of your operation,
that are anyway not the mosteconomically profitable pieces,
and how can you manage thatactively to let biodiversity
simply explode?
And I think Isabella and herhusband Charlie have shown that
you can actually go on safari injust south of London and see an

(56:10):
amount of biodiversity that ifsomebody said that 20 years ago
that that would grow there andsay they have more nightingales
than most of the wildlife areasnearby.
And so it challenges a lot ofour thought about how an area
should look like in terms offorest versus open, canopy oak
trees, large animals, many, manyinsects, and so I think there's

(56:33):
a huge role.
So far, they're mostly twodifferent worlds.
We're not really talking.
The region egg people and therewilding people are not really
talking.
I think that's a huge mistakebecause we're after the same
things and I think there's a lotof integration and that can
happen, trudy, so actually Samsent a message to Martijn, which

(56:55):
Martijn can answer.
What do you think about largescale, trudy?
Can you say more about fundingthat it takes for the ownership
of land versus the funding thatsupports the farmers and owners
to transition, to redirect?
Is funding that it takes forthe ownership a bad deal for the
farmer?
Here it really depends on whatthe farmer wants to do in the
farmer family.
I've seen examples in Canada.
I just want to say sorry, we'reon top of the hour.

(57:16):
If anybody wants to leave,obviously feel free.
Also before I will finish thesequestions and which might mean
that we're around 10 minutesover or something, but feel free
to to jump to your next call,jump to a coffee or tea,
whatever you are, but I will tryto finish these questions and
then call it a day.
Can you say something about thefunding, what she asked?

(57:37):
So I've seen examples of peopletaking outside capital to buy
land of their neighbors and thenslowly growing into that.
In Canada I've seen examples ofso.
There are many, many flavors.
I think it really depends whatthe farmer wants to do.
If a comfortable size is whatthey already have, there's no
need to buy other land.
If it's more comfortable on thelong term to have the land in a

(58:01):
trust which is governed by acertain set of principles and
then the farmer leases the landto a certain long period.
I mean there's so many shapesand forms available there.
I think there's a largerdiscussion we need to have on
land ownership and does it makesense to have that in a very
concentrated group of people.

(58:21):
But that's part of the Regenecdiscussion as well and I think
we're going to have a lot ofdifferent shapes and forms of
trusts, of farms buying otherfarms, of groups of people
getting together, forming acooperative and buying large
farms for their food, et cetera,et cetera.
So I don't see.
I think the impact is going tobe working with current farmers,
simply because they alreadyhave the land and they need to

(58:44):
transition, and the largest, thefastest the hectares we can do
are probably from partneringwith current farmers and land
owners, because they could bealso investment funds that
already have the land but don'tknow what to do or don't know
how to.
They're probablyunderperforming what they could
do there there somebody nicelysaid underperforming landscapes

(59:05):
and which for investors, shouldbe, should be quite interesting.
Alexandra is asking howimportant is certification, and
that's an open question.
I have no idea.
I see obviously Patagonia anddr Bronner's and and Roda
working an ROC, regener,regenerative organic
certification, which isinteresting and raises a million

(59:26):
and a half questions.
I really don't know.
I think it really depends on ifconsumers need certification
and or we're going down anutrient density route, and so
if we're going down a nutrientdensity route and we're going to
communicate on what's actuallyin your food, maybe

(59:46):
certification isn't neededanymore.
But I don't know.
I think time will only tell.
Sorry, not not a verysatisfying answer right now.
Augusto, do you believe the lackof wildly accepted ESG
frameworks to evaluate farminginvestments remain a key
roadblock?
I think that the lack ofaccepted ESG is a key roadblock

(01:00:08):
for anything in impact investing, so also in regenerative
agriculture.
I think the SAVERYcertification is based on
outcome, which is veryinteresting.
Rodale ROC is still very earlybut also very interesting.
So time will tell.

(01:00:28):
I think it's the same answer toAlexander's question.
We can only wait and getinvolved as investors,
practitioners, farmers to makesure we shape these to something
that serves all of us and notjust certification bodies, not
just consumers, but actuallyobviously farmers and get all
stakeholders on here.

(01:00:51):
Does the EU common agriculturepolicy encourage region egg?
At the moment not, or very,very little.
There's a lot of work andlobbying being done to try to
change that and actually on theso at the moment it's not
extremely helpful and I thinkyou can ask 20 farmers and most
of them will tell you that a lotof the legislation, a lot of

(01:01:11):
the subsidy schemes are actuallyagainst a lot of these things
because they pay you to plow orthey pay you to do certain
practices which have beenoutdated for already 20 years.
So for the moment not.
I know there's a lot of workbeing done by a number of
European bodies to change that,but of course there's an
enormous lobby effort frommostly the input companies,

(01:01:32):
because that's what they aredepending on, which is their
livelihood.
So we're gonna see the samekind of lobbying we see with
fossil fuel it's a very similar,probably using the same lobby
groups actually to do that.
Thank you, sarah, for sharingthe book, and I think that's it.

(01:01:54):
I reached the end of thequestions.
Thank you so much, for ifanybody has a question,
definitely unmute now andotherwise we'll.
We'll call it a day and, uh, Iwill do this another time soon.
I hope it was interesting,relevant, and have a nice
evening, nice morning whereveryou are, or a nice night,

(01:02:14):
actually, if you're in Singapore, because I know some called it.
Thank you so much.

All Episodes

361 Herb Young - After 36 years at Bayer, growing regen citrus with 8x the nutrients

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}361 Herb Young - After 36 years at Bayer, growing regen citrus with 8x the nutrients