371 Benedikt Boesel - Fully integrating 300 cows into a 1000-hectare arable very sandy farm - Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
With the shot.
He just collapses deadly in asecond.
He doesn't even hear the shot.
Luciano would lift the fence,the cows go over within 20
seconds, 30 seconds, the fencegoes down again and the cows
graze and that's it.
There's no pain, there's nonothing, there's no stress,
there's no worries, there'snothing out of the ordinary.
I think it's probably the mostbeautiful death that you can

(00:24):
have.
They constantly hold a mirrorthat you see yourself taking
decisions, interacting, doingthings.
It has a beautiful way ofmaking you, first of all,
understand that you are reallyjust a very unimportant little
piece in the universe.
Second of all, that nature isjust not controllable, not

(00:45):
understandable, nothing likethat.
It just really gives you theimpression that you're a guest
and you can do the best that youcan possibly try, and you
should, but you'll never get itright.
My intention always was tonever have a cow that's had the
best possible life on our farmto be forced onto any means of
transportation that they'venever, ever seen in their life

(01:07):
and driven away with all thesmells and things that they've
never seen.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
So I always knew that if a cow leaves the premises,
then dead, and that I want to bethe one who shoots them, takes
them out of the system this isthe investing in regenerative
agriculture Food podcast, wherewe learn more on how to put
money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and

(01:32):
ecosystems, while making anappropriate and fair return.
This podcast series exploresthe key role of animals in the
food and agriculture system ofthe future.
This series is co -produced andsupported by the DataMars
Sustainability sustainabilityfoundation.
Find out more ondatamarsfoundation or in the
link below.
Yeah, so welcome to.

(01:56):
Uh, I have a feeling I alwayssay special episode, but it
doesn't make it special, ofcourse, if everything is special
, but this is a definitely aspecial one with benedict bozo,
who's been on the show probablythe most times, as you were a
co-host for eight episodes backin the day you were there asking

(02:17):
a lot of questions as well.
It doesn't really okay as aguest.
It's, uh, it's different, butwe're back on the farm,
surrounded by an amazing herd ofcows, which, for sure, we're
going to hear as part of thisseries on, as you just stood in.
Some say liquid gold.
Yeah, that brings luck.
That brings luck in this serieson the role of animals, and I

(02:37):
couldn't imagine with a betterfarmer to kick off this series.
As we covered the science partof it with with ish ishrani
wheeler talking about emptyforests and the role of big
animals and we need more animals.
As we covered the science partof it with Ish Ishwani Wheeler
talking about empty forests andthe role of big animals and we
need more animals and all ofthose fun things.
We now decided to bring it tothe field.
So, first of all, welcome back,benedikt, and thank you for
having us here.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, good to have you back on the farm.
It's been a while 2021 was thelast time.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Oh really, yeah, with Jan schultze shout out to jan
incredible.
Yeah, it's been a lot ofchanges in growth and like
exponential growth as we use itin actual terms, but in this
case because of life more cows,more trees, more soil, biology,

(03:24):
and you can hear the mulchingand just imagine you're in a
field in east of berlin likebrandenburg, slightly hilly,
some trees, lush grasses and howmany cows are around us that's
around just above 300 heads.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
So growing into into, let's say, 120 mother cows.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Look, you can see quite well.
This is where we're currentlymoving them three times a day.
This is where we moved themjust at 11.30, so two hours ago.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
You can exactly see the difference.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
You can exactly see where the line was.
We get one of the Frenchbodyguards commenting on our
presence.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Let me just check, because I think one of them is
calving.
Actually, I think this is theone here.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
And then there are a good amount of small ones as
well.
Calves about 50-60?

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, we've got, should be 64.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Wow, yeah we're recording this in May, so it's
full-on calving season.
The weather's turning to summer, late spring or spring, some
rain, not a lot of rain, butgood growth.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
There's always reasons to complain.
We've been lucky in gettingaround 17 liters three, three
and a half weeks ago, so thatwas really helpful, and then
this weekend we only got four orfive meters, so it could be
worse.
It could be better.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
But you have enough, let's say past year before them,
to enough biomass to keep themrotating three times a day.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, as far as the cows are concerned, the problem
is probably the smallest, theleast, because we always plan
for droughts and in that sensewe always manage with the cows.
But as far as the arablefarming is concerned, and
agroforestry and all that, ofcourse, the risk profile there

(05:26):
is very different and as suchits bottom line has a bigger
effect on the farm financialsthan the, let's say, proposed
biomass production.
Photosensitive capacity of thecalves.
Let's just go over there,because I think that's her and
I'm not sure if she's calved orif she's.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Let's have a look.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
I think, her calf is lying on the outside of the
fence.
Tell me what you do.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
I'm a city boy, no clue, or what not to do, you
just follow me basically Okay,don't make any hidden moves.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Certain moves Look at how she's looking at us.
Look at how she's looking at us.
Now.
There's this phrase from peoplethat, back in the day, were
hunting buffaloes in Africa.

(06:16):
They always said a buffalolooks at you as if you owe him
money and our Saler cows are abit like that also.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah, so the Saler is this old French breed, right?

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Look at her, look how she looks at us.
Let me go have a look.
Yeah, yeah, Hi Spitzy Hi,Spitzy, Hi Spitzy.
Oh yeah All good.
Oh yeah All good, All good.
All good Is good Is good Isgood Is good.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
So Benedikt is going to have a look, is having a look
at the just born cow, saleracow and all the other cows come,
as you can hear, to come andhave a look at their neck to
show his new life and newsupport they're so naughty.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Can you hear the?

Speaker 1 (07:33):
difference in sound of the Salera ones as well.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, deeper much.
Yeah, the Salera are just anincredible breed.
We love them so much.
Our herd has 20 old Saleras,sorry, 10 old Saleras.
These are all around eightyears old now and when are the
first ones?

Speaker 1 (07:53):
you got right as well , yeah they were the first ones.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
So I bought 10 Salera and 10 Angus in spring of 2019.
And then in spring 2020, Ibought another 30 Ang Angus and
with those 50 and a few bulls,of course, at the certain
different times we built a herd.
So the whole herd you see hereis just 50 that we bought and
all the rest is basically fromtheir own work.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Why so early on in your so early on in your journey
?
Transition like came thetrigger to I need some cows or I
need animals, because gettingthem onto a large organic but
industrial organic farm likethis a thousand hectares arable

(08:40):
and 2000 forestry, like gettinganimals on there is not an easy
or it's not a it's quite a bigshift yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
I think it's a lot of different things which led to
it.
I think, first and foremost, Igrew up on the farm and my
connection to, let's say, nature, bigger context of things, was
always through hunting andfishing and raising animals and
working with animals, right.
So I always had this hugefascination for any kind of

(09:09):
animal and it was always super,super close, and so that was
always something that you know.
That was what being outside wasfor me.
In that sense, also working withanimals it was always in a in a
way where you admire them andyou respect them and you want to
care for them, look after them,be somehow part of whatever
they are doing and how theyinteract in the ecosystem, so

(09:30):
that that sort of wasn't even aquestion when you took over the
farm well, it was for surebecause, like in the beginning,
like, as you said, like we werean animal, like we had no
animals, we're just a largearable farm and just taking over
the farm and the forestry,especially in the times back
then where we had severelyeconomic problems through

(09:52):
droughts and storms in theforestry and so forth, it was,
of course, a huge risk becauseif you start something where you
don't have that much experience, if it goes wrong, is it?
Yeah, and it's complicated toadd something Complex to it,
complex to an already existingoperation.
But what I realized quite earlywhen I took over in December
2016, was that if we want tohave a chance at transforming

(10:15):
the farm in a way that I can getrid of the debt and I can
create business models thatallow my kids or my sister's
kids to take over the farm atsome point and have fun doing it
, I need drastic changes.
It's not going to be enoughjust to include a crop in the
computation yeah, exactly so.
I knew it has to be drastic andat the same time I also I like I

(10:37):
mean, it's also a bit of apersonal background, I guess.
But, like, for me it was alwaysabout when I was young and not
yet in farming I wanted to earnas much money as I can, as fast
as I can, just because I love tobe independent and free and I
always believed that money givesme freedom, which I guess to

(10:57):
some extent is still true.
But when I took over the farm,I realized quite fast that this
is my life's passion, this iswhat I want to do with my life.
And at the same time I realizedI'm never going to be as
wealthy as I would hope to havebeen when I was in investment
banking.
But what came with that was tosay I have a different form of
freedom right now because if Ifarm, I can be.

(11:18):
It's a creative process, it'ssomething that never stops, it's
something that you're building,something You're impacting so
many things.
And at the same time I realizedhow much our operation back in
the day was completely dependenton, of course, many different
things subsidies, world marketprices, input prices, but also

(11:39):
nutrients.
Because if you're an ecologicalindustrial farm with a
considerable size of a thousandhectares.
You have to.
You're constantly looking howcan I close the nutrient cycle?
Bringing in stuff, yeah, andyou can't do it with just nurse
crops, cover crops, croprotation.
That's all nice and good, butyou need additional nutrients
and in that sense you'rebringing in the cow shed.

(12:01):
You have to buy cow shed, youhave to buy chicken manure.
You have to buy chicken manure.
You have to think about thelogistics and you don't know
where it comes from.
That you quality plastic inthere.
You have some processes in thecomposting or composting nice,
but where it's stored, that, youknow, is obviously not what you
want.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
So dependency there and a freedom, and yeah, it's
better to have them on fourexactly so even if you take out
the meat question, which we'llget to but you bring the
fertilization to your farm andintegrate, because here they are
fully integrated into rotationright.
I remember from our earliervisits like it was much more
seen as a part of thefertilization, part of the farm

(12:37):
than the meat businessnecessarily yeah, 100 just to
add to that, like wanting to beindependent was one of the main
driving forces.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
But at the same time, I also, of course, reading
through all the legends,understood the potential impact
of the cars for water retentionand photosynthesis,
photosynthetic capacity and also, just as a sort of risk,
diversification of product.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Right now, here we're standing amongst, let's say, I
don't know I'm still standing,but I'm pushed back by a cow on
a plate.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
He's a sweet one.
We're standing here around,let's say, probably 600,000
euros worth of cows.
It's a storage of value.
Exactly, it gives me some roomto wiggle.
If imagine it wouldn't rain nowfor the next 14, 12 weeks,
whatever which has happenedbefore, that would mean we would

(13:37):
have probably 30% of our arablerevenue that we can probably
sell as we would plan to, and wewould have a write-off of
60-70%, which is obviously aconsiderable amount, and the
cows couldn't cover all of thatdelta, but they could
potentially cover liquidityproblems.
So if I have to get through amonth usually around June, july,

(13:59):
which are often tough monthsliquidity-wise, if I'm forced to
, I could sell 30 animals or 40animals.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
I remember you said somewhere on stage I think if I
have to make payroll in adifficult month, this is a
stored value.
You don't want to becauseyou're building up a herd and
you need the size and thequantity in terms of impact.
But it is relatively easilymade liquid, with all the
respect in that.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
It's the worst case scenario, of course.
Relatively easily made liquid,with all the respect in that,
but yeah, if you can survive,it's the worst case scenario of
course, but if you can survivethrough that, yeah, but if I'm
forced to sell land, one moreoption to sell a few cars.
That in that light it's notsuch a bad option.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
And then have you seen, like from the of course
it's a learning process, etc.
But the integration of and Ithink this was in 2006 took over
in 16.
You got the first cars in 19.
Like how steep has been thelearning curve to manage,
because it's a hugeresponsibility with an
agroforestry system.
Once you plant it, you can goaway for a few days, like it's
here.
You can't.

(14:59):
Somebody has to move them, inthis case, three times a day,
and they will let you know whenthey're not happy, when the past
year is not up to theirstandards or their size, as
we've seen yesterday morning.
They didn't, they were moved.
They didn't like the quantitynor the quality of the grass and
they were very loud about it.
Like, how has been thatlearning curve to reintegrate
animals into a system where ithasn't been for, at least not in

(15:21):
your work or lifetime, I mean Idon't really know where to
start.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Like, the learning curve is just.
It's just probably one of themost let's say beautiful things
about the whole thing,specifically with the cows you
have.
You have a similar learningcurve in all the other areas, if
it's composting or agroforestryor whatever it is, when you do
something new, but with the cowsit's on so many other levels

(15:51):
because they are, they aresensitive beings, right?
So not only do they work asindividuals and completely, as
you said, special withinthemselves, but also as a herd
so they're more or differentthan the sum of their parts,

(16:11):
definitely yeah, and the youfind it fascinating, psychology
is exactly and also to, ifyou're you're so strongly
mirrored the mistakes that youdo.
You have such a direct feedbackwhich is really something which
is quite pure and quite.
We don't have that so muchanymore.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Feedback looks in agriculture are long, most of
the time In life.
Just as much, right?
Yeah, of course your systemcould take five years before you
know you made a mistake Exactlyhere.
You know it in a minuteprobably.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, and the thing is just like, also the way, how
you like, how what that doeswith yourself, right, because
you can constantly theyconstantly held a mirror, hold a
mirror that you see yourselftaking decisions, interacting,
doing things, and that has abeautiful way of making you,
first of all, understand thatyou are really just a very

(17:04):
unimportant little piece in theuniverse.
Second of all, that nature isjust not controllable, not
understandable, nothing likethat.
It just really gives you theimpression that you're a guest
and you can do the best that youcan possibly try, and you
should, but you'll never get itright, like, for instance, when
we started, I remember, cause,like after the calves are born,

(17:27):
you have two or three daysmaximum where you can put the
ear tags in, which is not such anice process, cause obviously
there's two big piercings in onein each ear and, of course, the
Saleas have huge horns and theyhave a lot of character.
So, if they don't know you,this is a dangerous combination.
So in the beginning we builtthis huge, I don't know metal

(17:52):
structure that looks like one ofthose things you put into the
ocean when you want to look at awhite shark or you protect it
behind.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, I guess it worked really well.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
We still have it.
And then we were like drivingwith a huge front loader over
the field.
I think I've seen it Incrediblesound, and then we put it over
the young calf and all themothers went crazy, the calf
went crazy, which was absolutelyterrible, and then from there
we kept saying, okay, this can'tbe it, this is exactly not what
we want.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
We want to have a trusting relationship with the
cows.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
We want to be able to read them.
We want them to read us,understand us, which is
obviously so much about yourcalmness and things that you
can't tell from the outside ifyou're not, I guess, a cow or in
that moment.
So then the next step was tosay, okay, we do it differently,
so we build the same thing for,but in smaller, for, a quad, so
you could drive with the quadnext to the calf and then

(18:44):
capture it, but the same thing,you're separating it from the
mother, and that wasn't great.
Then the next afterwards.
So this is always like a season, the next season we pull the
calf just underneath the fenceto do it on the other side of
the fence.
But still, even if it's just ameter, the calf is still
separated through a fence,although it's only very little,

(19:09):
but same thing.
So now we, when we get the cars, we just know that this is a
very special time of the year.
Obviously it's only about twomonths.
It's a beautiful time.
So the way we do it now is thatwe just take more time and we
spend more time with animals.
So now, if we have a new calf,like the one that we have up
there, that we just saw.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
you might see it in the imagery.
We're also capturing some ofthis with video and otherwise
you'll hear the audio.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
For now we will leave them alone, because the mother
just has a birth behind her andthe calf is also where I'm at.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
So you give them some space.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
But tomorrow we'll go there.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
And in the beginning we'll just sit next to the calf
and be two or three meters andthe mother will come.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
She will have a sniff , she will be like she'll be
nervous in the beginning.
In this case, it's just properhorn, so you will be nervous.
Yeah, but you might also be,nervous because.
But then as long as you sitthere for a few minutes, you
calm down.
She realizes that she comesdown.
She's had a sniff, she knows,hey, I know this guy, nothing's
gonna happen.
And then quietly and you justmove on to the calf.
You do the ear tags and there'sno you, there's no trust being

(20:12):
broken.
She might not like it stillbecause she's okay, why is the
calf wiggling underneath him?
And the calf also mightcomplain, but she'll trust that
process, so that.
So that's one way of thesomething I think that you don't
see so much and hear about somuch, but it's that building
that relationship, building thatconnection to the animal and

(20:32):
working with it.
And that is somethingfascinating, because calving
season is the best example.
But you just really never know.
You only have your instinct andyour experience to go by and
whatever decision you take, itmight be the wrong one, but
maybe it's the right one.
You have six years and yourexperience to go by and whatever
decision you take yeah, and youhave it might be the wrong one,
but maybe it's the right oneyou have six years under your
belt, but it's not that you have50 years of pastoralism in

(20:53):
brandenburg in your genes orsomething, so that's.
And they're not so many peoplelike how many farms around here
have animals on them, butthey're like people, you can
tell but in these structures,where we're surrounded by farms
that have 2000 to 7000 hectares,most of the animal is a

(21:13):
classical, the animal operationis a classical animal production
.
So they'll be in the stablesand maybe some of the months
they also come Because this isfully outside 365, winter
pastures and then fullyintegrated in the arable piece
as well, yeah, we don't have anypastures, actually Not
permanent.

(21:33):
No they're completely integratedin the arable crop rotation and
we always separate between thesummer where we have a very
diverse pasture mix of herbs andlegumes and grasses and
everything, and then in thewinter they go on arable land
where we've just harvested cropsin in the summer and they are

(21:54):
they usually have.
First rotation is usually oncover crops because just for the
nutritional value, and thenwhen it gets colder and a bit
muddier, towards, let's say,december, january, february, we
move on on fields where we hadnice crops so they have got a
very nice sort of root systemthrough the grasses and also
actually it's quite nicenutritional wise for longer than

(22:15):
you may think.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
So yeah, this, by the way, is zora, she's the boss,
she looks like the boss, she isamazing, it's incredible we were
with her with a group last weekand I think she came out to
check you, or at least she wasobserving the whole thing from a
distance, like constantly.
Well, the others lost interestvery quickly but grazing, and

(22:37):
they just went back to grazing,but she wasn't and going to the
same, like with your insects,and reading the herd and really
connecting in the mirroring, inthe calmness.
How does that relate to the one, as joel salatin likes to say,
the one bad day?
Because you do harvest them oryou do sell some hopefully not

(22:58):
when you need to for makingpayroll, but it is like you are
shooting some of them.
You do it very differently thanI think many people expect.
Maybe some people have seen iton Farm Rebellion in an episode,
but I was able to see ityesterday and can you walk us
through?
Did it also start like that whenyou started realizing, okay, I
might want to harvest one or two, I might want to start working

(23:21):
on the meat side of things?
How did you go about it?
Did you send them off first, orthis?
Was it also a process offiguring out what works for you?
And, in this setting, when theone bad day comes?
And let's say hi to zora, who,by the way, knows when you do
that and is the one thatunderstands very well when you
show up with a rifle to behonest with you, when I first
got the cars, I always, I alwayssaid I will, I, I never wanna,

(23:47):
or that's pretty definitely whenI started with the cars.
My intention was it never is abig work, yeah yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
It is never and so far it has been never.
But my intention always was tonever have a cow that's had the
best possible life on our farmto be forced onto any means of
transportation that they'venever, ever seen in their life
and driven away with all thesmells and things that they've
never seen.
So I always knew that if a cowleaves the premises, then dead,

(24:17):
and that I want to be the onewho shoots them, takes them out
of the system and, having grownup hunting everything that you
can in our ecosystem, so mainly,giraffes mainly rats and foxes
and a few deer and wild boar orwhatever.
But that has always been part ofmy life.
So even from a young age I wastrapping animals and things like

(24:40):
that.
So I grew up also my parentsare we, our whole family hunts.
So that part of taking a lifeof an animal has never been.
I grew up with it.
There's pictures of me climbinginto a red stag, into the
inside, when, when I was likethree years old, I knew that is
the way that I want to do it,because for, let's say, more or

(25:03):
less obvious reasons.
But of course the quality isjust not comparable.
You can a cow can have the bestlife possible on this planet
and the best food and everythingcould be the absolute best.
But if then that animal isloaded on a truck and driven to
a butcher and the cow is gettingpanic and smelling all that

(25:26):
shit, then you cannot keep thatquality up.
That would be the biggest wasteof love that has gotten into the
process in the beginning, andthe cows the way that we shoot
it or the way that we do it.
Is that, of course, because wemove the cows so regularly?
When we come in the morning,they already know okay, we're

(25:47):
going to be put on the next andthey want to.
Yeah, yeah, they're justwaiting for it.
Like, if you're 10 minutes late,I'll let you know hello, some
people have a moon clock, butexactly, you have a life one, so
they'll be waiting at the fenceand they'll build like this
sort of half moon structurearound you, because I know the
person that is at the fence willlift it and we go all
underneath the fence and intothe next of the next plot.

(26:09):
And that kind of move and beingdrawn to that sort of next plot
is what we use when we do the.
When I shoot a cow, so I standnext to luciano who's managing
our cows, and then we both looktowards the back where there's
an ox that we would shoot,something like 24 to 34 months

(26:30):
old.
And once I've chosen the one Iwant to shoot, I go through the
herd nicely and slowly.
I've got my weapon on myshoulder and two knives at the
back, and then I basically justwalk towards him and, depending
on where he stands and how hestands, I usually also move him
back a little, because you,first of all, you don't want to
have any other animals standingbehind and also you want to make

(26:51):
sure that if you shoot it andyou would prolong the shot if it
was missed you would hit thefloor and don't risk anything on
.
And so I do that.
And then, once I've in somesense separated him, I shoot him
in the brain, looking at me,because he will automatically
always turn to the herd wantingto go, and I'll be standing
between him and the herd.
So then I shoot him in the headand with the shot he just

(27:15):
collapses deadly in a second.
He doesn't even hear the shot.
Look, the calf is now standingup for the first time you can
see being licked.
And in that very second where Ishoot, luciano would lift the
fence, the cows go over.
Within 20 seconds, 30 seconds,the fence goes down again and
the cows graze and that's it,and it's it's the most.

(27:38):
I think it's probably the mostbeautiful death that you can
have, because that cow that I,the only thing that cow is
thinking in that moment is whyis that idiot standing in front
of me At fresh grass?
Yeah, why is he standingbetween me and the fresh grass?
And then it goes like this andthis is it, that's there's no
pain, there's no nothing,there's no stress, there's no

(27:58):
worries, there's nothingordinary, like out of the
ordinary, and and you can, notonly is that, I think, the most,
it's the difficult word to usein that sense but humane, yeah,
but but of course, as far asquality of the product is
concerned, it's unbeatable, andyet do I think that's the model
that everyone can.
It's going to be my nextquestion yeah, it's abeatable,

(28:19):
and yet do I think that's amodel that everyone can.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
It's gonna be my next question, yeah it's a privilege
to be able to do it it's aprivilege, but it shows what's
possible and in the calmness andin and do you have you're close
to berlin have you gotten a lotof pushback for having animals
in general and also being quitevocal about the meat part and

(28:41):
the animal protein part.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, I think it's very much comparable to anyone
who's out there with an opinionright.
There's like pretty much twogroups.
There's one group that isanonymous and happens in the
world of of I don't know theinternet, so to say yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
So there's a big difference.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
If people comment on your instagram, I mean, we have
interns here that that come hereand have been eating vegan for
a few years and they startoccasionally eating some of the
meat.
We have people here that cometo farm tours that also come
with a more vegan background andthey're quite critical and they
give us the chance to also beright in a conversation, which

(29:27):
is valuable and rare.
And suddenly they're like youknow what?
I did not know this.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
What's the biggest surprise for people?
What's the biggest surprise forfarm tours or people?
I did not know.
The integration offertilization, yeah, and that's
so much about it because thepicture of cow is the climate
killer.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah, it's so easy and it's that makes life easy.
Yeah, obviously, just to stickwith that world is better
without cows, yeah, and then ifyou open that argument and you
say, what about the water cycleand the hair?
What has a cow to do with water?
But what about biodiversity?
What about this?
What about that?
What about?
They're suddenly like wow, Inever knew that all these

(30:12):
considerations even exist.
And then they start.
I think that's the.
That's like probably as many ofus who you know, at some point
came across soil, thinking Idon't know, I'll walk on it, and
then suddenly wow.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
The rabbit hole opens .

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Exactly, and I think that's I often think about that.
Like, how can we do large scaletransformation of the
agriculture and food systems?
Well, of course, it's thousandsof technical things and
thousands of system things andeducation, science, finance,
extra land, whatever.
But like, where is the deeptransformation going to come
from?
If, from anywhere, it can onlycome through people and love.

(30:53):
And like fascination forsomething not from the negative
Don't eat meat, no, come on.
Like life is never black andwhite, there's so much more to
it.
Like fascination for somethingnot from the negative don't eat
meat, no, come on.
Like life is never black andwhite, there's so much more to
it.
And yeah, so yeah, I think.
As far as answering thequestion is concerned, for me,
my biggest surprise is how manyreally well educated people
still believe this without evendoubting it.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
That is this meaning will be better without cows or
agriculture as possible, or yeah, exactly if everybody goes
vegan, we're fine.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, it's.
It's funny in our little bubble, of course, of the region world
it's not.
I'm not saying opposite, butmany are like let's eat more and

(31:36):
almost the other extreme, which, which is also quite tricky.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
But at least it accepted that it's part of Just
one second.
So this is an interestingmoment because it could be that
within the next 10 minutes, like80% of the herd is going to be
lying down.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Should we be calm Because they're the big boss.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
No, they don't mind us, but it's just like a group
pressure thing.
If you start, start, then theother ones are like ah, okay,
it's interesting, that's a goodidea, no one is eating anything
away from me.
And then they're like actually,I feel like it too and they
need to.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
They need to re-eat, right, yeah, for a while yeah,
this is the herd.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
The herd dynamics are just amazing.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
Sorry, I was ruminating.
No, that's not a word, I wasthinking on the.
I have the feeling it's shiftinga bit, or at least I've seen
hardcore vegan or like activistsand certain groups also
starting to show up on region,ag and food conferences.
Really good, because theysuddenly realize farmers are
part of this discussion and howwe're going to transition and
how we're going to work withthem up on region, ag and food
conferences.

(32:38):
Really good, because theysuddenly realize farmers are
part of this discussion and howwe're going to transition and
how we're going to work withthem, instead of just calling
everything should be plant-basedand just to be very clear, of
course, the current way of 90,whatever, depending where you
live and depending on animalprotein, but 98% or 99% of
animal protein is farmed verydifferently than this, let's put

(32:59):
it mildly.
But I sense a certain shift inapproaching this of cows could
be or ruminants may be, and weneed more research in methane
and all of that.
Have you seen a mood shift atall in the last six years or has
it been relatively constant orjust a constant drip of interns

(33:21):
that come and visitors and havepeople been more open?
I think?

Speaker 2 (33:37):
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I'm not
sure if I have a distinctiveopinion about it.
I don't go to so manyconferences, so I wouldn't be
able to tell from that side.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
You speak at a few here and there, but not
consistently enough to see whoshows up and who doesn't?

Speaker 2 (33:58):
I don't know.
I also don't really care.
I don't really, yeah, I don'treally care.
I do care, of course.
I do really deeply care of howcows are perceived, because I
believe them to be one of themost important allies to
overcome some of the biggestproblems that we have on so many
levels.
So I do care, but I don'treally follow it actively, so to

(34:19):
say.
Because what upsets me about,first of all, I think, the whole
vegan movement, or so manydifferent movements, but they
have shown how you can actuallyget quite a lot of people to
interact with something thatthey seem that they believe to
be valuable.
Valuable, which, first of all,is a good thing.
Right, in food, which is not soeasy, yeah, but I just what

(34:41):
wouldn't?
What I'm bothered by is, likethe waste of energy that goes
into that right, because I thinkyou're sort of the sunlight and
not being transformed by grace.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, that's another one, but you mean other energy.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yeah, yeah, but so we have one video where I think
it's on our Instagram channel,where I basically go through the
process how we do the shootinga cow on the pasture, and it had
, I don't know, a lot of viewsand a lot of comments, and those
comments are either people thatappreciate the work that we put
in and understand why we do it,and then the other side is

(35:18):
people that don't believe inthis kind of stuff because they
chose to have a differentopinion or eat vegan or whatever
, and most of those comments aresuper, super negative.
I don't know, it's verysimplistic go vegan.
It's not that negative, butthat's what?
Where you read what you readeverywhere, but some of the
you're a murderer and like quiteextreme a romantic murderer and

(35:41):
whatever.
And I'm just thinking I wish itwould be like you would say at
least this is my opinion right,but we know we've got like
incredible challenges to face,right, and we have to find
solutions, and 100 there's goingto be very many different
solutions and approaches andnone of us have the answers.

(36:02):
And and if you're emotionalabout something, that's great,
that means you, you care, thatmeans you've got the stamina to
fight for whatever you want todo.
But using that to tell otherpeople what to do and try to
convince them that you are theone that knows you know what the
best solution is, it's justsuch a waste of time because

(36:23):
you're never going to changethem.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
That's not going to happen.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
If someone would say, oh, whatever, I have this
amazing vegan recipe, like youhave to try it and it's like
insane how the tomatoes interactwith this and that and this,
then I'd be like I'd love to trythat, but if someone tells me
you're a, you're an absoluteidiot and everything that you
believe is super stupid,although that's what your life

(36:46):
has been for 40 years.
You're not gonna get me.
So I think there's just so muchnegativity and the wrong energy
in that, because there's somuch to be joyful and amazed and
inspired by from all thesolutions that are out there.
Eating more plant-based is, ofcourse, one big part of it, but
it's not the single solution.
Yeah, whatever.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
And what do you see as the next phase?
Like you're growing significantagroforestry systems, always
with the animals in mind, likefodder trees.
What do you see as anagroforestry systems, always
with the animals in mind, likefather tree tree.
What do you see as naguar in afield without any trees I mean
trees around like?
What excites you about the nextphase of the animal side, apart
from growing a herd and then,of course, starting to select

(37:29):
and select the herd more andmore on what you need here.
But what is what excites you onthe animal side over for the
next years?

Speaker 2 (37:38):
first of all, the most exciting thing is we're
going to buy three Saler bulls.
So that means in about four orfive weeks we're going to have
five Saler bulls running intothis herd, and it's just going
to be incredible.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Would you have an only Saler herd going back?
Would you have made differentdecisions in knowing what you
know now?

Speaker 2 (38:02):
no, no, there was a time when we started we had the
10 saler and then, after thesecond year, we had 40 angus and
at that point I was like, okay,maybe it was a mistake to get
10 each, because 10 of coursehave huge horns, and then 40 in
that sense, or 10 and then 40had none, that being the angus

(38:23):
and there was really, there werereally two herds, because the
salere were just so dominant andI thought, okay, that that
wasn't smart or whatever.
Because then you know, dependingon your food structure or
minerals or water, if you have agroup that is just pushed back,
they always wait until it'stheir turn and the other ones
have eaten first, and that's notnecessarily what you want to
have.
But the but that really changedand they really started to

(38:46):
intertwine as a herd and becomea group, with the different calf
seasons and just the herdgrowing in itself.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
So now there's no separation like that anymore
obviously the salers aredominant, but they are also the
more intelligent watching outfor trouble.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, and the whole system also develops more into a
system where there is enoughspace right here for even the
weak animals.
So no, I wouldn't have doneanything else.
We've got Guddenbösel Zangos,our own breed, our own breed
with Saler mother and Angus bullBranding is important.
And three quarters of the herdthat you see here is part of

(39:25):
this ecosystem.
They have been given birth toon this pasture, they have grown
here, they have had their owncalves, some of them have had a
few own calves, so they arereally intertwined with the
system and as such, it wouldn'tchange anything.
Yeah, but going back to yourquestion, what excites me as far
as the cows is concerned?
Really everything.

(39:45):
We're now slowly reaching thatsort of that maximum number that
we believed would be a goodnumber to have fully
incorporated into the cooprotation.
On, let's say, 700 hectares.
We've, just opposite of thisforest strip here, we've just
built a fence of around another120 hectares.
We've just installed the waterpipes there for 150 hectares.

(40:09):
Within that system, we'replanting a 50 hectare
semi-syntropic agroforestrysystem there this winter, which
is of course let's say, 75%designed for the cows, not just
as fodder but of course alsoshadow and dry lying spaces in
the winter, and then that we'regoing to scale the year after on

(40:31):
another 80 hectares.
So those 120 hectares arebasically completely designed in
a very pastoral agroforestrysystem where we combine the
whole, let's say, cow operationwith the regenerative elbow
farming, as well as agroforestrysites and that connected with
all the research that we arelucky to be able to do through

(40:51):
our foundation.
It's beautiful just to see hownatural everything is, scaling A
lot of hard work.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
But it seems to be I don't know, it's a more general
observation after being here acouple of times, the pleasure of
being here a few times that itstarts to get to again a
syntropic system you can usesyntropic for anything, of
course like more mature, likethe pioneering plants have done
their work, have created themicroclimate for the others to
follow the next strata and itstarts to be seems to be

(41:21):
emerging a plan and a design anddifferent concepts and
different pieces and puzzlepieces start to not be in place,
but at least shape and form.
You start to see okay, theseare directions that work on the
social side, on the financialside and, of course, the
ecological side.
Yeah, it's very different thana couple of years ago.
It feels for me at least, beinghere a few days.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
You're in it every day.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
of course it's not comparable to a few years ago
and I don't think you could havenecessarily have planned for it
, no, and we've gone throughhard, let's say, ups and downs
and struggles, for sure, butwe've always been incredibly
lucky that we found people andpartners and supporters and the

(42:05):
whole.
Yeah, it's's really none of uscan do it alone.
If it wasn't for everyone thatis part of it either being here
or being not here, but stillhaving some playing some part in
the development, like such asyourself, it would never be, you
could never do it and in thatsense, yeah, I sense, yeah, I'm

(42:25):
just excited, but I'm justexcited full stop.
It's the most beautiful thingto be working in and the times,
of course, are incrediblychallenging and all over.
But my sort of naivety isalways that hardship in life in
cities, be it wars, be itwhatever it is, could nudge us
to come back to nature,understand we're part of nature,

(42:48):
understand the value of nature,of farmers' work, of food, of
course.
That, for me, is, I think, thebiggest thing that we need to
find closing that gap.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
You do that.
You do it actively with toursand, of course, through a lot of
media or social media.
And are you planning to scalethat further media or social
media and are you planning toscale that further like bigger
farm tours and buses and likehow do you because what you said
before, like when people arehere have experience, even if
it's a morning, it for manypeople fundamentally changes
because them, because it's sucha different vision of what they

(43:21):
had, what agriculture and foodproduction and animals and
forestry and trees etc.
Could be.
Is that, do you see that as oneof your roles as well, to make
sure more people manage to?
You're close to a massive city,obviously relatively
well-connected to have morepeople over, or is that also
just going to be quite a bit forthe local village and quite a
bit for the team?

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah, sure, we do that, we have.
We used to do farm tours, Idon't know every two weeks
during the summer months andthat's great fun.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
It's almost uncomfortable, but some people
drive, I don't know, 500, 600kilometers here you don't
underestimate how impactful thatcan be on farmers and
non-farmers and citizens eaters,and which I mean we're all, if
you're lucky enough, eaters.
But I, yeah, I can imaginepeople are like this is a unique

(44:12):
place in this ecosystem.
There are not many places whereyou can see this scale.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Yeah, but the thing is, for me, of course, farming
is always pressure andresponsibility, and I think
that's quite obvious, but Inever really, I'm never like,
like that doesn't really do muchwith me.
Of course, I've learned andtrained resilience through many
years of droughts and badeconomics, so to say.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
You're meditating with the cows, so that helps
yeah that helps for sure.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
But if someone comes here driving that long because
they are emotionally looking forhope, for instance not that we
can give that in any sense, butthat that that is something that
touches me really deeplybecause it just gives you a
glimpse of of how scared manypeople are, how afraid, and that
, I think, is actually, if Iwould let my, my, my thoughts

(45:02):
slide into that would that Iwould get nervous thinking about
that that that people associateyour work with their well-being
or the well-being of futuregenerations and and at the same
time, that's, I think, is thebrilliant beauty of agriculture
and why it is worth doingwhatever I can, but really

(45:23):
whatever we can, to let peopleknow, because agriculture is the
reason to be hopeful, towanting to get active and
positive and exploring andexperiencing, putting your
energy into something worthdoing, and I think that's the
view of agriculture.
Regeneration per se.
It's always worth fighting andnature shows you best how well

(45:48):
adapted and how really also fastyou can regenerate have you
seen that personally as well?

Speaker 1 (45:54):
like through food, and of course, you should have
done like a gut microbiome checkwhen you moved back in 2016 too
, because many people come inthrough it also from personal
health or nearby health, traumaor scares.
Have you seen that as well?
Like you regenerating on thespiritual level?
We talked about the meditationof cow with cows.

(46:16):
Like compared to 10 years agowhen you were in the investment
banking world so repeat thequestion how has you changed?
huh, both physically andmentally and like coming back to
the farm and coming back to youand, for sure, eating
differently and interacting withfood, completely different if

(46:42):
at all, and maybe you werealready no.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
No, I'm pretty sure I changed quite drastically.
It's just not easy to pinpointas to why.
Obviously, I also got mucholder, which helps, Doesn't help
or does?
Depending from where you look.
But yeah, I don't know.
I think those first 10 years ofmy life when I was in the
financial industry, where I wasdoing banking and venture

(47:06):
capital stuff and all this, Iwas very much still looking for
my place in the world.
So to say, right, I hadn't yet,it hadn't yet clicked.
That and what always had beenmy passion growing up, is also
what I want to do from aprofessional standpoint.
So those years, as much as Ienjoy them and as much as I'm

(47:26):
thankful for having them like, Idon't think much of how I was
and thought is still part of howI am and think today.
Everything that I can tell youis that I'm I've been incredibly
fortunate and privileged If itwasn't for my parents having
gone back here on the farm whenthe wall came down, having put

(47:46):
their life's work into buildingit, having then decided to trust
me with it organic an idiotsomewhere in the city doing
stuff without.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Did you know when you took over, when you said it
before, that this was your like,agriculture was your life's
work?
Or did it click afterwards,like when you took over already?

Speaker 2 (48:10):
No.
So when I took over firstbecause I came from the venture
capital side of things and wewere looking at startups in the
ag space back then I thoughtI'll do like this venture
capital accelerator practicaluse case scenario I would offer
places to stay for startups,connect them to universities and

(48:31):
corporates and let them play onthe land, give them the
machines in the land to test,develop their products and then
be immersed by having someequity in their respective
companies.
So that was the first strategywhen I came here.
And then only through goingthrough the process of having to
understand that in order to dothat, I would have had invested

(48:51):
I don't know one and a halfmillion easily just to bring our
sort of technological base ofour combine harvester, our
agriculture software, ourtractors, et cetera, et cetera,
to a minimum level, and Irealized okay, this would mean
that for the next 15 years I'mnot doing anything.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
but paying back the debt, because you needed a
minimum level for others to evenplug in and play with it and
look what's actually.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, and also be able to get the data, understand
yield estimates and yielddifferences and so on and so
forth, and only through that andthe first huge drought.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
I realized that.
In which world was I living.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
And that's how the whole journey for me started, of
saying what am I going to do?
I've got like 3,000 hectares ofsand.
I know the way that we did theoperation being ecological,
industrial is not going to beable to help me pay back debt or
make a viable business modelout of it that maybe at some
point my, my kids would want totake over.

(49:47):
I was completely lost.
The only thing that I did knowis that this can't continue, and
then only through finding, likethe pioneers of that I think we
all are very much aware of,from agroforestry to holistic
grazing, compost, composting andall the different, let's say,
instruments of regenerativeagriculture.
And I realized at the same timehow little this was known.

(50:12):
No one was talking about it.
I was like how is that possible?
These guys obviously have theanswers to some of the biggest
problems of our time, yet no oneis talking about it.
There's no science, there's nomachines, there's no nothing.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
There's no finance yeah, and when.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
I realized that in connection to saying we have a
farm which is only now out ofBerlin and it is super
challenging because it is verysandy soil and we have low
precipitation, but this is thereality that is exponentially
growing across the globe, I knew, okay, this is it.
This is the first moment in mylife.
I was like, thank you, you.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Those are the two puzzle pieces I was looking for
yeah and once that, once thatclicked, everything changed for
me and talking about that, theother 2000 hectares forestry or
trees on it, the first tree.
It's challenging as much oreven more than arable any plans
on other animals or integrationthere.
I know you wanted to put cowsin.

(51:07):
That wasn't possible andgrazing the forest is that?
Or even with pigs, is thatsomething you're thinking about
looking at?
Like, beyond the cows thatyou're saying?
This is reaching its sort ofmaximum herd size.
Maybe you can push it withgreat management and the soil
biology comes back and work, butit's not gonna.
You're gonna have 3 000 cowsanytime soon.
Are you thinking, okay, what'sthe next level of animal

(51:29):
integration or the next phasesin that?

Speaker 2 (51:32):
yeah, I would love to first of all.
I mean we tried to.
We did fence quite aconsiderable amount of pine
monoculture a very young pinemonoculture, next to one of our
arable fields and it only tookabout four weeks until I was
sued because that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
What's the?
What was the reason?
So the?

Speaker 2 (51:51):
don't know, I haven't studied in detail but the laws
in germany basically prohibityou of growing food in the
forest for many obvious reasons.
In that sense you're notallowed to graze the forest with
cows because Because it's thefood part, not necessarily the
cow's part.
Yeah, in that sense it's alsothe cow's part.
You're just not allowed tograze it because they believe it
to be harmful for the forest.

(52:13):
But then if you have aworthless pine monoculture, that
is a ticking time bomb initself.
There's not much they candestroy.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
So you can go through it, because they bring in seeds
.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
they bring in nutrients, but seeds, they bring
in nutrients.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
But yeah, is that something you're?

Speaker 2 (52:24):
working on.
You're not allowed to confine aspace in the forest.
The forest has to always beable to move around.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
So there the colors could help.
Is that something you'reinterested in, like engaging in
that kind of policy change?

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Yeah for sure.
So my strategy what I wouldn'twant to be doing is going to
Berlin and speaking to peopleabout why we're not letting.
That's not my style.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
What would be your strategy then?

Speaker 2 (52:49):
I would just do it and then get sued and then go to
court.
I would do that if, let's say,in three to five years' time, if
everything goes to plan, wehope, and the operation is more
or less as we would want it torun, specifically economically,
and I have a certain degree ofsafety in that.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
I've known investors that said I would pay for court
cases like that.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
That's the activism that would help, but also
because, in some sense, what youwould do is you would challenge
the regional authorities, andthat is not something that I
would recommend incredibly.
Yeah, I've done it.
We put a lot of work into beingclose with them and them
trusting us, and if because youmight, then we couldn't do what

(53:37):
we're doing and you might winone case.
But you annoy so many peopleyeah, they got, even if you
don't win.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
It's a very it could be a very risky strategy,
because you're for sure you needtheir support and all the other
things Exactly.
So this is.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
It's not something that you do on the side.
This needs to be structured,well thought about.
But the thing is, theunderlying thing, which I'm
convinced of if something isforbidden and the reason why it
is forbidden is for lack of abetter word wrong.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Or no longer valid.
Then you should do somethingagainst it, otherwise you're
part of the problem.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
Yeah, and if you're integrating the cows in the
forest, managed they are,depending on the context and the
region and the forest, etc.
Etc.
But they're quite valuable.
So in that sense, that'ssomething I would definitely do
and like to do.
Look, I think she's getting acalf over there, or maybe not.
It just looked like she waspressing.

(54:29):
Then, of course, Surrounding isspecific which one are you
looking at Just the one lyingthere?
Then introducing pigs in theforest, that is actually
something that is allowedbecause it goes back to a very
old form of having pigs, butthat's at the moment not a good
idea because we've got theAfrican swine flu just around
the corner, great Wild boareverywhere.
Yeah, then chickens we weregoing to scale.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
You had chickens.
I remember Big like the biggestchicken trailer I've ever seen
in my life.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
It was good fun, but that is something we were
actually going to scale.
Just then the war in theUkraine sort of started, and
then, of course, it wasn't agood time to grain.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Started buying a lot of organic grain could you?
Use your own left.
Is that an integration?

Speaker 2 (55:12):
but then yeah, you can.
I mean, there's a wholeproducing x is much more
complicated than if you would gofor meat, because meat we've
got the infrastructure now setwith the online shop and
butchering all ourselves andstuff, so that would be an
easier path for us specificallyalso because the reason why we
mainly stock the eggs wasbecause we get bird flu every

(55:33):
winter and if you raise cowsbeautifully outside and then in
the wintertime you put theminside, you know it's a
beautiful part of that gets thechickens you mean quite fast,
and they're not used to beinside they get incredibly
aggressive and yeah, exactly,it's just not something that you
want to go with.
Apart from that, I do have mythree jersey cows two and a half

(55:56):
which gives me an incrediblepleasure, and I love milking and
having that product for thefamily.
It's for me, yeah, it'sabsolutely beautiful, but other
than that, for now I think it'senough, even if I would want to,
yeah, I think max and bastianand a few others who are vital

(56:17):
to our operation, of coursewould tell me to please Tone it
down a bit.
Don't start something new.
Let's just make sure we do whatwe do fairly manageable.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
And, like for others, have you had neighbors or other
farmers that come?
Advice is always tricky.
All the contexts are completelydifferent.
You already mentioned this ismaybe not the most scalable or
everyone could do this, but whatyou've seen here, what you've
experienced and lived experiencefrom integrating animals back
into a, an arable farm, whathave you told others that have

(56:51):
come, maybe ask things or advise?
And you said what is your?
Again, not advice, but what isyour, what are some paths you've
told others to, to explore, tolook into if it fits in their
context, or if you said don't doit.
it's absolutely a nightmare,which it doesn't seem to be, but
no, I think I like haveneighbors ask things, for

(57:13):
instance, like the 6000 orwhatever hectares you mentioned
before.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
Yeah, the production systems that we are surrounded
by.
For them, this is not arealistic case, because these
are investor-led operations thatare more managed on an
excellent sheet than they are onthe outside and, of course,
they have different valuesystems, different, let's say,

(57:40):
economic context.
They don't live here.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
We are a family farm, right yeah?

Speaker 2 (57:45):
So in that sense, there's not much, I think, that
we can add, other than themcoming to borrow a tractor and
then seeing the cows and saying,wow, this is beautiful Would
you graze their land, Would you?

Speaker 1 (57:56):
is that something you need more like in interaction?
Does it go beyond interactionwith neighbors than borrowing a
tractor in there?

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Not with animals, because we we plan to obviously
be able to solve our problemsourselves.
But this could realistically belike.
This could be an option.
I don't think that is somethingthat I find too attractive,
because it makes things justmore complicated than they would
need to be.
But I don't know.
When people come and they askfor whatever reason, I do what I

(58:26):
do, we do what we do, I justtry to tell them as honestly and
as transparently why, first ofall, but also I always start
with all the reasons not to doit.
Because it's easy.
If you love an animal, it'seasy to say, all right, let's do
it, get some cows.
But it is super, super tough.

(58:46):
It is incredibly challenging.
It is super complex.
It's going to take years ofimplementation until you can
somehow find a calculation thatlooks all right.
It's a lot of additionalknow-how you have to build.
It's super, super tough andthere's unfortunately it's very

(59:06):
real why it is so hard and whywe separated it yeah, and even
for us, whatever that means.
But we have a bit of a brand,let's say, in germany not
necessarily for what we wouldlike in in terms of if you want
to eat really, really good meat,you can buy it with us on the
online shop.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Rather maybe for other reasons it's not a product
brand, exactly which is alsookay, because we stand, we want
to stand for agriculture on abigger impact, so to say but
it's the one thing you can buy,so you can come here just to
finish the thought but becauseit's really so.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
How is it?
right now we're shooting around40 cows a year and if we sell
them well through the onlineshop, we can have sales of
around 4,000 to 4,500 euros percow.
Now, if you scale that to thenumber that we want to get to,
which is going to be in the nexttwo or three years, we would be
looking to shoot around 100cows a year Now.

(01:00:04):
Then suddenly, of course, if wemanage to sell it through the
same infrastructure, we'retalking about a lot of sales.
But just to keep thatinfrastructure alive means you
need to have a team of three,maybe four people that do the
logistics, do the customerrelation, do the branding, do
the social media the complaintsand at the end of the day, your
margin is gonna be not reallysignificant.

(01:00:27):
So, being in that spot, the nextthing is do I really want to
have all the trouble for havinga few percent margin more, or
should I just have cows, behappy with it and sell three
truckloads of 30 each per year?
Maybe I have only one decimalmargin, if maybe I probably have

(01:00:47):
to pay that on top.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
But that makes my life so much easier, but it
means you're leaving a truck andit's like coming back to the
values we shared at thebeginning yeah but it's also an
economic decision and if youhave three or four staff and it
like, what is it saying?
I wish you a lot of personnel,but imagine you have to build a
brand.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Imagine you're an arable farmer.
You do whatever you do.
Then you want to start likecows in that setting with all
those ideas of wanting to givethem the best life outside,
shooting them whatever.
Then you have to build a brand.
You have to do social media,you have to do the packaging.
Then you have to do logistics.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
You have to do social media, you have to do the
packaging, then you have to dologistics and you have to
compete with the other ones thatdo the same Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
It's nearly undoable if you don't have a family, your
spouse, your brother, yoursister, your mother, your
daughter coming in to say youknow what?
I'll do this the next half ayear.
I'll set everything up, we'llsee how it goes.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
So, yeah, set everything up, we'll see how it
goes.
So, yeah, their brand, other,of course it's a, it's the, not
a fallacy, but like a sort of anaive thought that every farmer
should be their own brand andtheir own shop and their own,
which it currently is, like thesuccessful ones we see and the
direct to consumer to a certainextent.
But of course, how does thatscale?
And not everyone wants to be orcan be, because then, how much
else are they supposed to doalso?
and the best marketeer and agood accountant.

Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
And, by the way, you have to keep all this
environmental data as well,exactly, and then also be a
custodian and build biodiversityand plant trees.
Let's not forget that exactlydo you see?

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
there are opportunity for brands around it or
companies that are that likeokay, we will build the
infrastructure.
Of course, you're disinterestedagain a bit, but at least you
take away a lot of that, likethe butcher boxes, and they're
different.
There's grotto in thenetherlands, pasco, which
unfortunately didn't make it initaly.
They say, okay, we'll buy fromyou really good price and make

(01:02:40):
sure it's as humane maybe infield, maybe not, whatever is
possible, and then we'll do therest, because we cannot expect
everyone to become an onlineentrepreneur in selling frozen
meat or yeah, I think there's,there's great examples if you
look at crowd farming, forexample, you know that one maybe
specifically because it's alsofarmer led- do you see yourself

(01:03:03):
doing that at some point, likestarting to buy from others and
helping them with theinfrastructure you have?

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
No, I mean, who knows what happens in the future?
I think I have two.
I've got two hearts, that sortof, in my chest.
One is just our farm.
Right, I want to.
In our universe of the farm thatwe operate on, I want to make
it the best possible setup foryoung kids, specifically mine or

(01:03:35):
my sisters.
If mine wouldn't want to do it,to be like, wow, I love it, I
want to do it, I love farming,I'll take over and I've got
safety and some cash to to livea life that is worth living.
That's my number one priority.
And then my other priority andthere's this kind of a space
where we've been in now, I know,for I don't know, a year or two
or a few months actually is tosay what's the biggest impact

(01:04:00):
that we can have with the workthat we're doing here on the
farm through our foundation?
But also, is there other ways ofhaving an impact?
Is there economic models thatwe're doing here on the farm
through our foundation?
But also, is there other waysof having an impact?
Is there economic models thatwe would want to explore with
the experience that we can bring?
Because I think there are.
I mean there's going to beincredible sums of capital
flowing into the wholebiodiversity side of things.

(01:04:21):
There's going to be and farmingas well, yeah, of course, and
there's going to be incredibleamounts of land waiting to be
managed because many farmers aregoing to stop in the next 5 to
10 years.
There's obviously some privateputting plays exactly that would
be exciting to explore.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
So your old, former.
Yeah, on your shoulderopportunity, drawing me back in
money, no.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
but like these are exciting thoughts, not in a bad
way.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
Sorry, kyle, I scared you, not in a bad way.
I think we need that becausewhatever amazing thing you do,
you earn 3,000 hectares or moreor less.
Whatever the number will be,the necessary impact is so much
bigger.
And even if this is perfect andyou're in an ocean, surrounded
by an ocean of desert, dyingpine trees, and then that still

(01:05:08):
is not going to be enough.
And you have a lot ofexperience now, like with the
compost, with the cows, with theagroforestry, you've done a lot
of r&d that others don't haveto do, or differently or faster,
or there's so many ways you canhelp people.
Of course it needs structures,it needs a lot of it's a lot of
other work, but there is apotential role there.
You don't think you have to, Imean yeah, for sure, and I think

(01:05:30):
it's also they're thinkingthey're gonna move soon.
They're starting to move yeah,they're gonna get.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
Yeah, not alone such a good internal clock there's
also I I mean, I think even someof the strongest value in some
sense is knowing thecomplexities of execution,
Because we've done these thingsnow for quite a time and we

(01:06:02):
basically fuck up still to thesame extent as we did back then.
But that process allows ustoday quite easily to come up
with the first 15 deal breakersthat you wouldn't think of if
you haven't gone through thatprocess before.
That are super, super valuableto be considered of before you

(01:06:27):
start.
So it's often like the verysimple questions that you tend
not to answer when thinking ofimplementing like things like
that, or new things and newconcepts that need to be
answered and thought aboutbefore you do it, and you can
save.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Save people still make a shit ton of mistakes, but
you can save them a beginningpiece of that or like at least
there's an acceleration oflearning, that you can help with
people, and so they decided allto move Some some.

(01:07:05):
I think it's a perfect momentto wrap up as well the cow
injuries and I want to thank youso much for coming back on.
I know the co-host didn't count, so let's say this is number
three or four, I think.
And yeah, thank you for whatyou do in the space and for

(01:07:35):
spending most of your wakinghours thinking about cows and
soil and trees and forestry.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
yeah, thank you so much.
This has definitely been themost enjoyable podcast I've ever
been on With the best companyyou mean the cows- right and a
calf, almost live-born, on thepodcast.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
That's a first, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Amazing how she was lying there on top while the
whole group was down here andshe was just lying there next to
her calf, looking down, seeingeverything.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
So now the calf is on the move with them, right.
Or just move with the wholegroup.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
Yeah, I think there was one that looked a bit.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
Yeah, but it was around here.
Yeah, she walked over here, Ithink there's another one that
was born, we'll see.
This is the investing inregenerative agriculture and
food podcast, where we learnmore on how to put money to work
to regenerate soil, people,local communities and ecosystems

(01:08:43):
, while making an appropriateand fair return.
Why not share it with a friendand get in touch with us on
social media, our website or viathe Spotify app, and tell us

(01:09:06):
what you liked most and give usa rating on Apple Podcasts or
Spotify or your podcast player.
That really really helps us.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.

All Episodes

371 Benedikt Boesel - Fully integrating 300 cows into a 1000-hectare arable very sandy farm

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;}371 Benedikt Boesel - Fully integrating 300 cows into a 1000-hectare arable very sandy farm