390 Nicola Giuggioli - Building a regenerative brand: from soil health to living wages - Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Can you pay a decent year-round salary to farm
workers?
You know enough to go to a bankand get a mortgage, and don't
charge prices, which makes yourproduce only accessible for the
happy few.
What do vibrations notintervening too much with pests,
nutrient density, and processinghave to do with it?
We cover a lot of ground,literally, on this hilly but
stunning landscape in the greenheart of Italy, Umbria, where

(00:21):
GPS out of steer tractors don'texist, as keeping the tractor
going in a straight line and notslipping down a hill is actually
already an achievement.
This is a relatively new farm,only five years old and two and
a half years in seriousbusiness.
But it's making huge steps.
They're building a brand,they're actually paying a lot of
attention to revenue and costs,measuring nutrient density, and
paying a living year-round wage.

(00:42):
Is it easy?
No, of course not.
But since a few years, they aregoing deep, very deep, into the
next frontier of agriculture.
Vibrations, frequencies, and alot more.
In this episode, we cover itall.
Seats, living wages, trying tointervene as little as possible,
quantum agriculture andtransformation.
Processing.
Yes, I dare to use the evilword.
Of course, in this case, notultra-process, but actually old

(01:04):
school and high-tech at the sametime.
Enjoy.
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 while making anappropriate and fair return.

(01:25):
So welcome to another Walkingthe Land with a Regenerative
Farmer.
And I keep saying this is aspecial one, they're all
special, so just forget aboutthat.
We're in a very special placeactually in the center of Italy,
Umbria, which has an interestingenergy around, let's say, the
region already, but also thisplace.
And we're gonna have a strollaround.

(01:47):
It's September, it's warm butnot too warm.
Sun is out and it's it's lovelyoutside.
It has rained, I think, the lastweek quite a bit.
Wednesday, I Wednesday, that'swhy we couldn't be here on
Wednesday, and so the plantslook good, and everything seems
buzzing.
So welcome, and of course,welcome to my guests today.

SPEAKER_02 (02:06):
Hi Colin.
Thank you for this incredibleopportunity to tell you a bit
more about what we do, where youall started, and where we want
to go.

SPEAKER_00 (02:17):
And just to paint a bit of a picture, where are we
in terms of geography, but alsoin terms of size, and just this
is an audio medium.
We're not filming this.
I'm sorry for anybody that washoping for another film walking
the land.
Logistics aren't always easywith filming.
So we're gonna paint it andwe're gonna make it a bit visual
so people visually are here withus.

(02:39):
Maybe they're cooking, maybethey're cleaning vegetables,
maybe they're gardening whenthey listen to this, maybe
they're driving.
Probably not in the landscape aspretty as this one.
So we're gonna bring you alongthis walk, let's say.
But to start with, where are we?
And if you had to describe thisfarm and this land in a few
sentences or a few more, becausewe have time.

SPEAKER_02 (02:56):
What would you say?
So we are, as you said, we arein Umbria, coincidentally called
the green heart of Italy, beingthe greenest region in Italy.
It's a region that doesn't lenditself a lot to agriculture,
actually.
It's very hilly, full ofwoodlands, but it's absolutely
what you would expect from amagical Italian idylli location.

(03:20):
We are in a town called Cittàdella Pieve, a small hamlet,
became very famous because itwas the stronghold of the
Etruscan because of itslocation, and has been
influenced by different tradingroutes and painters and culture.
It's a beautiful place to live,there is a fantastic quality of

(03:41):
life.
And we were crazy enough to opena farm from scratch in a place
which usually is, as I said,doesn't lend itself to farming,
and no one really grows veg on ascale apart from small vegetable
gardens at home during thesummer.
So we took on our shoulder thechallenge to show that in an

(04:04):
arsh difficult soil with no easyclimate, is either too rainy or
too sunny or too windy, it isnever stable for more than a
week.
But that we could grow allvarieties of vegetables and
actually grow them well, makethem nutritious, make them
bountiful and beautiful, and runa profitable farm, regardless of

(04:29):
the fact that we are offeringthe stuff good salaries,
full-time employment.
So we wanted to literally justbreak all the myth of modern
farming and go back to makefarming what it should be: a
beautiful job, a potentiallyaspiring career opportunity for
young people, and a gorgeous asthey can't see it, but a

(04:50):
gorgeous office to work in.
So that's how we all started.

SPEAKER_00 (04:55):
Not an easy feat, and also both of you, or three
of you, but let's say the twobrothers, when you started, of
course, your sister joined aswell.
You don't have a farmingbackground, you have a lot of
food, love cooking, a lot ofseed collection, which comes in
very handy, and you've grownsome stuff in the past, like you
knew something, but of course,not at this scale or at this

(05:16):
point.

SPEAKER_02 (05:17):
We definitely knew how to eat and how to cook.
We definitely knew how to run asmall vegetable gardens at my
parents' house.
What we didn't know was, and weactually broke our bones on, was
how different it is to grow avegetable garden as opposed to
running a farm of this scale.
And we are about 30 hectares,including woodland, so we are

(05:41):
considered a small medium scalefarm in a location that is not
easy.
We are on top of a hill, everyfield faces a different
direction, it's got differentpeculiarity, full of stones, and
and a very, as I said, veryharsh soil, which thank God was
abandoned when we took over theland, so we didn't find any

(06:03):
nasty chemicals in it.
But also, really, nothing reallygrew right at the beginning
because the soil wasn't reallynutritious, it was quite poor
and way, way too hard.

SPEAKER_00 (06:15):
So, where do you start then?
When that's the it was like adeliberate start, I think of
your brother to start with,let's grow some vegetables,
let's sell and eat somethingelse in life than career before.
And but it's quite a step towhere it is now, and it's only
five years in.
Like, what were the first stepsto get going after you secured

(06:36):
the land?
Because I think it came forsale, your parents lived next
door, just to protect,basically.
You want to make sure nobodyelse would do anything stupid
here.

SPEAKER_02 (06:44):
We bought the land to protect it.
Um, let's say that both me andmy brother, we always had this
sort of a little fairy in ourear that told us one day you
should grow things.
We are 44, so when we are 18 andwe had to choose a career
opportunity, farming is notreally a career opportunity that

(07:06):
people choose, to be honest,unless they've got a farm in
their family and they obliged torun it.

SPEAKER_00 (07:11):
It seems changing a bit though.
It's changing now.
Numbers in the UK, which theycall the Clarkson effect.
Like signs up, sign up for agschools and universities, etc.,
are way up, which isinteresting.
And we see young people, butmostly yeah, they don't have
access to land or skills or havea very romantic idea of what a
farm could be.

SPEAKER_02 (07:32):
Yes, and we also had a very romantic idea of what
farming could be, to be honest.
But yeah, so we we actually hadthis kind of profound desire of
being connected to the land forall our life.
But yeah, then I chose a careerin sustainability in London, my
brother chose a career in thecinema industry in Rome, and

(07:53):
then there's been a series ofcoincidences.
The first coincidence was thatthis land was put on sale right
a week after that we sold alittle flat that we owned in
Rome.
And so we decided, you knowwhat, we've got this money, we
don't really need to spend themnow.
So we bought the land to protectit, to avoid people because the

(08:15):
land is on the boundaries of ourparents' house, and we didn't
want anybody to build anythingghastly nearby.
Then basically, it's verydifficult to talk about this
because COVID came, and COVIDwas an incredibly positive
opportunity for us.
I know that it was a tragedyacross the world, and I'm sorry
for what happened.

(08:36):
A lot of people had to livestuck in flats for a year or
more.
But we were lucky enough to behere when the lockdown happened.
And we looked at each other andwe said, listen, that plan that
we wanted to have when we areold, maybe it's time to try.
We are here.
So we literally started byputting together a vegetable
garden with all the seeds thatwe collected throughout our

(08:58):
life.
We were a bit gigs at the whenwe were kids.
While other people playfootball, we were collecting
strange tomato seeds.
And we did a small vegetablegarden and we started selling
the veggies on a little car atthe petal station.
And uh and it went well.
It really did went well.
The local community appreciatedthis.
As impossible as it sounds, welive in the middle of the

(09:22):
beautiful countryside in Italy,and when you buy your
vegetables, they generally comefrom Spain, Turkey, Tunisia.
They don't come from here.
So having these two young guysgrowing things here created a
great image in the localcommunity.
Although we were consideredforeigners, we were coming from
Rome and living in London andMilan.

(09:43):
So there was a bit of at thebeginning, well, what do this
guy wants to do?
They want to teach us how to dothings.
But then they tasted theproduct, we were delicious.
So they kept coming, they toldtheir friends.
So the activity grew by sellingvery fresh fruit and veg at the
petal station.
And that's when we startedthinking, okay, we can actually

(10:05):
build a business with this.
But we were mindful that youdon't open or launch a business
just out of selling veggies bycoincidence.
You need a strategy, you need uha vision, you need branding, you
need communication, you need anemployee structure.
So we literally sit down and wesaid, okay, what do we want to

(10:25):
be in the next five years?
And the first thing that cameout was that we wanted to be the
most sustainable farm that wecould possibly be, both
environmentally and socially.
So the initial pillars for usthat guided us were definitely
invest a lot of efforts inincreasing the biodiversity of

(10:46):
the local area.
So we started with actually 430varieties of vegetables, and we
now grow about 1,500.
The second pillar was not all atscale and not all at scales, of
course.
But we grow all of them.
And some things we grow, as wewere saying before while
chatting between us, we justgrow them for fun, or because

(11:08):
they're beautiful, or because wethink that within the biodiverse
system that we've got, they havea value, not necessarily a
commercial value.
The second pillar was, ofcourse, trying to blend this,
was our idea of foodsustainability, blend ancient
wisdom techniques withcutting-edge innovation and

(11:30):
technology.
So pulling ideas, we consideringwe didn't have a farming
background, which a lot ofpeople think was a limit,
actually, we turned that intoour biggest advantage because we
didn't have any pre-concepts onthis is how farmers have been
doing for all their lives, so itworks.
No, we didn't know.
So we said, okay, I like thatprinciple of permaculture, I

(11:53):
like that principle ofregenerative farming, I like the
principle of syntropic farming.
And we started mixing them toalso understand what could work
on this scale.
Because it's very easy to makethose techniques when you have a
vegetable garden at home.
It's more difficult when you aregrowing 18 hectares of
vegetables, 3,000 olive trees,three hectares of vineyards, and

(12:15):
you need to also run, because Iconsider an activity of the
farm, you need to run thewoodlands.
You need to make sure thewoodlands are healthy,
productive of truffle andmushrooms, and they are free of
hiding places for wild boars.
So this is also the way wemanage wild boars.
Dears is just make sure thatthey can't hide inside the farm.

(12:36):
And if they want to hide, theyhave to stay outside.
And then we had the socialpillar, which was possibly, I
think, the most difficultchallenge for us.
Can we create full-time,long-term jobs which become a
career opportunity for youngpeople?
And as you know, most farm inItaly, but around the world,

(12:59):
they have workers that workthree days, five days, ten days
a month, then being a bad month,they don't work.
No one is gonna give you afull-time fixed salary, you
can't take a mortgage, you can'tbuy a house, you can't beat the
family.
So we decided to actuallyunderstand and calculate the
living wage in the area, whichcame out at about 850, 900 euros

(13:23):
a month.
We live in the middle of designcountries, right?
So the cost of living is lowerthan in a city.
And we decided to put ourinitial salary, so it's a
thousand euros for the first sixmonths, then it goes to 1,300
net, and then from then on itonly grows.
So we today have salariesbetween 1,300 and 2,000 euros a

(13:45):
month for our farmers.
They're all full-time jobs, andplus you've got pension,
healthcare, we have a welfare,insurance, training, etc.
etc.
And with a lot of pride, I cantell you that most people in our
farm today they bought a house.
Some had children, they aresustaining a family.

(14:06):
They work hard, but we also playhard.
We became our family, and it'svery different from what I was
used to by running my company inLondon where I was a CEO and I
didn't really mix with myemployees, I didn't go out with
them.
Here, literally, we are this isour best friend, it's our
family.
We go out together, we celebrateour birthday together, and it's

(14:27):
a beautiful environment to workin.
We, as I said, we work hardbecause farming is working hard,
but also we play hard.
Soundtrack often is the laughterof people on the field.
And if they have to stop, theycan stop.
It's there is a very uh softleading management style here.
Is me and my brother we workhard and follow our example.

(14:49):
There's no work that is notimportant enough for us and or
too important for people to do.
So everybody has to have a setof skill that is mixed, get
involved in all the aspects ofthe farm, learn from the other
people, and especially cancelthe sentence.
But this works because everybodyhas been doing it for ages.

(15:10):
We don't want to hear that.

SPEAKER_00 (15:12):
Because you're really pushing the boundaries
and experimenting a lot, alsospecifically as well on the
agronomic side and like whatworks, what doesn't, what works
at this scale, which is amedium-sized farm in this
context, very challengingcontext, obviously, because of
the geography, simply likeeverything is nothing is
straight, as your brother wassaying at lunch.

(15:34):
The main issue here with thetractor is keeping it actually
in a straight line, let alonethinking about GPS or other
things.
And so, but if it if you findthings here and it's not small,
you find things here, you couldnot copy paste as we always try
to do, but put it in anothercontext, in a larger context, or
provide advice or or input toother farmers.

(15:54):
And you keep saying your dreamis to go to a large American
farm and say, okay, these arethe things that work or could
work, because that's thehectares we need to transition.
This is a lab at the end.
A 30-hectare lab, which is notsmall at all, and but has to be
also financially sustainable.
I think you're approachingbreak-even with 16 employees,
which is a significant one onthe amount of hectares you have.

(16:15):
So we'll unpack that, like howthat works, etc.
But also just on the agronomicpiece, like just a few stories,
like how far you're pushing theboundaries, like where are
things that you had to gothrough a war, and that
agronomists said, No, this isimpossible.
You cannot grow.
First of all, I think they saidyou cannot grow anything here
except olives.
Um so, how has that journeybeen?
And also, as an optimist,optimistic story and journey,

(16:37):
like we're only literallyscratching the surface of what
we can actually grow, and howhealthy you could be, and how
pest-free and pesticide-free,obviously, etc.

SPEAKER_02 (16:46):
Well, as I said before, you all started from
those considerations andpillars, right?
So sustainability was theguiding force.
Climate adaptation.
I've been working before 20years in climate change, so I I
knew in a way what to expectfrom climate.
And as I was saying the otherday to another podcast host, I'm

(17:07):
not preparing for 1.5 degreesrise, I'm preparing for six
degrees rise because I thinkthis is what's gonna happen, not
maybe on the average globaltemperature, but definitely I'm
seeing the changes here.
And I remember I came toCittadella Piave that I was
eight, and I remember I've neverseen the temperature rising
above 30 degrees.

(17:28):
Two days during the heat wave,the temperature arrived to 40.
And I expect maybe in 10 yearsto have heat waves with
temperature edge close to maybe50 degrees.
Maybe the average temperaturewill only be rising by two.
But what a system that cansurround it.
And so the initial strategy wasa bit random, was uh trial and

(17:52):
error.
See what works.
We need to make sure that oursoil become uh cultivable.
So it's too hard, how do we makeit softer?
There's no life, how do we bringlife back into the soil?
And we were literally mixingregenerative and biodynamic
techniques mainly inpermaculture.
Then again, a bad coincidenceled us to our biggest light bulb

(18:15):
moment since we have the farm.
So in 2023, summer, we Umbriawas hit by the worst drought in
history.
It didn't rain from February toNovember, and we got three heat
waves where the temperaturearrived to almost 40 degrees,
and we pretty much losteverything that year.
We were even thinking to closethe farm.
And we were literally walkingback to my parents' house in the

(18:37):
evening with my brother, whichis next to the farm, and we have
to go through a woodland.
And as we get into the woodland,as we've always done in our
life, we've been brought uppicking mushrooms and walking in
the woodlands.
But that day we came in and bothme and my brother had that light
bulb moment.

(18:58):
We looked at each other and wesaid, hold on, because here is
definitely fresher, moisture,the infestant weeds are here but
they don't take over.
The parasites, the pathogens arehere, but they don't destroy
anything.
And you don't rotate the crops,you don't fertilize, you don't
irrigate, you don't treatanything.
What is happening?

(19:18):
And we thought maybe what we'vedone so far, which basically was
read books and uh see whatpeople do, and then trying to
bring the solution into our farmis wrong.
We have always had always sincethe beginning of the 19th

(19:39):
century, so since industrialfarming became the norm, we
always had the attitude tothings that human beings have to
teach the land how to producethings.
And we thought maybe we need togo the other way around.
Maybe we need to stop listeningto humans and start listening to
nature and copy nature, but notin the so nature is not a single

(20:03):
solution, and it's not even alist of single solutions, is a
system of solutions that worktogether, enhancing each other.
So we literally split thewoodlands into solutions.
We saw trees, we saw the soil,we saw the life, we saw the
parasites and things like that.
And we started studying how thatsystem works.

(20:26):
How is it balanced?
How does it become a biospherethat is stable, productive, and
lush?
And how can we create thebiosphere artificially into a
farming environment?
And so we literally startedmixing solutions like we need
the trees, but we need a treefast, so we decided to partner

(20:47):
with Paulonia Italia and plantPaulonia trees as agroforestry.
Yes, they don't produce fruits,but they produce shade within
two, three years.
It's the fastest growing tree onthe planet.
We need to rebuild a microbiomeinto the soil, bring
microorganisms back.
We could have gone with solutionthat regenerative farming uses,

(21:09):
but it would have taken us 15-20years in such a soil.
So we found this incrediblecompany called EM Italia.
They licensed the effectivemicroorganism technology
developed in Japan, and thatallowed us to put microorganisms
back into the soil through theirrigation system cheaply in the

(21:29):
space of six, seven months, not20 years.
We needed to increase thesoftening of the soil, so amend
the soil, and we needed to buildmore water retention.
We brought in a solution that isnot using farming, it's using
carbon capturing, which isbiochar.
But biochar is a sponge ofcarbon, which is fantastic for
the soil, retains the water andplants loves.

(21:51):
So we started putting biocharinto the soil.
And then probably the mostimportant risk that we took, and
the most important result thatwe're getting today is stop
intervening.
Stop working the soil, stopcutting the trees, stop cleaning
everything.
Just let the name stop killingthe pathogens, stop killing the

(22:15):
parasites.
How difficult is that?
Because it's You need couragebecause you don't know what
you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_00 (22:20):
They might be the whole bloody crop.
Exactly.
And you need courage to evenimagine I think they will stop
at 20% or at something.

SPEAKER_02 (22:28):
But we had an inspiration, Cohen, which and
the inspiration happened duringCOVID.
When the first lockdown happenedin Italy, I clearly remember
that in the space of three, fourweeks, we are not talking years,
three or four weeks, the riverswere clean.
The wildlife, wild boars in thecities, the wildlife came back

(22:52):
very fast.
So we thought actually, naturehas an exceptional ability to
bounce back much more quicklythan we think.

SPEAKER_00 (23:17):
But it's still seeing uh whatever insect
eating, like now the chimney aremoving into certain crops,
sitting on your hands, eventhough you have an organic spray
or you have to resist thecourage to intervene.

SPEAKER_02 (23:30):
There is some science though behind, and we
did study it before trying it.
So in science, when you have sonature is a it doesn't have
empty spaces.
You see it actually in the soilas well.
If you have naked soil, naturegrows something in it to cover
it.
The actual the function of weedsis to either cover it or break

(23:54):
too much compacted soil on fixednutrients in impoverished soil.
So nature is never empty.
When you kill something, andthis is the approach of a lot of
farming, also sustainabletechniques, even organic.
You've got pathogens, you killit with natural things, but you
still kill it.
Okay?
In that case, you create what iscalled ecological void.

(24:18):
Nature fills a void, and ninetimes out of ten fills the void
with something stronger thanbefore.
Because it doesn't want you tokill it again.
So by killing things, you arealways creating a bigger
problem.
It's the antibiotic issue, yeah.
If you stop killing, you naturecan actually re-establish a

(24:39):
balance between species quitequickly.
So we've got everything here.
You saw the stinking bugs, butthe question that everybody asks
us, everybody, becauseapparently everybody has this
problem in their homes andvegetable gardens, is how do you
get rid of slugs?
We don't get rid of slugs.
We've got slugs.

(25:00):
But one thing is imagine this.
I actually have a lot ofsympathy for slugs.
Imagine these poor slugs, theyneed to eat something green and
edible for them.
They get into the farm, and theonly thing that is available for
eating is the salads or tomatoesor the vegetables.
They're gonna eat them.

(25:21):
When they come here, and youguys can't see this, but Cohen
can, everything is green.
It's full of weeds, it's full offoraging, it's full of things
for them to eat.
So they spread.
They've got a lot of other food.
And yes, sometimes they go andhave a salad, so maybe one leaf
is damaged, but it's not acommercial damage.
And we estimate that we've gotdue to this, about depending on

(25:48):
crops, five to ten percentlosses in terms of weight and
volumes due to these practices.
But actually, I talk to farmsthat they use chemicals, they
lose way more.

SPEAKER_00 (26:01):
They lose way more, and on top of that, they have to
buy and apply a lot of cost andlabor and risk involved as well.
And so, but since when like howlong did it take you to get
comfortable with that, withholding back, and sometimes
still intervene, like dependingon what like what's the what was

(26:22):
the journey there?

SPEAKER_02 (26:23):
The journey to cut so I would say within six months
we actually had the feeling thatthis thing was working, okay.
We're still uh having to battleagainst some parasites, but the
ethos is not killing them, ismoving them, making things here

(26:46):
not nice for them, so they movesomewhere else.
And then there is always a themethat we experience, for example,
with our artichokes.
There are pathogens arrivingtoday because of climate change
that didn't belong here before,a reason and natural predator
for them, and so at that pointit becomes a big challenge.

(27:09):
A lot of trial and error, a lotof studying the behavior of
these pathogens or parasites.
A lot of time is a lot of manualwork.
So, for example, we had thiscoleopter from Tunisia that eats
all the artichokes, and we triedwith integrated bacteria that

(27:29):
could kill them, didn't work.
At the end, we had to pull outall of the architecture growth,
pull out all the roots, put allthe roots lying in a bar and go
root by root, looking for theeggs, pulling them out manually,
selecting the roots and replantit all completely from
structure.

(27:50):
And it worked 90%, but wereduced the population
massively, and then wediscovered that nematodes
interact with them.
So if the population is low, youcan manage them with nematodes
and also bacteria.
So we haven't eliminated theproblem, but it doesn't.

(28:12):
It's manageable, it'smanageable, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 (28:15):
It's manageable, and then from a like sales
perspective, like you startedwith the fresh vegetables at the
petrol station, which has alimited scale, let's say, even
though it's a city of 7,000people.
Then what you said, of course,we need a brand, we need a
strategy, we need marketingaround that.

(28:35):
What when you sat down to tocome up with a plan, what was
the thinking there in terms ofwhere the produce from this
place is gonna land and how it'sgonna land?

SPEAKER_02 (28:45):
So the I would say that so we are the fifth year of
running the farm today.
So I think we took two years todo the trial and error process
in terms of what business couldwork.
Then we took another three yearsto develop the farming technique
that we call, by the way,biomimic farming.

(29:07):
I would say that we startedreally running a business about
two and a half, three years ago.
We discovered that the freshfood had limited scalability,
that Italy doesn't have thelogistics to deliver as a small
farmer to deliver the food toRome, Milan with a customer

(29:28):
service level that is goodenough.
So we decided first to extendthe life of our products by
transforming them and puttingthem into just food.
And that also allowed us tocreate a branding, a visible
branding for consumers.
Then, by coincidence, because ofa series of TV programs that

(29:48):
involved us, we got approachedby tourists that wanted to visit
the farm and learn what we coulddo.
And I have to say, in the lastthree years, that it's a
business that developedexceptionally well.
We became better by learning, byobserving what people liked,
what people wanted, and also interms of our operation to be

(30:10):
more effective and moreefficient and cost-level to
deliver the fresh.
The judge, the experience, andalso a bit of the academic side.
So we have a lot of universitiesthat come here.
And I think today, really, whatI would say I think is the
secret, and for us, and I thinkis a something that every farmer

(30:33):
should consider differentiatingyour stream of revenues as much
as possible.
Not only within the productrange.
So, of course, we grow 1500veggies.
If one variety dies, it's not abig issue.
If I was growing one crop, thatwould be an issue.
But also in terms of theactivity that brings you money.
We sell, we've got a shop, wesell here at the farm the fresh

(30:55):
food.
We deliver the fresh food,actually.
We have a private member clubnow, and we deliver the produce
to Milan and Rome on a weeklybasis.
We've got the JAS, but also onthe JAS, we sell them
direct-to-consumer, business tobusiness, but also we do white
labeling for other companies,restaurants, or retailers.
We've got the experiences, whichare visits, but they're also

(31:18):
events, weddings, corporates,sites.
So, and all of these thingstogether, they complement each
other.
Everything works like a flyingwheel for the other.
And I'm happy to say thatalthough we haven't hit
breakeven, but we should getthere by the end of the year.
So 2023 to 2024, we doubled theincome of the year before.

(31:43):
2024 to 2025, we doubled theincome again.

SPEAKER_00 (31:46):
So we are growing at about 100% this year, actually
130% year and is remarkable forany company or medium like SME,
but even more probably in inagriculture, not only involved
in say, let's say high margincrops like wine and cosmetics or

(32:06):
and just on veggies, of course,on wine, olive oil, and then
transforming that intoexperiences and jars.
And not even for prices that areexperiences, obviously cost, but
that's because you attract anAmerican public or you attract a
foreign public in that sense.
It's not for the people livingin the village, you also do

(32:26):
experiences for them.
But you also sell what you toldthe story before of potatoes in
the square for very good marginsand very good prices and very
accessible.
So I think it dispels that mythof there's no money in
agriculture, which I think is awhich is an interesting one to
put out there, which is could beconnected to a question.
But I won't ask this.
There is no money in the old wayof doing agriculture.

(32:49):
And so what makes this then sofundamentally different?
Diversifying, I get it,transforming yourself, capturing
that, of course, building abrand, very important.
You're very active on socialmedia, which your system makes

(33:48):
you do.
Like that's fundamental.
If you want to sell, of course,if you sell in the commodity
markets, that doesn't matter.
Why would you be?
But all but what's the what'sthen the new, I'm doing air
quotes which nobody sees.
The new way of approaching whatcould others learn, other
farmers learn in that case.

SPEAKER_02 (34:04):
Well, uh you actually use the perfect world,
the word that I wanted to use.
So farmers today, they manage,they're producing a commodity,
mainly.
So they produce one variety oftomato in a lot of actors to go
to a supermarket or to aproducer of pasta sauce.
Okay.

(34:24):
And your clients decide theprice.
It's not a taker or not aexactly, it's your price taker.
So it doesn't matter whetheryour compost, your fertilizer,
your labor costs more this year,you're still gonna get your 15p
per kilo of tomatoes.
Okay.
We don't work with thoseclients.
We try to either go directly toconsumer selling a product with

(34:50):
a story that creates value, orwe work with business partners
that are aligned in telling thestory and giving the person that
their clients the value.
It's not about price anymore,it's about value of what you

(35:10):
give them.

SPEAKER_00 (35:11):
And true, but if your jar would be 25 euros, then
but my jar is not.
I know, but it's I'm saying itbecause it's possible to do
that, and for sure, many peoplehave seen in the food and egg
space a super high-end goldenwhatever, and that's fine, but
you buy it as a gift, that'spretty much it.
Like, how do you make thisaccessible?
And you're actually were sayingbefore, like now, actually, with

(35:32):
inflation and price hikes ofothers, we are in many cases
competitive or near similarbelow, like where the price is
not a huge, which is anothertestament of we've been
conditioned to think that it bydefinition has to be more
expensive.
We'll get to the quality,flavor, and nutrient density
piece in a bit, but we'reconditioned to think this has to

(35:53):
be at least twice as expensive,it has to be super expensive
because this is only for thehappy few.
You're like, no, it's a nicejar, it costs, but it doesn't
cost the world.

SPEAKER_02 (36:01):
Inflation played a lot in our favor because I
remember when we opened thefarm, our tomatoes were twice,
if not three times, the price ofthe tomato that you could buy at
supermarkets.
Today, often they are cheaper.
We didn't raise the price, allthe rest big supermarkets are
raised.

SPEAKER_00 (36:20):
You don't have the crazy input costs.
Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 (36:22):
Uh but I'll tell you a story, it's very indicative of
the way a lot of people buy.
And I used to buy like thatactually.
Last year, a woman comes in theshop.
We were selling the small cherrytomatoes at five euros a kilo in
the shop.
And she goes into a row abouthow expensive my tomatoes are.

(36:45):
Are you selling gold?
And I was a bit surprised andshocked, and also because of the
behavior.
She was very aggressive.
And I was like, sorry, but whoare you?
Who are you?
Why are you telling me this?
I grew this thing, I put a lotof effort.
Why are you telling me this?
I said, well, because I justwent to the most expensive
supermarket in the area, and Ibought exactly the same tomato,

(37:07):
which of course they weren'texactly the same tomatoes,
tomatoes that didn't taste ofanything coming from Spain.
Nothing against Spain listeners,but yeah.
2 euros 50.
And I was like, well, great.
Do you want to show me thetomatoes so we see if they are
exactly the same?
She pulls out this plastic boxwith a little bit of tomatoes in

(37:28):
it, and I just turned the boxand I see that there were 200
grams of tomatoes in the box.
So she spent 2 euros 50 for 200grams, which turns into 1250 per
kilo, criticizing me that I wasselling them at 5 euros per
kilo.
But she was sure their tray was1 kilo.
She didn't actually look at theweight.

(37:49):
And a lot of people, thesupermarkets are very smart in
this.
A lot of people they buy the boxthinking that the price of the
box is the price for the kilo.
And actually they're only buying150.
The salad is the perfectexample.
The salad is the perfectexample, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (38:02):
Our friends have some food.
Paolo Di Croce loves to use thatexample.
How much you overpay for aready-washed bag of salad.
Which you then, because you'resuspicious, which probably you
should be, you anyway washagain.
Yeah.
So that's the whole it doesn'thave any point.

SPEAKER_02 (38:17):
No, it doesn't have any point anymore.
You're probably expansion then.
She was shocked and she wentmute and she left the shop and
never see her again.
But you didn't manage to let'staste both of them, let's see.
Your bricks analysis.
We to be honest, no, I need thatup to a certain point because
we've got such love andfeedbacks from whoever buys our

(38:40):
products.

SPEAKER_00 (38:41):
Because the fresh one goes to restaurants, they go
to people here and nearly.
I heard even the localsupermarket owner who obviously
sells tomatoes from very far.

SPEAKER_02 (39:02):
They buy the tomato from us for themselves.
That says it all, probably.
And it's we keep havingexceptional feedback from
clients when they buy ourproducts, and uh and that's what
really is all about.
I I don't need to go into afight with anybody, to be
honest.
I'm really I've always beenquite afraid of arguments and

(39:24):
things.
I ran away from arguments, evenwith my wife, actually.
I'm one of those husbands thatsuddenly run away when you turn
in a different direction.
So tell me about yourrelationships.
Exactly.
So I it's it's not my thing.

SPEAKER_00 (39:37):
I it's also not valid.
I've learned, I think I spent 15years now in let's say the
regenerative world of food andagriculture.
And convincing is not a veryhelpful, energetically
interesting nor.
If you're interested, go deep.
There I can point you to 6,000different rabbit holes where you

(39:58):
can learn anything you wantabout quantum nutrient too.
Taste it, sit down, taste it,taste it, exactly.
Taste it.
Like that would have been theinteresting end to that
conversation.
Okay, bring yours and let's cutboth of them blind.

SPEAKER_02 (40:10):
And a lot of people come with a constructive
attitude, and we take critiquesfrom them.
And at the end of the day, we'vedone a lot of this because also
growing 1500 varieties, a lot ofstuff that we sell, people have
never seen, they don't trustthem.

SPEAKER_00 (40:24):
You were saying before the forage, like in the
winter, you buy the you harvestthe foraging of the
non-productive lanes, like we'relooking at the vegetable lanes
where there is a product and aproductive lane, of course, of
vegetables, which is an oldconstruct, I'm thinking about.
We're looking at olive trees,sorry, in a row.
There's an interesting storywith figs, we'll get there.
There's a vegetable lane with anice paper, recycled paper layer

(40:47):
to against the weeds.
We're growing in this casejalapeno.
Jalapeno.
And then there is a passage,let's say a passage lane in the
middle with where you actuallygrow a lot of accidental
foraging, which you harvest inthe winter where you don't have
a lot of other things, which yousell for a really good kilo
price in your shop.
And people love like proper wildspinach and a lot of other
edible things that nobody eversees, or definitely doesn't have

(41:10):
these quantities that you canget in a then get to a
restaurant.

SPEAKER_02 (41:13):
But that's the trick.
So a lot of stuff, a lot oftimes where people were like, I
don't know, maybe, but I don'tknow how to go, which is get
half a kilo for free.
Take it, try it.
Okra.
When we started growing okra incittad della pieve, well, like
people are like, What is how doyou pronounce it?
How do you write it?
And for the first year, weliterally just gave okra for

(41:35):
free to everybody until itbecame one of the most desired
crops in the shop.
People love it.
Purple beans.
I know in England they are verycommon, but here no one has ever
seen purple beans, and peopledidn't want to buy the purple
beans.
And so we started giving themfor free.
Strange varieties of melons andtomatillas and purple tomatoes.

(41:56):
And that way of convincing, itworks because you are not
getting into an argument aboutwhy this, why that.
It's just try, taste it if youlike it.

SPEAKER_00 (42:08):
How's been the chef?
You work a lot with restaurants.
How's been the reception orwhat's the chef's movement that
say in Umbria and in your area?

SPEAKER_02 (42:15):
It's not easy actually.
Not really easy.
Uh we work well with chefs thataligns strongly to enhance
seasonality.
So most restaurants, they someof them they never change the
menu.
So they want red bell pepperthroughout the year.
We can't work with thoserestaurants, okay?
We only grow in the sun and inthe rain, no greenhouses.

(42:38):
So we've got peppers for fourmonths, that's it.
Some crops we give, we have themfor a week.
The garlic flowers, which arevery successful with some
restaurants, we harvest them ina week, that's it.
Then they're gone.
See you next year.
See you next year.
So we have to work withrestaurants which are A, aligned
with that.
B, it's not about all about theprice.

(43:00):
You know, because surely theycan buy for cheaper somewhere
else, but they don't, it's allabout quality food.
And they love having those kindof uh special plates outside the
menu.
No, today we've got somethingwith that you can only get it
now.
Today, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 (43:18):
Which is a very enhanced, it's a very
interesting concept becauseyou're usually like, oh, what is
there today?
What's outside the menu?

SPEAKER_02 (43:24):
Tell me exactly.
And we work well with thosekinds of chefs.
I think that 50% of the newchefs are actually more inclined
to come towards this directionthat we just thought about
compared to maybe their parents.
Interesting.
There is a new interest indiscovering.
There is a lot of interest inwild things like foraging, and

(43:47):
there is a lot of interest inprocesses that are very
difficult to achieve if yourproducts are sprayed with nasty
chemicals like fermentation.

SPEAKER_00 (43:56):
Let's go there, processes.
We had a long conversation withDan Barber on that.
And he was like, Yeah, why doall these vegetables in a can,
in a he's now doing them in likea sardine can?
Why do they taste like he said?
My hunch is that it's becausethey were shit to begin with.
And you need either they'reblunt or you need a lot of
additives to make them tastelike anything.

(44:17):
And they probably could tasteamazing, preserved and in a good
way, not the ultra-processedside, obviously, but processed
in a way that enhances even andthat of course prolongs the
season, so you don't have oneweek of things or even four
months of things, because youpretty quickly figured out,
yeah, fresh, there's a limit.
So, how did that thefermentation but also the
processing?
The easiest thing is probablytomato sauce, but like what how

(44:40):
did that start and where is itnow?
Because it's pretty impressivewhat you've built in terms of
lab with a few machines, butvery specific ones you find or
don't find in your kitchen.
Like, what's the processing inthe optimist or in the positive
sense?
What does it mean to to QuintusApoia?

SPEAKER_02 (44:56):
Well, to answer your first point, I think that the
trick is quality ingredients,first of all, because most of
the jars that you buy, theydon't have quality ingredients
inside.
And if you look at the list ofingredients at the back label,
you realize that more than ahalf of the ingredients you
don't even know what they areand how to pronounce them.
And most of those ingredientsare either for make them last

(45:19):
longer or to add flavors.
Okay, so generally you've got anaverage of 20 items in the
ingredient list, and out ofthose, only three are the
ingredients that you recognize,and they are written on the
front label, let's say.
All the rest is gibberish, E,numbers and flavors.
So that's the first point.

(45:40):
Now, in terms of processes, as Itold you before, so when we
started building the lab, and Iwas faced with the challenge of
choosing the processes and themachines, a lot of companies
came to me saying, Well, todayyou do reverse osmosis cooking,
you have this incredibletechnological things that they

(46:03):
can ensure that the nutrientlevels and everything.
And I was like, Yeah, butultimately, what does it taste
like?
And the answer was always, ohwell, you need to try it.
But I was like, I want thingsthat taste like my mom.
My grandmother used to do athome.
And they actually did them witha pan and a pot.

(46:24):
So I want a very high-tech panor pot.
That's what I want.
So we actually chose processesthat reflect what you would do
at home.
The blanching, the condiments,the thing, and then of course,
we had to go a step further tohave the highest quality, but

(46:46):
also to have processes that aresuper safe from the other point
of view.
So we discovered machines thatcan concentrate boiling at 40
degrees rather than 100 bytaking pressure out.
You wouldn't get that at home.

SPEAKER_00 (46:59):
No, so it's a machine that brings it to minus
one bar, which means stuff cooksway quicker.

SPEAKER_02 (47:03):
Exactly, and boil at much lower temperature.
So you remove the water,concentrate the sauce, for
example, without having to cookit.
We have a vapor compressed vaporsterilizer that allows us to
sterilize much more quickly soyou don't overcook the stuff
when you sterilize orpasteurize.
But all the rest actually isdriven by uh the classic

(47:26):
processes of the mama.
With we are trying to innovateto achieve things that we want.
For example, I always found thatvegetables in a jar they tend to
be quite squashy and softbecause you blanch them, then
you pasteurize them, so you cookthem twice, and at the end they
get quite slushy.
While we decided to, if where ispossible, not to blunch but to

(47:50):
cold marinate things to keep thechiness.
So basically they're raw when wepasteurize them, but we have
acidified them through a processthat changes time according to
the vegetables, aubergines,eggplants, they can absorb
acidity much more quickly than,for example, a tomato or a
zucchini.
So that gives us the idea of howmuch time, and we measure pH, we

(48:15):
measure bricks level, sugarlevel, of course, and acidity,
and then we keep the jar, wemonitor it, we open it again, we
check again, so we make surethat the products are super
healthy, but they have anunexpected mouthful.
When you put them in your mouth,you're like, oh gosh, this seems

(48:35):
like crunchy and raw.
Oh my god.
And people are obsessed withthis kind of thing.
And and the second element isvery important, I think, is
although we create recipes likeI was telling to you, we do the
caponata, but rather than doingit in a pot, we do it in a
plancha with wood fire so youget a real wood smokiness in it.
But ultimately, if you look atingredients or products, you

(48:59):
look at the list and you say,Okay, this is exactly what I
would do at home.
These are all ingredients thatyou can virtually buy in the
supermarket.
We acidify only with vinegar,wine, or lemon.
That's it.
We don't use any powder, anyascorbic acid, and citric acid,
although they're not bad foryou.
But we just want to do things inthe most straightforward way.

(49:22):
I don't want to have people notrecognizing a name in my

(49:58):
ingredient list.

SPEAKER_00 (49:59):
And then still adding that sort of high-tech.
Yeah.
And that enables you to keepcrunchiness and enables you to
do other things that and to keephealth and safety.

SPEAKER_02 (50:10):
That's paramount.
When you produce jars, the mostparamount thing is make them
safe.
We are talking about productsthat have to last about 24
months on the shelf, not in thefridge, on a shelf.
So the first thing is safety.
Make sure that your product issafe for two main reasons.
One is, of course, you don'twant to kill anybody.
Second, if you kill anybody, youend up in prison and you close

(50:32):
the company.
So there's a double leverage.

SPEAKER_00 (50:35):
On that, and you can add, and then we get to
fermentation.
There are ways, of course, as weknow, to almost add nutrients or
nutrients to food after, ofcourse, we say fresh, great.
But fermentation is an unlock tomore complex flavors, different
kinds of nutrients, differentkinds of absorption, ways,

(50:56):
pathways for your body, etc.
What are you doing in the exceptfor the wine, obviously, which
is fermented.

SPEAKER_02 (51:01):
Well, let's say that for people that don't understand
fermentation, I think that theycould understand the principle
by understanding, for example,what we call the Maillard
reaction, which is thecaramelization of the sugars
when you cook things.
You put stuff, a steak, you putit in the pan, you don't brown
it, the taste is blunt.

(51:21):
You brown it, it becomes muchmore interesting, full of flavor
and fermentation, although it'sa completely different chemical
process, it does that.
So it makes something that canbe potentially blunt into an
umami, salt and sweet acidflavor that makes things much
more interesting.
Now, we there are different waysof fermenting and different

(51:44):
kinds of fermentation, ofcourse.
We only use today lactobacteriafermentation, which is also the
easiest one.
You can do it at home actuallyfairly easily.
It's all about adding the rightamount of salt to the
ingredients.
And you make crowdie, forexample.
You make crowdy.
Basically, you need to add 2 to2.5% of salt to the weight of

(52:04):
the ingredients and just leaveit there for a bit.
Squeeze and leave.
Squeeze and leave.
That's it.
But that allows us, for example,on some so we we ferment a lot
the spicy sauces.
So the chilies, the peppers, theingredients of the spicy sauces
are all fermented.
And we find that if you tastethe difference, because we do
that.

(52:25):
So we do exactly the sameingredients.
One batch we ferment, one wedon't.
We do the entire process.
We taste the one that hasfermented, it's got such a level
of personality feature.
It's incredibly more tasty, morerich, is the thing that you

(52:45):
always want more.
And it's very healthy for youbecause laptobacteria acids that
get developed during thelactobacteria fermentation are
what you actually have inyogurts.
You take supplements for.

(53:23):
We had the vinegar country.
Come on.
We use vinegar to acidify andpreserve.
We always had used vinegar andsalt in Italy since this
beginning of times.
In Asia, they used fermentation.
And but so when we were talkingbefore about the challenges of
fermentation, the challenges offermentation is that, well,

(53:44):
first of all, it's changing nowin Italy, but up until one or
two years ago, you couldn't sellfermenting products to the
public.
You had to pasteurize them, soyou killed all the beneficial
bacteria of the fermentation,and you were left with an
acidity that people are not usedto, and so they didn't like.

(54:05):
Today, processes are changing.
The body that regulates healthand safety in labs called Akachi
Chipp, H A C C P is allowinglive fermenting protocols in
farms, and so we are alsolooking with quite a lot of
interest to that part ofproduction.
But again, ultimately, mygrandmother didn't ferment, and

(54:30):
if I want to do a product likemy brother used to do, maybe I
should avoid fermentation.
But my mom and my grandmotherdidn't do spicy sauces.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (54:37):
So I can allow myself to be as creative as I
want on that.
But it's also there are a lot ofthings we didn't do a hundred
years ago, a lot of things wedid in medical science 100 years
ago, which probably are not tobe repeated.

SPEAKER_02 (54:51):
And also, and to be honest, although it's
fascinating, and I love cooking,so I love fermenting as an idea,
there are products that lendthemselves more to the acidity
of fermentation and productsthat don't.
It's incredible the difference.
For example, when you acidify aproduct with vinegar, the
difference within the differentvinegars, cheap vinegar versus

(55:15):
expensive vinegar, apple vinegarversus grape vinegar, it changes
everything.
And so when you produce aproduct, you have to decide, and
we test.
We do a lot of tests withdifferent varieties of things to
ultimately decide what's thebest.
And we, as I say, the testing isquite so we we test, of course,

(55:37):
but our parents, our friends,our clients, some of our
clients.
We just get them to test thingsand let us know.
And then we just put togetherall the different feedbacks and
we decide what's the best.

SPEAKER_00 (55:49):
And on the fermenting side for the farm, in
terms of inputs, etc.

SPEAKER_02 (55:57):
We are looking at fermenting for the compost
production.
So basically, fermentationallows you to fast track compost
production.
That's why the dog went intoswitching.
Yes.
I'm gonna give you a shower.
Sorry, our dog has just jumpedinto a mud pool.
Nice.
So the usually producing compostfrom garden waste or food waste

(56:22):
takes about a year and a half.
If you ferment compost, whichbasically means adding
fermenting bacteria to thecompost, you can shorten the
period to about one month, onemonth and a half.
And the end result is not only afaster production of compost,
but you have a compost which hasgot a lot of more complex

(56:43):
bacterial elements and profileinside, which is in turn more
healthy for your soil and foryour plants.
So that's really where we aregoing to put a lot of the effort
in the next coming years totest, to create a plan to
produce this compost, tounderstand how we reach the

(57:04):
level of biomass and the rightmix of biomass that we need to
produce high-quality compost.
And but it is exactly bacteria,I would say that they are 70-80%
of what we do in the farm is allabout bacteria, microbes, fungi,

(57:25):
myceliums in all sorts of ways.
From the most basic of notdisturb the soil in the
woodlands in order to producegood myceliums that gives you
good white mushrooms, white orblack truffles, to producing
compost and to producingproducts.
So it's we still don't know alot about bacteria and microbes.

(57:49):
Most people they imagine the wayyou and I grew up, or kids are
growing up today.
If you think about bacteria arethe enemy, yeah.
We always try to clean everysurface.
We make our babies perfectlyclean.
If something falls on the soil,don't eat it.
Actually, bacteria are thereason why we are alive.

(58:11):
And there is I love this thing.
This when you take a teaspoon ofhealthy soil, there are more
bacteria in that teaspoon thanhuman on Earth.
And we're mostly bacteria.
If you don't like bacteria, youjust better move out of the
planet because we are full ofthem.
And a lot of them, most of them,I would say, are beneficial to

(58:34):
us.
They keep us safe, they keep ushealthy, they protect us from
viruses and illnesses, theyallow us to eat.
We don't actually feed on thefood that we put in our mouth.
We feed on the element that thebacteria synthesize for us in
our stomach.
And that's what we can talkabout nutrients in the food and

(58:56):
what that means for a lot ofdifferent things, also for the
cost of the produce.

SPEAKER_00 (59:01):
Of course, no, you have that perfect bridge.
You've done some research inthat direction on or some tests,
let's say, of your produceversus let's say to put the
rest, the final, put the finalnail in the coffin of this is
too expensive and blah blahblah.
What were I thinking you testedyour oil, olive oil, and some

(59:24):
cabbages, right?

SPEAKER_02 (59:25):
Cabbages and tomatoes.
And I think we can get evenbetter than this because we did
the test after one year ofbiomimic farming full
implementation.
And as you can see, a lot of thetrees are not yet grown.
The shadow has not reallydeveloped.
The shadow has not reallydeveloped, the soil hasn't been
fully regenerated yet.

(59:45):
We're doing it very fast, butit's not fully regenerated yet.
So on the olive oil, we wentfrom 100 milligrams of
polyphenolic acid per liter to600.
So we did a 600% growth in oneyear.
On the curly cale, for example.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:04):
The year before, same growth, 100 mil.
Is it season or sorry, is iteasy?
Do you have good years there andbad years as well?
Or is it really no?

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:12):
You get good year and bad year in terms of
quantity and quality because ofthe parasites.
For example, the white flyliterally destroys the quality
of your olive oil.
But in terms of polyphenolicacid, it depends on the variety
of the, and we haven't changedthe variety on the health of the
soil, the health of the plant,and how much nutrients they're

(01:00:34):
antioxidants basically.
Yeah, there's the reason.
How much nutrients they can pulloff the ground.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:38):
And we promised the white fly you discovered in the
local bar.
Yes.
Because the white fly is aproblem.
Well, even though it's aproblem, you want to sit on your
hands, but you don't because youwant to get the white fly out,
preferably going somewhere else.
How did you start solving that?
Or what was your observation andthen how?

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:55):
So we noticed, and we never understood why.
We always thought it was acoincidence because we thought
old people they want to haveolive but also fruit, and the
easiest fruit to grow in Umbresfigs.
Actually, the easiest fruit togrow is figs.
You can't you can't kill a figtree, trust me.
I tried.
You can't.
We noticed that in our oliveorchards there were few fig

(01:01:17):
trees around, and 10 or 15 olivetrees around the fig tree didn't
literally have the white fly.
While on the other ones, weactually needed to put
mechanical traps.
And we thought, well, they likefigs, they put figs, they didn't
have the space to put themanywhere else.
Then we started showing.
With the old people in the bar.

(01:01:39):
And these old men said, No, it'snot because we like figs,
actually, don't eat figs, but Ihave them because we know that
the white fly is attracted byfigs.
But the second that it touchesthe figs, dies.
Dies.
So that's your mechanical trap.
Yeah, our mechanical trap.
We can eat it.
You can eat it as well.
So we decided last year thatwe're gonna test this thing, and

(01:02:04):
we literally cut it branchesfrom our current figs, and we
produced 500 plants, 500 newtrees that we're gonna plant
this winter, in order not toneed to water them as soon as we
plant them.
And we're gonna start havinglike live traps and in turn
produce a lot of figs that theysell really well, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:23):
So and sorry, coming back to the nutrient part, you
did the oil, the tomatoes, andthe cabbages.
But you're only at the beginningbecause we're gonna talk about
what you're pushing now.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:34):
The highest increase has been on the cabbages, where
we got 1000% more nutrients thanbefore.
Than before or than before?
But before we were standing at avery high-level organic product,
now we went literally way abovethat.
On the tomatoes, we are talkingabout 500% more nutrients than

(01:02:55):
what you would buy in thesupermarket that is organic.
The next phase for us isstrawberries.
We believe that on thestrawberries we could go like
literally on the two, three,four thousand more because it's
all these nutrients, you know,what people understand, apart
from they're good for you, ofcourse.
But what gives taste to yourfood is the nutrients.

(01:03:17):
If you have no nutrients, theydon't taste.
And that's why a lot of peoplesay stuff doesn't taste as it
used to.
And your strawberries areexceptional, right?
I didn't taste them because it'snot the street.
I know, but the strawberries areexceptional, exceptional.
And that was another thing thatmade us laugh because it's very
expensive for us to makestrawberries the way we do, and
we can't actually sell themoutside the local community

(01:03:41):
because they don't last.
They don't travel.
They don't travel.
Then we harvest them that day orthe day after, max.
And uh so we decided to put themat 25 euros a kilo.
Considering that you buy a kiloof strawberries, organic
strawberries supermarket atthree euros.
People, you guys are crazy.

(01:04:01):
I'm not gonna buy them.
So we started making this tinylittle tester box at the shop,
and we just gave them for freefor a week.
After a week, we had a waitingline, so we had to buy a
notebook for a waiting list, andnot everybody gets them, only
the first one they're on thewaiting list, and so we all our
strawberries are pretty muchfully booked and already sold

(01:04:24):
before we start harvesting themat that price, and people are
like just it's worth spendingthat amount of money because a
lot of people say, I forgot whatstrawberries should taste like.
But most importantly, my wifehas always been allergic to
strawberries, always, until Istarted growing strawberries,

(01:04:44):
and we discovered that she wasan allergic to strawberries.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:50):
She's allergic to the stuff that the spray.
It's one of the dirty dozen,right?
It's one of those crops thatgets sprayed the most.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:56):
Imagine that in Italy we so we so the Ultra
Consumer, which is this big NGO.
The consumer association doesthe list every yeah and they
tested the 19 biggest brands ofstrawberries in the market, and
the best has nine chemicals onit, the worst 19.
Wow.

(01:05:16):
Stuff that shouldn't be there.
Yeah.
It's there because they makethem travel for 10 days, it's
there because they don't wantthe slug to eat them, it's there
because of many differentreasons.
Not for your health and not forthe taste.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:31):
And what does this mean?
Of course, this is an investingin regenerative agriculture and
food podcast.
What would you tell theinvestment world?
Your former world, you've workedin the investment world before
you worked in sustainability.
You could say you're working ininvestment still, this is
managing resources, naturalresources, and financial

(01:05:55):
resources, and definitely youwork in sustainability.
But I always like to ask thisquestion: let's say we're in a
theater in Chita della Pieva orin a financial hub, maybe Rome,
Milan in this case probably fitsbetter.
Let's wait for the buggy.
Electric, I know.
Electric buggy, of course.
To pass by.
So the noise comes from the carand the tires, not from the

(01:06:18):
engine.
So if we would do this in a infront of a crowd that's let's
say managing their own wealth,other people's wealth.
Of course, we have an evening,amazing dinner, like lots of
interesting imagery.
We have a nice long, let's say,fireside chat on stage, but
people forget as well the nextday.
When they're back at their desk,when they open the laptop, when
they went through the commuteand they're make decisions on a

(01:06:40):
lot of money, what would youlike the seed, what would you
like the seed to be that youplanted?
What would you like to thinkthat they remembered from an
evening talking about all ofthis?
It would be nice if we bringthem here, but let's say we do
it in a more city environment.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:52):
I think that from an investor, purely investors point
of view, first of all, we arerunning a company with an
underlying asset that can onlyappreciate rather than
depreciate real estate.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:04):
How do people get that?

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:05):
No one.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:06):
That's I've been saying this for 15 years.

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:08):
Land is gold.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:09):
You know, when you manage it, if you run it well,
it increases and like yourmaintenance cost is your harvest
that you can sell.
Like, how did that?

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:19):
But also imagine all the stuff that you buy,
tructors, systems, they don'tdevaluate that quickly as, for
example, a car.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:26):
There's a good market for them.
It's a good market.

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:29):
You can buy a tractor for 1970 and you still
pay 26, 30k for it.
So all the immobilization andthe real estate are actually
very good investments, even ifyou don't use them.
If you use them, please usethem.
I don't buy your farms and thenjust become these hobby farms

(01:07:49):
with three trees and coverage.
But if you use them if 110, youcan only appreciate.
Second thing, and I think that asavvy investor already knows
this, there are a lot ofunderlying value that is not
captured by the market yet, likecarbon sequestration, for
example, or natural naturehealth, that one day I'm sure
will become monetizable assets.

(01:08:10):
There are already some, forexample, carbon sequentration,
you can sell carbon credits.
There is value in protecting theland, and soon enough we'll be
recognized and we'll be able tomonetize this value.
The other thing is that, ofcourse, if you are a farmer and
you make that extra step todevelop a brand, which not a lot
of farms do, brands are veryhigh value, low-cost venture.

(01:08:36):
And there is a big volume.
If you think about a lot ofcompanies today on the stock
market, their stock price isbasically based on brand, not
really on revenues.
And ultimately, I think thatthere's nothing that is this
activity, nothing gets lost.
Imagine you're doing t-shirts,and your t-shirt doesn't come

(01:09:00):
out properly, you throw it away,you burn it.
I grow produce.
If that produce doesn't is notoptimal for selling, it becomes
a resource for compost, maybe.
Mistakes are actually thebiggest lesson in farming
because you learn a lot of it,and you can turn them into

(01:09:23):
competitive advantages.
But also, as you said before, byharvesting foraging from the
living path, even if you don'tdo anything, you can actually
capture value out of doingnothing to nature just by
letting it be and harvest theproduce that it naturally grows.

(01:09:45):
Your white truffles are a primeexample.
Exactly.
So there are a lot of stream,potential stream of revenues if
you know how to harvest them.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:54):
It almost goes like against our economic thinking or
dogma.
And maybe we have to like likeKate Roworth.
I think we have to really teacheconomics differently because a
lot of stuff on scarcity versusabundance, like the whole
commoditization, doesn't runs atthe end now and doesn't really

(01:10:15):
run according like how natureruns stuff, which sounds very
philosophical, which it is, butalso very basic.
Like it's not how like it'sdifficult, I think, for many
people to grasp if you're in thefinancial world specifically.

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:28):
Not only is there a demand that is growing for this,
the produce produced like this.
Okay?

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:35):
You clearly don't have a problem in selling.

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:37):
No, we are upward market trend, definitely
recognized by everybody, andalso by data.
You know, we've seen this.
But also, I think that a lot ofpeople are waking up to the fact
that maybe this tomato is twoeuros more.
But you don't feed on volumes ofweight, you feed on nutrients.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:00):
So you don't need the difference at the end of the
year.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:02):
You don't need a kilo of tomato to feel
satisfied, you need half a kiloof tomatoes to feel full.
And also, then you don't need togo and buy the supplements at
the pharmacy, which are insanelyexpensive.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:13):
Insanely expensive, it's a huge market, except for
maybe animal protein and wine,but also wine is a lot of story,
like really high quality doesn'tcost so much more.
In many cases, it doesn't costeven and you won't, I promise
you, you won't see thedifference if you buy high-end,
really well-done pasta for theyear or olive oil.
You don't see it at the end ofthe year.
No, like that would mean there'sno difference in your budget, or

(01:11:37):
a slight difference compared to,of course, your supplement
stuff.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:40):
Also, yeah, I give you a data which is quite
shocking considering that we arein Italy, the Mediterranean
diet, we definitely buy a lot ofhealth.
But yeah.
Italy spends approximately 19billion a year in healthcare for
food-related illnesses.
19 billion is 400 euros perperson, including infants, a

(01:12:04):
year.
And all of these, most of theseillnesses are related to the
fact that we don't eat well.
We ultra-processed food, wedon't get the nutrients that we
need, and then we resort toeating too much volumes, which
is unhealthy.
We spend a lot of money at thegym to lose weight.
Imagine also how much we spendwith sports and things just to

(01:12:26):
look good, not to be healthier,not to be fit, just to look
good.
And this is all food-related,lifestyle-related.

SPEAKER_00 (01:12:33):
Like the big question becomes then how do we
channel more of that huge chunkof money, which is much more
than probably what we spend onfood in Europe or in Italy.
And I think it's a big topic.
Like, how do we get more of thehealth-related expenditure into
this?
Because it's a gigantic pot ofmoney that doesn't get to

(01:12:55):
farmers, let's say.

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:56):
I think it's a problem that is in common with a
lot of crises that we are livingtoday, and is education.
We are not most of countries inEurope and around the world
they're divesting fromeducation.
We are spending less and lessmoney in education.
Our education is decreasing interms of quality, is very

(01:13:20):
blocked.
He hasn't updated, the systemhaven't updated, the subject
that we studied haven't updated.
And we still have that way ofeducating people in a very, in a
only very standardized academicway.
So we don't consider at allemotional intelligence, creative

(01:13:41):
intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:47):
All these dates, or which is ridiculous.
You have Claude or ChatGPT inyour pocket.
Like remembering dates is likethe last.
And cooking, for instance,cooking education, or even
farming.
I remember in my primary school,we had three years that we had a
small vegetable garden.
Everyone had a personal one.

(01:14:08):
And it was a decision of theschool to not just have one
year, a bigger one, but threeyears in a row, so you could
have that sort of longitudinity,so you could actually see
different things, the differentcrops in different years were
different, and then you got anenormous amount of parcel.
And of course, you end up dryingit or something because what do
you need like a forest ofparcel?
And but I still vividly rememberthis is I was 11, so that's 30

(01:14:31):
years ago, slightly less, butstill.
And so that those imprints andcooking with Byron's, like we
had to cook one today a week.
Or another chore, but I probablypicked a cooking one.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:40):
Another game great cook, but you appreciate the
lessons and wasn't thatexceptionally beautiful.
It was a bit of a chore.
Yeah, but to be honest, Iremember, I remember the first
time came to London and I ate myfirst mango in my life.
I remember pineapple, oh my god.

(01:15:03):
Amazing.
I was literally like dreaming ofmangoes for a week.
Then I actually moved to Londonto live.
Yeah, and you had mango everyday in the supermarket, you
don't buy mangoes anymore.
No.
I remember when I was here, whenI was a kid, I remember you
remember the season, so youremember that in the tomatoes
are arriving.

(01:15:23):
And summer, basically my diet isto tomatoes every day.
And I don't eat tomatoes in thewinter.
But then I look forward to thefollowing year.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:35):
Anyway, but normally not.
But normally not.
You look forward to theexcitement, and then it's
pre-ripe, it's not really thereyet.
Then it's at the height, andthen it's yeah, you should
probably stop eating thembecause your overdose.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:45):
We live it today very easily, like with
mushrooms.
We I'm a passionate mushroomhunter, and we already started
since the first rain last week.
We are already going in thewoods.
We are not finding anything, butit's the excitement.
God, come on, let's do and thenit's all about mushroom now and
truffle in November.
And you get an excitement of theseason, but also let's recognize

(01:16:08):
the fact that nature indeed is abeautiful trend.
It produces produce seasonallywith the right nutrients for
your body for that season.
And although today we buyproducts that have no nutrients,
but those things are what makeyou healthy during the summer,

(01:16:30):
healthy during the winter.
You know, why nature has decidedto have oranges?
The season of oranges is theseason of where you have got the
cold.
Vitamin C packing yourself withvitamin C.
And the best oranges are in thewinter.
So you get the most tasteful,most nutritious, most medicinal

(01:16:52):
crop for you in the perfectmoment where you need it the
most.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:58):
How difficult was it for you coming from finance as
well, to get into those rhythmsof farming, which for the
financial world is slow.
It would be lovely to have oneevery week so you could iterate
quickly, like definitely not asoftware startup.
How was that transition?

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:17):
He was an incredible uh breaking point for me because
we discussed this before.
I think the biggest change wasto recognize that I'm not
producing anything anymore.
I'm growing things.
And when you grow food, youabide to the rhythm of nature.

(01:17:38):
When you produce food, you don'tcare about this, you're just
producing it.
And you take the romance, thefascination away.
But also, I was a consultant, Iwas producing information, and I
could do that anywhere,everywhere, any time of the
year.
Here you're growing, you'redealing with living organisms

(01:17:59):
and living systems, yeah.
On one side, you have to do thatstep, on the other side, doing
the step reconnects youcompletely with what humans
should be connected with.
There is, we spoke a lot todayabout energy, and I hope not to
sound crazy to your listener.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:18):
I think pretty pretty confident about what this
audience can handle.
So let's go there.

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:23):
So that it's we are surrounded by a beautiful
chaotic amount of energy,frequency, and vibration.
Actually, there is a frequencycalled zero-point field which
connects everything.
So we have the frequency incommon with a stone, with a leaf

(01:18:46):
of vegetable, with a mushroom,with an animal.
We are connected by the samevibration.
And that's what I think createsthe beautiful feeling of being
connected, of being part ofsomething.
But most importantly, what weare discovering all, yes, a lot
of farmers that you haveinterviewed already are

(01:19:07):
recognizing this and we arestudying this.
Is what if we can interact withthese energies?
What if we can drive thisvibration, frequency, and
energy?

SPEAKER_00 (01:19:19):
We always interact with it.
But without knowingly.
Intention is there.
When we have driving, probablywe also interact and move
frequency by by moving, bytalking, by living, by
breathing, by thinking.

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:32):
But what if we can matter just with frequency?
Imagine we start everybody havestudied a school the following

principle (01:19:40):
an atom has a nucleus and the electrons.
The number of electrons andlevel of electrons that an atom
has results in what element thatis.
But what changes betweenelements?
It's just the level of energy.
We learned a school that themore energy attracts another
electron, and the more energyattracts another atom.

(01:20:03):
So it's all about energy.
We studied this, we know this,it's actually ingrained in
ourselves.
But then we never realized thatwe could actually use that
principle to interact with thatenergy and to create changes to
the physical world.
We could increase the growingrate of a plant just by using

(01:20:27):
energy, not even usingfertilizer or organic matter or
manure.
We know today, we've seen testsin science that if you bombard a
plant with a frequency of love,583 Hz, the plant grows at
double the rate, and it producesmore fruit.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:45):
Just with frequency.
We always have the examples ofvineyards with music, which
probably is not about the music,but about the frequency.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:54):
It is about the frequency.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:55):
People, like really good farmers, they can feel a
field, like what's off here,something is not, or something
is, and the plants are, and nowwe're capturing that under an
official label of quantum andstarting to really go deeper.
But we probably need an officiallabel.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:11):
We need a discipline that allows us to put things in
the skin.
We human need skin.
It needs to be in a bucket, in asilo.

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:17):
And so, how are you?
We're standing in a very oldvineyard.
How are you applying that apartfrom studying it?
Like where with such a bigrevelation, where do you start?

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:30):
I think you start by understanding that there is a
connection between you and theplant.
But that is already new.
And we already knew.
Then we started testing, forexample, how can we give a
certain frequency to the plant?
And we learned that, forexample, water is the perfect
medium to capture that frequencyand to lock the frequency in.

(01:21:54):
And so, what if we then waterthe plants with the water in the
food with the frequency and wesee the effects?
It grows better, or we can getrid of parasites.
It's a bit different from thestandard agricultural practices
because it's not about you can'twait to identify the problem and
then kill it.

(01:22:14):
You need to have a protocol ofconstant care.
If your tomatoes need calcium,you can buy calcium from the
store, which is chemicallyprocessed, and probably you just
give a dose of calcium to solvethe problem.
If you do it with informedwater, probably you need to have
five, seven, eight cycles ofinformed water.
You need some kind of feedbackloop, but it's free.

(01:22:36):
But it's free.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:36):
It takes time.
It takes time.

SPEAKER_02 (01:22:38):
It doesn't leave any residue in the soil.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:40):
It's probably much so informed water just for the
listeners in the back.

SPEAKER_02 (01:22:44):
Informed water basically water where we lock in
a certain kind of frequency.
And we know today, thanks toscience, that out of the
periodic table of elements thatwe all studied in the first year
science school in high school, Ithink, every element in the
periodic table is characterizedby a different frequency.

(01:23:05):
So if you give that frequency tothe water, you can, in a way, I
wouldn't say copy the effect,because actually you are
transforming the water in thatelement at quantum level.
So you're not pretending to be.

(01:23:26):
Transmuting, probably that's theactually the right word,
transmuting water into adifferent element.
It still looks like water, ittastes like water, but it acts
as calcium of iron or magnesium,potassium, nitrogen.
And I think we are literally atthe cusp of a massive
revolution, both in farming, butalso in healthcare, thanks to

(01:23:48):
quantum mechanics.
We are starting learning how touse, how to drive, how to log
those frequencies.
We are starting testing it, weare starting to see the results,
and the results are staggering.
It works.
I've got the feeling that wealways knew it did.
And I've got the feeling thatour unchessed ancestors knew

(01:24:12):
about this.
As much as they knew about a lotof other things.
We know that, for example, thepyramids they deliver energy
beams.
Why they built it like that?
Because probably they knewsomething.
We don't know yet what, but theydo.
We also know, for example, oneexample that I love making
because today is considered thisincredible technological
process, is the production ofbiochar, which we use.

(01:24:36):
And to produce biochar, you needa pyrolysis machine that costs
hundreds of thousands, that cancreate syngas and biochar and
blah, blah, blah.
Then, five years ago, theydiscovered that in the Amazon
forest there were massivecommunities living there.
And those massive communitiescreated what is called Terra

(01:24:59):
Petra, a lever, a meter ofearth, is packed with biochar.
And what how did they do?
They just dug a hole in theground, they just burn things
inside the hole, reducing theamount of oxygen, and they
created biochar.
Easy.
So, as I was saying to youbefore, is our ethos of blending
ancient wisdom and cutting edgetechnology.

(01:25:21):
Sometimes the cutting-edgetechnology is actually an
ancient wisdom, but we have amore expensive and complicated
way of doing it today.
But the result is the same.

SPEAKER_00 (01:25:31):
And what's your take on technology in that sense?
What are you excited aboutthat's coming, or that you
already saw, or machinery?
Software AI, robotics, likewhat's exciting you?

SPEAKER_02 (01:25:44):
What is exciting me is all those technology that can
make our jobs safer and lessstressful for physically for the
body because farming is veryheavy for the body and it's
dangerous.
We use a lot of machines thatare dangerous.
So I imagine robotic tractors,robotic cut uh lawn mower.

(01:26:05):
We cut the grass a lot herebecause everything is green, so
we need to cut the grass, butalso all the robotic AI and
software instruments that canallow you to measure nutrient
moisture right to the centimeterso that you become much more
effective in the way you givethese elements.
Sometimes you don't need towater all the fields.

(01:26:27):
I planted in my house, I neededmore shade, so I planted three
Paulonias in my house in a line.
And they are two meters fromeach other.
One is three meters, one is onemeter, and one is seven point
five meters after six months.
It's literally five meters.

(01:26:57):
Moisture level, probably thatplant that grew seven meters.
He found some water on his own.

SPEAKER_00 (01:27:06):
But if we could know on leaf during the growth, and
you're like, oh okay, actually,it's just this and this is
blocking it.
Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 (01:27:12):
Let's add, or not, or let's take away, or and then
what excites me most more thananything is the quantum-based
farming, is how much we canlearn about the level of also
communication.
We I always thought because andwe know, we and we always

(01:27:33):
thought that the plantcommunicated through the
mycelian network.
We know they call it thetelephone of the or the internet
of plants.
Of plants and trees.
Exactly.
Yeah.
We know that they communicatedthrough the root system.
What we didn't know, and we justdiscovered, is actually they
communicate through frequenciesand vibrations.
Through the air as well.
Why do they do that?
We don't know.
What does that effect have?

(01:27:55):
We don't know.
But we will discover soonenough.
And again, once we allowourselves to listen, to
communicate, to connect, we canfind solutions for farming.
But as we were saying before,the same solution of quantum
that would work on farming couldeasily work on healthcare, for

(01:28:17):
example.
So we could heal our bodies withfrequency and vibration rather
than with medicines.
And we are literally so close.
I think we are talking aboutthree, four years from literally
getting a lot of these things,maybe not to become mainstream,
but to become available forpeople.

(01:28:38):
Maybe like you and I, all yourlistener that wants to listen.

SPEAKER_00 (01:28:40):
And would that be one of the keys or the keys that
unlocks the adoption of thesekinds of practices on larger
scale, not only larger scalefarms, because they might need
to be smaller, but also thelarge, relatively monoculture
ones.
What do you see there?
It's like when you get to anothing plug and play, but yeah,

(01:29:03):
that's an approach that fitsthat as well.

SPEAKER_02 (01:29:05):
I think, well, on one side, we really need to get
to a plug-and-play solution thateven people that don't
understand the principle canapply.
With the products that iseconomically enough, not to risk
too much buying it.
The second thing that we need torecognize is a negative aspect

(01:29:26):
of the market, is we arefighting against probably one of
the biggest lobby group in theworld.
It's not a coincidence that thefood we eat, the way we farm, is
like this.
And it's a result of acapitalistic view of economic

(01:29:51):
concentration.
It's not about everybody can beproducing something, it's about
few companies have to produceand earn most of the money in
the world.
And they've got a lot of moneyto change legislation, to
influence politics, to influenceadoption of practices, to
influence scientific researches.

(01:30:35):
People don't understand how bigis the purchase power that we've
got in our hands.
We don't understand that buyinga product from a company is like
giving your political votes toyour prime minister.
And you do that five times aday.
I don't approve what you do.
If I buy stuff from you, Iapprove what you do.

(01:30:58):
So it's a massive power in theend of what we call consumer
with actually a people.
It's always a nice term.
But we've got this massivepower, which we don't use at
all.
And if we start using it, we canchange the world.
We are definitely enough peopleif we combine our effort

(01:31:20):
together, we can decide the fateof this planet.
And we never have lived a moreimportant period of time like
this when we're living now toactually start acting on this.
It's very easy to.
Surrender to despair when youwatch the news every day,

(01:31:41):
especially now the world isgoing on fire, everything is
going down the drain.
But the answer cannot besurrender to despair.
The answer has to be changingthis.
Most of the problems of theworld currently are caused by
three men, white, obviously, inthe 70s, which they only want to

(01:32:07):
hang on their pulse power.

SPEAKER_00 (01:32:13):
Come on.
And it leads to a perfectquestion we always like to ask
at the end.
If there was one thing you couldchange overnight, if you had the
magic power to change one thing,it could be in food and egg, in
general, in sustainability aswell.
We've heard radical cap changesto global consciousness and

(01:32:34):
everything in between, allanimals outside, all of those.
So definitely feel free.
But if there if you had a magicwand and you change one thing,
could change one thingovernight.
What would that be?

SPEAKER_02 (01:32:48):
Going from a neoliberal capitalism system to
a socialist system.
So good social.
Yeah, today's socialism, not theone that we identified with
communism thing.
It's sharing things, it'sputting things in common, doing
things for the people, for thecommon good, get away from the
concentration of economics andpower and invest in what really

(01:33:13):
we need to invest in.
Imagine the wealth as humans,the wealth we generate, the
intellect we have.
And then we end up spendingmoney on waging wars, destroying
the environment, and causingclimate change.
Well, we will actually spendthem in education, healthcare,
public transportation, makingpeople's life better, housing,

(01:33:35):
affordable housing.
No, we don't do that.
We've got so probably in thenext month or so we're gonna
have the first trillionaire inthe world.
When we have half of the worldthat doesn't really can't put a
plate of food on the table everyday, we've got trillioners.
And it doesn't work.

(01:33:57):
And it's not that it doesn'twork for me or for you.
We are condemning ourselves toextinction with this.
And I have two young kids.
I would love for them to live ina world beautiful, natural, full
of opportunity with clean airand a great quality of life.
And I don't think the currentsystem that unfortunately is

(01:34:21):
capitalistic kind of everywherein the world, even in the
dictatorship of Asia, it's stilla capitalism-driven
dictatorship.
We're not gonna change thisuntil we've got this principle
that drive our economy, oursocial side, which is
exploitation and for the good ofa few, very few people.
So that's what I would change.

(01:34:42):
I know that it's a bithigh-level politics.

SPEAKER_01 (01:34:44):
Not at all.

SPEAKER_02 (01:34:45):
And maybe you were expecting to sell more tomatoes,
but yeah.
No, I would have beendisappointed if it was not.

SPEAKER_00 (01:34:50):
But is it perfect?
And others they want to ask afinal question, which we love to
do is and this actually withyour last answer, makes it very
interesting as well.
I'm very curious.
What would you do if you wouldbe in the shoes, not of the
trillionaire, but if you had abillion?
We like to ask it if you had abillion euros to put to work.
Could be extremely long term,could be, but and I'm not asking

(01:35:12):
for exact amounts, of course,this is not investment advice,
but I'm looking where would yourpriorities be?
Would it be investing in certainlobby?
Would it be in processing?
Would it be in buying land?
Would it be in geneticdevelopment research, or all of
the above?
What would be your focus ordifferent buckets you would
invest if you had that insaneamount of resources that I don't

(01:35:34):
think anybody should have,single people?
But let's say tomorrow morningthe bank made a mistake or some
distant aunt passed away, sadly,I'm sorry, aunt, but suddenly
there's this interesting amountof money on your bank account
and you had to put it to work.

SPEAKER_02 (01:35:46):
The principle of microcredit, right?
I would apply those principlesto micro credit.
So I would lend this money toideas without charging an
interest rate, nothing.
I just give the money, do yourown things.
If the company start producingprofit, 10% of the profit come
back to me so I can feed backthe fund and invest in other.

(01:36:08):
It's like a revolving macro,micro, medium credit instrument.
Specifically on food or anagriculture?
I think every vertical needsthere are some vertical that I
think, to be honest.
Maybe could disappear.
Could disappear, like weaponproduction, defense industry or
fast fashion or ultra-processedfoods.
Fast food, yeah.
Exactly fast food.
I wouldn't invest in thoseideas.

(01:36:29):
But I think that in everyvertical there are elements of
refirming innovation which canmake the world a better place.
In even in what is calledpseudo-frugal like fashion and
design.
Yeah, surely the vertical ofeducation and food production
and public transportation andenergy production would be my

(01:36:50):
priority.
Because without having to fixthat, it's very difficult then
to go into proper control of AIor quantum mechanics innovation.
You need to fix the basic first,and today the basics are broken.
So I would my priority would belet's fix the basics for a sec.
Because today I think, forexample, AI, which is a very

(01:37:12):
easy example to make.
We don't have the instrument tocontrol it.
It's not that we don't want, Iknow the people want to control
it.
That's not the education or theinstrument to do that.
So we are actually, for thefirst time in the human history,
developing a technology that isrisking to annihilate us if we

(01:37:36):
don't control it.
Because it's not.
And that's a term problem.
It's not intelligence, it's justartificial, is and it works for
his own good.
So it's that's what what that'sone of the things that I'm
actually quite afraid of is thatwe can easily lose control of
that technology, and we'realready doing it, by the way.

(01:37:56):
Don't think about Terminatorkind of thing.
But think about massunemployment.
It's already starting.
And we somehow we already livethis even without AI.
But we, for example, I rememberwhen I went to London, I started
working in advertising, and myjob was to produce the mood
board for the creative, and Ihad to, we had all this library

(01:38:16):
of books, I have to do the scan,the printing, put them together.
And then suddenly Google Imagearrived, and from three people,
we ended up being one.
20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:26):
Technology has already done.
We have to done the same inagriculture.
Done the same manufacturerarrived and reduced very hard
work, not saying let's go backto that, to hand plowing, but it
enabled people to leave thecountryside.

SPEAKER_02 (01:38:41):
Yeah, my my I think the difference this time with AI
is that we invented a wheel andwe started having people
building cars.
We developed internet and westarted, of course, yeah, people
got unemployed, but then peoplegot employed into the digital
world with a lot of jobs.
I don't think AI has the samerate of change, so it's gonna

(01:39:02):
dramatically decrease.
It's so fast.
It's so fast, and not a lot ofpeople will become programmers
or prompt engineers or thingslike that.
So they might become farmers.
Hopefully.
We need more farmers, actually.
You're looking for a few people,right?
Yes, we are, we are actuallyintelligent people.
It's a beautiful place, people.

(01:39:22):
It's a beautiful place, it's agreat office, and the food is
amazing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:39:26):
And with that, I want to thank you so much for
thank you this conversation.
It was a joy and a pleasure withan with another region farmer,
which was an absolute pleasure.
And we'll put the links below,obviously, if people want to
visit, if they want to buy, ifthey want experience, and on
your socials, you can get someof the imagery.
So you have an idea and we tryto speak visually, but pictures,

(01:39:48):
of course, help as well.
So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 (01:39:50):
If I can invite you all, there's nothing like coming
to visit us.
Trust me.

SPEAKER_00 (01:39:54):
I can attest to that.
So, what is what does thisinterview or this walking the
land episode teach us or showus?
What kind of questions did itraise for you?
What kind of assumptions thatyou had are now questioned, or

(01:40:16):
maybe not, maybe affirmed?
For me, it really opened a fewdoors that we don't really open
normally or don't even see.
Living wages, a very basictopic.
Living year-round wages.
How do we make sure people wantto come back to the land?
How do we make sure people canbuild careers, get mortgages,
start a family, buy a house,things that are very simple.

(01:40:38):
How do we get more children onand around our farms?
Is by paying our farm workersenough to actually being able to
start a family.
But of course, that raisesinteresting questions around
prices.
How do you build stackedenterprises, which seems to be
fundamental in this case, toactually break even and to cover
the costs?
And it doesn't have to be crazysalaries, but it has to be a

(01:40:59):
living wage.
So I think that really raises alot of questions with me to what
extent experiences and expensiveexperiences in this case are
part of that mix.
But fresh produce sold locallyin a town of 7,000 people, so
absolutely nothing fancy, cancover a lot of costs as well.
People love the strawberries andpay good money for it, and they

(01:41:21):
make people try them firstbecause, of course, nobody's
gonna pay 25 euros a kilo at thebeginning, but once you taste
it, suddenly they become aluxury product and you can
afford them.
Or the same with tomatoes, whichare very competitive.
And processing, definitely oneof those hidden ones with
relatively small scale but superhigh-tech, old school, as they
like to say.
Machinery can turn a lot ofvegetables into some very

(01:41:44):
desirable and long-termproducts.
24 months is very different thana week or a few days when you
harvest.
And so, but you need to find theright recipes, you need to
really focus on quality thatpeople come back.
Because let's be honest, mostvegetables in tin cans, like we
discussed with Dan Barber, or inany kind of sauce, etc., are
pretty bland and doesn't tastelike anything, or a lot of

(01:42:06):
things have been added.
And then, of course, the big onevibrations, frequencies, quantum
agriculture.
We never really discussed it, Ithink, until now.
We've had many conversationsabout it, but didn't really
record them until now, or recordin this kind of vibrations as
you can listen to it now.
What do you think about that?
What do you think?
Is that the next frontier ofagriculture?
How do we interact with plants?

(01:42:28):
How do we, and animals, ofcourse, and trees, how do we
step into that world withintention and see the results?
It feels like we're at the cruspof a massive wave of things.
I don't want to call it abreakthrough, but definitely a
very inspiring moment when itcomes to agriculture.
And it seems like that could beone of the keys, because it's
very difficult to do orimpossible to do in degraded

(01:42:50):
soils and with degraded plantsand unhealthy plants.
You need, of course, a plantthat's alive to be able to
communicate.
I know this sounds size fi.
If you made it all the way tothe end of this episode, you
probably found somethingrelevant in it.
Let me know in the comments,reach out through the website
because I'm really curious whatyou think of these kind of
episodes.
See you next time! Thank you forlistening all the way to the

(01:43:14):
end.
For show notes and linksdiscussed, check out our
website, investing inregenerative
agriculture.com/slash posts.
If you like this episode, whynot share it with a friend?
And get in touch with us onsocial media, our website, or
via the Spotify app and tell uswhat you like most.
And give us a rating on ApplePodcasts or Spotify or your
podcast player.
That really, really helps us.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.

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390 Nicola Giuggioli - Building a regenerative brand: from soil health to living wages

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}390 Nicola Giuggioli - Building a regenerative brand: from soil health to living wages