250 Growing Regenerative Opportunities - Koen van Seijen interviewed by John Kempf - Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food

Episode Transcript
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Koen van Seijen (00:00):
Join me for a very, very special episode where
I get interviewed by the oneand only John Kempf.
Before all that, you willlisten to a short interview by
me where I ask John a fewquestions about his recently
launched crowd-investingcampaign, the reasoning behind
why he chose to go that lesstraveled route and how he feels
about it, about 24 hours into it.
After that, you get a deep divewith me and John about all

(00:22):
things regeneration and finance,which is also released on his
podcast channel, so you mighthave already seen or heard it
there.
So in that case, enjoy.

John Kempf (00:30):
Hi friends, I'm back with Koen again.
We are having a follow-upconversation that is being
recorded several weeks after wehad our initial conversation.
I can't I think you're reallygoing to enjoy listening to the
discussion that we had on theimpacts of capital agriculture,
but we're back to talk about ourcrowdfund raising around that

(00:50):
we are doing at AdvancingEco-Agriculture.
I'm quite excited about it.
It's really an opportunity forus to participate with the
community.
Koen, really glad to have youback here to have this
conversation.
You know, as I grew up in anAmish community and as I've
developed more of a perspectiveon how society at large works as

(01:13):
compared to what I grew up with, I've come to gain a deep
appreciation for the power ofcommunity and what it really
means to be a community, tocontribute to each other's work
and to participate with eachother's work.
And many people around theworld or at least here in North
America that I see don't get toexperience that anymore.

(01:36):
They don't get to really reallydeeply appreciate and
understand what it means to havesymbiotic and collaborative
relationships with the peoplearound them.
So this is really beautiful.

Absolutely, and it's interesting.
We opened the follow-upconversation recently and we
don't talk about the currentcampaign because it wasn't live
yet.
But now we get to frame it abit before you go into that,
before we go and we take youlisteners into that.
But I would love to, in thisshort piece before, flip the

(02:10):
conversation a bit and ask you afew questions.
And I think the first one iswhy take the not saying
difficult route, but definitelyopen and transparent route?
Because in this campaign youcan see everything, you can see
the data, you can look behindthe scenes of your company.
And why did you take that route?
Because I don't think you had ashortage of people knocking on
the door wanting to invest,quote unquote and doing equity,

(02:32):
traditionally throwing money atyou.
I think that's the case.
But why did you choose toinvolve literally the community
to such an extent?
And it goes through quite youneed to go through quite a few
steps to raise from communityand though the technology now
makes it possible on theplatforms, et cetera, but still
it's not an easy, an easy stepand it's quite an open and

(02:54):
humble and potentially quitetransparent.

John Kempf (03:00):
Yeah, it's, the process has been intriguing,
that's for sure.
I think we certainly we havesomething at AEA that many
companies wish they would have,and that is we have the benefit
and the credibility of having atrack record of a decade and a
half of in depth experience inthe region X space.
Like you, look around and likewho else is in that category,

(03:22):
who else has that depth ofexperience?
And there's not very many, andso, to your point, we've had to
it still doesn't mean you shouldbe vulnerable and open yourself
up like that, like you couldalso just take a few funds that
you took to you and then say, oh, we raised 10 million, or we
raised X, and then continue togrow.
Yeah, I'm just reflecting on thepoint that you made of lots of

(03:45):
people having approaches Overthe years, which certainly has
happened.
But I think, look, I've oftenmade the point that regeneration
is fundamentally aboutregenerating relationships.
Whether you're regeneratingrelationships between soils,
microbes and plants, betweenlivestock and the landscape,

(04:05):
between people in the landscapeand the food supply webs,
whatever it is, regeneration isfundamentally about regenerating
relationships.
And so you have to ask well, ifyou're regenerating
relationships, what is?
What's the degenerative versionof a relationship?
And that's a relationship thatis very transactional and very

(04:25):
extractive, that you're notlooking for the other, you're
not looking out for the otherparticipants in other parties in
that relationship.
You're really seeking your ownbenefit and to optimize your own
gains as much as possible.
And this is in direct contrastto these biological systems
where we have what we callsymbiosis and symbiotic
relationships, synergisticrelationships, where organisms

(04:46):
support each other and help eachother out, and it's not
strictly transactionalrelationship.
And so I've always, for thelast several years, I've been
thinking deeply about what doesit mean and what does it look
like for us as an organizationat AEA, to not just do
regeneration but to beregenerative and to have
regeneration just hardwired intoour DNA, and a part of that

(05:13):
means having these symbiotic andsynergistic relationships with
our customers and with ouremployees and with the people
that we participate in and workwith, and it's like a typical
employee relationship could beconsidered very transactional
and very extractive you exchangetime for money and talent for
money or whatever it is.
Yeah, and the same is true of acustomer-supplier relationship.

(05:37):
It's very transactional I giveyou productX and you give me
money.
But we've wanted to develop muchdeeper, more authentic
relationships with that, andthis crowdfunding campaign was
the most administratively easyway for us to accomplish that
and to give the people we careabout the opportunity to
participate with AEAs Grow inthe future, and how does?

it manifest.
This is a very deep rabbit holeBeyond the funding piece.
Actually, the funding piece isfascinating because I've been
long amazed by people with alarge network or a large no, not
large network large communityaround them of customers or
clients that all have been in asymbiotic relationship and they
never asked this question Do youmaybe also, if you have the

(06:23):
means, want to financially getinvolved in the future of our
company or not?
That question somehow nevergets asked.
Now we have the chance to do itbecause their platforms do to
support and, of course, money isalways at risk.
But that be able to ask thatquestion is amazing.
But I actually want to ask asmall follow up question.
How does it manifest itself?
How do you think this isdifferent than raising from a

(06:47):
few impact funds or a few familyofficers or whatever approach
you before and maybe putting ina significant amount?
This could be significant alsofor people putting in a few
thousand, of course.
But how is this different, thiscrowd round, compared to maybe
another scenario where you wouldhave raised from the quote,
unquote traditional financeworld?
How do you see this different?

John Kempf (07:08):
Well, it is interesting to reflect on an
earlier point that you made.
It is interesting that we nowhave this opportunity for a
crowdfunding campaign of bosses.
This didn't exist, even what isit five years ago.
For years and years.
It wasn't even legal.
You couldn't raise money fromnon-accredited investors.
So if you have employees orcustomers who are not accredited

(07:30):
investors but this is the mostof us it is the best way to
participate.
That wasn't even a legalpossibility half a dozen years
ago.
So it is quite interesting thatwe now live in a climate where
this possibility exists.
But I think there are a fewanswers that come to mind to the

(07:51):
question that you asked us.
What are the differences?
The first is we have theopportunity now to be deeply
aligned with people who careabout our values, who care about
the things that we care aboutand who want to participate in
creating change in the world,and that can also happen with
investors, with VCs and so forth.

(08:12):
But even the VCs and theinvestors who care about making
an impact and making adifference still have a
fiduciary responsibility togenerate returns with the
investments that they make, andso there is still this inherent
bias towards the need to havethat be a transactional and an

(08:35):
extractive relationship.
So, just like we want to avoidhaving extractive relationships
between our growers and ouremployees and have symbiotic
relationships there, we alsowant to have symbiosis with
investors and with stakeholdersin the enterprise, and so I
think this has been aninteresting pathway for us to
think about how we canaccomplish that outcome.

And then you're a day in or less, probably no
more or less, a day in.
How do you feel?
Well, it's been tender.

John Kempf (09:06):
Go on again from.

Denver, ready to go to RFSI.
But how do you feel?

John Kempf (09:12):
I'll be on the stage at RFSI here in just a little
bit, but it's quite exhilarating.
So, for all of our listenerswho are listening in, we are
launching this campaign on aplatform called WeFundr and it
will include the link in theshow notes where you can access
that.
That is a platform thatfacilitates these types of

(09:33):
transactions, but WeFundr is notpublicly releasing what we are
doing to their investor audiencejust quite yet.
We're giving them a week, Ithink we have, until October 5th
or 6th or somewhere in there,where they're intending to
release that to that audience,because we preferentially and
specifically want to first giveexposure to people in the region

(09:55):
of agriculture space.
And so, yeah, yesterday morning, roughly 26 hours ago or
something like that, weannounced it for the first time
and gave our team and ourcustomers access to it, and
we're targeting 2.5 million.
We're open to oversubscriptions, but our target is
2.5 and we did 860,000 thefirst day and that feels a bit

(10:20):
like taking off like a rocket.
It's pretty exhilarating,congrats.

I know we want to keep this relatively short
you have a whole other hour withus after this, so don't worry
listeners and I want to wish youa lot of luck with the campaign
and, of course, a lot of fun atRfSI.

John Kempf (10:36):
Thank you, Koen and thanks to everyone listening in.
I really want to invite youcheck out our page on WeFundr,
check out what we're up to.
I really care about engagingwith all of you.
Many of you have listened toour work, you know about our
work, and so I really am excitedto have you participate with us
in a much more substantial way.
So thanks for all for you do,and now we're going to switch

(10:58):
over to the fun conversationthat I had with Koen three weeks
ago on the function and role ofCapital and Facilitating
Regenerate.
Thank you, Koen, have anawesome day.
Thank you, enjoy.
Hi friends, this is John andthis is the Regenerative
Agriculture Podcast.
Welcome back.
Here's where we talk aboutregenerative agriculture in all
of its many facets.
Part with a particular focus onagronomy, but we talk about

(11:21):
water and plant nutrition andbiologicals.
You've enjoyed many of ourconversations, but you've
recently.
In our most recent episode, Ihad a conversation with Anthony
Corsaro about the roles ofsupply webs and what is needed
to really create an off-takesignificant off-take in demand

(11:43):
for regeneratively grownproducts, and Anthony made a
very important comment that Ididn't want to lose sight of is
that the elephant in the room isthat we don't have enough
capital moving into this spaceto support the transition of
regenerative agriculture, notjust in farmland, but
particularly in these small CPGcompanies and so forth.

(12:03):
And so for a conversation today.
I'm really excited to have KonVensayan from the Investing in
Regenerative Agriculture podcast.
Cohen has been a good friendand deserves tremendous amount
of credit for really shapingthis conversation and shaping
the narrative of all theinvestment activity that is
happening in the region ofagriculture space over the last

(12:25):
four or five years.
So, cohen, welcome to thepodcast.
I'm really excited to have youhere.
I'd love to have you.
Just tell us a little bit aboutyour story and the work that
you, the scope of the work thatyou're doing.
You're doing so much and you'vedone so much for the last four
or five years.
Tell us what's been going on.

Thank you so much.
And thank you first of all forinviting me here.
We've had you twice on thepodcast and for sure it will be
other occasions, but it's been agreat pleasure listening to the
many episodes you've done.
I remember very recently theone with Charles Eisenstein, who
really hit home with me, and sothank you so much for having us
here and, of course, for beinga friend in the space and I

(13:04):
think I would say the same Iwould bounce it back to you in
terms of shaping this space.
We've had I think, both of usthe great pleasure to have so
many amazing people on air forsuch a long time.
So just a bit about me.
I'm not a farmer, so I'm gonnareally emphasize that
Immediately.
Was born in the city center ofRotterdam, which is a tiny city
or tiny, it's a medium city inthe Netherlands and I was always

(13:27):
interested in food and notnecessarily in agriculture, but
definitely in good food and overthe years started to look more
into it and, I would say, stayedmore on the slow food side of
things.
So if we just all would buyslightly better food than
everything, would be fine.
But I still vividly rememberreading an article now 12-13
years ago about holistic plantgrazing in Australia.

(13:49):
This was before Alan Savery wasfamous, before the TED talk and
all of that, and it talkedabout two people, bruce Wade and
Tony Lovell, who was both anaccount.
One account in, tony and Brucewas a trainer on holistic plant
grazing and they both,unfortunately, are no longer
with us.
But they talked about soil,they talked about grass, they
talked about grazing and theytalked about carbon and I really

(14:11):
got hooked by that little.
It was part, it was a chapter ina book, it wasn't even a full
article and I like the numbersthey were showing in the fact
that food and agriculture couldbe part of the solution, instead
of just a smaller, less dirtypart, let's say, of the problem
around climate change,biodiversity and all of that.
That really triggered me and Ireached out to Tony and he one

(14:31):
day passed through Amsterdambecause he was on his way to
Denmark to raise a lot of money,because this is where the money
part comes in as well.
At the end of the article orthe end of the chapter, they
mentioned somehow that theyweren't just want to be
consultants to farmers intransition, but they actually
wanted to raise money to buyland, regenerate it and make a
profit, and Tony was on his wayto Denmark to meet some pension

(14:53):
funds and basically, from thatmoment on, I started following
the space.
The space wasn't reallyexisting, but let's say the
space and what's the role ofmoney in this, in this
transition.
And I got really, reallyinterested in that and got very
surprised why the financialsector and this means family
offices which manage money forlarge families, which people
that just recently soldcompanies, even people that won

(15:15):
lotteries, etc.
Weren't really considering foodand agriculture that much.
And so I am not a big investormyself, as I'm not a farmer, but
I wondered what could be myrole in the space and what can I
add here, and basically startedrecording interviews around
that, or conversations aroundthat, I would say now six years
ago, and I've got, I think, safeto say, a bit out of hand now

(15:35):
250 episodes, 260s alreadyepisodes in, and we still have,
I think, another 500 to go.

John Kempf (15:42):
So, yeah, that's, that's a bit of the journey well
, I think a 500 to go is just aeuphemism for there's no visible
end in sight.

No, just wanted to make like a 2x on top of
that like 250 sounds.
Yeah, I would have neverimagined that, of course.
I mean we had a conversation onthat.
I never imagined would be inthis space, and we have the
extreme luck that we get peoplethat are doing stuff around
regeneration, regenerativeagriculture and food and on our
quote-unquote sofa where we canask them everything and why, how

(16:14):
, what they're doing, what arethe barriers, what are the
challenges, the opportunitiesand all of that.
So that's been, of course,exactly the right moment, the
right wave and, but extremelyfortunate.

John Kempf (16:24):
I think you deserve tremendous credit for your
continuous curiosity andlearning and sharing those
conversations online.
Because when I look at how thisis still a very early stage
space, but when I look at howthe space has evolved, when you
and I met at the RFSI conferencea year or two ago, I made the
comment that, from myobservation, from what I can
tell, I would say, your, yourwork and your podcast has

(16:48):
brought groups like the RFSIconference together, probably
three to five years earlier thanwhat would have happened
without your presence in thespace.
But I think you've, you've beensuccessful in accelerating the
conversation that much, and sothe entire farming community,
the entire space, owes atremendous debt of gratitude to
you.
So thank you for all thatyou've done.
Thank you.

I would never take that, that kind of credit,
but of course, if somebody tellsyou that, it's very nice to
hear.
But I I think we've beenextremely lucky at the right
timing.
Of course we kept going, wekept interviewing, but at the
same time you see the worldwaking up to the potential.
I think you're absolutely right.
We're super, super, super early, but at the same time I could
have never imagined some seriousfamily offices, some serious

(17:29):
foundation, some seriousinstitutional investors meaning
banks, pension funds, insurancecompanies that manage the real
large amount of money talkingabout regeneration and talking
about gender agriculture.
Is it the level we would like to?
Absolutely not.
Is it a start?
Yes, because five to I rememberten years ago and I talked to
investors about soil and yousort of saw their, their eyes

(17:50):
look away like okay, there mustbe some more interesting person
to talk to at a conference.
And that has changed, notbecause I became more
interesting, but because thewhole movement has changed and
we finally understand still very, very premature, but finally
understand the importance, likeprobably the most if you're
interested in health, if you'reinterested in inequality, if
you're interested in the bigquestions around land ownership,

(18:12):
if you're interested inbiodiversity, interested in
chemical, in fossil fuel climate, like you all, end up in on
soil at some point and and starttaking that more seriously like
we haven't really done.
So we cut the right wave.

John Kempf (18:27):
That's timing is everything your comment reminds
me of the signature that galefuller has on his email.
Soil is the answer.
What was the question?

yeah, and that's been tremendous,
tremendously interesting to playin this arena and to be at
places like RFSI and to and tobe there without having to build
a big fund, having to represent, having to farm and play the
role of connector, interviewerand following the space, and it
gives a huge amount ofresponsibility obviously as well

(18:57):
, but it's has been an amazingride and get me to places like
this well, it is a tremendousresponsibility, but also it
gives you a very I don't reallylike the word privileged in this
context, but to some degree aprivileged position in that you
have the opportunity to have allthese conversations and to be
kind of the the brain.
That is the nexus of all thisinformation coming together you
just keep going with these, withthis let's, let's load a

(19:20):
pressure pit for thisconversation, all right, but no,
we do get the chance to,because we're not running a farm
or a company like you are.
We get the chance andresponsibility because we have
time to to talk to a lot ofpeople and to try to connect the
brains and I like more even thehands, doing stuff with with
each other, which surprisinglyoften are not connected like

(19:41):
we've introduced people to eachother in this movement in
Australia and coming from veryfar.
That just doesn't make sense.
But at the same time, Iunderstand when you're deep in
quote-unquote the weeds andworking really hard on your farm
, on your fund, on your, yourcompany, your factory, then you
don't have time and so we, wetry to be that connector role,
that tissue, then mycelium orwhatever we want to call it so

(20:02):
as, as you've been on thisjourney and have learned about
the various leverage points tofacilitating change, I'd love to
just get your take from a bigpicture perspective.

John Kempf (20:13):
What is the role that capital can play in
facilitating adoption of region,of agriculture on scale?
Where do we need capital andthere's so many conversations
around money in agriculture thatyou alluded to.
So for us, particularly for ouraudience many of us are farmers
and agronomists what are thethings that we should be

(20:33):
thinking about and the impactthat money can have in the
landscape?

it's a really good question.
I would say the first thing torealize for for your audience or
in general, that there's a lotmore types of capital out there
than you would imagine.
I met I've had the privilege tomeet many, many farmers and for
many the only relationship tocapital is relatively extractive
and usually called a bank.

(20:57):
And let's say there's a worldof capital around there doesn't
mean you should take it, butthere is.
There is a growing amount ofdifferent types of capital
available for people that are intransition available, meaning
that you're taking a hugeresponsibility.
You're thinking someone else,someone else's money, put it to
work and it ideally goes backplus a return, and that's I

(21:18):
think.
The second point is you shouldreally wonder how dependent you
want to be on outside capital,like there is a.
Of course, many farmers aredependent on yearly loans and
operating capital etc.
But that's a risk and many haveunfortunately experienced the
negative side of that as well.
Like money is an extremelycapital, as you say, an
extremely powerful tool.

(21:39):
We've mostly used it we meaninggeneral society as a very
extractive one.
It has potential of beingregenerative when handled with
care or, let's say, when handledwith certain boundaries.
But it's very, very powerful.
So we should definitely see itas a tool that could be
destructive and could beregenerative.
It could be creating more lifeand I think, if we approach it

(21:59):
from that, assuming that most ofthe capital you will find on
your way will be on theextractive side so be careful.
There are definitely, and thereis a growing number of pools
which could be flexible loans,which could be interesting,
equity options which could be Isee them popping up every day or
almost every day in terms ofhow to enable farmers to to
transition faster, and I thinkthe faster piece here is is

(22:21):
fundamental.
It's an accelerator.
It's not gonna enable you tostart like if there's there's a
very big transition neededbetween your ears, which of
course, you help with with thepodcast and in the market sites
like where are you gonna sellthe input side, the advisory,
etc.
But capital is one of thosetools that can help accelerate,
but I would be wary of saying itis the most important or if

(22:43):
there was only more capital wewould go faster, because it is
quote-unquote, just a tool toaccelerate something that
hopefully should already begoing.
But it can definitely help.
It can definitely help you canbring forward things.
You can build larger compostfacilities.
Many things cost money in thisworld and planting trees is one
of them.
So if you want to go faster,money could be and I'm not
saying it's the only, but itcould be an option to accelerate

(23:05):
.
It's a few.

John Kempf (23:06):
It's a few of a process when you think about
money as a tool to accelerateand many, many farmers speak
about the need to have a teamaround them.
Their team includes theirfinancial support, their
agronomist support, theirtechnical advisors what their
veterinarian, for example?
So you have a team of supportaround the farm and finance and

(23:28):
money is usually a part of that.
You mentioned that money thathas certain boundaries around it
, its use and the way that isdeployed, can not feel or not
have an extractive relationshipto the same degree, but a truly
regenerative relationship.
Tell us a little bit about whatthat might look like.
What, what types of boundariesthis capital have around it to

(23:49):
transfer, to transition fromextractive capital to a more
relationship, collaborativerelationship type scenario.

Yeah sure I mean it could start with very
simple things like flexibility.
If you have certain loanagreements that are flexible in
terms of if it's a reallyobjectively badly year, let's
say there might be notimmediately a penalty or
immediately a need for arenegotiation, let's say light
adjustments.
We've had examples on thepodcast.

(24:20):
Of course, we've talked withthe people, mad agriculture, the
people behind the PerennialFund, which really started with
a profit sharing or revenueshare.
So that's really to sit on theside of the farmer and share the
revenue in good and bad, whichmeans if it's bad, there's not
much to share.
Obviously, profit sharing couldbe interesting there as well,
but they noticed that manyfarmers don't want to.

(24:40):
They were more interested atthe end of the day, which is
interesting because we asinvestors and people coming from
finance in the city reallyimagine, oh, this would be
amazing for XYZ.
And then, of course, at the endof the day, the reality is
different.
So that was very interesting tosee that they adjusted back and
basically pivoted to arelatively straightforward but
still very flexible loanagreement with a fixed payment

(25:02):
instead of the profit sharing,where, from almost like a value
perspective, we could say, okay,it's better to sit on the side
of the with the farmer.
If there's a lot of profit, weshare.
If there's none, we don't.
Of course you have to model itwell, et cetera.
But actually many farmers justwanted the security or wanted to
know what they would be paying.
So you have those kind ofmodels and then we interviewed a
farmer in Australia that boughtthe neighbor's land and

(25:24):
basically this is more on theextreme side.
They wrote a holistic contexttogether with the investor,
which is a large family in ourlarge wealthy family could be a
small family in Australia andthey decided that a single
interest rate point wasn'treally going to work for them.
Because what if it was a reallybad year and they had to
destock?
This was a livestock operationor is a livestock operation?

(25:46):
They were incentivized if theystill had to pay 5678, whatever
the percentage was, then theywould not completely destock,
would hurt the land in a verydry year, which of course
Australia has been having, andbasically hurt the underlying
asset.
So they decided to make aformula based on two things
based on the rain, so thepresentation every year, and the
ground cover.

(26:06):
So one thing they could controlpartly, which was ground cover,
and one thing they couldn't,which of course was the weather
and based on that it, like aninterest rate or an rate came
out of that in really good yearswould be pretty high and really
bad years would be zero.
And meaning that the farmer saidI'm incentivized to completely
destock and take care of ourshared asset, which is the land.
Of course, he also said ask meagain in 10 years to see how

(26:29):
this works.
We're working with him to seeif we can share the terms of
this or that formula.
So hopefully that there will beable to share soon, because
it's one of the first I've heardto really align investor with
farmer and immediately have towarn all the listeners it's very
rare you find an investor thatis able, also mentally and
education wise, to go that farbut already writing a list of

(26:51):
context together already.
But that's what we need.
We need more experimentation onthis side and we need more
farmers that wanted.
We need more investors thatwant to take a step in that
direction and see, okay, how canwe move beyond the very
standard agreements that we justhaven't really been working,
let's say, to speed up thetransition.

John Kempf (27:09):
When you think back on your journey over the last
half a dozen years and the manyconversations you've had, what
are some of the really memorablestories and experiences that
stand out to you that you recallvery clearly?

I mean still remember vividly, of course,
getting into the space on thecarbon side, but then more
recently over the last years,seeing that carbon is only a
very small part of the story.
Of course there's all theexcitement around selling the
soil, carbon credits and all ofthat, but if you notice our

(27:42):
latest interviews and the lastyear or two, we have rarely paid
attention to that, simply notbecause I don't think it's going
to be a part of the story inthe toolbox.
But I just see more hype thansubstance there and instead
being getting much moreinterested in the water side of
things.
So the water cycle and Idefinitely have to shout out to

(28:04):
the D Swartz who wrote, I think,water in Plain Sight and, of
course, a book on cows Cows toSave the Planet I'm pushing the
titles here, but both of themamazing, really learned a lot
and really put me on the path,especially the water one, to
dive deeper into that.
We're now making a full seriesif water is more important than

(28:26):
carbon, and it's been anabsolute pleasure to see how the
climate science has been mainlyfocused on carbon.
But actually, if you go back notso long ago, it was focused on
land use and carbon.
We sort of lost that first bitof land use and now the work is
happening to get it back intothe climate science piece and
the cooling effect on water,landscape scale regeneration all

(28:47):
those kind of magical things.
I'm very interested in that.
That's been amazing to do thisseries with Dr Mian Mian, who
has been advocating for this Ithink he's 85 now and finally
getting some recognition now,which is better late than never,
but still a bit sad and alsoPractitioners in the Space Neils

(29:09):
Spachmann, if you don't knowhis work, google Permaculture
and Saudi Arabia and you get avideo which has been remarkable.
And Tis van der Hoeven, who'sworking on the Sinae restoration
and things like that.
That's really been a veryhopeful scale potential impact
piece and something that I seevery much neglected in any media

(29:32):
and also in the regenerativespace.
Honestly.

John Kempf (29:34):
I think you used a very appropriate adjective the
magic, the magical potentialthat exists from regenerating
the small water cycle at anecosystem level.
It's also a topic I've beeninterested in for a long time.
Have you come across PeterAndrews' work?
He wrote a really interestingbook.

I heard his name.

John Kempf (29:54):
Yeah, he's a rancher from Australia who has
understood water cycles ingroundwater and water
hydrological landscapes perhapsbetter than anyone I've ever
read.
He wrote a fascinating booktitled Back from the Brink.

I think one of our guests I'm blanking on the
name mentioned.
We should absolutely interviewhim as well.

John Kempf (30:12):
We should yeah, and then there's also Peter Wolleben
, who he wrote several differentbooks Of the book of the trees.
Yeah, yeah, the tree, the tree.

Twisperer perhaps doesn't seem quite right
yeah or the social network oftrees, something like that, if
trees could talk or trees cantalk something.
Anyway, that's been an amazingone as well.

John Kempf (30:30):
Yeah, it's really remarkable to all of a sudden,
this phenomena that we have ofthe rain shadow east of the
Rockies, and it makes yourealize in the history we read
how in Greek and Roman times theSahara Desert was a rainforest.
Where you could, the story isthat you could cross all of

(30:51):
northern Africa On foot withoutever coming out from underneath
the shade of a tree.
And today that's the SaharaDesert.
That's only a few thousandyears ago, couple thousand years
ago.
And so it makes you realizethat, in fact, if you interrupt
that small water cycle and thosefirst couple hundred miles from
the eastern seaboard, you'veeffectively turned to the rest
of the continent into a desert.

(31:12):
And when you look at how thatdesert is just continuing to
grow and continuing to spreadand migrate.
And the same is true in theAmerican Southwest where we have
desertification we damaged ordisrupted our small water cycle
on the southwestern coast inCalifornia and northern Mexico,
and now that desert is justmoving up through the American
Southwest and continuing toconstantly expand because of the

(31:33):
way that we're mismanagingthose landscapes.

Yeah, that triggers with me.
It triggers one piece of hope,like we are the keystone species
that did that.
We might be able to turn itaround.
It also gives me a piece ofalmost not scaredness, but
something like okay, let's sayyou're farming there or you're
investing in a farm, or you'revery and like, whatever you do,
unless you restore the watercycle in the full landscape

(31:59):
enough, you'll be sort offighting against a war you
cannot win, because the size ofyour landscape like if your
watershed is moving towardsdesertification, like whatever
you do on your piece of landwill have a lot of impact, but
still you're dealing with lessrain, less color, like, unless
you're enormous.
So there's also the piece ofyour force too, which is very
helpful but also very difficultto think beyond your farm gate

(32:21):
and to think beyond your pieceof land, even if it's enormous.
In New York, australia, you own100,000 hectares.
Still it's probably not enoughto affect it.

John Kempf (32:29):
I don't know, Cohen.
I've had this question of whatis the minimal scale that is
necessary to really be effective, and the one example that's
widely known is Alex Carrillo,from the Chihuahua Desert in
Mexico, who is, I forget, now13,000 acres, who has, without
question, significantly alteredthe local ecosystem.
At a scale of 13,000 acres.

(32:50):
I mean, yes, it's still big,but in a desert environment
that's really not that big.

Yeah, that's true, that's true, and I think
we're going to see now.
And that's where I'm excitedand I keep asking this question
as well to people like or havewe seen our quote, unquote
iPhone moment?
Not that that's the best thingto compare to, but like, is it
different now?
And I think investors oftenshould ask that question and are
asking okay, great, we've knownthis for a long time.
Another one is nutrient density.
We can get to a bit as well,but we've known this for a while

(33:18):
now and actually some of thescience goes back a long time.
Some of it is indigenousknowledge which is going back
forever.
So what is different now?
Why should I invest now in thisspace and not just wait until
the moment is right or untilmore things are in place?
And maybe now is the moment?
Because we have some pieces oftechnology, because we're, we
have modeling power and thisrear computer power to figure

(33:38):
out okay, where's the 13,000acres that are the most
important one to do?
First, because we have limitedresources.
There's a lot of money butstill very limited resources.
So where do you go first?
In a full landscape or awatershed, like, what are the,
the first notes we have to, orthe levers.
We have to plant first andchange first and then move
around to start to kickstartthat process.
And I think there's a hugeknowledge piece missing, like

(34:01):
because we all think about, okay, this is a piece of soil, this
is a field, this is the hectare,et cetera, but not think, okay,
what does this mean in a fullwatershed and why?
Or should I focus my attentionfirst, and then I'm not saying,
let's not do the rest, but whereto go first with limited
resources, limited time tokickstart the system?
Is it closer to the water body?
Is it a bit further?
Is it closer to the mountainrange?

(34:21):
I have no idea what species?
What is the fastest trigger?
Because we're running out oftime.
But those questions, I think,are going to be solved by
entrepreneurs and going to besolved by companies more than
NGOs, governments, et cetera,and I would love to be able to
interview them, follow them.
However magical they mightsound like, a few of them are
going to be very, very right andwe, like we all, deserve to pay

(34:44):
attention to them.
No, we, they deserve to be paidattention to them and back them
with whatever resources we have.

John Kempf (34:49):
Yeah, Do you have any other?
You mentioned Neil Spachman'swork and others like that.
Do you have any other examplesof the magical possibilities
that people should be payingattention to?

Yeah, I would say the work of Mila me and me
on mainly around theMediterranean.
Mediterranean Sea is a veryspecific water body and he's
been documenting it's ascientist from Valencia, but it
was a work in Canada for a longtime why the rains have been
missing the afternoon rains, thesummer rains that always
basically fell onto especiallythe Spanish side of things and

(35:23):
then and he basically documentedbecause of the huge tourism
development at the coast, thewetlands disappeared and then
everything else was cleareduntil up to the mountain range.
And I think now he's gettingattention.
He's also the one that reallypushed the story on why the
water cooling effect is soimportant and not only carbon.
He's no longer going to do it.

(35:44):
I think he's 86 or 85, like Imentioned before, but I see I
can imagine in Spain people aregoing to figure out.
Okay, in this watershed or thismountain range, from the coast
up to the mountain, there's verycheap land available, mostly
being abandoned up close to thehill where the clouds go up.
If I can convince some peoplein down with the hotels and all

(36:04):
the development, to take outsome of the concrete or to
somehow make it not a wetlandagain but enough to help the
clouds recharge.
I can imagine people are goingto make a business out of that
and wait for five, six, sevenyears until the water cycle, the
small water cycle, is restoredand your trees that you planted
at that time or seven years agowill be rainfed again.

(36:24):
You basically created your ownirrigation.
You can plant rain, which iswhere you can plant water, which
is such a powerful, crazy,magical statement to make, but I
think people are going to takethat.
So Spain, definitely the CNI issuper interesting with these
and the weathermakers, anddefinitely Google that If you're
interested in that.
There's a fascinating articlein the Guardian about them.

John Kempf (36:43):
I'm sorry, let's go back the weathermakers.

Yeah, the weathermakers are working on
basically re-greening the CNIdesert, which is between Egypt
and Israel, and basicallytriggering a whole that used to
be the Garden of Eden andtriggering a whole set of
effects on that whole region,which have, of course, been
suffering from extrememismanagement of landscapes.

(37:06):
Let's say it's very ambitious.
It's not an easy place, but ifanybody deserves support to try
and let's see if it worksbecause it is desert, mostly
desert now let's back them.
And they had a long piece inthe Guardian newspaper from the
UK basically saying maybe whatwe missed is not necessarily
money but imagination that thiscould work.
And I think we missed that inmany places, like Newspac, when

(37:28):
we had a long interview with himlike why is it not easy to
raise money for these kind ofthings?
Because we sort of cannot evenimagine that desert could turn
green or that it used to be likeyou said the Sahara used to be
not so long ago this is reallynot long ago in our time frame
Like that fact that we missedthat.
It's very difficult then towire money into something like
that because you just cannotimagine that could even work,

(37:48):
because we're so used to seeingthe great landscapes.

John Kempf (37:52):
Yeah, I think this in my mind, this really is the
work Like in our work that we'redoing at Advancing Eco
Agriculture and helping tosupport farmers.

it's actually this is a conversation that has
come up with a couple of ourteam members repeatedly, they
will probably think it's magicalwhat you do, Like that sounds
too good to be true and then youlost them.
You're like how do you do thatthen?
How do you make sure you'resort of downplay the effect and
make sure they try?

John Kempf (38:13):
Yeah, we have incredible stories and successes
with our team, but our teaminternally there's a few members
that keep coming back andsaying John, yeah, we're having
so much fun, we're doing amazingwork, but when are we going to
start regenerating wholelandscapes and whole at an
ecosystem level?
It's like this is really thework.
This is the work of thiscentury really, and the next
couple of decades.

(38:33):
This is the place where we needto be focusing.

And what do you think then is the strategy to
work farmer by farmer until youget a critical mass in a
landscape and critical mass alsoof consciousness and of
probably also financial let'ssay financial profitability or
at least calmness that you canthink about these things.
Of course, if you live inpaycheck by paycheck, it's not
going to think about my amazingwatershed restoration, but what

(38:56):
do you see there?
Have you seen some landscapesgoing into that mode of like?
What happens if we think aboutthe whole landscape?
Or are we still too early?

John Kempf (39:04):
We very seldom have the.
We very seldom have a nexus ofenough scale to produce
ecosystem benefits that we'reobserving.
Yeah, the density is not thereat this point.
There's a few local regionswhere I think that is, we're
right on that threshold and it'sinteresting to see what is
happening in this.

(39:24):
Actually, going back to a pointthat you made about carbon,
it's we really need toregenerate water cycles and not
just focus on carbon, but froman agronomic or an agricultural
perspective, I think WalterYanin says it well.
He says, yes, we do need tosequester carbon, but not to get
the carbon out of the air, butto regenerate the water cycle.

Yeah, no, Walter, we had him is one of the
other, but I was already in thejourney with Judith, but I
think he was one of the onesthat kickstarted that or
accelerated sorry, it's a betterword accelerated a process,
with us at least.
What an amazing communicatorand storyteller, and scientists
as well.
They've endlessly pushes on thewater cycle restoration, even

(40:03):
though the rest of the world isstill on the carbon funnel.

John Kempf (40:07):
I very serendipitously happen to live
at a home where we have a smallriver about a half a mile to
both the east and the west of us, and we're surrounded by this
eastern hardwood forest, sowe're in a very water-rich
environment and this this summerwe have had the most beautiful,
incredible weather, like theseconsistent, beautiful rainstorms

(40:29):
and thunderstorms every four tofive days.
It's like you couldn't benefitfrom irrigation in this
environment and and also one ofthe phenomena that we've had had
.
We've lived here for threeyears now and at first I was
surprised and I'm now only nowstarting to get used to it.
We have this very heavy fogalmost every night.

(40:51):
I'd say six nights out of seven, pretty easily.
We have this very heavy fogthat lasts.
It's low to the soil surface,doesn't even go up to the
treetops, but it just in theopen cleared areas.
It's maybe 15 to 20 feet talland it stays there the entire
night.
It comes up in the evening anddisappears again at sunrise.

(41:12):
And that's given me a lot tothink about, because I'm
thinking about okay, how do we,how do we develop this property?
I'd like to eventually perhapsstart a berry farm, perhaps do
some grapes and some raspberriesand various crops.
The conventional thought processis that that constant humidity,
that constant moisturerepresents a threat, because it

(41:34):
creates an environment that isconducive to disease.
But, as I was thinking aboutthis, you know what if we?
What if we change thatnarrative?
What if we need to beginthinking about that this
differently?
Because one of the things thatwe know is that the absorption
of nutrients through foliagehappens extraordinarily
efficiently and rapidly when theleaves are moist, and so you

(41:58):
have the opportunity for lots ofabsorption of nutrients through
the foliage, and I'm just I'mobserving the plants, I'm
watching the plants grow, andit's like an eastern rainforest,
like you could.
You could legitimately callthis an eastern rainforest, and
so it's really given me a lot tothink about.
Just to your point of inspiringthe imagination, like we need to
begin imagining what couldthese ecosystems look like if

(42:20):
they were functioningdifferently, and so, yeah, I
I've got a lot of dreams abouthow this might evolve in the
next three to five years and howwe might begin farming this,
but perhaps, perhaps we developa system to spoon feed nutrients
through foliage a couple nightsa week anyway.
I could go on and on, but I'llpause there, though.

(42:41):
The point I wanted to make,though, is that many of us to
just echo the point you madeearlier many of us have a
difficult time imagining whatthese water rich ecosystems and
environments and landscapesmight look like, because we
haven't experienced them and wedon't.
It's hard to imagine somethingyou've never observed.

Yeah, and then imagine if you're not living on
the land, not farming every day,and you're managing wealth, and
we can have a whole discussionof if that's fair or not to have
so much concentrated wealth inthe hands of a few.
But the truth is that thecurrent system or that's at
least what we have to deal withnow like if you live in the city
or even if you live on in thecountryside but you're not

(43:22):
farming every day, then to havethat, to take the step and
really understand what alandscape could look like, is
even further away from youcompared to if you're.
You're deep into the subject,etc.
So we should.
Another point to make about thefinancial world is there's a
lot of education needed.
There's a lot of educationneeded both on the farming side
and the farmers, for what andfinance would look like, but

(43:45):
also in the finance world, whatis even possible and what is
normal and what is not normal.
And so we are really at thebeginning of of this journey of
landscapes and agriculture andfood production could look like.

John Kempf (43:55):
And and I'm not saying we should go into La La
Land and just imagine and dreamonly, but it would help, because
we are really stuck in manyvery, very reductionist
approaches, both on finance andscience and on farming, and just
doesn't help us very much well,the this conversation we've

(44:16):
just been having is aboutlooking at, looking at the water
cycle and looking at the, theinteraction between the water
cycle and the landscape, from aholistic context, and the
scientific method doesn't lenditself very well to agriculture
generally because it wants toobsess with generally, with
single-factor analysis and onlylooking at single-factor changes

(44:36):
in isolation, which justdoesn't work in biological
systems, nor does the financialworld, which only wants to look
at one number usually, which isthe return, maybe a bit on the
risk side, but we're not verygood at that.

Imagine we had a third, which is impact, and
just things get very, verycomplicated and yet.
But that's where we need it,but that's where we need.
We need, I mean, and I'm veryconvinced and I see it happening
every day, we see a wave ofpeople actually that have
experience elsewhere, meaningthat build companies that might
sold companies, they'veexperienced with getting stuff
done and they're getting superexcited about food and

(45:08):
agriculture.
I think that's what we reallyneed.
Our podcast helps them to getup to speed or what's happening,
who to reach out to, what'smissing, where to work or what
to start building in terms ofcompanies, etc.
And we really need that becausewe miss just more people in the
space, more people that obsessover watershed restoration and
what kind of financial tools wecan build around that, etc.

(45:29):
Because I am very convincedthat in the near future, many
more the financial world orother people will wake up to the
potential of regeneration as awhole.
So there will be a lot ofattention for the sector.
It will be a lot of interest toput money to work and we always
ask the question on the podcastwhat would you do?
You probably had the bestprepared answer, actually with a
billion dollars, but I askingit because it's not a joke, like

(45:52):
I get people reaching out withwhich managing significantly
more than that, and they want toget involved and they just
don't know where to start.
They don't know what to do andunless we and I'm saying
generally we as a sector, givethem the infrastructure, the
tools to put that money to work,to put some of it really to
make significant change, theywill go somewhere else because
money needs to work and we'll goto another sector and we'll go

(46:13):
to some fancy power points andwe need to and the attention is
not so strong yet, but we need,when it comes and it starts to
build up, when significantplayers start to want to deploy,
we need to be ready.
We need to be ready to ride 100million, to accept 100 million
plus checks and to put it towork in a way that makes
significant change in the soil,significant change for farmers

(46:35):
and local communities, andthat's going to be a very tense
tension, like intense.
But we need to be ready forthose questions because they're
going to come and the pressureand tension and resources will
flow to the sector becausethere's simply no other way.

John Kempf (46:49):
We can get health outcomes, we can get climate
outcomes, we can get wateroutcomes, we can get
biodiversity outcomes when youthink about the, the tension
that that will create, and andthe, the need to be prepared to
accept those hundred milliondollar checks, where do you see
the areas of opportunity forgrowers today?
How do we as an industry, howdo we move, how do we evolve to

(47:11):
be prepared to accept thosehundred million dollar checks
and bigger?

it's a good question.
I don't think individual growth, I mean, depending on your size
, what we'll deal with that kindof numbers.
Maybe luckily, because itbrings enormous pressure as well
.
But I think you mentionedAnthony Coursera already before
there's a layer above or beyondthat in terms of CPG brands, in
terms of people that are aregonna process and sell these
kind of the materials and thesupplies coming from your farms.

(47:37):
There there's a lot ofopportunity for growth and a lot
of shortage of money right nowbecause it's very difficult to
build a CPG brand, obviouslywith a lot of risks.
So I think there's a lot ofspace there to invest in a way
that then flows back to the farm, meaning much better offtake
agreements.
We've talked about it before aswell.
But we can endlessly talk aboutthe financials of a farm, but
if you don't somehow capturesome of the value you create for

(47:59):
the outside world throughcarbon, through water, through
premiums, through quality,through flavor I'm just naming
five, but it must be more it'sgonna be very, very, very
difficult.
Just with input costs alonegoing lower, like just with
reducing your input costs, it'sgonna be very difficult to
become financeable forindividual farms not impossible
at all, but difficult, and so Ithink we, for those amounts, we

(48:20):
should look more upstream ordownstream, whatever you want to
look at it beyond the farm gate.
That's not to say that theremight be investment ways to
bundle 5-10 farms into somehowpay for water outcomes with this
.
Those kind of mechanisms couldbe outcome-based payments,
schemes, could be many, manythings.
But I'm not saying here let'sput a hundred million into one
farm because it usually goeswrong and so much concentration.

(48:42):
But I think we should start tothink about what if an insurance
company, they don't move withless than a hundred million, and
so do we want to engage withthat?
And if we want to, what does itlook like?
And how do we make sure wedon't repeat the same extractive
tensions and concentration thatthe sector, the financial
sector, usually pushes towards.
But it goes to be processing.

(49:02):
But maybe my main answer tothat would be make sure you
organize, make sure it's notindividual farmers will be
played out by the system very,very easily.
So it could be cooperative,could be co-owned facilities,
could be processing, could be,because all of that is very,
very needed.
Could be machinery.
But make sure you organizeyourselves because you don't
want to be a single one to deal.

(49:24):
Maybe you're never gonna dealwith a large investor if you're
just between brackets, onefarmer.

John Kempf (49:29):
So I think organization and making sure
more money comes back to thefarm is the single, is the big
driver there, and it could bethrough other machinery
processing, setting up brandstogether whatever is needed in
your context to to make sure youhave more freedom and more
independence and more agencyyeah, it's such an important

(49:49):
point, cohen, and I completelyagree with you in that we have
the narrative that has reallyinspired many people to begin
farming regeneratively over thelast four or five years is that
of reducing inputs, increasingprofitability, reducing inputs
and even in our work at AEA, wehave a fairly very consistent
tracker of being able to helpincrease yields while reducing

(50:10):
input costs at the same time,and so if that pattern continues
for the foreseeable future andI have no reason to expect
otherwise then that means theregenerative producers are very
rapidly become the low-costproducers, but that is not the
pathway to long-term success inhealing relationships you want
that yeah yeah, it's well.

(50:31):
It's healthy on one side of theledger, but we also need to to
decommod ties ourselves and weneed to make sure that we are
not just producing commodityfoods, because if, as long as we
are producing commodities, evenif we become the low-cost let's
let's just imagine for a momentthat we're 15 years down the
road and we have now 80% offarmers producing a given crop

(50:54):
have adopted these regenerativeagriculture management practices
.
Now you've again balanced outand everyone is now equally a
lower-cost producer, but you'restill competing for the same
commodity price point.
Who's gonna take that?
lower cost it's not you don'tworry yeah yeah, it's not the
farmer, and so the the pointthat you're making is, I think,
extremely important, in that weneed to collectively work

(51:17):
together and figure out how todecommod our ties ourselves by
whatever mechanism and meansthat might be for our given
farming operation enterprise,and its ownership and its, its
control and its agency and it'sgetting out of the.

Because that gets to the nutrition piece as
well, which for sure will cover.
But like, if you're amazinglygrown regenerative practices,
all of it high quality, flavorand nutrient density through the
roof goes into an extremelyprocessed ready-to-eat meal.
Are you gonna be very happywith that?
Apart from that, you'reprobably not gonna get paid very
well for that.
But like, what's the?
Are you growing food?

(51:52):
Like there's a very fundamentalpiece there to wrestle with.
Like it's not easy todecommodify, obviously,
otherwise we've done it and butit doesn't mean we shouldn't
really engage, because what yousaid really restoring
relationships start there andstarts with not being a
commodity, because you can readbe replaced by whoever day and
I'm using day very deliberatelyhere can find wherever else

(52:14):
cheaper for by ascent, andyou'll be replaced in a second.
And yeah, that's that's not aneasy message and not an easy
path, because it means gettinginto all kinds of other sectors
that you're probably not used toin terms of processing,
ownership, all of that.
But I think it's a fundamentalone if we want to have also
rural prosperity and local jobs,all of that.

John Kempf (52:35):
We need to really wrestle with this elephant so
several times in thisconversation you've mentioned
nutrient density in the contextof decommoditizing and of a
pathway forward.

It's another series we're very happy with.
Yeah no it's, it's.
I was a maybe slightly lessexciting than the magic of water
cycle restoration.
To be honest, the small watercycle, but at the same time,
that connection healthy soil,healthy produce, healthy gut
system, healthy people and, ofcourse, healthy ecosystems.
Could that be, and that's thebig question we try to answer

(53:06):
could that be the key to unlocklarger consumer demands than
just the soil?
Carbon geeks that we are andthat question is still out there
we don't know what gets youexcited about nutrient density,
I mean listening toconversations you had with with
Dan Kedridge of the BionutrientFood Association, and that
really got me on this path aswell.
I mean the potential again ofdecommodification and the

(53:29):
potential of health, not onlyfor me personally, for my family
, obviously, but also, I think,the potential of many more
people being interested ineventually soil because they're
interested in health, becausethey're interested in their
health and their, their family'shealth.
I think the potential ofreaching more people that are
willing to pay or even tocertain, not not paying even a

(53:50):
premium, but to search forsomething specific because they
know that tomato has x times theamount of phytonutrients you
need, or x times, or this tomatois not that tomato.
I think that's another one ofthose imagination or visions or
consciousness we need to get tolike.
This potato is different fromthat potato depending on the way
it was grown depending on where, etc.
This tomato is different, thispiece of beef is different.

(54:13):
This like thatdecommodification piece.
There I'm excited about it, notonly because of my health and
because it shows that flavorsconnected to taste and of course
it's connected taste tonutrient density, to soil, but
also because of the potentialthat I'm imagining that most
people, he would ask, are atleast more interested in health
than they are interested in inwater cycles by diversity and

(54:35):
soil carbon.

John Kempf (54:37):
Well, when you think about it, you use the word
imagining quite a few times inthat answer, which is, I think,
very appropriate, becauseobviously we have to imagine the
better world that our heartsknow is possible, as Charles
would say.
So when I imagine, what could afuture possibility if we fully

(54:57):
invested and I don't meaninvested money, but if we as a
society collectively investedemotionally in the concept of
nutrient density, what mightthat future look like?
Imagine a space where, at thegovernmental level, we had the
USDA and FDA and NIH allcoordinating to produce and to

(55:19):
incentivize the production offood that had medicinal value
and would prevent us frombecoming ill and reduce our
dependency on drugs.
And there's a lot ofmotivations for this from a
collective productivityperspective, from a reduced
healthcare cost perspective.
There are benefits here forinsurance companies, medical

(55:42):
insurance and life insurance andso forth, and so there's so
many incentives.
But of course there are a fewindustries that would be left
completely outside of thateconomic benefit, at least as it
currently exists, andprincipally agribusiness and
pharmaceuticals are the twoobvious ones that come to mind.

They're often the same as well, interestingly
enough.
No, no, I think that's why Iget excited, because this is
such a big shift economically,which will have such benefits
for us, like our planetaryhealth, our personal health and
our farm health, and so itdeserves all the attention and
all the investments and all thegrants it can get into to see

(56:22):
how can we unlock thatconsciousness, that interest,
and that on the institutionallevel, the farming level, but
also the consumer level and, ofcourse, the companies level.
I think there's a big piecethere that we're going to see
food as medicine companies andwe're going to see a lot of BS
as well, unfortunately.
I'm sorry, but it's also goingto be very interesting to see if
the consumers are moreinterested in that than another

(56:43):
certification, for instance.

John Kempf (56:45):
I have to wonder, if I take this one step further,
like how would our society lookdifferent, how would our culture
be different, if people werevibrantly healthy and mentally
focused and sharp and clear as asociety?
And I have this interestingperspective in that I grew up
and I'm still a part of an Amishcommunity the fourth largest

(57:05):
Amish community in the worldwhere certainly the food culture
is not what it once was, but itis still generally true that it
is a much cleaner and healthierand higher quality food culture
than society at large.
And I look at this particulargroup of people that I'm
surrounded with and also the, tosome degree, you could almost

(57:26):
call it an echo chamber, theecho chamber of regenerative
farmers that I'm surrounded withand that I get to interact with
every day.
And here is a group of peoplewho are generally very concerned
about health, who are verymentally sharp, focused, alert.
They prioritize buildingvaluable, healthy relationships
with each other, with theirfamily, with their community,

(57:47):
and I contrast that with societyat large, which is drugged up,
eating crap and increasingly hasa dysfunctional yeah, feeling
crap and it's I think you couldcall it a failure of culture, a
dysfunctional culture, wherepeople are fighting with each
other more than they arebuilding community, and I mostly

(58:09):
I'm speaking in very broad,sweeping generalities, and none
of these things are universallytrue.

I don't start sending emails, please.

John Kempf (58:17):
No, do, do.

No, I think it's fascinating.
I think there's an underlyinglike how can we be happy
culturally as well and have deepwork done, if we're not healthy
and well fed?
And not well fed in terms ofcalories, because for the most
part, we figured it out and nowthe question is how to go beyond
that.
So that's what I'm excitedabout because of it's like there

(58:40):
are two sides of the same coin,because we cannot imagine what
a healthy ecosystem looks like,probably unless we walk in a
jungle somewhere and we think,oh, this is interesting.
But we can also almost notimagine what a healthy except
for a few pockets here and therewhat a healthy human population
or human ecosystem looks like,because for the most part, I
think we're just not.

John Kempf (58:59):
Yeah, exactly, you know it's interesting.
I've never thought of it quitein the way that you framed it,
but it's very true.
One of the comments I've mademany times is that many of us,
as farmers, don't really knowwhat healthy plants look like
anymore.
We've never gotten theopportunity to experience them.
Yeah, You're saying that's truefor a human population as well
and for ecosystems.
And yeah, it's absolutely thecase.

So I don't know how to unlock that, of course,
but I do know with the podcast,and we want to follow the
pioneers, follow the people thatare building things in this
space, and they will fail aswell and they will hit walls,
etc.
But we want to be able tofollow that because I think we
owe it to them and owe it to allof us to really double down on
that piece of health.

John Kempf (59:42):
One thing that's interesting, cohen, about all of
our journeys as individuals isthat when we're paying attention
and we're alert, we all developour own unique perspectives and
our own unique points of view.
I believe that, generally,almost everyone knows multiple
things that I don't know that Iwould probably benefit from

(01:00:03):
knowing that they have differentpoints of view on than I do, so
I'd like to ask you thisquestion what do you believe to
be true about agriculture thatis different from the mainstream
point of view?
Where do you have a perspectivethat is very different from
those you commonly encounter?

Koen van Seijen (01:00:17):
I guess of course you've got to ask this.
I usually put your question aswell and use it in a slightly
different way on the podcast,but I always quote you my
mainstream.
Do you mean mainstream food andegg like really main mainstream
or within region?

John Kempf (01:00:29):
Both you can answer the question twice as far as I'm
concerned.

Let's start with mainstream.
I think there's, and in thefinance, well, there's an
interesting piece as well, andwe somehow it's not the most
imaginary answer, probably, butthat farming could be profitable
and of course, many of yourlisteners will be very
profitable and I'm happy forthem.
But I think in mainstreamfinance and somehow also, the
story we've been tellingourselves is that farming is
struggling and money is notthere.

(01:00:55):
Definitely it's in the landmaybe, but not elsewhere.
And if we keep repeating thatstory we meaning the general we
then it's going to be verydifficult to convince people
that farming could be profitable.
We see these examples of someand we always like, think it's
magic or they got something forfree, or not saying it's easy
and you definitely have toinvest a lot in ownership,
processing, marketing, saleschannels, value webs and all of

(01:01:16):
that.
But it's definitely possible,let's say, to make money with
farming, and I think that I'mgoing to call it a myth, let's
say, is holding us back, eventhough we have an enormous depth
to pay to the soil, to theclimate.
There's a Sally Cowhoun with afamous investor in the space and
a grand maker we've had on thepodcast and said, yeah, we've
been extracting so much that,yes, there's a depth to pay.

(01:01:37):
But I'm absolutely convincedthat over time, after a
transition period, however longthat might take, interesting
returns are there and I think weshould repeat that because
otherwise we always people lookat agriculture and food of like,
oh yeah, these are.
This is something I should do,but I'm not really interested
from a financial perspective.
But it also should be part ofmy portfolio and we want people
to be excited about it becausethere are opportunities to make

(01:01:59):
good money.
I'm not saying crazy money,never trust crazy money.
Crazy returns like alwaysdelete the deck where you get a
very crazy return, but there'sgood money to be made in the
sectors.
I would definitely take that asan answer for the mainstream
and if I've been going to theVGN part, I think single
solutions is tricky.
I get so many emails and we'vebeen ignoring them, not ignoring

(01:02:20):
our always answer, but like asingle input that's going to
change the world biochar isgoing to change everything, or
just technology or software isgoing to make everything
different.
I think the single thing that'sgoing to change everything and
mentality in startups in generaland companies in general, but
also in the regenerative foodand agriculture space is just
not true and dangerous.
And yeah, I lost like patiencea bit with that.

I think, like it's like there's going to be a suite
of tools.

And even if there was one thing, we wouldn't
be smart enough to pick, itprobably.

In biological systems there is very seldom one
thing, and when there is onething that has an outsized
impact or influence, quitefrequently it ends up being a
synthetic material that ismanmade, that has a negative
outsized influence rather than apositive one.

You see, yeah no, I'm not deep enough in the
plant science, you know, butthere might be one thing that's
blocking it.
It could be that after that'sremoved or after that's adjusted
, then there will be anotherthing blocking.
So there's, yeah, we need aholistic view, which is what
we've been using way too much,but the amount of times I get an
investor or a company cominglike this will change everything

(01:03:29):
.
It's just yeah, just hard tobelieve.

Well, it also just makes you question how well they
understand the ecosystem andhow well they understand the
landscape, makes you questionthe rest, the rest of the things
they say yeah that's true, yeah, yeah, just like when you see
crazy hockey sticks.

I always see crazy hockey sticks in
presentation story to drop.
But do you see, like after yearthree, everything goes to the
moon.
I'm like, yeah, I understandthe function in Excel works like
that, but doesn't mean youshould put it in a presentation.
Just makes me questioneverything else you said as well
, like be better.
But maybe that's also thehumble like, I don't know.
In Europe and in theNetherlands people don't like
when you shout too much, so Iwould say, oh, underpromise and

(01:04:09):
overdeliver.
But I also understand you haveto be overpromised to raise
money.
There's a dance there as welland attention.
But when I see these hockeystick curves I was like, yeah,
yeah, I don't think that's goingto happen.
There's going to be a lot ofchallenges with building
anything, and I'm deeply respectanybody that builds anything
from scratch ever.

You know, there's this interesting phenomena in
biological systems, where it'smy understanding that most
biological systems develop alongthe Fibonacci series of numbers
.
The variable for differentsystems is the time factor.
Do you go from one to one totwo, three, five, eight, 13 in a
matter of 20 minutes In thecase of bacterial populations,

(01:04:49):
or 20 years in the case of atree cycle, or something like
that?
So there's this progression,but I've observed this
interesting phenomena thatorganizations, human
organizations, which are alsoreally successful and really
impactful take the savoryinstitute, or there's a number
of different platforms or groupsthat have had consistent
staying power for decades, andthey all share this principle

(01:05:14):
that they start slowly and theydo reach a threshold where it
appears as if, though, thegrowth is faster on the surface,
but in fact there's atremendous amount of history and
depth and background behind itthat took to get to that place.

Yeah, I mean it's an incredibly powerful
force.
We have that, the company, maybethe most, the strongest
organizational form we have.
Maybe, apart from a revolutionand once they exist for a while,
it's very likely it will existfor a bit longer and I hope that
we see the birth of manyregeneratively focused or even

(01:05:47):
regenerative businesses, whichis a difficult term, but
something that that's definitelypossible.
Like, how do we use thatorganizational form that can
attract people and can reallyliterally move mountains,
attract a lot of capital, a lotof resources to do things, to
shoot stuff to space, etc.
How can we use that toregenerate at scale?
Because if it's individualfarmers by themselves, it's just
not just.

(01:06:07):
The forces are too strong, it'sjust not going to go.
So how do we focus on theseregenerative businesses?
How do we make sure they'rewell capitalized, with the right
type of money and well resource, of course, in terms of people
that are in this for the longrun, I think we can literally
move mountains and or probablynot and we regenerate and we
force them, but you get what Imean yeah, this is perfect.

This leads me exactly to the next question
that I was preparing to ask,which is we.

I knew you were going to ask that.

We've been circling around, this conversation of
I've just been calling it anddecommoditizing yourself.
You've been describing the needto take ownership over
processing and marketing andsales channels and all these,
these various pieces, and nowyou've brought in the very
important piece of doing it as agroup, as a community, whether
that's as a company or whatever,by whatever mechanism, and so,

(01:07:01):
within, within that context, theneed to decommoditize, the need
to develop processing anddevelop pathways to market that
aren't dependent on themainstream supply chains that
presently exist.
What is something that you wish, or what is something that you
think farmers would benefit fromknowing and understanding about
the pathway?
What, how do we approach thatin a not in a holistic manner,

(01:07:25):
but in a?
What are the characteristics ofthose who have done so with
success?
That's the question I'm tryingto ask.

That's a really good question.
I think I would bounce it topeople that have been doing that
successfully, like there arequite a few examples.
You might not they don't getinto fast companies, top 50,
fast agro companies or intolists like that but there are
quite a few successful examplesof producers getting together or

(01:07:55):
of processors getting veryclose to producers and build a
really long term, very symbioticrelationship with each other
all the way down to the marketor not, of course, depending on
the crops, etc.
So I would go there and learn,but you probably have to ask
around quite a bit to find thosethat are successful, that are
probably don't have a massivewebsite or media presence, and

(01:08:17):
not because they're undergroundit's part of some kind of
conspiracy but simply becausethey don't need it and it
doesn't serve them.
So I would say, in your crops,try to find examples.
I think a big lesson there isstuff takes time, and make sure
you set up the governance in away that it is for the long haul
.
Make sure you get the righttype of money involved.
Try to be as far away fromextractive, short-term stuff as

(01:08:39):
possible.
It's not always possible, butwhen you do know you're dancing
with the devil, let's say.
It's really like extractivecapital comes knocking on the
door on the wrong moments always, and it doesn't have to be
super profitable as well.
I think there's anothermisconception, like processing
as long as it's farmer owned, oreven if it's owned by a
non-profit or owned by acooperative or whatever

(01:09:00):
structure you choose.
As long as it brings more moneyto you and your colleague
farmers and it pays the bills,that's also fine, like there's
no need to build anotherextractive vehicle on top of you
and your friend's farm justbecause it's nice to have a
profit and there's quite a bitof public money available.
So go and look there as well.
There's quite a bit of interest.
There's always a shortage ofthese kind of deals.

(01:09:21):
There's always a shortage ofhow do you package this well.
I mean, I was making fun offancy PowerPoint slides before,
but it does help to havesomebody involved that is able
to speak the language of financeand able to make things look
nice.
Make Excel sheets look nice,because you can have the best
plan with the best margins andyou know you're going to do it.

(01:09:43):
You know where you're going toget the processing technology,
all of that.
If you present it in a horribleway.
It's going to be very, verydifficult to raise anything, so
I think that would be my adviceGo to people that have done this
in the past.
They for sure made manymistakes you don't want to
repeat.
Find the right kind of peoplearound you, of course, and the
right type of money, becauseotherwise it's going to be very

(01:10:03):
challenging.
The amount of people companiesas well that took the first
money that was on the table andregretted later is an endless
list.

Kuhn.
I've really enjoyed ourconversation.
We've touched on many reallyfun topics.
What are important topics thatwe haven't yet touched on, that
we should talk about?

I think the input space, I mean we've talked
about it when you were on ourpodcast, but it's something we
somehow don't really cover a lot.
Of course we talked about themarkets and how to make sure you
can sell against a good priceand make sure some of that gets
back to the farm, but we oftenunderestimate.
Maybe there's also a piecethere, for on the input.

(01:10:42):
If you get together with enoughfarmers, could you make a
high-end compost tea extractoror what things make sense in
groups and not by themselves.
Of course you could alsonegotiate a better contract with
you for inputs.
But I think there's an inputdiscussion there as well.
We always magically think thatwe were going to be without

(01:11:04):
inputs very soon if we go onthis journey.
I don't think that's the case.
But the question is how do weget off the very, very dangerous
ones?
Which ones are absolutelynecessary to buy?
Which ones can I do myself?
Which can I do in a group?
What are your thoughts there?
I'm just going to bounce thequestion back.
Of course you don't want to beout of business anytime soon,
but I don't think you will.

Well, actually, when you started answering that
question I don't want to avoidthe question because it is an
important conversation but youtriggered another thought that
took me in a completelydifferent direction.
Oh, please share.
There is this narrative, thisshared experience that entirely
too many farmers have of beingregenerative pioneers and being

(01:11:44):
rejected by their community,being rejected by their
neighbors and by the people intheir immediate social network
to say, oh, you've really leftthe cacoo's nest and you're
doing something really crazy.

We can laugh about it, but it's horrible yeah
it is horrible.

But all of a sudden, just something about the way
you made your comment aboutcooperatives and sharing inputs
was like oh my goodness, if wecould actually get immediate
social networks in the localregions to work together, you
could rapidly reach a scale toregenerate the small water
cycles.
You know, ryan Holiday wrotethis fascinating little book

(01:12:20):
that is titled the Obstacle isthe Way, and I like the title.
It's really fascinating reading.
But the point is simply that itis the things which appear most
difficult, that if you facethem, you work your way through

(01:12:41):
them, you conquer them in a wordand I don't particularly like
conquer in this sentence, butyou overcome those obstacles.
It is the very process ofovercoming those obstacles that
has the ability to completelyrevolutionize your life, the
outcomes, everything around you.
And it just occurs to me thatyou know we have this frequent

(01:13:04):
experience of people not beingtheir new approach to farming
and agriculture not beingaccepted.
But in fact, first we need tohave, if we're in this position,
we need to have our own supportnetwork.
We need to have people that canbe there to encourage us and
support us and help us throughthis process, mentally,
emotionally and so forth, from acommunity perspective.

(01:13:25):
But then if we were successfulin being not if, but when we are
successful in being ambassadorsand communicating the message
and the opportunities andgetting buy-in from our local
community, that really is thepathway to regenerating local
ecosystems and watersheds.

Absolutely, and I've heard oh where which
interview and the greatsimplification amazing podcast,
if you're interested in energydependence and all of that.
There was a region focusedfarmer on and the interviewer
asked the question, nate Hagan,of what if five other people
were doing what you were doingnearby and nearby, of course, is
a flexible term he said I wouldchange everything because we're

(01:14:03):
the weirdos, the different ones, we have to constantly explain.
We still looked upon the localsoccer, whatever sport we play
club, and if a few around youare also in transition, and that
changes everything, not onlyfrom the local barbecue
conversations but everythingelse as well.
And for sure, if you get toscale, it will trigger that

(01:14:23):
water cycle, the small watercycle restoration we're looking
for, and probably many morethings are possible if you're
slightly bigger.
Scale with three or four orfive in terms of local
production of certain inputsthat don't need to be far away
because they might not have adelivery date in time where they
might go back too soon orwhatever you can do, and then
you're tied in together and Ithink there's a massive, just

(01:14:44):
like we used to put the barn uptogether and did all of that.
Why not on the input and outputsize as well?

Yeah, so bringing this back to the question you
asked me about inputs, and I seea whole network of
decentralized ones.

now, yeah, I see a future.

Yeah, it might appear like a significant logic
leap, but it wasn't.
This is what my, my naturalthought progression was that
well, when you engage inregenerating landscapes, then
you rapidly reach a point atwhich the only inputs that you
need are inputs that are definedby your geological context and
geological landscape.

(01:15:18):
So there are some landscapeswhere the foundational apparent
bedrock material doesn't containenough selenium or it doesn't
contain enough moron, and so itdoesn't matter what you do from
a from a regeneration, carbonsequestration, watershed,
regeneration perspective, therewill always be certain

(01:15:38):
susceptibilities to disease andinsect pressure as a result of
those nutritional imbalancesthat are a result of the parent
bedrock material.
And so in these local groups,there would be tremendous
synergy in collaborating on someof those key inputs that are
needed.
And I'm with you and yourcomment that you made a bit ago

(01:15:58):
that it is entirely possible toget to a place where we are not
on this treadmill of needing toapply inputs just to grow a crop
and purchased inputspecifically.
And I believe that in thisgeological context, this
geological setting, there aremany regions of the world where

(01:16:20):
we will constantly need to spoonfeed small amounts of very
specific things to just addressdeficiencies that exist in the
ecosystem.
I don't know if that was theanswer to your question that you
were looking for, but it was.
It was.

I mean, it wasn't I wasn't looking for that
specific one, but of course Ididn't know what you were going
to say.

My progression of thought was that, well, the
biggest input that most peopleare many farmers are most
dependent on is water.
It's like that is thefundamental.
What if you could grow that one?
Yourself with your neighbors.
Exactly what if you could growwater collectively with a group
of neighbors?
Absolutely.

It sounds like a magic title again.
Yeah.

And it's not a question of what.
If you can, you can like.
We now know that is possible.
It's been demonstrated multipletimes around the world.
On that note, that's awonderful ending.
We'll just leave it there toinspire all of your imagination,
inspire the possibilities thatyou can grow your own water, and
not only can you grow your ownwater, you can ensure that you

(01:17:18):
have water when you need it,consistently throughout the
growing season, not sporadically, not occasionally, not not to
these extreme vagaries of theweather.
I think you know perhaps theentire bottom line of this water
ecosystems conversation is thatfor us as farmers, over the
last 20 or 30 years inparticular, we've experienced

(01:17:39):
increasing vagaries of theweather, extreme floods followed
by extreme droughts in the samegrowing season, sometimes back
and forth, yo-yoing back andforth multiple times per season.
And what we are now coming tounderstand, and some people have
understood for decades, is thatthis is, in fact, a function of
ecosystem management watershedmanagement is the term that

(01:18:01):
you've used, cohen and that theway you manage plants in this
ecosystem have the ability toregenerate and produce a much
more stable water cycle whereyou get consistent rainfalls, as
many of us older farmersremember from 40, 50, 60 years
ago and in fact in some regionsnone of us living might remember

(01:18:22):
, but it's still possible forthose landscapes.
So that's exciting and that'ssomething to inspire your
imagination with.

Yeah, I'm just adding there how can you as an
investor, as somebody in finance, not be excited about that?
Like there must be a way tohelp accelerate that with money.

Yeah, cohen, thank you for being here, for sharing
your thoughts and wisdom andexperience.
I've really enjoyed thisconversation and I look forward
to checking in with you inanother 500 episodes and see how
the world is different then.

Thank you so much for this invite, for the
great conversation, and keep upthe amazing work you're doing.

Cohen, tell us, tell our audience a bit, where can
they find you working to learnmore about you?

Sure, it's investing in regenerative
agriculturecom, like we call thepodcast, exactly what we
discuss, which is investing inregent of agriculture.
I think if you search Regen,regen of Agriculture, you get
yours and our podcast prettymuch, and on all the socials as
well LinkedIn we're quite big.
We have quite a bit on YouTubeas well, but if you search
investing in regenerativeagriculture, you will find on

(01:19:27):
all the podcast players YouTube,instagram, et cetera.

Thank you, Cohen.
Thanks for all the work thatyou do.
I look forward to moreconversations in the future.
Thank you so much.
The team at AEA and I arededicated to bringing this show
to you because we believe thatknowledge and information is the
foundation of successfulregenerative systems.
At AEA, we believe that growingbetter quality food and making
more money from your crops ispossible, and since 2006, we've

(01:19:52):
worked with leading professionalgrowers to help them do just
that.
At AEA, we don't guess.
We test, we analyze and weprovide recommendations based on
scientific data, knowledge andexperience.
We've developed products thatare uniquely positioned to help
growers make more money withregenerative agriculture.
If you are a professionalgrower who believes in testing

(01:20:13):
instead of guessing, someone whobelieves in a better, more
regenerative way to grow, visitadvancingecoagcom and contact us
to see if AEA is right for you.
Thank you for listening and welook forward to working with you
.

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250 Growing Regenerative Opportunities - Koen van Seijen interviewed by John Kempf

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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;}250 Growing Regenerative Opportunities - Koen van Seijen interviewed by John Kempf