165 Lauren Tucker, co-founder of Kiss the Ground helps the next generation of regenerative businesses to thrive

Lauren Tucker, co-founder of Kiss the Ground, is now leading reNourish studio. She joins us to talk about soil carbon, us a keystone species, and the crucial role of regenerative businesses to allow all living and non-living beings to thrive.  
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Why focusing on soil carbon levels isn’t nearly enough when it comes to the goals we seek? Investing in soil carbon sequestration will not create a healthier world for our grandchildren. It will simply create healthier soils.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Why focusing on soil carbon levels isn't nearly enough when it comes to the goals we seek. Investing in soil carbon sequestration will not create a healthier world for our grandchildren. It will simply create healthier soils. So join me in this conversation with the co-founder of Kiss the Ground, which after a decade since she started working in soil health is getting much, much deeper and asking the fundamental questions around us as a keystone species and the role of regenerative food businesses in creating the conditions for landscapes, and all living and nonliving beings to thrive. This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast, investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume. And it's time that we as investors, big and small, and consumers start paying much more attention to the dirt slash soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community. And so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you. If our work created value for you, and if you have the means, and only if you have the means, consider joining us. Find out more on gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. That is gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. Or find the link in the description. link below. Welcome to another episode, today with the co-founder of Kiss the Ground, who is now leading ReNourish Studio. Lauren, welcome.

SPEAKER_00: 1:48

Thanks, Cohen. Great to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

And to start with a personal question, how did you end up working in, above, and around Soil?

SPEAKER_00: 1:55

Sure. I think that there are several things that led to at least co-founding of Kiss the Ground in this path that I've been on for almost a decade now. One of them is when I was growing up, I was really... frustrated and concerned about global warming. I grew up in the 80s, mid 80s in West Virginia. And we used to make climate change posters. And as kids think about being activists for the climate. And so I went to school for international studies, really hoping that I could change the world to thrive more through policy. And when I was 20, I studied abroad in West Africa. And when I was there, I just saw what international aid work looked like and what kind of global scale philanthropy looked like and I realized that that wasn't a path for me and that there had to be another way to work on shifting the conditions that lead to our current reality and so I didn't know what I wanted to focus on but I knew that I wanted to focus on just having life thrive and so yeah it took me many years to find food but um I tried a lot of different things I moved to New Orleans post Katrina and that was a really interesting time because a city was rebuilding so there was all this explosion of growth and ideas and kind of imagination and a lot of young people moved there and the advantage as a 21 year old was you could do anything so if you wanted to build a house great pick up a hammer if you wanted to work on energy efficiency great work on that so it I did that for a couple of years. And then I got pregnant, which is probably a large turning point in life as well as in my food journey.

SPEAKER_01: 3:50

Was that the trigger for food? Was that the trigger to focus on food more? I mean, for sure you were eating. I mean, New Orleans is not known

SPEAKER_00: 3:58

to be eating badly. I mean, it sounds silly, but it was probably one of the first points I really deeply considered what I put in my body. Because when you're growing a life, you suddenly think about that immediately. But it led to, I moved to California and it led to really deep questions around where does our food come from? And that led to permaculture design certificate and really being in communities that care deeply about food and so many questions about what makes food healthy and what doesn't. So I guess this is a very long answer to your question, but for me, I was kind of always seeking what was my role in systems change going to be and then had this experience of becoming a mother that really focused it on food. And then, yeah, knew Ryland and Finian through community in Venice, California. And Ryland went to this conference in New Zealand where he heard Graham Sate speak about soil carbon sequestration. And he brought him to speak in Santa Monica in this bunker. And there were probably a hundred of us who attended this lecture And Graham is a super smart human who has so much information in his brain and he never stops talking. So he spoke for like hours and hours and hours and everyone was just like jaw dropped and maybe kind of a little eyes glazed over. This is amazing. And what is this brilliant human talking about? Like

SPEAKER_01: 5:32

a bucket full of information thrown on you.

SPEAKER_00: 5:36

Exactly. And he spoke about soil carbon sequestration. how soil works and yeah, microbes. And

SPEAKER_01: 5:45

you would imagine that would be part of, of your permaculture design course or something. Was it the first time you connected, let's say you're worried, worrisome for, for climate with your interest at that point in food? Was that the first that suddenly, I wouldn't say light bulb moments, but suddenly that, that connection came because I had the same when I read a book specifically or a chapter specifically on grazing and carbon, I never imagined soil as a carbon scene, but I didn't do a permaculture design. I like I liked food, but I never went that far. And suddenly it clicked and was like, ah, okay. So there is a whole different part like underground that could serve as part of the solution and not just make it a smaller part of the problem. Was that that click or was it just too much information in the bunker too? It clicked a few days

SPEAKER_00: 6:30

later. Probably both. No, it was a big click. And I think, I'm not sure I would have articulated it quite this way at the time, but The click for me was much deeper than just soil sequesters carbon. The click was, I've been told my whole life that what I can personally do in the face of climate change is be less of a human. Like, don't, you know, ride to work on a bike. Don't do that. Recycle. Eat less. Waste less. Enjoy less, basically. has always been the prevailing message and what really clicked was this deep sense of hope that actually in becoming more of not more of a human but in altering my role as a human on the planet and being a human that actually could be what would balance our climate and that's a very different narrative right so it's like by eating and by tending the earth and by using our natural role as humans like we're the only species that runs around and can plant trees and can graft trees and can make a tomato from some weird tasting thing all the way to these amazing heirloom tomatoes over breeding and many years um we

SPEAKER_01: 7:58

are keystone species

SPEAKER_00: 7:59

we're the species that yeah we're a keystone species and yeah so that was the click it was like what and that unlocked so much hope that that hadn't been unlocked before and

SPEAKER_01: 8:09

then like i don't know the origin story of the book and then the movie or the documentary which obviously if you haven't seen it I mean stop listening now and go and watch it no like no stay here stay here with us and then watch it but like what happened there was this bunker full of information and information overload like what were what happened after that what how did you start thinking differently in the keystone species or one of the keystone species thinking like how did you how did you walk out of the bunker differently than you walked in and then What did you do with that new energy and new hope?

SPEAKER_00: 8:44

Yeah, I'm actually working on writing an article about this right now, looking back after almost a decade of work. I think what we did was we tried everything. So there was so much energy. Friends gathered in Ryland's living room. We gathered every Monday night for several hours and we just went to work. And the thing I wish we had done in retro respect is...

SPEAKER_01: 9:14

Document that. That would have been interesting. How to follow small groups of activists basically trying to change the world. Sorry, I interrupted you. What did you wish you would have done?

SPEAKER_00: 9:25

I think we did document some of it and that would be fun to pull out. But what I wish we had done is challenge our theory of change. What I think we did is went into activist mode and I think that we've been taught a pattern of what an activist is and how we do that. And so we just did that without thinking, yeah. So if our deep insight is around humans are a keystone species, what is the way to go to work on that? And what's the way to go to work on that that's effective? Was

SPEAKER_01: 9:58

that the insight of everyone? Because maybe many were at the, oh my God, soil is such a big carbon sink. And was it, were you all aligned on, okay, this is bigger than that? or beyond that.

SPEAKER_00: 10:12

Yeah, that's true too. I think that my personal journey and my insight was really deeply around keystone species. I'm not sure we all saw it in the same direction, but we had so many conversations about it. So it was definitely up. It wasn't like I was over here thinking, hey, we're a keystone species and everyone else was like, soil can sequester carbon. Let's

SPEAKER_02: 10:35

go.

SPEAKER_00: 10:37

Yeah, we had tons of conversations about it, thought about launching campaigns i still think we should launch this one because it's well i'm a nerd so i think it's cool but we thought about launching a campaign to lobby the change of the definition of nature in the dictionary because it's it's literally defined as separate from humans

SPEAKER_01: 10:59

which is hilarious if you look at biology but yeah yeah it's like there's yeah it cannot be further from the truth like we but like most of us is actually is not us like if you look at dna coming from your parents like you're 60 70 whatever the percentage is other organisms and other stuff that i mean somebody called it like you're a very very well organized school bus basically for other organisms that's that's what we are and we're mostly not us if even us is a is a specific term so yeah it's but that would be very interesting but it would be very specific but yet you went to a book and a documentary very specifically on soil health but very deeply on the hope message as well like when did that i mean you were in a media landscape obviously in in california like where did you say okay how do we was that the the decision how do we reach the biggest audience possible and and as as strongly as possible or was it one of the many tries that sort of stick and okay let's let's go in that direction

SPEAKER_00: 11:55

our first response was we started planting gardens and i think that that is a really natural response and a response that's very important right so it's like you hear about this thing it totally changes your perception of hope around the climate And then the what you can do is like, oh, maybe I should plant

SPEAKER_01: 12:15

something. Compose and plant something. Which you all should do, by the way. There's no message against that.

SPEAKER_00: 12:20

No, not at all. So that was one of our first responses as we started planting gardens. We planted one that was a pop-up, which is kind of a hilarious notion. So it was on a vacant lot that ended up getting developed. And we thought we had a year or two and we had three months. So we planted this very short-lived pop-up garden and then we we planted another garden that's still there um on city land and it covers a whole block of venice boulevard and that was my first project in kiss the ground as i was the the garden manager and so we went first to gardens and then uh we originally incorporated as a an llc or a s corp or something because we really thought i think it really thought we were going to create a business selling microbes or selling inoculants. And we wrote all these initial sketches of business plans around compost. And then someone offered us a donation and said, hey, if you become a nonprofit, we'll give you this cash.

SPEAKER_01: 13:28

Probably the origin story of many, many foundations or many nonprofits. Yeah, let's set up a structure to absorb that. You said at the beginning, I wish we spent more time on our theory of change and how to change that this feels like you were doing not wouldn't say whatever came up but more or less whatever came up or what worked trying a lot of different things in your alternate scenario how would have that been different if you would have spent more time on the theory of change of like acknowledging human beings as a as one of the key of the keystone species

SPEAKER_00: 14:01

you know we worked on what I I think is kind of the activist path that's been set out before

SPEAKER_01: 14:08

walk us through that path like what is what is the activist path

SPEAKER_00: 15:00

yeah so how do we tell the most people how do we tell people in positions of power so they can make a change kind of top down how do we work on the system putting pressure or encouragement kind of from the outside so we weren't farmers and you know some of us are in the business of food Ryland's a restaurant owner but we weren't working inside businesses we were kind of working from the outside in and I think that's a pretty typical kind of activist theory of change of how change happens. And so then media and education became the very clear pathways and then the short, like what you can do list, right? Because then you ask people to take actions in their own life. And I think the assumption is all those small actions will add up or-

SPEAKER_01: 15:51

Reach a tipping point and then,

SPEAKER_00: 15:54

yeah. You start with a small action and it leads to a long road.

SPEAKER_01: 15:59

It sounds like you're, I wouldn't say not believing that happened, but that like in the last 10 years that that didn't happen. Is that, is that a fair conclusion? I mean, it's been on the map. We see, I mean, soil health is, I wouldn't say everywhere, but surprisingly the common now on the Joe Rogan podcast on Indian soil health gurus, et cetera. Like it's, it's being pushed to a certain attention level. I think if you like track gurus, search, you would see soil suddenly being a thing, but it didn't change 50% of agriculture land or something in the last 10 years. If you look at deep regen farms or regen farming practices, it's still a very small percentage of farming that has been complexifying over the last decade.

SPEAKER_00: 16:50

The other thing we did is we talked about it as something simple to do and boiled it down to something simple because the idea is something simple is digestible or maybe easier to implement but you know if we if we implement five soil health principles all over the world which is essentially what's being positioned right now in common discourse

SPEAKER_01: 17:15

meaning cover the ground actually changes cover the ground integrate animals complex rotations and and the like

SPEAKER_00: 17:21

yeah reduce chemicals yep if we actually do that we're probably going to sequester more carbon but we aren't going to change our food system really at all. And we're not going to work on the conditions that are creating all of the carbon in the atmosphere. We're not going to work on shifting our role as a human species. We're not going to work on watersheds or why people have such differing access to food. We're not going to work on nutrient density. Symptoms,

SPEAKER_01: 17:56

not roots. And when came this realization like was it from the beginning for you in the journey or is it something that came over time over the last decade that like this is nice

SPEAKER_00: 18:07

certainly came over time we need to go deeper yeah it certainly came over time and i don't want to um discredit the work that we've done right so i get to sit here and analyze what happened over the last almost decade because we worked on creating a movement and so i get to sit here from this perspective of A lot of people around the world are talking about soil. We sat in a living room in Venice and said, what would it look like for the soil conversation to be equal to the energy conversation? And I think we've almost achieved that. So I don't want to belittle what we've done. But if I were to look back and start fresh, what would have happened in a decade if we had looked at the conditions that create soil degradation in the first place? and what shifting our role inside businesses could look like. I think that we'd be in a very different place right now.

SPEAKER_01: 19:07

Okay, how would that look like? Because we cannot go back 10 years in time, obviously. I don't even know if that would be fun or not, but we don't run parallel scenarios, or at least not to our knowledge, to our current knowledge, maybe. So we're now in 2022. I mentioned at the intro, you're leading the Renourish studio. Walk us through what is the Renourish studio and how is it attacking but working on those issues in a different way because the issues are still the same but you want to go to the root causes and you want to work on the root causes and not on the symptoms so walk us through what Renourish is and definitely we'll put the website in the show notes below obviously if you want to find out more.

SPEAKER_00: 19:46

Sure. So we're launching essentially a three year cohort and this is a program of Farmer's Footprint so we're working in collaboration with Farmer's Footprint to do this and essentially we're going to work on evolving food business models because we really want to work on root causes and we really want to shift the way business is focusing so like right now business focus is quite a bit on the financial bottom line I think we can all agree on that and the more I work with farmers I see that the finances is this this thing that's so it feels unmovable Like something we can't shift and we're just always trying to work around it. Let's shift soil carbon on farm with a sustainability initiative. Let's get government funding to do that. But we're not touching the business model. And so in the studio, we're going to work on actually regenerating our thinking, which sounds maybe like a think tank and likely sounds unproductive because it sounds like you're just going to sit around and do it. talk and think all day. But I've come to really deeply believe that we have to disrupt the way we're currently thinking to actually see new potential. And so we're going to do this in a very, yeah, we're going to do it in a very structured way. And we're going to learn from living systems and understand how living systems function and then what it looks like to pattern our thinking or choose to pattern our thinking after So we're going to become really conscious about how we're currently thinking and what it would look like to choose to think from a different angle. And then we're going to look at potential, not from my projection of what I want to see in the world, but from a system level potential. So how can whole systems evolve? And so we're going to work on our thinking. And then ultimately, our goal is to set a new pattern for food business. models and

SPEAKER_01: 22:01

because that's the entry point that's for you the entry point the food you mentioned it twice now the food business point sits sort of in between us as a consumer or the like where we eat and then compost obviously and we have to talk about nutrients at some point as well but that's not for this podcast but it sits between that farmer between the land and us and there you see the biggest potential if we shift thinking there if we shift fundamentally to more of a narrative thinking, both sides can really, like all the different sides around it can really benefit from the nutrient density to the land, to the watershed. So we have to change food companies or we have to change companies that process, touch, think, work, move food.

SPEAKER_00: 22:44

Yeah, exactly. And when I talk about food businesses, it's everyone in that cycle, right? So a farm is a food business, a processor, a handler, a retailer, a food brand, a company. they're all going to be

SPEAKER_01: 22:59

part of the studio in in different shapes and forms basically so you want that diverse it's not going to be 10 caterers now it's going to be or 10 farmers it's going to be a mix of of those in the us for now you're still looking for more so if this sounds like very interesting as we're unpacking this definitely get in touch and so it's a three-year program can you walk us through like what are the different phases of course it's structured and it's still also depending on the cohort what's going to happen in year two and three but what do you Why is it three years, first of all? Because it seems like a long and a short time at the same time. It's a big commitment. Walk us through the time of this cohort and what it means. Are you meeting in person? Are you meeting only online? Or is it a big conference? What's the commitment I'm signing up for, if I would?

SPEAKER_00: 23:50

Yeah, so I think to have something meaningful come out of this, We definitely need a few years together. It's structured so that in year one, we're really working on our own personal thinking, always putting our business front and center, but working on building capabilities to think from a living systems perspective in our own lives. And then year two, we're going to be working on building capabilities with our business teams. And then in year three, we're going to build capabilities with stakeholders because no business works in I We all work with many, many stakeholders. So we're essentially going to go around three times and we're going to meet every few weeks on Zoom for two hours and then three times a year in person. So those in-persons are much more experiential on land. We're going to an old growth forest, a hotel that's creating the conditions for the evolution of a town. We're going to go to a farm that's really working on rebuilding a place through the business of farming. And so, yeah, we're going to visit all these places as well.

SPEAKER_01: 25:09

And what do you hope? I mean, this is difficult. They're all difficult questions. What do you hope that happens to the cohort? I wouldn't say what do you hope to get out of it because that's not a fair question and not an interesting one. But what do you hope that the cohort goes through sort of obviously on a personal but also on a company level like what kind of gears would you hope they shift through or how do you how would we see how would you define success for for this first program

SPEAKER_00: 25:38

i think success looks like actually being able to disrupt our thinking and see something entirely new that isn't from the view of kind of continuous improvement so super tangible example um the light bulb was not a continuous Right. So we weren't like making a better candle, making a better candle, making a better candle. We actually saw something new that could be brought into existence. And so I think success looks like actually being able to see the present moment and the conditions of how our food system works and our role in it and our role as business people in creating thriving places. to see it differently. And then we're not going to sit around and talk and see new things and then write a big work plan and hope to implement it in 10 years. This is very much learning by doing. So every session, we're going to be implementing something or working on implementing immediately. Because when you shift your thinking, it's immediate, right? You don't have to really wait for anything else. And so success also looks like really getting to the implementation, right? So it doesn't just work to see something new, but we actually have to figure out how to implement that and make it work in our businesses. I'm not talking about businesses not making money. I think this only works if we are making money, but we are talking about working in a very whole way instead of working on our business and making money over here and then saving a pile and doing philanthropy over here and creating chaos on one side and trying to clean it up on the other. We have to bust through that and just see how can kind of like the question of how can our role as humans as a keystone species actually heal the climate like how can being a human and being more of a human connected to a landscape heal our crisis how can being in business actually create the conditions for life to thrive it sounds like a you know it's a big question but I really believe that an a small group we can do it

SPEAKER_01: 28:00

I want to unpack the small group a bit but would it be almost fair to say that companies are keystone species as well or a collection of keystone species as they're such a huge impact on our on our planet and they take that role seriously a day it's not a day it's it's us that are running the companies but as if you put if you would make them a thing then they I mean we all know that the negative keystone species or the negative effect of these keystone species and it's time we explore the positive one if that's possible or at scale or is that pushing it too far

SPEAKER_00: 28:34

as an organism almost like a

SPEAKER_01: 28:35

company becomes an organism if it's run well for a very long time like the ants and the anthill I don't know the answer to that

SPEAKER_00: 28:43

and I definitely want to think

SPEAKER_01: 28:45

about it

SPEAKER_00: 28:45

but I do think again when we're working kind of asking the system to live up to new ideals like when we're working as activists saying hey everyone every business please make soil health a priority. We're kind of asking for the system to rise to the occasion and businesses have a way that business functions to And so instead of asking them to add a sustainability initiative that invests in soil carbon, like how do we fundamentally change the way business happens? And it's just shocking to me how many people think that that's impossible, right? But everything's made up in the world. Everything has been made up by humans. So why not? Why not change that? And

SPEAKER_01: 29:36

that comes back to the small group because we've had examples in the past of small groups, very collaborative. of individuals shifting culture quite rapidly so that let's talk about that and why why you decide to to do this as a cohort with 30 or 20 or 30 businesses or people and not as a massive movement as kiss the ground was and is still like what what when do you stumble upon that the track record of small groups shifting culture which is what we need in this case as we made it up and made it up anyway like what what made you arrive to that conclusion that actually it could be 30 in a few years. And if you do it well, it can shift culture.

SPEAKER_00: 30:49

A lot of the way I'm currently working comes through a community that I'm a part of. So my personal disruption came through working with Carol Sanford and working deeply in her community for many years. And in many ways, I believe in the theory of change that she puts forward in the world.

SPEAKER_01: 31:08

In which ways you don't?

SPEAKER_00: 31:10

Well...

SPEAKER_01: 31:11

I'll put some links in the show notes below, by the way, for anybody interested in Carol Sanford.

SPEAKER_00: 31:15

Yeah, the way Carol works is having us deeply consider and evolve our own thinking, right? So she's not an expert and she's not saying these are the ways to do it, come do it this way. She's working us through disruptive ways to disrupt our own thinking and try it on and decide, right? So I'm playing with this theory of change and more and more I believe in it. But the idea is that change doesn't happen by like the most people doing something. It's the stubborn minority, as

SPEAKER_01: 31:50

Taleb used to say. Yeah, it's not a majority vote. No, it's usually a small, tiny group sometimes. So how does change happen according to that theory?

SPEAKER_00: 32:01

Change happens through a small group shifting a story or a pattern. So A really good example of this is the way marijuana legislation changed in the United States. So it was illegal. It was, you know, you could go to jail for 30 years for being a dealer or a grower. It was really, really a big deal. You know, as a kid, you're taught that like only gangsters smoke weed. You know, it's criminalized. And a narrative started to emerge likely mostly from herbalists or holistic health professionals around this plant is medicine. And that narrative shifted an entire cultural conversation very, very fast. And then we had medical marijuana and then we had licenses to grow from medical marijuana. And within less than a decade, we had legal marijuana.

SPEAKER_01: 33:09

Which if you said that 15 years ago, you would be called crazy for sure. Like that would never happen, never so fast, never in, I mean, not in the US, like anywhere else, okay, but not here, et cetera, et cetera, because the war on drugs is still, but especially in Mariana, was still very, very strong.

SPEAKER_00: 33:27

So

SPEAKER_01: 33:27

there's a precedent

SPEAKER_00: 33:28

there.

SPEAKER_01: 33:29

But there's also many times it didn't work. We tried to shift the narrative and then somehow we're still stuck with fossil fuels. How do we make sure this one works? Or how do we create the conditions for the best chance that this shifting the keystone species, if we have to summarize it like that, it's much deeper, obviously, but the keystone species, like to make a significant group, a significant minority of people aware of that thinking like we are the keystone species and it's time we take that role seriously.

SPEAKER_00: 34:00

I don't think that the intervention always has to be around shifting a narrative. The example I gave that was, but it's setting a new pattern, right? So if business can shift the way it's working to using the resources that flow through it to actually intervene enable the conditions for regeneration of places, which is the question we're asking in the studio.

SPEAKER_01: 34:28

I like the flow part,

SPEAKER_00: 34:30

yeah. Because there's resources flowing in and out of a business all the time. That's really what a business is, right? It's transactions that

SPEAKER_01: 34:38

go in and out. It's a flow station. No, that's not the right word. But yeah, it's a collection of flows, basically, if you really summarize it.

SPEAKER_00: 34:47

Great. And right now, we have a pattern of how those flows can and do kind of flow in and out and what capital needs to do and what investors need to do and the transactions between businesses and farmers or the transactions between a farming business and a processor. We have all these assumptions about how the system needs to work. But it's all made

SPEAKER_01: 35:10

up. So we can reimagine every single one of them. There are no rules or laws in any of those. So that's what you're inviting people to do. What if you look at every single flow or Or every fellow that doesn't exist or every new... But yeah, what would every single decision you make or every single thing you touch start nourishing

SPEAKER_00: 35:31

a place? And how do we consider it from a whole place, right? Because looking back again... Soil carbon is really important, but it's not the whole of a thriving system. A thriving place, you know, a forest, for example, it's not just soil carbon, it's biodiversity, it's all the plants, it's the interaction between them, it's the water cycle, it's the nutrient cycle, like it's so many things, right? And when we work in the single solutions, you know, single problem, single solution mindset, we miss so much. And it's not actually how life works. Like life doesn't work like a machine, but a lot of us are thinking from a very mechanical mindset.

SPEAKER_01: 36:18

And do you see the attention now for soil potentially leading more people into this deeper thinking or the risk is if we don't, I wouldn't say immediately, but when they immediately share this deeper holistic thinking, people might see it as an easy solution. Let's just get soil health back in order and we're fine. Because I don't know, I'm of both sides. I think it's a great entry point. I got very interested in this because of carbon and then got down the rabbit hole. And I sometimes feel it's inevitable people go down the rabbit hole of soil health and go into the inequality, the nutrient density, land ownership, all of it, but also many stay on the surface. So I'm thinking like, what, should we make the rabbit hole a bit bigger so it's easier to fall in? Or we sort of assume people will go down anyway because it's inevitable. You start asking deeper, deeper questions when you get into soil health because it's such a such a deep topic? Like what do we, do we need to actively make sure they start asking deeper questions or it's sort of the topic is deep enough that people inevitably go down? Like what have you seen?

SPEAKER_00: 37:23

Yeah, I think if I look at what's happened in the last several years, my original assumption was we make it simple. We talk about an entry point and then it grows. It certainly patterns my experience, right? Like I started from-

SPEAKER_01: 37:39

have this discussion now if you wouldn't go

SPEAKER_00: 37:42

deep. Yeah, like I shared my journey and it went from kind of smaller moments to a much deeper thinking. But now I see billions of dollars being invested in very simplistic soil carbon schemes, initiatives, and it's such a missed opportunity. And so, yeah, Do I think that we would be having different conversations and seeing different investments if we had talked about... systems as a whole and what are the conditions that create them? 100%. I think we'd be in a different conversation now.

SPEAKER_01: 38:24

It's a perfect bridge to how would you invest a billion dollars? We didn't set this up, but it was too nice to let it go. And then I want to go to the whole complexity. So let's see what you answer and decide and where we go from there. But let's say you're waking up, you don't have to answer to any investors, like it's your money, you won the It could be very, very long term if you wanted to. You set the terms. It could be any way. It doesn't have to be in agriculture, food or soil, obviously. How would you put that money to work?

SPEAKER_00: 38:58

Yeah, I definitely don't have a plan laid out. So let's start there. I think that there are people all over the world who are thinking about systems in a whole way and thinking about and working towards What's their role in evolving the health of their place? And so I think starting with identifying people who are thinking in that way and really deeply working in their place to evolve its health, that's one place to start. I also think that we really need to shift... the role of an investor. So I think we often think about, especially in philanthropy, it's your role is to be a gatekeeper and decide what's worthy and not. Investors, it's usually that plus how do I get a return? Very simply. And we're ignoring that investors are part of our system and a really big part of our system. So in the studio, we're inviting investors to join us because that's part of food business. And what's an investor's role Which

SPEAKER_01: 40:11

flow are

SPEAKER_00: 40:15

they part of? health along its journey as a flow of a river. How does money flow and do that same thing? And so, yeah, I think shifting the role of investor to working with is a different context. Going back to your question. So I think identifying a ton of smart people who are thinking in whole ways about their places and really doing that work on the ground and going to work with them. and considering how can we put this money to its best use to deliver value along its journey. I also think we really need to be investing in infrastructure. So I also wear a hat with White Buffalo Land Trust and I work with farmers in the Central Valley of California on crop-specific projects. So I'm working on a soil health almond project and one in cotton. Cotton's a rotation crop with wheat and tomatoes and onions. And yeah, especially in cotton, infrastructure is a huge problem. Processing, spinning,

SPEAKER_01: 41:43

domestic manufacturing. Many crops it is. We just had an interview with Dan Miller, a steward, and I think we talked most of it on local meat processing. Without that, we can do all the amazing holistic management we want, but if it cannot even be processed because there are no slots or it's a seven-hour drive, yeah, we're sort of done. It doesn't, and that's only the tip of the iceberg are so much more relocalized or localized or whatever the word is, processing needed. And in terms of nutrients, in terms of keeping flows local, in terms of, I mean, in terms of freshness, et cetera, it's absolutely essential and fundamental.

SPEAKER_00: 42:26

And I only mention it as an example of... Here, on the one hand, I'm saying, let's not work from like a problem solving, problem solution mindset. And the other hand, I'm saying, let's invest in processing, which could be from that mindset. Yeah. But I do think we need to stabilize a few things in our system before everyone can be really thinking about whole systems and how do we evolve them? Like there's a bit of stop the bleeding that needs to happen. And so there are places to invest where we can do that and places where investment would unlock the potential for things to happen so if you know if grazing isn't happening in a holistic way because there's no processing facilities like yeah that's a place to

SPEAKER_01: 43:53

invest and I mean imagining a billion dollars would I wouldn't say run out but we will be put to work relatively quickly it's it is it sounds like a lot of money but it isn't at the same time and so it if you wouldn't be investing, I'm sorry, we took away your, your, your fund at the moment or your, your, your holding company or whatever structure, every green structure you would probably choose. Um, but you could change one thing overnight in the food and agriculture system, but literally anything could be better taste, global consciousness, uh, keystone species thinking. That's another thing, but still, what, what, what, what would you change if you had that magic wand, but only one thing don't ask for three. I mean, I have some people on there say, yeah, we'll change this, this and this. The question was one.

SPEAKER_00: 44:35

Yeah. Yeah, you get a magic wand that creates you three more

SPEAKER_01: 44:40

wishes.

SPEAKER_00: 44:45

Yeah, I wish I had thought about it more deeply before. The

SPEAKER_01: 44:49

first thing that comes to mind is often very interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 44:53

Yeah. I think that if I had a magic wand, I would awaken deep gratitude about how sacred food is. To me, food is our most intimate relationship of connection. It's what makes us or reminds us that we are nature, that we are the ecosystem, that we're one planet. And I think that, yeah, without a time machine, I'll never quite know, but stories of communities that, yeah, that lived much more as part of their ecosystem, it sounds like there were rituals around that sacredness. When you kill an animal, there's a ritual around it. And so that that sacredness was always present. And I think that if we if every human shifted that overnight with a magic wand, which is a funny thought, it would be hard to maintain a lot of the extractive system.

SPEAKER_01: 46:01

And what do you feel and see? I mean, you're in a place in California where technology, I wouldn't say rules, but let's say technology thinking is omnipresent. What do you say when you meet people that say, yeah, we just figure out technology solutions for this, precision fermentation, precision agriculture. We'll just intensify, intensify on a small plot and then let, let the rest rewild and we'll, we'll fix this or vertical farming like indoors, et cetera. What, what do you, what is your normal counter reaction? I'm sure a few people in the audience would like to know because, um, I get it a lot and then I'm always struggling to have a concise because probably there's such a holistic answer to that. Like it's not, it's not a one minute or one sentence answer, but what do you tell to people that are just basically saying, well, we'll figure out a tech solution to our food, ag and land use and sea use obviously as well. I

SPEAKER_00: 46:55

think if I were in conversation with someone who is talking about tech as a solution, I would really want to ask and get to the root of what they care deeply about. What do you care most about? Because I find when we have conversations about that, it's often about our children or living a good life or everyone having less stress and eating nutrient-dense food and thriving. And I would ask that because I think that sometimes we're so far down the kind of chain of improvement, improvement, improvement. It's like maybe you started from a root like that, but you get to, oh, I'm really concerned about climate change. Okay, if I'm really concerned about climate change, what are the metrics? And then how do we work on the metrics? And then how do we create tech to do that? And then, and then, and then, and then, and we're just so far down this improvement. thinking that, yeah, I would start first with what do you deeply care about and have a conversation about that and then start to really be honest about are the actions we're taking getting us there and hopefully find an opening around if they are or aren't and have a conversation from there. You know, some tech is incredible. I don't want to like wipe. We wouldn't be recording this. No,

SPEAKER_02: 48:29

that's it.

SPEAKER_00: 48:31

Right. But why technology and what is its role and what is its role in getting us to what I think most of us are seeking, which is connection and health and just living a good life.

SPEAKER_01: 48:47

And imagine we're doing this in a real theater. So we're on stage. We don't need a lot of tech, maybe for the lighting and the microphones. And the room is full of, it's a live audience. Let's hope we can do that at some time. And it's full of investors as well. And you can give them a, of course, not investment advice, but like a message or something when they walk out there, where should they start digging a bit deeper? What questions should I ask? Like, what could they do in there? If they're not part of the cohort, what could they do in their daily life, the day after, or even the evening itself to start making some shifts or to start on the journey of how do I start these regenerative flows? How do I switch my thinking or at least invite myself to to think differently? What would you tell them as sort of, it's a final question, but for sure there will be others, but as to end the evening, we're in a nice old theater somewhere and we're giving them a message for when they walk out or when they have a drink at the bar. What would you give them as a, and mainly on the investing side, they think, yeah, of course it sounds amazing. I should have a holistic view on everything. But now what do I do with my portfolio or with the investment decisions that are on my desk for Monday morning?

SPEAKER_00: 49:58

First, I would ask why an annoying amount of times so just like which are the best questions just like children just like children do right yeah or Ricardo Sembler I think he's

SPEAKER_01: 50:11

known for asking like if he says like three four times you get to the core of everything like it's very rare you don't get to a very deep point if you ask why three times okay that's a very good one yeah right why are you investing or why do you have this money

SPEAKER_02: 50:25

well

SPEAKER_00: 50:28

then we can go deep very quickly yeah But I think that often the metrics that are evaluating investments are leaving out so much, right? So why do we choose these investments? What's the impact we really think they're going to make? So asking tons of questions around there. I also think, again, really shifting the way we view investment to more of a partnership. Again, it's not check writing and-

SPEAKER_01: 51:02

Yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 51:03

control and a safe bet to get a certain return. What if we really... shifted to think of it as a resource that adds value and what kind of value do we want to be added and then how do we steward that resource so it it adds the value we're actually seeking instead of yeah kind of a half-baked thought of what the value we're hoping it'll you know we're kind of hoping for something and a return at the same time maybe without truly considering if we're actually going to get the returns we're seeking not just monetary but ecological too

SPEAKER_01: 51:43

all the others as well. And so what, how can people help? What are you recording? Is the end of March, 2022 and should be out somewhere in April or whenever you're listening to this, because obviously it's not, it's not live could be 10 years from now, which would be funny. But what are you currently, should people nominate people if they want to be part of the cohort, if they want to fund this, this is obviously a nonprofit. What, what are you most looking for? What are you, what would be a help to you?

SPEAKER_00: 52:11

Sure. Yeah. We're still in the invitation phase so we have about half the cohort filled and looking for people who are willing and excited to take a deep journey and stepping into the unknown together and being yeah held in that and so yeah if you're interested in joining us or learning more we've developed a series of experiential sessions so instead of talking about the studio we're having people join zooms where they can experience what it'll feel like to be in the studio as well as what does working on your thinking really feel like and we're working through self-reflection and just you know there's no experts I'm not there's no test you're not getting an A on what we're presenting so just

SPEAKER_01: 53:00

I mean there are some questions about like basic questions around soil health that you have to pass before you get in right otherwise no no I'm joking I'm joking so it's not you can experience it before you sign up, which is great.

SPEAKER_00: 53:16

Yeah. And then the studio has a cost. We have a team and we're going to all these beautiful places and the way we also view all the places that we're going to visit and experiences, you know, how can we add value instead of just paying for food and lodging? Like how do we add value that lives on beyond us? So we're investing in every place that we go. So there's a cost to that. So there's a cost to the studio and we're asking people to pay to join on a sliding scale. So there's also room for donors to help fill in for those gaps.

SPEAKER_01: 53:53

Perfect. And I'll put all the links below if you want to know more in the show notes, the links to go much deeper and to keep digging, which is essential. And I want to thank you so much, Lauren. I want to be conscious of your time. We can talk for hours on this stuff, but I would love to check in six months or a year from now to see how is it going? How is it going shaping up how is the work continuing how is the journey going for some of the members etc so I'm looking forward very much to check in over time and as this is a journey I hope it's not the last time you're on the podcast

SPEAKER_00: 54:28

thank you so much it was wonderful to talk with you today

SPEAKER_01: 54:36

Thanks again and see you next time.