168 Nicole Masters and Abby Rose on how tech can enable an army of creative thinking farmers

A conversation with Abby Rose, co-founder of Vidacycle Tech and co-host of Farmerama, and Nicole Masters, founder of Integrity Soils and writer of ‘For the Love of Soil’. They talk about the Soilmentor Regen Platform, empowering farmers, mindset shift, observation and critical thinking.
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How can we change that and create an army of super curious farmers, and how do we empower them to keep asking themselves why? What role can tech play here, and how can it lead to the much- needed mindset shift to a more regenerative one, seeing the potential of abundance, not be hindered by competitive thinking?

More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/nicole-masters-abby-rose.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Did you know most farmers never dug a hole to look at their soil or smelled their soil? How can we change that and create a quote unquote army of farmers who are super curious and how do we empower them to keep asking themselves why, why, why? What role can tech play here and how can it lead to the much needed mindset shift to a more regenerative one? Seeing the potential of abundance, not be hindered by competitive thinking. This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast 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 below. So welcome to another episode. Today, we have Abby Rose back on the podcast and we're welcoming for the first time, Nicole Masters, who is the founder of Integrity Soils. Welcome both Abby and Nicole.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40

Thanks for

SPEAKER_00: 1:43

having us. And we have had Abby, don't worry if we're talking at the same time, we're recording a different track, so nothing happens. We have had Abby before on the show, but for anybody that didn't listen to that episode, of course, I will link it below. You joined us for a very interesting webinar on the role of technology in regeneration as well. which was two years ago and we had you in 2019. So three years ago on the show, a lot has happened. If you have to briefly or slightly, not so briefly, introduce yourself, what do you normally say when you, I don't know, meet somebody in the subway or somewhere in an elevator and you have a long elevator ride, let's say five minutes, what do you say? How do you introduce yourself? And then we get into what are you busy with here at the end or beginning of spring in 2022?

SPEAKER_02: 2:29

Yeah, well, I guess I always start with the fact that my family started farming when I was in my late teens. And through visiting the farm, I became totally obsessed with farming, basically. Because before that, I actually wasn't interested at all. And I thought it was sort of boring and nothing to do with me. And now it's my life. And why did I become I'm so interested. It was because I realized that every decision we make on the farm, not only affects us, but it affects everyone around us and not, and really it affects everyone on the globe because we're making decisions about how much, you know, how do we graze our animals and therefore how much carbon is sequestered in the soil. You know, how much rain are we capturing? So all of these things made me really realize that actually farming and farmers are one of the main interaction points of humanity with the natural world. And so, yeah, I became very involved. And through that, my family's farm is in Chile. And so we were kind of, you know, trying to farm organically. We had olives, almonds, pistachios, or yeah, now we have that and some vines. And we were, there were just so many questions all the time. It's like, oh, no, now what do we do? There's a new problem. Like, and who do you ask? And so out of that, two things came about, which are the main things I spend my life on today. One of them is Farmerama, which is a podcast showing the voices of the regenerative farming movement. And that really was about going out and being able to ask people, what are you doing about this on the ground? Who are the pioneers here? And we definitely had Nicole on there a few times, giving us insights into how to bioprime seeds and very practical things as well as storytelling. And then also at the time, we didn't have any way to monitor the crops or trees. And so I had studied physics and I was able to code. So I built some tools for using on our farm, an app. And then that kind of our neighbors started using it. And that was developed into our company, Vita Cycle Tech, which is, we offer a soil mentor, sector mentor and work mentor. And those And those are all apps focused on helping farmers in the regenerative transition. Particularly, the sector mentor is focused on vineyards and orchards or agroforestry. And then soil mentor is very focused on soil health and biodiversity, so more general farming. And work mentor is on farm worker management for small to medium scale farms. And so we use all three of those on our farm in Chile. yeah it's a super privilege to work with farmers around the world and amazing well partner with Nicole to really bring some of those insights about what you know what does it look like to build good soil health and how can you keep your vines healthy using the least inputs possible you know the soil first approach is really embedded in everything we do

SPEAKER_00: 5:58

super and yeah we're going to unpack Yeah, we're going to unpack more of that, obviously. But first, let's welcome Nicole for the first time here on the show. Definitely feels like we have a very famous person among ourselves. And what brought you, because I don't know the origin of your soil story, let's say, the origin of your story. What brought you to agriculture and food and go so deep, literally and figuratively, into the world of soil?

SPEAKER_03: 6:24

Well, thank you for asking that question, Kern. And I believe everybody has these originating stories. And sometimes I wonder if it's just been in my DNA forever. If you ask my parents, they'll talk about stories of, you know, they can't find me and I'll be in the garden eating slugs and snails. And, you know, I've always had that obsession with soil under my fingers. But I think as well as a New Zealander, we're very connected to the rural community more than many other societies. You know, all my different relatives were certainly farming. I was brought up as a military brat. So I was brought up as a military brat. Air Force you know traveling a lot spending a lot of time in aircraft looking down and just being incredibly concerned I mean it's some of my earliest memories is seeing the scale of erosion in New Zealand and being really concerned as a little person like where's that going and what's it doing to the rivers and then Mount St. Helens erupted when I was five and my Nana subscribed me to National Geographic and just being like wow we are so small in all of this and how quickly nature can just overwhelm everything and then National Geographic tracked that recovery of those landscapes and it's like you know nature is so resilient and yeah it's just it has been a journey that's just kept evolving and evolving like I never had in my mind I'm going to be an agroecologist when I grow up and in fact I was an agroecologist for eight years before I realized it had a name like I just was working in this field working with farmers and ranches and connecting them to soil and thinking about about ecological context because that's my background and then go oh wow this is actually a thing but one of my like you have these pivotal moments and one of them happened in Hong Kong so we left we lived in Hong Kong for seven years or I did my family was there for like 14 and I remember just looking at all of the soot and the poor air quality and the plastic bags that were just everywhere and thinking we will live in our own filth if we don't in What does it take to interrupt a behavioral pattern so that this doesn't become normalized? So it's become very formative for me in terms of, I do feel like I can be a bit of a disruptor or a paradigm shifter. And how do we shift forward? Because it's not going to take complacency and business as usual. So yeah, there's so many stories I could share, like everybody, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:53

And what do you spend, I mean, except for being on a podcast, but let's say you're a your days on or your work on what is what is keeping you busy um and now in in april 2022 what are you spending most of your time on and we'll unpack obviously the region platform and you're working with with either cycle but beyond that or next to that what what is keeping you busy

SPEAKER_03: 9:16

so our core work since 2003 has been education and actually even before that um but 2003 i formalized you know making having a company so education is definitely the backbone of of what we do and what we're doing right now is we're coaching the coaches so people that are interested in agroecology and coaching or consulting we have a five month long program and that just finished yesterday so I'm still kind of spinning from the impact that that program's had on my life and the impact that I see it having on people like we spent all yesterday just crying like and crying with joy of like what is now possible for people in the world and it was one of the women who's it incredibly talented and pretty well known so I won't necessarily mention her name but she was saying you know I thought I'd come to this course and learn more about you and what you do and the work that you do and she's like what I came to the course and learned about was myself and you know if we're not transforming this piece which is that internal space and our mindset and our paradigms then real change isn't going to happen on the ground and so that was the driver behind the program is yeah we're going to look at the technical aspects of how does this microbe in the soil affect the uptake of this nutrient to the plant? How does that affect plant and human health? We really delve into the technical side, but woven through all of that is who are we being in this space? So I've been absolutely blown away by the success of that program and I feel very heartened today and tired.

SPEAKER_00: 10:55

I can imagine, I can imagine. And will you be repeating that program It sounds like it was a first time or a first one, like the impact it had. Does that naturally raises the question, is it going to come back or is it done?

SPEAKER_03: 11:10

Because I haven't dealt with my world of overwhelm, we're running it again in another couple of months. So then the next intake shuts on the 15th of May and we will do one more in the US and then next year we're looking to Australia and then probably in 2024 we'll be looking at Europe it's a big undertaking you know every person on that program gets an individual coach that they're working through processes it's not something that we can just throw out in the world and say hey you do this and walk away from it it is incredibly intensive

SPEAKER_00: 11:47

and then you find time next to that and I want to bring in Abby as well on like when did this region platform started to let's say started to fermentate started to seed or sprout like what was the because you've been building these apps and tech side and that felt like maybe it wasn't enough like you could have grown that for a long time I think and then you said let's bring on another layer let's add another layer to that why did you decide to do that and then why did you decide or how did you end up partnering with Nicole that doesn't seem like she has nothing to do so it was like how do you build that

SPEAKER_02: 12:28

yeah well um i mean i read nicole's book called for the love of soil and i would highly recommend it to be read by anyone who's interested in in this at all um because it's well one it's extremely entertaining um but two it is an amazing balance of like the personal and the technical um and so i think that you know whether even if you know nothing about regenerative agriculture you can really enjoy it and you can learn a heck of a lot um so reading that um Also, Nicole has a strong emphasis on digging holes. And that's something that I have learned. That's the way I've learned about soil. You know, I dug my first hole like in 2017. That's embarrassingly recently. But that was

SPEAKER_01: 13:17

the beginning of my journey. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 13:20

that's true. But yeah, that was the beginning of my journey into learning like what soil really is. It's one of those things that I'd heard everyone talk about it. You know, I've been involved in this world for quite a few years before that, but I'd always been like, oh yeah, soil is really important. But that was where my knowledge ended. And then I started to dig some holes and I read Nicole's book and started to piece together all this information about this world below our feet and how much you can learn from looking at it. And so that was why when Nicole like really built on that knowledge of how much you can learn from looking at it and some of the things, you distinctions that she drew out in her book. So I was like, Oh my gosh, I've got to talk to this person. This is incredible. Um, and so, yeah, I can't remember who introduced us, but we had an initial chat. Um, and I

SPEAKER_03: 14:12

think,

SPEAKER_02: 14:13

Oh yeah, maybe. And I, and I think what really got us connected, I guess at the time was that actually, um, I brought up the feminist business principles, which I've definitely talked about before. Um, and, uh, we talked through them and Nicole you really encouraged me to move you know how can we not have them be about gender but actually have them be about something everyone can see themselves stepping into and yeah so that's we've moved into the regenerative business principles but I think that conversation like you know when you start talking about things like the first principle is you have a body when you start talking at that level it was like a level of connection that it just you know if someone if you going to get on with someone at that point. So we just really connected, I think.

SPEAKER_03: 15:03

I think of you as my sister from another mister. It was certainly an instant connection. And I think too, we had a consulting version of an app that only the consulting team was using. And the platform we were using was quite clunky. So Abby really helped to resolve an issue that we had. And, you know, we transferred all of that consulting level information into And then we're like, this is far too overwhelming for most producers who are not interested in that level of delving in. And then that kept exploring this conversation around how do we simplify this and make it really, really valuable. And if you had to just choose 10 indicators, what would they look like? And then what does it mean? And then what potentially can we do? And I think that's the missing with a lot of data is it's just data for data's sake. And people just have piles of information. information that either doesn't inform the future or it lags too far behind to give you anything that offers real value. And I know people that have like 30 years of monitoring data on their places, and it really means nothing. It's just a navel-gazing exercise. So, Abby really takes that to the next level.

SPEAKER_02: 16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:17

And so, why... Now, go ahead. Go

SPEAKER_02: 16:19

ahead. No, I was going to say, together, that's what the Soil Mentor Regen platform is, really. And that's where things get serious, I feel like. Because it's one thing being able to go and look at a hole and record how many earthworms there are um but the missing the next level which is what the regen platform brings and what nicole brings essentially is like okay your earthworm number is 20 you know is that pretty good okay or not so good compared to what we would expect from your soil type your climate and what might you do about it like what questions might you ask yourself from a regenerative standpoint And I think, you know, the taking people that step further, two steps further really, is a huge leap compared to like where most things leave you, especially with data. So I think, yeah, it's been really exciting to see how that's empowering farmers kind of to start to take themselves to the next step to a certain extent.

SPEAKER_00: 17:23

Yeah, I think that triggering that question and getting rid of the data for data sake I mean you can you can drone your your your property all you want or set everything to the lab you want but if it if it doesn't influence any decision after or triggers any question or it's it's a very expensive hobby and so how do you trigger it how do you take that from these 10 indicators we can walk through them I mean they're on the website I definitely put the link below so you had to to simplify it to 10 how difficult was it let's first of all start with the question like how difficult is it for you Nicole or you both a and Nicole to pick 10. Like what was the long list and how did we end up with 10 of these? And why are these, let's say the best proxies or the best web that captures hopefully the 80-20 or 90-10 or whatever of what we want to see?

SPEAKER_03: 18:13

Yeah, it's a really good question because there's so much to look at. And I think sometimes people don't realize how dynamic and how many measures there are for soil, but a lot of them are interrelated. So if we take like aggregate stability or what we call the slaking test, as an example how that little crumb it seems so insignificant how does that hold together tells you so much about greenhouse gas emissions your nitrogen cycle sedimentation and waterways the ability for water and air and gas to diffuse through a soil and you get that just from this one little crumb so for me there's a couple of that these absolutely have to be on the list and then we I think we got down to maybe like eight that we were really clear that we could agree on these and then what would be some of the extras and like trying to go, Oh, maybe we need 12 Abby, but you know, we, we, we really got there and it was fun. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't find, we didn't have too much challenges with it. The challenge is Abby trying to pin me down.

SPEAKER_00: 19:15

Why didn't you allow her to have 12? Like one for every month, like something, not 10, 10 is a good

SPEAKER_02: 19:21

number. Yeah. I think so. One of the experiences we do have, you know, over the years with Soul Mentor and, and, and working with farmers in the field is like, there is, you know, simplicity and ease are important. And I know, you know, Nicole knows that as well. But it's like, it is such a different perspective to the consultant or the coach coming in. What a farmer will actually do in the field. Obviously, you know, they have so many other priorities all the time. So keeping it to 10, it just...

SPEAKER_00: 19:55

So why not eight? I mean, if you already got to eight,

SPEAKER_02: 19:58

Well, from my experience, you could say, why not one? And then you get down the path of like carbon as the sole indicator of soil health. So you do need to find a balance of not oversimplifying things. So we were trying to keep the complexity there whilst also having some form of simplicity. I mean, I don't know. What do you think, Nicole?

SPEAKER_03: 20:27

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And to make it still give really good insights. Like one of the things we created, which I haven't seen before, was this idea of the Brix barometer. So Brix is a measurement of how well is a plant capturing sunlight energy, which is the very purpose of being on the planet. It's why we can live here. But what we find is most systems are very disabled as such, dysfunctional. And what you find is whoever's capturing the most sunlight energy is often the plant. that are least desired. So you could call these weeds, for instance. But what we find is those plants will be, so we can measure this using a refractometer and looking at bricks as a measurement of sugars and dissolved solids. And whoever's got the highest amount of those materials is then able to pump more sugars out the roots, is then able to influence the microbial community around those roots. And so what we find is people have a higher sunlight capture in the plants they don't want and very low in the in their commercial crops or what they do want and so the wider that gap the more of an indicator is that this system is dysfunctional that who's what who you are farming for are the weeds who you're farming for is disease who you're farming for is a lack of nutrient density in the crops that you're producing so but we were i was excited to see that being developed i think that's a good resource

SPEAKER_00: 21:54

so how like these 10 indicators how easy are day for a general farmer. There's no general farmer, but for a general person to do that, is it literally I dig a hole and then I do it? I mean, you're now mentioning bricks meters, like how complex is it to, or what's the barrier to entry in this? Like I want to start, I'm downloading the app, I become a customer or client or partner, whatever we call it. And then what do I need to get the 10? Or can I get eight right out of the gate and I need to order some other things to do 10? Or do I need to ship something so What's the process for a newbie, let's say?

SPEAKER_02: 22:34

Actually, the majority of them you can do with just a spade. We've done it that way on purpose. The idea is that it's easy to go and do out in the field. The refractometer is a slight

SPEAKER_00: 22:47

specialist. In all your fields, I'm assuming. You want to do it regularly and spaciously regularly, let's say, if you have a larger farm to see differences. Yes. Or would you recommend one? No, you would recommend multiple, I'm imagining.

SPEAKER_02: 23:02

Yeah. I mean, different metrics have different frequencies. Like the Brix barometer, you could, I don't know what Nicole would say, but you could easily do that every week and potentially learn something from it. I don't know. Nicole's definitely better to answer that question than me. But in terms of, yeah, the only test that you have to send away to a lab is actually the carbon stocks. And that's because obviously carbon stocks are really important they're part of the picture um and so we did want to include one lab-based test in there um so you can you know it's getting this whole picture um but the majority of the tests are yeah just go out and get started i would say

SPEAKER_03: 23:44

and so there's no barrier to that in terms of you don't have to have that equipment and you don't have to send it to the lab to still start these processes and you might go all right well i have time for is this one measure well Just take that one measure and you're still starting to build up your knowledge bank as such. Producers are really busy. It depends what scale they're on. They don't always have the time for things like this. Just being able to set aside that time. It is something really fun. I really encourage producers to go out with their family. Counting worms with your kids. So fun. Abby, you'll like this. We were out in the field two days ago and we saw something we've never seen before which I always love but they were dung beetles that had mites all over them like all over them and I'm like oh gosh I don't know if this is a good thing I was wondering are they decay mites is that what they are sure enough they are so we googled it and these dung beetles actually have these little hitchhikers who will go with them to the next cow pie and then they are eating root feeding nematodes and pest organisms in the soil which is really really cool but just even to do something like that. You want to watch a bunch of adults squeal like little kids when we discover something like that. It was so fun.

SPEAKER_00: 25:56

And then how do you capture that in one of the 10? No, I don't think it was a question. It was one of the ones that was left out. Yeah, but for good reasons.

SPEAKER_03: 26:02

It's the curiosity, right? Is that I've been with producers that really value soil health, have never dug a hole or things like dung beetles. They've never even seen, well, you have five different species of dung beetles and this is what they look like and to see people just light up and connect more deeply and I think for me that's a big part of software is that we can actually use that as a behavioral change tool to connect because people will dig a hole and they go well it looks like dirt and I don't know what I'm looking at and so yay you dug a hole but actually let's keep building on this educational space and we can't be everywhere at all times so actually having a process that works people through that educational portion is so exciting.

SPEAKER_00: 26:51

And captures the data and stores it so you can go back in time. I mean, then it becomes interesting to see the lines going somewhere or at least the directions if you dug the hole more or less at the same location. Of course, not exactly the same. And then, I mean, you're capturing as a farmer these 10 or whatever the number is at that point you have time for, but like a robust set of data. How do we make sure it's not data for data sake like how do we then influence the the farming practice or decisions that i need to take um to to go out in the field tomorrow like how do how do we translate that because that sounded like your ambition to make sure it changes something on the field except that there's a hole like what what does how do you influence management decisions that that farmers need to take um daily basically with the data they in this case capture themselves

SPEAKER_02: 27:43

okay yeah so i mean the The app, I would say, you know, the app is there to take you so far. So it will basically show you a soil health scorecard. So you see all of your results in a scorecard and each result also will have a color behind it. So it shows you like, oh, look, actually an earthworm score of 12 in this type of soil for this type of climate is actually in the red. And then you can click into that and that's where it's like Nicole pops up. Maybe one day we'll have it so we have a little mini Nicole video like

SPEAKER_00: 28:16

a halo like a halo a hologram on your field she's there

SPEAKER_04: 28:21

point

SPEAKER_00: 28:25

your point your phone now to the field and

SPEAKER_04: 28:28

Nicole

SPEAKER_02: 28:30

will show up yeah we're working on it but for now um it's just it's text-based Nicole um so the you get to see your visually you're seeing colors in terms of like where do you sit as a benchmark you also get to see where do you how do you compare compare with all the other farmers on the platform who have your soil and your climate, essentially. So you will then see, it's just like a box and whisker plot. So it's not, you can't tell much about other people, but you can certainly tell how do you compare with all the other results coming in. And then the next bit is where Nicole then explains this result. So, you know, this earthworm number may be because of X, Y, and Z. And then also, like, literally feeds some questions that my understanding is that Nicole, you would be asking, or one of your coaches that just came off the Create course would be asking at that point. It's like, okay, well, what are the questions to ask right now? And so, yeah, I guess the app feeds you that.

SPEAKER_03: 29:31

Yeah. Because if we step back a little bit or up, what we are going through right now is an evolution, an evolution in consciousness, an evolution in how we work with landscapes, education, health, everything's shifting right now. And we're working a away from this expert model, which is I have the answer and you should listen to me. And what that has created is...

SPEAKER_00: 29:53

And I'm selling your inputs usually.

SPEAKER_03: 29:55

Yeah. Yeah. So farmers have been trained to lose that curiosity, lose the art, lose the joy. And here, someone's going to come and tell you, you need to put on 200 kilograms because that's the answer. And so very much this app is, have you considered this? Have you thought about this? Has this been happening to continue to open up the observation and open up the critical thinking because that's what's required we don't need people out there who have the answer and the technology that's going to save the day because that's what we've been living through for the last 120 years and that model doesn't work so how do we how do we create adaptive creative thinkers and that's part of what this app does is just kind of feed into your curiosity

SPEAKER_00: 30:38

so basically by triggering questions based on very real examples amount of earthworm spare earth percentage, et cetera, et cetera, bricks barometer. You're trying to trigger curiosity instead of giving one answer, which you can't because that's what we've been trying for 120 or probably more years. And that's impossible, but you're basically trying to trigger somebody, nudge somebody to keep asking questions until they figure out the answer that works in their context. And then hopefully keeps using the app and capture the changes in these indicators. And Like, do you like, okay, maybe this is too early, but like what, where virtual Nicole, text-based Nicole is triggering the right questions? Like what's the response sort of there? Like people click through or how do you know it's working? Or do you know if people keep using the app, they are happy clients? Like how do we know this is leading to, because it is using technology in this way and it's not having one of the consultants or one of the coaches that you've trained in the field. It is, there's a layer in between which is maybe more powerful and maybe less powerful like how do we know this is working and creates this army of curiosity

SPEAKER_02: 31:53

well I mean partially I would say yeah it's about people using the app and continuing to use it obviously you know then that it's creating value but I would also say that we only so it only was released in January for the first time so it's very much an evolving learning process and I actually personally see it as very much and I think Nicole sees it the same like it's about taking farmers that extra step but I do still like from my experience of people going through the regenerative transition actually the coach is a hugely important role probably for quite different things than people use consultants for today so it's not to tell you what to apply but it's to be there to like support you through your questioning essentially so the app will start with these questions it gives you some links you can go like explore more learn more watch videos read information and then the coach is there to be like your sounding board to talk to to help guide you through that process and give you the confidence you need because I do think it's not fair to just give an app to a farmer give them some questions and then be like okay off

SPEAKER_00: 33:03

you go good luck

SPEAKER_02: 33:05

good luck

SPEAKER_00: 33:06

but that's I think the difference between a coach and a consultant like that the coach will a good coach I think will never tell you what to do but will trigger enough questions that you will figure out your path and will be there with you or give you enough confidence to ask those questions to begin with. And was it before you, I mean, you mentioned, Nicole, that it was part of the work you already did in another app. Like, was it a huge work like to sort of text, like capture you or capture your coach and your style in text and to make it easily accessible and not overwhelming, but also not too simplified? Like how difficult was that to go from here are 10 things and how you can measure these and how you can have these indicators to, okay, let's trigger people with questions and make sure they hit a nerve because then we get somewhere.

SPEAKER_03: 33:55

Yeah, there's kind of two parts because part of it was really exciting in terms of making the implicit explicit. How do we take some of these observations for me, which feel very intuitive, feel like I'm on the landscape, I'm reading the person, I'm reading the land, I'm reading the animals, and then to reduce that and put it into words, I'm like, no, That part was really challenging. It's like, this needs to be an expansive

SPEAKER_00: 34:20

process. Yeah, because words are so flat. Yeah. They're not, there's no, there's no, there's no, yeah, there's no 3D. There's no depth at all. You can explain it in 10 different ways and you would never know because somebody is going to be somewhere in the UK or somewhere in Italy looking at a screen and think, or her screen and think, what does this mean?

SPEAKER_03: 34:38

Yeah. And so that was the fun of it. Like, how do we, how do we make it as simple as possible without making it, without dumbing it down but also you know measures like what does soil smell like and how would you even be able to rate that on a scale it's quite simple to do that and and what's really interesting they did a study in California and they got a large number of people to smell soil that ranged from good to bad and didn't matter if you were a child or if you were academic or if you had never gardened in your life or you're a master gardener people could rate soil from bad to good across the board we have an inbuilt sense of what good soil should smell like and

SPEAKER_00: 35:23

that's fascinating

SPEAKER_03: 35:24

what's really cool is so geosmin which is the odor of the earth what you smell on a hot summer day if there's a shower of rain that smell we can smell that at 200,000 times the concentration of what a shark can smell a drop of blood in an Olympic swimming pool like how wild is that so we are tuned into soil i believe because it's where we come from it's the mother it's the source of life on the planet it's the reason that we're here and and we can smell it which i just think is extraordinary so

SPEAKER_00: 35:57

it's now one of the 10 indicators

SPEAKER_03: 35:59

yes

SPEAKER_00: 35:59

or not it is

SPEAKER_02: 36:01

okay it's not one of the 10

SPEAKER_03: 36:03

sorry

SPEAKER_00: 36:09

because the smelling part i was going to say because you at the beginning you dig a hole and you look and i was almost going to say you smell you smell but luckily it came up now like smelling is is is a very powerful sensor and apparently we're in a to to really understand what's better soil and and not so we that's that's it's very encouraging that even after 120 years of very chemical input agriculture we're still able to do that we might have lost some taste bud or have to reset our tasting system a bit but the smell recover from

SPEAKER_04: 36:37

covid

SPEAKER_00: 36:40

yeah that's not a good thing yeah that's a very interesting one as well so to dumb that down dumb that down quote-unquote obviously you said it was fun and challenging and then did you also see it as um it's almost a threat for your your coaches and you as well like if suddenly the technology the app would fix everything have you ever ever pop up or have you had discussions with yourself or among your organization in with

SPEAKER_03: 37:04

that it's so funny i did a industry brainstorming session about this in 2006 in new zealand and and people have said to me why would you coach coach They're going to take away business that's leading to you. Why would you do that? Or why would you write it down in a book? If any of those thoughts are popping up for people about competition, about scarcity, you are no longer regenerative. You just jumped back into the old paradigm of the old model of business and competition and threats and all of that. So a huge part of really being regenerative is shifting those contexts. There is no such thing as scarcity. and competition in this world and you can see the massive expansion of regenerative agriculture right now we need more people understanding and doing this work deeply and I want to put it in every single person's hands and actually if I can make myself defunct I'm just going to go and live in the mountains and ride my horse and I'll be very happy doing that like I'll be done I'm like oh good my work is done you'll be fine yeah I'll find something else to irritate people with like yeah and it's that ability to pivot or be resilient is what we need to be building in people like how do we respond if someone else starts to offer something that you're doing and might take your market share it's like well then you're not offering something truly unique and continually learning and expanding yourself

SPEAKER_00: 38:29

and do you feel like sort of this two-step approach maybe there are multiple steps but this this approach and i say you but depending on who wants to take this question of triggering obviously the indicators and starting with that and then with the questions triggering this this curiosity mind or this beginner's mind or this regenerative think is that enough to or have you seen that already now or is that what you're thinking there enough to trigger that mindset and to because you mentioned on the website specifically we want to trigger regenerative mindset and to farm regeneratively we need much more than different indicators and different practices we need to start like we said now actually to work in an economic system regenerative economic system we need to switch mindset quite strongly do you see that this is triggering people to do that? Do you have examples since January? It's very short. We're at the end of April now, 2022. Do you have any interesting stories there? Is it too early there? What do you see? What do you feel? Any case studies that come to mind? Or is this too early and we need to come back in a year or so?

SPEAKER_02: 40:07

Yeah, I mean, I think that to me, that is the question. It's the most massive question possible. And to me, this is just the very beginning of And it's just a small part of the regenerative mindset change. So I would never kind of want to assume that the app was going to change someone's whole life. I mean, we're talking about a whole life change here in my mind. It's not just, you know, building soil health. It's like, as Nicole said about the Create course, like people are going on this course and it's like literally, you know, unearthing yourself as well as this regenerative transition. So I think, you know, the app is a small part of it. And part of that and where I think is interesting is that for many people, this transitioning or the soil health learning and investigation and the biodiversity learning and investigation is actually an amazing place to start. And I've seen that time and time again, as people start down the path, like probably myself included in many ways, you start in a direction and it unfurls this world of possibility where actually what's happening below the ground the soil is all of these connections and all of this like magic in inverted commas that we haven't been tapping into you know it's this it's the flourishing it's that abundance that is the opposite of the scarcity that is the opposite of the competition it's all about the collaboration and once you start to see that working below ground i think you do you know and suddenly your plants are just like going wild like these cover crops are just like so bountiful it does start to have people move in this direction of like, oh, wow, okay. Like, it just starts to open up a crack of what's possible. And so I think that would be, yeah, to me, that is the regenerative transition. And I think that's what we're all aiming for. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 42:06

Yeah. And for me, it's been really interesting to be training people that have already been teaching mindset, have already been teaching regenerative agriculture for them to say, I teach this and I never shifted my own mindset. I'm like, oh, mind blowing. You know, that piece is that really that deep, deep connection into shifting how everything in the world occurs to you. And I don't think any app is ever going to be able to do that. But part of what we're seeing is this arising of groups that are mentoring each other, that we're seeing pharma hubs forming where people are I guess, troubleshooting in their own context, in their own area and starting to ask deeper and deeper and deeper why questions. And I think that's the mycelial learning network. That's what we're seeing shifting across the planet. So it's not an app or an academic or somebody else that's got the answer. But what's cool about this, the Regen platform is that it just provides a guidance and a platform and a structure to what can seem very overwhelming and especially if you're working with a whole lot of people that are all very new to this let's not you know fall back or lose confidence you know that that's kind of the piece of just supporting confidence to know that we we are moving forward and you know thinking back to this collaborative piece if we don't collaborate we're in some serious trouble right now and you know climate change is not being driven by carbon in my mind climate that's not a climate change issue we're going to grow more plants probably with a whole lot of The issue is that we have totally degraded ecosystems that have destroyed small and large water cycles and are affecting climate dramatically. And it takes, you know, 100,000 hectare parcels to get together that we can actually modify or geoengineer climate. So it's taking a collaborative approach to we need to be managing land, all of us together to deal with some of these hugely complex issues and that we have degraded ecosystem services across the planet. So I could go on and on. I shall stop.

SPEAKER_00: 44:21

And now it's fascinating. And do you enable that mycelium to grow as well? Like between farms, you say you allow farmers to look at each other, look at each other, not the right word, to compare to others. Is it anonymized? Is that like, oh, I would love to connect with this farmer with this type of soil in the same climate because he or she might be nearby or not nearby, but nearby mentally because we're farming the same type of soil, but he might be or she might be on the other side of the world, which is great because I can WhatsApp or whatever technology I use. How do you enable, if you are or you're thinking about it, that mycelium to start connecting and then the carbon, the sugars, the nutrients, the vitamins, et cetera, to start flowing between the two nodes, if the metaphor works here?

SPEAKER_02: 45:06

Nice. Yeah, that worked. So the way, well, we are actually seeing some of those kind of non-localized but mindset-based groups for So, for example, across the UK, Pasture for Life have got a group of farmers all working, you know, in the same way using the Regen platform connected by WhatsApp or, you know, whatever works. And then they are working together to do the different monitoring and then coming back to compare and shift things together. You know, working together like that is amazing. amazingly powerful. So the app absolutely can help you do that. We do have group setups or organizational setups so that you can have lots of different farms on the same setup. And then we do also have something in the pipeline, which is specifically for farmer groups who want to be sharing all of their data, pretty much, because the app assumes that farmers don't want to share much of their data. It assumes that every farmer owns all their data and that that's very much theirs. And we're not here to compromise that in any way. And so you can, when I said you can compare, you can only see like, am I in the bottom 25% or the top 50%, you know, or am I top of every farmer who has my soil type and climate, but beyond that, you can't actually tell much more, anything more. So for smaller groups of farmers who do actually want to share much more data than that. We do have a farmer group comparison tool that's in the works. And yeah, that will make it so that you can like literally compare from the field that we visited last week as a group, you know, oh, look, their earthworm count is this, their rhizosheeds are that. How does that compare to my field that I've managed differently? Maybe I could try managing in that way. So for me, it's always about this physical digital combination how can we combine those like groups that are in real life going to visit each other's farms with those on-farm observations that they're making potentially individually and then combining all of that to learn from it and discuss together okay well how might we do things differently or maybe i could do like fiona did on her field or whatever that is

SPEAKER_00: 48:17

and the fact that you assume that farmers don't want to share that data is there a way like maybe they do or there is a a way to trigger it, partially anonymized or obviously opt-in. I mean, we're not going to share any data that doesn't want to be shared, but there's an enormous, interesting trigger there to see if you're in the top-notch or to see just to connect over these dashboards and to start, obviously, for sure, people are screenshotting it and sharing it in WhatsApp, like, look what happens here, et cetera, like to encourage that more because then we get to real connections. Then it is about something is that not only in small groups, that already know each other, but also among others, obviously always looking at privacy and data ownership. What are your thoughts there? I mean, this is super, super fresh. We're four months in, but still.

SPEAKER_02: 49:06

I don't know, Nicole, do you have any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03: 49:09

Well, part of what I'm seeing is that people that have been involved in regenerative ag for a while are more savvy about the value of data, at least I hope so. And what we're seeing is that data is becoming one of the most valuable commodities on the planet which is why we teamed up with Abbey and the Soil Mentor because that data isn't being mined. It's not being used to make decisions that take that out of people's hands. I know that some of the biggest companies in the world right now are looking at how do you make money off the agricultural landscape and that totally subjugates or goes around producers. And so I think there's a concern about if I put all my data out there, someone's going to take that and And they're going to potentially use it for evil. But we've got to stop farming the farmers. We've got to start acknowledging the contribution that they're doing or acknowledging the fact that they are the builders of infrastructure on the planet. They are the conservatives. And what's been happening forever is just rape and pillage. Take every single cent off those producers. And that's why we have landscapes so dysfunctional. It's very hard to think outside the box. when you're under so much stress from debt under so much stress from legislation and all these pressures on producers and so I really feel that they have the very strong right to keep that data to themselves and what I'm seeing is group hubs so that the hubs are sharing that information but it's not out there in the public domain space and maybe that'll change I mean maybe the whole world will actually go through this paradigm shift that I hope they will and it becomes yeah it becomes something that benefits the producers

SPEAKER_00: 50:53

yeah because you could argue you that this data is is of all of us and and just like in some countries like norway your your text data is public and in some other i mean it really depends how you how you frame that or how how we yeah if we go through that that of course not to be mined and not to be sold to xyz but should we all know what's happening in our landscapes and i'm saying our as the full planet like is that or should it really be because i happen to be lucky enough to own this land which we can ask a lot of questions about like then i should also be owner of that data like yeah i don't know is that is that true or should we go through a transition to or an evolution to to question that as well

SPEAKER_02: 51:39

yeah i have like a concrete example that really solidified my thinking on this which was that early days i learned that every farmer in the uk has to pay a tariff essentially on all of their wheat that they sell every bushel or oats and that goes to a centralized organization in the UK, a farming organization. And then that organization takes all of the data from all of those bushels sold, puts it all together and makes it open source and available. But when you really look at who benefits from that data, it is not the farmers. The farmers are paying for that data to be dealt with and collected. But the people who benefit are the traders, essentially, or the investors or the huge, you know, I know people who create the software that draws on all of that data around the world, puts it together and then sells it as like trading insider, you know, trading information. And they make a heck of a lot of money off of it. I tell you, it's amazing. Who knew? So for me, what I learned from that was like, OK, I get it. That data is valuable. It's not necessarily compromising the farmer's integrity in the sense that it's not like location based and it's not saying this farmer does this, but it's valuable. data in the aggregate for someone somewhere. And so if this data is going to be valuable in the aggregate, then for me, I think the farmer should be able to opt in and they should get paid for it, or they should have some sort of financial remuneration for the fact that they helped collect that data and that it's providing value elsewhere in this supply chain. So that's the position that we've taken, which is that it is the farmer's data. If they want to, you if somehow we come up with some agreement with someone and we're going to do an aggregate data share, or we would like to, then that will be the farmer's choice, whether they want to participate in that. And my hope would be that there would be a way of passing, or I would make sure that there's a way of compensating throughout back to the farm gate, essentially.

SPEAKER_00: 53:43

And hearing all of this, what would you say, like, imagine again, we're in a theater, we're doing this live and the room is full of, let's say, people that consider themselves smart investors that are hearing this like we love the technology approach obviously agriculture landscapes have to transition and I've asked this question already to Abby so I'm going to ask it to Nicole like what would you tell obviously without giving investment advice which is not what we're doing here but what would you tell them to look at the moment they walk out of the theater and and they are of course super inspired they're going to read the book or they already did they're going to look at a lot of documentaries they're going to visit some farms but then what where should they start literally and or not literally digging deeper, what are pieces of this regenerative transition that you're so deep into that really could use some, say, investor energy or resources or places where, and then I'm going to ask a question where you would put money to work. But first of all, let's address the audience. Okay, what should they do the moment they walk out of this theater?

SPEAKER_03: 54:45

For me, I think it's very interesting in terms of, I think as human beings, we're attracted to the big and the shiny and maybe the technology and the oh look what I made look what I'm doing and where we really need to be focused in on is how do we really empower people how do we really make a difference you don't you know investing in education investing in training people to think to be able to be this creative space it's not as sexy but that's what's truly going to make an impact in the world because that one person that you now empowered and they're out in the world you don't know what the impact of that person could be and it could be absolutely massive i mean i think just me as a as a as one person i speak to potentially over 10 000 people in a year i'm working with over 24 million acres with with um behavior change programs that's what we need to be investing in is not me although you can that would be great but investing in those those people that are really shifting the contexts that are really shifting the paradigms. And perhaps that starts with educational centers. But what I see, like right now, there's the carbon smart,$1 billion that the American government is putting out. And what they're looking for is products and practices. That is not going to make the difference. If you just invest in a practice, you can make that practice degenerative in a heartbeat. That the practice is guided by our philosophy and our principles. We need to be working on those higher philosophies so that it becomes abhorrent to come out and use Paraquat and 2,4-D and other chemicals to terminate a cover crop. And you go, oh, look, I grew a cover crop. I'm regenerative. You know, that's the piece that's really got to shift. So I think for investors to be looking at where are the change agents and how do we get under and make a difference with them, because they're the ones making the difference on the ground. And sorry, that's not

SPEAKER_00: 56:49

very sexy at all. No, no. And then let's flip the question to you. So let's you're an investor and I mean you knew this question was coming but you you have a billion dollars to to put to work and I'm not looking for exact dollar amounts I'm not looking for I'm looking for what would you prioritize how would you put that money to work it's as an investment definitely there could be some grants here and there but predominantly to put it to work and at some point it should come back ideally and what would you what would you approach first what would you do first tomorrow morning if you put on your investment I

SPEAKER_03: 57:24

think I would really like to invest in some large-scale projects that really demonstrate how we can alter climate change. So we're looking at that 100,000 hectare blocks where we can really demonstrate how does this affect downstream? How is this affecting everybody else? So yeah, and then the education piece. So there are more and more regenerative ag centers being set up. What I'd like to see, and it's the same with the NRCS here in the US, I want to see them being trained in the mindset piece. So what does it take to get some of these schools of thought into the people that are already on the ground. There's 140,000 people working for the NRCS. If they shifted their context and their mindset, whoa, you know, like what would be possible just here in the US? So yeah, that's where I would like to be investing.

SPEAKER_00: 58:18

And you're mentioning 100,000 because it's a nice big number or because there's a thought behind it, like that's the minimum we need to hit to hit the climate?

SPEAKER_03: 58:29

Exactly. That's the I hate that word, engineering. I need a new word. To see this differential start to happen, see cloud formation, see volatile organic compounds, to see that whole surface start to raise water and to change climate. So, yeah, there's some pretty good research to show that's the minimum that you need to be able to start influencing downwind.

SPEAKER_00: 58:56

And how would you approach that then with a billion dollars? I'm imagining from a non-regenerative mindset you wouldn't buy up all the land. No. How would you do it? And in case, where would you start? Do you have an ideal landscape in mind for 100,000 hectares we're talking about or acres? It's an important

SPEAKER_03: 59:12

question. Hectares, sorry, hectares. It would have to be absolutely collaborative. It would have to involve justice and equity and indigenous people in this space. So looking at what does it look like to restore these ecosystem? And there's so many partners out there right now that are asking the same question to develop a collaborative model. So no, this wouldn't be, oh, all this land is owned by some guy who flies to Mars, you know, that's not what we're interested in doing. It's not about the ownership of that land, but the collaboration. And, you know, we've seen some great projects in New Mexico and in China and Saudi Arabia. There's projects that are starting to do this, but definitely it has to involve entire communities and have community buy-in. And so we're seeing some interesting stuff here where I am in Big Timber in Montana is that just through the actions of one producer we're seeing 50% of the land area in a 10 mile radius changing their management practices and moving towards adaptive grazing management and we're seeing that resilience now to drought so last year we had a major drought all through most of the west and to come here and still see you know you've got knee to thigh high green grass and the ranch is saying this is not a drought issue this is a management issue and to see that looking over the fence people are buying in into that and they are the ones that will be directly remunerated but sometimes there's a fear that I said like debt can be a real barrier the banks the accountants can be real barriers like I'm interested in how do we how do we pull down some of those barriers that's reducing uptake and so you could use community scale projects to look at what are the barriers to you to uptaking this and maybe it requires some financial investments So the carbon project that started here, producers are being paid for their carbon, but they're not doing it for the carbon. And you ask all of them, they're all talking about ecosystem services, downstream effects, biodiversity. They're really brought into the whole thing, but that money enabled them to put in more infrastructure, to

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:23

put in more water. And so we take away your fund, unfortunately, but you do have magic power to change one thing, to change one thing overnight And I have a lot of people that say, yeah, I'm going to do two, which is sort of okay, but let's try to keep it to one. What would you change? It could be global consciousness, could be get rid of subsidies, could be anything in food and ag in this case, obviously, but also even outside that. What would you do if you had literally a magic wand to change something overnight?

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:54

Those things would be awesome. And I think teaching primary school children ecological principles to study some of this thinking, creative thinking, to change the whole schooling system so that one plus one doesn't equal two. What is one plus one? Well, if it's a buck goat and a nanny goat, that could be four. How do we start to create people that can think outside the box? Because those are the ones that are going to really be able to deal with a world that we don't know what it's going to look like in our lifetime. The uncertainty is... We want adaptive thinkers, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:36

And I've asked this one already to Abby, but I don't really remember what you said, actually. You might have changed it, actually. It's three years down the line. If you could change one thing now with all the experience you have three years further, what would you change? What would you address or not address? What would you use that want for?

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:55

Yeah, it's interesting. I think it's very reflective maybe of just some of the more recent experiences I've had, but... is something about getting coaching or therapy or something for everyone because that feels like if people it is so there's so much healing that needs to be done and that's both of the land these degraded landscapes but they're very reflective or like you know how we are is so reflected in what we see all around us and so it is very reflective of the healing that's needed for every one of us human beings on the planet. And so, yeah, what does that look like and how can that be part of what this journey is? And I do feel like, you know, as Nicole, you so often are always talking about mindset. It is like, it's what's in our heads. And if we can interact with that and heal, that would be an amazing place to start.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:00

If I can add, I was just at the conference on World of in Boulder, Colorado. Thousands of people at that event, 120 speakers and, you know, speakers that are on, you know, contributing to the IPCC report, people talking about justice and equity, really just, you know, big topics like what's going to happen with migration and food quality and indigenous rights. And what was absolutely fascinating is at the end of every single panel that I watched, when people were asked, what do we need to do? All of of them said, connect with your heart. What do you need? You know, do the work here first, because then we're in a position. We're not going to be the wounded healers trying to heal the world. We're not going to be those with anger and fear and rage inside of ourselves trying to create peace. And it was amazing to me that it was scientists saying this. It was activists saying it. It was philosophers. Everybody had the same message. And I'm like, holy Toledo, this paradigm is shifting so fast. We have no idea. And that real is where the work needs to start is with ourselves and the people around us and certainly you know families and the whole piece but that's the piece I'm most excited about

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:14

I don't think there's a better way to end this one I have a lot of other questions but I want to be conscious of your time as well and I hope it's not the last time I have you both or individually on the podcast so we can dig deeper and deeper and of course following your amazing work so I want to thank you so much for coming back Abby and for coming on the podcast for the first time Nicole

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:33

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:44

Thanks again and see you next time.