Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast features 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. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
194 Hervé Dupied – Want to change the €387 billion EU CAP? Invest in the regen farmers who against all odds are successful
A conversation with Hervé Dupied Bokx, who currently works on a farm in France and at a university for farmers and, most importantly, on changing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). We talk about policies, the CAP, which spends most of the European budget on a not very regenerative way of farming, and more.
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What is needed to change one of the largest farming subsidy schemes in the world? What pathways and successful examples do we have of European policy change? This is a much more optimistic and practical interview than you might imagine. It is about how to gather the pioneers of the regenerative and agroecology movement who against all odds and subsidies build very successful food and agriculture companies. How do we empower them to replicate their success and how do we create a strong enough voice in Brussels to change the rules of the game?
More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/herve-dupied.
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Today we talk about policies, but don't worry, it won't be boring at all. What is needed to change one of the largest farming subsidy schemes in the world, the CAP, or the Common Agriculture Policy, here in Europe? Mind you, this is over 400 billion every seven years in Europe, and most of it goes towards not regenerative practices, and thus most of the agriculture system in Europe is in a very, very bad shape. So what is needed to change this, and what pathways and successful examples do we have of European policy change this is a much more optimistic and practical interview than you might imagine it's about how to gather the pioneers in the regen and agroecology movement who against all odds and honestly against all subsidies have built very successful food and agriculture companies not enormous but they employ people produce a lot of food and keep their ecosystem in a very healthy shape how do we empower them to replicate their success what's the role of investments here and how do we create a strong enough voice in brussels to change the rules of the game 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 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. Welcome to another episode today with a former Patagonia worker who spent five years with the EMEA headquarters in Amsterdam, working on agriculture and energy, and then went back to his village in France to reopen the cafe of his ancestors and work on the farm. And of course, work on a university actually of farmers. But most importantly, and that's what we'll spend most of the time here on the podcast, we'll be talking about policy and why we have to change the cap in Europe, which spends most of the European budget on farms and on farming, let's say, not in a very regenerative way. And so unless we change that, regenerative farming will always be some playing in the margin, as they say, I think, in Dutch. So welcome, Hervé. I'm very much looking forward to this conversation, which has been a few years in the making. And I'm looking forward to unpack so much with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, Quinn. Hi, everyone. Happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01:And let's start with the obvious question. I mean, you grew up in a small village in France. What ended up your journey? Because you could have stayed in Amsterdam working in Patagonia or somewhere else? I mean, in terms of corporate career, that's probably as high as you get. Like what made you come back to the land? What made you come back to agriculture and food and switch quite drastically a career from in the city of Amsterdam back to opening or reopening a cafe in Northern France?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, reopening the cafes is, I think, one project among many others, like many entrepreneurs, I guess. I think, you know, Patagonia was for me a tremendous and beautiful university in a way. I had the chance to do a job that put me in touch with all the pioneers across Europe when it comes to, you know, the forefront of how our society could look like, you know, by 2050. So I really talked with amazing personalities. And yet, I think the world... of crisis we live now it needs people to do it does not need people to only talk I think both are important and I guess I talk today but I also try to do and it felt for me very important to go back to my roots where I belong in a I would call it underprivileged region in France and really apply everything I've learned everything I've seen and I had the perfect soil for that you know I had a house I had a history in that village I have a to create wherever I want. And I felt like, you know, to make the true decisions in your life, you need to leave the problems. And if you don't leave the problem and you live in a bubble, because Amsterdam is just an amazing city, everything is beautiful, everything is easy. And I was winning quite a lot of money. So you didn't have any problems. So the decisions you make are not so radical or are not so, you know, close to the ground, let's say. And I really needed to feel that to make sure that I was not out of track looking at what most people are actually living in Europe. Amsterdam life is not really the life of 99% of European citizens.
SPEAKER_01:The default, no. And do you remember when you noticed for the first time or really saw the immensity of the policy, I would say, issue or challenge or opportunity as well, like that gigantic elephant in the room that we avoid talking about? mostly on this podcast because I never see clear pathways of change and that's why I'm so happy to have you here but do you remember when you saw like whoa this like this is the elephant and the one we have to tackle otherwise everything else seems sort of irrelevant and and just just a joke
SPEAKER_00:yeah well before joining Patagonia I walked an entire year through Latin America with a friend of mine we walked so 7500 kilometers which is the about 5,000 miles. So we truly walked through mostly indigenous lands, starting from Mexico and going down to Chile, Argentina, until Ushuaia. And while walking on those indigenous lands, you actually see, you know, the backyard of globalization. And for me, that was kind of the analogy or the metaphor of cap system. You know, like we heavily destroy ecosystems, social ecosystems and natural ecosystems wherever with subsidies and then I was back I started to work with Patagonia starting understanding you know the deep roots of what's happening and then I came back in my village for vacation and I just you know you just take your car and you go through the landscape and I was like well that landscape is fundamentally wrong you know like I see and I saw energy and agriculture at the same time so you only see those arable farming fields you don't see a tree anymore over dozens and dozens of kilometers And then you see those big wind turbines in the middle of those fields because that system, agricultural system, does not make sense anymore for farmers. They also build or they receive a lot of subsidies to build those gigantic wind turbines. And I was like, holy shit, that whole fucking thing is crooked. There's no
SPEAKER_01:tree, just a big tube. I'm sorry? There's no tree, just a big steel
SPEAKER_00:wind turbine. The forest we're creating is a forest of wind turbines. And in the middle, you have our villages. And then you start accumulating social problems and you see that those villages, they're kind of dead, socially dead and stuff. And I was like, it doesn't make sense anymore. And because I worked at Patagonia, I was also very much aware of all the indicators around biodiversity, climate change, and the fact that our water cycles are totally disrupted. And I was like, well, this is it. This is happening live in front of me. And it's not like it's been driven by those farmers, but it's been imposed by the system to those farmers since the Second World War. And I was like, yeah, it's really wrong. It's not working. And my land, where I come from, the social and economical value is just drying out. It's just pumped by huge corporations that hold most of the added value. They extract it from that land. It's really extractivism. They extract it and they bring it to their huge company and you never see it back into our land and our regions. And this is really where it started from that walk where I opened my eyes. I needed to go out of my system, my normal system to see it. Then I came back re-educating myself at Patagonia. And when I was back in my region, I was like, that's just totally wrong. It's not going well.
SPEAKER_01:And from seeing that to acting, I mean, you say we need more acting than talking. Like what... what was your pathway there like what led you to okay this is something or maybe even going from total despair like it's it's so wrong but we've been doing it since the second world war so it's been let's say that the tracks have been laid and it's quite a deep track like it's quite difficult to to get out if you if we take the amsterdam analogy like if you're on your bike and you're stuck in the tram track you're gonna follow the tram for a while unless you fall or stop and get out like there's there's and because that track is gonna follow your your tire is gonna follow that track for quite a while and in this case we've been following this track for quite a bit. What gave you hope? What gave you like a sense of actually something, this, this is not an impossible task.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Very good question. And, uh, I think, uh, there is one example that I worked on a lot that gave me, you know, okay, this is what we need to do. So, you know, Patagonia is very well known for its grassroots activism. So, you now we are just running out of time in front of all the social and environmental crises. Like we don't have time anymore. We need to tackle every level. And there is one entity that is tackling every level, which is within energy community. So in Europe, now we have a federation called RESCU, which is for renewable energy sources, corporatives. So, and it's a different type of corporatives than what we have in agriculture, right? It's citizens across Europe they have decided to produce their own energy. And they do that by creating so-called renewable energy communities. So it is spread out all across Europe and heavily decentralized system. And yet what those thousands of communities have done, they said, hey, we need to federate. So very big difference between federating and centralizing. They did not centralize themselves. They stay very agile, very much in their community because they're produce their local energy so very small companies of couple of employees most of them but they said we're going to federate because we do the same thing all across europe they federated themselves at the european level they are well identifiable they have created a storytelling we are renewable energy communities we produce local social economical environmental services but we want to be recognized but by the european union so they created that federation And they basically added the numbers. And they saw very quickly that, hey, we represent such a powerful player on the market because we service more than a million citizens for their daily energy. So you see that's the perfect alliance of heavily decentralized model, which is not focusing money and therefore not focusing power, but is distributing money and power within the territories. And at the same time, they are able to represent themselves at the European level this is exactly the model we need for agriculture
SPEAKER_01:right so just to unpack a bit these are groups of citizens which could be hundreds or thousands depending on where you are that then ended up building these wind turbines or building solar parks and building local energy sources but owning them and instead of that extractive model you just explained like okay somebody comes in pays a lot of subsidy or pays a lot of money to a farmer puts a huge wind turbine but that's it like all the local the energy first of all of course is used locally but isn't so isn't sold locally, meaning that everybody locally pays the enormous price. Now we see it in this winter in Europe and we get to that in a second. But also like if you own that wind turbine or if you own as a community, suddenly very different things become possible because you first put it there and all the money and all the added value stays there. For sure, you hired a local company to do most of the work. For sure, you make sure that some of the profit goes to the local school to get buses. I mean, all of these, these are endless stories of local communities getting together and and own their energy source, which I think in this time of crisis is an absolute, like before it was already very relevant. And this time of crisis, it's an absolute must. And they got together and said, okay, actually we are quite a force. We are 1 million customers and we should go to Brussels, which is the headquarters of Europe and let this voice be known. And then they, did they start changing? Because like, was there legislation change needed? And was that voice needed for something instead of just saying, hey, look, we're here. We serve a lot of people. Don't listen only to the big fossil fuel energy companies. Like there's actually an alternative or was there a goal of going to Brussels and change something?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's exactly what they did. Like maybe a bit in a naive way, but they were like, well, we do represent a competitor on the European market. Let's not forget that European Union is based on the free market. You know, European Union always talk about consumers, never really citizens. They talk about consumers. So, So once you do represent a concrete and solid competitor on the European market, you are entitled to have a place on the market. You are entitled to be recognized by the market and by European Union. So that's what they did. Very nicely, they said, well, we are a competitor on the European market. We want our share from the policies you basically build right now only for mostly giants. And what I want to say is that they are not against the giants. They do understand that they also have a role to play. It's just they really want to rebalance where the money goes. From owning 99% by the giants, they say, hey, we want our share, whether it's 30%, 40%, 50%. They do understand they have a role to play, especially in research and development, in backing up when you need to make a big investment. They have the solidity to back up those investments and work together. And you see that happening. Of course, if you let only the giants, the giants, they always want more market shares. But if you have a political entity that is able to balance because they see a complementary system represented by citizens gathering, making something solid with good business models, then the political, they're going to say, hey, now the giants, you're going to work with those citizens that have well structured themselves, that have built more added value in their territories, that are not so concentrated as you are. And so you balance the effect of capitalism because if you let capitalism go by itself, it will always focus money on one part of the system. If you take food system, that's what's happening. If you take energy system, that's what has happened as well. And it's just about fighting the normal tendency and the natural tendency of capitalism to always focus money and therefore power. So that's what that model of energy has done because they tend to, produce local energy so they create small companies and they are spread out all over our European territories and that's very healthy because it brings back people it brings back jobs and of course it brings back social links within our communities
SPEAKER_01:and so what has happened this year like we're in a very challenging time in terms of energy markets and prices and because of the war obviously and gas prices have gone through the roof and that's electricity prices and some people like suddenly energy is a thing in europe like with these do you have a sense what has happened with these energy communities like if i would be a customer of an energy or a customer and a co-owner and a participant or whatever maybe even an investor because in many cases they finance things through the crowd as well like what would i have noticed the difference of being a participant there compared to being a client or customer of one of the giants
SPEAKER_00:well exactly well to give you a With the farmer and the mayor, we have a small group, we are starting what we call a collective auto consumption. So we are starting to consume among each other's our own energy. And that's a direct cut in your energy bill. Because from being shaken by the inflation and everything what's happening on the markets and be dependent on your energy bill from the giants, well, you start consuming the energy you produce. And therefore the energy is just, if you linearize it over a long period of time, like a couple of decades, then it's very cheap. And so you are out of the inflation bubble because your local authorities, like for example, the village, I decided to invest into a collective auto consumption. So you are protecting at the local level from what's happening on the market. It's not like it's going to cover...
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, just to give a bit of background for anybody listening outside Europe, or depending on where you are in Europe, but there are places where I've seen gas bills going from the same month last year in 2021, this year, seven times. So this is not 5% here or 10% there, which is already a lot and could push companies over the edge. But this is five times, seven times. It's really an unprecedented speculation, unprecedented moneymaking machine for some places, and unprecedented shock for many others. If you have an energy intensive company or household this is a very very there are people that choosing now in the uk between eating and heating and and that's that's something we've never imagined of course it was way too cheap energy until now and the real price true cost etc was never part of it but a shock like this i don't think anybody predicted or people predicted it but not this clear and now suddenly energy yeah is no longer a commodity it's even scarce it's really so these these communities and and cutting yourself mostly off or shielding yourself from these forces that are completely out of your control are fundamental in energy, but we've seen that. I mean, now to make the bridge to food, it's
SPEAKER_00:exactly the same. Just what I want to say, Kun, to end up on that is this collective auto consumption has been possible because of the work of that federation. The policies were not there. They implemented the policies so that we can start taking our energy future at hand. Because before this was
SPEAKER_02:illegal.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. This is concrete work they have done at the European level for every European citizen. Of course, we don't know it because it comes from Europe and most of what's happening there, we don't know where it comes from. But this is a concrete example of what they have been able to achieve to start scaling up. And we see that now in almost every villages around me. Whether you are an ecologist or not, no one really cares. Everyone understands that, hey, I want to bond socially with my neighbors. I want to do something that makes sense for me, for my wife.
SPEAKER_01:And
SPEAKER_00:I want to reestablish, I want to take my future at hand. So concrete example of what they have been able to achieve in change of policies. And sorry, I now let you go for food.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's an amazing example of quote unquote, very boring work that people did in Brussels, which for sure wasn't easy and for sure wasn't fast. And so what did you, I mean, it's a very concrete living example you're going through now, but so what can we, the The royal we in food and ag learn from that. First of all, that change is possible, I think. But also we see inflation prices now, input prices exploding. We see very similar things happening in the food space. And so it feels like the moment is there. What do we need to do? What are pathways on... No, let's start first. How is the food system organized? You see in France, obviously, but also in Europe. And why is that such an issue? And why do we need some power rebalance there and then we're going to get to pathways
SPEAKER_00:yeah well I'll give you a concrete example so sorry guys but the French example as I'm back to France and I've started to really digging into the one concrete example so in France you have 436,000 farmers so let's say about a half a million farmers and everything they produce goes in an hourglass process sold by 304 companies basically 304 companies that are from the agro industry that transform and four distributors that are selling so from 500 000 you go to 300 and then you go to a market of 67 million people so it's kind of an hourglass right
SPEAKER_01:but it's extremely like it's like just imagine 400 000 because it's always difficult to seed it like 400 000 450 000 or five a half a million let's say going through 300 companies so we already missed three zeros there and then going for only going through that's a thousand X just for everybody listening and I I we should all take a pen and paper and just write that down so 400,000 an hourglass 400,000 on top or 440,000 50,000 then 300 companies and then four only four so that's a hundred thousand times reduction um distributors and then it goes back to an even bigger part on the bottom which is 67 million plus some export of course 67 million so that's six zeros um consumers that are just consuming and not participating so that's an extremely narrow hourglass basically you would never build it this way because it would break in half a second and it is breaking now actually pun intended obviously so that's the situation in France and I'm guessing it's not very different across if you would do the European it might differ a bit but not a lot like it's always very concentrated around those 300 processors and four, five, six, or two even, in many cases, distributors.
SPEAKER_00:We are back to a system, a capitalistic system. We've let the natural tendency, and I'm not criticizing capitalism. I think we'll come to it that I think it has a lot of efficient ways of being used for good. It's just I'm saying that natural tendency is at one point in the chain, on the overall chain, it has focused money and therefore it has focused power because Because capitalism creates huge things. And those huge things, then they have the DNA to keep on living. And so they always want to acquire more. That's totally normal. That's a surviving mode. And we've let that happen. Just out of being precise, those four distributors that I was talking about, they represent 92% of the market. And the 300 transformers, like processing companies, they represent 8%. percent of the market so what's left is is nothing you know like the big pie the big pie is hold by by by that that thin part of the hourglass and this is exactly a
SPEAKER_01:few more decades they're going to be even less because the tendency is for those 300s there will be 150 and from those four there will be two one not one probably not because then we say oh competition competition just for fate
SPEAKER_00:now imagine that at the european level okay you're in your offices And you need to decide, okay, how am I going to feed 500 million European citizens? Well, of course, you're going to go for the one that tells you, hey, look, we are very highly recognizable. We are 300 companies. And you know what? We can take care of the 500 million. Here's my
SPEAKER_01:PowerPoint. We employ a lot of people. We feed
SPEAKER_00:Europe every second. We are very efficient. We're spread out all over Europe. We can insure you. Here are all the KP until then you don't have a complementary system that tells you hey look I am also able to address the European market I am easily identifiable this is the way I do until you don't have that of course politicians they're going to go for food security they're going to secure the fact that they can feed 500 million European citizens that's totally logic just put one second yourself in their shoes the This is totally normal. And back to the energy, that's what energy did. They said, hey, look, we are a complementary model. We produce green energy. We service right now about a million citizens across Europe. Yes, we are decentralized. And so what? We are federated. We are well represented at European level. Give us share of the market. Give us policies that allow us to thrive, basically. That's what they've achieved. But That does not exist in agriculture right now. I mean, I'm not going to say agriculture, I'm going to say food systems, because tomorrow, a farm that is able to, I would say, and then I think it's going to be part of the conversation, that is able to base everything on organic and go beyond organic into a regenerative organic way, and that is able to say, I am a profitable company that employs a couple of people or 10 people, 15 people, and I'm processing and I'm selling at least 50%, And I'm servicing, I don't know, a couple of thousands of customers. And imagine that type of farm times 200,000 or even 500,000 and playing the same rule book and being federated at the European level. Suddenly, you represent a force that is credible. That is, that I can rely on because it's trustworthy, it's efficient, it's servicing literally millions of customers. And I can touch
SPEAKER_01:it but the question is because this the federation on the energy side served quite a lot of people had very concrete examples and I think in region ag people are like yeah but first of all is it profitable second is it is it producing a lot of food like do we have and I know we have but I'm asking the question to you do we have like enough of those strong examples that can be federated that have a track record of feeding people employing 10 20 30 or 5 or whatever the number is but more than one person and that are processing quite a bit themselves and are mostly off chemical inputs or completely off outside inputs and are feeding a lot of people like do we have like is there let's say the substrate of federation are we do we have those examples and you're going to say yes of course because we did a pre call and we know each other but like just for people to hear like there are enough successful examples to not just point at oh there's a rare exception or something. This is a movement that against all odds and against all incentives have created successful models.
SPEAKER_00:So yes, good. And that's been the base of my work together with Université Domaine du Possible. So if we would try to do a literate translation, it's the University of the Fields of Possible, which is a university and a farm. And so we are a core group of This university and this farm and a couple of other farms, and we started creating an embryo of what we want to be, a European network, to federate all those pioneers. Those pioneers, they are Superman, Batman, Catwoman, whatever you want to call them, because it's incredible what they've achieved, because they've put everything at stake to go against the current, against the tide. And in that model, in that agricultural model where the cap is pushing you towards one model, it's just amazing what they have succeeded at doing. But so we want to federate those pioneers across Europe. We want to show that whatever the number, it's not important. We want to show that it's possible. And once this is, we have that gathering, so we've done it in France and we keep on doing it. We want to create a rule book, quite a simple one, you know, like, hey, I
SPEAKER_01:And then let's take a visual tour to one of the examples or one of the farms, just for people, or one of the food companies, because at the end they are a food company. Exactly. Just to describe what you would see, touch, feel, compared to the very sad fields you described before.
SPEAKER_00:So I'll give you an example of a farm which is part of our core group. It's called Ferme Bio de Thé. Thé, it's written T-H-E-Y. So it's in France, 200 hectares. They have about 10 enterprises on the farm. So they have guest houses. They have, I don't know how many types of livestock. So they have livestock. They have chicken. They have market garden. They have about 50 hectares of crops that are feeding, of course, all the livestock they have on the farm. It's an amazing model. Like any external, any output is an input for the other enterprise and it really works as you know a mixed they employ
SPEAKER_01:quite a few people they
SPEAKER_00:feed a lot they have 12 full-time employees on the farm they have how do you say that in English they have a shop on the farm where they sell so remember 200 hectare farm they sell more than three quarters of the entire thing they produce meats crops cereals everything they produce more than three quarters is sold on that farm. And the farm is in the suburb of a pretty large scale, like a couple of, I think it's 100,000 people, which is called Besançon. But it's a perfect example of a farm that works as an ecosystem that goes beyond organic, that is able to process and sell most of what they produce on their farm. And they attract so many customers that basically are not becoming customers anymore. They educate themselves. They come on the farm. They see how it works. They regain a link with their countryside. And it's fundamental. And the price, by the way, the price by which they sell, because they control their added value, they control their price. It's not really more, and I don't have a study, so I'm going to be a bit vague, but it's not more than what you find right now in supermarket.
SPEAKER_01:Which is very interesting in these times. I read an article, Pete Overley, I think, we're going to link it below, on the prices of local farms. This should be the time with crazy inflation and crazy energy prices, obviously, like we discussed below, that farms that are mostly running on their own inputs or mostly running on not outside inputs and are selling direct, most of the raises in prices and the cost raises are happening outside the farm, are in transport, are in heating, are in be the moment and you see that with many of these farms that are their prices are not going up as much or not even at all and they should be out competing everybody else actually on price of course they have to compete on quality and on all the other benefits but even just on price yeah because they don't have all the multiples of the distribution and these processing companies that use an incredible amount of energy and and thus feel this this this gas prices and other prices so a lot and the fertilizer so this is an interesting moment as well like even if they were already okay with prices now of course quality is out of the window is out through the roof imagine now as all the other prices are just keep going up like this winter is going to be really interesting for that another example comes to mind is Lavialla we interviewed them of course before over 2000 hectares quite a lot cultivated everything sold directly to the end consumer almost by chance in Tuscany they sell most of it abroad but all of that margin all of that energy comes back to the farm comes back there and employs I think over 200 people now and And there are these examples. The problem is, yeah, what you said, they don't have a voice. They don't have a united, they're very busy, obviously. It's not that they have a ton of time to go to Rome or to Brussels or to Paris to start arguing because they literally build, let's not forget, they build a system that shouldn't be possible if you look at the incentives. Like it doesn't make any sense. If you look at the current trend rails is pointed towards clearly towards one goal and they went completely the other direction and build a very successful example, but we cannot expect others to easily follow unless we change those tram tracks so how do we bring those individual examples it is always easy to say oh this is just an exception this is just they were lucky or they had the land and they had the money and they had the history and blah blah blah which in most cases is not true but let's say they had it even like how do we translate that into like a strong voice that changes some of those incentives and some of those or even take some of the bad ones away because most of these things are being hindered by bad incentives not even by the lack of good ones, but are just hindered by bad subsidies that don't make any sense.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So first step, you gather all those pioneers. Second step, immensely important. When you go to European Union at the level of Europe, words are really important because policies are written with words and each word counts. The problem within food systems is that in French, we say the fish is drowned. I just read another report of the IUCN around sustainable agriculture and approaches to sustainable agriculture. And you have more than 15 names for the different type of sustainable agriculture. So to create a federating movement, easily recognizable to federate millions of customers around hundreds and thousands of farms, everyone needs a way to do agriculture that is easily identifiable. But if we start fighting how do
SPEAKER_01:you do that because that's like exactly they're gonna go like no but it should be that no it should be
SPEAKER_00:exactly that's that's x y and z
SPEAKER_01:so what's how did you do it in france because you have gathered this group of people which for sure are very strong voices because otherwise you don't build these things and so how did you get them first of all in one room because they might not always like each other maybe they do but like how do you get that because you mentioned before and we didn't get back to that yet this simple rule book like how do you make sure it's not a 50 page with 16 000 exceptions and all of that like how what did you do in France to gather and select the group because it's a bit of a selection of okay you're in you're out or you're not there yet or we want a minimum at least we want a bar we want some kind of minimum
SPEAKER_00:so first of all I think there are two movements that need to start talking to one another on the one hand you have the regenerative movement on the other hand you have the agroecology movement and those two movements I see that they start I would not say split but they don't really talk to one another and I think that's the first major thing we need to solve is that agroecology is basically the fact that you think about the overall food systems you think about what you your farming practices but you also think about the fact that you want to keep the added value within your farm so you process and you sell and then regenerative movement I see is much more focused on the practices in the farm like the farming practices so those two things should talk to one another because they are complementary and they go very well And
SPEAKER_01:they're the same. I mean, regen practices, I think the umbrella is agroecology with a lot of added questions and answers around social, around added value, around economy, around democracy, etc. And then the regen practices fit perfectly underneath. And there's a lot more published, actually, if you search on agroecology, especially in France, but also in Spanish, there's a lot more than regen ag, which is much more Americanized or Englishized.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And then those two movements, so we need to reconcile them and bring them together. Then the second thing is that we need to protect them. Again, at the European level, you can use the word, those words, agroecology, regenerative, it means nothing. It literally means nothing. Like for you as a practitioner, as a farmer, it means a lot because you really believe in it. But at the European level, it means nothing. Like tomorrow I can be a company and I say, I'm a regenerative company. Who's going to check? There's no, there's no nothing to check it. So I was, Because we were together on a Dutch farm and the farmer said, yeah, I don't want a label. No more labels. There is too many labels. That's definitely true. I fully understand that. The problem is that at the European level, again, when you're a politician and you make decisions over billions of euros, you need a label. You need to have a matrix of decisions that clearly identify you. Sorry, it's like this. And if we want to build a movement, we need a couple of labels that will identify us as again heavily decentralized because we are profitable small companies represented into the farm the farm is the small company and we need to be federated so we need a couple of labels and we do believe in our network that we start gathering in France we do believe that that label should be basing everything on organic and I know some people will jump on that but I can explain I think it can be for 30 minutes we can talk about that based on organic and we then go beyond organic in a regenerative movement so in a regenerative spirit so you base everything on something that is protected which is the AB certification the organic certified thing in Europe which is pretty strong but it's just the beginning of the regeneration process it has a lot of holes it's far from being perfect and yet it has the good thing to exist and to be protected and then we go towards regeneration and then regeneration is maybe I don't know 50 practices for regeneration you know a rule book with 50 practices or 100 I don't care but it's everything is based on organic and then we go beyond and we do regenerative organic and so suddenly you have something that is protecting easily identifiable with a rule book and then you play within agroecology because what does agroecology basically mean it basically means that you want to take back the control over your added value and you want to have the benefits of that added value, the economical benefit, the social and environmental benefits. But if it's
SPEAKER_01:based on organic, isn't that already protected enough and has a voice in Europe? There must be an organic lobby in Brussels or there must be an organic lobby in Paris. What is added? What is needed? Because it hasn't changed anything.
SPEAKER_00:It seems it has now change anything because i talked with a deputy at the european level and he basically says the whole game of i will call it the other part wherever it means is always to put you as a niche as something for privileged rich people so basically something that is never addressing the 500 the big market the 500 million european citizens we need to counter that and how do we counter that by again back to the energy analogy basically saying that we service more than we service a market of multiple millions of customers every day.
SPEAKER_01:Is there an interesting one in the one in France? You've gathered some of the data, some of the company and the food company and farm you just mentioned. In terms of, is there an argument to make? Like, look, these on average, first of all, employ more people per hectare, and second, feed more people, or there's more food being produced. Is that something we can say? Because then suddenly the argument of, oh, if we go to these niche people... we will all starve because that's sort of the underlying, like there was a research coming out of Wageningen University, obviously heavily sponsored by input companies. If we go organic, we all starve, basically. It was the headline more or less. Like, is there an argument to make? Because you say 20 enterprises on top of the same 200 hectares, there must be an amount of food created there and process and of all the added value and amount of jobs, like 12 people full-time, well-paid for sure, is way more than the average farmer with 200 hectares or the average four farms with 50 hectares. Like that's, those are arguments like the jobs, the food, and of course the health part, but then we'll get to at some point, is that something we can start arguing, like saying like, actually, actually we produce more food in this way, or actually we employ a lot more people. Is that something you've seen like with this group now of the pioneers in France that you've been gathering that have a certain size, because it's important to mention as well. Of course, they are the one hectare market gardens that feed quite a few people and have, and are small, but you're talking actually about a certain, dimension and a certain acreage and a certain scale to make that voice known. Have you seen things there or are we too premature, let's say, to start talking about calories per hectare or food per hectare?
SPEAKER_00:No, so we start gathering the data and we start by the two important things that politicians want to hear. Of course, let's talk
SPEAKER_01:about two things that politicians want to hear because
SPEAKER_00:otherwise we can talk about our economy. Green economy and job in my territories. And that's what those farm day producers They produce green economy. One thing very important, and I'll go back to your question, Kun, or I think it's part of the answer, is that because you go beyond organic, so you don't put any input. Let's say, I make a bit of perfect world. You don't put anything, no inputs at all. What is your economical success based on? Well, it's based on the health of your ecosystem. If you have a bad health ecosystem, you won't produce, you won't have results. So you need a very good, healthy ecosystem or let's call it agro ecosystem to produce a lot. So how much of a regenerative economy is that? It's amazing. It's incredible because your economical success, they depend on your ecosystem success. So this is the best way to recreate a regenerative economy. Cutting inputs. This is amazing. And when you look at those farms, Well, 200 hectares, 12 full-time employees producing and servicing. I don't know how many customers in that shop they have on the farm. I could ask Michel and Evelyn. They are the creator of that amazing, I would not even call it a farm. I would call it a company or whatever you want to call it.
SPEAKER_01:System, yeah. Yeah, system.
SPEAKER_00:So it would be super interesting for politicians to come in that farm so that they can see what it can represent. And again, we want to start gathering all of them. So
SPEAKER_01:you're
SPEAKER_00:saying green economy and jobs. years you know 7 to 10 years to really transform itself up which basically right now is impossible you need to be a maverick and the maverick we gather them right now but let's say then within 10 years we have 200,000 farms like this or 500,000 farms and we ensure that they are going to service 20 million customers
SPEAKER_01:so which is massive just like as a transition plan
SPEAKER_00:green economy and jobs because remember as well that European Union is proudly advertising for the green New Deal, but those are just objectives. They are not binded within policies right now because they don't have a stakeholder that is able to answer that. But remember what I just told you. So there's a
SPEAKER_01:question being asked by the European Commission, European movement, and basically it's a question to this movement, like, okay, we have the Green New Deal, but we need answers. We don't have answers. Unless we put an answer on the table there or multiple answers, the answers will come from, quote unquote, as you said, the other side which is going to push for heavily input dependent slightly more efficient slightly cleaner climate smart blah blah blah precision egg all this nonsense and so we need to put an answer on the right table at the right people it needs to be a solid answer
SPEAKER_00:and the answer is I am a farm which economical success which is proven because I exist because I have 12 employees I have 200 actors I have
SPEAKER_01:I pay my bills
SPEAKER_00:I pay my bills and everything and I pay the bills of my employees the answer is that farm because it goes beyond organic. It needs a very livable, vivid ecosystem. Suddenly, the prosperity of that farm is linked to the prosperity of its natural ecosystem. You enter Green New Deal. That's it. That's it. You have entered Green New Deal. And just one key number is that 75% of overall degradation of biodiversity is linked to our food system. So if you start, and it's one of the major Green New objective is to really reduce that pressure on biodiversity and for that there is no other option that transform heavily our food system and therefore transform our farms so let's give those pioneers a way to convert other farms and that's the whole thing about our network right now is that our network is gathering the pioneers and as pioneers I say we because I'm not a farmer myself but I'm part of the building of that network we go to each farm that has a willingness And those pioneers, they've gone through so much shit, so much problems, so much things that did not go right and they've corrected and they keep on going. And we just coach. We coach every farmer that has a willingness to change. And that's the key thing, right? You have a coaching team that are farmers, so peer-to-peer, that is coaching a farmer on the long run over seven years. And now we need the money because the money does not exist. And it's just like 0.5 or 1% of the farmers that because of their strong values, they will go through the whole tide against the tide to convert their farms. But imagine tomorrow you have a long-term support from the market, investors and the cap, then those pioneers that will be able to coach all those farmers to transform the system.
SPEAKER_01:So basically saying, let's say this farmer we mentioned before, Michel, and I forgot the other name, but the 200 hectares, the perfect example, example, one of those examples, like the question is how do we enable them to coach and work with 10 others around them, another 200 hectares, another 2000 hectares and another one. And how do we make sure they are, of course their farm needs to keep running, but they have unique knowledge and unique skills that are quote unquote a waste only on their farm because it's limiting their potential of impact. And what you're saying, we want to enable a system around them, a support system and an enabler that they can enable all their neighbors to transition or their landscape or as many neighbors as they want to because they are able to do it we've seen it it's it's repeatable we've seen it in labiala actually in tuscany that their neighbors of course always called them crazy and now they're helping them transition and potentially partly selling through their platform not always but helping also just creating more buffers around them and making sure their neighbors are not spraying and it's also interesting for for your ecosystem which are completely as you mentioned a couple of times depend on when you grow in this way so there's this but how do you enable them and you saying my Of course, the cup has to change. So we need to federalize. You're finding enough examples here in France. You're saying 10,000 farmers. Is that like a number you came up with or that's a reasonable guess in Europe? Are you saying there are around 10,000 of these serious farms or it's a number you just mentioned? Because that's a big number.
SPEAKER_00:I tend to be optimistic, but I think it is happening. It is happening. It's just that right now, again, the fish is drowned in too many names, right? Like just in my region, because I scanned in my local region, I see at least 10 farms like this. It's just they don't use the name. They don't use those couple of labels that are necessary so that we can federate and go to the air. But they do exist. And the interesting thing is that you have the one hectare market at garden and most of the time they cooperate with a bigger farm and so together they start creating more added value and that's basically agroecology on a territory you have multiple farms that one input of a farm is an output of another and they collaborate with one another and you could consider them as only one system
SPEAKER_01:and have you like brought together this group in France and have you already interacted with policy or with politicians let's say in regions or in Paris like has there been any kind of conversation and if so not yet okay we have to come back to this because I'm fascinated about the response to people when they see look these are this is serious
SPEAKER_00:we want to be a peer-to-peer farming experience but the thing that we start seeing is that the cap right now is not going to change quickly enough it's a too tight system and we need the help of the market because the market to invest in a farm like let's say in invest just in a farm because this farm is now a food company right I think it's an important
SPEAKER_01:processing it's selling
SPEAKER_00:it's much more than a farm so I invest in a food company which is actually a farm but you need to trust the farmer like you know any VC fund they don't really invest in the idea of the team they invest in the team themselves right so they trust the team because the team has been doing Harvard or Stanford or whatever Polytechnic in France whatever you know and we need that say entrepreneurial thing within farming. But who's going to vet for the quality of the education, let's call it like this, of the farmer? We think that our network can play that role because we've gathered the pioneer, which are the experts. I want those experts to be paid. That's the first thing. Farmers have been, again, we're back to, we've extracted the value of the farmers for many decades. But those farmers are the experts. They've tested so many things. They've done underground experimentation that have worked they are the expert they need to be paid for that expertise right and if they are paid for that expertise and they can transmit the knowledge to all those farmers then we can put a vetting thing saying we've we've helped that farmer for two years and we are sure we've we've we've we've gathered and told him everything he needs to know to transform his farm he's a good entrepreneur that we can trust hey VC fund or whoever wants to give him money, we ensure that this is going to work. Of course, there's still a risk. There's risks. There is VC funds.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so your work now is, okay, how do we make them, quote unquote, almost, not almost, make them investable, make these food companies, let's keep calling them our food ecosystems and value creation. It happened to be based on a farm because, of course, they have to. But they're good businesses and they're investable businesses and they can grow and scale and invest more in processing and thus increase their margins, invest more in their shop freezing, whatever, and invest in more hectares and more acreage or start working with more neighbors. And it's a scalable business. Maybe not Instagram scalable, but it's definitely a scalable business model.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And the important thing is that also as a funder, you will have to change a bit your metrics of this like the time but also the fact that you're going to put less money but in more companies because those companies again you don't want to create the same problems that have led us to so much social and environmental crisis by creating those monsters right those gigantic things the thing is that if you want not only to make profitable companies and at the same time do not ruin your social and environmental ecosystem you need again hundreds and thousands of food companies spread out all over european territories you will need to invest in maybe thousands of those farms so the way you will manage your investments is going to be more complex but it's going to be healthy and you will have return on investments not only on your money but also on social and environmental kpis which by the way in funds and investments become also predominant more and more right so so it's just you will need to adapt your metrics of decisions it's going to be more complex but that's okay right like we have technology to manage complex And so you also need to change. It's not like I'm going to put in three startups that are going to grow to 500,000 people in five years. No, I'm going to invest in a farm which has 200 hectares. And that number of hectares is also limiting, of course, the number of cows and everything because it's based on only grasslands, but also the number of employees, right? Like you won't build something that will be 300 employees.
SPEAKER_01:1,000 people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. it's going to be very healthy like it's small entities very agile very resilient that do not require external inputs so it's in a way it's very safe as well your investment is in safe hands
SPEAKER_01:because also so the counter question is there like in the energy movement you've been following and studying and participating as well from Patagonia to like is there a role for these larger outside investors or like because I've seen many of those actually tapping into the crowd and tapping into, because it's not like you need 500 million. It's not that you need a lot of times, 2 million, 5 million, 10 million, maybe, maybe 20. And there are, especially these kind of farms you mentioned, especially the ones with a history, they have a very large network of people with money, maybe not people with 50 million, but people with considerable wealth, with a bit of wealth that are more than happy to you put that to work for an interesting return locally in the food company they also buy from like is there or is there also a balancing act there like we discussed before like the giants are the investors and they would love to do stuff in the space I mean that's why hopefully many are listening to this this show and also are getting interested in regeneration but at the same time there's the consumer which could become investor which now only is limited to invest in renewable energy which is great not saying we shouldn't but I would love as a as a participant of the food system to also also invest in way more transitions of the foods and I can't like what's the role of the crowd investing I'm not saying crowdfunding but specifically investing here do you see many of these food companies actually just saying yeah of course giant investor if you want to you can play by these rules but actually we can get it funded ourselves if we want
SPEAKER_00:yeah exactly no I think it's a very important thing that you raise and we start seeing a couple of initiatives here I speak in France you see companies starting to I mean companies like I would almost say non for profit companies are very 21st century non-extractive companies type governance they say like I want to take the resources of citizens they basically have in banks and are doing nothing with it and I want to funnel it into the agricultural transformation that we need and so that money is going to be very important and I talked to one of that company and their key point is well you know the only thing is that we need to trust the farmer that he He's going to start a new farm. It comes back to your point. It comes back to my point. It comes back to the point that right now to give expertise and training to those new farmers from the pioneers, that system is not, there is no money in there. And so the pioneer that needs to run his farm is not paid for that huge expertise he's going to bring to those farmers, but also to societies.
SPEAKER_01:So you're building a business or a movement that will be sort of helping the investors and the platforms to funnel money there and by helping them I'm putting words in your mouth so please correct like getting paid for that and with that money you'll be able to pay the coaches the pioneers willing to coach others but of course don't have time to do that for free or nothing and run courses and like how do you and there's need for an enabler there to unlock this huge knowledge and to get paid for that knowledge because that's But you say, actually, there's money for that because investors want to get into the space. Investors, large and small, want to get into it and need some kind of due diligence fee and costs because they have no clue if this farmer with a pretty spreadsheet is better than this other farmer with a pretty spreadsheet or pretty presentation.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And I'll give you an example. Valentin de Gannet, who is part of our core group in the network, she started agroecology school in Paris. First we call it lycée agricole in French, the first school to be opened for decades, based fully on agroecology. She doesn't find any funds for that. She's totally blocked and she needs funds to train the new generation of farmers to build farms, which is everything we just talked about, so that then we can federate and go to the European Union. So we need to start investing in the farmers themselves. And either we do it through new type of schools to train farmers or even better by, because they are such entrepreneurs already. Like we just create the peer to peer, but this peer to peer needs to be the pioneers. They need to find economic sense because in everything they do, there is economic sense. So they need to be paid for their expertise to transmit them to all the farmers that have a willingness to transform. And then of course, we will go find the funds for each farm to be transformed within seven to 10 but the base is that the pioneers feel safe because I am paid for that I am paid for everything I'm going to give to all the others a day a
SPEAKER_01:week I'm doing this and I'm paid well for it because I've spent 40 years of learning
SPEAKER_00:yeah and that process ensures like risk management for the investors tomorrow when you will invest in the farmer that has been trained because then suddenly the risk is just way lower because that investor or politicians they know that the farmer is constantly helped by a network of pioneers that within a day is giving experience of maybe decades, you know. And that has a price.
SPEAKER_01:It would be great. It has a price. It would be, as an investor, you would sit next to Richard Perkins or Joel Salatin. I'm not sure if they're the most commercial, but like successful agroecology farmer and just see who comes through the gates there, who works there and who goes out and start or who calls them and say, can you help. But of course, there's a missing piece there. You have to fund and pay the successful one to work with the others and to enable them to work with the others. And then actually, but it's a simple, quote unquote, due diligence cost that you would normally pay anyway. But just if he or she, like the successful agroecology farmer says, this one is real, this is a real deal. Like I would love to work with XYZ and my distant neighbor because they really understand they've done the groundwork. Then as an investor, that cost of paying the agroecology expert to work with them is a very small thing compared to the investment you're making anyway. It's a proof of the due diligence costs there are, if you do enough of them, are absolutely negligible. But you have to trust the agroecology expert and the one who's done the 40 years of work to really know his or her work, obviously. I mean, you can see the example. It's a very interesting, different model as an investor, but it makes a lot of sense. And I think it, I mean, I don't know if you've run the numbers. But as a model, it makes absolute sense from an investor point of view.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think it does. I think it really does. So what would you do with a
SPEAKER_01:billion euros? Let's say tomorrow or tonight, this podcast goes live and you suddenly wake up with almost unlimited money in your bank account to invest. It's an investment. You can put some of it to policy because I consider that honestly an investment as well. But what would you do if you had a billion euros with These inflation numbers, we might have to add a few zeros, but let's say a billion euros is still a lot of money when this comes out. What would you do with that if you had to put it to work?
SPEAKER_00:I think that the first thing I would do is that every pioneer we've gathered so far, I'll make sure that their farm runs well. So maybe they need to employ someone to manage the farm or whatever, and then free some time from those pioneers because they are an infinite source of value for future food systems. I gather them. And I tell them, no, guys, with this billion, we're going to go farmer by farmer. We're going to identify how they want to transform their model. And you're going to give me the business case, like for each farm, seven to 10 years, what it takes for them to be under regenerative organic practices and sell at least 50%. And we do that. We start by checking.
SPEAKER_01:Just, sorry, selling at least 50% locally, meaning from the farm and not in global food systems. So those are the two big ones for you. Regenerative organic in X years. and selling at least 50% directly, let's
SPEAKER_00:say. Yeah, exactly. Let's call it like this. Because again, because those two things will help you to transform the cap also. It's about federating at the European level and we need to play among a rule book that is clearly identifiable. But in any way, those pioneers, then I gather them, every hour they spend giving advices to those farmers, I pay them well. I pay them well. And then we build business case farm by farm and we follow them over the course of their overall transformation over seven years and we start and we start like doing maybe I don't know like you give me a billion so I'd say in 10,000 farm I invest 100,000 euro or something like that and then we convert 10,000 farms and then once we have that then we have a federation we go to Europe and then we convert the real big money then we convert the cap which is 400 billion over the course of seven years
SPEAKER_01:Just again, let's say again, 400 billion in seven years. And I would say 99% goes to, or 95, whatever the number is, way too much goes to non-existent. So you say we have to build a movement, even though the amount of pioneers we have now is not enough yet to be strong enough. So we have to free up the time, pay the time of these pioneers. So the best thing investors could do is pay the pioneers to work with others and to invest in the others to transition. That's what you're basically
SPEAKER_00:saying. you know, the pioneers, let's say someone invests in those pioneers, really give them the time. And then those pioneers, they identify the first hundred farms, they make the business case, it works. And then the investors say, I'm fully interested. Let's go for those hundred first. And then they build something over the next seven, 10 years. And then we make, you know, you have a percentage of 75% success or whatever, you know, we try managing risks. And then we start low, like by iteration loops we start having a very good rule book and we start knowing like there might be a process that we can a bit duplicate and and while you do that you never go into the the negative side of capitalism you never want to create a big machine you always want to create small resilient food companies which are farms right it's it is key because otherwise you keep on just building a new problem like the solution is the decentralization of the money like keeping the money within the farm which now are food companies keeping the money in those farms which act in their territories are able to in a very agile way adapt to their own context I was talking to a regenerative farmer right before us and he was saying you know there is always the problem once you start going regenerative and organic like everything you apply on one farm is not really always going to work on the other and this is where you need the help of pioneers because the pioneers are going to man the risk of everything they've seen everything they've built themselves they're going to say this whatever the context might work and then because I'm super agile I've been doing that for 40 years every day I've between science and consciousness I've always worked between those two things I'm going to help you you know and this is the best risk management ever
SPEAKER_01:and just to be to double click on small like we're not meaning a mom and pop homestead farm that that that eats everything they produce like small i mean 200 hectares might sound small depending where you are if you're in australia small this is very very small but these are actually medium-sized businesses medium-sized food businesses that employ 10 20 50 100 whatever the number is that process that have machines that this is a considerable company but they're not a unity like these are medium-sized or small to medium-sized businesses that could employ quite a few people and of course we have to repeat it but it's not a small like one family runs everything and they're with two people and constantly like these are companies these are we have to treat them really as food companies in part of an ecosystem which happens to be a farm and and thus they could be investable and could grow and scale and then repeat it and replicate it etc but small is is just to compare it to the cargills
SPEAKER_00:and levers and scalability the the the the the new scalability is is is uh you investing in maybe thousands of food companies slash farms. And
SPEAKER_01:stackability. I mean, if you say 20 enterprises on the same land, that's scale, but it's scale up, not scale wide. And that's very counterintuitive, I think, for many investors, until you see it, like all these hidden efficiencies that are there when you run all these enterprises on the same land, which is still quite big. 200 hectares is not small at all. But there's space... There's still space for more enterprises on it. And at some point, some of these enterprises start working with neighboring land as well and it starts spreading. So it's small, but it's definitely not small. It's like there's an interesting tension there you need to explore and get comfortable with running it as a company. Like this is a company that pays bills, pays employees, pays pension costs. Like this is not processed stuff, not in a kitchen, but in a professionally clean, certified kitchen staff processing units. This is real food and real business. And you answer...
SPEAKER_00:And you answer really the three pillars, you know, social, environmental and economical. So again, it is really that system that I took from energy and we try here to apply to agriculture. That system is smart because it really, again, I can only insist and emphasize that it's not anymore 300 companies holding 95% of the value. It is 300,000 a million or whatever food companies giving money in their territories to everyone so if you are really true to your social environmental goals on top of having a healthy economy a regenerative one this is the way to go there is no other way because we see it for the past 70 years like the more you concentrate the more you create problems and you need to rely on the capacity of the farmer to act between science consciousness like his consciousness his wiseness science. And again, fundamental thing is that their prosperity is based on the prosperity of their natural ecosystem. And I think that's why it's the best regenerative economy we can think of, right? Like you work with the land, that land is, if you take care of it, it will take care of us. Really, it will. So I really believe in that system, but it definitely needs to switch in our way to invest and
SPEAKER_01:trust the pioneers how how repeat that point on the pioneers like how repeatable is it in a sense what if these pioneers of course against all odds super entrepreneurial but are maybe the 1% of the 1% exception that are because they're most of all of like is this teachable and is this can we expect that others will be not as entrepreneurial but entrepreneurial enough to start processing companies on their farms, start selling directly to a certain extent. These are a lot of traits that in society in general, I think the research suggests 15%, one five is very entrepreneurial and will build businesses, et cetera. Do we have enough entrepreneurial farmers that with the right coaching can make these big steps? Because it's a massive thing going from very input, but also very recipe driven. I'm selling to the same cooperative, I'm buying the same and the inputs and the pesticides and the herbicides and the agronomic advisor comes from the same cooperative as well and that's what I'm doing and I'm not making a lot of money I'm very stressed and I'm on my tractor especially in the summer until midnight very often but at least I'm I don't have to make so many decisions because maybe I don't want to or I'm not able like is there enough entrepreneurial capacity in the farmers to replicate this
SPEAKER_00:yeah well I don't have the numbers or whatsoever but I can tell that only just for example the farmer in my village the guy is conventional but he sees that anyway his ecosystem is just dying he tries to put a bit of mulching and doing a bit of different rotations and stuff but he sees that it's not enough so whether they want it or not it's coming also to an end and it's also coming to an end because synthetic fertilizers are just going to the roof in terms of prices and all the other things so Our hand will be
SPEAKER_02:forced.
SPEAKER_00:That will be forced, but also I think that genuinely farmers, they just love what they do and they love their lands and their terroir and therefore it's not that I want to, again, it's not that I want to convert anyone and nor am I fighting against something. It's just I'm like, I'm here and I say, I think there is quite a substantial percentage of farmers that are interested in another model that can be very much complementary to the model we have right now. And over the course of the next 10 years, let's identify the one that actually answers best all our problems. That's it. I'm really not against anything. I think we can really work all together. And it's really about, and I don't want to create an alternative model and be put in a niche. I want to show that, hey guys, I'm actually pretty massive. It's just the way you understand massive is not the same way. Me, I'm massive because because I represent, with our federation at European level, we represent 500,000 farmers, each of them employing 5 to 15 people, servicing each farm 500 customers. But if you start adding up the numbers, that's quite a lot. So it's just about reinventing what massification and scalability also means. And I'm 100% sure that many farmers are ready for that journey. It's just... It's just like when one third of the total European budget pushes you so much in the tide that way, it's impossible for you alone in your small farm with so many problems already to transform, right? Like, of course, you don't even have time to think whether you want to be an entrepreneur or not. Like, it's impossible. You have so much thing to deal with. And that's why the first thing is the pioneers will come and help. Like, you keep on running your business as you do and we'll run the numbers. real run with our expertise our pioneering and we'll start showing you that there is a path forward and I think that's what's needed but again those pioneers they also they cannot do that just for free too long farmers have not been paid for their expertise they need they are the first expert because they work on the ground and they need to be recognized for that
SPEAKER_01:No, absolutely. I think it's a really good way to end this conversation, but I want to ask one more question, which usually leads to more questions. So what if you had, it's the magic wand question, if you had a magic wand and you could change one thing overnight in, honestly, the food and agriculture system globally, it could be something else as well. We've been talking about Europe mostly the whole time, but maybe it's something completely different. If you could change one thing, but one thing only overnight, what would that be?
SPEAKER_00:I'm looking in the food system and I'm like, I think... I think it would be to... make sure regenerative and agroecology are binding together and find a way to protect their spirit. And by that, I mean their practices. It's not
SPEAKER_01:so ambitious. It could be more ambitious. It could be abolishing all subsidies or it could be, I don't know, better taste. It could be very dreamy if you want to, but very concrete. I like the answer because I think it's
SPEAKER_00:a fundamental one. I think the most important for me is to say that our farm, tomorrow in our farm, I'd say 50% of citizens, should be part of the production of their food. And when you say part
SPEAKER_01:of, meaning you buy at one of their shops?
SPEAKER_00:Of producing their food. Because then I think they would understand, they would link back with the ecosystems and they would see how dramatically degraded they are. And from there on, that deep link would tell them that whatever the walls in front of us, we need to act. Because that deep connection with ecosystems is what we miss. And once you have it and you feel like, okay, our ecosystems are suffering, then you act whatever the walls. And that's what those pioneers have done. Like really, they have China walls in front of them or how do you say it? Chinese
SPEAKER_01:walls.
SPEAKER_00:Chinese walls or whatever in front of them. And they've just climbed them. And I'm like, I keep wondering, how the fuck did you do it? And it's because every time you talk to them is that they have a deep sense of being linked to social and their social and environmental ecosystems they see it suffering and i don't they don't want they don't want to be part of that suffering they want to they want to find like answers that to solve that and and it's that deep anchorage that made them stand uh in front of a tide that that was that that was just washing everything over you know like washing washing everything out i think
SPEAKER_01:it's it's a dangerous now that that you see it leads to another question that the financial world which predominantly has been extractive for the last decade I mean before I mean there was always a role of money of course we try to explore that here in the podcast a role of money to create and to build and of course to colonize and extract and all of that but to especially last the financial sector has become mostly about the financial sector let's say like getting interested in food and agriculture and maybe visiting these pioneers and is that dangerous that we're going to put pressure on them for maybe returns or certain conditions or you say they've climbed these walls they've let's say fought tougher fights they are more than able to keep the wolves of Wall Street at bay like is that dangerous that we start to pay a lot of attention and start knocking on their door with billions of dollars to invest and to change the countryside and to store carbon and blah blah blah blah like do you see a risk there
SPEAKER_00:oh yes of course always uh but the thing is that's why we build a we build a peer-to-peer farmer network is that we don't want any expert uh and i'm not a good example maybe i'm kind of an expert but let's say i'm also trying to apply i'm trying to walk my talks uh that's why i'm part of that core group that create that network but you know we are basically untouchable because all those farmers they are economically in dependent. And once you are economically independent... They have bullshit money. No, they
SPEAKER_01:have fuck you money as Nassim Taleb would say.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so you can't really take pressure. So you welcome whoever you want and you reject whoever you want. And that's how we want to work. That's a very good
SPEAKER_01:point.
SPEAKER_00:You cannot take pressure. You cannot take pressure because right now your system works. So, you know, you want to extract something from me? Yeah, just fuck off. You know, I don't need you. But I'm going to work with...
SPEAKER_01:It's very interesting. Yeah, that's a good point.
SPEAKER_00:Because right now the farmers, they are are no expert like they're considered as no expert they're just considered as a as a as a bad peasant produce what i'm going to sell for you like no no no no it's not how it should work no look i'm going to sell you whatever i want from my production and you're going to pay me well for that because it's made with love a lot of healthy environmental social benefits uh so those famous ecosystem services and you're going to pay me well for that and we're going to start redistributing Distributing the cards. I'm part of a federation that is advocating at a European level. And that federation helps me standing my ground, keeping my added value, selling to whoever I want. I'm not saying you're bad. I'm just saying, let's be back at the negotiation table.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's a perfect way to end this conversation. I don't think it's the last time we talk about this. This is a story to be followed. And I would love to keep doing that over time. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for making time today. You're not feeling super well and you battled through, but I'm not sure how the rest of your day would look like. But I'm very happy you shared an hour and 20 minutes with us today to share about the journey so far.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you all. And thank you very much, Quinn, for the interview. you.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks again and see you next time.
