198 Wouter Veer - Trying to fix private land ownership, the root cause of all our issues

A conversation with Wouter Veer, entrepreneur, impact investor, founder of Lenteland, about inequality, impact investing, land ownership, unsustainability, Charles Eisenstein, and starting and funding a venture and a movement in the Netherlands.
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What would you do if the company you founded got sold and suddenly you find yourself not having to worry about your financial future, at all. Wouter Veer asked himself the hard questions: Where did the money come from? What is enough? What would you do with the rest? And what do you want your legacy to look like?

More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/wouter-veer.

Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.

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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

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Chapters

• 2:42 Why are you doing what you are doing? Why Soil?
• 39:56 What should smart investors, who want to invest in Reg ag and food look out for?
• 44:22 What would you do if you were in charge of a 1B investment portfolio tomorrow morning?
• 48:45 If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing in the agriculture industry from a sustainability point of view, what would it be?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

What would you do if the company you founded got sold and suddenly you found yourself not having to worry about your financial future at all? Or better or worse, you have way too much money. So what's next? Our guest of today faced those questions and ended up starting and funding a venture and a movement in the Netherlands trying to tackle the fundamental issue, some would say the root cause of all our agriculture issues, private land ownership. He really wants you to ask the hard questions. Where did your money come from? What is enough? What would you do with the rest? And what do you want So join us in this fascinating conversation where we cover inequality, impact investing, land ownership, unsustainability, Charles Eisenstein, and so much more. 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 RegenAg. That is gumroad.com slash investing in RegenAg. Or find the link below. So welcome to another episode today with Wouter Veer, the founder of Lenteland and many other things we're going to unpack in this episode. And a friend of the show who has been supporting for a long time and who is hosting us today in Blue City, which I will put a link below if you're interested, in the location, which is very, let's say, fitting for what we are doing. Although it's not in the countryside, it's in the heart of Rotterdam, one of the main cities in the Netherlands, next to the river. So we have an okay view. We're a bit inside, but we can see the water. So welcome, Wouter. A bit of a A bit of a rainy day. A bit of a rainy day. It's not amazing weather. Let's summarize it in that way. It's very Dutch. It's good for the soil. Let's keep it that way, because we had a very, very long drought. But it's, yeah, it's pouring outside, basically. But I'm very happy to have this interview, which has been a long time in the making, and I'm very curious to unpack your journey into soil and land ownership, mostly. So welcome to the show, Wouter. Thanks, Koen. Nice to be on your show, finally. And to start with the personal question we always start with, why soil how did your your twist and turning journey ended up on on agriculture food and then specifically land ownership

SPEAKER_00: 3:02

yeah so I don't think I'm really deep into soil I'm more I'm a kind of an entrepreneur and I've developed a model now that that that that that evolved around developing regenerative community farms but I think the first seed was planted when I saw the famous documentary of John Liu. Um, I think more than 10 years ago, um, hope in a changing climate and, um, in which he, uh, documents the regeneration of the Luz plateau. And we have, um, in Holland, we have a famous, uh, a show that looks into all kinds of themes. Um, And they made a few episodes about this documentary. I think they were called Green Gold. And I saw them about 10, 11 years ago in a phase where I was... taking steps back from the company I had and I think that that's the first seed

SPEAKER_01: 4:10

and you remember seeing that because it's interesting many times on this podcast it's a documentary or it's a it's a movie or a book even or photographs that trigger something but it's often visual very interestingly although we're on an audio medium now did it trigger already something in like your entrepreneurial mind or was it more oh wow this is possible because it's really like the if you haven't seen it, I'll put a link below, the before and after is beyond stunning. It's amazing what has been done in China in that period. But what triggered it for you? Was it, ooh, this is cool, and then the next day, of course, you were back and running your company? Or, ooh, there should be something there. Did it become a bit itchy as an entrepreneur? Like, ooh, if that's possible there, why not other places?

SPEAKER_00: 4:59

It didn't trigger any entrepreneurial thought yet, although almost everything the So I think I've been a born entrepreneur. I didn't know that when I was born, but I was always thinking about things that I could do differently. And then I was... When I was in university, a year before I finished, I was studying mechanical engineering in Delft. And then I started my first business, an employment agency. And at that time, I was... Like I said, taking the steps back and thinking about new plans. It took about two or three years. And when I saw it, I mainly was struck by the... the quantity of problems that could be solved if we do things differently with land. It's not just regeneration of land and good for biodiversity and carbon storage and water management, but it also brings back community, it brings back economy, it brings back life, basically, to that piece of land. It brings back life. So... And in the years after that, so I think two years later, my search resulted in a big new adventure that's called iFund. And maybe we can talk about it a bit more, but iFund is a foundation I started then and I donated a lot of my money to the foundation. And with the foundation, we started investing in startups that accelerate the sustainability transition. And all these times with iFund, it was in the back of my head that I wanted to do something with land and regenerating land, but it didn't fit the purpose of iFund. So with iFund, we were investing in companies, in startups, in businesses and not in projects, not in land-based projects. So it took a while for for this seed to bloom into something else.

SPEAKER_01: 7:30

And what triggered that, the blooming? Because seeds can be dormant for many years and decades and potentially even hundreds of years. So what triggered that?

SPEAKER_00: 7:39

Well, some more seeds, actually. So this was one important seed that is on the foundation of Lenteland. And to put it in perspective, so this was, I think, 2011, maybe. And then in 2021, I started Lenteland. In 2014, I started iFund and I've been working hard and intensively on iFund and all side projects that came from iFund for the years after that. And one other seed is, I think, the way I look at the financial system. So... I always try to look at things in a systemic way so that when you try to solve something, you're not solving... you're not solving some consequence, but you want to solve kind of the root cause. So I've been thinking about the financial system for a long time. And also because I made a lot of money for my company and it was always a bit strange to me to think about what does it mean? What does this money mean? What does it mean when you have more wealth than you need? And one of my conclusions after years of studying that is that all the, I mean the two main problems in the world I think are inequality and unsustainability. And both find their origin in the financial system. So, one other seed is my conviction that there are some big mistakes in that system. And The financial system, I mean, money is a very handy tool to trade so that people can specialize. But I think it wasn't designed or meant to accumulate wealth. And that property of money has infected all other kinds of things, among which land. So the fact that now we find it normal that when you possess something, it should... It should give you an advantage. You should be paid for that. Or you should accumulate something. So if you own a lot of money and people need it, they should pay you rent. If you own a lot of land and someone wants to use it, they should pay you rent. If you own a lot of houses and someone wants to use it, they have to pay you. And I think that's a big mistake.

SPEAKER_01: 10:45

And the underlying question is also how does someone, usually one person, accumulate so much? In some cases... during his or her, and in many cases his, lifetime with a lot of luck and hard work. I'm not saying, but definitely a lot of luck, but also in many cases, just because you were born in the right family.

SPEAKER_00: 11:02

Yeah, because you're very lucky. And then, you keep going. The economic game we're all playing gives an advantage to the ones that are already in front. So then it's easy to accumulate more. But going back to Lensland, one of of the aspects where you see this is of course land ownership. And we find it so normal that land is privately owned. But the other day, one of my children was on the internet and said, hey dad, you can buy a piece of the moon. Look, here's the website and there are certificates and everything. And I was laughing a bit and he said, no, really, really, it's all authentic and you can buy a certificate. And I said, okay, and who are you buying it from then? So, but that sounds, of course, that's ridiculous but why is it different on earth?

SPEAKER_01: 12:50

Or the bottom of the sea or the air. But do you remember, because going from questioning and unveiling some very big mistakes in the economic system to land ownership might seem in hindsight a very logical steps, but do you remember when you sort of, I wouldn't say clicked, but look at that core problem, wow, ownership is actually... like private ownership of many things, which we've never done until very, very recently. This is not something that has been around for millions of years. Do you remember when that clicked? Was there another documentary or a book or was it a slow?

SPEAKER_00: 13:29

No, I think there was a third seat. It's land. And we needed a third. So the first seat was this documentary about regeneration on a large scale. The second seat was this realization that land ownership is a strange thing And also, you know, of course, you can't go into farming if you're not rich or born in a farmer's family. And there are so many young people that want to start a CSA or go into farming, but they can only lease a small plot of land and two years afterwards they get kicked off. So they never can start growing like trees. They have to stick to, what do you call, one year Annual vegetables, maybe some chickens.

SPEAKER_01: 14:20

Perennials is risky, asparagus maybe. But it's very limited because you get kicked out for some development.

SPEAKER_00: 14:28

And then the third seed was actually more of like a private plan that I had for years because... You know, from 2011 to 2014, I was really looking into, okay, what do I want to do? And I was looking at all these reading books, watching documentaries, like trying to really feel what kind of big transitions are coming towards us. What problems are we going to face? And, you know, what I saw was, were we going to face water shortages? And we're going to have water wars. We're going to face food shortages. We're going to face energy crisis. In 2022 you can pick any page and there are three news items about this. It wasn't like this 10 years ago, but I felt it was coming. One side of me has been working for 10 years to, on a really small scale, help start up some businesses that help us find a soft landing after we go through these transitions, also maybe to soften them a little bit. But I also had this urge to buy a piece of land myself and be self-sufficient there. So growing my own food, harvest my own rainwater, have some trees to make my own heat, everything. Also because I was a little bit scared of where the world was going. So it's also, there's also kind of a little prepper in me, like a prepper mentality.

SPEAKER_01: 16:20

You were like looking at New Zealand, like some other

SPEAKER_00: 16:23

rich people? That's not the way, not the prepping way where you have a closet full of guns and container storage and barbed wire fences around your plot. Now, I think... So...

SPEAKER_01: 16:41

Yeah. So you were on the market, you were actively looking at places, because I remember this period, we've known each other for quite a while, and you were looking, okay, where can I be where seawater rising is not, we're in a country which half of it is practically under sea level, and not now, but in the future or when the dikes break. So you were looking at plots of land a bit higher, a bit away, like strategically looking, okay, where

SPEAKER_00: 17:05

do I want to be? Before that, I realized also when I started iFund and the companies that we're investing in with iFund, we We've been doing that now for eight years. We're also always looking at these entrepreneurs and asking ourselves, are they contributing to a world that we see in front of us like in 20 years where This globalization is a bit something of the past, and it's not like everybody is growing their own food and making their own energy, but it's more like my vision is a regional economy where everybody knows where their food comes from. So you don't have to make everything yourself, but you know where it comes from. You know where your energy comes from. You know where your water comes from. You know where your resources come from. And so that's also kind of, yeah, how do we become more resilient? So my own drive to become more resilient and also thinking that a more resilient world for everybody is more beautiful. And so that's the third seat, the urge to be more resilient, not just for me, but for the world. So that's the resilience thing, the financial system thing. and land ownership, and then watching what regeneration can do. And then I think in 2020, those three came together,

SPEAKER_01: 18:33

yeah. Because it went from, I would like a place for myself and my family and be resilient in the family sphere, let's say, to

SPEAKER_00: 18:43

something a bit bigger. Yeah, but also a bit broader than that. So I was making plans about a small eco-village. Let's go All of that.

SPEAKER_01: 18:53

Yeah. And then how did it go from there? Of course, your entrepreneurial mind started to knock on the door and say, yeah, but about there,

SPEAKER_00: 19:00

that's probably not the only person that works. First, actually, I was, as you said, I was actively looking, I started that a few years ago. And then in 2020, when the COVID crisis hit, I picked those plans up again because they were in the fridge. And then I started actively looking for land. Also, like you said, above sea level, because we, one of the, of course, Of course, indigenous practices is looking seven generations ahead, 200 years. So 2020, 2020, 2020. Sorry, 22, 22. Yeah. Nobody talks about 22, 22. You know, everybody talks about 2030 or 2050. But in Holland, most of the country is below sea level and sea level is rising quickly. I think it's a wise thing if you look like 100 or 200 years ahead that you build something that's above sea level. And yeah, it started with actively looking for something for my small eco-village. And then I thought, when I actually find something now, who is going to buy that? And that's a difficult question once you are so convinced that this system is flawed. and then you're looking for something for yourself, and then you find something, and then you envision yourself sitting at the notary, who's going to be on that deed? So that couldn't be me. And then, not only because of this, but this conviction about land ownership, but also the question, what happens when I'm gone? And then there's this beautiful eco-village, and then I'm gone. And then maybe my children think this is all bullshit, and they cancel everything. That's not the way things should go. Because they want to buy some pieces on the moon. You don't know. Maybe, maybe. They need some liquidity. Or on Mars.

SPEAKER_01: 20:59

Yeah, yeah. The ownership structure, especially in the long, but also in the short, because we're all convinced about our own convictions and we're fine and et cetera. But things change, life changes, situations change, longer term, everything changes. So how do you make sure that we get to the steward ownership piece, of course, that the stewards of the land are able to steward the land long term and are not selling to buy pieces on the moon or somewhere else or do whatever. So that led to a sort of exit residential crisis, like who's going to

SPEAKER_00: 21:30

actually buy it? Who's going to sign? Yeah. So, and luckily I already had done this before because in 2014 I founded a foundation and I donated my big portion of my money to the foundation. So it wasn't mine anymore. And then with the foundation, we started doing all these impact investments and building a team. And now we're, I found this five people, we've done more than 20 investments. And when I die, nothing happens. You know, there's no... A lot happens, it continues. It continues. Nothing has to be sold or it's so easy. There's a board in the foundation and of course I'm in the board and then I can't do that anymore but everything goes on and that's, I think, more investments and entrepreneurial things should go that way. So, the question wasn't really difficult for the for the Eco Village, or for my personal project, I had to start a new foundation. So... I was making plans for the new foundation. And in the meantime, I was talking to all kinds of farmers and other initiatives and projects in Holland that were doing something with regeneration, something with land ownership, something with small community farms, et cetera, et cetera. And I was getting more enthusiastic after every appointment. And at that moment I thought, and then the company I still was, I sold in 2015 for the major part. I still had some loans and earn out arrangements there and they got paid out at the end of 2020. And I thought, I don't need this money. I'm going to put that all into this new foundation and then we can start at least least four of these projects and not only one for myself. Of course, this was the moment where my wife thought, oh no, here we go again. It's not the first time. It's going to be... She was already

SPEAKER_01: 23:58

envisioning the eco-village.

SPEAKER_00: 24:00

Yeah, yeah. For the two of us and some, yeah. So then it became a new, like, well, actually it's a new venture. It's a new, and it's a foundation, but it feels like, it feels like it business. So I started the foundation Lenteland and again I made a pledge to donate a lot of money to the foundation 10 million actually and in the meantime I developed ideas about what we're going to do and how we're going to set up these farms and run them and find farmers for them etc.

SPEAKER_01: 24:41

Now fast forward We're talking the end of 2022. You bought two farms. One is fully up and running or is in the process of getting up and running.

SPEAKER_00: 24:52

They're both kind of in the starting

SPEAKER_01: 24:55

phase. We have farmers and they're doing things. Let's talk about the one that's mostly in the news. Maybe

SPEAKER_00: 25:03

I can say a little bit more about the model because the idea is we have farms of 10 to 20 hectares And there has to be a house. And that's a little bit difficult because we can't find a third and fourth farm now. We're looking very hard. But it's so difficult to find plots of land that meet our criteria. So there has to be a house. It has to be above sea level. It has to be kind of in the vicinity of enough people so you can have a short food chain and every farm is it's not owned by the foundation but the foundation starts a new co-op cooperation a cooperative and then the cooperative we finance the cooperative with loans and the cooperative buys the land and the house and the farmers get into in the cooperative and then the cooperative starts after after they've started the business they offer certificates to the community and so then the community slowly but steadily becomes owner of the cooperative and then the loans get repaid to the foundation and then we can start more farms so it started with an idea of so now we can do four and it evolved into a model that we thought maybe we can make a lot more if people also want ownership of these farms these farms.

SPEAKER_01: 26:42

And so the model is really you with the foundation basically kickstart these locally owned, not future locally owned farms that set up their own cooperative, manage locally. Of course, there's all kinds of governance structures there to make sure it doesn't get sold, doesn't become a villa area, doesn't et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It will be farmed with the best regenerative practices we can

SPEAKER_00: 27:06

imagine. And we can't make profits on added or of value a rising value of the land so no speculation and then

SPEAKER_01: 27:17

slowly when you bought the piece of land because of course like buying land in the Netherlands and many other places when they are in the market you need to step in it's not that you can spend six months raising money from the crowd locally etc etc no you buy it you start it and then slowly hopefully the local community steps in and starts buying certificates hold that ownership can get out as well if they want to at some point but it will never be sold will never be speculated with the land itself and you hopefully get your loans back and do it again do it again repeat repeat repeat and then so we're now in the middle of that process actually with with two farms which is very exciting so how is that going what are i mean let's say let's start with how is it going and how did that happen because um you're buying two farms like that is is not no small feed and finding farmers to farm it is is even more difficult so what uh what are we looking at now at the end of 2022 so

SPEAKER_00: 28:43

um Well, finding farmers, that's a nice process. I think both processes took about, I think about three months. And yeah, for both farms, we found great farmers. And well, let's take the farm in Holland. One is in Belgium and one is in Holland. Let's take that for example. We have two guys there. They're living there with their families and... They're involving the community. They're building a market garden. They're building a harvest garden with fruit and berries, et cetera. And in the meantime, we also built our own crowdfunding platform.

SPEAKER_01: 29:32

You're going to see he's laughing. Let's say your software background comes back in

SPEAKER_00: 29:36

that. You had to build your own platform, of course. Yeah, I had to build my own platform. It makes the world a bit more complicated. Yeah. But it's nice to have your own platform if you want to do things in a specific way. So yeah, and now the crowdfunding has started about five weeks ago, six weeks ago. We're halfway there. Of the first tranche, in the end, we have to fund, I think, 2.8 million euros for this farm, of which 80, 81% goes into the ground and the buildings. This land is not cheap. Then it's not cheap and renovation is not cheap. We have to build another house there. And the rest, 19% is meant for, you know, starting up the business, working capital, plants, seeds, machinery, etc.

SPEAKER_01: 30:30

And so it's a very exciting and scary time at the same time because all of your plans and then, okay, how does it work with the foundation, setting up the farm and then hopefully the community steps in or in general the community doesn't always have to be obviously people locally that are also customers and clients can be anybody we personally also invested hopefully steps in enough to allow you to do more than four because otherwise yeah it will be four which is amazing which is still a lot of impact but yeah you're targeting 40 plus and much more of course so what what are the lessons learned until now is land ownership i would say sexy enough is it like is it hitting a nerve you feel or is it also is it is it tricky

SPEAKER_00: 31:11

I think we can't generalize the lessons yet because it's so context specific. And I think the context for this farm is that it's in really a rural area where everybody knows each other and they all help each other, but they're also a little bit hesitant and the way we are farming there, that's not something they know and not necessarily something they believe in. So you're

SPEAKER_01: 31:45

looking at the weird ones from the back to the land movement, as we discussed in the interview on duck eggs, like you're, ah yeah, there are another few people that buy a few hectares, they're going to try something, let's give them a few years and let's see

SPEAKER_00: 31:58

what happens. For who was this quote? They come in a car and on their fancy car and they leave on their bike

SPEAKER_01: 32:04

yeah so let's hope that doesn't happen but there's of course a resistant and very understandable rural versus urban because usually it's been that way usually fancy people come from the city and claim all kinds of stuff fancy between brackets claim all kinds of stuff we do it differently we come and help you blah blah blah blah blah and that usually turned out to be a bit different especially if you're doing very different ag practices of course it looks feels smells completely different

SPEAKER_00: 32:34

so we invested a lot of time in getting to know all these people and hearing them and hearing their doubts and explaining what we're going to do and that actually when went very well. But investments from really the local, local community, only the people that, you know, the family of the former owner and the neighbors, they did something. But most people in the rural community, they think we already have a plot of land and we grow our own food. Why should we invest there? And I think also that the investments from the really local, local community will only start to to go maybe after a year or two when they actually see what's going on there. So most investments now come from people that are a little bit further away. And well, we're halfway our first target. We targeted the first campaign on 350,000 euros. So we're halfway there now. Of course, we hoped that everything would go a lot faster, but I'm still very happy that We're here and we're learning a lot of things and learning how to tell our story because it's a complex story. We didn't choose... an easy model because I mean the reality is complex and it's about land ownership it's about regeneration it's about cooperative and community it's about knowing where your food comes from it's about non-speculation it's all this transparency and all the things we have in there it doesn't make it an easy story

SPEAKER_01: 34:20

it's not an easy 50 second video on your crowdfunding platform that explains it all and now

SPEAKER_00: 34:26

and for example we were very close to starting something in Utrecht province where there are a lot of well it's not so rural but and I think if we start a cooperative there it would be very easy to fund that in a matter of months and for the full amount so I think we will learn in a few years where what are our story should be dependent on the context.

SPEAKER_01: 35:00

Yeah, and of course you didn't choose a difficult route. Very understandably, like a friend of ours, both of ours actually, Thomas Ripple, they work with farms already existing. There is a community already that's been built over years. They've been buying from them, they've been working there. So there's already that mycelium network that will respond to something interesting and useful and relevant, etc. In this case, you have to build all of those connections from the beginning and then you come with an ask which of course is very challenging and needs time all of these things unfortunately always need time but that's yeah luckily you have the time or I mean we're running out of time but you have the time to experiment to see to fine tune your message and see that and in terms of the farmers in this case because they build their life on that land and of course you don't want to kick them off after two years like how involved are they in like how much How much of it can they actually see the land as their quote-unquote land? Of course, it's not their land, it's all of our land and it will never be speculated and sold, but how much can they really act as if it's their land and how protected are they from the normal unfortunate leasing structures where you can be kicked off any time and thus you will never invest in regenerative practices? I'm not sure what you... How involved are the farmers, like the two that are now farming on the farm in the Netherlands and the one in Belgium, are they on a yearly contract? How

SPEAKER_00: 36:36

much can they act like it's their land? First of all, they're part of the cooperative and they're a member of the cooperative and they have a specific member type that's meant for farmers. Then we have a member type that's meant for the foundation and then we have a member type that's meant for the community and the investors. And the member type they have give them the right to be in the board of the cooperative and make all the daily decisions. It's not that I can come as an investor and I don't want carrots, but I want

SPEAKER_01: 37:09

you to grow this. That's not there.

SPEAKER_00: 37:11

So they decide what they're going to grow and how, etc. And at Landland, we have a lot of experts that help them make decisions and we can give them advice. And of course, it's it's a wise thing for them also to ask their certificate holders and their community what they want to eat. Of course. In

SPEAKER_01: 37:37

theory, they can stay there forever.

SPEAKER_00: 37:38

In theory, they can stay there forever. Lentiland, the foundation, can send them away, but only if, and that's all documented, if they breach the agroecological principles or some other... for the corporation. So they really feel ownership. And that's also what we find important that they're not, it's not just a job and they get paid for 40 hours a week and then they're gone. So that's why we want them to live there. And we want them to feel like they own the place. place. How we do that is so one way is to give them a contract and then they're just a paid worker. The other end is they have to lease the land themselves and start their own business and take all the risks. So we're a little bit in the middle there. So we give them a basic income and of that basic income they can live but not more than that. So they can't buy any new and they can go on holiday but they can live. They get this basic income until the cooperative starts making enough money and making a little bit profit and then their income rises to a kind of normal income and then after that normal income they get 20% of all the profits above that. And 80% of the profits of the cooperative go to the certificate holders. So that way they have like a safe basis to start their own farm the first profit adds to their income and then they have normal income and they still you know, if they do it really well, they're incentivized.

SPEAKER_01: 39:44

And so taking a step back and looking at what you've learned now, what would you tell other impact investors or other investors looking for influencing, let's say, this land ownership discussion, of course, without giving them investment advice, because that's not what we do. But what would you tell them to look for or to read or where to go to learn more or where to go and to start? If they want to be active, if they have this urge like you had and have as an entrepreneur and investor.

SPEAKER_00: 40:18

Yeah, it's a difficult question because I think I'm more of an entrepreneur than I'm an investor. Luckily, I have some money to invest, but then I invest, then I see an opportunity to start something and then I invest in that. So I don't know what a passive investor actually... could do but finds other entrepreneurs that they believe in. And I think it's also a question of what kind of investor are you and what do you want with your investment? So this brings me back to my thinking about the financial system and what do you do when you have too much money? And too much is not a light word. You can simply calculate what you need for yourself and maybe you want to give your kids a nice start in life, but everything above that, you can't take it with you when you're six feet under, you know? So what do you want with that? And what is it? And how did you get it? And where did it come from? And why are you afraid to lose it? Why do you want to make more with something you never can spend? So the question also says, do you want more money or do you want more ecology? And I'm not arguing that you should just give it all away. But what I do is I invest that excess money in something that... I mean, I can lose it. And then I've actually, I've lost nothing because I already had that piece that I needed for myself. But I'm just, I'm going to start someone and start, you know, buy a piece of land and just pay people to do the right thing there. And then try to make a business around it and see where that gets you. And hopefully you're building something that adds value to the lives of the people around it. And then, and then they will pay you for that, you know, but you can't calculate that exactly when you, when you, when you start. So you're

SPEAKER_01: 42:36

saying that the question before is actually, who are you serving? And Charles said it on our podcast, I think, who are you serving ecology or money? like who's your master and like what is enough where did it came from in this case from a company and very lucky I mean you worked really hard but got very lucky and suddenly accumulated way too much money for one person or one family to ever spend and we've seen many examples actually that going where that goes really really wrong so you're saying go a few steps back like what does this mean where does it come from how much is enough and then what do you do with the rest

SPEAKER_00: 43:14

so The investor advice would be, you know, it depends on, I mean, is it okay if you lose a little bit of it? If not, then I can't give you good advice because I think there are no more investment opportunities in this world that are safe, you know. Those opportunities have gone a long time.

SPEAKER_01: 43:38

So what's your risk appetite?

SPEAKER_00: 43:40

Both in ecology and in money. Yeah, but also what do you want to build? I mean, and if you have money and you invest it and then like 10 years later you get it back with a 50% gain, then you have to think of another thing to invest it in.

SPEAKER_01: 43:55

Seems very

SPEAKER_00: 43:58

timely. Oh man, yeah. So just put it in something that builds something and creates something and then, yeah, just leave it there, you know, and get the gains from there. or something. So

SPEAKER_01: 44:10

it's a natural bridge. It may not seem like that. But what would you do if tomorrow morning you wake up and maybe get an inheritance or somehow you get access to a significant amount of money? Not that you didn't have that before, but like a billion euros, which used to be a crazy amount. Now it's even less with all the inflation. Let's say you had a billion. And I'm not asking this for a specific euros amount, etc. But I'm asking, what would you prioritize? In your case, would you put it all in land ownership? What would you do first? Would it enable you? Or would you say, actually, I don't want any of this because it's too complex. What would you do with a billion euros if you woke up tomorrow morning in control of that? Which could be the longest investments you can imagine. It doesn't have to be any fund-like returns. But what would you do?

SPEAKER_00: 44:55

You know... I'm already doing LenteLand, you know, and I put 10 million in there. I wouldn't know what to do with 1 billion. So in my, the true answer is if I got 1 billion and that this accounts for everybody that earns some money, it comes from somewhere, you know, having money and money and debt are two sides of the same So basically, when you simplify it a little bit, the economy is a zero-sum game. So if you gain something, it's coming from somewhere and someone else has more debt. That's why I think people with more than enough money should also feel that they have a responsibility because your money came from somewhere and it's drained something. So you have to get it flowing again. And if I got a billion tomorrow, I would seriously think of just giving it away to the people that have the least. So I would just give directly to the poorest.

SPEAKER_01: 46:17

And if you would be pushed to quote unquote invest I mean that's an investment because it for sure pays back whatever x 50x in terms of life safe healthcare environment etc there's very good data let's say GiveDirectly provides if you don't know

SPEAKER_00: 46:36

the movement but what would you fight inequality that's the thing you have to do

SPEAKER_01: 46:41

but if you would be forced quote unquote to put your investor hat on where would

SPEAKER_00: 46:47

you focus it's so difficult I know, that's why I'm asking the question. Like Bill Gates is buying up farmland everywhere around the world. That's not what we want. I could think, okay, I would buy farmland and then put it into cooperatives and neutralize the land ownership. But I don't think that's the way it should be. I shouldn't be the owner of all this land and then start all these farms. The community should be the owner. So if I were forced to invest...

SPEAKER_01: 47:18

you donate to like the local community around this current farm in the Netherlands to

SPEAKER_00: 47:59

enable them to why would you donate it they can buy it themselves you know so if I was forced to

SPEAKER_01: 48:05

invest a billion maybe you're the first one ever on the podcast that says no I don't I don't pick up the phone I don't you can figure it out

SPEAKER_00: 48:17

I wouldn't know no of course with iPhone we invest in startups and scaleups and usually we invest a few hundred K per company. So I could use some extra funds to fund some more startups. But a billion, I wouldn't know what to do with it. So if you would say 10 million, I would know what to do with it. But a billion is too much.

SPEAKER_01: 48:45

And We take away your fund. So the billion, and this heavy lift on your shoulder so you can breathe again. But you do have a magic power now. You have a magic wand that you can change one thing. Could be in Fudanak specific, but actually, let's say your global view and your interest in the money system and economic system and in ecology makes me want to ask this question a bit wider. So if you could change one thing anywhere, even on the moon, what would you do?

UNKNOWN: 49:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 49:19

the root cause of every predicament we're in is the financial system. So also, you've regenerated agriculture and all the things we're doing. It wouldn't be this necessary if we wouldn't have this capitalist economy that's working on advertising and consumption and consuming more than we need. And this drive of... Um, People are being forced in competition with each other. We need to win from each other or from the earth. That's the only way you can survive in this capitalist game. And the root cause of that is interest. So if I had a magic wand, I would change the property of money that's called interest. Before there was money, all real assets in the world, they slowly become less and less. valuable, or you have to maintain them and it costs a lot of money, or you have to guard them with a lot of money. But every real asset doesn't increase in value. Yeah, maybe compared to the money system we have now, but in intrinsic value, everything decreases in value. Your boat, your tree, your land, your house. Everything, your house, everything. Your clothes. So maybe compared to in euros, your house is more. But if there's no euros, your house decreases in value. Everything decreases in value. In nature, everything. And that's because we have a money system with a different property than nature. That's why they're so much apart. If we have a money system where your money just loses 5% each year, then you're there. Then the economy doesn't have to grow exponentially. Then I would loan you a thousand euros easily and when you pay me back a thousand next year it's a good deal for me because then I have more. So then you bring economy in line with ecology actually and then also inequality becomes less and less and unsustainability becomes less and less.

SPEAKER_01: 51:42

So you would use the magic wand to raise interest. Yeah. And Anybody interested in this read Sacred Economy, Charles Eisenstein in general, and there's a lot on that actually. How does that, like if that's the root cause of Why did you... This could be a whole different rabbit hole. Why did you decide to start Lentoland? Is that an indirect way of fixing the land ownership discussion to fix this interest, this positive interest, which should be negative, basically?

SPEAKER_00: 52:24

I

SPEAKER_01: 52:25

don't know what that

SPEAKER_00: 52:26

does to the sound. Lentoland is also... It's not addressing this root cause. It's also a symptom. If I... For years, I have been thinking about starting a new currency. And I've researched it for years, made plans, made a coin design, everything. A coin that wouldn't be speculative, of course. That's the problem with all these cryptocurrencies, that they're speculative.

SPEAKER_01: 53:00

We're in the middle of one of the big fraud cases

SPEAKER_00: 53:03

again. And that stimulates local economies at all kinds of kinds of properties. Why didn't you do it? Because when I was going to do it the way I wanted to, I had to get a bank permit. And then I thought, let's do that. It costs us something, costs some time, and then let's do it. But in the end, I thought that the chance that that would succeed was, you know, rounded, was zero. So maybe it was 0.001%, but the chance was just too small. Yeah, I can't change the financial system. So yeah, I gave that up.

SPEAKER_01: 53:51

But it stays, yeah, I mean, I was going to say, it's in your fridge, just like other plants and seeds which have been there for a while. And do you see it ever coming? What would be needed to get that chance to 10 or something that makes you want to give it a go? Are there conditions that need to be... What is the area needed for this seed to start blossoming? Because it's planted. And with many people, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 54:16

I don't know. The forces of the system are so big. One of the things, when I made these plans, I knew that the first years of this new coin would be very difficult and would be very hard. You had to push very hard to get a small base of users, companies and private people. And then you had to build a small economy that the money could also circulate and not all end up in one place, which usually happens with alternative currencies. And then the only way that it would really grow big is if the current system would fail. Because then what you saw increase years ago and in other places where the currency fails, then alternative currencies have a chance. But the current system is too easy for everybody. And that's also when I researched all the other alternative currencies that are there, the only predictive value about how big they would grow is how much the group of starters, or what do you call it, the people that started it, the founders, with how many they were and how long their stamina was. But it felt like having a balloon with a small hole in it. Then if you blow really hard, it can get some volume, but if you stop blowing, it's gone. And that's what it probably would be. So I didn't find a way yet to design it in a way that there wouldn't be a balloon with a hole in it.

SPEAKER_01: 56:04

It's very interesting because I suddenly remember with Thomas Ripple of Cultuurland that he was researching a stable coin as well and was, I think, many people in the, let's say, not the alternative currency world, but that are deeply questioning the current economic system, funnily enough, end up, or I know two of them, but they end up in land ownership, which is very interesting and probably as a sort of roundabout way. That's why you can do something. You can

SPEAKER_00: 56:31

do something. So... That's also what I see with Lentiland. I mean, it's kind of a small... I don't know how to change the system. I don't know how to change the political system. I don't know how to change the capitalist system. I don't know how to change the agricultural system. I don't know how to change the financial system. But I do know, I think, how we can start a small new system where everything works in the way we want it. And that's also a little bit of Lentiland. Just a small system with a few hundred households around a farm And maybe we can make four, and maybe we can make 400, and maybe we can make 4,000, and then we don't need the existing system anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 57:13

Because there, you can always naturally pan it out. There will be complementary currencies born on these experiments, because it would be crazy to use euros for many of those

SPEAKER_00: 57:24

things. Especially when they fail, yeah. And that's not far away. That's my prediction.

SPEAKER_01: 57:30

Yeah, but I think you've been saying that for 10 years. but it's always like the moment before it seems very stable as we just saw with a massive crypto crash and then two days later everything is in these systems are also very unpredictable very fragile and yeah we don't know when and how it happens but it's very interesting to see that land ownership is such a it's probably the base of many of the speculation and many of the wealth created or quote unquote wealth created because somebody put a fence around something and said this is mine and now you have to pay to rent it or you have to pay to even walk on it or you have to pay to eat from it etc etc I think it's a topic we're going to explore more and more on the podcast as it keeps coming back as one of the root causes if not the and so I want to thank you so much for your time I want to be conscious of your time I don't think it's the last time we're discussing this topic and following Lentiland over time so I'm very happy to check in in this early moment of the journey and thank you so much for sharing thanks Thanks again and see you next time.