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
204 Finian Makepeace - How to get regeneration at the heart of the next US Farm Bill
A conversation with Finian Makepeace, Co-Founder & Policy Director of Kiss the Ground, producer of Kiss The Ground the movie and one of the leaders of Regenerate America, about the Farm Bill in the US, subsidy schemes, how to have a meaningful impact and more.
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We don’t talk about policy a lot on the podcast because it doesn’t seem to be so investable, but it does seem absolutely fundamental because if a subsidy scheme like the Farm Bill or the Common Agriculture Policy in Europe (CAP) or chemical fossil fuel fertiliser subsidies in many places makes the life of regenerative farmers more difficult, it means it is much more difficult to invest in the space and move it forward.
More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/finian-makepeace.
Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.
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Why is the farm bill in the US so important? And if so, how do we change it? We don't talk about policy a lot on this podcast because it doesn't seem to be so investable, but it does seem absolutely fundamental because if a subsidy scheme like the farm bill or the common ag policy in Europe or chemical fertilizer subsidies that exist in many places make the life of regenerative farmers so much more difficult, it means it's much more difficult to invest in and have the space move forward. Simply put, everyone should be worried about and engaged in these subsidy schemes and tried to change them. Because otherwise these oil tankers that move so incredibly slowly will make most of our work have very little impact. Unless we change them, nothing will move. So how do we do that? And how do we don't feel powerless after these very depressing sentences? Join us today to learn from the team of Regenerate America, a bipartisan push to get regen ag or at least soil health at the heart of the next farm bill. 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. Welcome to another episode. Today with the co-founder of Kiss the Ground, a producer of Kiss the Ground, a movie, and one of the leaders of Regenerate America. Welcome, Finian.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm sure you've told this story a gazillion times, but how did you end up focusing on soil and regeneration?
SPEAKER_00:Great question. I have answered it a few times, but every time it feels new and fresh. So I have been an activist most of my life, environmental, political, civil rights, et cetera. And that was always a part of who I was. How can I contribute? How can I do something to help? Because I saw a lot of the problems we were facing. But as I was getting into my late 20s, the mounting issues and the crises we were facing on climate, biodiversity, water, human health, et cetera, were just so ginormous. And the work I was doing at the time, I was a touring musician, making a living touring around playing music. And a lot of my work was in activism anyway, because I was trying Trying to point towards causes and things. But at the end of the day, everything that I was involved in felt pretty much like maybe we can go off the cliff slower. So then a couple things happened. First thing that happened was I had a dream that really changed the trajectory of my life in terms of the seriousness of which I wanted to contribute. In that dream, I was an old man, probably 90 years old, living in a refugee camp in Brazil. And global climate change had wreaked havoc on the world. billions of people dead, more misplaced. And so I'm in this refugee camp and my granddaughter wakes me up in the middle of the night. She's like, I found a hole in the fence and the two of us snuck out of the refugee camp and we walked all night. And as the dawn approaches, we come over the crest of this hill and see a city in front of us that's completely destroyed. And she looks up at me and she's crying and she's just angry. And she says, why did you let this happen? And I woke from that dream changed in that I knew I couldn't and shouldn't and won't allow myself to be that old man without an answer of what I tried to do. So that really set me up in terms of saying, okay, being an activist is one thing, but being a change agent is another. And it just so happened about eight months later, my friend Ryan came back from New Zealand, lit up and inspired beyond belief, really. He was just so incredibly inspired. And he said, this is the most amazing thing. And the person I learned it from, this guy named Graham Sate, I learned that there's this big solution that we haven't known about. And he convinced this guy, Graham Sate, to stop in Los Angeles on his way to San Francisco. And Graham gave us a four-hour lecture that was all of this stuff that we're talking about in region ag, human health, soil health, climate health, water, you name it. And my background, I grew up in upstate New York and just so happened to study at a school that had these research students from Cornell doing a big project on why oak groves can protect themselves from airborne viruses. And it turned out it was the mycorrhizal fungi. So I was out taking soil samples, you know, 17 years old with these graduate students. And so when Graham State is laying out all this stuff, you know, we had an audience of some 30 people that we brought around from LA area. But for me, so many things were connecting. As a lifelong activist, as an environmentalist, as somebody who was on the know, it was just unbelievable. I was sitting there aghast. Like, I can't believe I'm hearing this. I'm 28, 29 years old this time. And I was like, if I didn't know this stuff, if I hadn't made these connections, probably most people don't know. And that night, we went back to my friend Ryland's house. And we said, if this is true, we have to dedicate our lives to getting the word out about this, because this is literally the biggest idea that can actually change the trajectory, that can actually solve the crises that we're facing versus just do a little less harm. And that was just it was that profound it was literally then and there dedication and then you know a year later kiss the ground was born but it was like first let's just meet in a living room every week dedicate to that figure out what we're going to make how we're going to help how we're going to contribute we weren't farmers we weren't scientists we weren't the indigenous knowledge holders but we were people who had been champion types you know people who can support causes and make something heard and so that's really where we saw ourselves helping and fitting in and saying We can champion this idea. We can help put the word out and get the word out there in a bigger way. So that's really the genesis of Kiss the Ground. And our mission is really part of that is our mission, awakening people to the possibilities of regeneration, because that's what happened to us some 10 years ago.
SPEAKER_01:And I think it's safe to say you reached a lot of people. And that's an understatement. If you haven't seen the movie, definitely check it out. You can find it probably everywhere. I'll put some links below as well. And And what made you decide is a big word, but how did your path, let's say, converge towards, okay, we're going to tackle, I'm going to put my energy, my activist hat, wouldn't say back on, but definitely firmer on your hat and try to tackle the farm bill, because that seems like a gigantic task, very important, very happy somebody does it. It's not a critique, but how did that happen that you... I wouldn't say move beyond Kiss the Ground because Kiss the Ground is extremely involved in that as well, but really started to target or started to focus on this bill that everybody talks about. And then very few people, I think, understand what it actually does and how we can influence it. But how did that came about?
SPEAKER_00:It's a great question. And I'll do a little history here. So Kiss the Ground started 10 years ago. And within the first year, I studied political science at UCLA. So I had a little bit of policy background. how policy works. So within the first year and a half, two years of Kiss the Ground, I was working and making sure compost legislation was passing in the city of Los Angeles, bringing people together, writing legislation, ideas, getting them incorporated, helping write motions for the city, etc. And then very quickly, our first piece of media called The Soil Story that we made was a five-minute piece that really told this story. Instead of just launching it, we had the launch of it combined with the launch of California's Healthy Soil Initiative. And we helped get 23,000 signatures to support that initiative, which was unheard of around this subject in California at the time. But we included some of our celebrity friends and got signatures out there, petitions out there, and really saw that there was momentum here. And then throughout this, because we came in as storytellers, champions of this idea, we weren't the experts, we weren't these folks who who are considered the quote-unquote leaders of this, but we were champions of this. So the energy and the storytelling that we came into this work with really was in all of our work. The way we went towards the capital of California and trying to connect with the governor, who now is the governor, Gavin Newsom, and others with the California Department of Food and Agriculture and Natural Resources, we've always approached it in an invitation way, a storytelling type approach. and a way for people to connect to this idea, recognizing that most people don't know about this, right? Like Al Gore didn't know about this, right? We were part of his journey getting here. A bunch of people who are now champions of this in business, we were their invitation. So in the policy world, we've always done a bit of a different route to this work than a lot of the regular way that people do policy. And so the farm bill, is arguably the thing that dictates the U S food and agriculture sector more than anything. It's the largest subsidies. It keeps things going the way they are, or it changes things. Um, if it doesn't change things, stay the way they are, which is, you know, for folks to know our current soil loss rate is 5.6 tons of topsoil per acre per year on our agriculture land. Um, it's about four, that's over four pickup trucks full of topsoil leaving every acre, uh, every year. So when we looked at it, we said, okay, the film came out 2020. That winter, we were just sitting with a bunch of issues, but also that people were having with the film. But more importantly, we were sitting with how much the film was getting into people's hearts and minds, and not just people who are on the leading activist front, not just farmers and ranchers, but policymakers. And one of those most kind of gold moments was the chairman of the House Ag Committee before he became the chairman, David Scott out of Georgia, watched the film Kiss the Ground and got really inspired by it so much so that he contacted us. And I worked with his office to get Gabe Brown to testify at the first hearing. That was an amazing
SPEAKER_01:moment, I remember.
SPEAKER_00:In 2021. And, you know, for me, that was like, wow, this is a signal here. And, you know, working with Gabe Brown, working with that testimony, while the that's all happening we're saying the momentum is palpable here you know we're having staffers from folks like the leader of the senate schumer's office telling us about regenerative agriculture because they've watched the film and other reasons but like regenerative agriculture has a new opportunity here it's never gotten to this point we've never had this much business influence we've never had this much support from from farmers and ranchers pushing this idea so we said, now's the time. If we're serious about making change, what if we use what we do best and connect that with the farmers and ranchers who are leading that, connect that with the businesses that are really moving into this sector and open this up to countless consumers and others who are concerned about this. Let's make a campaign that is a bit more of a public spectacle. That is something that takes the way that we work, the storytelling approach, the invitation approach. Let's make a bipartisan campaign Because regenerative ag is led by a bipartisan coalition in reality on the ground. What if it can happen the same thing in the Senate and the House? And therefore, there's an opportunity here. It's audacious, it's big, but we've had quite a lot of success in Los Angeles and in California by working in relationship building and being an invitation to this big idea that has seen budgets and big allocations towards soil health and regenerative ag. We can do it. And we believe that we could do it if we brought together a coalition of the who's who, make sure we connect with the stakeholders who've been doing this work the most, still take our position as champions, make this a farmer-centered campaign. And that's what we did. We said, okay, let's get ahead of the curve. Let's start sooner. And we took a year building out the campaign, then launched on May 17th, but really developed a policy platform that speaks for the regenerative ag movement. We were really dug in and found what were the common threads, especially from the farmers and ranchers who were leading this and seeing the reality on the ground of what needs to change. And we built Regenerate America, a bipartisan campaign to ensure the next farm bill robustly supports regenerative ag. And it's a coalition. It's over 105 organizations and farm groups and businesses. And it's a belief. It's not that there's not other coalitions, other people who are moving toward this, but our part to play in this is is creating this type of vehicle that connects to Kiss the Ground the movie and brings more people in. But yeah, that was the reason of saying, you know, this is an opportunity. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. The farm bill gets passed every five years. If we wait for another farm bill to push for regen ag or soil health at the least, we're really missing a big mark here.
SPEAKER_01:And looking at the farm bill, if you had to explain for like an international audience or even audience in the US as well that says I've heard about it but what is it and why is it so fundamental I mean you said it decides it dictates what happens it keeps things the same or it doesn't if it gets changed like what is the farm bill in a nutshell and then what are like the angles or the ways to actually change it like how do you actually change a farm bill that comes up every five years
SPEAKER_00:that's a great question and I would say to To start off, the Farm Bill is a very big omnibus bill. So it includes a lot of major things. One of the biggest things it includes is the SNAP program. About 74% of the$856 billion that's allocated over a 10-year period, 74% of that is allocated for SNAP, which is a food assistance program for people in need. So the Farm
SPEAKER_01:Bill is actually almost a food bill?
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, it is. There you go. the farm bill is the food bill on more ways than one. But especially for low income folks who need that support, that's where the funding is coming from. And they do that intentionally so that, you know, we make sure that that part stays in there in a healthy way. But that's a part of it. But also things like crop insurance, which, you know, the American public pays for 60 or 50 percent of our crop insurance means when something goes wrong on a farm from climate or drought or whatever, that the farm can have insurance on their crops and then get a payout for those things so they don't have a complete loss. Crop insurance and even lending, like how and what ways are we lending for farmers in need of lending? That's through the Farm Bill. processing and equipment of what are farmers able to do? What do they have at their disposal? So say a farmer says, I want to integrate livestock into my operation, have it be more regenerative. Can they process that livestock or is the nearest processing facility 500 or 700 miles away? Or if they're saying, hey, I want to integrate more crops and move away from just corn and soy. Do they have any specialty crop processing facilities near them or not? So these are components of the farm bill that are there and shaping the reality. And if we look at what the Farm Bill has been supportive of over the last 30 years, grossly, it has been industrial, chemical derived, conventional, large, large, large, large scale agriculture, and hasn't been as supportive as it can be to farmers who are actually building soil. So for example, crop insurance is a great point where the farmers who are planting corn and soy and using glyphosate and doing it and they're doing it on degraded land and they're planting their soy and the likelihood that that's going to fail, that crop's going to fail is really high. They have a better chance of getting a crop insurance payout than someone who's doing really good regenerative practices because they're doing things that are a little bit out of the ordinary. They get disqualified, for example, from getting their crop insured, even though they're actually doing what's best for all of us, helping our watershed, helping our eco system, helping our biodiversity, helping sequester carbon. So things aren't set up for the success right now and the advancement of regenerative agriculture or farmers transitioning to regenerative ag.
SPEAKER_01:And so how do we change that? I mean, it's a very short and easy question, but not an easy answer. What does it look like to get insurance change, for instance, or SNAP, which I think you can not use or many places will even use on farmers markets and things like that. How do you have do you nudge those few sentences? For sure, it's a massive bill, but how do you nudge that towards at least soil health at bare minimum?
SPEAKER_00:The way we did it is multiple fold. Relationships are huge, and how people are hearing about, experiencing, understanding what regenerative ag has to offer, that's probably the tip of the spear that's most important. Do the staffers and the policymakers understand enough why regenerative isn't just a new hip term to replace sustainability or something, but why it is key for farmers and ranchers in their finances, in rural communities, in their economics, for the resilience of our land to what we're facing with climate change, flood, drought, flood, drought, et cetera, that resilience factor, and allowing them to see it and believe that this is actually an opportunity Thank you so much. if not more important to have a bipartisan coalition here on this is knowing that the economics for the farmers and ranchers in these districts that these representatives represent, their farmers and ranchers that they represent need to be able to have an out. And the current average increase of debt in the United States is 4%. So that's what farmers are generally dealing with, an increased debt of 4% every year. That's not good. That's not a healthy system. And so So when representatives understand that this is an economic win for farmers and that it can happen and there are trainers, people who can educate farmers on this, then we start to make some penetration happen. So that's the first thing.
SPEAKER_01:How difficult is that to stuffers that are in Washington or in other places that may have not seen, touched, felt, and smelled? Because it almost sounds too good to be true. This sounds like a snake oil cellar. It does, yeah. is good for everything and fix all of your problems. Don't worry about it. Are you worried about climate change? We fix it. Are you worried about jobs? We fix it. Are you worried about income? We do it. How do you get over that skepticism of like, yeah, I've heard stories about everything fixing everything and usually turns out not to be true.
SPEAKER_00:I know, right? But it's true. I know, but that's what everybody says. I know, right. But one of the most important things is having farmers there. we've been very adamant about this and our, our two major trips to DC, uh, we're now, I think we're at about 35 meetings with representatives, uh, and their, and their staffers. So one of the biggest things is them talking with the farmers. So when you bring them there, you bring
SPEAKER_01:the Will Harris's that the gay Brown
SPEAKER_00:Harris was with us. Do
SPEAKER_01:you pay them? Like, do you give like somehow create this, this financial, because also for farmers, we see it in Europe as well. Like to, you know, in order to even have the mental space or the space to spend a day in Brussels or a day in Paris or a day in London or wherever you need to lobby, most that don't have the time or don't make the time. Like it's very difficult to, and super, super useful because otherwise the staffers and these representatives only see, let's say other people selling other stuff with very nice PowerPoints. Like how do we get the farmers there if they don't come to the farm? Like how do you do that? How do you make sure Will Harris, which for sure has 10,000 other things to do, actually takes the time to come to Washington and have 30 meetings.
SPEAKER_00:I think that is also a relationship thing. So over the years, Kiss the Ground has been going for 10 years. And as champions of this work, I think we've done a pretty good job to build relationships with these leading farmers. I've known Will Harris for a very long time now. So there's a trust there. And even if we might have even slight disagreements on some things, across the board, we know we're working together to move regenerative ag forward. So when I call upon Will, he's actually a part of our, our, our farmer leadership council. We have 14 farmers from all over the U S who represent regenerate America's farmer leadership council. And that's really important because they help us assess the approach and who and how, uh, and then someone like Will is joining us. He went to it with June on the June 14th, 15th meetings fly in for DC. Will came along. We also had Yadi Wang from Arizona, uh, And Don from, where is Don? So you get the real
SPEAKER_01:farmers in the room that can really
SPEAKER_00:share everything. Yeah, I can set things up. I can lobby essentially in some ways. I can put the argument out there. But when the questions come back, when those questions are answered from a farmer and those examples are given point blank, it does change how people think. And especially this conversation being new, a lot of these staffers are great people on both sides of the aisle. It's been amazing. to sit with these staffers and have them have the aha moments. I remember one with- That must be the
SPEAKER_01:funniest part of your job, quote unquote, like end with Kiss the Grand Movie, end with this to see these light bulbs go off. Like, ah, ah, there's
SPEAKER_00:another one. I mean, that's what happened to me though. So I always go back to that humbleness of like, I didn't know. Those four hours changed your
SPEAKER_01:life,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. I was like those staffers probably of like, I know my stuff. I did. I was a 29 year old who thought all my friends had, me all the questions like what is this what's that fin and i was their answer so i didn't have like an ego about it but i had like a know-it-all i had i knew a bunch of stuff you know but i didn't know this and so we have an opportunity to sit on that as this conversation's emerging is that people don't know and obviously the film's a great tool also so getting these staffers and their their lawmakers to watch the film does change things they do see a different perspective um that's another point for people on this to remember is that's a media that people don't get all the time. So if you're a staffer, you can hear 20 people come into your office in one day, but a movie that you watch at night on Netflix is a different dynamic. So that's a type of thing that loosens and fertilizes these people's brains, you know, and that's a really, really important tool you cannot discount at all. So using that, the relationship building, the bringing the farmers in the room, but then finding out what is our policy And what exactly is it? Writing it down instead of just general bullet points, writing down exactly what we want to change and why, and then sharpening that, sharpening that, cutting out the fat. That's what we've been doing. We're even writing marker bills right now that are necessary so that when the farm bill is voted on, members of Congress can take a piece of existing legislation and plug it into the farm bill. And that has a reference, has a real legal reference of this is what we're talking about. This is what we're replacing this section. of the farm bill with this existing piece of legislation. So we're writing two marker bills right now. A bunch of marker bills have already been written that can be included into policy for the farm bill, which we're using. But a few areas were a bit undefined that we had to help write marker bills for. But that's the kind of thing that we're working with members of Congress and the Senate to do that right now. And that's what you have to do. You got to do the work. You got to do the
SPEAKER_01:work. Yeah, the deep wording the shaping, the shaving, the cutting, etc. And then what's the timeline looks like for the Farm Bill? We're now talking end of November 2022, just for reference, if you listen to this in a few years. What does the timing look like?
SPEAKER_00:So the Farm Bill is passed every five years. This will be the 2023 Farm Bill. We're guessing that it'll probably be October next year, 2023. So this next phase of the campaign, we're really looking at having a much bigger awareness push and raising this up. We've done a lot of the original meetings, gotten a lot of the comprehension from these members of what we're asking for on a base level. Now we have to bring momentum behind it. And that's a lot of what 2023 is about.
SPEAKER_01:And is it important to have farmers from every district to show and to make sure that the representatives of those different districts and areas get the calls and the pressures as well? Or is it Is it enough to have a few of the games or a few of the wheelers as, as, as examples, or is it then easy to say, yeah, that works there in, in, uh, in Georgia or it works somewhere else, but it would never work in my area. Like how important is it to show that it's, it's a universal, um, a universal approach.
SPEAKER_00:It's very, very important. Um, one of the things that has been the most successful. So example, we were, uh, in DC the first time, um, and going into the, Representative from Indiana, Braun's office. And right before the meeting, I called up Rick Clark, who, you know, he testified with us in September, which we can talk about in a minute. But we're heading into a representative from Indiana's office. We have the meeting, right? And I call up Rick and I'm like, hey, just brushing up on some of these points that you want me to make for you on your behalf. We have three other farmers with us. We meet with three of their staff. They're very engaged. And then I talk about what Rick Clark, who's from their staff, And they were really turned on by that. It was like, wow, this is a guy from our state farming 7,000 acres of row crop. Very easy to understand that this is not a niche topic anymore. If he's, you know, making a lot of profit and doing row crops and you can identify that like regenerative can happen at scale, right? You're telling a story that you don't, you don't have someone doubting it because you're basically saying, here's the proof. And then them being interested in that. And then a week after that, the next Wednesday, He was on a Zoom call with the senator and getting to have some questions answered. And then back in a month and a half later, we were, you know, putting on camera for the next Kiss the Ground movie with that member and doing that. So those are the kind of things where you're like, this can happen, especially it's so important. So having these farmers on call, not just the ones on our Farmer Leadership Council, but having this coalition built so that when we're saying he Here's an example. Oh, you're referencing dairy or you're referencing this crop? Here, let's get you a meeting with this farmer. Let me call
SPEAKER_01:my, yeah, let me call
SPEAKER_00:my agent. And that's why this farmer, this is a farmer-centered, rancher-centered campaign. And we have those relationships and they're standing by ready to help. And that's, I think it's incredible. Sometimes we take it for granted, but that's incredible to have leaders in this, not just any old farmers. We have the leaders of this movement, a lot of them behind us in this march.
SPEAKER_01:And it all sounds very nice and rosy. Where does the pushback come from? Where is the, literally, where does the pushback come from? Sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Entrenched habits of how things go. Doubt, for sure. Doubt that this is actually going to happen or work. And that's why we have to just be unstoppable because we know it does work. We just have to convince more people. So doubt that it can work. Interests, obviously. Obviously, people already have their relationships that are pre us quite a bit. So you're up against those. And if they don't want to piss off the folks who are their friends with who are with big ag or big chemical, that's going to be a bit harder. But there's just some industries that are harder to upend. And the good news is, we're not all against all of those industries. It's not a total black white thing. Obviously, the big chemical giants are some of the losers at the end of this story, but they don't have to entirely be losers if they're pivoting some of how they work.
SPEAKER_01:Just 80%. Yeah, go and talk to the shareholders. But it's a good point. There's a transition here, etc. But at the end, yeah, input industry
SPEAKER_00:loses. But even the transition aspect of this, the continuum aspect of this, we don't have to be against the corn growers association. In fact, we're talking with them, looking at how this can work together, even if there are things that are contradicting right now, there's a ton of overlap. And that means there's a ton of onboarding, getting farmers and ranchers on their trajectory towards soil health and regenerative ag. We're so far in degenerative agriculture in this country that we have to appreciate large swaths of change. You know, like I was just at the University of Tennessee two weeks ago speaking, and I didn't know that they're now at 90% no-till 30 years ago, they were losing, I believe the professor said they were losing 200 tons of topsoil per acre per year. And then they said, we have to do something. But nobody believed that they could do no-till. Like, yeah, sure, whatever. But that was 30 years ago. And in 30 years, now they're at 90% no-till. Is no-till the end of regenerative ag? No, we all know that. But it's a beginning. And if we say to ourselves, that happened in Tennessee, where they went in 30 years to 90% no-till, what could we do in 10 years with more attention and focus on regenerative, making sure farmers are actually building back soil versus just limiting erosion, et cetera. So I think there's incredible access here that we can leverage if we get people on board, if they see the economics, if they see all of these wins that come with regen ag.
SPEAKER_01:And what should, of course, without giving investment advice, but like smart impact investors or investors listening to this, let's say we're in a theater what should they take away what are lessons learned if they want to take it to maybe they're in the US and they could of course get involved but if they want to take it to their country because many countries and many places are severely the subsidy system is not helping let's say so what should they take away what would be the main message you want to give them
SPEAKER_00:well one main message is relationships matter so I'm all for the domino effect in a lot of ways where it might not be me who's the best messenger of regenerative ag to, for example, big lenders. But big investors and big lenders might occupy some of the same spaces. So one example is like the lending communities don't understand enough why this is a win for them. Risk mitigation through soil health is an absolute win for insurance groups, lending groups that are not just the US-based one, but the private as well. Everybody wins when the farmer actually does better on the lending side. So investors influencing lender groups, like all of these folks who are not just through the USDA lending, but are lending on their own to farmers and ranchers, are they seeing that this is an opportunity for them to have a risk mitigation? It's like good drivers from Allstate. That helps Allstate, right? We need to have a good, so that people understand with lending, they're more secure with regenerative ag. So people can influence those in their community quite well. And that's particularly one area that we need to have access to. On the investment side, folks need to understand that we're trying to help. We have a great member of our steering committee for Regenerate America, but also part of the campaign is Applegate, this woman, Gina Asutagon. And she's really trying to have people recognize that, like, look, we can't do all of this ourselves. You can have mavericks of industry doing great things and doing investment stuff. But do you really want to do the whole lift by yourself? If the current trajectory of what's being funded in agriculture stays the same, all of the lift is going to be on the impact investors or the businesses themselves, and they're not going to do it. It's too hard. It's too hard to have more than the top 3% of people who are just those usual people who always lead the curve. We need the early adopters in business and investment to feel more comfortable in this, and therefore the government has to show up. and make some changes because you got to get people on the way so that it's easier for other people to say hey I want to source regeneratively hey I want to invest in regenerative you got to take into account the big elephant in the room which is the farm bill doesn't change it's all on you sorry you know
SPEAKER_01:and so you would definitely urge them to acknowledge the elephant and engage and get involved if you want to like the biggest lever is the farm bill especially It
SPEAKER_00:might not be the biggest individual lever. They might be the ones doing that here and there. But if they don't address the future of now, if the farm bill doesn't change, how hard is their job to get to what their consumers want or get to what their investment opportunity is? It's going to be much, much harder for them to grow in this space if the farm bill doesn't change. That's correct, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And what would you do? Let's say you're not wearing your activist hat for a second. You could wear it as a sort of activist invest investor had, if you would be in charge of a billion dollars tomorrow morning, but it had to be invested, so not necessarily granted, where would you focus your energy? In this case, where would you focus your resources, your energy, in this case, your investment money?
SPEAKER_00:I think I would do, maybe people take this idea, but I don't know if this is, but I think what I would do is invest in regenerative grazing aggregation so that that around the country. Would
SPEAKER_01:you say people take it the wrong way?
SPEAKER_00:No, I don't think people take it wrong. I just want, they might just take this idea and run with it. Please do
SPEAKER_01:it. Yeah, go do
SPEAKER_00:it. Right now. And that's fine. I'm all about winning the regenerative movement here. But basically you look around, you're like, how many ranches are out there underperforming? You know, they're doing grass fed even. So taking the grass fed folks and trying to speed up their transition to regenerative grazing such that they're having a with all their environmental stuff, which we could track for later accounting. But more importantly, in the immediate, increasing their biomass, getting their herd size up so that they can produce more, be more profitable, but then having a way to deliver that meat, aggregating it in pockets around the country. So able to deliver that meat to those who are wanting it in a bigger way. So I think that's definitely what I would do is see that the because one of the the ways that i look at this the current meat production system is is terrible in a lot of ways for our environment for our future um but the regenerative way has so much there but what it needs is aggregation and and there's room to do that but also the education of these ranchers of like okay if i can move it so that you're doing grass fed already and it's marginal i can help you get training that's going to make it so in three years you're increasingly your biomass, let's say three and a half times. And that means you're able to hold more water, hold more animals, hold more, et cetera. And that's going to help your profit margins as well. So helping ranchers towards their regenerative future and aggregating for them, that's what I would do with that money.
SPEAKER_01:And it's a perfect bridge to another question I wanted to ask. What do you, because you must get them in the room when you speak as well, or even in the rooms, of course, with staffers in your meetings, what do you tell, say the techno optimists that say, yeah, but we don't need to change the farm bill. We'll save the climate or we save our environment with plant-based and cell-based and number of precision fermentation, et cetera. As long as we just focus on technology, we'll be fine. Of course, I'm generalizing here, but on purpose. What is your, I'm asking for a friend being me, what's your go-to answer to that approach where tech will save us, don't worry about it, we don't need to change. Soon there will be obsolete anyway. We rewild a lot of hectares.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's, I'll address the last thing you said really quick. Rewilding. Where does rewilding work now? And I ask people to sit with this because most people are heavily influenced by eastern, northeastern United States, New York, where I'm from. You know, it's a very influential state over the last hundred years. And England, a very influential country around the world. England is an environment that rewilding is really freaking easy. You let land fallow in England and two years later it turns back into a forest. Why? Because there's constant humidity in England, constant drizzling precipitation. It is incredible what England's environment has to offer when you do degenerative agriculture. You can beat the hell out of and it regenerates really quickly.
SPEAKER_01:And even there, I think people would argue you need some management if you see the successful, I think a better term is wilder farming anyway, but the successful example is you need proper management. You need like some interventions, not that you put a fence around it. It might grow back.
SPEAKER_00:I'm just giving some generalities of like it will, like where I'm from in New York, if you leave a field bare five years later, it'll come back into force. But we've seen England exporting their agricultural system around the world already. We've seen that happen. And we've seen Australia turn to desert very quickly, seven to 10 years.
SPEAKER_01:You're saying if we export a rewilding version of that, it's leads to equal disaster. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right. It's not like that. Yeah. Right. So the rest of the world doesn't have precipitation that lets for a field to regenerate itself in two years. So the opinions that are coming out of England of like, we need to rewild place. Okay. okay, take rewilding to New Mexico. Take rewilding to certain places in Zimbabwe. Look, here's the deal. You have a desert. You have a dry climate. You have very little precipitation, very low humidity for most of the year. What do you have? Why don't you go check out what the national parks look like? They stopped doing grazing. They stopped doing agriculture. They let the place rewild. It is on its own self-perpetuating way to desertification It's already reached its tipping point. You already took out the grazing animals, the ruminants from a long time ago. You already have self-degenerating landscapes that are past their own tipping point. They will not rewild back. All they will do is turn into desert. And then you'd be like, now you have all those crazy people trying to protect native desert plants. Be like, y'all, that used to be a grassland. Now we're up in arms trying to protect native desert plants. cactuses? That's crazy. Why are we thinking that rewilding is going to work in most of the arid places around this world? It's not. You have to have human management in some degree or another. You're not going to have flocks of wild bison come back there and help it recharge itself. So the rewilding concept works very well in places like England and New York. But generally, it doesn't work when you're talking about brittle or arid environments that are already past a state of degeneration and don't have things like ruminants on them, especially grasslands. Anywhere around the world that is native grassland that has all the perennial grass species are out, meaning a regime change of plants has moved to shrubs or desert plants. You've already gone past the conditions that allow for your grasslands to come back. You need to have intervention. You need to have a change. Humans, beavers can do it in some places, but humans are really the only species that I can go out there and help regenerate it through management.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. That's the second part of the question. Then the first part, because of course it's always part of the same, the same going like on and that we have so much land and we, we optimized and we have made everything efficient. And then we have so much land left that we can let be wild. Okay. We tackle that part nonsense in most places. But the first part still stands in terms of an argument. I mean, you must get that question all the time. What about all this tech creating food in a lab or in a factory?
SPEAKER_00:That's a great question. But I have to ask this for folks everywhere is who wins? You have greed everywhere. And when you have things that are invented or done, someone owns the intellectual property of that. And the Bill Gatesing of the world in the future is not helping for sovereignty. If we're actually regenerating landscapes and water sources come back, spring's Because you've healed the land and you're able to have animals being fed on the land because the pastures and everything's turning green again and you have biomass again. Importing or shipping in a truck Impossible Burgers to that location in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, like, really? Is that the system that's actually going to help those communities come out of poverty and all of that? a sudden be in a different scenario? No, you're constantly relying on imports, exports. You're relying on centralized locations that are owned by somebody. And then, yeah, those people win. They win the technology. But at the end of the day, you don't have sovereignty and you don't have prosperity in rural communities around the world. You just don't. There's no proof of that ever happening with that system. And there's no proof that it can have that happen.
SPEAKER_01:So you really take the angle of who owns, who wins. I think it's a really good, yeah, de-armoring of that conversation. Like who wins with that? And then let's go down the list. Yeah, it's probably not the list you want to, you want to win.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's who we're investing in now. I mean, how much do we champion the musks of the world because we somehow think they're superheroes, but it's like at the end of the day, when the apocalypse hits, are you going to want to be friends with the people with the gadgets or are you going to want to be the friends with the people who actually regenerate their own landscapes and they have a spring running out of their land because they manage their cattle correctly. I want to know those people.
SPEAKER_01:That's a very, I'm going to use, I'm going to use a quote. I mean, of course, quote you, but use that. I think it's a very good answer to it. And that, I mean, I'm laughing, but are you optimistic? Because you mentioned the apocalypse, obviously, like how, how optimistic are you if you are? And if you're not, why not?
SPEAKER_00:I'm optimistic because I'll tell it like this. Are we going to do it? Probably not. But I'm optimistic because once there's a turning point, I do think that there's possibilities of incredible things to happen here. When we change our mindset and our thinking and what's possible with our actions, we do have nature's 500 million years of research and development on our side. At our back, we only have to go down the current with her and say, how are we being the beavers and having this system change overnight, so to speak, where, you know, you look at regenerated landscapes, you look at the Laos Plateau, which is in Kiss the Ground the movie, that speaks to possibilities where entire populations taken out of poverty, not because of some handout from the government, not because of some food aid that's shipped from the United States. It's because they regenerated their base of their existence and their water and their food system was replenished. You know, there's a place in Ethiopia. I don't know if you remember the 90s when we were all experiencing how bad Ethiopia was. But during that time, some people made decisions to regenerate parts of those landscapes. And they did. And while those places are now bustling and have water coming out of the ground again, all these things. recharged and replenished and regenerated, the places that didn't do that are still barren deserts where desert is making people's living a human hell. And that's the reality. That's what we got to check into. And if we don't check in with the farm bill of like, we're turning the entire United States into desert right now, go on Google Earth. I implore everyone on this podcast, go look at Google Earth. Check out how much of the land is in agriculture. If you look at the average rate of desertification and then look at the average rate of soil loss on that land, you're going to say to yourself, we better start regenerating and rebuilding that soil because all of us will be living in Syria. I mean, just another reminder. I think Al Gore is an amazing person. He's doing so much great work, but some of where he points the finger of climate change is causing the chaos in Syria. You're like, well, let's take it back a little further. Back in the late 60s, 70s, Syria nationalized its land. A bunch of people who had never managed land in a brittle environment were given access to land and very quickly degenerated that land and then all of a sudden there was huge exodus from the farmland into the cities and thusly emerged competing groups of people trying to figure out and jockey their way and then all of a sudden you have you have a strife and you have a potential for for issues coming out and so if we don't address soil loss and we don't address regenerating we're setting up for for water wars and global catastrophe and climate exodus of people all over the world. And people be like, oh, climate refugees. Are they climate refugees? Sure. Are they soil desertification, soil loss and desertification refugees? I would argue that. Because when you break your soil, when your soil is degraded, it rains, most of the water runs off or evaporates within the day, and you don't get a you get your water back. You get your water back, you get your small water cycles back, you have an ecosystem again. That's the foundation of human civilization and we've done it before. We've decimated our land and civilizations crumble. It's happened about 26 times before now. Why would we think this time is gonna be any different?
SPEAKER_01:And so let me ask the question, in the 10 years of Kiss the Ground, have you seen, as you mentioned, the most important thing is a mindset shift Have you seen the beginning of that, of a mindset shift to, because like that shifting gears or going from an adolescent stage, like Charles Eisenstein says to a more adult, like our relationship with nature, our relationship in nature. Have you seen, because you've talked to so many people, you've met so many people, you've traveled the world, traveled the US very extensively. Have you seen the start of a mindset shift? Like the real estate between your ears, I think it's Kate Brown that says that. Is that shifting or? is there a lot of work to do i mean for sure it's both but give it give us a bit of hope is there is there a mindset shift on on its way
SPEAKER_00:definitely there definitely is and i think it's about being a fearless advocate and so kiss the ground um has done a lot of things to spread the awareness around this but a big part of our work has been connecting people to this i think i mentioned the beginning of the podcast but even further than that we're doing something called soil advocate training where we have a nine-week course people go through it online you can take it during a cohort with other people, or you can just do it online like a masterclass. You can do it on your own. But this is a way for you to jump your position in the movement of going from just a beginner, just heard about this, going to attend some conferences maybe this year, to I'm now prepared to be able to start delivering this no matter what my experience is, where I come from, I'll be able to start advocating for this stuff. Things like that are critical because they jump people ahead. And, you took the course about three and a half years ago but now her and her husband just helped canada get and canadian money goes a lot further than u.s money so this this number might sound small for people in the u.s but 1.7 billion dollars now going to help transition farms to regenerative ag it's amazing that
SPEAKER_01:you you talk about a billion dollars even canadian or u.s and it sounds a lot smaller like well it sounds like a lot of money
SPEAKER_00:yeah it doesn't go very far in the united states unfortunately inflation yeah for canada that's a big deal and so you know, this is where across the world we're seeing this. But, you know, there's countless people like my friend Ryland, who co-founded Kiss the Ground with me. He talked with Dr. Mark Hyman, who's a 15-time national bestseller, New York Times bestseller. He got him hooked onto regenerative agriculture. But part of that is just like, it's not just us connect to Kiss the Ground, it's we connect people to the movement. And so very quickly, Mark Hyman was talking with Gabe Brown and Dr. Alan Williams and Ray Archuleta and Nicole Masters. He was on the phone with them because he's a researcher and he wants to learn. So where are we collectively opening up? Because why is that important? Because Mark Hyman also knows Senator Kerry or Secretary Kerry, right? And he starts to put in his ear and then Biden's team knows. And so all of us working on our advocacy and reminding ourselves that your podcast right here, who is that reaching? And then someone saying, well, my wife knows this representative and we have them over for dinner sometimes. How can we connect them to this? Have they seen the Kiss the Ground movie? This is where the, you know, the rule of like, how many times has someone heard this message and who did they hear it from? We're still on the trajectory of climate solutions is, you know, the route of reducing emissions, which is 100% necessary, but we're gaining traction. And I believe by 2025, 2026, maybe we will reach a point where regenerative ag and soil health does trump Thank you so much. goes be an invitation into regenerative ag and bring people into this movement and we'll see the ripples and I think it can happen fast enough I mean the now current king of Wales king of England pardon me Prince Charles or King Charles sorry you know he's
SPEAKER_01:been
SPEAKER_00:he's all about agroforestry and everything the excitement and the connectivity and the depth of regenerative ag and meeting people like Gabe Brown and others has brought him to even proclaim like regenerative ag is the the biggest solution we have. And so we're gaining quite a lot of traction with people who have been about this for a long time, people who are new to it, people who are ready to hear this. And we just got to keep going.
SPEAKER_01:That's a very helpful message. So a few small questions, but it could be rabbit holes to finish up. If you have a magic wand and you could change one thing overnight, of course, it could be the farm bill, but I give you more freedom to do anything. If you can change one thing overnight, what would it be?
SPEAKER_00:One thing overnight I would change is everyone in the world who's grazing livestock knows regenerative livestock management, meaning they just all of a sudden know how to do adaptive multipedic grazing, and they have the fencing tools to do it, meaning they have the polywire or whatever, and they know how to do the polywire. They've got a four-wheeler or a horse or whatever, and they can do it, and they can move their livestock in a way that regenerates the land and they know that that time now will change their whole dynamic in two to three years. And they just say, I'm going to do it. So in terms of land coverage, that would be my number one thing is if everyone who's managing livestock right now comprehended fully how to do this and had the tools, the simple tools they needed to do it.
SPEAKER_01:All right. That's a very specific answer that I didn't expect from an activist. It could have been my mindset shift or between your ears or better taste I understand but that's why I love it but it's not the one I would have expected beforehand
SPEAKER_00:well think about how many acres are in grassland management and how few people actually manage those things that's where I believe in this is that that's coming people are going to start saying I want to do that yeah so it
SPEAKER_01:might be
SPEAKER_00:the biggest
SPEAKER_01:lever yeah
SPEAKER_00:and
SPEAKER_01:we had we hit a few but if you had to pick one, what do you believe to be true about region ag? And this definitely comes from, inspired by John Kemp, who usually asks this about ag in general, but what do you believe to be true about region ag that others don't? So where are you contrarian? Where are you thinking fundamentally different from, let's say, most people in this niche or in this space? Let's hope it's no longer a niche very soon.
UNKNOWN:Hmm.
SPEAKER_00:I would say that myself and Ryland, the two co-founders of Kiss the Ground, we have a very entrenched belief that other people can get this. And part of that is being new to the space. But after 10 years now, we're not super new to the space anymore. But we fundamentally believe people can get this. And I think a lot of people in the space play a bit more of the niche game, meaning like they're in now and maybe other people might hear fast enough, but probably they won't. So I think that comparing myself to the movement is the belief that people can get it. Big, important, quote unquote, people can get it. I 100% believe anybody in the world that we've set our eyes on can get this idea. And it will change many things if they do. So I think that would be the biggest difference of myself and a lot of other people in this space is the belief that people can get it. Everyone, not just farmers, not just a few ranchers here, not just this sector that I already know. It's like anybody.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing. And of course, good luck. I don't know if you say that in Bill terms, but good luck with the upcoming Bill cycle and with the quote unquote lobbying or shifting mindsets or making people see it or getting it, as you mentioned at the end. So thank you so much for what you do and for taking the time to come on the podcast and share about your journey and your current focus.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. And can I ask the question back over to you? you, that John Kemp question. I love John Kemp, so I'd love to hear your answer too.
SPEAKER_01:I should have prepared that somebody bounces back. Where am I contrarian? I think many in this space, I mean, it depends a bit on the scale, but I do think there's a massive economic opportunity as well. Not because I think everything should be an economic opportunity or an investment opportunity, but having seen these transitions up close with farmers, I cannot see any other way where wealth is created like somehow these abundant systems they might take time they might think but somehow this should make sense in economic terms even though i'm not a schooled banker or investor but like this is how wealth in general like all the different so somehow you should be able to um to be more economically successful or should be able to make a living out of this and i think some people really like to stay in the niche and this is we do it for many things but not for the money and and it might be more in europe or other places or And I think that's dangerous because then we never engage the financial sector, which we absolutely need. Like this is a financial tool, which we need to use because let's say the extractive agri-food space is very good at using it and we're not. And we need to somehow create these abundant systems that also give a return. Whatever fair return is, we can discuss. I don't think it's going to be crazy, but there is, I mean, if we're not able to create a return from an agroforestry system that can create for thousands of years or hundreds of years like something is wrong and especially when you imagine like when the apocalypse comes and whatever financial system we have then or after I cannot imagine it's not based on soil health like there's no way something that so there I think like there are returns now and I think there are returns in whatever future economic systems we might see in our lifetime it has to be based on soil health it's like where life begins
SPEAKER_00:yeah I 100% agree with you I think the economic side of this is definitely under appreciated. It's not a dirty
SPEAKER_01:word like money is not a dirty word in this case it might be in many places and it's definitely too we've misused just like ruminants and just like fire and just like many other but it doesn't mean it's bad by itself.
SPEAKER_00:Well I think that impact investors should know this 100% because especially like take an east coast ranching operation right let's say it's 100% grass or grass fed at the beginning stages, but they're doing conventional, just let the cows eat whatever they want. But I made a little film called A Regenerative Secret. I don't know if you've seen that one yet. It's about eight minutes long. It's on YouTube. It's with Dr. Alan Williams. But in the film, I basically say like, this is that counter thing where people in economics need to understand that this investment is more than just, like you're saying, it's like, this is the foundation of of where money comes from. And if I'm looking at a farm and you're telling me that in three years you can increase your biomass by three and a half times and thusly increase the holding capacity, how much stocking density, how many cows you can have on your land, most people aren't actually financially believing in that. But that's actually what happens, what you're trying to say. And so I believe very much the economic side, and we mentioned lenders on the risk measure. That's a whole nother part of this too. But on the very fundamentals of like, where does the money come from? Well, I think it's
SPEAKER_01:unsavory, right? It's either soil money or fossil money. And I like to be in the soil money side. I
SPEAKER_00:mean, fossil money is kind of old soil money in a lot of ways. It's
SPEAKER_01:dinosaur bones. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So if you, if you look at the, the, the side of input cost reductions, so inputs for farmers are probably one of the biggest reasons they don't make profits. If you look at growing a soy. and acres is saving nearly$2 million a year at the county average for inputs. That's the kind of thing that people are so fascinated with. Yield, yield, yield. How come we're not fascinated with what's your bottom line?
SPEAKER_01:Margins.
SPEAKER_00:What are you doing for hectares? How can you reduce your inputs? And that's where inputs are crazy on grazing. People are still bringing in hay to land that should not need hay. You're like, wait a minute. you're literally bringing in hay to a piece of property that doesn't need hay. Well, yes, it does because it's grazed down to this. Be like, your biomass is too short. Why aren't you doing regenerative grazing? So you have 80% more biomass. So these are things as simple economics and believing in regeneration is critical. Like where's the water coming from? Well, make the water come from your own land. Where's the inputs coming from? Make the inputs come from your own land. These are very simple basics, but people don't believe in enough because they don't understand regeneration we're still thinking in the conservation sustainable think we're not thinking in the economic way we're not actually thinking regeneratively for the base the actual value the start of the value which is the land and the soil
SPEAKER_01:and it's very interesting i'm all for i mean the whole economics discussion on interest and and that might be one of the roots of of many of the issues and and all of that but if you go back to where and i think it's one of the reasons why charles eisenstein and and a lot of other people in the, let's say, new economic thinking, et cetera, are so enthusiastic about Regeneric or so interested in it. And it's like, however we count it, but where things are created is the soil and is, of course, oceans and things like that as well. And the input discussion is fascinating. We would never ask a factory owner which would make, I don't know, switchboards or tables. Like, what's the max you can squeeze out of your factory? It doesn't matter. how many shifts you have to run, how much overpay you have to pay, input costs we don't care, like where your wood comes from, how much it costs, who cares? The only thing that cares at the end, how many tables? Like nobody ever, I mean, we're not training, like nobody ever asks that. Everybody always asks, okay, what's
SPEAKER_00:the optimum? And now we're going to subsidize you. And we're going to subsidize
SPEAKER_01:you, but any farmer, we only ask, okay, what's your yield? And it just baffles me not coming from farming, and I know it's very easy to not come from farming, et cetera, but it baffles me we never ask what are you actually making for Hector like what's your margin and where does most of your money go to and probably it's the input side and probably it's costs and probably it's and that's really and yeah replacing that or switching the power dynamic
SPEAKER_00:it's even more than really it's 4% debt increase on ag every year which is scary which
SPEAKER_01:is really scary
SPEAKER_00:if a farmer was in the current paradigm conventional 4% increase of debt every year If they were to put their input costs and everything up on the board presenting to Shark Tank, I think it would be a rather uninteresting investment opportunity. But regenerative agriculture flips that script entirely. And what I wanted to leave people with was this. There's an analogy I make all the time that I think helps us to perceive the problem with technology solving the crises. Right now, soil is broken. If you take a cup and break it the cup no longer serves its purpose or the function that it's designed to have hold water right so when you have an obliterated cup you smash your cup technology trying to figure out how to get the most water out of that cup seems kind of crazy right and you say to yourself well why don't we just glue the cup back together and have the technology then be used to make that glued together cup even more amazing. What we're saying with soil is soil is broken. Currently, most of the technology is trying to take a broken soil, a broken cup, and get the best out of it versus gluing it back together. How do we glue it back together? Just so happens there's too much carbon in the atmosphere. Just so happens plants take carbon out of the of their roots to feed microorganisms who make carbon-based glue who glue the soil back together so it becomes aggregated super sponges that hold 20 times their weight in water, designed over 500 million years by nature to work really well. We're saying technology should be on top of that. Use technology to make that even more amazing. But don't kid yourself in thinking that having over 70% of the world's soils degraded to some form or another, thinking that technology is somehow going to be the fix. No, you still have broken soil. It's still not working. You're just squeezing a little bit out of the nearly lifeless material versus fixing it. You can fix broken things. Nature has a design. Regenerative agriculture is the means to do that across the world. That's what we're saying, is technology can be on top of it, but never kid yourself that technology is actually going to fix something that's broken because it It's not. It's not fixing the problem.
SPEAKER_01:And I think it's a perfect place to wrap this up. We have many other rabbit holes to go into, but we won't this time. And I wish you a lot of luck, like I already said before. And thank you so much for taking the time, for flipping the question and taking the time out of your very busy schedule to take the time to come on this podcast and share on the Farm Bill, its opportunities, its challenges and everything around it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thank you so much, everybody out there. Thank you for hosting this. This has been really fun. And check out regenerateamerica.com. Get involved. Check out kisstheground.com. And bring yourself into this movement. This is about together we can do this. And it's happening. So looking forward to seeing you out there sometime in the future.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks again and see you next time.
