220 Marta Cortegano - How to start the regenerative revolution from one of the driest places in Europe

A conversation with Marta Cortegano, cofounder of Terra Sintrópica and one of the leaders of the regenerative agriculture movement in Portugal. Straight from one of the driest and emptiest places in Europe where climate change is hitting hard, we talked about farming in challenging conditions, syntropic agroforestry and more.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Learn from one of the leaders of the regenerative agriculture movement in Portugal, straight from one of the driest and emptiest places in Europe, where climate change or climate weirding is hitting really hard. Why a former forest engineer overcame her doubts about syntropic agroforestry. Enjoy! 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 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. Just as the wind picks up, which is going to happen a bit, but that's fine because we're outside. So welcome to another episode of this podcast. Again, yet again, an amazing location. We're surrounded by trees in a landscape that doesn't have that. We're surrounded by life, which you're going to hear for sure. Either the insects that are feeding on the orange tree above us and or the dogs around, some cats and some other wildlife. I'm here with Marta. one of the co-founders of Terras in Trópica. We're here in Portugal and we're going to definitely unpack what kind of amazing place or oasis that shouldn't stay in oasis, but at the moment is, we are hosted by today. So first of all, thank you for being here and thank you for allowing us to record here. And I'm very much looking forward to unpacking where we are and of course, what million other projects you're working on and are going to work on in the future. So welcome.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Thank you. You are very welcome here. And to

Why are you doing what you are doing? Why Soil?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

start, where are we? I mean, we're in Mertola, which is in the center south, I hope you describe it, of Portugal. But we're in a very special place. So if you normally introduce yourself and say what is the farm we're on, which is a research farm, what should people imagine at the moment is around us when they're listening to this in a couple of weeks or months or years, because this will be online for a long time to come. So where are we? And as visually as possible, please.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

So we are in Amalhadinha. There is a small farm in Mertula and Mertula is one of the driest places in Portugal. My husband is a farmer and he looks at more than 10 years ago he was looking for a good place to start his dream of farming at the time with herbs, organic herbs and we found this beautiful place that was a a small farm from the archaeological research camp in Mertula that was abandoned and actually it had been a fire here and it was everything a little bit destroyed. So he started here making organic herbs but as I said we were in one of the driest places so at some point he had to stop because the soils here are quite bad, we have problems of lack of water All years. Every year we have extreme droughts. And so at some point he had to start farming, just start farming, because it was really very

SPEAKER_00 4:07

difficult. So even the herbs, which some who are not deep in farming might say, okay, but it actually can thrive also with very little water, we're suffering here.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Which means that just says something about the challenging conditions we're in.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

He chose to do herbs because of that, because it's something that really doesn't need so much water. But at the end, we had come at that time, it was like six to seven years of drought and he really had to quit. And then he started to look what other solutions we can have around the world that could be possible to use here in Mertula. Because, yeah, it's quite difficult here and the climate scenarios show us that it's not going to be better. but actually there is also other places worse than Mertuland that they are using regenerative solutions that can be interesting. So, we start to study a little bit of that and...

SPEAKER_00 5:10

How do you do that? You just start googling, you start asking people, you start looking for places which are worse and which are thriving? Well,

SPEAKER_01 5:16

we are always doing that, yeah, like looking for innovation but also different solutions in many things, many places. and syntropic farming was one of the options, but actually we thought that was something that was only possible in global south and more tropical areas and not in the Mediterranean. But at some point Ernst Goetsch was here and also Philippe Pazzini and Diana Andrade that actually chose to live here for a while and Antonio, my husband, decided that he had nothing to lose so he would like to try a little bit. So he started this brave idea of trying to translate what syntropic farming could be in a Mediterranean and semi-arid place as Mertula is. And in the first year he understood that he could grow vegetables and herbs and fruits together even in the summer with much less water than he used to use and so he came here to Malhadinha again and it was very beautiful there was a very beautiful moment when he with the group of people, friends, volunteers just take out all the black plastic that was covering the soil because it was organic and supposedly was the only way to to to grow without invasive plants and things like that and the soil was completely compacted because you see with this heat that we have here like 40 degrees in the summer well we are in April and there is 30 degrees today so you can imagine when you go with 40, 45, things like that in the summer and to have 7 years the soil completely over with the black plastic.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

It's being cooked basically, burned. And

SPEAKER_01 7:32

that was supposedly a good practice in organic farming. So he really, I don't want this anymore. So with a group of friends we take out all the black plastic that we have here and we start in a different way with using the syntropic approach. And so these days we have this farm that you can see we have here a lot of trees we have functional trees that we use just to prune and have biomass but we have a lot of fruit trees bushes and vegetables and herbs all growing together and he can take out like four to five tons of food per year now here just putting just putting water once a week what is really completely different that what happened that normally and in this region people that have vegetables and fruits they they they put water like every day and sometimes in the summer two times per day yeah so and you really can so you can see we are now in the in the spring so everything is start flowering now it's very difficult here also the weather because we pass we almost don't have spring you know we have we are in the winter it's quite cold until March middle March and suddenly you see we are already in 30 degrees So we really have here to translate how we can adapt not only to the weather conditions, the soil conditions, but also the species. What plants can we use and how can we use these plants in order for them to be adapted to this very challenging climate that we have here. But it's really nice to be here. Okay, but it's possible. It's difficult, but it's possible. We have to translate it. Now we don't see anymore this compacted soil. We see a black soil with mycorrhizae and mycelium all around when we touch the soil. We see everything covered, but not with plastic, with mulch, which is much more beautiful. And we can grow much more quantity of food. That is very nice.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Yeah, and I think I will definitely link below in the show notes interview we did with Felipe and also some more on syntropic farming and that translation to a different because it's been often I mean it's been I think 30 40 years even in Brazil very well known in Latin America very well known in the tropics very little known outside and I think the last five years or so we see different projects starting to translate these methods into other contexts and for sure everybody says it's impossible we because you need the rain, you need the humidity, you need the labor, you need X, Y, Z, you need other species, and basically people are starting to show that the principles are the same, the species are different, and the context is different, but it doesn't mean trees want to thrive in certain methods and they thrive just the same. They might grow slightly slower in certain climates, they might grow slightly faster in others, but you see the example here because if you compare the hectares you have and you manage, or Antonio manages, compared to everything around it, is quite enormous. So just to give a bit of context like what's the normal farming method or what do farmers in the region around you farm normally and of course then we see the difference with here but what's the normal farming methods and crops slash livestock that people farm here?

SPEAKER_01 12:02

So here we have in this part that is Mertula We don't have irrigation systems so it is mostly livestock. The farms are normally big farms, large scale farms and they do cattle even if they don't have food to give them half of the year or water to drink in the summer. Every summer we can see in the television the main farmers of Mertula asking to the government for measures to help them because we are in drought. But that happens every year. So it's not an exceptional ask for help. It's something that they have to ask every year. So no one asks, so why do they keep doing? or why they keep doing it this way. Because I also believe that if we change practices with livestock, it's also possible, but we have to change a lot in practices. So this is more or less what we have here. It is what is called a montado ecosystem, but quite different from more northern Portugal, in north Alentejo and central Alentejo. We are in south Alentejo, we are near Algarve. but here in this region most of the trees are dying. So we have very few trees and many of them have problems and they are dying. That is the Holmoke or the cork oak but normally here the Holmoke but very sparse in the landscape and many with problems of diseases. This is more or less the landscape. And then we also used to have gardens like that. So probably one of the things that is interesting in Myrtle is that we have, it is 1,200 square kilometers with very few people. We have 4.8 inhabitants for square kilometers.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Which is one of the lowest in Europe. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 14:19

it is. And we have like 100 and something, I'm not sure, 104 or 106 small populations. And that is quite difficult for for planning, yeah. But I think probably one of the reasons that we have that, it was because in every places that we have a little bit of fertility, that's where a family start to grow and that's...

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Maybe a well, some water, some... Yeah, a

SPEAKER_01 14:45

garden, yeah. So we have more or less small populations around a place that have some fertility on the soil and people could have a living and housing in there. But nowadays, almost these small gardens and places are abandoned. And this is quite interesting for us in our approach. Because when we translate syntropic farming here, and people say, well, when we start, when Antonio starts, everybody was saying, oh, no, this is very stupid. It's completely impossible to bring syntropic farming to the Mediterranean and to Mertola. Come on. Now he's doing... The trees will compete. They will never grow. grow yes with this soil impossible you don't have water and then we have all this beautiful production so we have a new theory okay syntropic farming is possible here in these small gardens yeah vegetable gardens it's possible but that's not our landscape yeah it's not how you scale up yeah and we ask this okay you say this is not for this region but actually 50 kilometers from here there is a lot of water because of them so in there there is the agriculture of fruits vegetables and things like that with a lot of water so first of all we are showing that in the same climate but very worst soils it is still possible to have vegetables and fruits with much less water and helping the soil so this is one first thing very important the The second thing is what is scale up? Scale up is that I have to do this in 50 hectares instead of 3 or scale up would be if I could improve all these 50 farms that are abandoned and put it so beautiful and productive like this one so that would be scale up

SPEAKER_00 16:53

or repeatability yeah which is a big theme in regenerative agriculture because it's very easy to put push things in in a box and say that could never be scaled if your idea is large monocultures that are exactly the same where every row is exactly the same etc etc which is probably what got us into this mess to begin with and but if your idea is how can it be repeated 50 times or 100 times 50 000 times why not then it's a very different question and a very different answer probably and and so when you say that to people now that come up with the second like sort of the second version of why it doesn't work because now it's been proven it works okay and it's like okay what what would it mean on a landscape scale what we mean if we do 50 of these what what do people answer how do they react to that if you say there used to be gardens around like 50 or 100 probably imagine they all look like this

SPEAKER_01 17:47

yeah I think that the part they start to think about it yeah I think that is very interesting and actually it's so interesting that we put that as a proposal to the community because actually we work quite well with the local municipality with local social institutions schools and things like that and that proposal led to an involvement with farmers farmers social institutions that what if we really teach others and scale up and we could have more gardens like that and that is already happened for instance we have like social institutions that work with elder people and also they are the ones who make the food for some of primary schools and we we share the knowledge that about what we were doing and now they have their own their own garden and they so they have the food for their canteen to the elders and to the kids okay and we also start the program for receiving people here that want to learn about it that was idea that we have after we spoke with farmers and spread this idea of okay we are not interested we now we more or less already know we are always learning and doing errors of course but it's a constant process of learning but we think we know enough at this moment

SPEAKER_00 19:26

to be comfortable with having people

SPEAKER_01 19:31

here and yes we could think well now we could have a bigger farm or spread a little bit or ask for to rent or buy other land but we thought that would be much more interesting if we could convince others or gave some enthusiasm to other people to do the same and we talked with some farmers in the region they are large-scale farmers but all of them have a place like that that is abandoned and actually

SPEAKER_00 19:59

most farmers used to have of course they go yeah yeah

SPEAKER_01 20:02

yeah of course and just go back just to say that actually we have done something is that we asked to all canteens to give us their numbers of food what they are buying of of vegetables and fruits, quantities per year. And so we thought, okay, in everything here in Mértola, the fact that we are very isolated and with so less people is a disadvantage. But in respect to that, can be an advantage. It's much more easier to feed a small place than a big city, yeah? And so we asked the canteens the quantities of food in vegetables and fruits that they buy. we understood that just like 8 more or less it depends a little bit but let's say 6 to 10 small farms like that could ensure all the food's sovereignty of Mertula for the canteens that's easy

SPEAKER_00 21:01

that's not so achievable it's achievable and it's not crazy high like 60 would be ok 6 to 10 is like

SPEAKER_01 21:11

ok but then where are these 6 farms with six farmers available to do. So we have these conversations with the farmers and they said, yeah, actually, and they said, well, you know, 50 years ago, everything that people eat at Mertula came from my grandfather and other, and from my grandfather, yeah, that farm. So there's a proudness involved as well. Yeah, yeah, there was. But now people just buy food on the shops and they are not interested in doing it because It's too much work. They have to pay something. There is no bad interest in doing it. And so we start to think a little bit. Okay, and if we try to build a program that could try to solve some of these things. So we have done a pilot program. That was the idea of receiving like three or four people that want to learn farming. regenerative farming and syntropic farming also and they could be here for one year because you know something that we learn is that also the more difficult is not the access to the land although there is a problem there is a problem in access to land that Antonio also felt that when he wants to start farming and it was good that he it was possible for him to do this partnership but it is difficult the access but it's not the only condition because when you want to start as a farmer but you are new on it and you don't have like a net of people helping you if your family was not in the business and especially if you want to do it in a different way it's really really difficult and in Portugal happens that many of the projects that are subsidized by the government the public funds, European funds for young farmers that are not for farmers that are coming in the family, that are not continuing the family business. After the five years, normally they quit. There is a big percentage of people that quit. And so we thought, okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

How do we make sure they make it?

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Because we have this meeting and the farmers say, okay, but what's your problem? You don't have land. We can okay, we can have a deal here. We can have a nice collaboration. And they even speak about money. It was really, we can collaborate. We can collaborate. We would like to see these gardens with live again, with food again. Close to your farm. Many of them said, okay, for me, if we can only have baskets for my family, you can use it. We would prefer to see this. Okay, first problem, we solve. So let's think about it now how we could can bring people how they can learn but not only about give them the land but give them the skills first and not just the skill the technical skills also the opportunity to experiment to be a farmer to

SPEAKER_00 24:30

make mistakes

SPEAKER_01 24:31

yeah and then a third thing to be a farmer in Mertula because you know there is a lot of people coming here and it's really amazing how we have a project that started three years and we only have a website at three months and there is more than 200 people that pass here from Airtula just mouth to mouth the people just come but when it went to summer many of them that say oh we love this we love to to work here to learn with you with but not in the summer so we create the program that people could stay here for one year learning experimenting by themselves so they they pass many time here working in practice with Antonio they have theoretical lessons then if they pass this phase they could experiment more in other place of the garden that the farmer gave us a plot that they could experiment for four months by themselves making their errors experimenting and only after that if they like they could stay they could have that partnership to have a place to

SPEAKER_00 25:41

really farm yeah to yeah

SPEAKER_01 25:43

for the production yeah that was and they had like a small grant also because it was important for for us it was like if a small farmer a familiar farmer had right to have how it say a guarantee

SPEAKER_00 26:06

basic income

SPEAKER_01 26:06

yeah but not guarantee a basic income not guarantee because have some conditions

SPEAKER_00 26:12

yeah okay but at least you weren't completely dependent from day one on what you were producing because you were still learning meaning you needed also to eat yeah that was the

SPEAKER_01 26:24

idea so if you are a small farmer producing food to your community and you are also contributing for ecosystem services basic ecosystem services like water and improving the soils and biodiversity you should receive something and then everything you you sell of course you make profit of it but not being so dependent that you are doing everything wrong because you are just thinking on how to sell or okay so that would be so that was a small romantic idea but i think that was very interesting this pilot to experiment this in in mertola

SPEAKER_00 27:07

and now what is the status of let's say the canteens on one side the farmers like the large-scale farmers, traditional ones, and the people that want to farm? What's the current photo? If we had to take a photo of the project now, what would it be? What would it look like now?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

So we see that in this part of the canteens, we have an evolution, but everything goes quite slow. Securement is very slow, yeah. In Alentejo, everything is slow, we say. Except climate change. which is very fast. Yeah, except climate change. Yeah, that we really see advancing quite fast. But our project, it's not about our farm. It's about local communities. So we understand many times that these changes are long term. And we really want to do it with the community, not alone. So it could be quite more interesting, like if we do some good partnerships with some chefs, with some interesting shops in Lisbon or Algarve, maybe. And we were happy doing this small piece of paradise here. We sell our products and everything was okay. But that's really not our idea. The idea is really how we can do an agroecological transition in a semi-arid place. So we are, for instance, but for winning the canteens, it's not just about having the food. You have to win the guy who managed the canteen, the guy or the woman who do the food procurement the cooker

SPEAKER_00 28:45

the

SPEAKER_01 28:51

lady who works with the children and give the food to the children because at the end if we already win all the others but the person who is going to give the food says what is this a lot of eggs they don't like this they won't eat this everything is messed up again so what we decide as we are going step to step is also to involve them so we are developing a project with rebundance it's a rebundance idea from Lisbon that is food evolution and this idea is to give training to farmers but also to cookers in Lisbon and Mertula, the project started more in Lisbon with a small part in Mertula and now it's the contrary this year and we bring the cookers of the schools of to this project so the course have two parts one is regenerative food and the other is regenerative farming and we have like two classes in Saturday they divide but Fridays they are together is more about empowerment creative leadership this kind of things yeah collaborative how to collaborate using a little bit of A lot of design thinking and dragon dreaming and this kind of thing. So it's very funny how we can empower also women that are working in the canteens that never thought that they would have training lessons with the best chefs of the country, actually. It's very funny. And for instance, ourselves, we have one space dedicated to food in the village, in the center of the village. And our cook have 65 years old.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

We met her, yeah. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Margarida. And she was never a cooker, a professional cooker in her life. She likes to cook, she cooks well, it's true, but she was never

SPEAKER_00 30:56

a professional. Food is amazing. Whoever passes here, go for lunch.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Yeah. She was never been a professional and she never had...

SPEAKER_00 31:03

She was, not a trained one, not an official diploma. But she never had

SPEAKER_01 31:07

done vegetarian food all her life. And suddenly, at 60, she starts speaking about working in a restaurant doing and when she she accepted the challenge was supposed to be like do meals for the volunteers and now it's a restaurant open that everybody can go and eat in there the vegetables that come from Malhadinha and

SPEAKER_00 31:32

so she went to Lisbon to train with

SPEAKER_01 31:35

she was one of the and so other two were from the canteens and this year was a success and we said we really have to continue this this year we have more cookers of Mertula participating again on the program so this is the step by step and many times not just step by step we walk for instance that program was really cool but we but not everything was a success and we didn't quit or think no okay this this is not no no we thought why what was not good why something was not possible to continue because then we have a problem here then we have a problem here let's so what we have to think first to solve this problem and for instance one of the identified problems was that okay we already have someone doing other nice garden in other place but we need the cooker also to collaborate yeah so This is a net of projects. This is not a project here, but a complex net of projects and institutions that are trying to collaborate for the same purpose. What makes it, as I said, much more slower, but also much more resilient.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Have you seen a shift in the institutional side on a national level as well, on a regional level and a local level in the last year as climate change here is hitting hard, like you're reaching levels now that were predicted for, I think, in 20, 30 years, you're having it now. Every year is a drought, so it's not a drought anymore, it's just summer. Have you seen a sense of urgency and a role of what agriculture and food could play? Because, of course, the other side of Portugal is very heavily irrigated, very large, let's say, infrastructure and a very different kind of agriculture. Have you seen a growing interest in another way or another method which is much more resilient, focused on sustainability, regeneration, abundance. Has the interest shifted a bit or are we still very early stage in that?

SPEAKER_01 34:01

early stage but it's growing and I think I'm very lucky to see it. What we are doing here in Malhadinha has it is small scale and as I said before people tend to say oh we cannot scale up and also the fact that farmers that have big scale they are not looking because some of them say well it's interesting but i cannot use it i cannot use it in my land and so for me one important step was to be able to speak with them and have solutions for them

SPEAKER_00 34:43

and so the big farmer that says oh it's great to have this on my abandoned garden but what do i do with the other 99 of my land yes

SPEAKER_01 34:50

so the idea of the small gardens we with the big farmers was interesting. It was a nice entry point. Yeah, yeah. It was very good to enter. with them, but we need other strategies. And I have the luck to work in another institution that is ESDIM that have a more regional approach. It works with five municipalities around Mertula and not with Mertula actually. But what is very good for me, because we can test local-based solutions and then we can try to scale up in a regional approach. And so, what was proposed between Mertula Municipality, Castro Verde and Oric, that are neighbours municipalities, to ESDIM, was to design a project on regenerative agriculture for livestock. And we designed that project.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

Because you just mentioned the issues here are many people have livestock, mostly because it's subsidised, and they don't have water, a big chunk of the summer and no feed. half of the summer or half of the year. Yes. Which means it's a challenging industry. It's

SPEAKER_01 36:02

very challenging. And look, if we ask to any farmer here, if tomorrow we close down the European funds on livestock, would you continue to be a farmer? The answer is no. Certainly not livestock. It's only possible as they are doing. It's only possible because they have a lot of funds. And we see the result in the landscape. We are in one of the most desertified areas of Europe. that is really not the solution as they are doing.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

But as you're talking to them, like what's your, because I can imagine it could be quite an explosive conversation. Yeah. So I didn't talk like that. I don't

SPEAKER_01 36:58

speak like that with

SPEAKER_00 36:58

them. Everybody knows that at some point the subsidies will change. Nobody knows when and how, etc. But it's probably not going to stay like this forever. So it could also be 10 years or 15. It could be 5 or 2 or 3. So

SPEAKER_01 37:11

what we proposed to them was to okay we understand your problem and I do I really do I don't I think it's not their fault they have the land they have to be economically sustainable so they are doing the only thing that they know with this policy that is possible to do in their farms okay so what we propose to them it's more or less what Antonio had done here he saw a solution and he tried for himself So we thought like more or less the same approach, but we give tools for learning and for testing without fear and without having any cost. So what we proposed to them was that, look, we know there is some techniques, for instance, the key line design or for instance, the holistic management that we see that has been used in Australia, in Africa, North America, other places that are also semi-arid regions with good results. So we don't know much about it. It's true that we never tried. But what if we could learn something together and test without any cost to you just to see what is the result? If we do that, let's go to learn together. Is that OK? And there were three farmers accepting this Of

SPEAKER_00 38:44

the how many? How many did you ask?

SPEAKER_01 38:48

We know that we didn't want to do...

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Like 50 or 10? No,

SPEAKER_01 38:55

we were talking with someone. Three doesn't sound like a lot. It's a small amount. It's really a

SPEAKER_00 39:01

small amount. Learning and experimentation without a

SPEAKER_01 39:06

risk. Let's say, one of the advantages of being few people is that we know each other. You knew who to ask. Yeah. that's it and so two of them because they are enthusiastic about this kind of things and one of them he's not an enthusiastic about of this kind of things but he's an open person and it's also he he's in charge of a farmers association so it's also a stakeholder important because people see what he's doing yeah so there was three persons too enthusiastic and a nice one available to test okay yeah yeah that's it and also we we asked to the farmers association to be yeah so in order to get to the others yeah and we start this project like with the methodology is called the consortium benchmarking yeah so what we propose we get together in a workshop and presenting them this kind of solutions and then to just collect all the doubts and skepticism that we could have about it what we want to learn what Do you think that is it? No, this is not going to work. Because these are big farmers. Big, big farmers.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

Hundreds of hectares, many, many cows. These are not small. That's

SPEAKER_01 40:22

it. So we collect all that information.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Was it a long list?

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Yeah, it was a long list. And then we present them like a group of farms in Portugal and Spain that are already doing these techniques. And we present a lot of them. Well, they are not so much, but we presented the one that we We know that they are already with some experience and they choose which farms they want to visit. So they choose three, okay? And we went to visit and we invite also the Association, Regenerative Association of Spain to help us here and to give training to them. But before of the training, they went to do the visits and speak to farmers, not with consultants, with farmers, okay? Farm to farm experience. And they start to be excited. And Why?

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Because they could see in their similar context, or maybe worse, that, like, look, it's not just possible in Australia, where we can always argue it's different, and things are different, like, you could say it's in Portugal or Spain, which means it's the same subcontinent, like, it's... Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 41:30

we try to choose, like, places that are really good, yeah, doing it, like Porcos Natura, that's São Luís, Porcos Natura, for instance, but also places that the farmers are good, but the place is... so bad as Mertula, or worst.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Which is better, because then you can say, you can at least never point, like, yeah, but they have it easier. No, actually. That's

SPEAKER_01 41:50

it. Because, for instance, with their dad, São Luís, it's amazing. I love what they are doing. But Montemar, it's much better than Mertula. So, they were

SPEAKER_00 41:58

quite excited. Montemar is a place in the center of Portugal, one hour east of Lisbon, and gets a lot more rain.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Yeah, yeah. 800

SPEAKER_00 42:05

millimeters. And they also complain about drought, for sure, like every farmer does, but it's two or three times.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Yeah, yeah. So, they... They went there. They were quite excited because the guys are very good. They are doing an excellent job But they were still saying yeah, but they have a lot of rain. The soils are better. Then we went to Mundos Nuevos in Spain, Extremadura.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

A

SPEAKER_01 42:31

little bit more northern. Yeah, but so very very dry place.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Coming from somebody that lives in Mértola. It means it's very dry.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

No, it's a very dry place. It's very similar to Mértola the landscape very similar and they went there last year in the beginning of the summer or end of the spring and it was an horrible horrible here in terms of rain and they went there and the guy had like five 54 small dams and 52 of them with water, with the design,

SPEAKER_00 43:10

the key line design

SPEAKER_01 43:12

and the holistic management approach. And it was very, very good to see. And so these guys start to be enthusiastic about it. And then we made another workshop that we tried to collect all the information that we have. But then we discovered that we have a lot of new doubts that we want to learn. But now it was not so much skeptical doubts but much more of things that they were enthusiastic to know more yeah yeah that was very nice so at this moment we just finished all the visits right now this week the the last one so we made more they choose more three places to visit they had more training about like planning the grazing planning so a lot of trainings about it the key line more advanced key line and this last visit we have 60 inscriptions. So the enthusiasm just grow between

SPEAKER_00 44:06

the community. Because you didn't keep it to just the three, you progressively... Yeah, we started the

SPEAKER_01 44:10

first workshop like with nine, ten people. And now this visit, the last visit, we had 60 inscriptions. It was not possible to bring everybody. We were 45 people visiting. But it was very good to see how the enthusiasm about grow. And actually, we have like a community of practice that we speak every day in WhatsApp and things like that, and there is 90 persons in the

SPEAKER_00 44:35

WhatsApp group. And the three original are still there? The three ones, yeah. Also the skeptical one, but

SPEAKER_01 44:40

open one. Well, yeah, he still is.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

But the two probably went, just started to implement. No, what

SPEAKER_01 44:46

is good is now that the first ones, we have a group that are already doing things that were not in the project, by their own. They are already doing, for instance, the key line design, the starting holistic management. There was a lot of things. that we didn't think that in the project that is just a two-year project that we could achieve and actually they are just flying

SPEAKER_00 45:09

because they start googling they start connecting they start moving yeah

SPEAKER_01 45:12

they are doing and what is and now come back to Malhadinha just to say that in the last two visits syntropic farming was a thing so the not the last the other visit we had someone speaking about trees in life that they need trees and speaking about syntropic farming and this last visit was to Terra Mai that is a beautiful project that they have livestock but they have permaculture they have a six hectares agroforest and it's not syntropic but a very interesting agroforest and now they spend like two hours in that part of the visit so the guys that was just interested in a solution for the livestock now are understanding why is so important important to have trees why so important the microbiology in the soil why and that everything is linked so we had to change the

SPEAKER_00 46:13

approach you took the long road

SPEAKER_01 46:15

but now we are winning these people that yes of course they are not now starting to do big syntropic farming it's not like that but now they understand much better what we are doing and why and they are much interested to know more about it that we we can have regenerative approach, different regenerative approach when we have different contexts. But so they are changing the mindset and that is much more important.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

And does it give you hope about, I mean, you can see here around us how fast things can grow and you're saying we reach things and milestones in a project of two years that we never imagined. And at the same time you see I mean, somebody called it climate weirding the other day, getting out of control here. We're in April and it's 30 plus. Does it give you hope or, I mean, depending on the moment, maybe, but does it give you hope that the work you do and at the same time seeing the struggles of climate change hitting or weirding?

What should smart investors, who want to invest in regenerative agriculture and food look out for?

SPEAKER_01 47:21

Yeah, it's really difficult because, you know, for instance, in 2015, when there was a project here about climate adaptation and with André Vezinho that actually is the same facilitator in the project with livestock and they have done a study with the climate scenarios and at the time we had this scenario for the RCP 8.5 we would have in Mertula in 2070 like 300 millimeters of rain and 2100 we would have like 200 and something almost 300 but less than 300 but actually in Mertula the last 5 years the medium of precipitation in the last 5 years was already that between 200 and something and 300 so we are in the worst scenario of 40 or 60 years years ago. That is really scary. Yeah, that is really scary. So here we really have to move fast. And so we have hope. We have hope also because of the fact that when we feel that we are not alone, it's really good when we see the municipalities working, trying to work with the solutions and more farmers involved. But we know that policies make a lot of difference and so that is how we can be more effective showing the results that there is other pathway that is possible for this territory. But we have to start now. We don't have so much time. Yeah. Because in Mertule it was more or less like we felt like or we turn into desert or we start to do something now. And there was more or less this consensus that was quite good because that was also a a public policy, a local public policy, that they want to do something. So it was easiest for us to start all this process, having the collaboration of the local authorities, but also other institutions, like for instance the vocational school, others that are aligned with this idea. But we know that the common farmer will not change if they don't have policies that help them to change, to do the transition. So it's really urgent that we need to pass this idea and the results of what we are doing to other scale also.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

And would that be your main message to, let's say, the quote-unquote, there are quotes, but nobody sees them, to the financial world or to investors to, like, it's, possible but we we need to go fast which most people agree but policy is is the crucial lever what if you have to give and for sure you've done that presentations in Lisbon or in Brussels or in Madrid to let's say the financial world what is your main message coming from in a very difficult place which is getting more difficult but still very hopeful what is your main message to people that are putting money to work or in charge of their money or other people's money like the pension funds etc and they say okay Give me hope or solutions or something, but give me direction at least.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

Yeah, that is very interesting because actually we've done what we've done without any fund for public policies. And it was with private investments or by ourselves that we have done it. And so I think two important things, like there is a lot of money in the world.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Probably too much.

What would you do if you were in charge of a 1B investment portfolio tomorrow morning?

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Yeah, not just public money. And so private money should really be invested in what is important and urgent in this moment. I think this is crucial. And that's how we started. And I think, for instance, the few, very few, but very important investors who believe us, they come here and they feel that, wow, because they know that they gave us very short investment and we replicated in a point that they were not waiting they didn't know that we could use the money so well but this is not because we are special or different it's because it's possible to do it we have when we collaborate when we know how to find partnership good partnerships and others other people who want to do the same we really can fastly change a situation a place yeah so this is very important that two things we have to change policies so it is quite important in this moment if we are talking about lighthouse farms and living labs but sometimes it's difficult for us that are very far away from everything very isolated to say, well, we are that. OK, you invented this concept, but we started very before that doing exactly that concept. So use the knowledge that is in here. So public policies is one thing. And the other thing, it's public money. It's not the only money in the world. So it's quite important to create this net of people that is interested to change the situation, to change the world, to change the path that can be can be a personal decision how you can use your money to do better things in the world yeah and how to put that net because and and also how to bring people what how to bring resources because it's not only about money and that's other quite important thing it's many of the things that we needed to do this was not money was knowledge was so it was very important when we start working and I have to say when Catarina Serafimova started to work with us and bring also this net of people institutions that could help us it was so important that we have the possibility to know this or this foundation has to know people that could bring knowledge to us so that is really important so resources are not just money

SPEAKER_00 54:35

shout out to Catarina some listens to the show and what would you do if you would be in charge of a lot of money let's say a billion euros and it had to be invested it could be very long term but at some point it had to come back with preferably a return how would you approach that if you would be on the investor side with I'm not saying unlimited resources but basically a lot of money and what would you focus on would it be what would be your main focus areas if you had I think

SPEAKER_01 55:08

there were two things, two or three. Well, I have a lot of ideas. It's a lot of money, so you can do a lot of ideas. So, I really would like, because that is a frustration for us, that we have just this small place. So, I really would like to scale up and show that it's possible, but maintaining the approach that we have. Not an island doing something quite spectacular, but close by itself. so betting on education and education with civil society but with public institutions also because we cannot have like very amazing projects that are growing and academies and schools but they are private and for rich people so we would really like to scale up and see that it's possible to change but scale up the concept of working in a regional network, working with farmers, but with local institutions, with schools, and to have a very good educational project also. And to also try to bring financial solutions for the farmers also. That is also quite important. To create some very creative and collective intelligence about money and about how could other farmers continue this work, not being dependent on public policies, but because it's the right thing and it is sustainable to do it.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

So would you then focus on the markets for them, for instance, if we look at livestock here, to make sure they get paid better prices if they work in different ways, or would it be mostly focused on their transition finance? is what would what is the biggest issue for that group of 60 or 45 like that's now super excited about wanting to change how would you be able to help

SPEAKER_01 57:15

them well for instance in this region and concretely in this region they don't have a place where to um yeah

SPEAKER_00 57:28

for instance very

SPEAKER_01 57:29

simple thing

SPEAKER_00 57:29

and very simple thing but most of the yes doesn't have it either so there's

SPEAKER_01 57:32

completely so how they can have

SPEAKER_00 57:35

valorized theirs There's no value, you send it away, which is far. It's a

SPEAKER_01 57:39

very simple thing, basic thing, it's a basic

SPEAKER_00 57:42

thing, but they don't have it. But a fundamental piece.

SPEAKER_01 57:44

Yeah, fundamental. Other is, and it's one of the projects that I'm also starting with as DIM, is to design a territorial food system with the canteens. why we don't have a regional foodshed, you see? That we could have livestock, vegetables and fruits in all the canteens in the regions, just eating our regenerative food.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Instead of bringing it

SPEAKER_01 58:21

from... So we are trying to do that design in one year and a half, but then it was very important that the process cannot be stopped, people have the tools to implement it but it can be blocked in such basic things like the slaughter

SPEAKER_00 58:41

or

If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing overnight

SPEAKER_01 58:42

processing or logistic because as we are in the very isolated places for instance logistic it's quite expensive here nobody wants to do services transport services you need something for your company to work equipments and things like that and it double of the price things like that so this regional economy how we could be more intelligent and for one side to have some better markets that appreciate the quality of this regenerative but at the same time we don't want to be a place that is doing food for rich people that can eat regenerative food yeah we would like really to have all and that's why i point a lot in the canteens because it's the elders and the children so it's the more vulnerable population that we have if we could have them all eating good regenerative food we could improve health much better in the future so that would be something that I think would be very important in this region

SPEAKER_00 59:56

it's funny because we it's an answer that comes more often the basic and I'm using air quotes again because it's not basic, but basic infrastructure, processing, distribution, just getting things from the field to the plate is not easy in many places. And in many places you have to drive very, very far, which obviously, especially with livestock, but in general, hurts quality, margins, costs, everything. And now taking your big investment fund away, I'm sorry, but giving you a magic wand, which means you can change one thing in the food system or agriculture system over time. So you have magic power to change one thing only. Don't do like Aladdin, you say, no, and then I get three wishes, etc. But if you were able to change one thing overnight, what would you change?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

That is a very difficult question. You can think about it for a second, don't worry. I could change one thing in the food system. Well, I think one very important thing is that every farmer really should have much more knowledge about soil. So it should be a condition to be a farmer. You have to know what is and how it functions, the soil. Yeah, and not what we learn in the universities, talking about soil life, special, not the physical and chemical, but they really have to learn about soil. I think that is the basic rule in the food system. But then, of course, you ask for one just, so that would be the basic, but then the problems start in the system after, so we

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

would have to continue. Of course, but it's a good start. It's a fundamental... start because you see that's really lacking with many farmers

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

yeah

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

the basic

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

completely yeah and uh it's very

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

come here and they're mesmerized by or because i know stories from like they're they're scared to touch it like that it's so what what What is the biggest surprise there? I

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

think especially when we work with syntropic farming it's more or less like we feel like everything that we learn it's not that was wrong because it was quite important but it has we are challenging everything that was

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

You're going back to first principles now it's a fundamental probably everything you learned in ag school

SPEAKER_01 1:02:49

I came from forestry, I'm a forest engineer. This

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

must be so challenging

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

for you. So it was, hmm, what? Do you remember, this is a whole different interview, but do you remember your

SPEAKER_00 1:03:02

first reaction whenever you saw a video or something on the syntropic side?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

Yeah, for one side, because we see beautiful videos like Philippe and Diana, excellent communicators, so we get quite inspired.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

Was there that forestry brain say, no, but it cannot work.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

I think it was worse when we start to see it in the land and start putting the trees. How we can put these trees? So close. Yeah, yeah. No, but are you sure what we are doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

Did you secretly think that everything would die here the first year?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:37

Well, actually, Antonio started when he stopped to farm here in Maledinia, there was another farm near the river, a couple that have other farm and they proposed to Antonio he wants to farm there and actually it was very good because that farm was really near the river so he was testing but for instance if everything was wrong and he actually need more water he had the water yeah but and so that was the first experience that Antonio was made and yes I actually I was very skeptical about it yes I

SPEAKER_00 1:04:15

was but it's good you come from that background and know the tradition or conventional or whatever we want to call it say land management world very well because that's what you studied what you worked in for many years and yeah this is very challenging for in general I think everybody that thinks and works in agriculture but specifically if you have been trained because it's very messy it is everything we don't think about it which is makes it very interesting but yeah we live in desperate times so we need desperate experiments yeah and I

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

think it's it is so complex what we are doing here and that complexity it's not easy to modeling it's not easy to study so I understand the difficulty of bringing science but it's also absolutely urgent to do it I think that is we cannot risk to say as I already have heard with other tests that I have done in this kind of situation that we are trying and see what result and then someone of the science say well you should be quiet and you should not be presenting that publicly because you don't know what what was you don't know why was went well yeah you don't know if it was the mycorrhizae or if it was how you planted or if it was this consociation between this plant you don't know and yes it's true that's your job not mine we are only trying to apply what we think are the best solutions that's your job to do now but it's very difficult because if we have in the same place a lot of variable conditions it turns out to be much more difficult but we need to understand and that's actually understanding what is happening

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

in the soil

SPEAKER_01 1:06:16

what is happening in there because this complexity and diversity and life that we're seeing growing actually is completely dependent in the consociations, collaboration, symbiosis between fungus and bacterias and druze of all this diversity that we have here. And I think that is a lot that we don't know about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

But that shouldn't keep us from moving fast. I think it's a perfect end to this interview. I want to thank you so much for scratching the surface, and I think there's more rabbit holes to go into for another couple of hours, but we'll do that another time. Thank you so much for an introduction to the work you do, and for a fascinating visit, and all the work you do, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

Thanks again and see you next time.