288 Alfred Grand – Why an Austrian farmer and researcher trained by earthworms is very excited about AI

A conversation with Alfred Grand, farmer at Grand Farm, an organic farm with a high proportion of research, about vermicompost and seed inoculation, but also what policymakers should know about farming. Plus, the role of technology in the regenerative transition and why Alfred is so excited about AI and robotics.

Have you ever witnessed a complete transformation that strikes at the very heart of our connection to the earth? Alfred's path from bike mechanic to pioneering farmer at Grand Farm is one such tale, rich with insights on the symbiosis of technology and tradition in the quest for a sustainable future.

In today's conversation, we navigate the complexities of regenerative farming, challenging the dated notion of soil as a mere nutrient sponge. Alfred, with wisdom gleaned from hands-on experience and research, speaks on the necessity for a paradigm shift in agricultural education and policy. His passion for sustainable practices extends beyond the farm, shedding light on the profound implications these methods have on climate resilience, societal well-being, and our global sustainability goals.

Alfred shares his enthusiasm for the synergy of AI and robotics with timeless farming techniques. We explore how these advances could elevate the intuition and efficiency of market gardening, changing the landscape of agriculture.

This podcast is part of the AI 4 Soil Health project which aims to help farmers and policy makers by providing new tools powered by AI to monitor and predict soil health across Europe. For more information visit ai4soilhealth.eu.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

This work has received funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant numbers 10053484, 1005216, 1006329].

This work has received funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Learn today from a bike mechanic turned farmer and researcher who has been trained by millions of earthworms. We talked about vermicompost seed inoculation, but also what policymakers should know about farming, plus the role of technology in the regenerative transition and why he is so excited about AI and robotics. 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, where and consume, and it's time that we, as investors big and small and consumers, start paying much more attention to the dirt slash soil underneath our feet.

Speaker 1: 1:24

This podcast is part of the AI for Soil Health project, which aims to help farmers and policymakers by providing new tools powered by AI to monitor and predict soil health across Europe. For more information, visit AIforsoilhealtheu or find the link below. Welcome to another episode today with a farmer at Grand Farm, which is an organic farm with a high proportion of research. In addition to arable farming, it also works on the development of grassland aquiferstery, vegetable cultivation and animal husbandry and vermicomposting, which I think they started more than 20 years ago. So I'm very much looking forward to dive deep into this topic today, not only the vermicomposting, but in general. Welcome, alfred.

Speaker 2: 2:21

Thank you, Kohn, for the invitation.

Speaker 1: 2:24

And to start with the personal question we always love to kick it off with how did you end up? I'm not going to say how did you end up focusing on earthworms, but how did you end up, which is very logical. But how did you end up focusing on soil and research piece as well? But did you grow up on a farm, did you came into the farming later on, or what made you focusing on soil most of your, let's say, awake hours at the moment?

Speaker 2: 2:50

Well, I grew up on a farm in Austria, on the farm of my parents about 40 kilometers north west of Vienna, in the east, so not in the Alps. Everyone thinks about Austria, everyone thinks about the Alps and the mountains. No, we are quite flat in our area and I was not.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Good because we're like this audio medium. So it's very good that we make a visualization, because otherwise people immediately thought about the snow-picked mountains etc. Okay, this is a flat area, people.

Speaker 2: 3:20

It's more like the Netherlands, definitely in our area, which is quite rare in Austria, but yeah, that is what it is, which means intensive farming probably.

Speaker 2: 3:30

Intensive farming? Yeah, definitely, the area was dominated by sugar beet production because there was a there is a sugar beet processing facility nearby, so everyone grew sugar beet and everyone said sugar beet pays off for everything. So even if the only the other crops failed, then you still had the sugar beet and they paid for everything. I was not very enthusiastic as a young boy about farming. I was more technology driven. I loved everything that had an engine and ideally it was fast. So like motorcycles, race cars, this was really what I wanted to do and I was really bad in school. So I failed in six subjects in one year and so my parents told me okay, so you have to try again. I tried again and I failed in six subjects the next year, so my parents took me to the side.

Speaker 2: 4:29

The same subjects or different subjects, probably the same, I don't really remember. I don't want to remember this time and my parents took me to the side on a Sunday and asked me what do you want to do with your life? And I thought okay, this is my chance. Now I can say what I really want to do. I want to be a motorcycle mechanic because I knew I was too slow to be a race driver, so I want to be a motorcycle mechanic. Yeah, you're an idiot, you will be a farmer.

Speaker 2: 5:02

So they sent me to another school and up there it was more interesting, it was more practical, it was a very basic farmer school. So, without a higher education, and I can say what brought me to farming, what brought me to soil is, I would say, I'm trained by earthworms. Because in this school, at the end in the last year, we were trained in composting. Because the lower Austrian government decided they want to separate not only glass and metal and paper, but they also want to separate the organic fraction from the solid waste and the farmers should do the composting. So we started to be trained in composting thermophilic composting and I was really amazed about the heat, about the energy which was in the composting process and the heat that was generated. So I thought, okay, let's do something with it, let's try to install a heating system with compost and heat swimming pools, houses, buildings, whatever.

Speaker 2: 6:09

And that was the start of the internet and I was always a little bit computer nerd and I started to go on the internet and looked for composting technologies. What always popped up was vermicomposting. So this is where I got into vermicomposting and then I visited California for 10 days together with a friend to visit some earthworm farmers there, and what we did? We also visited the University of Berkeley and they already did research in vermicomposting, not so much in breeding earthworms, which the most earthworm farms at that time breed earthworms to sell it as a bait for fishing or whatever. They didn't pay attention that much to the vermicompost, to the end product. But the University already did some research and we visited them and they were really excited.

Speaker 1: 7:08

They took into the effects of what. Why this compost that comes out of the earthworm, the castings? I think they're called the castings, the vermicomposting, it's so interesting.

Speaker 2: 7:17

Yeah, yeah, and they already realized. Okay, on one side, we can reduce the landfill volume when we separate the organic fraction. We can produce a product out of the waste, we can reduce the mineral, we can substitute the mineral fertilizer we did, and we can even reduce the pesticides, because the plants become healthier. And I was really fascinated about this and this was my first contact with science and when I came back from this 10 day trip to California.

Speaker 1: 7:48

I Did you visit any internet companies as well? Because there was like the dot com.

Speaker 2: 7:52

Ah, no, no, no, unfortunately not.

Speaker 1: 7:56

So you went to California for the vermicompost, but even though you were computer geek, you didn't visit any computer companies. No, no, no, we didn't know 10 days is not a lot, of course.

Speaker 2: 8:06

10 days is not a lot, no, and when I came back, we immediately, I immediately approached the university here in Vienna, boku, and I always had a list of questions and I visited the professors there and I-.

Speaker 1: 8:23

How did they let you in? Because you didn't have any formal education in that side, and I mean it's not that you had a very impressive list of diplomas, etc. I mean you went to the US, which was interesting, but how did you even get a meeting?

Speaker 2: 8:37

Yeah, that was quite difficult. So I phoned them and I had a meeting and I had a very bad feeling because I always thought I waste their time. And so I had this list of questions and then I please answer this, this, this, this. And then I rushed out of the door because I didn't want to spend too much time or waste too much time for them. But then they stopped me at the door and said come back, we also have questions for you. And then I realized, okay, I'm interested in their know-how, but they are interested in our experience, because they were also curious what we do with this composting with earthworms and how it goes on and is it possible to do it and do we harvest anything, things like that. So this is when we started, when I realized that we have a conversation on an eye-to-eye level. So, because I was the guy who was like oh, mr Professor, I'm so sorry that I disturbed you.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Thank you for your time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:35

And then I realized, no, these guys were as interested as I am, and so we started to do research and work together, and this was really the start of our cooperation with science.

Speaker 1: 9:49

And then, when did the farm, or a farm get back into the picture? Because you could have done that, for I mean, there's a world to discover, and especially even more now but I think you could have kept yourself busy, kodoko, just with the compost. But you also decided at some point or maybe it wasn't decided, it was decided for you to farm again. Like, how did that happen?

Speaker 2: 10:15

Yeah, and when I came back from school, I was already interested in what is going on, what these earthworms are doing for us and how things are developing.

Speaker 1: 10:27

What did your parents think when you started talking about earthworms?

Speaker 2: 10:29

over time, Funny enough, my father stopped plowing like 30 years ago because he wanted to not destroy the earthworms. So he wanted to save the earthworms' life, so he stopped plowing at that time. And my mother in their house she had a very little garden, a home garden for vegetable growing, and when I was a child she already told me ah yeah, the earthworms, they are so important, we have to protect them. And so on.

Speaker 1: 10:59

That's where it started.

Speaker 2: 11:01

That's maybe where it started. And even there was Mother's Day and I wanted. I was like five years old or so and they told me I collected earthworms and I wanted to give it as a gift to my mother at Mother's Day, but I put them all in a bucket a few days before, so they all died and it was a real mess. It was very smelly. It was not a very successful gift.

Speaker 1: 11:30

It was the first attempt of vermicomposting, but they were mostly composting themselves, didn't?

Speaker 2: 11:34

they yes, yes, probably yes, and so when I had the research in my back and they always gave me access to research studies that I didn't have. So even if you have access to the internet, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can read all the research papers, but with the science in the background, I always had access to all the papers, so I could learn a lot from the scientists. But also when I worked with the earthworms and this is the reason why I always say I'm trained by earthworms rather than by the university, because I never visited or I never took classes in the university- and then how did that go from focusing on earthworms?

Speaker 1: 12:25

I mean no tail, obviously, or stop plowing, is a piece there. How did that evolve further? How did that get to way more complex systems? What?

Speaker 2: 12:36

you're doing now. Yeah, when I realized about what is going on, what we learned in school about soil like this is a sponge, you put water in, you put nutrients in the plants, suck it out and the amount of nutrients that you bring away with your trailer, that you harvest, that you combine, this amount of nutrients you just put back and then the sponge is filled up with nutrients again. This is what we learned in school. And then I still remember I read on the internet that root exudates, so plants feed microbes. When they conduct photosynthesis, they produce sugar and all these substances and then they push this sugar down to the roots and release it, feed the microbes. And this was something that I thought, okay, maybe that's fake news. There was no fake news at that time and I thought, okay, this can't be possible because plants clever, no, and we didn't learn anything about it.

Speaker 2: 13:35

And then I asked one of the soil professors there. I was really ashamed a little bit because I was asking a stupid question. And then he said, yeah, true, that's science, it is. This does happen and it's completely right. You're completely right and the information is good. And I was really surprised. And even later I talked to farmers and said come on, they feed the root exudates, feed the microbes. And I said, yeah, you're stupid. Yes, what the fuck? This is bullshit, it doesn't happen. But yeah, if plants would be too stupid to survive, they would no longer be here on the planet.

Speaker 1: 14:14

It's interesting how it seems like recent in many cases and a lot of this research, but then it's actually 2030 or even older and it's still very persistent. Let's say the narrative of the sponge and what you put in, what you take out, and as long as you just replenish it with whatever chemical or nonchemical based inputs, you're fine. But it's not a factory. It's not a mechanical factory where you put X in and Y comes out and that's fine.

Speaker 2: 14:46

It's a living system and I think that's still very strong. It's very complex. It's still a black box. We still know a lot of things we don't know.

Speaker 1: 14:57

And is that? I mean jumping to the question. I like to ask in this case, like when you because you are a research farm, many people visit you, visit a lot of people as well. We saw each other in Madrid recently. Like you talk to a lot of people outside and say the farmer's bubble even outside the regenerative farmer's bubble, which is even smaller when you talk to policy makers and what would be? Because you cannot overwhelm people as well if you're in Brussels or New York or Washington or in Delhi, if you deal with farming and you're not deep in it yourself.

Speaker 1: 15:31

There's a lot of narratives that you've been told that probably are not true not saying fake news but just like you're not up to date, let's say what would be the one thing you would love them to know. Especially, let's focus on policy makers, because there's a lot of discussions now. We're recording this early 2024, there are protests everywhere in Europe and farmers there's a lot of discussion on the farm there in the US. There's a lot of discussion in general on agriculture, but I also feel there's a lot of people that don't especially making the regulations and the policies, don't really have an updated clue on what's happening with root exodus, for example, if there was one thing you could tell policy makers, what would you tell them?

Speaker 2: 16:12

Well, I would love to talk to them so they understand how complex, how holistic soil regenerative farming is and how much impact it has on humanity at the end and on society and on the climate and on the environment and all these things. So everyone is you can call me a lobbyist, so every lobbyist is talking about how important his or her sector is. Okay, this is really important. You have to decide in this direction.

Speaker 2: 16:53

But the sector we are in is really big, so it has so much impact on so many different things. For example, our market gardening not our market gardening in general, our garden we compared it to the sustainable development goals and we have impact some smaller, some bigger, but we have impact on 13 out of the 17 SDGs. So this is really big. And then you understand what is going on and how important it is, and this would be the thing that I would like to explain decision makers. So, okay, this is something you have to look at, because farming is part of nature, so we are part of nature, society, humanity we are part of nature.

Speaker 1: 17:46

There, you're already dropping a few big bombs, yeah. And when you say things like that, how do people respond, like in the offices in Vienna, in the offices in Brussels, when you say we are part of nature, do you see the nod like, ah yeah, there is another hippie. Or do you see? How do you connect to people, how do you connect that message to people that are not everyday in a market garden, don't always eat amazing food. They don't understand where roots, exudates come from and why earthworms are so important.

Speaker 2: 18:17

Yeah, because we do a lot of demonstrations with a lot of people on the farm and then when you observe people, when they listen to you, and you look at them, and then you know, okay, when do they really listen and when are they following you. And there are some sentences I always say so, for example, this train birthworms thing. That's something I always say because I find it funny and interesting. But then it's also we also say we produce vermicompost, and then we say, no, sorry, that's wrong, we don't produce vermicompost, our earthworms produce vermicompost. And why is that important? Because we as humans, we cannot make soil. And then people understand ah, yeah, that's true, we cannot make soil, but the earthworms they can. So our workers that we hired are earthworms, and the microbes and the whole community which is in this ecosystem in the soil working. And then when we work with the biology, we can create soil. And these are so little things.

Speaker 2: 19:32

Or if I tell them, for example also, it's quite nice in the garden when you stand in the garden and say, okay, because we have a box sheen, so we sell vegetable boxes every week to our customers. It's a subscription system. And then we say, okay, what's in the box? It's vegetable, it's organic vegetable, it's even rock vegetable. So regenerative, organic, certified vegetable. Very, very just since a week or so, and we had to audit it two weeks ago thank you.

Speaker 1: 20:07

Shout out to Elizabeth, yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:10

Yes, and then we have regional vegetable, Sorry anybody doesn't know.

Speaker 1: 20:14

I'm just assuming people. This is bad. I'm assuming people know ROC is Regenerative Organic Certification or Regenerative Organic Standards. We interviewed Elizabeth. I'll put a link below if you're interested to learn more. But one of the standards or one of the certifications that has popped up or has been developed to focus on Regen anyway, sidestep, otherwise we lose people.

Speaker 2: 20:36

Okay. So what's in the box? It's vegetables, it's organic vegetables, it's all the quality, the seasonality, the originality, everything it's fine. Okay, that's nice product in our box, but what is inside, additionally? And then we see at the same time, when we grow vegetables, we mitigate climate change because of the methods that we do. At the same time, when we grow vegetables, we adapt to climate change because of the methods that we apply in the firm. At the same time, when we grow vegetables, we stop the loss of biodiversity. At the same time, when we grow vegetables, we create jobs, we regenerate the soil, we keep the water body clean, we keep the air clean, we raise awareness. So there are so many things that you do when you grow vegetables, but vegetables is the only thing we get paid for. So all the other things is just a kind of side effect, but very, very important side effects.

Speaker 1: 21:43

There's so many rabbit holes. And then let's describe a bit the farm, actually, because you mentioned a few pieces and we're in an audio medium, as we already established before. So let's, if you look out where you're now just in terms of hectares size, what kind of different operations you have, just to give people a feeling of what we are talking about at the moment. We talked a lot about worms, so I definitely want to know how many or how. I don't even know, you cannot count it, like how that came about, but what kind of farm are you operating?

Speaker 2: 22:16

and now, just to give people an idea, Now we have two companies on the farm located. One is a grant farm for research and demonstration. It's a 90-hectare farm and about 150, 170 acres and it's an arable field farm. It's a research and demonstration farm. So we renamed the farm. We didn't do anything, but we just renamed the farm from Landwirtschaftgrant, which is Landwirtschaft is farm in German, because grant is my family name. So we renamed it to grant farm, because then everyone can understand internationally OK, it's a farm for research and demonstration, because we wanted to do something different, because we already worked with scientists for like 10, 15 years.

Speaker 2: 23:13

But then we realized that very often the scientists take over the project. So they call me and say OK, can I rent a field because we want to do weed variety trials, for example? And then I respond ah, ok, nice, yeah, yeah, let's do this. And I have an idea let's do a blend of different varieties and let's do this, and let's do this and let's do under sewing with white clover or whatever. And then they always stop me and say oh, alfred, sorry, but there is a budget, we have a budget, everything is calculated. The plan for the research is already calculated, so we cannot change anything.

Speaker 2: 23:54

And I was really often quite pissed off. So I said, ok, I want to be a research farm, but I want to say what we do Decide what I want to make the initiative. I want to bring up the topics and I want to be part of the project right at the beginning, when we start thinking about it, because then we can involve all the ideas that I have and all the challenges and the innovations and everything from the farm, from practice. I think that's quite important, so that's one and then the second company.

Speaker 2: 24:33

That's the farm, and the farm has three pillars. The research topics. So soil health is inspired by the work with earthworms, it is a main topic. Then agroforestry we are more specializing in multifunctional hatches, again very systemic, and market gardening, which is growing vegetables on small land by hand, very diverse in selling it to customers directly. So the other company is Vermigrant Naturprodukte GmbH. It's a limited. We outsourced it 14, 15 years ago from the farm because it started at the farm the vermin composting activity. And now I'm working together with my colleague Leopold Fischer, and he is doing the commercial activities and I'm still responsible for production, for demonstration, for research and product development, things like that, and he's more on the numbers.

Speaker 1: 25:44

And so that basically is a vermicompost company, meaning it produces, uses organic waste or organic streams and produces vermicompost for other farms to sell, basically.

Speaker 2: 25:57

Exactly, yeah, so we are using organic resources, not so much waste. So we're using, for example, lucerne hay or alpha alpha hay, which is a kind of clover, it's a legume, it fixes nitrogen. We have it in the crop rotation on the farm and we harvest it and bring it to the compost place, compost it together with green waste, and so we do a thermophilic composting process, first to have a hygienization step, and then we feed the compost to the earthworms and the earthworms produce the vermicompost out of it, which later on is sold as a solid material, so as a fertilizer. But then we also have other products, like soil amendments, where we have biochar involved, but the main product is peat-free soil substrates, which are backed in 10-liter, 30-liter bags and sold all over Austria through a food retailer chain.

Speaker 1: 27:01

And just to give an understanding roughly, how many worms have you hired, let's say? Or how many co-workers do you have? Is that in the millions? Is it in the like? How does that work?

Speaker 2: 27:14

Yeah, it's definitely in the millions. Yeah, so it's big. Sometimes, if you grab in and take a handful of compost, then 20%, 30% of the compost that you have in your hand is earthworms.

Speaker 1: 27:31

So it's really big and there's a company that's, like I said, quote-unquote and doing air quotes. Alternative input space as a company is interesting because we've seen, I think, there's a bigger question there. There's an interest in replacing a lot of the chemical, fossil fuel-based inputs and at the same time there sometimes seems to be a tendency that, oh, farmers can do that themselves. If you just Google and you go to YouTube, et cetera, et cetera, all farmers should be doing a blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And the reality is, I think that's just not going to happen because you need an industrial production side, which could be big or small, but quality. So how do you see that alternative input space, or the new input space, or modern inputs let's call it differently in your experience has, is there a lot of room to grow interest? What is your outlook? Let's say with the alternative input, let's say modern inputs, let's keep it phrasing.

Speaker 2: 28:30

It's really interesting because when we started the company we really focused on consumers because we say, ok, the product that we produce is quite expensive because it takes a lot of time to produce it, a lot of effort.

Speaker 2: 28:42

You have to imagine how much poops can a warm produce in a day and then you have to sum it up to two big meters, so it's an expensive product. And so we focused only on consumers because we said it's professional growers, farmers, they can't afford the product. And I was always angry with myself because I thought, ok, we are producing a very high quality product and I can't use it on the farm because my crops don't pay off for such a kind of fertilizer. And that brought me to the seed inoculation, where we now inoculate seed and do research. So we inoculate the seed, we cover the seed that we drill in the soil, we cover the seed with the microbiome, with the community of microbes from the earthworms, and so we bring back life into the soil with the help of the earthworms and we can reduce the amount down to one liter per hectare and we still have a significant impact. And that's crazy.

Speaker 2: 29:50

That's really crazy when you look how powerful nature is Because when you put it on the seed and then the seed starts germinating and the root, the taproot, comes out of the seed, it grabs, it takes some of the microbes from the seed hull and then the root acts as a transport system into the ground, into the subsoil, and at the same time the root acts as a support system for the microbes because it feeds with the root exodates that we talked earlier about, it feeds the microbes and the plant decides which type of microbes they feed, because the plant is under control and says OK, now I need phosphorus, so I feed these guys who can mobilize phosphorus in the soil, which otherwise would not be plant-available.

Speaker 2: 30:49

And you have to imagine the microbes are like a toolbox. It's like you have a mechanic, you have a broken engine and you can do anything without his tools. So it's the same with the plants. If the plants do not have the tools in the soil, the microbes in the soil which can be communicated with the plant, then you end up in a hospital where you have to feed the plant with minerals and pesticides and everything to keep it alive. If the plant is healthy, it's like a healthy gardener. It's like we always compare compost is like an apple for people and minerals are like fast food for people. You make a very successful body, like in terms of weight, but probably not the most healthy one. And it's a little bit the same with the plants.

Speaker 1: 31:56

And so now, with the inoculation you are selling to, are you doing research? Are you already selling to two farms Like, have you reached? Are you using it on your own farm? Like, does it make sense now, with using a liter per hectare compared to many, many, many tons or kilos of compost, which is impractical unless you drop the price tremendously?

Speaker 2: 32:18

Yeah, we can really reduce the amount. So we don't bring any nutrients back when we only apply one liter, that's clear. But we bring the microbes back and so we can bring, and especially the biodiversity of the microbes, which is not in thermophilic compost. Because of the heat you also you kill all the bad guys, but you also kill a lot of good guys, because the microbes which are native in soil are not used to 65, 70 degrees Celsius. So you kill also and you reduce your biodiversity. But when the earthworms consume the thermophilic compost, then they bring back biodiversity immediately and this is what we apply to the plant.

Speaker 2: 33:05

And why is that important? Because we cannot produce compost for the whole planet, for all farming on the whole planet. We can't produce enough compost for Europe, we can't produce enough compost for the USA, for all fields, for all pastures, for everyone and therefore what we need. And then often you have to put the problem of the quality of the compost when you consider, okay, heavy metals, microplastics, things like that. So the quantity of compost is an issue, the quality of compost is another issue. So we try to focus on the very high quality and then use very little to get that leverage and scale it up to millions of hectares.

Speaker 1: 33:55

That's the idea and you're saying that the seed part, like the moment of the seed and the intercalation it's not the first time I'm hearing this, but that's the highest lever point, like the lever to pool as well. If you have only one shot, like if you have only one place where you can insert something in the system, let's say that's the point, at least to start.

Speaker 2: 34:16

Exactly exactly. So if you're talking about compost tea and if it works or not, then you often have the discussion and when you spread, the question is where do we apply it? Because a compost tea or compost extract, however you name it is, the main agent is biology. And this is different if you have a chemical agent where you say, okay, this is like I don't know, let's say a neonicotinoid, where you need a certain amount per hectare, and if you have microbes, you don't need a certain amount of hectares. You only have to apply it to somewhere where they can breed and re-breed and establish and then grow. Best decides don't breed themselves. No, best decides fortunately they can't breed themselves.

Speaker 2: 35:08

Yeah, so this is a completely different approach. So you have a living organism and then you have to apply it somewhere where it has the best chance to establish and then grow. If you do that on a growing population and you put it on your oat or wheat leaves or vineyard leaves, there might be an effect. But if you put it on the seed, you put it exactly where everything starts and where the transport and the support system is. So this is the highest chance to grow. And why do we know that? Because we inoculate soybeans, for example, with rhizobia bacteria. We inoculate all the legumes or different legumes with rhizobia bacteria where we know, okay, we don't have this type of rhizobia bacteria in our soils in Europe, for soybeans, for example. So we apply this only to the seed.

Speaker 2: 36:08

And then how much do you use? Maybe 400 millilitre per hectare. And when you dig in in summer with your spade, you can see with your naked eyes if it was successful or not. How many nodules do you see on the root? So it's very easy to check and we know that it works. It's a concrete mixer. You throw in like 20 kilogram of seed and 100 millilitre of inoculum and you just touch the skin and when the taproot goes out of the seed it takes some of the microbes with it and then you can see that the microbes. You can find the microbes in 25-30 centimeter depth. So this is just in one season how deep it goes. And we did the same, but not with one species. But they said, okay, if it works with one species, why not do it with tens of thousands of bacteria and fungi and protozoa that you can find in a vermicompost?

Speaker 1: 37:08

Yeah, and there's another piece there, not the easiness. Yeah, you need a concrete mixer, like you said, and that's it. It's not that you need another passage over the land. Nothing else changes. And we do that actually with seeding and aculation, but with the chemical side quite regularly. But you don't need any super complex machine or another very heavy diesel-powered strip over all your land.

Speaker 2: 37:30

Exactly exactly.

Speaker 1: 37:31

It changes a bit, but not fundamentally, and the effect is enormous. So this is a huge lever. Do you see a lot of excitement, like colleague farmers, colleague people, like in the space, as this is getting out of the science part, out of the lab and way more into the field, or is it still too much later?

Speaker 2: 37:48

Yes, definitely so. As I told you, we started with consumers only, but now, when soil health is a much bigger topic than it was like five years, ten years before, I still remember my friend, Jeff Moyer, when he first came up with the idea of soil health, because in 2015, we applied the roller-grimper method on our farm and I called Jeff on the phone four times. The secretary said he's not here. He's not here, he's not here. After the third or fourth time. Then she thought, okay, this guy doesn't give up. So she said wait a minute. I started talking to Jeff and asked him if he would support us if we have questions and trying the roller-grimper method. And now it's a fantastic friendship.

Speaker 1: 38:46

The CEO of Rodel Institute.

Speaker 2: 38:48

So Rodel Institute. He just retired now, in April, and he came up with the idea of soil health. I wasn't really aware we said soil fertility more the term we used more this term. But then he came up with soil health. It's much more holistic and it has much bigger impact. And now people talk about soil health. We have the mission soil here in Europe now, about soil health.

Speaker 2: 39:18

So there is a lot of conversation. Lots of farmers are interested. They want to know more about microbes, about what is going on. And the fun thing with the vermicompost is that there's a lot of research out there who says, okay, this works, it's fantastic, you see a lot of scientific evidence, but actually we don't need it. We don't need the science, we don't need to, even not to understand it, because in my capacity, in my mental capacity, in my financial capacity, I will never find out what is going on with all the different microbes.

Speaker 2: 40:01

How is the relationship? Who are the more important, who are the less important? And I think this is a very wrong approach to it. We are always looking for the best. Okay, let's select the best and then breed them in a factory and sell the best microbes, but every single microbes needs a certain environment in moisture content, oxygen temperature, ph level and so on.

Speaker 2: 40:29

But it's only working if you have the diversity. Only then it's a stable, resilient system. If you have one species and if it might be the best one that you ever can find, if the environment range goes out of their comfort zone, you have nothing. You have completely lost.

Speaker 2: 40:52

So biodiversity is the reason why this planet is so beautiful, why this planet is so complex, so every single ecosystem, and why it's so stable. The problem is that we, as humans, we are the invasive species in every single ecosystem because we are so adaptive. And when we think about vermicompost, when people ask, okay, how good is it? From 1 to 10, I can say I don't care, because the plants are used to these products since hundreds of millions of years and through the evolution they learned how to use it. We still don't know. Okay, they use the microbes, they use the hominomic substances, they use the nutrients which are in, they use the phytohormones which are in it, but maybe they use even more because the ones the survival of the fittest the ones, these plant species that could use this ecosystem the best.

Speaker 2: 41:51

They survived all the harsh conditions during the evolution and so they are used to this product and all the other plants who say okay, I won't eat earthworm shit, eat they just didn't survive. They are no longer on this planet, maybe.

Speaker 1: 42:10

And I have to think of. We had chef, then barber, who also has a seed company on the show a few years ago I will link it below and he was talking about one of his not another recent discovery of him, but I think a corn species that one of his breeders found somewhere that fixes his own nitrogen gives an amazing. It's actually a corn for chicken feed or it's not for that, but he wants to taste it. I don't think he tasted it yet when we interviewed him, but it only does it in healthy soil. So until now we just never noticed that, until somebody managed to put it in healthy soil or I don't know, maybe some corn escaped and went to grow somewhere next to the road and decided that it was a good spot. But, like we, until we place plants in healthy soil and until we, like we, don't even know what it does, let alone how, which is for a separate conversation if we even need to know that. So there's, but that's uncomfortable, I think, for many of the of the scientists.

Speaker 1: 43:09

I still remember talking to another farmer. He said yeah, we, we tested on a few actors. If it works, it works. We scale it and then we're maybe going to research it. But like we need to see it, we need to see that it works and that's the most important piece. How it exactly, this activated water, makes a difference in our irrigation, I don't really care, because I just need to need to run, run the farm year after year. And if I like to ask this question, if we would do this conversation live in front of an audience so not of policymakers, like we discussed before, but actually of investors either investing their own money or in charge of, let's say, pension funds, banks, etc. Of course they're enthusiastic. They learned a lot about earthworms after this evening, but if there was one thing, one seed you wanted to plant in there and one thing they remembered from from this evening, what would that be?

Speaker 2: 43:59

I would like that when they go out, they realize the impact and the holistic approach that we have in regenerative farming and how important it is for humanity, because at the end I would think, okay, why are we here? What are we aiming for in our life? Most farmers, if you ask them, they want to hand over a farm bigger than the one they received from their parents. So this is very often one of the goals. My life goal is okay, I buy two or three fields and then I hand it over to the next generation and it's bigger than the one that I received. Okay, that's not what I'm aiming for. And then I think, okay, let's think about nature.

Speaker 2: 44:55

What does a tree, what does a lion aim for? I think the number one is to make sure that the next generation, the species, survives and thrives. So the lion wants to have children and wants to have success, and the tree is the same. So this is the thing that I think humans also are allowed to aim for for the next generations.

Speaker 2: 45:27

But what we are doing now, on a short-term run, yes, we do this, so we grow, the world population is growing, but on a long-term run, it's bad what we do for humanity. So when we think, when we want to aim for the generations to come to still have a nice planet, a wonderful planet, then what we have to do is have to reduce our impact on a holistic level, and we are not allowed to talk only about food. We talk only about soil. We are talking about odyssey, soil, water resources, food, climate, environment and so on, but it has such a big impact on society and it has this holistic systemic approach that I really would like that people understand, investors understand it's not only about food, it's not only about profit. We really have to save humanity at the end through our activities.

Speaker 1: 46:39

And so what would you do if we would flip the question and you would be in charge of a large investment fund, let's say a billion euros? I'm not looking for exact euro amounts, I'm just thinking what would you focus on? What would be? It has to be invested. There could be some money for lobbying, but the majority has to be put to work and at some point come back in whatever shape or form. Could be extremely long-term investments, but it should be considered as an investment. What would you focus on if you had a billion euros, which is, of course, an insane amount of money?

Speaker 2: 47:12

I would put the money into education. I think on a long-term you say it can be long-term then the profit comes back. Even within 10 years or so, we would see the profit.

Speaker 1: 47:30

Education of who.

Speaker 2: 47:32

Society at all, because we are only talking about farmers and farming and regenerative farming, but at the end, we cannot solve these problems that we have, all the challenges that we are facing now as a society. I don't want to count them, it's like 10 or so. Just look at the planetary boundaries 6, just exploded. We cannot solve the world with farmers only. We have to think as a society, with all the actors the children, the students, the consumers, the politicians, the science, education, all the different sectors, from mobility to energy, whatever. We all have to work together and we have to start now, immediately, and to work on all different problems at the same time. And therefore, because we don't have time to say, okay, let's work for the next 3 decades, work on climate change, and then we think about biodiversity, no, we don't have that time. We have to start working on all problems at the same time.

Speaker 2: 48:50

This is where, for example, the market gardening that's why we started the market garden, where we have an impact on 13 out of 17 SDGs. This is in our, in my sector, which is growing food. This is what we try to find systems which are future proof, like market gardening, where we have an impact on 13 out of the 17 SDGs. So this is a systemic impact. It's not. We don't want to research on higher yields or more efficiency. That's important, no question, but this is what all the others do. We try to have that systemic approach. And then that's also one of the slogans where people, okay, listen when we say we grow food, soil and people and it's a hot, I mean you're.

Speaker 1: 49:47

You self described yourself as a computer geek and loved machines. What do you see Because sometimes there's this narrative also in policymakers and investors that are this regenerative food and agriculture people are first of all anti science I think we established that that's absolutely not the case but also anti technology. What do you see as the role for technology in? I mean, we're recording this through technology, but what do you see as the role of technologies, which I consider quite widely, even financial structures and new ways of doing stuff. But for you, like, when people come with that attitude of this must be we all have to do everything by hand farm when they come to you, how do you, how do you diffuse that bomb or how do you change that narrative? When people have that idea on the, especially in region, I feel like we want and we go back to whatever. Well, that's not the case, but I still. We need, we need good stories and narrative to to to change that quite stuck narrative. Honestly.

Speaker 2: 50:48

Well, I love to do both. I love to to to sweat in in the garden or on the field, and and and to, to try to be really back to the roots, but at the same time, I have my headset and talk to people in a different language on the other other side of the planet. And I love to to be a farmer and I love to be in a conference and and and and talk to people. So I tried to to have that range of activities, and it's also the same with technology. So I'm I'm a big fan of artificial intelligence, I have to say, and I think we have to even almost feel ashamed when you say that.

Speaker 2: 51:37

of course yes, because I also see the danger in a way, of course, but I also see the opportunities it gives us to understand nature, because when it's machine learning, excited.

Speaker 1: 51:51

What makes you excited?

Speaker 2: 51:53

It's. It's difficult for me to talk about it, but I have a project idea which is, I think, really, really nice. It started with I always said market gardening is nice because it creates jobs in the rural area, and this is something for Europe which might not be a benefit or could be even a disadvantage if we think about the demographic development. So we are, society is growing older and older and we might end up having no people, for example, doing weeding, doing simple jobs. So I thought, okay, let's use robots to weed.

Speaker 2: 52:30

And then there are technologies, and there are robots out there who work with GPS, so so they can see themselves. But then they use the same old technology that we used on a tractor, like hose, which slides, slides through the soil and cut the weed. And that's stupid, because I would like to see a robot that goes visually, sees the plants and decides okay, I take this and I rip it out of the soil, and I take this and I take this, and when you, when you do that, then the machine can learn, okay, which different plant species are there, which different weed species are there, and then you can say, okay, this type of weed is not so dangerous for my crop, or it's even supportive because it has a riceable activity.

Speaker 2: 53:23

Let's leave it there for the next three weeks and then take it out when it starts flowering, or something like that, so you can do. Completely different decision. You can make much more, makes much more sense and helps the biology.

Speaker 1: 53:35

But then and this is the probably- even better than an average human, yeah, and then if you decades of market garden experience, understand exactly, makes sense, in which, say, in which way? I mean, that's, that's a level of knowledge that, yeah, not many have, unfortunately. And yeah.

Speaker 2: 53:51

And then it gets even more interesting because when you say, okay, this robot goes like every 10 days, every 14 days, it goes over the same bed and it knows each, each plant, because it has the brain behind to remember each plant, knows exactly. Okay, how did this scale plan develop in the last 10 days? And it observes all the environment. It says, okay, how much sunlight is there, how much humidity is there, how much mulch is there, how much soil protection, which weeds grow there? And then within a 123 years, it will realize okay, for kale, this and these are the best conditions.

Speaker 2: 54:32

And then what you can do with machine learning is that you can understand biology through artificial intelligence much better than we can, because it takes like for a farmer it takes like 20, 30 years, and then he has to have this, this look and to see something, and then maybe he realizes, okay, the kale is always better in the conditions, but that only comes after 30, 40 years. If he has a look, if he doesn't have this specific look to see things, then he never will experience In your experience?

Speaker 1: 55:12

how many farmers have that look, that they can see things, because I've seen it with people that they look at a field and feel and see and sense oh, the soybeans in this area, this or something is happening there. But have that intimate connection with your soil, your plants, your trees is rare I think. But how do you see that?

Speaker 2: 55:36

I think very little people have that and I don't know if I have that feeling or tool to be connected to the plant and say, okay, I have the feeling.

Speaker 1: 55:46

We can call it seeing or feeling. I don't think there's a big difference.

Speaker 2: 55:50

But I'm always curious when I see things and I see, okay, here is the border of the field. On the left side looks like that. On the right side looks like that. Why does that happen? Why is the water standing longer in this field, then on this side of the border, and then on this side of the border? So these are things that make me curious and go out and say, okay, look, there is more soil crusting here than there, and why did it came so just to.

Speaker 1: 56:20

But it's interesting. You're talking about technology and robotics in market gardens. I don't think many people with already the thought of it might be difficult to find hands in the near future to do it, and technology could be way better at it. Relatively quickly, like in a few seasons, it would recognize things that we would never see unless you're doing 30 years of market garden, which nobody has, I think, and so now maybe Jean-Marthe, exactly so that's very so. Is that getting? I know you don't want to share too much, but is that getting beyond an idea phase or what are you doing there?

Speaker 2: 56:59

I hope so, Because unfortunately I have a lot of ideas but I have a limited capacity. Of course, Money, yes, definitely, but also time and personal capacity, and I would love to share my ideas with people who can use it and I would love to be involved in the further development of these ideas and to make a project out of it that definitely makes sense. But I don't have the capacity for all these things. But I think there is so many is already out there that you just have to combine things. And that's where it comes back to what we talked earlier.

Speaker 2: 57:43

Talking to people from other sectors, I can learn from a plumber. I can learn much, much more than from a farmer colleague Not that I know everything from farming, but I know nothing from plumbing and he tells me a little bit about plumbing and says, ah, but we can use that in farming also, that system, that technology, that method that you apply. And the same is with doctors. So there is so much input and that's the nice thing. When we have this demonstration activity, we get so much input. I learn the most when I'm guiding people and welcoming people on my farm. I learn the most from the questions.

Speaker 1: 58:24

And if we could just wish for any technology to exist tomorrow morning could be a robot, could also be another financing structure, could be some kind of machine learning or AI, but only one thing what would you wish for? What would be a technology wish you would like? If somebody could just build that and I could use it tomorrow morning, what would that be?

Speaker 2: 58:47

It would be exactly that robot that learns biology while doing reading, collecting data, endless data and applying it and learning and get conclusions out of these enormous data. And then we could even apply it to large field application air will field application but we have this learning phase in market garden with all that different crops and all that different situations, and then with ground cover and mulch and compost application and all the different, and then we can apply it on large scale like five meter wide autonomous driving, whatever.

Speaker 1: 59:33

You're saying, basically, the market gardens are the ideal data set to learn on, because they're sort of like, if you can do it there and you can add a lot of value there. Because you're saying that, yeah, exactly, it's a, are you already feeling that crunch of not finding people for to work in the market garden or is that something you think is going to happen?

Speaker 2: 59:52

Definitely not.

Speaker 1: 59:53

So we have a lot of people who want to work on our farm, so it's an explosion basically of market gardens exactly, richard Perkins, through other people like yourself, sort of like really and they often are like under the radar. I think most people, most finance people as well. They wouldn't even show up as a farm because it's too small, but some are extremely financially successful, environmentally Very interesting as well, growing a lot of food from a Hector to actors, etc. Direct to consumer. Very interesting businesses and very environmentally sound businesses. Just nobody outside the market garden bubble. It's talking about them. So I think there will be a significant growth over the next years because yes, but also dangerous.

Speaker 2: 1:00:37

It's also dangerous because people are very enthusiastic about it and, for a reason, very hard work, but it's super hard work and a lot of gardens close after two, three years because people burn out. And this is something that where I think research farm again comes into place and said because what we have to learn is not does it work or does it not work for people after two, three years, but what we have to learn is, with all the opportunities, with all the chances that it, all the benefits that it provides, we have to find an environment, we have to find a framework so that it does work. So it's not a question that is it good or is it does it work or does it network, but it is so good, it has so much potential, so we have to make it work. So we have to change the framework, we have to get the support to them and we have to. There is no training. There is.

Speaker 2: 1:01:41

You are completely out of the common agriculture policy because you are too little and all these things. And this is what we try to do. We try to create a task force market gardening where we involve the financial ministry, the Chamber of Agriculture and everyone and I said, okay, this is so fantastic, we have to make it work. How do we do that and not put it?

Speaker 1: 1:02:04

on the shoulders after two years. Yeah, and as a final, usually needs some more questions. But as a final question, if you had a magic wand and you could change one thing overnight anywhere in the food and agriculture system, so this could be as big and as small as you wanted to be, and what would that be?

Speaker 2: 1:02:26

Difficult, difficult, I think. I think I would try to raise awareness about things so people are more aware about what is possible, what we have to do, where we have to move to on again on a systemic, on a holistic level and not only on a farm.

Speaker 1: 1:02:49

It would be the main thing you want them to realize. They wake up tomorrow, we all wake up tomorrow morning and what would be different in our minds, what would seed, or in our gut I mean, it probably controls more what would be the main realization you would like people to have?

Speaker 2: 1:03:06

To have to see the big picture out of the box, out of this blindness that we are always in, and understand the impact and with the activities that we do and this raising awareness on these levels, this would be really important because, yeah, as at the end, for me it's a kind of what we try to do is saving humanity, making a very, very, very little contribution to saving humanity on this planet. And when we, when you, have this switch of mindset that we think, okay, what we do is for the next generations to come, then we would immediately stop every war, stop every pollution, change our energy, energy consumption and everything. And when we have that, this switch of mindset and this is this is what we try to help to, when people come on the farm, when we have visitors, when we work with the global network of lighthouse farms, when we work with the mission soil is to provide it give them a little bit of a push to switch, to switch mindset. And that doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen, hopefully.

Speaker 1: 1:04:41

And it's always a danger of the last question Do you see that, like, have you seen? I mean not the light bulb moment switches, because it's always, it's more complex than that but with people visiting, with interactions you've had, like people starting to lean in, let's say, and start going down those rabbit holes of the complexity but also the potential and holistic view, like you must have seen that many times happening, like next to you or close to you, as you yeah, I've had so many people alongside you and asking questions and visiting, etc.

Speaker 2: 1:05:15

Yeah, it's, it's, it's. You realize it when people get quiet. So then you can realize okay, now they start thinking about and, and and it's very surprising because, like 10 years ago, I didn't always say what I mean, because I was afraid that someone says, yeah, come on, you're naive or whatever. Yeah, and it's naive in a way, but the more you you try to to to, yeah, release your thoughts or you try to say what you think, the more you get good feedback. And then people say, oh, wow, that's, that's nice, that's, that's really. Yeah, thank you for saying this. And then you realize, okay, this is not only me, it's it's. There's a lot of people thinking this way. Or yeah, and that's, that's fun, that's, that's really, that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 1:06:15

Don't hold back and share. With that, I think it's a perfect moment to wrap up this conversation and I want to thank you so much for, of course, the work you do and coming here to share. I hope you didn't hold back anything here and I would love to keep checking in, obviously on the Market Garden robot or whatever the name for sure will be will be different, but I think there's a fascinating time now with with AI and with the potential of course, the risks, but with the potential it brings to understanding more of these systems or at least seeing connections that we unless you spend 50 years on the land we're just not gonna see in in our lifetime and, as we discussed before, time is of the essence. We don't have 30 years to figure things out. We need to see and and get moving. So thank you so much for and using your Monday morning to record here with us and for sharing.

Speaker 2: 1:07:09

Okay, thanks, cohen, for the invitation and thanks for your work. It's also really great what you do. I just listened to several of your podcast when walking the dog and it's always always great and fun to listen. Thanks for your work. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 1:07:33

AI for SoHealth is funded by the European Union and has received funds from the UK research and innovation under the UK government's Horizon Europe funding guarantee. For more information, visit AIforSoHealtheu or in the links below. Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. For the show notes and links we discussed in this episode, check out our website investing in RegenderRagerculturecom. Forward slash posts. If you like this episode, why not share it with a friend or give us a rating on Apple Podcasts? That really helps. Thanks again and see you next time.