310 Jason Hayward-Jones - Corporates paying for low carbon grains and why virtual twins are key in gaming and Scottish whiskey

A check-in interview with Jason Hayward-Jones, founder & director at REGENFARM Ltd., and Sustainable Agriculture Specialist at Cefitra, about why corporations are suddenly paying for low-carbon grain, the revolutionary impact of digital twins and satellite technology on sustainable farming practices and, finally, why it is connected with gaming and Scottish whisky.

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

I check an interview with Jason. What has changed since the last time we talked back in 2021? Why are corporates suddenly paying for low carbon grain and what does it have to do with virtual digital twins and why is it such a potentially disrupting technology? And what does it have to do with gaming and Scottish whiskey?

Speaker 1: 0:42

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 time that we as investors big and small and consumers, start paying much more attention to the dirt, slash soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community and so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you. If our work created value for you and if you have the means and only if you have the means consider joining us. Find out more on gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg. That is, gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg, or find the link below.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Welcome back to another episode with the founder and director of RegenFarm, who we had here with us in July 21. I was convinced it was last year, but it says something about the years I think in this that's many podcasts ago. And he is now also a sustainable agriculture specialist at Chifitra, which is a large supply chain manager and a large grain trader, which is one of those companies we never really hear of but touches a big chunk of what we eat and what we consume every day. And we have a fascinating deep dive ahead of us into the world of digital twins, into the world of supply chains, into the world of payments for ecosystem services and all of that. So I'm very happy to have you back on the show, jason, welcome.

Speaker 2: 2:34

Thank you very much. Nice to be back again. It does seem just like yesterday, but it's been a few years, I know. I know?

Speaker 1: 2:42

I mean because I've referred to the episode often. I think it's one where we discussed key line design at scale and key line design. If you don't know, I will link the episode below, of course, in the show notes. But it really is a technique that has been mostly used, I think, in permaculture and restoration agriculture, like how to plant trees on contour, and it's normally I mean, we discussed that egg land, but it's normally done by hand, almost like walking the land with a laser, and you found a way to do that with software and at large scale. So it was fascinating to unpack that, but of course, we didn't get into any of the grain stuff as you were not doing that yet. So first of all, let's unpack a bit. It was in Nigeria, I think, the big project. What is happening with the key line design, the super accurate key line design work you were doing back in 2021?

Speaker 2: 3:36

Yeah, well, it's still going on. We have a project now up and running in northern Nigeria in the state of Chigawa, a project now up and running in northern Nigeria in the state of Jigawa, and that's in cooperation with some local grain traders there who are in contact with a big footprint of smallholder farmers, each one farming about one hectare, one and a half hectares each, but there's 30,000 of them. So that adds up to quite a big scale, and so you can imagine we to put a design in place for each one of them would be um a really lot of work going around 30 000 farmers. So we do use satellite technology, data coming from remote sources, and then use the technology we've designed to place onto that landscape Key point, key line design, as well as other features, you know, crop selection, water management, resources, that kind of thing. So you've got this patchwork of smallholder farmers aggregating together into a landscape and then that landscape heading in the right direction of soil regeneration. And the point is to make those smallholder farmers more resilient, make their farms more resilient, their farm businesses more resilient, and that is done by putting lots of carbon back in the system. Quite simply, once you've got carbon going back into the system that landscape holds more water. If you've got more water, it's more resilient to climate change and the carbon going back into the landscape becomes an additional revenue stream. So they might be reducing soybean or rice or a range of other crops hibiscus or maize or something like that. But now then the carbon going into the landscape can be monetized and layer on a complementary revenue stream for them.

Speaker 2: 5:41

And we've got this great relationship developing with the nigerian sovereign investment authority, which is the, which is the kind of national oil reserve pension fund, if you like, and they're trying to apply funding into other sectors that isn't the oil and gas industry, um, to take care of rural populations a bit more, and especially in the north, where there's, you know, there aren't any oil and gas reserves, agriculture is the main thing. So redeploying some of that national capital into large-scale projects for smallholder farmers is not only good for the economy, but it's's also the right thing to do. So it's great to have that project up and running. It's a long-term thing.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Slow approaches often yield the best results. Slow and steady wins the game, sort of thing. So we're progressing steady with those smallholder farmers and the results are coming slowly. We've got some nice connections developing with potential exports of those products, as well as the massive national market, of course. But it's great to see our technology being deployed in reality, in a real situation that positively affects farmers, their, their economy, their response and adaptation to climate change and and so what enables this technology that without the technology wouldn't be possible, apart from the scale, of course.

Speaker 1: 7:18

but I think, how do you, how would you define, like what I'm always interested in, enabling technology and not ag tech for the sake of ag tech, like, oh, let's digitalize everything, but in this case that like what is possible now that wouldn't have been possible without this tech.

Speaker 2: 7:39

It starts from a social angle. Really. It starts from a social angle, really. This whole project was started by UK Overseas Aid to enable smallholder farmers to get into the game, as it were. It's really challenging to work with one farmer, but if you have 30,000 farmers, it's almost impossible, unless you have a system that is digitized, that can look directly, from using remote data, on how each one of those farms is doing and what can happen. If we redesign it and it puts 30,000 farmers into the game, I'm saying it's not a game, it's their lives. It's really important. But it enables them to utilise that data to make their farms more productive, more profitable, layer on this additional revenue stream and participate in a solution to climate change in their area and who's doing the work on the ground, like in terms of, um, because the margin piece I, I get, I get, but who's doing the advisory work?

Speaker 1: 8:58

or like, okay, these could be the key line strips, or these could be the composite, like how, um, how is the transition or the change on the ground being communicated or being done at the end?

Speaker 2: 9:14

Sure. So it is a blend of technology and people on the ground, and each one of those farmers is connected with an off-taker, a, a trader that is. It's a commercial relationship. So if farmer farmer wants, wants to produce soybean, then there's a commercial contract with that off-taker. And if the farmer's way of production is altered slightly and carbon is sequestered into that farm, then he's not only selling soybean, he's selling low-carbon soybean and that's again a commercial relationship. There's a slight premium on that product, but also the potential to monetize carbon credits as well. So it's based on a commercial relationship. This isn't an experiment and seeing if it works. This is actually Naira changing hands for crops produced in the right way, a climate resilient way.

Speaker 1: 10:50

And this low carbon crop. You see there's a commercial interest for that from traders and or end consumers, because that's driving this.

Speaker 2: 11:01

Oh yeah, absolutely. This is a market-driven demand, and that sort of brings me on to the role I'm now playing with Sofitra on a large scale in Europe, where you know the road to zero emissions being net zero by 2030. A few years ago it was a pledge that was made and not a lot of action being made towards meeting that target. But now, as 2030 looms, I mean we hadn't spoken for a few years. But imagine how these big companies feel now that the 2030 deadline is in the headlights and they gosh. They have to make headway and if there's, if there's a way they can reach that target quickly, it's by reducing their scope three emissions those emissions that are incurred when you purchase in grain products or whatever food products from the supply chain. You also take on that carbon carbon liability. So if those grain products are lower in carbon, your scope three emissions are less and therefore you can get to net zero in a more manageable way, and that's what's driving things.

Speaker 2: 12:17

A few years ago it was just a nice idea. Now it's a reality, with order books, future, future, trades piling up, really, and so it switches from okay, are we able to sell low carbon grains into the market? Yes, we are. That's great. Um, the next step is do we have enough farmers producing those low carbon grains? No, we don't. So then it's kind of this positive feedback loop where you have to grow in a balanced way. You don't want a big pileup of low carbon grains produced and nobody buying them, or you don't want a massive demand for those low carbon grains and no farmers producing them. So it's a ratcheting up on both sides, but in significant numbers now. So it's completely market driven, which gives I think it's really important, gives the farmer line of sight directly to be rewarded for producing low-carbon grains, rather than just, oh, somebody's asking for it, whatever it might happen, it might not it's a big motivation for farmers to change their behavior and become more climate resilient.

Speaker 1: 13:40

And we're going to get to the amounts, etc. But are you scared, like some of these companies like toning down their 2030 goals, like we see maybe in the electric mobility world, like we see a bit of of waves, let's say, and then it start? It seems like unilever, I think, went down on a few goals, etc. Like is is this? Is that a fear you have, potentially that this is scaled down a bit or a lot, with changing elections and changing places, or the momentum is there. So, even if it gets turned down 20% or 10%, it doesn't really affect the market and the farm, because the last thing we want is promising a lot of things to farmers and then, in two years or in a year, it's like, ah, actually, yeah, we don't really care about scope three anymore.

Speaker 2: 14:26

I think politics gets in the way of everything, doesn't it at some?

Speaker 2: 14:29

point people use it as an excuse and and um. So I think partly, partly, those scope to emission targets are just being massaged a bit, um, but the overwhelming direction is to go down the low-carbon route. I mean, these big brands, these big food brands, have to get there right and stay there. And so there's an overwhelming direction to be in that low-carbon purchasing space for raw food products, because it's the right thing to do. And quite often those big food brands, it's shareholder-driven right. It's not just about a desire to become net zero, it's the ability to access finance for those businesses. The financial sector, the insurance sector is demanding it.

Speaker 1: 15:27

So and we see that also on. Like the, is grain a crop where, let's say, low carbon means also better, like more resilient farming? I mean, we started with that. Let's say, is the cfo and the procurement guy or girl or woman, um also paying attention to this because of supply chain issues? Um, and is this not just oh, we, because shareholders okay, and because of reporting, okay, but is this becoming um? Because we had a long interview with with land banking institute and and um she was sonia, was really saying, saying like we go where it hurts, like orange juice, olive oil, like where now, like it's just painful for farmers and for suppliers to get stuff and that's where we move. Cacao is another one. Is grain one of those crops where it hurts?

Speaker 2: 16:19

yeah, and so it's a really good point actually. So the decision makers in those big food brand organizations, it's the CFO, it's the purchasing teams, it's the marketing teams, all their thinking seems to have lined up. And for this to be now, first of all, is it available?

Speaker 1: 16:41

It's really different compared to three years ago. It's really different.

Speaker 2: 16:45

Yeah, if you started to have this conversation with the food brand three years ago, you wouldn't last five minutes in their office. Now we're inviting them to see actually what a climate resilient farm looks like, a farm that's embraced these ideas of. You know. We all know it's reducing utility, using cover crops, switching from nitrogen fertilizer to something else, a whole mixture of those three things. But quite often those, those purchasing teams, don't don't know what that looks like on the farm, and so introducing them to a farm, either physically or using this new virtual twin technology we've also developed it, helps immerse them in that environment on a farm surrounded by it, and they can use that in their marketing, in their purchasing programs over the years.

Speaker 2: 18:27

And so it becomes. This is where we sit in the middle of a supply chain and we can almost pull those two ends together using technology, using on-farm meetings, using the virtual twin to say look, this is a real thing, you're making a real contribution. Let's not think it's a painful thing, let's think it's a good thing to do. Yeah, absolutely. It's an investment in the future. It's an investment in your resilient supply chain, because without resilient farmers you don't have any resilient, low-carbon grains being produced. So we try to look at the big picture and immerse people in it.

Speaker 1: 19:11

And just like the immersing piece we mentioned we had a pre-conversation about this and we get to that the digital twin. And now, combining that almost with some virtual reality, um headsets etc. You can literally walk on, uh, on these farms and see what it could be and uh, which I think is fundamental, because most of us don't have that sort of almost creativity or potential to see what a heavily degraded farm could look like and most of us consider anything green to look okay and nice. We had a peatland wetting discussion yesterday and a piece of peatland in lower Saxon in Germany looks fine and green but actually it's emitting like 20 tons of CO2 a year and so for the untrained eye it looks okay.

Speaker 1: 20:00

But if you could see what potential is there and what actually is being emitted and what could grow there, etc, etc, I think it becomes a very uh different, um different experience to see what a diverse farm could look or see what a key line, etc. Etc. And but going back to the farmer, let's say in the uk you're with like, what does it mean for him or her like practically to start growing lower carbon grain for one of these big brands that's interested in that, practically on the farm itself. We mentioned a few things but also financially, like is this meaningful? I don't need exact numbers, but is this meaningful and not just a nice pocket change extra to do this? Because if it's not meaningful, why would we?

Speaker 2: 20:46

Yeah, it's meaningful. You're not going to change your profit and loss by millions here, but you're probably changing a lot in terms of reduced volatility, resilience. Your whole business is more resilient, your whole production is more resilient, resilient. And so our experience working with uk farmers is they can do some very practical things which they're probably already thinking about or have already started to do in sort of test plots around the farm. And the three biggest levers are reducing tillage from plowing to mint till or mint till to zero till. Use of cover crops, particularly multi-species cover crops, and then switching away from chemical nitrogen fertilizer to some organic alternative. I mean those, those are the three biggest levers farmers can can pull, and it fits in with their normal operations. We're not asking them to do anything out of the ordinary.

Speaker 1: 21:47

They've got the machinery to do it. Key lines on a reverse street for anything. No, no, no.

Speaker 2: 21:51

So that's further down the track For grain farmers. What do you do normally, conventionally, and how do you just tweak it a bit to go more sustainable and then sequester carbon into the system or reduce your emissions of carbon?

Speaker 1: 22:11

and how much does it mean for for emissions like, if you like a convention? Of course, difficult to say, it depends on context. But if you do those three things well, is it a 10 drop? Is it a like what? What do you see? How much lower is the low carbon the best?

Speaker 2: 22:24

yeah, and the figures are different on every farm. The best way of looking at it is a net result of um what's the amount of carbon sequestered per hectare in a field which is a mixture of reduced emissions or sequestration? It comes up with a figure and it's somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 tons per hectare per year. So that's good, it's a positive result. And if you multiply that by the price of carbon for a carbon certificate in the markets, which is about 25 pounds per ton, so you're looking at somewhere you know 50 75 pounds per hectare for doing something. That's not too difficult and that's a great start, a great reward and motivation for farmers to keep on doing that, because that's the point right, you don't want to just do one year and then revert back. It's the start of a transition, a long, long-term transition. Making that money every year pays for or starts to fill the gap in the UK where farmers are going to be losing their BPS payment in a few years' time. So it starts to fill that gap by doing something positive with the environmental management of the farm. So this is just one of those first easy steps a farmer can make. And then, in my experience I think, as we discussed before. Once there's been a few quick wins on the farm like that and oh, that seemed to have worked. Then the next thing, their farmer starts thinking what, what else can I try, what other interventions can can use?

Speaker 2: 24:04

And then we go down the path of perhaps more complicated key point, key line design. Some of the farmers we're working with in the UK are already planting agroforestry systems. And then you're sort of on the next tier of farm resilience and carbon as well. Resilience you you've come up from, yeah, yeah, the carbon. Carbon sequestration figure goes up from 1.8 to maybe 3.8, you know, depending on circumstances. And then your farm really begins to sort of power up and you can drop off your fertilizer a bit more, you can stop plowing a bit more. You've got those trees in the system. All those additions to that farming system in the UK or anywhere just increases complexity, and with complexity comes resilience. All those fundamental principles of regenerative agriculture start to kick in. But we be careful. In in the uk context, like, we started to talk about regenerative agriculture and that term itself was met with quite a lot of resistance. Um, they said we're not regenerative farmers, we are climate positive farmers. Okay, well, you can.

Speaker 2: 25:22

You know that's also good the labeling is important, or or not, as the case may be, but those practices all fit into the same direction of travel. You know, it's fantastic you're trying to do this. Call it what you want, but that's that's what we want to encourage more farmers to do. And, and what's really important, I think, is having a cohort of farmers to say look, we've been through one year of this. It was great, our fields are in a slightly better shape, our soils coming along nicely, and that farmer to farmer, the peer-to-peer um, cross, cross, um advice sharing that worked here, like this, worked there, like this. We're seeing that now start to happen and that's great, right, it's kind of RegenAg's gone viral sort of thing, which is what we all want to do and that's a really pleasing result to see.

Speaker 1: 26:23

And when or how comes the digital twin and the technology piece in uh here, let's say, because what you described until now sounds very low tech uh in in a good way. I'm not saying but how, how does the um digital twin and software enable a lot of these or enable this to happen?

Speaker 2: 26:42

yeah. So this is quite a story. When we we've done our first sort of wave of technology development, which was the key point, key line, design, and that's helping out with the design of a farm on a landscape scale, which is really important. How will this look on my farm? How will my farm appear? I want to see it all there before I actually start to make some big interventions, because once you start to plant trees or dig swales or anything, they're quite permanent changes to the farm. So it's important to be able to visualize these interventions and not only just see a pretty picture of them, but calculate from real data how these systems alter, how a farm behaves in terms of crop yield, water movement through the soil, all these types of real on-farm issues that make a difference. How does that look?

Speaker 2: 27:53

And so, um, our very uh, talented technology design team said, well, what we need is to be able to walk around the farm, but in in a virtual environment.

Speaker 2: 28:05

And and this is where my knowledge of all this stopped quite quickly and they said well, what we need in a virtual environment and and this is where my knowledge of all this stopped quite quickly and they said, well, what we need is a virtual to another farm where you can, on the screen or or through a set of goggles, walk around the farm and see okay, there's my swale, there's my agroforestry system, I'm in the tractor now driving around.

Speaker 2: 28:22

Here's how it looks and behaves, um, and so we decided to look at okay, is there anything else available like this? I think I think most people are familiar with farming simulator, the, the game you can play, and and I was actually recently at the the llama show in the NEC in Birmingham all these great, huge machinery, quite impressive combines, tractors everywhere, but there was one the biggest stand in Lama was farming simulator and rows of people playing, trying to stack bales quickly or plough fields quickly. It was quite amazing to see how that virtual environment has been embraced by the farming industry. You know many, many millions of people every day play farming simulator and I think the figure is something like and 10 of those are farmers.

Speaker 2: 29:20

So which is hilarious to think about, like you spend all day on a tractor All day, not all day.

Speaker 1: 29:28

And then when you don't have to. But it means that it's a purpose and it's not just a job.

Speaker 2: 29:35

I think people get a lot out. Yeah, people and non-farmers get a lot of appreciation about farming from it. So we thought you have to start technology development, I think with a kind of an idea, a what if? Moment. We said well, what if a farmer you know he's been busy all day on the farm what if they could actually go on a virtual twin of their farm and layer on some interventions, throw different climate change scenarios at it, weather scenarios you know what if it rained a lot this spring and there was a drought in the summer? What would happen? So again, we put our heads down into technology development and we have now a virtual twin, which, well, we can create a virtual twin of any farm on Earth, as long as we have the data to construct it. And it's using the underlying platform. Is using game technology, right? It's a platform to grab data. It could be digital elevation models, climate crop yield models, that kind of thing and it and it constructs any farm on a one square meter basis. So every square meter of the farm is considered that like a data bin and all the data goes on there and the virtual twin is constructed. It's not just a pretty picture, it's actually a virtual model of how that one square meter will behave if it's planted with wheat, wheat growth models, if it's a tree, if it's grass, whatever. So you can see how that field, that one square meter, will behave under different circumstances. So it's terrific to play around with.

Speaker 2: 31:34

We actually constructed this model in northern Nigeria, where we have the richest data sets. So, you know, most people have never been to northern Nigeria, so it's great to go to places you've not been, see what the actual farms look like. You know, you can run the date forward. You can have one week every couple of seconds just to see what that season look like. But the beauty of it is, with a virtual twin, you can have infinite variability, you can have infinite versions of the future, and so you begin to point the virtual twin towards different industries. Yes, it's good for farming supply chain. See what crop yields will look like if the climate changes by 1.5 degrees, two degrees, whatever. That's great, we all understand that.

Speaker 2: 32:26

But then we made contact with the insurance industry that said, okay, well, this is interesting because we're always trying to calculate what a 1 in 100 year event would be like a flood event or a drought, and so they can now begin to run scenarios for that particular geography, okay, what are the chances of this happening in that area? So we can, like we can, run a million versions of the future and calculate those kinds of things. So the virtual twin sits in the middle and then we can interface it with the food production supply chain, insurance. There's probably many other things we can think of. The one I think that's most interesting and what I understand the least, is the gaming industry, where connecting let's unpack that, yeah, yeah, well, well, it's, it's unpacking or it's offering an opportunity for the people who enjoy playing games, which are many people in the world with farmers, which are many people in the world, not enough yeah, but yeah, but the linkage is between those two groups of populations.

Speaker 2: 33:48

There's some crossover, like Farming Simulator, of course. But if we can I had a great idea if we can get gamers somehow to use the virtual twin to design perfect farms and real farms in this area, and then the farmer takes that design and implements it in the field. It's the way the gaming industry can cooperate with the farming industry and all get to a place, a climate resilient place, where we all want to be. This is just something we're working on at the moment. It's a little bit crazy and wild, but it might work.

Speaker 1: 34:25

Yeah, and I think what makes I'm trying to remember who said it what's great about the gaming industry you can just restart again Like you game over, you start Like there's a. Of course you shouldn't do that on a real farm. I think it was Jason Clay of WWF or something A long time ago. I said, yeah, what's interesting is this tendency of um experimentation and and we do, or doing 10 000, 1 million digital twins and just see one minute scenarios, what happens? Because what I realize is that many like we've only scratched the surface of complex complexity, design on farms and and we need to take into consideration, of course, the climate models and and commercial contacts, social contacts, like what makes sense where. But that question of, okay, let's, let's just play, but play in design and keep, keep iterating until we find something that fits. Run it with farmers and see why.

Speaker 1: 35:18

Probably in many cases it doesn't make any sense, but keep iterating, iterating, iterating until you find designs that make a lot of sense, especially in more permanent crops. The design is going to be fundamental because now that you can take the tree and move it somewhere else, like with animals and arable, you have a bit more flexibility. But also there you need to and we've had a conversation that actually on, I think, in I have to find it. But Sensonomics, no, I don't remember the company, but they were like how do you, especially with rotations, to make sure that you don't get into trouble? Because if you do your rotations, well, great.

Speaker 1: 35:52

But if you look five, six, seven, eight, ten years into the future, you can start seeing okay, where does it make sense in terms of machinery to have in the place? Where does it make sense to have my barley next year? Where does it make sense to have this next year? Where does it make sense to have my compost facility? Where does like? All of these questions we rarely answer with software, and that's where technology is really really good to run many scenarios and flag all the ones that don't work and then have, hopefully, a few that that are most most promising. And I think in design we haven't I mean, we've done that in in architecture and many other places, but in farm design I've yet to meet somebody, of course, and I'm going to get emails. But to do that, what are we going to plant, where and why? And how does it make sense, how does it look, how does it feel like before you actually do it, which is a super costly and risky move, if you have 40 harvests in your farming life.

Speaker 2: 36:51

You're not going to risk a few for an interesting design. If you could walk through it, who knows if it triggers something? Yeah, and what I find really interesting is those two sets of populations, the farmers and the gamers. Their minds work really differently, don't they? It's the farmers who are really in a serious job and they, like you said, they're very risk averse. They don't want to try something and and it's playing around with their very expensive farm asset, or they'd rather stay on a slow and they should transition absolutely low margins, like don't, don't.

Speaker 1: 37:20

But yeah, in a game you go like okay, let's play again, who cares?

Speaker 2: 37:23

yeah, yeah. So. So the extreme of this was when Dan, our technology development director, showed our virtual twin demo to his local school and he got the kids playing it and they said, wow, yeah, and they I don't know. They find it really easy to engage with this technology Driving a tractor up and down, walking around, exploring that kind of thing. It's good, they can go and explore a farm from their classroom, fantastic.

Speaker 2: 37:55

But then they said you should stick this on a platform where we can all play and then we can interact. And if you put it on something like Fortnite, we could all play, you could raise a lot of money and then that could be another source of income for the farmers. And we're going yep, hadn't thought of that, that's a good one. So they're themselves beginning to explore ways in which this reconnection with farms can be, can be made, and perhaps it's with the virtual twin in the middle being that place where people can meet from different backgrounds, ages, um, mindsets, that kind of thing. So we've only just scratched the surface of how this could be used. I think we've got a great, great technology, but there's a long way to go in developing user cases, business models, that kind of thing. But at least we've got now something we can talk about, yeah, and immerse ourselves.

Speaker 1: 38:54

I, I'm I'm looking, are you bring? Are you coming to groundswell and bringing it? Because I'm looking forward to?

Speaker 2: 38:59

yeah, I'll be I'll be at groundswell and I'll ask for a version on my, on my phone, where you can have a play around with it, because it's just so fascinating to me and with the computer power now it becomes more realistic every two days.

Speaker 1: 39:15

Basically, and I think we really lack because we look at fields and we think this is normal, and we look at landscapes and we think this is normal. And what is it called Baseline syndrome? It's not normal, it's so empty of life, hence the slogan of wild farm, full of life, like it's so. But it's so difficult for a farmer, but also for anybody else, to imagine what a place could look like. And and I'm not saying let's design the most complex, crazy, but even just diverse cover crops, like, okay, what do the insects sound like? What do they feel like? How do you?

Speaker 1: 39:47

Yeah, and we've seen a video, I think our first three partners I'll put it in the links below as well he just filmed um a place where they had diverse cover crops before the chestnuts because they're chestnuts in in the us came in and another place and just the, the difference in sound and the difference in around you and if, like, but for most people that like to even imagine how much biodiversity could be on a place, on a plot, and how much different crops, etc. Like what, what does that make a place feel like? Yeah, which is not going to see that we're going to be stuck in an office in london, we're going to be um in different offices, we're going to be buying grains for for scottish whiskey. But how many times you visit a farm and are able to see the potential? I think?

Speaker 2: 40:29

you've touched on yeah, you've touched on something very fundamental there. Um, if we we've been talking about carbon, carbon in the system, low carbon grains, that very sexy, right? No, it's not, because it's intangible. You can't actually see it and they're they and they build suspicion. Is this real? What are we doing here?

Speaker 2: 40:50

But as soon as you go beyond carbon and start to talk about water issues, biodiversity issues on a farm, you can actually see it, your other senses start to work and and this for this, for a supply chain manager and and the food brands applied on the end, is really important, because this is a way that those food brands can help their consumers connect with changing practices on a farm. So, yeah, the farms produced low-carbon grains, whatever, low-carbon malting barley for the Scottish whiskey industry, for bread makers, whatever. But what does that mean, however, or as well? Well, on the farm, the biodiversity has increased, the pollinators have increased, there's more water storage and little lakes forming on the farm. Actually, that's visual, you can see that, you can hear it, you're, you can become immersed in it. And that message, that visual of what the result is on the farm, can be used far more by those food brands for marketing their loaf of bread or their can of beer or whatever it is. So you're beginning to connect and use different parts of that consumer messaging, that whole um, that whole way in which they communicate what the brand is about.

Speaker 2: 42:37

But it importantly and fundamentally this Farmers get to play a really big role in this and be rewarded financially, environmentally, and I think many of them personally that they've been part of this transformation and they must be. As you said, farming is a low margin business these days, but if, if a brand is willing to pay for that data, see it in a virtual twin, see it in reality, then this is a another financial reward and motivation for farms to keep on doing that, maintain what they've done, do some more and increase pollination percentages. These are tangible things that people can see and hear and touch. And that's where you go beyond that abstract carbon into a more visual result, a virtual twin result that you can show. Okay, this farm is really going well and this is how it has physically changed.

Speaker 1: 43:49

So it's a, it's a fascinating to be in thing, to be involved with yes, and I was thinking it's fundamentally different than showing a pretty picture or a pretty video or an even immersive video off the field, because because it's data driven and virtual and it can maybe be interacted with with, with other sensors etc.

Speaker 1: 44:09

But you touched upon it like it is different because the farmer gets paid for it. It doesn't get paid for the, the nice um sign oh we're, this is a biodiversity friendly farm or something, and and of course we get we always know there are pennies on the on the dollar basically being paid for things like that. But this is driven by that and almost as a byproduct, you have actually something visual and actually something immersive. But it's not the main thing. The main thing is the data. It's the, the carbon beyond carbon, it's the layered, uh, the extra layers, basically that is on the tons of grain or um, uh, there, and that makes it different because otherwise it's just again pretty pictures like oh, can we come to your farm and you're doing so amazing work. We don't really want to pay for it. We just want to take a lot of your time and do a photo shoot and a film shoot and an interview and a this and a that and and yeah, that's not going to move the needle.

Speaker 2: 44:58

No, no, and you've touched on really a very important aspect of a virtual twin of this. Beyond carbon space, it's data. It's the farmer's data. They own the data and they give permission for it to be used for a price, and so that money then comes back to the farmer. The data is packaged into a virtual twin so it's usable, visual, it can be used for branding, marketing, messaging purposes, reporting purposes as well.

Speaker 2: 45:34

But, yeah, really important, that the farmer owns the data, gives permission for it to be used at a cost, and then that value goes back to the farmer and then begins a good feedback loop, because next year you want to know, has water and biodiversity increased on the farm? And here's the data to prove it. And so this can continue on a small test set of farms and gradually grow the number of farms using this system, and it's how we can all check right whether this, this whole um thing, is real. The thing is real. What the farmers are doing on making a difference are we, are we actually they're? They're on the front line of climate change. If they're doing a great, let's reward them to do some more, because the farmers and the land they control can get us all out of this climate change mess we're in.

Speaker 1: 46:32

And as a final piece, because we're running out of time, what does Scottish whiskey to do with this? We had a pre-call and I took notes, of course, and I was like, okay, we go from gaming to Scottish whiskey, which probably is going to be the title of this thing. Anyway, but why is? Scottish whiskey relevant for this conversation.

Speaker 2: 46:52

Exactly. Well, maybe some people drink Scottish whiskey when they're playing gaming. I don't know, but anyway I work for a or listening to this Could be.

Speaker 2: 47:00

Why not? Why? Or listening to this Could be why not? Why not Put your feet up and have a glass? So I'm the sustainable agriculture specialist for Cefetra, which is a supply chain manager in the UK, and a large proportion of the grain supplied to the Scottish whiskey industry is sourced by us, aggregated from farms, and some of those farms now are producing low carbon grains. So it's interesting how those distillers are kind of one of the first to move in this scope three emission space because their product has to go into a barrel for 10 years before it comes out. So what they're purchasing now low carbon grainscarbon grains, which has a direct effect by the time it comes out of the barrel. It's past 2030, right, so it's very important for them to be ahead of the game. They've got the biggest margins. They can move quicker.

Speaker 1: 47:55

That's the reason they must think long-term yeah yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:59

So who knows what branding they're going to come out with on a bottle of their product Low carbon whiskey. I don't know what it will be, but anyway they've made the move. They're now actively purchasing low carbon grains so they can be in this new space, be in this new low carbon space, be in this new low carbon space. And the challenge, therefore, is to keep that market driven demand going and introduce new farmers into the ecosystem services program that Sofitra has to build up the number of farmers that can supply low carbon grain. So it's really encouraging to see the first cohort of farmers are in.

Speaker 2: 48:42

We've got about 50 farmers in the UK doing this. We're looking for another 50, possibly 100 farmers next year to join. That's about 25,000 hectares we recruited this year. So it's not a small number, right, and who knows, that's a lot. Yeah, if the market takes off, then we'll need a lot, a lot more farmers. So we'll be publicizing what we've done, reporting those real, audited figures um to the market, using our virtual twin on some of those farms to see if that can help encourage more farmers on one side and food brands on the other to join this low-carbon space. So we feel pleased and proud to be part of it and I'm certainly pleased to work with Sofutra to promote this scheme. It seems to be working. We're proud of it.

Speaker 1: 49:39

And a shout-out to Soil Capital You're spending a lot of time with us as well. Of course, yeah, chuck. Lot of time, of course yeah, we yeah chuck, yeah, chuck chuck. Thanks to chuck he's coming back soon, yeah yeah, so they we've. We've had a partnership with soil capital who do that very um technology based um certificate carbon certificate registry function in partnership which is then sold, sold to, not to you right To the end, to the Heineken, to the Scottish whiskey brands, et cetera. Like who's the buyer of?

Speaker 2: 50:08

this yeah, it's those certificates, yeah, the ultimate brand on the end. Those insets are sold there, and so we couldn't do it without Soil Capital. We've become close working partners over the last few months. It's going really well and we're looking forward to the future to grow together.

Speaker 1: 50:24

Amazing. I want to thank you so much, jason, for joining us here, with a lot of technical issues at the beginning, but we managed to have audio, I hope at least. If you're listening to this, we managed to get audio and I was in a noisy environment as well. I hope it wasn't too disturbing, because it's just fascinating to dive into the world of virtual twins, gaming and Scottish whiskey and that it seems to be fundamentally changed since three years ago.

Speaker 1: 50:50

I think that the brands coming into this space and starting to buy, and companies like Cefitra that are starting to supply and connect and with all the issues of commoditization etc. But starting to layer this, these layers of data on top of it, and and an actual meaningful change for farmers on land and in their wallet yeah, um is is not not to be sniffed at, I think. So I'm very happy to we only scratched the surface, but I'm happy to to have this, uh, this smaller, smaller deep dive, let's say well, well, maybe we can get together at groundswell and I can show you and maybe they'll have some scottish whiskey there as well that would be nice.

Speaker 1: 51:26

Yeah, looking forward to that great, super, see you there 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 investinginregenerativeagriculturecom. Forward slash posts. If you liked 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. Thank you.