QA webinar with Geert van der Veer, Herenboeren, about community owned regen farms

This is the audio of the QA webinar with Geert van der Veer. Listen how Herenboeren is building this movement of community owned regenerative farms.

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How does Herenboeren go about in finding farmers who are able to manage multi crop and livestock farms?
- Is the current crisis raising the interest in regen local food?
- What could be the role of broad row cropping like grain, in these systems?
- How to make these systems accessible to low income groups as well?
- What is the difference between consumers and owners in the food system?

Learn more about their Theory of Change:
www.farmingcommunities.org.  

Find the video of the webinar on:
www.youtu.be/lAlAellwzIE. 

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

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https://gen-re.land/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

So welcome to the third Patreon and supporter exclusive Q&A webinar, this time on a more Asia-Australia and also actually Europe-friendlier time zone. I'm very happy to have Geert van der Veer, founder of Heerenboelen here. We know each other, I always look back, I think three or four, maybe five years. And I still remember the first time you shared the concept of Heerenboelen. You come from a lot of experience in the farming sector. And I remember spending, I think, two hours, we had a tea or coffee somewhere trying to shoot holes in the concept and I couldn't find one, except for the investor side of things. So that's definitely something we're going to talk about. And that was actually also your question, like how do you invest in something like this or how do you put money to work? And that's something we have been looking at actually a number of times. We organized a dinner in the Netherlands with a number of investors. We have done obviously two interviews and we're very happy to have you at this Q&A because I always the two interviews we did are very nice, but they only scratch the surface. I think they're both more or less half an hour and they only scratch the surface of the immense world that there is behind Heerenburen. And so I wanted to take this opportunity to have you here and be able to ask you a few more questions and obviously also get the audience to ask a few more.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

So to kick off, what does a moment of crisis, I hear a lot of stories of people working in local food systems that are seeing an enormous increase or an enormous stress if they're mostly focusing on restaurants and places where people eat out. What do you see in terms of when people suddenly realize, maybe after the toilet paper, where's the food? Where's my food coming from? I see empty shelves in my supermarkets. Is that something you see in the last few weeks?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yeah, we do really have a lot of people. Good morning.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

Good morning.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

I just asked the question, what does it mean for something like in a time of these severe crises in terms of food interest, etc. Sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Well, there is a two-side answer. And the one side is that there are a lot of people thinking about where the food is coming from how systems nowadays work and they realize that international big world markets for food is not only it's just actually something for pure economic goals to reach and they start thinking like okay what can I do and how can I change my own behavior towards the food system and what I what we really noticed right now is that a lot of people are trying to get in contact with us. So how can we have our own farm nearby? Because that's the main stream we nowadays feel that is happening outside. But the other way around is that there is a big social aspect in our farm concept. So people are used to gather and come together on the farms, do some help or or organize other activities. And that's only in the, in one way it's kind of entertainment. So you could have skipped that part, but it's also necessary to come together to take decisions because our members are the ones taking decisions on the farm. So that's something that is really, well, for a lot of people not used to using Zoom or Skype, it's a new world. And we really have to try to train them in this. So this is the new standard at this moment. That's the only thing we can do. So like tonight, there is this big Zoom meeting with all the board members of the farms. We have now seven farms up and running the 32 projects here in the Netherlands. So we have a lot of people together tonight and we're discussing this topic. How to continue the production on the farms. might not stop and how to take how to keep the movement going because people are inside you know and we are used to get outside and to meet each other and to really also to really feel each other you know you can you can gather through zoom of course but physical meetings are more yeah there is a more layers in that meeting than just seeing each other you know so in one side we are getting more and more busier and the other side we are busier with the stuff how can we keep this going you know but yes people are really really thinking here on okay what are we doing I think especially in my region where big world markets or especially for pigs production is really big and we have also some a lot of negative consequences in this region from that like like smell stench It stinks. It stinks here. There are a lot of farmers with big farms, over 10,000 pigs in one square, one hectare, for example. That's a lot of pigs. We have a lot of farms like that. So in this region, people are really overthinking the consequence of what we have built in the last decades. Yes, we are in a way benefiting, but it's real hard when people are sitting Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 5:54

I can imagine. And do you see that a lot of the local initiatives, the different here in Wuhan, are getting more interest? Like the website, visit this app, are people Googling for food? Or is that like, do they get more inbound? Obviously people cannot visit too much and too easy, but I think the production and the pickup just continues as scheduled because that's quite an essential, I don't think it's something they would close.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yes, it is. But yeah, Yes, we see, of course, it happens when we see the increase in visitors on the website, we see the increase in telephone calls we get, or social media friends, et cetera. So yes, we see a little increase. But it's hard when you are not before corona crisis, when you were involved with one of the projects, you know each other. You can more easily connect through Zoom. or something, but to step in a project which is starting right now because you want it right now, because right now you have this feeling of, okay, I can do something myself. I got to start my farm. It's hard to connect. Most of the projects we have, like I said, 32 right now, they all start with a gathering, a meeting somewhere in a public space where people come together and we tell them the first steps and the why etc. It's hard to organize something when you cannot have a big invitation somewhere in the city or the local city. It's hard to, but we are collecting all these people. Maybe you should have seen the dots on the map. We are plotting them right now. People are leaving behind not too much information because we are not able to collect them through legislation. they can at least see how many people show

SPEAKER_03 7:54

their interest yeah

SPEAKER_01 7:55

yeah exactly and i think uh we have been measuring and counting i think half of the people who are involved right now is also with a dot on the map so it's uh people involved is more than double than you can

SPEAKER_03 8:08

see oh wow just i i'm realizing that i always jump straight in but just to to do one or two cents i think most people have either listened or to the interviews we did or had had a look at farmingcommunities.org But just two sentences on here for anybody that it's too early or too late to think, I heard about this, but which Q&A webinar am I on? Which Zoom line am I on? Can you very briefly intro it? And then we dive deeper because already Emmy had sent a number of, I think, good deep questions to dive into.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Well, the concept at the end is quite simple. We gather around 20 hectares, about 200 households representing 500 people. and they become the member of a cooperative and we have 200 members and every member pays an entrance fee around about 2000 euros once. So together with 200 households, we collect 400,000 euros. And with this 400,000, we do all the investment necessary to start the farm. So we buy the tractor, et cetera, et cetera. We hire the land and the cooperative has the farmer as an employee. So the farmer is not the entrepreneur anymore. People all together, the big gathering of all the members, they are really the entrepreneur. And what we do, we produce as much as possible to what they need. So I've never seen one man living just from one product We don't only eat potatoes. So when you produce towards the needs of the members, you have a very various farm. Like we are producing fruit, apples, pear, prunes. We're producing 54 different kinds of vegetables. We have pigs for the meat. We have chickens for eggs and meat. We have cows for meat. Not dairy yet, but that has something to do with the regulation, but we could also have dairy products. We also produce our own feather. So we're trying to be as circular as possible. And in the end, there are three pillars underneath this concept. We are producing with nature, so not against nature.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

We

SPEAKER_01 11:09

could have another deep dive into that, but that's what we do. So it's called nature-driven production. So nature tells us what to do, nature-driven. We are socially bonded. So that is something like... Actually the goal is to bring people together and to connect them with soil again. And the other pillar is what we called economically embedded. Like it's the economic part that enables us to run the farm instead of economy and gaining money is a goal at itself. Production and services, extra value creation is that what's really the goal. the goal of the farm. So these three pillars are beneath that. And when we deep dive into that, yeah, we can have another conversation.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

I think we will with looking at a few of the people on the call. But what I like, I mean, it sounds, the first time I heard it, obviously, it sounds very, it sounds like some other concepts, CSAs, I would say sometimes even a bit cute and funny. But then you've really built a machine to, or an organism to create many, many, many, of course, you started with one and two, but It even tricked me into writing exponential growth and regenerative agriculture in the same sentence as it is really scaling up. You have 32 now in the pipeline of very, very concrete farms. And if you look at that line, and we're all now statisticians and looking at models all day, but for another reason, if you continue that growth, it becomes quite an interesting footprint in the Netherlands and Europe. And it becomes quite a few people that get up to 60% of their daily calorie needs and nutrient needs from a very local farm. Obviously, their olive oil and their orange is not, but a lot of other things come from maybe a kilometer or two kilometers away. And it's economically viable that you can actually pay a farmer to a very good salary, which is something that most farmers, I would argue, to find a farmer that has a good salary or has a good, easy, a relatively easy income. Obviously, it's not easy. You have 200 or you have 500 people that are trying to tell you also partly what to do. But it's a very interesting, interesting model obviously, from that sense in terms of the potential of scale. And that's why I keep coming back to Heerenbroe as a very interesting model. But just not to keep the questions away from the audience. I know Emmy has one, has a few actually, but I would love to start with the first one. You want to ask it yourself, Emmy? On the multiple generation one, I think is very interesting because you mentioned you're renting the land.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

Yeah, exactly. Yes. So in short, my name is Emmy Van Cleef. I work for Master Chief Trust. And I'm actually also a Heerenboer. So I makes it very interesting. I'm a Heereboer in Op het Lies, near Breda. Okay, nice. Yeah, and it's also, as you said, we have 125 members right now and we're trying to scale to 200 members to have the full membership cohort. And these are interesting times because I can imagine anything happening with an economic recession might influence that as well. But that aside, yeah, it was interesting. I had to hear about, because obviously I know the concept well, and I've also, through Kuh's podcast, heard about other CSA initiatives, like, for example, Kulturland in Germany. It's a bit of a different model, but there they kind of modeled the land ownership in such a way that they perceive it as stewardship. So there is this kind of separate cooperative that is investing together with the farmers in a shared cooperative. cooperative model. And for each farm, they have then set up a different company, and that company is then a steward of the land. And then that allows the farm to be there for generations. So my idea, my question was like, what are your thoughts on kind of this multiple generation land ownership? Like I know in the Heerboek concept initially, it was this idea, but I see like in practice, for example, on our lands, we hire for six years from the government. So what are your ideas about this? I'm quite sure you're struggling with this. Yes, we do.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

So thank you for your question. Do you know also Heereboeren Land van Weert, for example? Yeah, I know that

SPEAKER_04 15:42

you have a collaboration there with Stichting Groenbeer, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah, that's true. So what we did there is that has everything to do with the Soil Fund. What we see right now, and also that's something due to regulation, that it's not very interesting for the landowners to do something more than six years, 12 years. That's the utmost. Or give it away in, how do you call it? So you get that. So for 26 years. And you become almost the owner, but you cannot say you own the land. That's the long-term something.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

It's a very specific Dutch law.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Exactly. So it's hard to explain. It's not

SPEAKER_03 16:34

easy to buy and it's not easy to rent long-term, basically. I think that's the...

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Exactly. That's the main problem. Yeah. Um, so what we see right now, um, what we did, uh, we started the soil fund. I already told something about it in one of the podcasts, but, um, the next step is that, let me a little bit explain about the soil fund. What we do is we, we've tried to find investors, investors put their money into the soil fund. And in this case, it's going to be here. So they, they, they, they donate money or they get the mortgage or something for buying soil. So the, the, The soil fund buys the soil, and then there is going to be, depending on the construction, whether it's giveaway money or it's investment money, or it could be a mortgage as well. So in this case of Land van Weert, the farm in Weert, we bought the land in that construction. Next step is, how do we get the land in the hand of the people? And it's not necessarily the same group of people who are participating in the Heereboeren farm, but it's what, in my opinion, And in our opinion, re-commoning land is one of the goals of Heereboeren. So we are now working on this pilot project, trying to put, to give the chance to all the people living nearby the farm of Heereboeren Weert. And we are thinking of obligations, you know, like can we put on, can everybody buy a share about, say 500 or 1000 euros and how many people do we need to gather to bring back the money to the investor and what we are discussing right now with the land trust right now is how which how much can we have to say on the common land all the people gathering this money they will give it back to the investor so they become kind of owner but the ownership we want to have in the in the soil fund itself because that's a kind of lockdown you know or lockdown in these terms but uh it it's locked up that's what i need to say you know soil is locked up in the fund but you want as much you want the people have as much as say as possible so what we are doing right now we are piloting this so we are gathering i think it will be april when we start with this we are trying to gather a lot of people nearby the farm in weirth who bring up uh money. We think of the less part, at least 500. And they can buy, for example, five times 500. Because when you have one party buying thousands, you have no democracy anymore in this project. So we're trying to think of limiting the amount of investment. So we think of shares of 500 and max five per person or per family. And this is how we try to bring back the ownership within the ownership back to the people. And the discussion right now is what do they have to say? What are their rights when they do that? It's not only gaining a little bit of interest because that's not much, but the questions are, can they have demands for or how to use the land, you know? Can they have a say in who is going to be the farmer on the land? And in this case, of course, it is a Heereboeren farm, but when looking at the big perspective of the Soil Fund, you know, we are thinking of, okay, how are we selecting or electing the farmer who is going to work on the land? And it's almost as in a parallel with the farms, our farms, you know, they do the democracy. they do decide what was going to happen. So to me, it's a logic next step in the soil fund to go and see how community or cooperatives can own the land. But there is one aspect and I think it's typical Dutch or maybe it's more Western. We don't want the soil to go back on the free market because it's too speculative. all the people together could also take easily a decision, okay, let's sell the soil and have a lot of money and spread it over the members. And that's what we don't want to happen.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

That's something I want to block and make sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

I want to block that, yeah. So that's why soil itself will be always in the trust. But the rights on how to make decisions, they will be spread over the newcomer. Is that the answer to your question?

SPEAKER_04 21:42

Yeah, yeah. That gives a good, comprehensive answer about what's the next step in these pursuits. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

So you see us as a foundation, Hereboer Foundation. Actually, we're starting a next concept. We have the farm. People can own the farm. But the next concept is people can own the land. And I think that will be the big game changer in farming in the Netherlands.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

Why do you say that?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Because what we see right now that the soil here in the Netherlands is very expensive and the soil prices are rising every day so soil is not as expensive as in relation to what it can bring you know so it's too expensive and what you see right now is that not only a new coming concepts like ours are not able to start a concept but it's also the existing farmers who are not able to bring their farm to the next generation because the amount of investment is really, really, really too high, too big.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

What you're saying, the production capacity of the soil, especially obviously if you're, I mean, in all types of agriculture, but the nature-driven regenerative way you're farming really looks obviously at the production capacity of the soil, the soil health, etc. What can it bring for the next generations, that comes back to your question, Emi, and not just for the next five years and how much can we squeeze out of it, is not connected or is no longer connected to the price on the market of a hectare or of 100 hectares, et cetera. Those two things have been speculatively driven away from each other, which makes it very, very, very difficult for a farmer's son or daughter to take over the company or for any new enthusiastic group of people that want to start a farm to get a sufficient amount of hectares to just to give an understanding 20 hectares what would it cost normally very difficult because it depends on the location but let's say for a few of the farms that have been started through you so far what would a 20 hectare project

SPEAKER_01 23:56

cost I think we now pay about on average here in the whole country I think it's 7 to 8 euros per square meter but that's so that's 80,000 per hectare and we need 20 so So that's still a big investment. But what I've seen already, and I'm working in more than 20 years in this domain, and I've seen 20 years ago that we were calculating within euros, I think we were calculating with five euros per square meter. And what you're calculating right now, you have to double it. But your income hadn't doubled. Actually, state stable or even decreased a little. So you see that it's only a half percent of return on investment or 1% on return on investment. And in the 20 years I've been doing this work, I think it went from a 2% to a 1% to less than a percent. I think on average right now it's.8%.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

You mean the return of a farmer on his or her investment and that It doesn't count, obviously, the crazy hours. So it's very, very... When they say razor-thin margins, they probably talk about this sector.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

And when you look at it, I don't know whether we have time for that, but in the Netherlands, the average farm has a value of 3 million euros, and one-third of it is financed by banks or other... like the company you buy the feather for your animals from is also one of the parties giving the mortgages, for example. And that's one third, so one million is in loans.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

So the feed company or the input companies also give you loans, which could be up to a third of your, speaking about a locked-in system.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Exactly, exactly. So that's what I want to illustrate. And so that's a three million value for the farm. On average, it's about 300,000 what they do on a yearly annual base and less than 30,000 is what they have as an income so it's 3,300,000 30,000 but the 30,000 there is also on average 50% of it is coming from the Brussels support so they can only make 15,000 themselves on an investment on 3 million that's not doable is it so that's that what that are the figures here in the Netherlands and we're trying to beat that with our concept

SPEAKER_05 27:07

just a question I just did a quick calculation if you sorry I'm Jan from

SPEAKER_03 27:14

good morning Jan

SPEAKER_05 27:15

good morning I just did a quick calculation if you if the hectare price is 80,000 if the farm is 1.6 million if you divide this by 500 people, it's 3,200. If you... do that per household, it's 8,000 euros plus 2,000 I need to pay for setting up the farm. So it would basically be a 10,000 euro investment per family to have my food secured for generations basically. That I think makes this relatively seen a very attractive investment. And have you ever thought to promote like this and even maybe find a way to to finance it to a certain extent so that people can take a little mortgage on it or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 28:17

Which I think comes to a question of accessibility. It's very interesting. So answer the question of Jan and then we can go on to accessibility because not everybody has 10K lying around.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

And that's what I thought one of the other questions you sent me already, Koen, was also about that. It has everything to do with the accessibility to the concept. And we are already facing a situation that people tell us you are for the upper class white. The 1%,

SPEAKER_03 28:51

yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Exactly. I think that's not completely true, but because when you calculate and when you do what you did, Jan, it's true. When I look at the market of solar panels here in the Netherlands, people easily invest 8,000 euros to get solar energy. So what's the difference? And when you buy a house, you have a mortgage of at least 200, maybe 300,000. What is the other eight or 10,000 when you can secure your food? That's a question. And that has everything to do with culture. I think here in the Netherlands, we are not that, we think that it's not just normal that supermarket is full with stuff and full with food. And so it's a question of, is there a real felt necessity to do this? And I think we're not there yet. With Corona and everything else, it really helps in a way, but we're not there yet. And right now we are, so we're trying to make it as easy as possible to step in. So that's the, and we kept on calculating and we over and over again, that the figure of the 2000 was the, what we had to do, but yes. But I

SPEAKER_03 30:13

remember, having discussions with you and you were saying I'm worried that people may be not willing to pay that and we might need to find some financing even for the 2000 which obviously doesn't include the land buying so that adds the 8000 to it and so far I think you didn't really have issues with it like the 2000 hasn't been a barrier but maybe now as you scale you see that more is that something that changed from the beginning like two three four years ago to now no no

SPEAKER_01 30:40

no not at all but in addition to what we exchanged at that moment, there were a few experiences right now. And it's not the 2000. We didn't discuss it yet, but on an annual base, we share cost of the farm. So we calculate all the costs and we share it over 500 people. And so you do not buy your food, but you pay your contribution to the cooperative. And that's the outcome of how many costs are we going to make this year? We are with 500 people every 52 weeks. You are going to pay 10 euros, 11 euros on average each member per week. And so that's how we do it on an annual base. But it's not the 2000 that is a problem. It's the 10 euros for the really lower class people to jump in. And yes, when we compare it to supermarket, we are cheaper in organic food and around about the average price for food in supermarket. If you compare what you get from our farms to what you would have had in the supermarket so there actually there is no no reason to do not jump into this concept but the people who cannot afford a 2000 you can we can give it from it can subsidize the 2000 of course but then the next problem comes 10 euros per week is a lot of money for that for the group of people and it's not 10 euros per week because it's 10 euros per person per person yeah of course yeah so but altogether it's still cheaper to than organic in the supermarket. Yes, it's true. It's 10 euros per person per week, what you pay for your food in the contribution to the cooperative. Do you

SPEAKER_03 32:24

think it's something that changed the discussion now of this food security piece, especially with virus, but in general, like what Jan was asking, have you ever thought about pushing that or marketing that or putting it like that? Like, look, you buy food security, you buy food security, you buy sort of food security for the long term. Do you see people doing it because of that or it's mostly I want to be closer to my food which is a type of food security but I want to see where it comes from health but the food security piece hasn't been a

SPEAKER_01 32:53

not that much not that much it's upcoming right now you know in terms of the corona time this is what people really say right now oh wow whatever happens in supermarket empty shelves I don't care we have the food in the farm you know so it's right now it's a kind of coming up but it's not that heavy yet but I can imagine in other countries, we are at this, I've been given this assignment to one of these, I gave this assignment to one of these bureaus here, trying to find a country outside the Netherlands to start with a kind of Heerboer concept right now, which one is the best to start, you know, and I already get some feedback from what they're doing, and I think, okay, in other countries, it might be even a bigger issue than here in the Netherlands. So, Here in the Netherlands, it is how it's produced, know the people who did work on your food, know where it comes from, make sure that there is no chemicals used, et cetera, et cetera. That are all arguments. Also, in addition, it's just fun. That's also one big aspect. It's just nice to go to the farm with your children and see the animals, et cetera, et cetera. So that are the main reasons people jump in right now and food security is not yet an issue but I can imagine that in other countries it might be the first argument.

SPEAKER_05 34:27

Corona will be the game changer.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

I think it is. You're right. It's quite easy to do this. From the perspective, from the concept, it's no difficulty. Your calculations, okay, they might be right. They're really close to what we're calculating as well. It's not difficult to do that, but it's not felt as a necessity right now. It's not the main argument to jump in the farm.

SPEAKER_03 35:00

And I think Emmy had a question on the inequality piece or the accessibility. I mean, you said it's possible, obviously we can subsidize the 2000 at the beginning to get in, but then you have the 10 euros per head of the family per week. That also is connected to the cost of the cooperative in a sense that if the cost of the cooperative goes down because people are helping, obviously the cost of the year after might be nine euros or something. But there is a hard, I mean, there's a hard cost in running a small scale regenerative very mixed farm. Your single apple might not be as cheap as others, but obviously the whole package, the costs are lower than what you get in the supermarket. What's your idea? How to get this to people that aren't buying organic now at the supermarket and are looking at the cost and say, yeah, I would pay six euros for this if I would buy the equivalent. Do you get people to have that discussion on food quality, food pricing as well? Do you see people coming in that you might be surprised about that they made that decision now because they they ate the 10 euros is quite a lot

SPEAKER_01 36:06

well yes but there is maybe I can respond to this like this what we see is that it's not only there is a difference between being a member and being a consumer And I think that's the main answer to the question. When you want to do this for the consumers who are just used to pick what is offered and they have a lot of demands on quality and et cetera, et cetera, of course we have to deliver quality as well. Let that be straight. But there is a difference between being a consumer with all the demands you have. Sometimes we deliver a lettuce with a little bit of sandy soil in it. You wash it at home perfectly. No problem, but you have to do that. And what if people now leave the farm with a big smile, I have my own lettuce. Hey, wow, I need to wash it at home. No problem. But what if this lettuce would be in the supermarket? I think supermarket manager would have a real big problem. So there is a difference between consumers and members. And the members are really connected to their project, to the farm, to the soil, to their food. And as soon as we are lowering the way people can enter the system. So let's try to find a subsidized for all the 2000s. Let's try to subsidize half of the of the weekly costs. I think consumer behavior gets in and consumer behavior creates a distance to your food because it's not you who has any responsibility. You can be really judgmental towards the one who is creating your food again. It's not you having a responsibility as a consumer. So it's more than just a consumer project. It's not just a choice. It's a way of life. It's taking responsibility. It's really wanting to be connected to what you're eating. And it's not just buying it. And I think that's the main answer to the question. You have to think. When you enter the system, you really have to think. Why do I want this? Is it just because it's cheaper than supermarkets? I don't know whether that's the right, the only argument to step in.

SPEAKER_03 38:27

Thanks. Jan, another question. Thank you. I'm pointing there, but I don't know where he is. He's on my left.

SPEAKER_05 38:37

I have one question, Gerd. I remember from one of the podcasts with Kern that you mentioned that one of the challenges is to find these farmers who are actually capable of handling multiple crops and livestock and all these together. My question is what are you doing to identify these farmers, train these farmers, and how do you scale that?

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Thank you for your question. Yes, we see that But now we have about seven farms up and running that there is a lot of farmers rethinking it over. So what was a difficulty might be not as difficult in future as it was in the beginning because the examples are coming right now. So what we have right now is we developed this, let's say, a training program. groups of 10 farmers running it. Like, for example, the farmer from is one of the first members of the first training group. So he's also one of the kind of a victim. The guinea pig. The guinea pig, yeah. We are really trying to find out what to teach, what not, what can they bring up themselves, et cetera. So we don't want to pronounce the word as a course. It's not a course. It's a training. program you're exchanging your experiences. So we are having right now 20 farmers joining the program in two groups of 10 and the second group is already more focused on their hereboer farm because in the beginning we also had to start the program as a program because we need some income you know so there are also participants not wanting to become a hereboer but wanting to have some education on how to do sustainable farming. But the second group is already a group who, 100% of the members, is going to be a Hereboer farmer. So it's going to be the farmer... So they

SPEAKER_03 41:01

come from concrete projects that are somewhere in that pipeline of starting. They're one of the 33 farms that is going to start in the next

SPEAKER_01 41:08

year,

SPEAKER_03 41:08

year and a half, and they need to be trained. So they have a very strong, and they probably have a very strong connection to their piece of land, or their, it's not their. Exactly, and that makes... They know what they need to farm, they know what kind of soil they're going to be at.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Exactly. And they know, and they also need, uh, they also know what to, what their needs are. You know, I want to have more information on this or that, or how do I this or that? So, um,

SPEAKER_03 41:31

and how did you find these farmers? Like how did you, did they came out of the community of Breda where, where Emmy is or.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Yeah. In, in, in, in the, the example of Breda. Yes. That's one of the initiative takers of Breda. It's now there. It's now their farmer. Um, um, but what we do is, uh, mostly post our needs for farmers just over social media. And then there is a reaction. We are not looking specific in traditional farmers platforms or existing farmer platforms because when farmers can reach us over social media, they are more into society, so to speak. And that's what we need, people who can also communicate. So what we get, we mostly get them from the network you know we we know them or people in the local initiatives know their farmer and then we gather them in info and like one big information meeting you're wanting to be the farmer on one of our farms this is what it is like and then they have to decide to because it's very

SPEAKER_03 42:43

very fundamentally different from your normal potato or a single crop or a double crop farmer as you have a celery and And then you have 200 families that are looking over your shoulder. And

SPEAKER_01 42:54

also the techniques, of course, you know, you probably you're good at producing vegetables, but you never have been working with animals, you know, or vice versa. So that's that's that's that's what what is happening. But what we do is we really want them to incorporate what they are going to do. So we start with what we call the boots camp. So it's not a boot camp. It's a boot camp. And we start with a with a weekend. So the group of farmers is amongst each other for two or three days and spend the night together as well. And we do that for a reason. To start there, we really give them an overload of information. And we also want to see how can they handle that? How can they handle the overload of information? It's not that we think that they have to remember everything we tell them, but we want to create a kind of, ooh, this is much, how am I going to deal with this? No, so it's kind of overload, that's one. So we can see what we have to do and how they react on it, what we have to do on content and how they react on it. And on the other hand, spending a night together and after dinner and have some good beers, there is a lot of talking. The community is one of the biggest goals we have with this training program. Know each other, create a safe space that you can ask every question you want to ask in this group of farmers, because that's what is necessary. And there is a little culture here like, okay, I know it myself and I'm getting my answers. And what we try to do is to create a community with a real safe space of farmers. And so let's start with a very intensive weekend. And then we, based on what we gather on information, we start developing the program, coloring in the information the program so that is and then it's one year of training two days each month and after that we have a group with farmers who are able to and I'm really telling this doing this this way who are about able to run the farm but after that there is a lifelong learning and what we see right now there is a lot of to do with on whatsapp groups the farmers on the side farms. They find each other. What did you do like this? Where did you get that? What machinery do you use? And so it's more the community after the entrance through the training program who's got to do this. They have to find out a lot.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

And just a quick question from Cindy. What's more or less the salary? I mean, it's a proper full-time, let's say, Dutch salary or part-time. How does that work?

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Yeah, it depends on how the farms do I have farms, for example, the farm in nearby Eindhoven, they are working with two farmers. So one of them is working four days and the other one is working three days. So they have a seven days. But there's

SPEAKER_03 46:04

enough money in the concept. I think that's the, there's enough, you've made the calculation to pay a farmer full time if that's necessary to run the farm, a normal salary that he or she doesn't have to take an outside job. Yeah, and

SPEAKER_01 46:18

we can be clear about that in, like I said, they can earn about 45,000 per year. Which is a good

SPEAKER_03 46:28

salary.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Yeah, and that's about the double income they would have had when they would have been the farmer on their own farm. The farmer

SPEAKER_03 46:37

themselves,

SPEAKER_01 46:37

yeah. Yeah, with all the risks.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

And in terms of Heerenbroek in itself, are you set up like a cooperative? And how does Heerenbroek itself help to scale and grow and pay for the office behind you, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

Yeah, exactly. What we are right now is a foundation. And you

SPEAKER_03 46:57

help these initiatives to, at some point, because it's good to understand, many of these initiatives get started, they have a certain set of steps which you have set out, like you need to find five people to start it, you need to get to 100, and there are, I don't know how many steps, 15, 20. And at some point here in Boven Foundation gets involved to help you design the farm, help you to find the location. But the first bit is done by and actually last bit as well by all the the strong local energy

SPEAKER_01 47:24

exactly and that's where it has to come from because that's the energy then it's their farm you know but somewhere let's say somewhere and we can could also deep dive that but we somewhere we get involved and then we we make this then we start meeting it making appointments on how our this involvement is connected to the central organization like right now it's the foundation and the end of this year, it should be a top cooperative. So that all the farms are a member of the cooperative Herburen Netherlands. So the foundation will have another role to play, but what we need it is that, what I really want is that the individual member on an individual farm has an influence on what the national organization does. And we couldn't start that earlier, like a cooperative of co-ops, because I really wanted to have have this critical mass, because when we have a critical mass, there is also a correction factor, so to speak. You know, the group is big enough to let's, for example, say someone says, OK, let's let's start using chemicals. Could be something someone brings up. And I want to I wanted the group big enough to not fall for that.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

So

SPEAKER_01 48:44

do not fall for that. And right now we are at that stage. So at the end of this year, there should a cooperative of cooperatives

SPEAKER_03 48:51

and how many farms should you have at the end of the year just to i mean depending on virus craziness and other

SPEAKER_01 48:56

things but i think right now we have seven and i want to i think we can add at the end of the year we can add two or three more and then

SPEAKER_03 49:05

next year another

SPEAKER_01 49:07

four to eight what we calculate right now is four to eight per year uh to establish yeah

SPEAKER_03 49:13

very cool and uh jan had a question how does the farmer who manages the land deal with the fact that he or she doesn't own it and yeah basically is not the entrepreneur farmer the hero on the tractor I mean he or she is the hero on the tractor but the one that decides everything and wakes up in the morning what's that psychology piece like

SPEAKER_01 49:35

yeah we always put it like this you know the economically ownership of the farm is in the hand of the members so that they are they own the economically part of the farm the entity you know and The land is not necessarily owned by them. So there is also a land owner who has some, how do you call it? Let's skip that. He's the owner. You have the owner, you have the economically owners, and you have the felt ownership of the farm. And the felt ownership should be in the hands of the farmer. So we arranged this in the following way. I think 95% of every decision taken on a daily basis should be taken by the farmer. So he has to have this conversation with the board of his specific cooperative on where is, how far can I go? How much money can I spend per decision? Which kind of decisions do you want me to get back to you to? And so I think it's 90, 95% that should be taken on a daily base with the farmer himself. And then the 5% is, five to 10%, it's necessary to go back to the board. And within that amount of questions, there is amount the board got to get back to the members. And when you do agree on this three layer decision letter, you can reconsider it every year in the gathering of all the members. So what we really advise to the members of the farm or the board members and the farmer is, okay, take at the end of the year when the work in the field is not as hard, not as much as in the summer, take that time to reconsider your decision letter. So are you still content, are you still content with what, is it satisfying, is it working, et cetera? So, It's about the felt ownership. As long as you are feeling that it's your farm and you can service the people who own the farm, but it feels like your farm, it's your decision, it's your animals, it's your work, it's your tractor. Up till now it's going pretty well, but what you also see is that the board members are really pleased in being a board member. So they're almost taking over the farm and people who are not even connected in one way or another into the agricultural sector are really deep diving and learning a lot. And they're even so enthusiastic that they take over the farm from the farmer. So that's, that's something we, right now we are also going to have a training program for board members to make sure that this is not, that this is still connected to each other. You know, this is a responsibility from the farmer. This is yours as a board member. It has to be really.

SPEAKER_03 52:47

Especially in tough times. as I mean I remember you had a drought I think we had a drought last year and the year before in the Netherlands and there were certain diseases coming from from chickens and coming by chickens and you had to make tough decisions or the members and the board had to make tough decisions to harvest all the chickens earlier because we didn't want to put them inside because it was by law suddenly the chickens had to be inside or to not plant certain things because of drought at the end I think it comes down to the ownership like do you feel ownership and do you make long-term decisions on okay do I want a crop next year? Thus, should I do certain things now? I want to be conscious of your time. We have four minutes left. I want to see if there's any final questions I'm pointing around me, the people that didn't ask anything yet. And otherwise, obviously, feel free, other people to jump in as well. I see no, I see Nicolas, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

Just to say something. I'm really impressed by the concept and I'm also impressed by the way you're, by the fact that you're able to find the good farmers because this is something that we're really struggling in our project to find people who are inspired but also got common sense, good, some experience experience and some also appetite not to jump in but just to be able to stay in the business because we see lots of projects for example in Belgium where they start producing fruit, vegetables and many of those projects are now stopping just because of people and the guys who are managing that are not capable economically or manually or agronomically so I So I think it's very interesting to see that. And I had a question regarding when you have 20 hectares, it's quite a lot of land, of course, for one person or one or two person, even if there is some help from the community. I suppose that you're producing not only vegetables on this land, but there is also some sort of, not commodity, but grain or other stuff just to rotate or to manage that properly. Is there a project with those lower value crop or grain crop, if I can say? Do you have something behind that?

SPEAKER_03 55:16

You mean some kind of transformation?

SPEAKER_00 55:18

Yeah. Out of the high value crop, I would say.

SPEAKER_03 55:24

Would you make pasta and bread and flour Would you?

SPEAKER_01 55:29

Yes, of course. We have been working on this program for our own bread. So with grains or something to produce. But here is the quality really coming in. The fact is that, for example, in France, they make better, they grow better grains than we can do in the Netherlands. So what you see right now is that we use the grains in our rotation in our crop rotation you know that's because that's better for soil etc etc and for diseases so we are we're already producing some but we're putting it back in the soil for soil quality right now and i think once the soil quality is back in in order i think we can use it for consumption but right now everything we produce what we have to work very hard on soil quality and we need every in crop rotation we need this kind of products but what we do is we you just put it back into the soil.

SPEAKER_03 56:31

Do you feed it to animals as well, like your chickens, et cetera? Or that's still tricky?

SPEAKER_01 56:37

No, no, no, we do that already. But we do that with sunflowers. That's what we produce as well. So the flower is given to the chicken, but the rest of the plant is going to back into the

SPEAKER_00 56:51

soil. Yeah, because this is really something that, of course, for agronomical reason, but also for impact reason, this is something we are interested in. in Belgium and in our different projects at Soil Capital, how do we transform the large-scale farming around us? Because, of course, horticulture is part of the solution, but I think that this kind of project that you're developing could also in the future have some link with people who are producing commodities around those projects to connect those people and to have an impact not only on a few hectares, but on what we see when you travel on the highway, on On the left and on the right, it's most of the time grain and large-scale farming. So it was just to put that on the table.

SPEAKER_01 57:38

Exactly. One last remark. I think it's really hard to transform existing farms. I think this, because there is also an economical factor behind it. There is a cultural factor behind it. There are a lot of factors that makes it not easy to transform. So I think there is an existing pillar of food production and we are coming from besides. and I think that makes it a little bit easier but it's really we have been thinking on transforming but that's really hard that's really

SPEAKER_03 58:08

hard yeah and with that note sorry Niklas I know Geert has a hard stop so I don't want to keep him too much thank you so much all for calling in joining in thank you first of all foremost obviously Geert for making time this early morning and for everybody around from Hong Kong to Copenhagen to I think you're in Belgium Niklas and obviously Breda so thank you Thank you so much for calling in, asking your questions, sharing, and see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 58:34

And thank you for listening to me. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.