221 Lauren Tucker – The regenerative business studio ReNourish seems to be working but what is success?

Lauren Tucker is back on the podcast to talk about the first year of the ReNourish Studio, what she has learned and what she is doing differently with the second cohort, but also what she is observing in the space through her work in the almond project and, of course, the direction of the regeneration industry.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Lauren is back on the podcast to talk about the first year of the Renourish Studio, what she has learned and what she's doing differently with the second cohort, but also what she's been observing in the space through her work in the Almond Project through White Buffalo Trust, and of course, the general direction of the regeneration industry. What is disappointing, what is exciting, and what really, really drives her?

UNKNOWN: 0:22

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:28

This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast, investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume. And it's that we as investors, big and small, and consumers start paying much more attention to the dirt slash soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community. And so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you. If our work created value for you, and if you have the means, and only if you have the means, consider joining us. Find out more on gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. That is gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. Or find the link below. Welcome to another episode. Today we have back on the show, Lauren Tucker, who works in collaboration with the White Buffalo Trust to convene farmer scientists and brands to evolve growing systems in California and, and we talked about it a lot last time, is leading the Renourish studio. So Lauren, welcome back on the show.

SPEAKER_02: 1:50

Good to see you, Koen.

SPEAKER_00: 1:51

And I check my notes as I always prep, of course. It was a year and a month ago, actually. So March 22. And we talked a lot about a studio in, in the phase of being born. And now you have a year under your wings. I don't know if you say it like that. But anyway, you have a cohort, you have a group of people that have gone through all kinds of journeys. So I'm very much looking forward to unpack that. But for anybody that didn't listen, of course, I will put the link in the show notes to the former episode. What is the Renourish Studio? And maybe also the intro of that changed. What is the Renourish Studio as we speak now? Let's say the spring in the northern hemisphere of 2023, actually.

SPEAKER_02: 2:38

Sure. Yeah, what we're working on is deep and complex. And so I definitely struggled with the one liner. But in essence, we're working on applying living systems thinking to evolve business models so that we can find really meaningful and effective roles in evolving the systems and structures of our food system, our food and agriculture system. And the way we're working on that is really focused on how do we perceive how do we think and our worldview and seeing that you know for the last several hundred years our worldview has really been taught as mechanistic and what does it take to unravel that and see all the mechanical ways in which we interact in the world and then bring about an understanding of living systems and the world is alive and how can we play a role in the living world.

SPEAKER_00: 3:42

And I'm going to go straight into the deep end. After this year, have you seen this living systems thinking and doing being, I'm not saying easily applied, but how easy is it to apply it into the very mechanical business in output, spreadsheets, factories, machinery, literally in many cases, or figuratively in some cases. How has that tension been?

SPEAKER_02: 4:13

Yeah, I think that a lot of studio participants are describing the studio as a really incredible, fun journey and very hard, and I think that that's fair. Um... Yeah. I mean, really what we're working on at its foundation is what are we being directed by? And we're so obsessed with function and how do we do things and how do we do it better? Instead of really stepping back and asking, what is the role of our business? What are we aiming to bring into being through this business? And then if we can see that then what functions do we do as a result and at first we're not changing the structure of our business mode much we're just you know your accounting isn't going to change your payroll isn't going to change your you know if you make a product you're not going to stop making a product initially but it's we've spent the the first year really looking at what's behind our thinking about what we're directed by when we go to work when we even founded this business and then what does that mean about how our role could shift so it's it's built as a three-year program where we're one year in with our first cohort the first year was really all around building ableness and living systems thinking the second year is all around business strategy so i guess we'll have to do this again in a

SPEAKER_00: 5:48

year absolutely and in terms of you say participants you don't have to name names but what kind of people should we imagine and what kind of companies are the current participants in the studio?

SPEAKER_02: 6:03

Sure. Our current participants, so we have a group of 23 folks who have been with us for a year. I think most of them are going to continue into next year and we're making those decisions and having those conversations now. And it's really cool to see a lot of folks continuing and even have the question not be kind of a silly question. I have a lot of people participating who are like, wait, why are you even asking me? Of course I'm coming to year two. But as far as types of participants, we have a few consumer packaged good brands, so people who make food products. We have a few people working on certifications in the marketplace. We have a nonprofit that works as a convener of many different aspects of our food system. We have a few investors. We have a farmer who's also working on solar as a secondary business income for other farmers so we have a few really small startups so we're working with different scales of business as well as business leaders food leaders across the food system and I think that's been really magical because it's everyone's kind of coming in at a different viewpoint but but we're working on this together. And

SPEAKER_00: 7:30

do you feel like you miss a player in this space or you say one farmer, would you love to have more? And do you feel like after a year, is it a well-balanced group in terms of the food system, which is such a massive beast? Or do you have some wishlists of like, I would love to have a bit more of that or a bit less of that? I mean, less, we're not going to talk about it here, but a bit more of something.

SPEAKER_02: 7:55

That's where it gets really challenging and it's really easy to fall into this kind of category thinking. You know, part of me wants to, and I've done this, you know, write on a whiteboard like, okay, we need someone from food service and we need processors and we need a retailer and we need, you know, and just to kind of name all the parts of the system and think about how it would be ideal to have everyone represented. But the reality is we all work with all those stakeholders, right? So at the end of the day, it kind of doesn't matter who ends up doing this deep work because they are nested in their own communities, which are full of all of those aspects of the food system and they touch them all. And so, you know, I think what's more important is that people really feel a call to do this work. This is not, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. This isn't easy, right? We're spending time with people And it's a good amount of time. We spend two hours on Zoom every other, well, essentially every week because every other week we have a studio session and on the off weeks we're doing group resourcing. And then we're three times a year in person. So the time commitment alone is good.

SPEAKER_00: 9:19

And it's a commitment. it's been relevant otherwise these I mean these are people that have a million other things to do on their to-do list and probably the one thing they need more of is time and and so the fact that they continue yeah makes it of course interesting make probably um very difficult to track success we were discussing it in the pre-interview but that's probably a very interesting metric to follow like how many people stay for two year two and three

SPEAKER_02: 9:56

certainly Yeah, and I think that not only is it a time commitment, you really have to feel some sort of dissonance between the way you're doing business and... why you were called to do this business in the first place. So, you know, a lot of folks enter business just to make money, right? And that is often the driving force and the reason to get into business. But I think there's a subset of folks who enter business to do good, right? It's like, this is a vehicle for change. This is a vehicle for food systems change. And I think that the studio is really for folks who are able to not maybe lie to themselves, who are able to be really honest about is this working? And it's why I felt called to create this space with collaborators in the first place was, you know, I'd been over a decade working on food systems change and seeing that all of our normal paths, they don't work that well. We need to shake it up.

UNKNOWN: 11:09

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 11:11

Yeah, I wrote a great Medium post on that, which I will definitely link below. So what have you learned in this year, or what was the biggest lesson learned? It sounds a really good question, but I'm still going to ask it. What's your biggest lesson learned? I'm going to go to surprise, which are usually more interesting. But what's the lesson learned from this first year that flew by, of course, but still was very intense, like two hours a week plus three me things with with a 20 plus group is is not uh and not an easy an easy thing to do so what what is your biggest lesson learned and what do you of course take to the next few years plus new group starting like this is not this this isn't going to grow or this seems to be um seems to be growing

SPEAKER_02: 12:01

Yeah, it's hard to pick one. There are so many.

SPEAKER_00: 12:04

You can do three. I mean, we're not in the one wishes. We're not in Aladin.

SPEAKER_02: 12:10

I don't have a limit to my wishes. Yeah, I think what was, and probably this is actually answering what is most surprising, but we stepped in as a group who, so all of our faculty and team have been steeped in living systems thinking, thinking through a lineage and two different communities that are connected for the last several years. I mean, someone on our team has been working in this way for 30 years. Myself, I'm about six years in. And we all stepped in with this notion that this could work, but a bit of a question, will this work? And we sat at our third in-person, which was in Playa Viva in Zeyuantanejo, Mexico. incredible hotel that has thought about their role in the ecosystem and we were we had the studio there for our third in person we were sitting there looking at each other and going this is working the studio is working and so I think that that was you know a lesson for us in seeing that we can really bring a group together work on our thinking and that that could actually make a difference in business decisions yeah it was a bit of a theory when we started right and we learned to trust this process

SPEAKER_00: 13:41

and when you say it works and it influences business decisions do you have examples of that because do you i mean you're sitting in mexico in an amazing place um i mean it's working meaning people and i mean you can see it visually there people showed up by the third meeting because if they didn't enjoy it they would not show up for the second and probably not for the third um but then to say it's working means there's there's a deeper change there that you maybe wish to see but hoped for to see like what made you made you say that in that that moment

SPEAKER_02: 14:17

yeah it's this work is nuanced and sometimes sometimes it feels hard to describe you know the the feeling in the room the feeling for all of us is that a lot has significantly changed but then when you try to articulate it it sounds ridiculous but I think what is working is that we are seeing from completely different viewpoints and able to discern oh the way I'm approaching this is very mechanistic how would I step into the world is alive the world is dynamic these are systems at work and they are always in motion And then how do I see myself and my business and my role in that system and what it can contribute? And where we are right now, we're all seeing those possibilities. And even just being able to kind of put on a new pair of glasses and see in a different way, I think is a success. The other thing that was really curious for me was I didn't expect this project to be a success. to change my work so much. And I wrote about this a little in the recent Medium article that I've been applying what we're learning in the studio to the work that I do in the Central Valley with White Buffalo Land Trust and convening multi-stakeholders around evolving growing systems, conventional growing systems. And there is a different energy and field that has been created around this work I'm doing in the almond project because of the way I'm showing up to convene. And the, the way I'm showing up to convene as a direct result of the work we're doing in the studio. And again, it sounds so, it's so slight and nuanced, but you know, another thing we're finding is that we're so so obsessed with function. We're obsessed with how do we do things? How do we do it better? And that often a shift that's really needed is how do we show up with what direction in mind? And

SPEAKER_00: 16:41

yeah, it's been surprising. How do you show up then differently in your work with White Buffalo compared to a year or a year and a half ago?

SPEAKER_02: 16:51

Well, when I started working on that project, project the almond project I was really viewing it I think from this this place of stop the bleeding it's like okay there are almond farms that are monocropped and you know there's this whole narrative around using too much water which when you dig into it I think is a false narrative actually but they are permanent crops so you can't turn off the water to them and they're using a lot of chemicals and the food safety Thank you. to stop what's really really bad and you know what I've grown to understand is can I get to know this place and these people and these stakeholders and then what we've done is we've cultivated a community of care really and so the brands that are showing up to the table the processor the farms the technical service advisors the scientists we're all learning to love Bakersfield and Wasco, California. And then from there, we can see a completely different potential for this living system that is in time and space and in motion, right? This place is the convergence of, it's where water comes down from the Sierra snowpack and it's the furthest watershed of the Western mountain range. towards the ocean and it's like in a valley and so it's the convergence of all of these nutrients and ecosystems and it's a super fertile place as a result right we grow so much food in this one place on the planet and we've just decimated it but we need to go back to this wow what is unique and what is the essence of this place and then what is our role in its evolution and Yeah, we're having very different conversations as a result just of changing that understanding of how we're coming into the room.

SPEAKER_00: 19:33

And so now with year two starting for the group that started last year, let's say the first cohort, what are you changing for them? And then what are the plans for other folks to join?

SPEAKER_02: 19:47

Sure. So year two is really working. I mean, the whole three years is structured. So we're working on our business the whole time you can't work on your thinking in theory right it gets abstract really really fast you always have to be working on concrete reality so our businesses are always the fodder for the work that we're doing and for really our exploration of consciousness and consciousness evolution is one way to see our work but in year two you know the cohort that has already been with us for a year is digging deeply into strategy with their team So they've seen differences in their own minds. And now the question is, how do I now work with the 100 people who work in my company? Now, how do I work with the 40 people who work in my company? And how do I not sound insane while doing it? Like, I went to this retreat and my boss went crazy. So So the challenge of year two is how do we work effectively with our teams? And now that we've seen a glimmer of a new role and direction for our company inside of a living system and a system at work, then how do we bring that into reality? So what's our business strategy? So that's what we're working on together. So we are opening it up for people who are interested to join us and go on a three year journey with us so our cohort two will then this will be their year one but it's not a quite linear path so it's not two separate cohorts we're going to be interweaving them quite a bit and there will be some things that they do separately but most things they'll do together

SPEAKER_00: 21:44

and I mean you don't have a wish list there but do you have like a I'm saying a type of person or some like wish list you would love to apply in the second cohort or this year that starts this year? Not saying a processor or anything like that, but are you missing or would you like to dive deeper into a certain persona or something in this work?

SPEAKER_02: 22:13

Yeah, again, I think that people have to feel that call. I think one of the biggest detriments in the regeneration movement right now is people's saying, oh, no, no, no, I got it. What we're doing is regenerative and not being willing to question where you're coming from. Is there something to learn? Question your own thinking. And so if you've already got it, this probably isn't for you. But if you feel some inkling that you would like to be more effective in the way you're working, then this is definitely for you. And I think to more specifically answer your question, I think I think that really any aspect, someone who's leading any aspect of the food system would be appropriate. So it could either be I'm leading a processing effort or I'm a retailer or I'm a brand or I'm a farm or I'm a distributor. It's a very specific role in the food system. Or I think that this can also be appropriate for folks who are working across the food system. So they're playing a role across many stakeholders. Like we have certifiers in the room, right? And they're playing this role across many stakeholders. So I think it's, again, it's like, it's for the world.

SPEAKER_00: 23:37

But only come if you're called, yeah. If it's a calling, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:42

But I think it's that calling piece really has to be there. That you're seeing the realities of modern business are undermining your ability to evolve food systems So that they can nourish all life. And we have that in us, right? Humans have opposable thumbs, and we can move mountains, we can dig ditches, we can change waterways. We're the only species that can do that on such a massive level. And we can use that power to nourish the systems of which we're nested within, or we can use that power to degenerate and to extract. And, you know, I think that we're going in that, unfortunately, direction. that direction right now

SPEAKER_00: 24:56

as a what is the term super keystone species i think and in the general like you made a small comment on that the general let's say the regeneration movement you've been part of it partly founded it and and definitely have been observing um what what has been your main observation of the last year like we talked a year ago plus actually and has I mean it's what is your lay of the land as where we are in the regeneration movement or what has been weird surprising interesting is it or is it a bit the same as a year ago hasn't it shifted too much of course we're just at the beginning of a war year I mean we're still there but the world has changed in many cases

SPEAKER_02: 25:46

yeah I think the movement itself I mean I came into this a little over a decade ago as a co-founder of kiss the ground and And we caught on to something that was already happening in the world and helped accelerate it. And, you know, the main narrative that we propagated was soil can sequester carbon, which I think was an important, hopeful message in the face of climate change, where all the messaging at the time was kind of doom, gloom and cut emissions. And so it was like, oh, there's something we can actively do that can bring our carbon cycle back into balance but I think that that's just a fragment of the whole right and what I'm seeing now is both the acceleration of this movement I hear the word regenerative everywhere so there's so many people who are joining it and so many businesses starting and consultancies and there's almost a new one every week it's like oh this is the new regenerative consultancy for sourcing, or this is the new one for X. So it's growing, but I also see this growing dissonance of folks who are thinking about it in this very mechanistic, carbon way, and a smaller subset who are trying to hold the the seed of what regeneration truly is and what it can be.

SPEAKER_00: 28:22

The deeper end of the pool. And is that smaller subset growing? I mean, of course, through the studio, etc. But do you see like with the larger tent growing as well that people naturally at some point go to the deeper end of the pool and go down the really deep rabbit hole that is deeper than cover crops, mixes and direct seeding and holistic management? Or many people just stay in a big tent and mostly talk about soil health.

SPEAKER_02: 28:58

Yeah, I think it's kind of a both and. I think that more and more people are waking up to, oh, regeneration is really about going back to essence and co-evolving and communities finding self-organizing roles within co-evolving towards a regenerative direction. And we are living systems we play roles in them and how do we see our world as alive and emotion and part of it and so there's certainly a growing community that's going there but I think this year we saw every major food company get together at a conference and talk about how regenerative they were and so the tent has grown a lot and with that it maybe it's the same ratio of folks in the deep end and folks in the shallow end

SPEAKER_00: 29:58

yeah that was I was wondering like or does the ratio go down and the deep end just stays the same group which would be a problem like I hope there's a natural evolution of okay you get interested in the topic and a percentage of those people go through a journey and go deeper and deeper and deeper and not through a journey they will always be on a journey and not a percentage it just stays with soil cover and things like that, which is already better than status quo. But yeah, it's, it's, and I'm just wondering, like, is it sort of a natural evolution of people to go deeper and deeper and deeper if they allow it or not? And it's a very small group that just that happy is, is happily floating at the deep end. Um, but somehow we don't get the others to join and they, they want to keep touching the bottom of the swimming pool. And so I don't know if I, I don't know the answer to that. I think we had somebody on, I was talking, Christian, of the whole psychedelic movement now will allow a lot of people to have at least experiences that are part of the whole. So maybe that helps, clicking a lot of these things. I don't know. It's a theory, but an interesting one. So I don't know if that percentage might be... The ratio might go up at some point as we live in interesting times.

SPEAKER_02: 31:12

Well, I think what has been surprising to me in the last year is... I've understood for a while in theory that as humans, we participate in and pull from fields. So this idea that if you realize something that then other people can realize it if we're pulling from the same field. And we are all connected by alive energies and realization is not a linear process. And now I'm actually experiencing it with the studio and, and seeing that, you know, when we think about kind of the shallow end of the pool and the deep end of the pool, and how do we get folks to the deeper end of the pool, we can think really linearly about it. But in reality, it's not how it happens. You and more people do that. And then folks can tap into that field. And so in any moment, someone in the shallow end can leap to the deep end.

SPEAKER_00: 32:32

Or we click the button and you have these swimming pools where you can lower the bottom. No, I'm joking. But it's interesting, which makes a point of it's not like 20 or 30 years ago or a hundred at the beginning of the organic movement. Like this is different times or because sometimes I worry we just repeat that and then we'll be still stuck with the same very very small group that doesn't have the impact it wanted to have so what's the but as if it's a continuous evolution like the consciousness keeps growing meaning that yeah it builds upon all those movements and not just reinvents another nice little bubble

SPEAKER_02: 33:08

I think so yeah and something that has been really fascinating to see is last year right before we launched the studio we did these online interactive zooms so folks could meet us and experience our work and us And the conversation was at a certain level. And then we repeated that same process this year. And we've done a few of the sessions and we have two more coming up. And people stepping in are speaking completely differently than they were last year.

SPEAKER_00: 33:38

Fascinating.

SPEAKER_02: 33:39

And yeah, and so that to me can only be explained through this idea of fields and not through, oh, they've gone through a journey of, you know, Benchmarking from one place to another. I think that the field has grown.

SPEAKER_00: 33:58

Which is very interesting. And thinking what... where to take it. So what would you wish for this? Let's say we're talking a year again, and the group that started last year, so the one that has done the first year and the other one, of course, is melting into that, and now you're going to work on business strategy, you said, et cetera. I'm not saying what would success look like next year, because it might just be unjust. They will continue another year or maybe even after that. But what would you look back to happily or set or that it's been relevant if we talk in a year from now about the second year of the first group.

SPEAKER_02: 34:42

Yeah, so I think, you know, when we first started, everyone kept asking me, well, what's the result of this? Well, what's the result of this? And last year, I honestly kept saying, I don't know, and we're going to do it anyway. And now we're starting to see, what we're starting to see is an end state emerge. So we're starting to see that as a result of folks who are doing this deep work with us, they are now out in the world in their business in their communities with their stakeholders and if they are playing a different role inside the living systems in which they are a part of that will have an impact and that will have a tangible impact and I think that's what we can start to measure is what are the results of these folks working in the systems they're a part of and so then if we look a few years out even yeah I think it's good to be honest about what can happen in a year and what can happen in a decade and this is probably more what can happen in the decade but if we look several years out and say we've had 60 business leaders go through this this deep work with us and and work in partnership with us in this thinking what does that look like in 10 years that's That's... completely different right 60 folks in their own communities playing a role inside of living systems that can transform places and our world very fast and it's not this like how I don't need to work with 50,000 business leaders we can work with 60 to 100 and and change systems and structures all over our planet

SPEAKER_00: 36:46

And... Just very practically, I mean, it's a lot you said as well before, like two hours plus day. Are you going to just pile it on top of each other? Is this going to grow exponentially on the team as well? Or how do you, because that can get out of hand quite quickly.

SPEAKER_02: 37:02

Yeah, we're really looking at, it's both supporting and working with folks for three years and ensuring that the second cohort that comes in gets the same level of support. We're not the same people we were a year ago,

SPEAKER_01: 37:21

any

SPEAKER_02: 37:22

of us. And so we can't just repeat the same quote-unquote curriculum. So people are going to enter where we are now in a way. And so mostly the cohorts will be together, but then we'll have some offerings that are for cohort one that is in their second year and cohort two that's in their first year. It's a bit of a hybrid model so that it also doesn't grow exponentially for our team. And another thing that's happened is the transformation in some ways of the first year of the studio was we started with team and participants. And by the end, we're much more, we're all in this together. And so then our cohort that's continuing will take on new roles with people who are just entering too,

SPEAKER_00: 38:18

right? element project and the other work you do, I don't know, it feels, maybe that's completely wrong, but it feels like there's pressure on that as well. I don't know the climatic situation now in California. I think there were a lot of floodings, but if you look here in Europe, it's going to be another very interesting summer, let's say. So the urgency seems enormous. Do you see there, maybe there, I don't know, the feeling might be there's not a decade, there's more of a year or a season. Do you see that too, How do you deal with that?

SPEAKER_02: 38:52

Yeah, it's both. Things can happen very, very fast and things take time. It's this interesting paradox that I think we all live inside of and need to live inside of. But I see that the pressures of our current climactic realities are creating so much will very, very fast, right? So the Almond Project right now is 160 acres of management inside of a a farm that manages 22,000 acres so this is a small bit of their growing system and you know these fields did not flood because they had cover crops when all the big rains came and that drove a lot of folks in the valley to think about cover crops and I bet next year there will be so many cover crops in the valley just because of that reality right

SPEAKER_00: 39:50

that visual you could see it feel it you can see it

SPEAKER_02: 39:54

you step into the field it's not flooded literally folks in the area had you know one two feet of standing water in their orchards which is really intense um i watched a video there was a video that went viral of someone filling two pickup trucks with a bunch of dirt in the back to make them really really heavy and driving them into a levee that had broken to try to stop the flow of water and you know the conversation on the internet was like, why do you, you just killed those two trucks. Those trucks are now flooded out. They're never going to drive again. It's like, yeah, but look on the right side, there's fields of almond trees that that investment is multimillion dollars. The trucks are, I don't know, 25, 30, 30,000. And so, you know, we're, we're at that level of chaos with the amount of water California got this year after so many years of drought. Um, But I think it's going to drive, you know, necessity is going to drive things really, really fast. And the question on the table is, are

SPEAKER_01: 41:04

we

SPEAKER_02: 41:08

ready? What is the natural living system of this place and how do we farm inside of it? And yeah, I don't, I don't know that that work may take a little time or it might not based on people's will. I'm not quite sure yet.

SPEAKER_00: 41:37

And when you put that on the table, like, I think there's two options, but there's two lineage, like is the response to because of this pressure, but also the pressure could simply mean people really want cover or really go for cover. crops and for the easier it's not easy of course but quote unquote easier incremental change but because of all this pressure do you see there's interest in like a deeper change as well or is it like it's crisis let's fix it or at least let's band-aid it and then then then we have time and space to think about the deeper questions lauren thank you very much

SPEAKER_02: 42:47

yeah i think there's a lot of band-aids running around um And, yeah, and I think that we can reframe our understanding very, very fast too. And so the work that I'm doing, the work that partners are doing, you know, that's the direction we're aiming in is can we reframe understanding as fast as possible so that we can respond in a completely different way.

SPEAKER_00: 43:26

And anything else in the overview you have or the work you do, what you see that you're excited about in the regenerative movement? You're like, wow, I didn't see that coming so fast, or that's a surprise, or that's very deep and relevant and interesting. Because there are not so many people that have followed and worked in it for a decade and are definitely on the deep end of the pool. So what are you excited about? Beyond your own work, of course. I

SPEAKER_02: 43:57

hope. Good question. It's funny, some of the first things that come to mind are a little negative, so that's an interesting track to see. I can tell you what I'm not excited about.

SPEAKER_00: 44:14

We can unpack that as well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 44:17

I think that I'm really excited that the narrative from Soil carbon sequestration to a more holistic view has grown so fast even though it's still more at that deep end of the pool I do see so many conversations that are saying carbon is not the thing we want to measure or carbon is not enough and that's exciting to me because that feels like it's getting closer right it's getting closer to oh this could actually be about seeing living systems as alive and so that's exciting I think that the narrative around this is not new this is the way our ancestors lived on the earth that has grown significantly and I'm really excited about that and I'm excited to see not the same folks in the room all the time um I'm also, you know, whether someone's a representative of a very large food company that's thinking about this in a super mechanistic way or more at that deep end of the pool, I'm just excited that this is growing, right? It's pretty miraculous to see. You know, 10 years ago, there was no such thing as a New York Times article talking about this. regeneration. And now they're everywhere, right? It's kind of commonplace in our news. And even though I know a lot of people are doing market statistics and looking at what percentage of the population understands regeneration, it's like less than 10%. But it just seems like the narrative has grown exponentially. And that means that there's will there. And then the question is, where do we direct that energy? And that's where I get come up with the kind of negative list of all the things I'm not excited about but it's like there is energy here and there's a lot more energy here than there was a year ago or two years ago and it's been exponential in nature and I just hope that we can take you know even if you aren't ready for the three year deep dive can you at least take some moments to pause and say what am I really being directed by and what do we really want to bring into it existence instead of this like incremental change that it's just kind of like riding a stationary bicycle or something.

SPEAKER_00: 47:05

And do you see the same growth in attention, et cetera, on the ground as well, like within farmer communities as a lot of this hype is, I'm not saying mainly, but it's definitely within larger companies, within a lot of bubbles, but not necessarily, I mean, unless it touches the ground, not too much going to change. So do you see that in your work on the ground as well, a changing interest from a year or 10 years ago into regeneration as a whole?

SPEAKER_02: 47:39

Certainly. There's a lot of conversations. And I can really only speak to the farming communities that I'm a part of and am in relationship to, and those are all in California. But what I'm seeing here is It went from, oh, weird, what are people in the city talking about to, whoa, I think there's something here. And my favorite, you know, a favorite pattern that I'm starting to see happen a lot is when we first start working with a producer and we say, hey, this company or this fund is going to help you implement these soil health practices and we want you to try them. Are you willing to do that? They're like, yeah, yeah, cool. Okay, let's try it. And there's a heavy dose of skepticism. And then it's so cool to see this moment when it transitions to this works and I don't care if you're funding it or who buys it or who tells me I should do this thing. I'm going to do this thing anyway. And so there's this moment where it goes from skepticism and interest to, oh, I'm going to do this thing. Yeah, caring for my soil has all these different benefits. And then from that caring for my soil place, I think that we can then get to how is this farm an ecosystem? And we're certainly not there yet with a lot of producers in California. But yeah, I see a lot of buzz and a lot more people trying. And then there's, yeah, there's this cool moment where it goes from, I'm trying this because I'm skeptical and I'm going to prove you wrong. to, oh, this kind of works.

SPEAKER_00: 50:07

And on the negative side or the challenges side, where do we expect the biggest pushback or what narratives are? I mean, I see some around organic and feeding the world. There's, of course, a lot of discussion on whatever shape and form rewilding takes. There's a lot of on the input side and the chemical side. What are, for you, the main, not saying barriers, but potential landmines, or let's say, you know, let's say lineage of distraction in this space that, or is it actually relatively focused on the positive or on the potential with different levels of depth or different levels of lineage? Or is there also, I'm not saying the big evil, but like who's pushing back the most on this? Is it, yeah, what is the strongest pushback you get? Sorry, it's a very long question. I'm formulating it in my head as we speak. I'm going to get emails about this. I'm sorry, everyone. Very long question. We're not editing. What's the biggest pushback you see or you feel?

SPEAKER_02: 51:15

I must admit that I'm pretty deep down the rabbit hole, and so I often don't see kind of forces that are pushing against the movement itself. But I think it's easier for me to answer that question from within the movement. I think the things that scare me are when we label things regenerative as a binary yes-no. We are totally killing... the potential in an instant because we're propagating this idea that you can, it's like you can be good or bad, you can be regenerative or not. And it's just not true. Regeneration is a process. And if we cannot see it as a process, then we have maybe no hope of seeing our world as alive and in motion and us playing a role inside of living systems. And so I think that this movement is going to struggle a lot in marketing and in the marketplace. And all the narratives coming out with, hey, I have regenerative X, I have regenerative apples, I have regenerative cotton. It's like, give me a break. It's just, it's not true. And you're not being honest about what is really happening in a dynamic living system. And so I think we're going to struggle a lot with storytelling. I get really scared. And maybe this is kind of answering the like force for the outside. I get scared about the wolf in sheep's clothing efforts, like chemical companies that sell inputs that are now really working on how do we genetically engineer or how do we engineer products that will accelerate soil carbon sequestration. It's like, oh, cool. Now we're going to engineer microbes? Yeah. Yeah, there's no unintended consequences that could come from that. Great idea, keep going. I mean, come on, that is scary. And so I think these fragmented efforts where large companies are seeing a marketplace position for themselves but are coming in with an extremely mechanical mindset and messing with one fragment of our living world, that's scary. Yeah, those are two of the things that I'm most concerned about right now.

SPEAKER_00: 53:53

but it doesn't sound, I mean, they definitely get some attention, but somehow it seems like maybe it's not big enough yet or not too much of a threat for some forces, but the pushback doesn't seem to be, interestingly enough, the pushback seems stronger on the organic side or the certified organic. And there's a lot like, which maybe is a nice distraction for a lot of the work that's happening on the ground, but let's keep talking about that. And then we do the real change on the ground which is fine but it's in I don't know we there's another conversation to be had there too or it's yeah I don't know sorry go ahead

SPEAKER_02: 54:33

you will just to this organic point I you know I've spent some time putting myself in the shoes of folks who have been in the organic movement for decades and when the organic movement started there was the world was really right chemical farming was going to take over the planet and we had no hope of any alternative and so that movement we wouldn't be here having this conversation if the organic movement hadn't gained so much ground and so there's this energy in the organic movement of us against the world and I think it continues to today and it's like can you imagine being 30 plus years into a movement and then someone saying yeah yeah that's irrelevant we're gonna go do this other thing

SPEAKER_01: 55:30

and then

SPEAKER_02: 55:30

we're gonna we're gonna go do this other thing that that commercial conventional farmers are gonna try to co-opt and get involved in it's like oh my god I

SPEAKER_00: 55:45

get that

SPEAKER_02: 55:46

feeling

SPEAKER_00: 55:47

but it's interesting to see the somebody's I don't remember who said it but like how much attention this wave of regeneration has gotten compared to organic. Of course, it's a wave that builds on top of the organic because we wouldn't be here without it. But you get a lot of faces that suddenly they go, okay, I'm going to be annoyed in the corner of the room. Why are these newbies getting so much attention? Of course, this is not... But it's interesting to see it. And it's also interesting to look at the origins of a lot of the organic movement, which is very regenerative if you look at the basis. Like it's really soil and maybe not regenerative business side. And so now, I mean, we know what happened to organic, but it didn't break out of the 6% or break out of certain bubbles. And so I'm wondering, what can we learn from that? What can we understand? What pitfalls can we avoid? Maybe there's a certification pitfall and other things that made it very political. But I'm just saying, it's also nice. All the discussions of organic feeding the world at It's a nice distraction from the regeneration movement that just keeps happening on the ground. But there's a lot of discussion, of course, of big input companies suddenly using the term regenerative and doing regenerative chemical fertilizer. I'm like, yeah. But I'm also wondering, does anybody take that seriously? They can say it, but it just makes you look even sillier than... Do people really believe that? Or I really wonder if we take ourselves too seriously that... people follow those kind of lineages or just laugh at it i hope at least

SPEAKER_02: 57:28

i think some people are finding value in it which is scary

SPEAKER_00: 57:32

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 57:33

but back to this organic thing i just wanted to share that i it's almost like there's a necessary energy of this moment inside of agriculture and whether we call it regenerative or not i think maybe the back to the folks in the deep end of the pool who are are really deeply engaged with living systems and and non-mechanistic thinking you know maybe we've already lost this word and now we're going to come up with a new word but

SPEAKER_00: 58:05

it depends on the on your language like in many places i think in france and the spanish speaking if you look agroecology i mean you don't find anything regenerative if you go deep any original agroecology farmers wouldn't probably even call themselves organic but pretty sure they're regenerative or they're on a regenerative journey for sure and so it also really depends of course there's a very yeah nor global north english language discussion we're having and

SPEAKER_02: 58:31

many

SPEAKER_00: 58:32

places it's a very different discussion but it's about the same concepts

SPEAKER_02: 58:35

yeah but i think so if we kind of hold the the language loosely if we look at the energy of this moment at least in a u.s context which i'm most familiar with we have a Farms, to me, commercial farms have been so innovative. Do you know what it takes to grow crops inside of commodity pricing? I mean, every time I look at commodity pricing, I'm like, that is impossible. And then you see farms growing crops and you're like, wow, you have really figured out how to work inside of this very limited business model. You've figured out how to farm with very few humans. You've figured out how to farm with machines. and be super efficient. And then if you look at organic folks, kind of the majority of that community, leave aside the folks who are really agroecologists and kind of on the far end of the spectrum, the bulk of that community has figured out how to farm really without toxic chemicals. So they're still using chemicals, but they're less toxic, right? And so they rely really heavily on tillage. And then you have on the conventional side, folks who have figured out, oh, this tillage is really killing all the earthworms and destroying fungi. And so they've really innovated on not tilling. And these two communities do not talk to each other. It's insane. Like the division between organic and conventional, it's like a giant wall in between. And so I think that the energy of this moment requires these communities to come together And I think that's why people are latching on to regenerative agriculture, quote unquote, is they're seeing, oh, there's a tent that organic growers and conventional growers can come and talk to each other and finally be on the same team and say, oh, well, I know how to not till. Oh, well, how do I reduce that chemical? And they can finally talk about, it's like, oh, no, no, no, this is about soil health. We set a new direction, right? We set a new goal, a new direction. And folks can come to the table under that and say, well, this is what I understand. And what do you understand? And I think that that coming to the table is really, really needed. And I think that's the energy and why this movement is growing so fast.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:06

I think it's a good moment to end this conversation. I want to thank you so much for coming back and checking in on the Renourish studio, of course, and your work with White Buffalo Trust and in general on the regenerative movement and or regeneration in general and what you've seen, observed and found surprising, challenging, interesting, funny and more. So I hope to do this again with the next cohort or in a year from now when you've probably you have a lot of other lessons learned and observations from your work in the deep end of the pool.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:42

Thanks, Cohen. It's such an honor to be here and have these conversations and have you be willing to continue to have them. And yeah, I think if anything, this movement provides hope for me that as humans, we can wake up and see our unique role that we can play as tenders of Thank you so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:30

Thanks again and see you next time.