Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
302 Jonas Steinfeld – The many shades of green of agroforestry systems
A conversation with Jonas Steinfeld, a researcher and consultant based in Brazil specialising in agroforestry systems, about the many different levels of complexity in agroforestry. Does complexity lead to more or less work? Does complexity lead to more or less carbon storage, and why? And are complex agroforestry systems more profitable? The scientific world has been quite clear up until now that adding more complexity to agriculture, especially with perennials like trees, almost always makes massive environmental differences. So what is holding us back? Why aren’t we planting trees everywhere?
Learn from one of the leading scientists studying agroforestry systems in Brazil, the global hotspot and epicentre of agroforestry. After more than four years of PhD researching the many different levels of complexity in agroforestry, what conclusions can we draw?
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Learn from one of the leading scientists studying agroforestry systems in Brazil, the global hotspot and epicenter of agroforestry. After more than four years of PhD research studying the many different levels of complexity in agroforestry, what conclusions can we draw? Does complexity lead to more or less work? And does complexity lead to more or less carbon storage, and why, and are complex agroforestry systems more profitable? Carbon storage, and why, and are complex agroforestry systems more profitable?
Speaker 1:The scientific world has been quite clear up till now Adding more complexity to agriculture, especially perennials like trees, almost always makes massive environmental differences. So what is holding us back? Why are we not planting trees everywhere? This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast Investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems, while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume, and it's time that we, as investors big and small and consumers, start paying much more attention to the dirt slash soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community and so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you. If our work created value for you and if you have the means and only if you have the means consider joining us. Find out more on gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg. That is, gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg, or find the link below Welcome to another episode today with researcher and consultant based in Brazil, specialized in agroforestry systems.
Speaker 1:Welcome, jonas, hi hi Koen, nice to be here. And we I mean, you know the drill. You've listened to the podcast. We always start with a personal question and, of course, in this case, it's super relevant. You just spent four years deep dive into research which we're going to unpack, but how did you end up spending most of your awake hours, let's say, focusing on soils and, in this case, also trees?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was actually not a really straight path.
Speaker 1:I would say that's usually the case in the podcast, so go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I did actually my bachelor in international business. I always had a sort of passion for the outdoors and gardening, but I thought it was impossible to make money with that. So I started international business but never really ended up working with that, because I did an exchange semester in Brazil in that time and I really fell in love with the country and the culture and so right after my bachelor I went back to Brazil and was looking for a job and while I was doing that I thought, okay, I could start just do some voluntary work instead of doing nothing while I was looking for a job. And so I ended up at an NGO who was working with urban farmers so that was really in the periphery of Sao Paulo and well, they ended up offering me a job and a visa and so I started working for two years with urban farmers. That really got me into farming. Then I did courses on agroforestry and then I did a master in agroecology and eventually a PhD specializing on agroforestry systems and soils.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, it was a journey of 10 years now. And what made you decide to go into the agroforestry piece? Because in urban farming it usually isn't super present, because there's limited space and sometimes limited time on, sometimes on roofs, sometimes on limited plots, etc. I mean, Brazil is the epicenter, I think, of agroforestry in general, so it's difficult not to go in agroforestry, but still you could have stayed in urban farming. Happily, there's enough work to do there for the next decades. So what drew you to the trees?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really what you said. Brazil is kind of the epicenter of agroforestry, and 2016 there was sort of a big um, yeah, sort of a hype with some videos that were launched by uh, cousin of the talker and and centropic agroforestry, and so, yeah, I was already sort of into this area and then I got got to meet some agroforestry farmers and that's when it really took off for me and to me, once you really immerse yourself into it, there's not really a way to get out of it again. So, yeah, I'm with it ever since and actually here I live on a homestead where we also plant some agroforestry ourselves and, yeah, it's really most of my wake hours dedicated to it and what draw you so much like?
Speaker 1:why? Why do you say, once you emerge yourself, you really cannot unsee it, or unsee the potential, or unsee the like? How did you, um like, what song do the trees sing that is so strong that you cannot escape anymore?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think we are in this. So in farming we are in this constant battle between nature and humans, and in agroforestry it really comes together. So you see that all these natural elements that trees heavily represent, but they're planted in rows and they are managed, and you have actually all this productivity from these systems coming as well, and so it's just like a very, very good marriage, and the evidence is also very strong. So, once I got into the science of it, there's still a lot to do, but there's also already a huge pile of evidence that that speaks to it.
Speaker 1:So they are just very good arguments and and when you talk about the science piece and your decision actually to to go deeper and deeper into that, what? What drove that? Was it like, oh, we need need more science in aquiferistry, or was it? I'm really interested to discover the science or I have big open questions that I want to explore, because you could have stayed in consultancy or you could have done well and kept yourself busy, and instead you dove deep into the science piece for the last six, seven, eight years. What made you do that?
Speaker 2:because it's not the easiest path, let's say to to research complex agroforestry systems yeah, of course, I think what any scientist needs is a very, very big chunk of curiosity.
Speaker 2:I enjoy reading scientific papers, and not everyone does that that helps yeah, it helps a lot and um, but in fact when I was offered this phd position, I I was I had actually just finished my business plan for our own little farm here, so I wanted to to actually grow blueberries and agroforestry here, and so I was really struggling which one to choose, and eventually I chose this scientific path Because there is a lot of research on agroforestry, but agroforestry is also such a it's actually an umbrella term for so many different ways of how you can integrate trees, and in fact, 74% of all the research that's being done that has been published so far in agroforestry is on systems that only contain one tree species, and so a lot of the scientific research so far has really only gone into very so more than three, almost three quarters, is kind of very simple.
Speaker 1:Not saying it's easy, but very simple, not very complex agroforestry system, which means arable, probably, and and a row of trees, one type exactly.
Speaker 2:And so there is still quite a knowledge gap on on what do more complex systems and they don't have to be extremely complex, but I mean, even if you integrate three, four trees, it's already more complex. And so I saw this knowledge gap and, yeah, it just triggered me a lot to contribute, feeling that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially if you've been working and seeing the centropic side of things in agroforestry, which is at the extreme end, I think, of the spectrum, and I mean two, three species is where it starts, in less than half a meter probably, and then it continues to be more and more complex. And so what did you decide to study? The PhD that you just finished congrats with that, by the way what was the aim to uncover? What was the aim to double-click on?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the aim quickly turned out to be looking at this whole spectrum indeed. So agroforestry systems can go from very, very simplified all the way up to highly complex, almost looking like a natural forest, but then there's also all these sort of shades of green, and here in Brazil, since agroforestry is actually going quite strong here, we have very good examples of all these, this whole gradient of complexity, all these increasing levels of complexity, and so what we did was we were able to look at the relationship between this complexity and the ecosystem services. In the end, we asked ourselves how complex do they have to be to really deliver a lot of the benefits? And then, something that was also very important to me, because it came back in all the conversations I had with farmers, was the labor requirements. So how much, how much more work does it take to to manage increasingly complex systems? And so that was what my, my phd was about in the end, which are fundamental.
Speaker 1:Because when you talk to entrepreneurs and investors, and especially in, of course, the heavily industrialized countries that are not the epicenter of agroforestry, the first question is labor and the other question is how do you manage complexity?
Speaker 1:And everybody can I'm not saying everybody can see, but can sort of understand. More complexity probably leads to more beneficial environmental outcomes. More complexity probably leads to more beneficial environmental outcomes. But how do you integrate, how do you manage and how do you even begin to touch that? And for people to understand, like the different shade of green that you mentioned, just to make it a bit visual, as we are in an audio medium, of course, if we had to describe it in as many words as you need and what, what you see, what you smell, a few different examples of farms that you study, just for people to have a mental image of what you talk about in like different levels of complexity, we can start at the complex one or at the less complex one, whatever you you prefer, but just to walk us through um in an audio piece. So I invite everybody to close their eyes and see where Jonas takes us in Brazil.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's start with a simplified agroforestry example where you can basically imagine a pasture with cattle on it, just a normal pasture as you're used to, and then every 30 meters there's one row of eucalypt trees or some other species of fast-growing timber tree, and the cattle they just roam in between these rows of trees. And then a bit more complex system would be that these rows, they come much closer to each other, so you might still have a grass strip, but then this grass strip is only 5 meters wide and then there are trees and these tree rows. They then typically have not just one species but several. And as soon as you get several different tree species, you also get several different heights, because every tree species has its own architecture right.
Speaker 2:So they all have different crowns, they grow at different speeds, they reach different heights, and so in sort of medium complexity systems, you would maybe have three different trees, one being very low, sort of bushy, and then a medium layer and a very, very tall emergent tree layer. And so the whole agroforestry system already looks much more forest-like, with different layers but still planted in straight rows and designed for efficient management. And if we go to a very, very complex system, then at first sight it might look like a real forest. Actually, in fact, it sometimes took me a while to see the rows in these very complex systems, but actually all of them that I work with they were planted in rows but then they are really close to each other. So one and a half to three meters and you would have five to ten or even more species. So you have many, many layers and they come at. At some point they become almost indistinguishable. But really the whole space is filled up with tree biomass, often in a very low layer.
Speaker 1:you would have maybe some coffee, which is more bushy, and then all kinds of fruit trees and biomass trees, all growing close to each other at different layers, which begs the question what about competition? And why is this complex? Or is the fuller layers? Why is that?
Speaker 2:at least from an ecological perspective, better. Yeah, competition is something that of the farmers take into account, but they especially those more complex systems. They are different life cycles, they have different demands. So if all the tree species will have the same growth cycle, the same nutrient demand at the same point in time, then of course you will expect them to compete. But since they are all a bit different, they all take up nutrients at a slightly different moment in time, and actually there are also a lot of symbiosis going on through soil organisms like fungi and bacteria, and so one way to manage this potential for competition is to really use this diversity.
Speaker 2:And another one is that they actually prune a lot. So they actually when they integrate eucalypt trees with other crops. Eucalypt trees grow very fast, so they might easily shade out excessively your crops, and so what they do is they really cut the whole top of the tree, they pollinate it at five meters height, for example, and then they use all this biomass from this pruning as a mulch for the crop. So actually, what the eucalypt tree does it takes up a lot of nutrients, takes up a lot of water, but also, from deeper depth, puts these nutrients and water in its biomass, and then they cut this biomass and use it sort of as a fertilizer for the crop.
Speaker 1:So this is another way how you can basically turn competition into facilitation through this management and you're basically planting fertilizer then and taking it from greater depths and making it more available.
Speaker 1:It seemed like a crucial piece, like the amount of how often you prune and how often you mulch and you mulch on on a field, also for the environmental outcome, um, and just for people, I think, to understand like there's not a set pie like this if you manage complex agroforestry systems, it grows more biomass in total of different species that you might be able to use, facilitate, etc. But there is, it's not that we have a fixed okay, we can grow 100 x of biomass and and that's it, so we have to. So there's a very interesting, I think, psychology concept there that we have to overcome, um to, to be able to see the potential there. And then we had these three different systems. Of course, there are many shades in between from the environmental perspective, and then we get to the finance and the time, of course. But what did you see and discover? And research on the environmental outcomes in terms of biodiversity, carbon, of course, the usual suspects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we looked at a lot of soil indicators to measure the environmental benefits and, first of all, we could really confirm that there is this very solid relationship between this complexity and the amount of carbon stored in the soils, the nutrient cycling capacity, water regulation All these ecosystem services have quite a solid statistical relationship with this complexity.
Speaker 2:But there was another factor that was really important and that was the soil type. What we could see very clearly is that on the very sandy soils that we were actually quite lucky to have this variety of soils also in our sample, and we could see that on the very sandy soils the effect of this complexity was very strong. So there was a very big difference between a simplified system and a highly complex system. Now, this difference on a very clay soil was not that big. So that means that the relative effect of this complexity on clay soil is weaker, and that's actually very interesting because these clay soils especially here in Brazil, they are considered the most fertile soils. They also have naturally sort of more resilience against droughts, against degradation in general, and the sandy soils are really the vulnerable ones, vulnerable to climate change, to droughts, to losing nutrients. It's actually quite interesting that we see that there, on these vulnerable soils, agroforestry really makes a big difference, and there you actually. To get the full benefits, you really need to go complex.
Speaker 1:And so how strong was that potential? Of course I'm not saying we all, but many people live in a carbon funnel. What did you see there in terms of the single not the single focus on carbon, but in terms of potential, let's say, agroforestry potential in carbon sequestration and storage, and how permanent, etc. What have you seen there? Also, in the sandy ones Is it potentially a meaningful part? Of course, it depends what the sandy soils were. Is it potentially a meaningful part? Um, of course it depends what the sandy soils okay, we're doing before or were planted with before. But from the carbon perspective, what? What have you seen? Uh, what have you seen there?
Speaker 2:yeah, we really dig quite deep into the carbon aspect and, in fact, not all carbon in the soil is the same.
Speaker 2:Especially in the last 10, 15 years, there has been quite a paradigm shift in soil science on carbon and it's becoming ever clearer that there is carbon that is really very stable in the soil and there is a fraction of carbon that is much more labile, and we looked at both of these fractions and one thing that is very important in the soil to fix the carbon is actually the clay inside the soil, and so sandy soils by nature have very little clay, and so it's very different difficult for sandy soils to actually store a lot of carbon in the long term, and what we could see is that this increasing complexity really increases the carbon stocks in these sandy soils, and particularly in this stabilized fraction, which was actually not what I expected, the one we care about, yeah, yeah because I thought well, in these agroforestry systems there's a lot of biomass cycling, so a lot of carbon inputs, but I thought that most of that would actually stay in this lay-by fraction and not necessarily get stabilized, because there's really so much cycling going on.
Speaker 2:But it was quite the opposite. Actually, we could see that this stabilized fraction was benefited almost more than the labile fraction from this complexity, and so even in sandy soils there was quite a significant increase in the stable carbon stocks, and that's really important for long-term carbon sequestration.
Speaker 1:So it's quite a so. Complexity leads in this case, and sends these soils to more stable carbon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and we really digged into why this could be and what we saw is that because we also analyzed this litter layer, so all this mulching we took a lot of samples from this mulch layer and especially in the more complex systems where farmers also prune the trees, you get a lot of leafy inputs but also a lot of very woody material going into the soil the eucalyptus you mentioned before.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, eucalyptus and other species. And in terms of nutrients, this more woody part of thicker branches is not that rich for nitrogen, phosphorus etc. But it has a lot of calcium and what we could see is that this calcium was actually playing a very crucial role in stabilizing the carbon in the soil, because most of the carbon substrate in the soil has a negative charge, and also the soil minerals that it needs to bind to in order to be stabilized. They also have a negative charge and, if you remember chemistry lessons, negative and negative don't go well together, so they need this positively charged elements to sort of bridge these two, and the calcium is really good at playing this role.
Speaker 1:Calcium is a divalent cation, so it's it's very positively charged, and this these woody inputs really provide a lot of calcium that can then help stabilizing the carbon in the soil so the woody pieces from the pruning which you need to do in a complex system, otherwise they're going to create too much shade, for I mean, you need to manage the system very actively. Actually mulching on site and and layering on top, and then, of course, getting absorbed at some point helps. It's the crucial piece, or one of the crucial pieces, to stabilize a lot of this carbon in a much more stable form, which is what we all want. And so it's basically you're doing sort of direct air capture through trees, but not in the tree itself, because the carbon is in the tree as well, but you mulch it and then allowing the soil to start absorbing more carbon and stabilizing and storing it semi-permanently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean there's still so much we can unpack. I mean, how much of this carbon sequestration is actually due to fungi?
Speaker 1:I mean the big paper came out last year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and these farmers they also pile up this much, really under the tree row, so you get really quite a massive layer of mulch in some of these systems, and that also means that a lot of co2 is actually being going back to the atmosphere. But it goes back to the atmosphere underneath this multilayered canopy, and so I'm actually also wondering is there actually a CO2 fertilization effect on the plants? Because plants, in fact, they do benefit from higher co2 contents in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1:what we do in greenhouses, basically, and sort of. You create your own shaded greenhouses. In greenhouses you actually inject co2. That's very interesting, but there's still a lot of research that could be done. How would you research that? Like like with a sniffing tower, like with different sniffing vehicles all the way up, so you can see how much co2 gets absorbed, like in the, in the five, six, seven, ten, twenty meters all the way up, or something? How do you? How would you do?
Speaker 2:yeah, there are these towers? And and then, of course, you also have to analyze leaves.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, it would be quite a nice project so the coffee branches get like a full shot of co2 coming from below, basically yeah yeah, and then looking at the time aspect, because this sounded all like a lot of work, um, and especially compared to 30 meter rows with one type of tree that's not being mulched or pruned at all until the tree is being harvested. Like you looked also at the timing side of things, how did that differ between, let's say, the three main like? It's very simple, medium, complex and highly complex?
Speaker 2:yeah. So actually we did a lot of interviews with the farmers and very detailed questionnaires about how many hours they spend on which tasks. So tasks like, of course there's pruning and there's mulching, but also harvesting, pest control, weeding, and so what we could see is actually, if you imagine this full gradient going from simple to complex, and then we always compare that to a monoculture. So if somebody was growing avocados in agroforestry, we compare that to avocado in monoculture, or coffee or any other crop what we could see is actually the more simplified systems. Often they spend less time than the monoculture reference, but then, as we move to the right on this complexity gradient, we see that the overall time investments are actually higher than in a monoculture.
Speaker 2:At the same time, in these very complex systems they spend less time on weeding and less time on pest control than in monocultures. So they spend much more time pruning and mulching than in monoculture, but they spend less time on spraying and hoeing, ripping out weeds, and so it also changes a bit the quality of work, I would say. But of course it's one of the biggest issues for the farmers of these complex systems is that it takes more labor for this pruning and mulching, and here in Brazil and in the southeast of Brazil, brazil, they have difficulties finding people to do that, so it's one of the big issues. But at the same time, in these more simplified systems, I think it's also quite interesting to see that they often spend less time.
Speaker 1:So it's not so. There's sort of a dip like if you go from monoculture to simple agroforestry, actually you spend overall in total less time. So it's not so. There's sort of a dip like if you go from monoculture to simple agroforestry, actually you spend overall in total less time, while you do have different crops, or you at least have one, three species, which is fascinating yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's not like a straight line and as soon as you add one more species it means you have more work. So, um, yeah, that's. That's actually quite interesting and I think more to unpack there and and on the labor side, what do you see?
Speaker 1:I mean, an obvious answer would be robotics, machinery. Um, as we've done in the monoculture side, because it's probably why partly people spend less time um, do you see that those discussions and conversations starting to get concrete, let's say in terms of if we cannot find the hands to do it, how do we replace the hands with other things?
Speaker 2:Indeed, there are actually efforts to build robots that can perform a lot of tasks in multi-layered agroforestry systems, also in the us, like soft robotics experiments. At the same time, I have to agree with one of your previous podcast guys who said we are still in the stone age of in that case I think it was organic agriculture, because I think there's still so much we can actually also improve in the design of these systems, also in training personnel to become more efficient at these tasks. Machinery that doesn't necessarily have to be robotics can also be a bit more simple but adapted to the more narrow spaces that usually happen in agroforestry. And so I think there's still so much we can do. And I mean, even if you increase efficiency in these biomass management tasks by, let's say, 30%, you would already get quite close to a monoculture, because in fact you do spend less time on other tasks. So I don't think it's actually super hard to bring that down a bit.
Speaker 1:How would you do that? What are the biggest levers to improve that productivity in biomass? Is it getting from a machete to something? How do you? How do you speed up mulching and pruning?
Speaker 2:yeah, so here in brazil the palmists are also already evolved quite a bit.
Speaker 2:So what they do in these agroforestry systems often is, of course there are three rows, but then if your focus is on three crops, then then they use the space between rows, so these inter-rows to plant cover crops or grasses, and so in the beginning, those grasses they might have chosen species that invade the tree rows, and so you would have to weed them and mow them all the time.
Speaker 2:Then they chose a different species of bunch grasses, and these grasses are actually very productive, but they don't spread, so they actually stay in that place where you plant them, and so that already eliminates a lot of additional labor. And then what farmers mostly do is mow them with brush cutters, so that's still quite a manual task, and now they're developing. If you walk behind tractors that cut the grass with a sickle bar and then already throw it on the side, I've seen it, yeah, to be placed underneath the tree row to work as a mulch, and so this, this evolution, is going on, and I think it's definitely not receiving enough investment, but it could definitely give some substantial gains to efficiency, and then, yeah, I think it wouldn't take too much to get more competitive, at least.
Speaker 1:And is that what is holding it back at the moment? Or what is holding agroforestry to spread further in Brazil and understand these soils as they might be the ones most at risk, but also globally? What do you see as really big barriers? Is it productivity? Is it simple attention and research as well? Um, but what is holding agroforestry, forestry back? Complex agroforestry?
Speaker 2:yeah, of course. Unfortunately, there's still a number of factors. Um, so you asked about research, so the the research on the environmental benefits is very strong. I don't think we need much more research on that, to be honest. Case closed Well, not case closed. There's still a lot of very interesting things to discover, but there's a very strong evidence base already. What there isn't is I think we still need some more research on the economic performance and how can you actually choose the right crop combinations, because it's not any crop combination that will work well both in terms of ecology and and economically as well, and so there we need much more more research.
Speaker 2:And also, what are the factors that actually determine whether an agroforestry system will be a success or not at the farm scale? So at what farm size? Does what type of complexity work well? Access to the markets is a big thing. How can that be improved? Because what I also see a lot is that farmers have three, four different crops and actually achieve quite good productivity, but then they can't sell them at the premium or they have general difficulties to to sell quantities that are. Then, of course, each single crop won't have a huge quantity, so in theory, they they add up to weigh more than a monoculture, but to really? And is that in?
Speaker 1:practice true as well. If you compare like avocado and like the monoculture sort of comparing case you had in the more complex systems, is the total amount of kilos, tons calories? Is that more than a monoculture, as we always hear? But as you say in theory, is that in practice also the case?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there are actually few studies on that, but they actually point to that.
Speaker 1:So the pie is bigger than the pie combined it's bigger than. But selling is not easy of course.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's the thing For these secondary products, tertiary, you actually have often a problem with market access for these farmers and I think a big one is also still really in the heads of farmers. We are so used to monocultures and we are so used to this narrative that the most productive thing is if you only plant one thing. As soon as you add something, everything will reduce in terms of productivity thing and everything will reduce in terms of productivity, whereas really there have been meta-analysis been published in the recent years and they all show the diversification.
Speaker 2:At least the yields remain stable or it actually increases yields, and I think that message still has to arrive in people's heads. And also I think we're getting better at this diversification. So it's not that you can just grow any random crop combination that will actually yield more. That's not the case. There's actually a lot of knowledge that is required to make the right crop combinations, the right agroforestry systems, and, of course, that knowledge is also not available to all farmers yet. But it's also a bit, yeah, paradigm shift really in the minds of people to actually open themselves to this idea, and so these are probably the main barriers so far and and then let's talk about a financial piece which you also researched and and questioned and really went into into that.
Speaker 1:What, what have you seen there on the financial returns, or the financial, let's say, health, health and well-being of the farmers in the different radiance of complexity in agroforestry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I did a couple of things on the financial performance, also doing my master thesis already.
Speaker 2:The thing is that market access is really crucial to make this financially viable, and I often see for example, I looked at a case study in Bahia, in the northeast of Brazil, which has cocoa and acai and dried bananas, and if you only add up the production and the commercial value of it, then it looks really very solid, so even outperforming a little bit monoculture.
Speaker 2:But then if I dig a bit deeper with the farmer and what does he actually manage to sell, then it was much less, because really this market access is a big issue, and that was also the case in some of the farms that I worked with during my PhD. Some of them put a lot of work into processing all these products into more high-value products, but then couldn't really sell them that well. Other farmers didn't even get a premium for their organic products in their local markets, and so then, yeah, conventional prices are really low. It's difficult to make this financially viable with very low prices, and some of them actually the bigger ones where market access was not an issue they are quite financially healthy. But there's more research needed because what these levers each of them contributes, or, for example, market access, or also your input reduction how much that can improve your financial performance. That's still something, actually, that I'm going to look into now in my new research position.
Speaker 1:So really the cash crop side, but also the secondary and tertiary like how do you make sure a diverse agroforestry system can sell for a good price? It's diverse products and not just because if you focus on one crop, obviously you're going to produce less. Um, then a monoculture and almost by definition gonna get access to not so relevant markets, and if you have to sell two or three or four, it becomes extremely complex to get good prices for all of them, let alone premiums and things like that yeah, and I mean it might sound crazy to some people like how can you produce something and then not sell it?
Speaker 2:but actually these farmers they already already have also, for them, the day only has 24 hours and there's a lot of work to do on the farm and then going after the right buyers and markets is really too much for a lot of the farmers. Also, I have to say these pioneering farmers also don't often have the profile needed to be really, really savvy businessman, let's say, because, um, excellent farmers, but uh, yeah doesn't necessarily mean you're an excellent businessman, um, so yeah, these are still some things to to work out and that raises a question actually, how does this knowledge then?
Speaker 1:or how do you see that, as brazil has been a hotspot for agroforestry, like, how does this knowledge spread from the pioneering species let's say, the ones that maybe don't have the profile of a great business person, but definitely are pioneering species that first occupy an area? How does that then move to the next generation of plants? Or, like, if we take an agroforestry system as a metaphor, how does the next, uh, how does it give birth to the next group that might be a bit more savvy on the business side? Um and and but is not so pioneering? Wouldn't have invented these things or wouldn't have developed a lot of this. Have you seen that happening? Is it scaling or growing, or like evolving to other species now in agroforestry space in general in brazil, and what can we learn from that?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think that's definitely happening right now in brazil. So we are moving past this pioneer phase and going to early adopters, and a lot of this spreading of this knowledge is really happening through social media. This spreading of this knowledge is really happening through social media. So that's YouTube channels, that's WhatsApp groups. Whatsapp is a huge medium here in Brazil, not only for direct communication, but also groups where more general content is shared, and this is quite powerful here in Brazil, and I also see it's basically across the country really sort of like a movement really going on, where, on the one side, you have these slightly more complex agroforestry systems, but then you also have these more simplified systems like integrated livestock crop forestry systems, which were developed mostly by, by state-funded research. So mbrapa is the agency that's very big in this. They are also heavily pushing these systems through extension services, farmer networks, and so it's really happening on several fronts here in Brazil and that's why, also, the uptake of agroforestry systems is quite high compared to most other countries.
Speaker 1:And then do you lose complexity in that transition to, let's say, the early adopters, to maybe larger scale to a certain extent, or you know more entrepreneurial people that that will drop and and is that? No, I'm sorry, let's start with the question do you lose complexity or do you see that compared to the pioneers like oh and the pioneers like oh? But if you don't manage at least 20, 20 different trees, then it doesn't really count.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I personally actually don't think that the sole aim should be to have as much complexity as possible, because really the right degree of complexity really depends on each individual farmer context, and it could be that super complex is the best for a farmer, but it could also be that it's very simplified or something in between that works best, and that's what we should aim for, because even the most simplified agroforestry system is already much more beneficial for the environment than a monoculture.
Speaker 2:And so, and any tree is one, yeah, yes, and at the same time I see there are people entering or starting agroforestry because they're sort of in love with this complexity and really the aim is to have the most complex system and recreate a forest, basically with crops, and that's amazing, but it just won't work for everyone and so I think we shouldn't be dogmatic about it. Has to be at least so many species or this complex. If not, it's not valid. To me, any single tree that's added is already valid and it's really about finding the right degree of complexity for the right context.
Speaker 1:And you could actually actually, by adding a bit of complexity, as we saw before, reduce labor, which is fascinating, I think, for many, for many farmers and um, with the attention, of course, in brazil, or to brazil as well, in terms of um of deforestation. Like any tree helps and helps as well in restoring, any tree helps in moving that space. And so what, what are you doing next? Like what is after the phd? It's there, you say a new research position. Um, you're, are you still not doing? Maybe you did it on the side with your business plan for your homestead, or how is that shaping up? Like, say, homestead versus research position and consultant? How does that work out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a constant search for equilibrium, of course, balancing all these different activities. I've, especially the last two years, really been very, very focused on the research side of things and publishing papers etc. So it really takes basically 100% of your focus. So now I'm also really looking forward to engaging more directly with farmers through consultancies or soon starting up a project in the Amazon, working with farmers and also then monitoring the progress of these agroforestry projects. At the same time, I also have a research position now at the University of Sao Paulo here in Brazil, which is funded by Wageningen University, which is where I did my PhD, and so I'm still going to continue working basically with the same groups that I have been working for in the past, and there the aim is to continue digging deeper, especially now, into the productivity aspects, financial performance of agroforestry systems and the relationship with its complexity. We have this really amazing farmer network now that really represents all these shades of green, and so we want to continue working with them and collecting more data and publishing more on that.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, our own homestead. Here is basically what I do in the weekends Planting more for ourselves, so right now we produce for ourselves of our own food, but of course, not 100%. So this is always my long-term ambition to produce ever more of our own food. Here we have coffee growing, here we have vegetables, we have lots of bananas and quite a variety of crops. So, yeah, I mean it's all stuff that I like to do, so it doesn't feel like it's a trade-off between activities. So that's where I am right now.
Speaker 1:And asking a few questions we always like to ask. Let's say, we do this in the financial heart of Sao Paulo and we have a room full of investors either managing their own money or other people's money through pension funds, insurance companies, et cetera, and we took a deep dive. Of course we had a. We could do it with visuals, so we had a lot of pictures of the different agroforestry systems you researched and we're probably going to plant quite a few seeds in their mind, or seedlings. But if there's one thing you want them to remember after an evening like that, especially one thing you want them to bring to work the next day, what would that be? If there's one seed you can plant in, let's say, the minds of financially minded and focused people that are in charge of dividing resources or focusing resources on certain things.
Speaker 2:I think the main thing is really that agroforestry systems are basically a whole menu of options that go from very simple to highly complex, but there are really so many different combinations that you can do that to then really fit specific contexts and that will give you a lot of environmental benefits and also the economic potential I think is bigger than in most other, let's say, reforestation or other nature-based solutions. So agroforestry is really quite unique in that it combines production and ecology, if you like, and there are so many ways how you can do it, and so basically for any farm, I think there is a perfect agroforestry system Anywhere around the world. I think so. Of course, I can contest that Slightly biased.
Speaker 1:I'm actually pretty sure about that, yes, so of course I can contest that Slightly biased.
Speaker 2:I'm actually pretty sure about that?
Speaker 1:yes, and what would you do if you would be on the other side, if you had a large investment fund? If you had a large investment fund to put to work, let's say a billion euros or a billion dollars I don't know what that's in Brazilian realm but a lot of money to be put to work. So it has to come back at some point with some kind of financial return. I'm not asking for exact amounts, but I'm like are you going to focus mostly on the machinery, the offtake agreements, on investing companies that source from farmers, or in farms itself?
Speaker 2:And what would you focus on if you had a billion to put to work? First of all, I would focus on regions where sandy soils dominate, because this is really where we saw that agroforestry systems are the best option in terms of regenerating these soils and actually sequestering carbon in places where it's very hard to sequester carbon. Then I would certainly also focus more on this machinery aspect, so developing machines that don't necessarily have to be super high-tech, but they are adapted to more narrow spaces, for example, into the specific labor tasks that agroforestry systems have. And then, of course, also this market access thing. So this is where there's a lot of potential to help farmers with, be it in the form of off-take agreements or platforms where buyers and suppliers can be easily matched.
Speaker 1:So these are probably the three biggest things that I would take into consideration and we have been talking quite a bit on the science piece, of course, and on agroforestry. You say there is a lot. And in regen in general, what do you see? I think there's a lot of discussion and green Regen washing going on in the last years, which means we're getting a hype, which is okay because it gets more people into the space. But from the deep science position you have, how do you look at that? How do you look at a lot of the science discussions and, of course, also big companies getting involved, um into, into funding some research, but also trying to strongly hold on to their positions and what? What do you see when you look at the region space in science?
Speaker 2:yeah, in science, the region, even the term regenerative agriculture creates a bit of tension for some people because it's not that well defined and I mean that can also be a benefit, but it sort of competes in the space with sustainable intensification or agroecology or organic agriculture. So these terms for scientists are actually important to get funding, and so sometimes they're a bit hesitant to take up new ones because they have actually developed a portfolio about other terms. But others they pick it up quite quickly to get funding and in the end it's all about how can we make agriculture more resilient, more ecologically beneficial, and so terminology in the end is maybe not the most important thing, but of course it's crucial. And of course there's a lot of greenwashing. For example, these days I had a conversation with another researcher who was working on nitrogen fertilization, so chemical nitrogen fertilizers, and he started talking about regenerative agriculture because he was proposing some technology to fine-tune a bit the nitrogen fertilizer applications.
Speaker 2:Then I was thinking to myself is that really regenerative agriculture?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I don't know what to make out of that. I guess we have to use it to the benefit of the planet and channeling money to the right research, but there have to be some principles that should be uphold, like yeah, one thing that I'm missing a bit in a lot of regenerative agriculture is really the diversification itself. Agriculture is really the diversification itself. So a lot of the fields that are prime examples of regenerative agriculture they just have cover crops, okay, but still, if you visit those fields at any point in time, you will see one single species Doesn't look very different than the conventional field to me, and actually also the science is quite clear that the benefits of diversification really come from integrating more species. So, be it through intercropping, mixing different cultivars or in fact integrating perennial species into fields, and as long as we hail sort of, yeah, just production crop rotation a bit more, or integrating cover crops as sort of the the end goal of regenerative agriculture, then yeah, I don't think we will really get there and like.
Speaker 1:Within the agroforestry space, we always like to ask this question what? What do you believe to be true about regenerative agriculture that others don't believe to be true? This is definitely inspired by John Kemp, but let's ask him even more specifically in the agroforestry space, where do you think differently than, let's say, your colleagues or within your agroforestry bubble?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this bubble is actually quite big and actually entails a lot of different niches, let's say so if it's about the more conventionally minded people, then I think often it's sort of assumed that agroforestry wouldn't work everywhere and that actually this is agroforestry is more for niche products. I think trees can have a very beneficial role in any farming systems.
Speaker 1:Any place, any farming.
Speaker 2:Any place, any farm, and then in the more yeah, very ecological circles, let's say, it's often the opinion that simplified agroforestry systems are not valid or shouldn't be pursued, and that's something where I also disagree. I think simplified agroforestry systems can have a big role, big impact, and of course, they should be complemented with more complex systems, but it really depends on what's best for the individual farmers.
Speaker 1:And as a final question if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing in agriculture and food overnight, what would that be?
Speaker 2:The mindset, the mindset of people. I think we're a bit stuck in this monocultural mindset really. We cannot really envision a world with more diversity if we don't see it, if we cannot open our our inner selves to it, and that's something, I think, that's really holding us back, and I've seen farmers really changing their, their view after visiting the right places, after seeing, yeah, how do?
Speaker 1:you do that? How do you? I mean mindset shifts, we made a full series on it and only scratch the surface and you say visiting the right place at the right time for sure helps what else?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean in the same. So on the one hand, you have these very positive inputs. On the other hand, more and more farmers are really suffering from the negative sides of monocultural systems, and so in the end I guess they both have to come a bit together so that people start to realize, okay, these monocultures are really input-dependent and that can cause a lot of problems in times of crisis especially and then see also these positive examples can cause a lot of problems in times of crisis, especially. And then see also these positive examples. And here in Brazil, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to visit physically a place. Also through social media, here a lot of impact has been generated by sharing videos of agroforestry and interviews, podcasts. So all of that coming together, I think, can work the minds in the right way but it's quite an old narrative.
Speaker 1:I think you highlighted or you mentioned it also in your defense. Like that, we have a potential positive role in ecosystems instead of just slightly less bad and would be better if we actually don't exist. Like this, this beneficial keystone species piece is so foreign to many, even though, if we look back, like most of our landscapes have been actively managed by us for for millennia and probably longer. Um, but somehow we lost that narrative, or lost that role, or lost that, that, not that power, but lost that, that humbleness and also that role itself, and started in this path of okay, if we just do slightly less damage, then maybe we'll be fine, if we get that to zero somehow, then we're okay, or if we disappeared, we'd be better. It's not an easy there's not really a question here it's not an easy mindset to to unlock, I think for at least the heavy, industrialized, uh, educated, um, educated mindset people to get out of that yeah, but I think an underappreciated role in that is also that most of us live in cities.
Speaker 1:We don't even have contact with our surrounding nature, with farmers and for me it was how's it changed for you going from sapado to a homestead?
Speaker 2:yeah, that was actually a huge, because here in brazil we live in the countryside where there's no pipe water there's there's really not a lot of infrastructure, so we had to actually dig our own well. We had to create a sewage system. Here we are growing part of our own food and so all of a sudden my well here is 30 meters from our house and I see all the soil that is actually filtering our water. So I know I have to take care of that soil. This is our water and I see that in the dry season here winter is the dry season the well gets less water, so I should also use less water.
Speaker 2:When I do the dishes in the kitchen, I can actually see the place where that grey water goes, and we planted bananas around it. So I know if I use toxic products, those bananas, they will suffer. So it's a very, very direct connection and so I really feel part of this here. Every time I hear the birds around here or see new insects that I haven't seen before in the agroforestry, I kind of feel a bit like, yeah, I actually created this. I helped this insect to get a new home here. So it's very gratifying and gives you a very direct connection and it really shifted my whole perspective on these things and made them very real. Of course, before I knew all that things like water becomes scars of course it's something that you can understand rationally.
Speaker 1:You can read the paper.
Speaker 2:yeah, If you really live in that context, it gives it another dimension and that, I think, is really important also for this, for this mindset shift.
Speaker 1:And and how would that like? Are you inviting everyone to to leave the city, like, how would you? Depends on the context, obviously, but getting um a bit out of our comfort, the comfortable city that is dependent on all of its surroundings, for all of its infrastructure, let alone food, water, etc. How do you do you see that mindset shift, start to change a bit? We've heard only stories, I think, for the last 20, 30, 40 years. Everyone is going to end up in the city at some point. Um, is there a counter movement?
Speaker 2:do you see that that's starting to to maybe not mushroom yet, but let's say the mycelium is starting to to spread yeah, here in brazil I see that uh it's called novo, so the new rules more and more especially young people with uh also quite yeah, often actually having quite good jobs and they can also work remotely.
Speaker 2:So we also have quite good conditions now actually to move to the countryside, because I can work full-time for a university in the Netherlands from the countryside in Brazil. That's quite amazing and I think we should embrace these opportunities and I see more and more people do that here in Brazil Also. Yeah, in Europe maybe a bit less, but there's certainly also happening this movement, I think, especially in Portugal, and I can only encourage everyone to at least explore this, because it was the best thing I did in my life. It was the best thing we could do for our daughter, for Naomi, who is two and a half years now and all she knows is really this more natural environment, but still we have a lot of the comforts of modern life. I mean, it's not such a trade-off actually nowadays.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I heard the concept, I think it was. It's a Japanese one 50-50, 50%, farmer, 50%, something else, and I think Philippe of Climate Farmer shared it on LinkedIn recently. Anyway, not necessarily, if you split it, it could be other percentages et cetera. But of course, a lot of your other time away from computer will be managing your homestead and managing your surrounding and digging a well and all of that instead of maybe other things the city could do. But you could still do part in part.
Speaker 1:It's not anything that internet, peace and connectivity and remotely changed a lot because you have access to all the, the, the benefits of that, as long as your connection is stable and is there and we record this interview in that way, and while the moment you close your laptop or switch of your computer, you walk outside and you're in in the countryside in brazil, and that's quite different than being in an office somewhere in sao paulo never been, but I can imagine, um, I can imagine the, the difference there. So it's a fascinating piece and it might make this different than all the other waves we've seen back to the land, of course, and and in the uk, quite a few in italy as well, and like, but there's always been this draw and maybe now with connectivity it might be a more permanent one, because there's also the saying the new farmers come and they come by car and they leave by bike because they lost all their money in the way like. It doesn't make necessarily the farming easier, although you can connect with farmers anywhere. Inspiration hopefully sell as well. So let's see if that connectivity piece and technology piece makes it more sticky this time and more, more lasting than the other ways we've seen yeah, I hope so and um, I I see for us it works very well.
Speaker 2:Uh, we actually also have this ambition here to the neighboring piece of land. At some point, maybe create a bigger, slightly bigger community here and and share this also with other families. That would be would be nice is that what you miss?
Speaker 1:like other people like, have you been able to attract? I've heard somebody say I think was a farmer in the us. Somebody asked him what would be the biggest change for you, a region focused farmer, and he said if I had five other families around us or five other people that were on on a similar journey, then I didn't, wouldn't miss any. Anything else like how has it been for you in terms of attracting others? Because we've heard also quite often the countryside has been emptied slowly and has turned into a monoculture as well, even more than the city in some cases, because a lot of people left, people that stayed, think in a certain way, or or are also stuck, like many others. So how has that been in terms of the inter relationship piece, let's say, with neighbors, with I don't have no idea how far they are from you but in terms of community?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's actually quite similar and um, we, especially my wife and I, we would would. Really, this is the one thing that's still missing. It's really that having nice neighbors and a nice community here I mean our neighbors here they're not too far away, they actually also some some of them became good friends, because here in Brazil, I feel like there is still this rural life is not completely like in Europe, I mean this old rural life, which must have been very vibrant communities here in Brazil. That's not completely dead yet, and so you can still find remnants. For example, one of our neighbors has a homestead and has cows and pigs and grows vegetables and everything, while also working off the homestead a lot, and so here you can still connect to that. But at the same time, of course, yeah, young people with a similar mindset is something that we're still lacking here, and also yeah maybe even with kids like ourselves.
Speaker 1:So yeah, this is sort of a mid to long-term project of ours to to try to build that as well to attract some more other pioneering species or early adopters after after you, yeah yeah, I think we're all early adopters by now, so thank you so much and I want to be conscious of your time as well and, um, thank you so much for the work you did and do and, of course, for coming on here to share about it. So, thank you so much and thank you for the time you took to to dive deep uh, of course, a lot of other questions to be answered and to ask to be asked first but to dive deep into the agroforestry piece on complexity versus financial, versus labor, because we need to put a spotlight on this super promising piece, big piece of the puzzle of regeneration.
Speaker 2:Thank you, koen, it was really a big pleasure, thanks.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. For the show notes and links we discussed in this episode, check out our website investinginregenerativeagriculturecom. Forward slash posts. If you liked this episode, why not share it with a friend or give us a rating on Apple Podcasts? That really helps. Thanks again and see you next time.
