Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
328 David Brunmayr - The future of agriculture is small-scale, now let’s build the tools for it
A conversation with David Brunmayr, co-founder of Organic Tools, where they believe the future of agriculture is small-scale, and make the machinery and tools to make that vision a reality. We discuss the enormous advantages of smaller-scale and diversified farming, that make much more ecological sense. It can be energy-positive compared to the enormous energy required to grow food on the current large, industrialised extractive mono land.
So, what is the catch? Hands and usually backbreaking work. Smaller-scale, diversified farms used to rely on a lot of labour, with villages coming together for the harvest. This is no longer possible in many places, so the natural question is: what are the machinery and tools needed to have smaller-scale, diversified farms thrive and not burn out and break their lower backs? Huge, multimillion-dollar combine harvesters and tractors are not going to work.
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The advantages of smaller-scale diversified farming are enormous. It makes much more ecologic sense. It can be energy positive compared to the enormous energy required to grow food in our current large industrialized extractive monoland. Some research shows 13 units of energy mostly fossil fuels in to get one unit of food energy out. Smaller scale can be much more economically sound. Look at the success stories in market gardening. Some take home more than 100k per hectare and, yes, it can also produce more food per hectare and acre. So we can quote, unquote, feed the world. So what's the catch? Hands and usually backbreaking work. Smaller scale diversified farms used to rely on a lot of labor, villages coming together for the harvest, etc. That's no longer possible in many places. So the natural question is what machinery and tools are needed to have smaller scale diversified farms thrive and not burn out and break their lower backs? Huge multi-million dollar combine harvesters and tractors are probably not going to cut it. Mine harvesters and tractors are probably not going to cut it.
Speaker 1: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. That is gumroadcom slash investing in RegenAg or find the link below.
Speaker 1:Welcome to another episode today with the co-founder of Organic Tools. They believe the future of ag is small scale and they make the machinery and tools to make that vision a reality. Welcome, david. Thank you so much. Exciting to be here. I'm really excited for this one.
Speaker 1:And first of all, a shout out to your deck. If anybody hasn't seen that, definitely get in touch If you're interested in investing. Obviously no investment advice, but it's a really good storytelling deck as well that really shows the potential of small scale ag, filled with numbers and with data, with really good visuals, and it talks about the movement of market gardening. We'll get into that, what is missing there in terms of tools and equipment and what you are building. So I really enjoyed going through that.
Speaker 1:I enjoyed seeing you although you didn't see me, I think I saw the demonstration at Groundswell. It really is different to see machinery in person and in field, let's say, and it was fascinating to see a few of your devices there in a stand. So that was really good to see and to dig a bit deeper. So thank you for coming on here and I always like to start with a personal question and from all like how come you spend most of your awake hours thinking about small scale farming and soil and the machinery that needs it? Like, what led you to this quite specific career path? There could be a lot of other easier ones to do, but what led you to to to this one?
Speaker 2:uh, yeah, uh, they could have been definitely more easier ones, I'm sure as well. Yeah, in a way like looking back I think it was steve jobs who said this in a speech you can only connect the dots if you look back and, like one of this moment was definitely as a child. I was very lucky to grow up in nature, outside, like climbing in the trees. We had a small river next to our house river next to our house and I really love to create stuff in the garden and also like building a dam and a pond in the river and I had this like very early on, this lived experience of how it feels to be a keystone species. So I had this pond and then, yeah, the whole ecosystem changed and.
Speaker 2:I was part of this and I felt like a small creator building stuff outside in nature. So, when I look back, this is one of these experiences which definitely made me aware of what's the role of our species and what is able when we collaborate and work with nature.
Speaker 1:And how did you roll into the smaller scale farming side of things, not the small holders, like we're not talking sub-Saharan Africa or East Africa just as important, maybe more important, but the small scale farming movement because I think we can call it a movement in Europe, not talking, uh, sub-saharan africa or east africa just as important, maybe more important, but at a small scale farming movement because I think we can call it a movement in in europe yes, yes, definitely there.
Speaker 2:There are maybe two, two kind of of uh streams. One part was, for sure, like to coming from a legacy of smallholders. Like my grandfather was a smallholder and I think as many people do. I mean we have we've lost around 90% of the farmers and most of them were smallholders. So I think this plays a role.
Speaker 2:And also, after my school, I spent a year in Romania. I did civil service instead of military service, so I lived there in Maramures, in the north of Romania, and it was like traveling back in time and it's this amazing beautiful cultural landscape and really created by smallholders, with a lot of hedges and small fields and all this. Yeah, like you could really feel and smell and taste the landscape there, which is human scale and human scale with small machinery, with forces, and I was there like 20 years ago and of course, it changed now, but it gave me the impression of how landscape should look like and also this love for cultural landscape and this interconnection of people and and nature, people and landscape and then you came back to austria and we're like, uh, this is a bit different, or what happened after?
Speaker 1:because it could be, could have been your civil servant experience. Great, I will go into I don't know consulting job in in vienna, or or in london or I will go into big corporates or wherever you end up going. What happened there and how did it lead to what you're doing now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, already with 16, 17 years, I got the book of the Austrian permaculture legend, Sepp Holzer, into my hands and it was like diving into this rabbit hole of permaculture in an early age already, and it led me to this okay, I want to learn more about this. I want to learn more about this. And first it was permaculture, and then this okay, studying organic farming. And so it was just this to see, also to be in Romania. It was just this okay, a direction in this field of agriculture, permaculture, and yeah it's also not something what you learn on university, like I also.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was interested in trees and tried to find all the courses and lectures for orchards, but it was more this kind of intensive orchard, like for desert apples and whatever. And yeah, in a way, I have this love for cultural landscape and also, like, as we have it in Austria, a lot this traditional orchards. It's like this, uh yeah, part of the, the old landscape, a part of the old agriculture which is still existing, like it's this I read this of the the last forest gardens of europe.
Speaker 1:So there is actually a legacy of forest gardens if you, if you're able to find it and see it which means managed places, not a jungle or wild forest, but I think in europe and in many places for for millennia and way more, we've managed these landscapes. We've planted or we at least trimmed the trees we didn't want, we pruned the ones we did want, we shaped them in a way, and a lot of it is overgrown so we don't really see it anymore because it's abandoned. I think there's a stat in your deck of like the abandoned orchards and there are many reasons to that. But one of them is harvesting, and it's very difficult to harvest, or it's difficult by hand, if you don't have so many people anymore in the landscape to harvest the apples when they're ripe. Even in an industrial orchard, I read, it's difficult. I think they leave 10% to 15% of the apples on the trees simply because they don't have the hands to harvest them at the right moment.
Speaker 1:I think in the forest gardens it's way more them at the right moment. I think in in the forest gardens it's way more. But this landscape of patched forest fruit trees, productive trees mixed with others, um, is a very is is how we managed a lot of these landscapes for for eons. Basically, that has disappeared partly and and you say okay, there's a, there's an intervention point with machinery, like there's a, there's a lever we can pull there, there's something we can do now we couldn't do five, 10, 20 years ago. And so how? How did that lead to your first, first tool or first machine you built?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like uh, just to, to add a number, to have an image, like uh, because for me it helps to the standing in this traditional orchard, and imagine that this is about 10% left. So around 90% in Europe of these forest gardens disappeared.
Speaker 2:And also part of this is because it wasn't the whole structure of agriculture, of course, and also subsidies to clear these old orchards, and part of it is harvest for sure. For example, I worked in an association North Ark, it's called in Austria. I worked in an association North Arc, it's called in Austria. It's about heirloom seeds and preserving all the genetic diversity of fruits and seeds, and I was there consulting and we worked with traditional orchards, because there you still have, as the trees get really old, there you have trees which are 80, 100, 200 years old if it's a peri-peer, and so you still have this old varieties there.
Speaker 2:And it was a colleague actually who said, actually it would need appropriate machinery, because you have this large machinery which is more for professional cider apple producers, and you have this really small, more household use machine like tools and there's nothing in between. So I got hooked to see, okay, there could be a solution to support these people who are still preserving these orchards and who are working with it and making great cider, brandy, whatever juice, and yeah, so I thought about it and I couldn't stop thinking about it actually and did my own designs and sketching and yeah, and in a way, I also started to talk with people, like with my best friend, lukas, who is also now my co-founder, together with Stefan, who is the technical lead, and, yeah, we said let's build this tool, but both of us we were not engineers, so it was quite a way until we reached there.
Speaker 1:And so the tool that you eventually build is meant just to give a bit of imagery for people, because this is an audio medium. And so we have these orchards are old apple trees, orchards like. They're not massive, but they're not small as well, it's not. There are two trees that you can easily harvest by hand or you can easily pick up from the ground, because that what happened with a lot of these apples for cider, etc. That's perfectly fine. With a lot of these apples for cider, et cetera, that's perfectly fine.
Speaker 1:So there are a hundred trees, 50 trees something like that, that are just too much to have a harvest by hand, and too small and not structured in a way that big. I wouldn't even call it professional, because I think this is a dangerous narrative, that calling the other ones non-professional, let's say, big, industrialized, super, super neat rows, like you have machines to go through that. But of course, if you have your sort of um, patchy mix work of apples and pears and some other things, and then you need something to harvest them from the ground, you need something, and what now happens is you maybe harvest a bit by hand, maybe have a small tool here and there, and then you stop and the rest you sort of leave because it's just not. I think there's this. There's a stat in your deck it's like negative, like it's definitely not, um, it's, it's, it's a loss if you keep harvesting, because it just takes so much time to to harvest a few hundred kilos of apples, a few thousand kilos of apples, your back will be dead, um, and and probably the rest of your body as well.
Speaker 1:So you started coming up with this device to to basically go through the orchard, walking like it's not a tractor, and while doing that, you sort of it's not a vacuum cleaner, but you sort of absorb a lot of these apples that are on the floor. Was that the outset as well, or how did that come about? And I will encourage everyone to look at the website at some point to see how it eventually became. But how did it start as a tool in your mind? Your first sketches you mentioned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like the first sketches. Compared to the machine now, it's a huge difference, of course. And we also like, we found a technician, like this guy where people are talking about him that he's building and creating interesting stuff and we found him and we showed him the sketches and he said, okay, this won't work as you imagine this. But then he also helped us to find a proper design and like a first version of a design, to be able to to, yeah, kind of pick up these apples, throw them into a box, changing the box and having this walk, walk behind a little harvester which is electric. So we, we, uh, you push it and the pickup roller, uh, is electric, um of like the traction to the pickup roller and then you throw them into the box.
Speaker 1:And you use a power drill as a power source and as the engine. Basically right.
Speaker 2:Yes, in the beginning, in the first year, we had the power drill. We built the first series with 120 pieces with a power drill and then we skipped to an e-bike battery and a small engine, but now we're bringing it back. So this year we offer two versions one is with the power drill and one version is with a e-bike battery and a 400 watt engine yeah, and for people to just imagine that it's cute and nice.
Speaker 1:But there are, and I have to say that there's a hundred 1.2 million hectares in europe with agroforestry, with fruit trees, just to to give a bit of the size and the scale and and of the potential of how many trees still are there. We lost 90 of the trees on farms, but there's still um a good chunk left. Yes, and with a lot of fruit that every year is produced like there's no.
Speaker 1:I mean, it might be a good year and a bad year, but there's a lot of that yes, exactly um, goes to, goes to waste now, or it actually is, is absorbed by the soil, but it's not going to food or drinks or things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's like. It's also like a challenging part of the business model. Maybe we can look at this later, but this you have uh on the one part of uh like you have this good apple year and this better apple year, so a fruit year.
Speaker 2:So usually you, you have, like every every second year, a good year or a good harvest. And if you have a good harvest, uh, you have trees which produce up to one ton of fruits. So, like a peripia tree, also like really strong apple trees. We had some and I've seen some, in average maybe 250 kilograms per tree, and so in the typical orchard of our customers they have around harvest up to 30 tons per season and so it's a lot of fruit.
Speaker 2:If you have a good year and if you need to pick it up by hand, either you have a lot of people, as they had in former times, or, yeah, you, you, you just what you, what you need for yourself, maybe, but uh, you, it's like to pick it all, everything up and then to sell it, also like to to the cidery, or to to, uh, yeah, pick up to to people who, who agglomerate and buy it. They also don't really buy, uh, pay a good price for it. So if you don't really make your own cider, it may not even be worth it to sell the fruit.
Speaker 1:So you've seen people like what are some stories of customers, early customers of the fruit cat? You sold quite a few but like people that are, they're not able to do things they couldn't do before. What are your favorite examples?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's, for example, this young swiss farmer, uh, he, he bought the the harvest in the first year already, like he saw it in the internet, and and uh was our first customer in switzerland. And he, he's taking care of orchards which are like in the radius of 20, 30 kilometers. How much would it be in miles?
Speaker 2:Doesn't matter, people can count, doesn't matter, okay, yes, so like a large area, all the orchards, and so the machine was perfect for him too, because he could put it in the trunk of the back of the car and use the trailer to put the apples there.
Speaker 2:And like he used the in the first year with the drill powered version, he harvested like 30 tons and driving around everywhere and and like doing all the juice afterwards and he said, yeah, he wouldn't be able to use all the fruits otherwise and now he could produce the juice and sell the juice and has a good price for the juice because it's something that you can market over a longer period.
Speaker 2:And maybe also another example was having on the agricultural fair Like we've been on many fairs, what is traditional fairs as well and there was one man 70, 80 years old with a bad leg and he was like so happy to have a machine now because he can still continue the thing, what he loves, and to the care of the orchard and produce his cider. And it was like really touching to to see this, um, yeah, also this love for machinery in a way like it's, it's uh, people appreciated it, appreciated a lot like how it's not just functions but also how it looks like and how it feels like to have it. So it's really fun and we have a lot of like families which now the kids are beating who is allowed to drive with the machine? And before nobody wanted to harvest the fruits because it sucks. Of course. I also did it and, uh, still have a trauma.
Speaker 1:So and a bad back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that were fun indeed to to um, because big ag is lonely and and like it's. I think we forgot how, not only pleasantly the the countryside is a different tangent, but pleasantly the countryside can look, and mixed we know from research like mixed, mixed landscape, with different patches, with trees, et cetera, is way more pleasant to the eye than than than a mono, monoland, but, of course, it has to be functional in that sense as well. If, if we choose to do so and it's it's like how do do we harvest, how do we do that? And um, this seems like a really fun object. Yeah, and people start. Of course, 30 tons is a different thing than a few trees, etc. But it enables things that that otherwise wouldn't be possible. So you've sold quite a few. You've been working on this from since 2018.
Speaker 1:And and then then what's next? Are you gonna? Why? The product we're going to talk about now, the machine, instead of, like other fruit types or other I don't know olives or other things that are no longer harvested in many ways like what? Have you, of course, perfectioning this? The one mostly focused on apple and those kind of harder fruits? What, what, what was in your mind as next steps and logical next steps for for the tools company? Because as a tool company, you want to have a portfolio of ones and not just a single. I think, what, what, what was the next step or what is the next step?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's the name organic tools. It was already part of part of the mission. Like to have to be more than just uh obstrope, as we call it in german.
Speaker 2:like, we introduced the brand fruit cat uh, also because it's difficult to pronounce for english tongues uh, obstrope. And so, yes, like, like, with this FruitCat, we built really a lot of experiences and also like the perfectioning of the product and having a really great product market fit. It's something what we really learned and where we are really good at and where we are really good at. So very early on, actually, we had this idea of creating a modular tool like the FruitCat, also using it not just to pick up fruits but maybe also to harvest seeds from meadows there's this issue for biodiversity collect the seeds and having also other use cases for the, for the product, and then uh, yeah, we ended up like uh, diving into market gardening also.
Speaker 2:We have a market gardener in the team, katrin, and uh, I'm also following gmier and Richard Perkins and like following the whole movement.
Speaker 1:Just for people that don't know how would you describe market gardening as a movement?
Speaker 2:I am. Market gardening is like this approach of bio-intensive production on a small scale, mainly of vegetables, which sell very good also on the market, and another part of the business model is also like to sell it direct to the consumers. So it can be a box scheme, it can be direct on the farmer's market or CSA whatever, and so this market gardens. It's like a really great example of how much you can produce on one acre of land, one hectare of land, how many people can live of one hectare and also how much revenue you can make Like. There are these examples of 100,000 euros per hectare. I met people who earn more and people who earn less. If you compare it to farming, it's like enormous.
Speaker 1:I don't think most people realize this is a movement. These are many people in the last 10, 15, 20 years. The people you mentioned Jean-Mart, the last 10, 15, 20 years and the people you mentioned John Martin, john Martin Fortier I will put links below Richard Perkins We've had Anna von Leo in an Ellen's on the podcast, matteo Mazzola in Italy and like how intensive, how much you can get off one Hector and we'll get how complex it is and backbreaking, but how intensive and and, um, how ecologically sound this can be. Of course it's an intensive practice, but it's very dense. It's very, uh, mostly hand tools and sold directly and a few and in many cases so previously already in the season or before the season, in the winter, and and there are people like taking serious, let's say quote-unquote city salaries home, um, for for for agriculture per hectare, like they even make, uh, I think wineries, uh, be ashamed of what they can they can pull off of a hectare.
Speaker 1:But it has its drawbacks. Like we see a lot of burnout, we see a lot of people going very enthusiastically in it. It's really hard work, amazing, but really really hard work. So you started talking to that movement. Let's say and then? And then what clicked?
Speaker 2:yeah, also as you, as I shared you, you see this uh, a lot of young people like starting, also new farmers, like into going into farming and and because it's easier like to uh to to rent one hectare than a whole farm, and I'd like to see what they are doing also for food serenity, selling great healthy vegetables and produce. And also a big part is community. Like you have not just one person working on this farm, but maybe two or three, and still like this challenge of a lot of manual work. It needs to really be optimized and smart workflows, and if you don't, if you are not able to integrate these workflows, it can be challenging, like to persist on the long term. And so you also see a lot of people I don't know numbers exactly, but a lot of people who need to close after a few years because it's just too much.
Speaker 1:We discussed that in an interview it might be out at this time or not with Andres Yara in Amsterdam or close to amsterdam, and and he very deliberately created a team and so created, like there are multiple co-founders, it's, uh, I think, four or five people, different roles, and they really build it like a small company so you can take holidays and you really like, yeah, manage it as not just a two-person operation or one-person operation, which we often see, and that seems like to have changed a lot in terms of ability to not burn out and ability to manage.
Speaker 1:Of course they're volunteers, it's all direct sold, et cetera, but really to, okay, four or five people have to live off this and so we have to manage it differently than one person has to do everything or two people. That is is often, yeah, a recipe for for, for burnout. Of course it comes with challenges of managing a small company with four or five people, um, but it also comes with a lot of opportunities that he can go, I think, two months a year to to brazil on holiday, or like in the winter, of course, and he can take the whole summer, he can work the whole summer, while his co-founders with children would like to go on holiday in that period, and even the fact that you can take holiday, I think, is already an interesting one. So I will link that interview below when it's out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so basically the idea was how can we bring these experiences what we have with the fruit cat cat into market gardening, on the one hand, and how can a modular small tractor look, look like and function and bring all the like, having something in between a big tractor which can be like really crazy and you can't use it in a small scale, and those are like all these hand tools and you have this work behind tractors, but it's like they didn't really change the last hundred years a lot and you have all these implements and it's also like very, quite hard to work with these, hard to work with these.
Speaker 2:So also, yeah, like I talked with two market gardeners and two women and they say they just they don't like to work with this walk-through handwrecker. It's loud, it's noisy, they need a lot of effort to steer it, and so it's also like the user experience is not so great to work with those. And we know that we can make a good user experience because we did it with the fruit cat, with the harvester, solar, walk behind tractor, electric, with an amazing use experience, which is also possible as it is electric and we can build it electric, having all the interfaces and the smart steering and having like introduced with this walk behind tractor and also the models that we are working on. Like we, you can have a pto where you use the implements which are on the market already but also bring new implements. Like a bad reader, where you fly over the beds and can easily uh well, we have to explain this.
Speaker 1:Okay, you fly over the beds. How does that work? I've seen it, so I know what it is. But, um, how does uh attractor fly or make you fly?
Speaker 2:visual, visual. We need a visual. Yes, yes, yeah, it's like you. You just lay down on your belly, you have this uh, ergonomic bed, you can rest, put your, your head on the rest and you have your, your, your hands free and can use your hands to pick up strawberries, you to weed, and have a steering with the with the feet. So that's as you lay, sort of under.
Speaker 1:This is when you mentioned the overhead tractor. It's um two wheels, actually four wheels, sorry, two small ones in front or in the back, depending how you turn, two larger ones, of course. The width of a normal market garden bed, which I think is 80 centimeters or a meter anyway, yeah, enough to be on the paths and not over the the food and then you hang under that sort of in a, in a in a bed, let's say, or in like a hammock, but a very strong one, so you're floating above the bed and you move slowly over the bed with your speed and your steering, and you can do all the things without breaking your back, basically, and bending completely, because you're completely flat, and so you're flying above the bed. Basically, quote unquote. And that changes a lot. I don't think there are. I mean, there's some bigger ones. I've seen some like two or three people next to each.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, it's not something that we invented. It's used for picking cucumbers, for example, and you also have huge rows of tractors and 10 to 20 people picking cucumbers in the field. And you have also bed weathers different models, but which are just bed weeder.
Speaker 2:Bed weeders different models, but which are just bed weeders and, like our modular approach, allows that you use the walk behind tractor with the bed weeder implement and if you're finished with uh yeah, harvesting your strawberries, for example, or weeding, then you can change the implement to a pto and and do soil preparation or hoeing and weeding, so you can use many different implements, as you do also with a tractor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so we're now talking in August 2024. What point are you? What's the current status of the TRAKTRAK?
Speaker 2:Ah, yes, so we developed the last two years. We also had some grants we invested in and did a lot of talks and tests in the field. So we have prototype number four, soon five, and this year we are still testing directly on the field. So we have a prototype number four, soon five, and this year we are still testing, like, directly on the field. We also have this approach. It's something that we learned from developing the harvester to go very early on to go out into the fields and try it, show it to farmers, try it out with them and integrate the experiences and knowledge, because then you can yeah, you don't do it later if you're on the market already, but already doing the development. And we also decided like to have kind of a pre-launch.
Speaker 2:So we are showing the prototype and yeah we have been to the ground with it and engage with the people, engage with the community and also building up traction and building up like kind of excitement for the tool. And now we are pre-selling to our first customers. We offer a good price and plan to bring 10 pieces to the market next year, 10 to 20 pieces and after that, like rolling it out, maybe still being able to have the customers near to our production site to be able to make a really good service and be able to, if there is any issue, and improve it with time together. Because, yeah, to be honest, it's difficult to be. It's also good that there's still some knowledge and experience from the everyday work yeah, and it's hardware, so it's, yeah, let's say, doing a software update.
Speaker 1:It's not that easy to just fix something that should have been, uh, yeah, developing new tools. There's a reason why you see a lot of very old tractors on small scale farms or very old machinery that have been bought or a long time ago or recently. Second, third, fourth hand can be fixed, usually locally, can be adjusted. Yeah, is noisy and heavy and partially dangerous, but, yeah, it's used because there's nothing else on the market, or very, very expensive and from from very, very far and which, which is tricky, and and so, yeah, you're really in the middle of that last pre-production phase. Basically, to, to start, and what has been the, the reaction from, um, from your, your potential customers? Um, what, what when they see it and touch it and feel it? Because I think that's potential customers. Um, what, what when they see it and touch it and feel it?
Speaker 2:because I think that's important, not just see the, the videos obviously, yeah, I think we really hit the nail on the head with this product. So there's a lot of excitement, uh, of of people, of market gardeners not just market gardeners but like to see this approach also of how we do things and where we can. I think people also can see that it's not our first product and we have been through this journey of prototyping, creating product market fit, creating a series and bringing or distilling all this experience into this new product and also, like there's not so much happening in this field of small scale farming, like you don't. I've been on so many agricultural fairs and we were like really lonely out there as a company focusing on small scale farming. Maybe you have gardening and this kind of stuff, yes, but like like to be on this fairs. It's enormous how much money is in big egg and in big egg machinery.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we're discussing that before.
Speaker 1:Like your target price, I think, is around 12 plus K, let's say euros, and it's crazy that a big egg, very energy intensive, I think the the like in terms of, uh, we, and also in terms of production, I mean what we, what we just discussed as well, how much money can be made on a hectare, would surprise people, and they don't even show up on the official numbers, probably as a farmer or as a farm, because they're too small.
Speaker 1:They're not even recognized, and that also means that it's almost impossible to get funding or finance for any of this, and a farmer can refinance or can get a lease for his mega combine of hundreds of thousands, if not more, probably easily going to half a million to a million, and, and I think it would be very difficult for a market garden gardener to to get any kind of financing or lease for a 12 000 euro machine or 15 000 it could change completely his or her life and they probably have to finance to do it. Actually, they have the revenue, but they just are not going to be recognized by any bank as as a farmer or and thus cannot get any any farming loan. Um, which is crazy if you think about it, because they actually produce food, compared to many others that are not. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:It's an example of this subsidy bias. What we have, I know, in Europe I think it's about 80% of the subsidies go into the 10% largest farms.
Speaker 1:So yes, it's kind of that says it all.
Speaker 2:It's not really fair. It's not a fair game and in a way also as a company we are on the side of smallholders and it's also like a huge challenge for us to not having the interest of John Deere kind of big ag and and also the subsidies, because farmers with good subsidies are also it's more easy to to finance, like equipment.
Speaker 1:How fundamental would be financing for your uh, for your clients potentially just like um in in the conventional big ag monoland you can get, of course, financing for a lot of machinery how fundamental could that be or would that be for, for your clients or your customers that are on a much smaller scale, actually producing a lot, having a real financial and, of course, ecological impact, but probably are not eligible at all for any kind of ag loans or machinery loans or leases or things like that?
Speaker 2:yes, it's a. It's an interesting part because we did a lot of interviews and talked with a lot of these market Gardeners and you have a lot of new market Gardeners and a few pioneers in the field and a lot of the more established market gardeners. They invest in equipment and they know already what is working. And, especially if you set up a market garden, every investment counts and people are very hesitant a lot to invest and it would also make a huge difference to design your market garden with the equipment in mind. I mean, it's happening everywhere. Each farmer knows already what tractor you have, which implements you can use, and makes a huge difference, like how you approach your design of the market garden or like of your farm, if you know already about the equipment. And so, yeah, the track, track and the models. Like with this concept also, we really hit a nail on the head, like there's a huge interest and people like it and still like there's this, um, yeah, how I'm gonna finance this? So it will be a.
Speaker 1:It will be challenging and an opportunity as well, because it enables um people. Maybe it makes it easier if you design it differently and if you design it like it makes it easier to hit those 100k per hectare or more more easily than you would otherwise. Is that something you you also with not just saving your back and doing like, but is it also something like the financial potential of having a machine like, like this? Is that something you've designed into?
Speaker 2:if you've researched or looked into, I think it think it makes a huge difference and I think also why market gardening is so successful is because pioneers like GM Fortier, richard Perkins and also many others in the movement and new people like they offer kind of a blueprint where you can start very easily, learn on the go but maybe shorten the learning curve or steepen.
Speaker 2:Like you learn more easily and you can like you stay on the shoulders of giants who did it already, and so this would also be an opportunity to create the equipment with these systems and workflows and structures in the mind, in order for people to be able to implement this very easily. So the idea is to make it really high user experience and making really good equipment and great tools where people then also can integrate these workflows which have a high promise to be successful also for this kind of market garden structure.
Speaker 1:And do you see beyond the track track and beyond the market garden? Of course you see, but what are other areas that really seem in small scale farming? It really seems to be missing tools tools.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like we with the fruit cat, with the harvest, we're like we are. We are in agroforestry and it's also like a great example of diversified production and we also gain more and more interest, like from from the new wave of agroforestry, I would call it, and people who are producing nuts or different of tree crops, so to say, and also like with syndropic agroforestry. We see this opportunity of how can you work with the tree rows and making equipment for this part, also with truck-truck, potentially also with larger equipment. But our focus is now also what kind of models, models can we, could we make, uh, with the track?
Speaker 2:Track in order to to be able to do different jobs and you can also go into diversified farming, like, yeah, for example, I I mentioned before the the idea of harvesting wild flower seeds from meadows in order to be able to use it for biodiversity replanting or seeding, and also like herbs producing herbs can also be an interesting part, where you have kind of equipment to cut the herbs, and for this our idea is like we would like to collaborate with other producers who are doing or producing already equipment, maybe even for for the whole weeding equipment, and I mean potentially you can also. I mean track is electric, so it's not a big thing to put implements with sensors or whatever. And modular design can also be thought like this to making some appropriate automatization and to work together with other producers of equipment and to downscale the large equipment to a truck truck and make it available for Market Garden.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what's your? I mean, you've been talking to investors obviously as well in the financial world, and what would be your main message to them? Let's say, we do this live. We would like to ask this question in a theater's. Say we do this live, we? I would like to ask this question in a theater and we, of course, have the machinery on stage so you can see it. A lot of imagery behind of market gardens and in the room it's. It's mostly a financial crowd, investors with their own wealth or people working in finance. What would be your main message to them? Something you would like, a seed you would like to plant, something you would like them, of course, you would like them to to understand many things, but if there's one thing you should choose that they should remember from that evening, what would that be?
Speaker 2:hmm, yes, it's. It's important to not only focus on bits and bytes, and it makes a huge difference which tools farmers use and it changes the landscape depending on the tools they are using. So I just want to remind people to to forget about hardware, because I know it's. It can be very uh, yeah, it can be very, very nice to to have business models in software and hardware. May take longer, may need more patience, but it's also rewarding because it's uh, it changes like the everyday work and with the equipment, with the hardware, you're in the field with the farmers and they have the tools in their hand and, yeah, it makes a difference. How the tool is working and how the equipment changes their possibilities to use it on their farms.
Speaker 1:And what would you do if you would be in their shoes? If you had, we like to ask this question if you had a billion euros to invest, what would you focus on? What would you invest in? Of course, not exact amounts, but what would be the big focus areas? If you had a fund with a very long life cycle, potentially, but if you had to put that to work, what would you focus on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like this question because you invite me to dream and what feels exciting for me to if I think about okay to invest 1 billion. If I think about okay to invest 1 billion to think really small and to invest it into a community, into like a village and making, like rebuilding community and creating projects and like also businesses, ventures in this village which are collaborating and and farms and try to like really, uh, create this abundance of of life in in a village and also trusting that uh, yeah, it will, it will, it will return in many different ways and also like this having this resilience of a village and of many people, of diversity also within the people and the projects, and to create like a blueprint which could also serve as a way into the future of regeneration and healing. I would also question my intentions because I'm quite skeptic of billionaires who try to save the world.
Speaker 1:Rightfully so in many cases. Yeah, no, it's an interesting contradiction of spreading on a smaller scale, et cetera, and then you would find yourself with a billion, of course.
Speaker 1:that's why we asked the question, not thinking, I mean, but at the same time thinking that regeneration at scale, like we'll get that kind of attention and we'll get those questions like, okay, where do I? I think the big question there is how to like, like bart likes to say, of fresh ventures. How do you, how do you cut big money in small pieces? Um, because the big money will be interested in this and and if, um, we can't find ways to put that to work, it will go somewhere else or the energy that it brings will keep feeding the destructive agriculture side. And so, yeah, we have a choice to make if we want to engage with that, that kind of level of energy. And then, if yes, how and how do we cut it in small pieces? And governance and incentives, etc. Which is extremely difficult, like I'm not. Um, yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2:And it's also like there is this part where I think, where I'm thinking, okay, um, if you put all the money into one village, uh, then you and how do you scale it? And there you often hear this question of, okay, how can we scale regenerative agriculture? And from my perspective, like scaling something is, in a way, also part of the problem and part of this mindset of, yeah, achieving something and bringing the solution out to the people. So in a way, I'm a huge fan of Tony, the Australian guy, tony Rinaldo I think who introduced a pruning technique in order to create trees out of small bushes which have been there already in Africa, and like it went viral in a way. So it's a difference to scaling. It was more like giving the seeds for a kind of a movement and people telling the stories and carrying the technique and this approach to other areas, and now you can see from space like so many trees which which grew through this technique and Ger and Mali.
Speaker 1:I think a lot. Yeah, we, yes, Are in. We might be interviewing him soon.
Speaker 2:Oh, this would be exciting. Yeah, I'm a huge fan. He's so inspiring and so I. I also want to like to integrate his perspective and his, his, his journey into into my work and and think about it. Okay, how could we not scale, but like create this movement and strengthen this small scale farming, regenerative, diversified human scale, where also energy positive I mean a huge issue will be energy in the future? I'm thinking about this a lot like as our food, egg and food systems. You need around 10 joules of input to create one joule of output and, like traditional food systems or also, I'm sure, market gardening food systems, regional energy deposit, so you get more output from the input you use through work and, yeah, and taking care of the farm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it feels like we live in that potentially what is Nate calling it Hagen's great simplification like we've been living on this crazy fossil fuel era.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're just energy pools that is so dense, like fossil fuels are so dense and hard to replace, and but it seems like it's normal to use 10 to 13 times the energy to create one calorie, one joule of edible energy. And of course it's only possible if you have unlimited fossil resources, which we don't, and like there are only so many dinosaur bones we can burn, and that ends at some point and when it does and it's probably going to be in shocks, not just very gradually, it's going to be quite painful. Like we underestimate how much fossil fuel there is in agriculture and food and you showed very nicely on your slide, like 13 or 12 to 1. And compared to smaller scale, diversified, where it's positive, you put less energy in, then comes out. But we somehow don't value that at all in the current system, like energy in and out or even inputs in and out, it's one of the few sectors where we never ask that question.
Speaker 1:So I think agriculture and food of course we've been looking at, okay, what's the carbon potential of the soil, etc. But I think that's not the point. The point is, of course, grow more trees, healthier soil, store a lot, great, but actually how do we get the fossil fuels out of the system. That's the bigger lever and the faster lever, and I think people underestimate how much is used to create fertilizer, to create chemical inputs, how much diesel goes into a tractor every day? Um, and it's. It's been getting worse. Actually, the energy equation, like there are, the energy return on investment, like you mentioned is is not getting better over, uh, over the last decades and and that's, that's an issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gonna get off my pedestal now yeah, it's a big issue and I I have the feeling that we don't talk enough about it and, as you mentioned, nate Higgins is doing a great work as a talking about this energy blindness, what you can see and feel everywhere. Once you have heard about it, you can't unhear it and unsee it yeah, it's definitely like a okay yes, so it's also like it's.
Speaker 2:It it's informing our approach, how you, how we think machinery and tools and, uh, how we think about farming, and in a way, I can't really imagine something else than smallholder farming. It's just a question of how long, how much time it will take.
Speaker 1:And how busy.
Speaker 2:The transition is Exactly exactly. So it's my part of helping to be prepared and to prepare farmers for this, those who like to, and our part in the company like to offer the kind of tool and equipment which might enable them to be more energy positive.
Speaker 1:And if you could change one thing overnight? And you had a magic and you had a wand to wave a wand and change one thing overnight, what would that be?
Speaker 2:and you had a want to wave a wand and change one thing overnight. What would that be? Hmm, uh, just in the agriculture space or in general? No, no anywhere.
Speaker 1:We've. We've that global consciousness better flavor, all animals outside, ending of all subsidies. We've had like super practical and and other also practical, but different. Practical, let's say. Or everybody loves lentils, um, we've. We've had like super practical and and other also practical, but different. Practical, let's say. Or everybody loves lentils, and we've had the full spectrum of answers yes, uh, it feels like one.
Speaker 2:There's so many, so many levels I think about which which would seem very logic to me, and still I, if I really have just one spell, uh, I think I would cast a like a dream on the whole of humanity, on every human being, and dream straight into the heart and where people feel like how it is to live in tune with nature again and to be kind of indigenous to earth again, and I would trust that this dream will come in different patterns and forms and shapes and still like to inform decisions and to be able to have an image of this future where we are living on a healed earth and with healed people and healed water and soil toxic free.
Speaker 2:I'd like to have a kind of a reference and a remembering of this.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I would hope that this would lead the people forward and growing as a seed in them to to inform the decisions.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I think it's a perfect way to wrap up this conversation. Thank you so much for joining us here to share on your journey and to build these and not choose an easier path in software and not hardware. And build these tools for for farmers, to make them more independent, more successful and less prone to burnout and and hopefully save some some lower backs in the in the process as well, and, of course, got a lot of healthy, nutrient-dense food in a in a way that makes makes ecological and energetically sense yeah, thank you so much for for having me here and thanks so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for the work you're doing, like it was in a big inspiration also for for me in the last years and, yes, looking forward to what will come.
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.
