Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
344 Andres Jara - Walking the land of market garden De Stadsgroenteboer with a regenerative farmer
A new episode of the Walking the Land with a Regenerative Farmer to explore the journey of Andres Jara, a regenerative farmer who has turned a mere 0.4-hectare plot outside Amsterdam into a vibrant market garden De Stadsgroenteboer. Andres shares his innovative farming practices that support an 650 people weekly and how the farm not only thrives on biodiversity, but also champions a unique trust-based market stand model, overcoming challenges like sourcing organic materials from abroad. De Stadsgroenteboer market garden is really pushing the boundaries of what success means financially, quality of life, quality of products, and of course the health of the soil.
We explore Andres' vision of making regenerative agriculture accessible to a wider audience, including diverse communities such as Turkish families seeking unique produce. From humble beginnings with basic setups to cultivating plants from seed and improving operations with self-made compost, Andres and his team have navigated the complexities of soil management and no-tillage practices.
While we walk through the farm, Andres shows exciting projects like the development of an outdoor kitchen space aimed at enhancing culinary education, giving aspiring chefs a firsthand experience with a variety of plants and flowers and deepening their understanding of ingredients from garden to table.
Finally, we focus on the broader themes of financial growth and ecosystem development in sustainable agriculture. Andres discusses the economic viability of regenerative farming, highlighting how strategic collaborations with local businesses have helped create a thriving community. You'll hear about innovative strategies, such as encouraging birds of prey to manage pests and using edible flowers to attract pollinators, which enhance both the environmental and economic aspects of the farm. Through Andres's insights, we are invited to consider a more harmonious relationship with the environment, emphasizing the need for a shift in financial paradigms to support the next generation of farmers.
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Welcome to another Walking the Land with a Regenerative Farmer, where we walk the land with a farmer and explore regeneration.
Speaker 1:Today, we have the pleasure to walk the land with Andres Yara, just outside Amsterdam, the Netherlands, a market garden which is really pushing the boundaries of what success means Financially quality of life, quality of products and, of course, the health of the soil. We also filmed this episode. You can find it on YouTube or in the links below. Now join us on the walk.
Speaker 1:Welcome to another episode of Walking the Land with a Regenerative Farmer Today, as we say in Dutch, under the smoke of Amsterdam, and you can actually hear one of the airplanes passing over. But we're not going to get distracted by that. We also have an orchestra of amazing birds behind us and in front of us, and we're going to see a tiny farm. By all means, it's only an acre, only an acre. It's 0.4 hectares and in many statistics it won't even classify as a farm, but it's a very, very successful market garden and I'm very happy to have Andres here with us today. So, andres, please join us and take us on a tour of your amazing property. I mean, you're renting it. But to start with the personal question, we always love to ask how did you end up under the outskirts, in the outskirts of Amsterdam, and started farming this tiny plot of paradise?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, thank you for coming and also for the invitation to be here and record. Yeah, it's actually quite interesting how the whole thing started. We came here around six years ago. We didn't start the farm, but we took over, so the farm is seven years old and we have been doing it now for six years. This project actually brought me to the Netherlands, so it's something like if you had asked me 10 years, 15 years ago, or told me you're going to be farming in the Netherlands, I actually would be like, yeah, right, but now here I am in the sixth season, feeding roughly 650 people every week with the most freshest local and regenerative practices vegetables. So, yeah, we have 0.4 hectares. We grow more than 60 different vegetables, six zero, yeah, 15 herbs and 10 edible flowers. We put flowers everywhere because we understood that the more pollinators we have, the better it is, but we will see more when, while we walk, let's go and have a look.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean, we can see the results of the super wet spring, yeah, and we're very lucky with the weather today. Yeah, it's actually.
Speaker 2:It's very pleasant.
Speaker 1:So biodiversity strip lane, when you come in, what do you see? Like the first meters you come in, there's a polytunnel and there's a farm shop.
Speaker 2:How did this come about and what do we see here on the right? So when you enter the farm, the the first thing you see the polytunnel, and then behind out there is a ton of hay. We got them because, you know, we wanted to actually get a lot of mulch organically, but it was almost impossible to get in the netherlands, so we ship it from france wow, and talking about the crazy agriculture system.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, insane.
Speaker 2:So just to tell you a little bit fast about it, the minimum order was 35 bales. Every bale is 400 kilos.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow so now we have a lot.
Speaker 2:In the other side we have actually our market stand. It's honest, trust-based market stand. So we don't have people working or counting. The only thing we have is just someone just filling when an article is going off or finishing. So we have a lot of seedlings, a lot of vessels products. One of our co-founders also makes a ceramic from clay and then you can just come. It's open and available from Monday to Friday, with a smaller selection, and then on Saturday we pack it up also because if it's good weather we can. People just come and they like to actually do the groceries. Behind Behind us there is another organic shop, but it's becoming too crowded, so people are just like the ones that actually want.
Speaker 1:So the success of one is like it's which is interesting, because that competition piece is yeah, it's a fear. I think not, I don't know. Like you don't want these regenerative farms on their little islands. We're getting philosophical immediately to start competing with each other for the same share of customer and then somehow ending up not changing the food system. So that overflow is nice, but of course you want, yeah, how do you, like we talked before, or like we talked and we'll cover the economic side of things like how do you make this accessible, not just for the happy few that can come here on a saturday on their bike and, yeah, with their children and then all be live in la la land? But how do we make this normal? Normal for for many?
Speaker 2:actually it's really interesting because in the summer, like mid-summer, beginning of fall, there is a lot of turkish families coming looking for chilies over jeans and that's like really nice because we know that they will come, and now the six years doing this, so we save also things for them and they like they're looking for like I can have chilies, can I have all jeans, tomatoes I would like to buy like six kilos and with like we like to ask them so what you're going to do? So it's also like a more like how did they find out? They just come and walk, word spreads.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then in that aspect it's quite interesting also to have, like this, diversity in people as well. That is just not the usual customer that comes with the bike and the kids and everything.
Speaker 1:We love them, I'm not making fun of them, but it's the first mover. Maybe that has the time, the mental space and the money to do things. But if we get stuck there and this is going to be, yeah, another elitist uh hobby, and we should definitely and then just to share with you, like just some numbers quite fast.
Speaker 2:This is uh, now we're also selling some other products from our neighbors, so, uh, little margins. We're really not like, oh, products from our neighbors, so little margins. We're really not like oh, I need 50%. No, just like 5%. 10% is more than okay.
Speaker 1:But it's nice to have it. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:And then this small market sign can make up around 5,000 to 6,000 a year. We're not really doing nothing.
Speaker 1:Which is amazing. We do something. And then, of course, the question everybody asks how much do you lose in terms of people not paying or do they overpay? Do you have any clue on that?
Speaker 2:That's actually something that, how I personally choose to say, it is like if you actually cannot afford it, then just go for it. Yeah, then it's like that's a really interesting one. I really don't feel that actually we have lost a lot of things, but if something disappears and we haven't had, sometimes we have a small jar of coins. Sometimes we have found in that jar 100 years in bills of 5, 10, 20 and we're just like, holy cow, maybe we just put it in the box. So it's really of 5, 10, 20s, and we're just like, oh, holy cow, we have a, maybe we'll just put it in the box. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's really interesting to have this, and then if someone takes something, then you know it's also, let's say, you give it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's the price to pay to the universe. Yeah, exactly, and I see some with your name on it or your surname.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are those? Well, so this is actually a crazy project that started three and a half years ago in the lockdown of the Horeca. I saw my colleagues and neighbors around here really having a lot of challenges because the sales channels were completely gone.
Speaker 1:Restaurants closed. They lost their amount.
Speaker 2:And then you cannot say to a plant like, listen, don't give me more tomatillos, don't give me more chilies, because they just continue. So I felt like, okay, how can we actually do something together to add value, to extend chef life and to offer something with food that I would like to eat, because this is something like I would like to eat, this kind of products.
Speaker 2:I would like to. It's also column, the South American flavors, but with Dutch ingredients. So you still also to, to showcase that eating, let's say, exotic, you don't have to import things. It's also a little bit of my philosophy of life. I'm not against importing, exporting everything. I just think that it's a nice project to showcase that yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what are they? I see two a green, bluish and a yellow.
Speaker 2:One is tomatillo sauce. It's's like really Mesoamerican flavor. So tomatillo is a green tomato that is more family of the physalis, like it's more related to the physalis or to lampion than to the actual tomato. It will never go red.
Speaker 2:So you can wait forever, yeah it will go or yellow or purple or light greener, depending on the variety, and then it's used for sauces and you can burn it or you can eat it raw. You can blitz it with onion lemon and you have a really fresh flavor. It goes really good with cheese. The other one is actually the recipe of my grandmother. It's actually a world bestseller. Just five ingredients Onion, tomatoes, chilies, olive oil, vinegar. That's it. That's it. Use South American style of cooking. Just burn everything charred and then you have a wonderful flavor. And then you bind it with the oil.
Speaker 1:We can try later. So it sounds amazing, we're gonna try it. Let's, let's walk. Ready, we go okay now.
Speaker 2:So we are now in the community area.
Speaker 1:Yes, a lot of small.
Speaker 2:Yes, so this is where all the lunch and all the seedlings also come here to harden up. So it's quite interesting because we do 55% of our own seedlings. I was going to say how difficult is it to get? It's quite difficult. You have always have always young areas and it's great because they can you know, you can buy plants which is a company.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it's a nursery, uh, but it's. What we don't love is that it's a catalog, so, like certain varieties you cannot really grow, so that what we like is about the fact that we are able to grow the varieties that we, that we feel like, and then from seed, yeah, and also, we learned that you know different plants need different temperatures, different conditions in order to sprout.
Speaker 1:Some of them like a warm, some of them like a little bit colder so in that, so on this one acre, you're also doing a lot of seed growing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually, let's go to the greenhouse and have a look.
Speaker 1:Just to make it more complex.
Speaker 2:So this is a germination chamber.
Speaker 1:I just passed by it by accident, but it's Okay. Yeah, what are we looking?
Speaker 2:at Okay, so actually this is our germination chamber. Before it was a fermentation chamber for making kombucha. Ah, so it's funny, because a friend of mine was doing kombucha and then her production just grew so much and then she just needed to get rid of it, and then they were going to destroy it. And then I like, no, no, no, no, guys, it's already all insulated, it's already all done properly. So we just took it and now we actually is our germination chamber so it's.
Speaker 1:This is where it all starts.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if you put your hand in, you have a heated cable and I think now it's it's off. No, no, it's 18 degrees, but it's not really like heating heating. And then what we do is we put the so this is broccoli, so it's brassica, so most likely in three, four days it's going to be up. Wow, so it's Brassica, so most likely in three, four days it's going to be up. Wow. And then here you can just put, I think, more than 20 trays Once we started actually doing this, our germination rate went up to 95% to 98%.
Speaker 2:Because we were doing this, and our sprouting average percentage was was like 70.
Speaker 1:uh and then you have you know you have like. If you have, uh, let's say 70 means you miss this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so then if you have, if you lose this in every tray, every three trays, you lose one tray, so you have a lot of empty space in the germination channel A lot of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So now, well, with this there is the heated cable, as you can see here, and then behind you have a thermostat like a small computer and you just like select the temperature. So also this other part. Well, as you know, we are in Amsterdam, small space, so everything have to be in wheels and movable, because if not, it's just like it's actually the best way to to grow some vermicompost.
Speaker 2:yep, so, for example, this is a Spitzkool, hmm. And then these are. What is this actually Dill? So this is like one of the things that this is the fissalis.
Speaker 1:And so how did you Like there are no manuals, I'm imagining, but like small scale in this context and climate how difficult were the first years? Like learning, and or is there with your co-founders did you have? Because you said we knew how to grow food and so we want to do that here Like how much of a learning curve it was in the first year.
Speaker 2:It was a lot. It was in the first year. It was a lot. Now, being honest, we experiment less because we have like bigger members, like numbers, so we still like to have this chance to experiment, but then the chance of failure have to be less.
Speaker 2:It takes a little bit Because when you have 35 at the beginning, yeah, um, and then you know, when we started, we didn't have germination chambers, we didn't have these denser cars, we didn't have the best ways, position of the sun. We just, uh, we just started, yeah, um, so fortunately with this big company, norsery, that you can just order things. But then we also felt like, at the end of the day, if you nothing against farmers that buy the seedlings already this size, but I think, like you, I feel a little bit that you are like babysitting plants that are already certain size, till Till maturity, exactly. And then what I think is, at least personally, what we want to learn is how to go from seed to consumer To place. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And I asked this question to Jeroen as well when we filmed and we recorded there, when you started, how much did you think you knew, like, did you have an understand, like a grasp of the complexity? And now, seven years, six years, in how much do you now feel you know?
Speaker 2:I fucking knew a lot but but, and then I didn't and I was like holy cow. Then I really don't know anything. Well, I did know some things, but this is just like the Learning Corp app is just like wow, this is how many things I have learned in the past three years. You know something like composting At least I can tell you just for this example like when we were doing our own compost. Our own compost is way richer in the nutrients than the ones that we buy. We are not able to do all the compost that we need.
Speaker 1:Space yeah.
Speaker 2:Space-wise. But then it's just like eventually we were really worried that it was going to be very little, a lot of work and bigger volumes of mass. It would be more challenging. But actually it was just like no, the more mass you have, the more heat you generate, the faster you actually decompose. It makes a lot of sense, but in the theoretical aspect of the thinking it's like whoa, how are we going to do this Exactly? And then now we exchange our compost system that we're going to see later and we're just producing way more compost than before and we also make analysis and everything, and we have realized that the two like one of the microorganisms that we like the most is the two top predators.
Speaker 2:I don't remember the name right now, but top predators in your soil, yeah and our compost is the one that have the most wow, so it's just a really great way to incorporate them into our system, just by doing our compost yeah, because, in terms of soils, what did you find here?
Speaker 1:you said they already started the year before. What? What is missing? What do you need? Are there easy soils like what's the the situation on the outskirts of amsterdam?
Speaker 2:well, here is heavy clay and you have some pads, some patches in which is actually red clay, so it's like really oxidized, and then you have also another one that is the blue clay, it's like where it's really compact Watercloth, yeah, and here in this part they just fill it up and then, well, since we started, we have actually increased like in the analysis that we have done by 3.4 organic matter, but we just add compost and we, by doing no tillage, so we just cut in the root level, soil level, sorry and then we add compost on top.
Speaker 2:Then, like this way, we have seen that actually our soil is being able to catch more water and to drain water when, like now, it's excess, and you can really see sometimes in the path that it's really wet and leaves like water ponds, but in the beds it's actually quite, and we have also installed drainage. Just to be honest, in some parts and also in plot 10, we're going to show it to you later we had some problems last year in which nothing was growing and, yeah, we had to go and do some work with the, because the roots- basically didn't go down at all, completely compacted, wow.
Speaker 2:Let's go and have a look. No, it still needs to be. Ah, okay, it's not finished yet, but it looks very cool. Yeah, so this actually it's a project that we did two weeks ago. We always wanted to have a beautiful space like this, so this is a work in progress. So we have the tent now here because we need to protect the oven, but then this is going to be a roof and, due to the rules of city of Amsterdam, we actually have found a way in which we can put a roof, but because three sides are open, so it's not a permanent it's not a building.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, as always, work with your legislation and your exactly so then this is going to be an outdoor kitchen, so this is the pizza oven, this is going to be the surface. So you start a little bit messy right now because you need to actually to disorganize in order to organize and build. And then we have been doing a lot of different activities and programs with ROC, for example, hotel de School, a lot of students working exactly.
Speaker 1:They're working in the, in the restaurant scene, in the hotels, etc. Are gonna work and so we have these bags for food making. Yeah, that's, and your background is a chef exactly so like they.
Speaker 2:actually we offered them like this possibility that then they do a class here they come and their class is like a five hour lesson. They come with the professor, we do a garden tour, then they taste and I play them and then they actually learn how different flowers look. For example, a lot of them they don't even know how the flower of an aubergine looks like and actually you can eat it, but then it's just, and then after the tour they divide it in groups, they make a plan what they want to do and they have 15 to 20 minutes to come with an idea and then afterwards they have 15 minutes to go and harvest what they need. And of course we also have to be with them because quantity-wise they can go a little bit crazy, like I remember one guy like I need six origins. Like no, no, you need one. So and then after that they have one and a half hours to cook.
Speaker 2:And then at the end of the class, they present their dishes to the class and then they get evaluated with, like you know, a little bit of methodology or like using things that they have not used yet, or like presentations. So it's actually quite interesting to, to to bring the students and to work also with the next generation of chef or next generation of what is going to be, uh, farmers. We also have a lot of um barmondehoff, exactly so, and with them we have become quite popular, uh, because we're a young group of farmers, uh, and most of the biodynamic farmers.
Speaker 1:No offense, uh are in another age group. Yeah, that's uh. If they go and do internships, etc.
Speaker 2:We have a couple of rules. Here is like we always have a warm lunch and if you want to cook, you're more than welcome, and then, if you don't want to, we always give you two meals, ideally at the end of June. We would like to have this Because also, all the universities start coming in September. So, September and October is really intense.
Speaker 1:Tours.
Speaker 2:Tours, universities, events and all these kind of things. That is also one of the parts that actually, in order to really have like to, we have been focusing in order to bring more income to the farm, because then we can actually hire more people and work to develop new areas of the business.
Speaker 1:This is also something that how important is that tour piece for the business and for you? It's also a distraction, of course, but groups that come in and I mean people like us, but also people that come in and schools, and four or five hours, I mean that's.
Speaker 2:Well, with the schools we already have, we have a really good agreement, a really good deal. They're really happy and also we work with them in different ways also, for example, with a rose or hotel, the school. They also buy weekly membership, so it's like they're also members of the CSA they're part of yeah, so we had really happy to be able to offer this space to actually work with them and but, depending of the group and depending of the intention of the group, we we up for welcoming everyone that wants to know a little bit more about regenerative agriculture, market garden and how food is grown. I think it's one of the things that we really enjoy is to share what we have built and the knowledge.
Speaker 1:And to be more general, what's the biggest surprise for people when they come here? You've had many people, let's say, walk the farm with you and with your, with your colleagues, but what have been big surprises from people apart from the fact that you can eat the flower of certain plants? But okay, but like other?
Speaker 2:the flavors. The flavors is just like what is this thing that I'm eating? It is like, yeah, you, I actually used to supermark flavors and, of course, also with other farmers is like the amount of intercropping that we do like at the very beginning, and many farmers start coming to see how we were doing and it's like you guys are nuts, you guys are like this is not and it's like then what specifically then did they see, that was well for example, is like we have uh over there when you see the tps, we have uh beans and snipe it and kohlrabi, and you know there's like the mentality of some farmers, like one crop, that's it.
Speaker 2:Then maximum two crops, we put sometimes five crops is there, like, how do you pick those?
Speaker 1:is there a methodology? Or where do you go for? Because you also don't want to. Some crops might compete, some don't. Some really work together. The companions are, but there's a science behind it, or there's, there's, there's rules, in the sense, like you don't want to experiment too much, like how do you figure?
Speaker 2:that out. Some we, we read and we do what uh, you know what other people have done, but then we also. It's also nice to be able to just break the preconception of like this doesn't work because someone tell you no, but the reasoning behind is like that is not, really, just doesn't work. For example, we did the Capusinus, that is the Dutch pea with carrots and with beets, and with carrots it just doesn't work. But with beets we had like wonderful, like big, truly big, beautiful beets.
Speaker 1:You know sometimes why? Nobody knows yet. We'll figure it out, Somebody will do research exactly.
Speaker 2:I also have learned that I don't have to understand everything. There are also many things that we're doing and then we have another colleague that she wants to know, so we come to her to these questions and then she really feels like doing research. So also very interesting about what we have done. It's naturally and we're really lucky that naturally every person has gone into a different area of the business and is what is needed.
Speaker 1:How important is that group? Well, you can walk to the next like that group, like assembly almost, because what you also see, especially market gardens, but also another place like burnout, and a couple that start something and then after a year or two, I think you can you can write a book about that, almost like the amount of work that goes into this, because it's so difficult to to figure out things in new places, new contexts, it doesn't always work. Well, you're with a bigger group, I think five or six. Yeah, how did that come about? I mean, you all came from Poland, so from Bra, basically from the Slow Food University, because this is an SME, a small to medium-sized company, and not just a two-people operation or one person. How did that come about and how important is that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think one of the most beautiful things about this and we have seen so many people actually doing couples doing a market garden and then they start really enthusiastic and after two, three years you see them like or they're doing this because they wanted to Switch career, because they burn out, and then after some years they feeling burnout again. So it's quite challenging and what we have really enjoy and like of this is that we are. We started five and one of our work our colleague left. He like guys, I love you, but this is not me. It is not me exactly Fair enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fair enough. And then?
Speaker 2:it's actually a great opportunity to be able to communicate this and to step out if you really feel like and not just like I have to stay, because I have to stay. And then, if I'm honest with you, at the beginning I miss him a lot because he was the MacGyver of the situation, so everything was broken and he was just fixing everything. So, of course, when pace goes out, then you need to fill the space and I have learned a lot in this process. So, like everything, like in a farm, a lot of things breaks. So I also have realized that at this precise moment, my role is, apart from finance, marketing and I'm the most outgoing of the team also the South American Spark Hence you're here. Also, it's that everything runs smoothly so people can do the operations, so everything just flows. And, yeah, sometimes, depending how you see it, it can be very romantic or it can be very tedious, depending on the day, but many things we are in a farm, we're outdoors, Things- break rot Slugs.
Speaker 1:Slugs exactly. We didn't talk about them yet.
Speaker 2:Like machines, you knowugs logs exactly, we didn't talk about them yet. Like machines, you know breaks, maintenance, irrigation blocks, cleaning. So it's uh, it's a lot to to, and all the tubes are on the ground. So like to remember everything? Uh, well, we have a blueprint of what is everything, but still, it's uh, it's quite.
Speaker 1:And how challenging was it to start with five, and then did you all have to earn a living immediately from the first year, or how did that?
Speaker 2:That's actually a great question. So the first year we were in four because one of our colleagues was actually finishing their master's at Wageningen.
Speaker 1:Which is an agriculture university in the Netherlands.
Speaker 2:Yes, and uh, then we started the four of us and we earned zero. Well, we put a lot of investment and fortunately we're growing food, so you're not going to starve but did you plan for that yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we budgeted for that. And then we did it part-time so you can actually have a part-time job and be able to live in, if not, one of the most expensive cities in Europe yeah, if not the world. So in that aspect, we just like, okay, let's do this. And then, to be honest, after the, the third year, we paid ourselves back the investment of the. So we thought more like, okay, we're not going to pay ourselves salary this first year, but we'd rather just reinvest what we can. So then you know, we knew that eventually that was going to happen. And then, well, fortunately, with the other jobs that we had at the moment, we're just like able to live. And then we're growing food and we were growing the same amount of well, not the same amount of food, but a really good amount of food for 35 members of the first year.
Speaker 1:So we had a lot of food, yeah, um, so in that aspect, but it's it's interesting how fast anyway the soil changes, like you mentioned before, but also with market guard a lot of extremely hard work, like everybody I see going into that.
Speaker 1:But also one of the places it seems like but correct me if I'm wrong where you are able to get more than okay salary relatively quickly. If you're certain circumstances, you pay, we don't have to share it but an insane amount of money per acre here in terms of rent and still with a number of people on the payroll and still with the taxation we're in in the Netherlands, you're able to pay yourself and you're able to live in Amsterdam, et cetera. So when people say, yeah, this seems like a garden and there's, but this is actually a company, this is a, and in a couple of years like not only you need 20 years or 15 years, no, in two, three years you're off and rolling, which says something about how far we got in terms of with vegetables and a very intense like this is intensive, as intensive as you can get, yes, but still.
Speaker 2:I think in that aspect it's like working with nature, really working with nature, really understanding how, what is the best way in which we can like create an ecosystem in which everything can thrive from, like vegetables, animals and humans.
Speaker 1:So in that aspect it's just like and when you say working with nature, it's one of those terms that everybody loves to use. Concrete example like how do you because I've heard somebody, I don't remember where, saying I'm using nature to do a lot of the expensive pieces like I'm working with and trying to hack in that way, like a lot of the things that I would have to get outside inputs or labor or machinery that are very expensive um, but how would you? When you say working with nature, what does it to to make it economically viable? What does it mean to you?
Speaker 2:Okay, well, in that I can give you two examples Any way you want.
Speaker 1:This is a free-flowing format. We can do ten.
Speaker 2:In the whole of our property we have a living hedge that protects us first from wind, which is an issue, not today.
Speaker 1:We're super fortunate, we're really lucky for sound but then also biodiversity.
Speaker 2:So we have 1,500 trees around the property and all of them are toctonus varieties from the Netherlands, and also fruit trees, so we also get fruit from them and then also create an ecosystem for animals and for different insects. This year we don't have them because of we evaluate, but we used to have chickens in the outer part of the of the of the farm and then they were just mowing everything and then, of course, pecking and eating and also fertilizing their, their outer parts. And then they were just mowing everything and then, of course, pecking and eating and also fertilizing the, the outer parts, and then in winter, when we had the, the rest, we also just put them in the field there. So you don't have really to prepare beds, you just they are preparing the best for you and what made you choose then.
Speaker 1:Then we get to the other example. What made you choose not to run chickens?
Speaker 2:get to the other example. What made you choose not to run chickens this year? This year, it was just because eggs are interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, eggs are really interesting. Actually, like, the majority of the people just came for the eggs. But then this year it was. I think we were just reaching the limit of too much. And then because then, um, you know, last year we have 35 chickens, roosters, and then we know that they can really harm the soil, they can be really beneficial, but then we can also make a lot of damage if you don't manage. Well, exactly. So we rotate them every fourth day, uh, in in the outskirts of the plot. And then we have a chicken coop, a mobile, so we have a fencing, because everything wants to eat chicken Birds of prey, foxes, other humans, ducks. But then this year it was just. Actually, we are more than happy with it, because it has been very challenging already and to add another thing to the system this year would be quite challenging, was it?
Speaker 1:difficult to decide as there have been such an integral part of the sales or bringing people in and animals on a farm changes something fundamentally good and bad as other other living human, other living beings like. How difficult was that?
Speaker 2:It was very difficult, very challenging, like because you really connect with them, just like you know you're thinking about like, okay, let's say you're cleaning your cabbage, your Chinese cabbage, and then you have all this outer leaf and it's like I'm actually going to throw it into the chickens, and now it's like I'm going to throw it to the compost. And it's like you know, you feel you'll be like you know, you can always give it to them.
Speaker 2:But I think this is also one of the years to really we're trying different things and you know, normally they say, don't change the winning team. But it's also also important to see what else we can do, not just to continue doing something because it has been working and it's safe. I think if we think like that, we would have not built this because we were not thinking safely.
Speaker 1:It's more like challenging. And how did the csa members respond? Or what was it part of their boxes, or was it an extra thing people were buying?
Speaker 2:no, that was an extra thing. So that was also a way to actually because we deliver around 70 percent of our shares and 30 percent people have to come and pick it up it's the least, let's say, preferred place for people to come. So when you have eggs and you have like rhubarb here or like some things there in the market garden, that is like incentivize them for like, okay, you know, I'm going to get eggs, I'm going to get rhubarb, I'm going to get fruits, and so that's why it's just like, for the people that come and pick up, yeah, it's also the spot that uh, gets feel the slowest and the last, because it's like, oh, the only spot that we have is the farm. Okay, sure, so what do you mean by that? We, we have different pick up points in the city.
Speaker 2:So we work a lot with and it's actually a really interesting way of how seeing things we work mainly with or bakeries or like neighborhood Hops or like natural wine shops, and then at the beginning we were like with six or so. Then at the beginning, when we approached them, it was more like we would like to actually be a pick a point if you would like to participate in this, and it's like okay, tell me the price of your box, and I want like 10% of the sale with these kind of things. And we were like I think you're not really understanding. Let's put it in another way so actually you can see how we see it. Another way.
Speaker 1:So actually you can see how we see it.
Speaker 2:We have a base of customers. You will have a flow of new customers every week for 30 weeks a year that then they can become new customers and eventually, when they send their neighbors or someone, more people will come and then they realize then you can just increase your customer base with this collaboration. And, for example, two natural wine shops. They were like, yes, I want that, because then they have they really really, really well, they have the box and then they have the wine of the week Next to it and then most likely yes, of course they see the ingredients, they see the fruit, the vegetables and they're like this wine goes well with this and a lot of people actually buy the wine.
Speaker 1:It's fascinating because the wine world we were thinking about a wine series at some point or the viticulture series. It's such a different world than the food space world, than the food space like people would will think for a long time about okay, what am I going to pay this farmer extra and or not? Actually I'm going to pay what I think is fair, like I probably put quite a bit of salt in it. Then they're the natural wine shop. They, they pick up their box and within half a second they pay 15 euros for a bottle and not even like, not even think about it anymore, which is perfectly fine. I'm not saying nothing against the natural wine, but how do we do that as well with food Like, which, objectively, should be more important? But there's a lot to learn, I think. But they did it really really well and they, they've seen the flow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I also like. What I really like about that is like to really make a collaboration. That is not about money yeah, that is not about money. It's about something beyond that eventually will bring that, but it's not just the main thing. It's like you give me the 15% of the price of the thing. It's like, yeah, come on, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And so those two. And then how long did it take to find others, or how did that conversation, or when to get enough pick-up points to cover?
Speaker 2:Eventually. No, it was quite easy. At the beginning we started with four and then, the more and more we got actually, people started asking us. It's like I saw this shop, I saw your vegetables and I saw the amount of people. I have a shop I want to like let's do this. So it was just great.
Speaker 1:Did they become customers as well? The shop owners, yeah, because they already get it delivered.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course we have a restaurant that he was just like. So I want to be a pick a point, I want vegetables for my restaurant and I wish all for my home, like sure club do exactly. And then, like he gets everything delivered and If people come dumb, like pick a point, also have the rules. Yeah, so there's, some pick up points are a little bit more flexible. So they give you one, two days to pick up. Some pick up points are a little bit more strict. You don't come today. Your box is mine, we eat it yeah, yeah, which is fair.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, of course it's. That's part of the deal because then, like you know, people can also get lazy, like I have time tomorrow to pick it up, and then it's like nowhere we've seen that with brought oranges organic orange from friends in Calabria in Italy and then People leaving it at the pickup point, which were other friends for way too long. And let's say oranges are there, they go best in colder climates or colder storage and, of course, organic, not spray. It's.
Speaker 2:If one starts to go moldy, it spreads like wildfire, and so people realize it was probably not good to leave them in a shop of 20 degrees for like a week yeah you're not gonna find a lot anymore, um, but yeah, it's also lessons learned and then with with this also, I started realizing that I how I had the conversation with spanish guy and he made me realize where we're sitting at, in like in that customer base, that people that really trust what we do. And then it just got me to think like okay, how can we actually collaborate with other farmers to bring things that are not grown here, mm-hmm. Then, like I haven't followed the conversations, but I saw the La Junquera and I just want to bring almonds and then like for them, if some, let's make it happen, yeah, I would actually love that. So we have 200 customers and even more if we put it in the market stand, and then I think for them it would be more interesting to send a couple of hundreds of kilos instead of sending back to five kilos to some people in.
Speaker 2:Northern Europe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and potentially you could even pre-sell it already, or at least have a good understanding of what you're going to sell. And so, in terms of finance, did you raise any money? You're saying we planted 1,500 trees that cost money. The first year you had an off-farm job, but how did you, as a company, finance this startup? Basically, oh, okay, that's actually a really good question you keep saying that, thank you, you make me feel really good as an interviewer.
Speaker 1:We started with private investment 9,000, 8,000 years, five people 50K yeah, 50k roughly, which is still mind-bogglingly low if you think about what other startups in other, like the agri-farm it's of course blood, sweat and tears you put in. Is that really? That's uh, should we move? I've never killed someone slugs, but we can move to yeah, because I think it's the direct sound mostly, and then we'll get back to the kelp, not kelp. I'm curious. I'm gonna ask oh, I'm gonna ask you later about that.
Speaker 2:I see signs of kelp, not go yes, that's uh an experiment that we're doing uh with this company.
Speaker 1:It's called kelp blue yeah, yeah, yeah, I think we're gonna interview them um, how is she called? Uh?
Speaker 2:I know the guy because they raised quite a bit of money.
Speaker 1:It's a big company, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and one of the guys actually was our member and now he's working there.
Speaker 1:So let's start, like I saw at the beginning of this field kelp, not kelp, but obviously you're not underwater growing kelp and then then we'll get back to the financing piece.
Speaker 2:I'm curious. But let's tackle the kelp part first. So yeah, we have one of our ex-members. He became a member for one year and then he came to volunteer several times with us. Then he went to Brazil to look for his regenerative path agriculture, and then he was in Brazil and then he came back and then he started working with ReNature and you know the whole thing that happened.
Speaker 2:And then he switched to Kelp Blue and then he contacted us and basically just like saying, like so, guys, I'm working with Kelp blue and I would like to use your farm as a pilot to really see, because we have been working with different farms in kenya, different scales and uh, and it's just uh, we would like to see it in a, in a smaller scale, to see how can we actually work together with other, say market garden farmers because they make a biostimulant from kelp right, yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah. So, uh, they contact us and they said, okay, we need five beds. And then for them it was great because, um, our plots and that's actually something that I would like to tell you later um, our plots, our plots are normally five beds, so you have the control group and then you have, like the ones you add, so you can really see the difference. And then for them it was really crucial to really be able to have them next to each other, just because everything is the same except the kelp.
Speaker 1:In the irrigation water. How do you add the stimulus? Do you get a bottle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's a one-half liter bottle, and then, with their help, we made the calculation and it's actually that bottle is good for 30 meters. You do that when you plant or when in the do that when you plan or when in this actually it's four times in the lifespan out the crop. So we have done it already. I think the third time and then but it's funny because they actually came last week to visit us and they say like, of course they buy a stimulant works better when it's sunny.
Speaker 1:I was like so yeah, welcome to the world we didn't actually chose the best year to do this, but and have you seen like visually differences?
Speaker 2:or not. Not really, if I'm honest with you, but I'm still curious to see. Uh, well, something that we have noticed is that the ones with kelp, they have more flowers Interesting, at least the courgettes, yeah, yeah, and then more male flowers. Okay, you don't want just male flowers, no no. But then the male flower is actually the one you eat. You can fill and fry Exactly.
Speaker 1:Which makes it interesting, exactly.
Speaker 2:And then we have already spoken with two Italian restaurants. They normally import flowers because it's an insane business, but one flower is like 170, 230 Exactly. And then here with them, with us, they just get like, okay, just give me everything, and then they just stay good for like four or five days.
Speaker 1:They stay longer, yeah, and they are faster here anyway, so you have like double the time. Basically, it's crazy and flavor wise.
Speaker 2:You cannot even compare probably. It's completely a different story.
Speaker 1:So that would be an interesting kelp story, if that's the case that's really the difference.
Speaker 1:I mean, apart from soil life and plant health etc. We're getting a beautiful frog concert in the background. Coming back to the financial piece, I think we stopped and then we walked here. I said it's a lot of money, but not a lot. If you look at the, the bigger scheme of things in terms of finance and and money around, what's your feeling there, like looking back now, six, seven years in, like what you put in in terms of time and money as well, and what you're now getting out and we have been really lucky.
Speaker 2:It's uh, and it was, it so far has been worth. Uh, the investment actually was not really big. So, like, if things didn't work, it would have been like you know, we try now, like we are. We see that we already like went over a couple of times. So it's just great to see that this methodology of agriculture can work, can actually make enough food for people and enough money for farmers to actually get a better salary wage and create a space in which people want to participate, be part and, as you're hearing right now, to have this beautiful concert of life. So in that is, uh, you know I will do it again and again and again, uh. But then to really see the economical aspect, you know we gave ourselves four years to get back the investment and just to share with you a little bit also how much we earned. So the first year it was zero, so the second year, seven euro an hour.
Speaker 1:Seven euros yeah hour, seven euros, yeah the third, we did like 10 or 11. Fourth, we did 13, 15 and now we're 18, 19 and for, um, then I have to ask how many hours? Because the, the standard farmer, does, uh, an insane amount of hours. Like, are you capping that as well? Because you're tracking time as well? Because you mentioned in the pricing scheme, like we calculate how much time it takes for a box, etc. Which is already revolutionary, because most people don't track time at all. So is that for a normal 36, 40 hours a week, or are you going a bit over the first years? The first year was a bit more.
Speaker 2:We man, we just Like, if we really make the calculation, we were like making like cents per hour, but then it's also. You know, we are in a system in which we do things because we need to live and we need to pay rent and we need to pay. You know, we need the money, but we also saw it as an investment and now we see the harvest of that investment. Um, so, to go like from 7 to 19 in amount of years is nothing, but if you put it in percentage, yeah, no, it's a pick that, like companies would love to have this yeah, yeah, this growth and skill and and you mentioned before and I think we got to the second one like how you work with nature.
Speaker 1:What was the second example you want?
Speaker 2:um. So in the other plot in which we were, we had um falco falcon yeah, so we like from listening to your podcast and listening to other podcasts, it's like the best thing you can actually have in your farm is birds and it's just like sounds of nature.
Speaker 1:Specifically, I think, birds of prey. They choose to be because they can go anywhere. In general, birds, they vote with their wings If they choose to be with you. You're doing something.
Speaker 2:You're doing something good. So then we have, uh, we put, uh, some houses and, let's say, like a bacon, and they were empty for one and a half years and uh, like now, in the past two years, we are now, uh, have a family of them, and then we have also seen other birds and then, when the smaller ones have started now you have seen, you start seeing the bigger ones also coming, and then we have a really a challenge with the wolf, or like the moles, the blind ones that just make a lot of holes. And then what we see is like uh, where did I see, for example, this one? Yeah, so this, it was not touching the like the root system was in the air. Yeah, down, so they do a lot of this. So they just go make a hole and then the plant doesn't have soil to actually root, go and that's it.
Speaker 2:That's it, so yeah, yeah and you can really see it here in these like couple of meters. Then we had that challenge a lot, but then birds show up, then these guys started to come and you actually really see the decrease of those wolves and moles because they are just there working and you know it's, it's wonderful because they don't get sick, they don't call holiday, they just you know you have to provide for them in the circumstances for them to show up, in this case housing and, of course, prey.
Speaker 1:But it is, I think, underestimated. How you can? It sounds like always this romantic story of uh, then the birds of prey come in and we know like, from the biggest little farm, the runner ducks come in and eat the snails.
Speaker 2:But if you do that properly, it makes a lot of sense yeah, and another one is uh, in the majority of our beds at the beginning we put a lot of edible flowers. We know that we want pollinators and then the more pollinators you actually have, the better it is for specific crops Like, for example, courgettes. People really don't know that insect bee, wasp, whatever needs to go to a male, then gets pollen and then goes to a female to actually a fruit to be able to reproduce. Then, like, imagine if we don't have bees, imagine if we don't have insects, like you will have to do it manually and then imagine you going yeah, people do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people do it.
Speaker 1:But then it's just like Manually going with like a little what is it? A pencil of painting and touch that, and instead you have insects that obviously do that. But you need to have the insects.
Speaker 2:So then we put a lot of flowers in front of the beds, somewhere in the middle and in the greenhouses. We put a lot of flowers and they just get attracted, and the more you have, the more they're pollinate, the more you will have.
Speaker 1:So it's like it's just and like how much is the fact that you're so close to Amsterdam, to a big city, neighbors, etc. Like, how much is that affecting this little island in terms of it's not an island, but a little piece of paradise?
Speaker 2:It feels a little bit.
Speaker 1:We have water around with a lot of frogs, but how much does it influence pollution-wise, etc. Do you worry, wonder?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so for that we actually we're very lucky because these canals that we have here they're not connected to the big ones in the city, so like you cannot arrive here by boat. Okay, so that's already a good start. Due to the heat, you have also a lot of like algae, so you have a lot of algae blooms, but then we also have put some carbs, so they eat algae and also, because this algae just also clogs your, we also use the water from the, from the canal, then we analyze it, make an analysis that is not really harmful for you, and then so we have good results and we do. Do you use the algae?
Speaker 2:not yet yeah no, not yet, but then the yes. For example, sometimes we have seen people coming to fish. The carp and the carp are like this big, so and it's like don't, don't take all the carp. Yeah, like don't take all the fish, but it's just like really nice to see how, just by understanding and adding things to to the ecosystem, it can just like work what are some missing pieces you would love to have here in a couple of years?
Speaker 1:I mean the outside kitchenmanent structure, a roof there that's different than the tent. What are other missing pieces, if you look around here and if you dream a bit, with your eyes semi-closed, to see?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, like you know, in Amsterdam people are used to this like well-done, beautiful, and I think in that aspect we have where are you going?
Speaker 1:with this. Well, the beautiful. What restaurant places like?
Speaker 2:no like like like proper design yes and I think we are like a rustic. We like there, like it's not nothing bad with any of the, the likes of the styles. I think we like it to. You know, it feels that it can get closer to the line of pretentious, not saying that like, but it's just like. This is a beautiful city. It's just like insane. I live here and I just still go around the canals and just like, but then it's like the opportunity of actually being able to have this rusticity in your space. It's actually what I feel. That also makes it a little bit more romantic. Of course, I would like to have a little bit more better infrastructure because of the rules and all these things you know. Like if we want to make a new polytunnel, we need to like kind of hide it or like find a different way yeah, semi-permanent or not.
Speaker 2:And then for the future, I think I would like to own the space, because here, you know, we have the, the neighbors we have, like you know, like the possibility of expansion is very limited. So we have another location that is three kilometers away from here and we got the opportunity to go to another location, but logistically then you will have three farms and then it's exponentially way more complex and then you know, in completely different game, exponentially way more complex and then you know, in the other location, like here we have a walk-in fridge washing station and everything Over there we don't have Like infrastructure is very, very little.
Speaker 2:And then in the third location then it would be installed again new computers, new irrigation. So it's like starting from scratch. Of course, the more you do it, the better you get at. But you know, if it's a sunny day the pump is not working. You are the pump master, you cannot split to go, so three places exactly.
Speaker 2:so we had the opportunity to actually get a third location, but we felt like, okay, bigger doesn't necessarily mean better. So that was also a realization in which like, okay, actually we can just get better with the space we have and then eventually the opportunity comes within the complex to expand. I think that would be a great possibility.
Speaker 1:And that's a question we always like to ask within the bigger food and ag system or actually in general. If you had a an objectively insane amount of money, let's say a billion euros, what would you do if you had to put that to work? I'm not looking for exact amounts for priorities'm looking for priorities. Would it be on the processing, on the land, access, on seed varieties, whatever drones? What would you focus on if you would be in charge of putting that to work? So you were taking off your farmer hat for a bit, but you are on the investor table. What would be your top priorities to put?
Speaker 2:money to work, definitely land access and education, because I think there is a lot of curiosity, there is a lot of willingness to actually learn and do make a change in the system. But that is not like, unless you're born in a farm family, like farmer family, you're like you cannot really get X amount of money to actually buy something. And then, like we're also coming from a generation that is not making as much money as the past generations, so like to reach those numbers it's like very, very challenging and also like, depending on if you get it from a bank, from a loan or from investors, it's like, oh, I want the X10 return on investment or you get this 6% interest rate annually and it's just like I'm farming. So sometimes things might work In our case, luckily, it has been working. Might work in our case, locally have been working.
Speaker 2:But I will use a lot of money to buy land, educate farmers and then something completely in the other side of the spectrum give some money in places like south america to like get back land and give to indigenous communities that I think this knowledge that they have, it's something that we can learn a lot from it. So I will use some money to do this, of course, working with them, so they can pay back or like them. Like, because it's an investment. It's not like okay, here's a lot of money, that's it, but then that be paid back, then actually give some money to that and this money actually can be like okay, it's fine.
Speaker 1:So that is how I would and they said a similar lesson. You would tell investors like, like, if you have a group here from Amsterdam, from the south, where the financial heart is, let's say, a group of bankers comes and visits or a group of investors which they might have, I don't know, but what would be? Of course they're excited, interested. They see a lot of things they've never seen before. They can taste things, they can smell things, they learn seen before. They can taste things, they can smell things, they learn things about courgette flowers or zucchini flowers, what, what. But what would be the main seed you want to plant in their, in their mind? What would be the main message you want them to to take home and preferably to their job the next day, to to start looking at things differently if they are in control of wealth oh, that's actually very interesting because I would just take it away from the current system in which we are and I will make it a little bit more in a different breeding space.
Speaker 2:Because in right now society we want everything. Yesterday you can get something in 10 minutes in a nap with your thumb in farming. That doesn't work, like if you want to try something else you need a whole year to try and write it down because most likely you will forget. So if we take that time in and we just like put it like this, in different aspects, like in that investment aspect, well, actually think people will understand that working with nature, just like times, are different, so the return on the investment, it cannot be, you know. Oh, now we have a lovely helicopter.
Speaker 2:A lot is happening today.
Speaker 1:Neighbors mowing. Not too many airplanes until now. Yeah, actually we're really looking because they will come over every three minutes, but this one is definitely seeing the. This is just a in couture's helicopter. Um, let's go.
Speaker 2:You were at return on investment yeah, so like in in that, in in that, uh line of thought, it's like you know, and then the majority of the times and I have spoken with some investors and I have also spoken with some great investors that is just like you know. I have made enough, you can give me three percent and it's like this is a little bit what you want, or the mentality, what you want when you make, when you work with nature or with variables that are really difficult to control, like, for example, if you make your market research, or you're like startup tech that can grow yeah, it's like completely different story.
Speaker 2:It's a different cycles, it's different methodologies, different speed or even a restaurant.
Speaker 1:But actually, funny enough, this is fast for farming. That's interesting, like it's not. I'm building an agroforestry system. It's going to take seven, eight years for the first hazelnuts to come. It's going to take extra which you can plan for, but it's a very different okay. So time would be your main message, or see think differently. It's not linear, it's circular. How do you?
Speaker 1:yeah, that's very difficult because in, in, in finance. It's an answer people have given before as well, of course, and like how do you make long-term stuff that everybody sees makes sense, like a tree planted, or how but how do you finance that? Or how do you break that paradigm? What needs to be three months quarterly results yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And then like eventually, let's. Let's put it in the example of the hazelnuts. You know the hazelnut, the older the tree, the more hazelnuts you will get. It's just like simple uh, but eventually, for the first hazelnuts to come, you need some years and how do you fit that in the spreadsheet exactly?
Speaker 1:that's the, that's the challenge. And then the magic wand question. I always like to ask if you could change one thing overnight so you're no longer in control of your investment fund, but you do have a magic power for one thing, and one thing only. What would that be?
Speaker 2:connection with nature, I would say, because once you really understand that everything else in a particular way matter less, and then like it's not being really in the in the sense of like that you know we are in the system that we have built and but we also are in, in, in in a way in a life that like we're working, like with nature as well. No, so, and we can we have. Actually one of the things I really like about amsterdam is that that that it offers you a lot, but also the amount of nature around you. It's like you sometimes you feel like I need, like I, I want to go out, so that that thing of like you know we need the city and the nature. So like this is like more what I mean in that sense of like, this reconnection of like having this awareness of you know you go to buy something and you don't go to a supermarket.
Speaker 2:You actually think a little bit like actually why I don't go and pedal four kilometers or even 10 minutes and go get it from a different place, instead of like a shelf with all these bright lights and all these things, plastic containers, exactly.
Speaker 1:So that would be more like my wish to change, and what have you seen is the best way to do that? Bring people here. Like with food, like reconnection to nature is a big theme in many ways. What have you seen?
Speaker 2:so what? We have done a lot. Well, there is always a limited amount of people that you can inspire, like unless you do this every day with hundreds of people. But I think like, for example, we have knocked some companies' doors and told them like, hey, we have this experience or this methodology that we would like to offer you to bring your team to do something outdoors to understand how food is grown, how, relatively in a small amount of land, you can feed a big community and you can just work and do something with your hands, and people love this. We have had two big companies. They came with 80 people, and imagine 80 people where we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's the people that are listening. It's still remember. It's an acre, it's not a, there's not a lot of space. There's a lot of space, but it's 80 people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they came for three hours. It was great because they were all like really like green hands so they wanted to do everything. So we did the work of like two weeks in three hours with them. So it was like really organization. We divide them in five groups. We had two people. So it was like really organization. We divide them in five groups. We had two people In each group, just like following saying, okay, we have to prove, we have to weed, we have to, and it's just Really great to see the amount of work that can be done when people just work together. And for them it was three hours.
Speaker 1:But like if you put three hours, 80 people is 240 hours of work, like if you put three hours, 80 people, it's 240 hours of work and it's a workout and it's like compared to people that are indoors moving machines and not getting anywhere. And I guess, as a sort of final question, looking back at these years, two part question what's the biggest lesson and what would you have done differently? What would you love to know, like five, six years ago, that would have steered you to there? Like, let's start with the biggest lesson, maybe it's the same biggest lesson.
Speaker 2:It's um, um, control less, you know, like. It's also something that I see that we want to, we want to know, we want to like. This is the way I want to do. So this is the outcome that I kind of expect, and just like live, live it. It's uh, you live more chill, uh, you still do what you believe, what you are, your dreams and you know the, the philosophy, but it just I think that is like the biggest example you would have loved to control us the slugs this year, the slugs are.
Speaker 2:Yeah know, like, as I mentioned before, we lost 180 meters of carrots twice. Then we were going for the third time and we were like, no, actually let's go for something else, let's put turnips, let's put onions, something that they don't like to eat and we were almost going for the third 180 meters of carrots because we need to have, we want to have carrots, and then I just want you to wrap it up.
Speaker 1:what would you have done, what would you have loved to know? What would you have done differently? Now, looking back at six years, seven years, a lot of things. But if you had to pick one, drainage, maybe not Drainage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think understanding where you're going to start a project geographically is crucial for this. If you're going to, let's say, go to southern Spain collect water, if you're in here in the Netherlands, too much water put drainage and we didn't do anything of that, and we didn't do anything anything of that. So we had to learn when we had the challenge and it's like okay, how can we actually go to solve this, because the first year you didn't have drainage? No, I didn't have anything, man.
Speaker 1:Flooded everything.
Speaker 2:Flooded everything. Yeah, so increasing biodiversity or organic matter and everything like soil life have helped us a lot, but if we didn't install the drainage that we have installed already, I think it would have been almost impossible. So it's like study really your place, where you're going to do, where you're going to start. You know the conditions and think on that, on how you want to implement or like the steps you need in order to improve already from the very beginning. That I would say it was that's a perfect lesson.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you so much for the work you do, but also allowing us to be here, experiment with audio video and all of that and having giving us a great tour. Finally, because we met a while back in Amsterdam, actually at a conference yes, then we had a phone call I mean through Alice, definitely shout out to Alice who got us in touch and then Brussels, and then finally meeting here in person and seeing the farm. So congrats and very impressive and thank you so much for sharing and being so open.
Speaker 2:Oh, of course, course, thank you for coming, and if people are here in Amsterdam, just come by we'll put the links below. Come and visit and then yeah, just come.
Speaker 1:Thank you, 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.
