Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast features 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. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
344 Kadir van Lohuizen - Walking the museum full of Food for Thought
A conversation with Kadir van Lohuizen, Dutch multimedia photojournalist, filmmaker, and a co-founder of NOOR, while walking his exhibition Food for Thought at Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam. We talk about the power of photos and videos, how disconnected we are from nature and how our current food system works. We talk while walking though photos of large dairy facilities in Mongolia, farms in Saudi Arabia, beef operations in the US and onions farms of the Netherlands and vegetables and fruits plantations in Kenya, with produce cut in pieces and packaged ready to fly overnight to Amsterdam, London, etc.
A deep dive and a reality check of the current food and agriculture system and the power of visual storytelling.
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Join us for a very special episode Walking the Museum with photographer and video maker Kadir van Lohuizen. We talk about the power of photos and videos, how disconnected we are from nature and how our current food system works. We visit large dairy facilities in Mongolia, farms in Saudi Arabia, the Vegetable Garden of Europe which is in wait for it, kenya, and then the beans, sweet peas and mangoes grown there, already cut in pieces and packaged, are in an overnight flight to Amsterdam and London. We visit slaughterhouses in the Netherlands and one of the largest beef operations in the US, with over 250,000 cows and with plans to double that. Enjoy this thought-provoking reality check of the current food and agriculture system and the power of visual storytelling.
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 RegenEgg that is, gumroadcom slash investing in RegenEgg or find the link below.
Speaker 1:So welcome at a very special walking the museum. We normally do quite a few walking the land, and this is land as well, but it's a very special moment. We walk in the museum with Kadir Kadir van Lohuizen, who very kindly hosts us here at Food for Thought in the Scheepsgaard Museum in Amsterdam, where we're going to see a lot of things. We're going to make it as visual as possible. You're able to see a lot online as well. If you happen to be in the area before January, please come and visit.
Speaker 1:This will be a touring thing as well. There will be many opportunities where you can see this in other places, so we're not going to discuss the exhibition and try to make you see them. We're going to discuss the reasoning behind what has led you to this wonderful one. We've had a number of listeners of this podcast strongly advise us to be here and, of course, thank you to Femke for making this possible and others for nudging us to do a walk in the museum with Kadir, so welcome. First of all, thank you for making time in your busy schedule. First of all, it's actually a question we always ask anybody working in our space of food and ag and regeneration and trying to change the food system, why the food system and why food and ag.
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, I'm a photographer and filmmaker as well.
Speaker 1:It's a very visual thing.
Speaker 3:Well, that was the question. Is it visual? And you know, it's kind of an open door because I think we assume that we know where our food is coming from. And it basically started from curiosity Because over the last 10, 15 years, my projects are more long-term, are much larger and are connected to what's happening with the climate and our environment. So, working on the previous project where I was looking at the consequences of the rising sea level, I noticed that it's obviously happening today. It's not something which will happen in one or two generations. So many coastal regions are affected by this. Many farmers are therefore affected by it. It means that more frequent flooding, the land becomes saline and people can't grow their crops anymore, and that's already enough reason for people to leave. So food security.
Speaker 1:And the huge deltas that you visited, for rising sea levels.
Speaker 3:Of course, that's as well here, as well here in the Netherlands or in Bangladesh.
Speaker 1:Sea water is creeping in.
Speaker 3:So that was kind of when I started to realize that food security is not a given anymore. I worked on a big project about waste management where I noticed physically, but it was my own eyes, how much food we throw away every day. It's still one third of our food globally which is thrown away. Massive amount of emissions as well, Massive amount of emissions. And then realizing, looking at my own plate, that I actually didn't know really where my food was coming from anymore.
Speaker 1:And is that a normal way for you? Like, you see food as a potential topic, logically, let's say from a photographer eye, and then curiosity, and then yeah, I mean most of my.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm freelance, so I always come up with my own ideas, so thinking about what's relevant, but also what triggers me and where the curiosity is as well, and I realized that if I don't know this anymore, probably many people don't know this anymore, so I thought it's good to look into this. It was incredibly difficult. I completely underestimated how difficult it was in terms of access. Access to this food change basically. To this food industry and you know, when I started, literally COVID started, so that made it really, really hard.
Speaker 1:It also put us like.
Speaker 3:It put it very clearly that our food system is fragile, like supply chains stopped and kept going, and it was really fascinating, scary, you know I mean we saw it started before already, you remember, with the container ship that blocked the Suez Channel, and we saw how quickly distribution systems got messed up.
Speaker 1:One container ship and one channel.
Speaker 3:Only two, three weeks, whatever it was, how much food commodities actually had to be discarded. And then COVID, airports, ports closing. We saw that the whole food distribution got into a mess. In the Netherlands we said when COVID started we should do this differently. We should shorten the chains, eat more local, should produce more local, eat vegetables of the seasons. Well, we obviously went back to the old normal, as quick as we could, as quick as we could, for dinner again. And then the war in Ukraine started, which also proved that what many people, including myself, didn't realize, how much of our food production we outsourced.
Speaker 1:You know, we know it about the jeans we buy and we know it about the electronics, but also how dependent many of those things are and were on energy prices and natural gas and fertilizer prices. And that thing, many people didn't make that connection that it is a fossil fuel food system which, if fossil fuels go up, it becomes like I've seen stories of farmers in Ghana that couldn't afford the fertilizer anymore because of those and so but what was it? You said it was incredibly difficult to get access, meaning to even find out where whatever on your plate was, or even to get people to like I'm coming with a camera.
Speaker 1:Can you please take some pictures?
Speaker 3:That was the main issue. You know COVID didn't help. So you know many companies could easily say no, outsiders permitted. But moreover, you know, I mean it was polarizing in the Netherlands as well. You know there were the farmer protests. They grew by the day, they were blocking the highways, so there was a lot of hostility. Food industry and the media don't have the best relationship, I would say, so there was a lot of distrust that people thought that I was looking for scandals at the company and you clearly aren't Like.
Speaker 1:This is a.
Speaker 3:No, it's really. You know, I really tried to show it as it is. You know, you will notice that, although I obviously have an opinion that you won't really find it in the exhibition, because I think people need to judge for themselves.
Speaker 1:Have you seen that, with people like coming through here? Because I think it's a very visual of the size and the scale and industrialization of the food system, as you mentioned, that some of us know because they've been in these places. Most of us don't. And then it's with these images you cannot like, if you read the case study and read a number of these, how many cows we slaughter, it's okay, but if you see that slaughterhouse it's a very like what have been responses from people, reactions, or you know, know in general, I think people when they leave the exhibition, they are a little disturbed.
Speaker 3:Is that what you were looking for? Not really, you know. I mean you can read it as you wish, right? I mean there's images and footage in the US of the biggest range where I was allowed to visit, which has 250,000 cows. For most people, this is just mind-blowing and shocking and anything you can think of, and some people would say it's incredible.
Speaker 1:Look at the efficiency, how efficient this can be. How did you feel after?
Speaker 3:Did you feel? I mean, the exhibition is called Food for Thought and although it sounds a little bit like a cliché, it perfectly covers, because it is really food for thought. I've been torn between admiration and bewilderment. You know anything in between? You know where? Every time I had to think what do I think about this?
Speaker 1:Without necessarily spilling that out, because you clearly said I don't want to put my opinion and my vision.
Speaker 3:If we walk around, I mean, the Netherlands became pretty big. But the Netherlands is big. I mean it is the second exporter of agricultural products in the world which is a bit inflated because it's obviously a lot is arriving in Rotterdam or Amsterdam and then it's going to, and I think quite a bit of it is flower balls.
Speaker 3:It's flowers as well. Still, for the tiny, tiny country as we are, it's just striking. But it questions right, because you know we are Dutch. Tomatoes are pretty good nowadays. They all have the same size, they're all as red as they are supposed to be, but 80% is export. Our biggest export product is onions. I had no idea, but 90% is export. Our biggest export product is onions. I had no idea, but 90% is export Cheese. You would think that the Dutch eat all their own cheese. They don't. 90% is export. So it starts to. You know, I started to question if it's such a good idea that we are such an enormous producer, with all the challenges we have with the climate crisis and how to cut emissions and obviously agriculture is a huge emitter that we have to rethink about this.
Speaker 1:And in terms of food security, like just looking at the challenges of the sea, the salinity that you mentioned before logistics were dependent on a few ports and a few channels. We've seen how fragile that could be and we're recording an interview, but it's okay If it's a short one, go ahead. How did you come up with onions? Why the onions? I don't know. It's the biggest export of the Netherlands.
Speaker 2:But it only goes to Senegal, the Ivory Coast and the UK. Yes, Masses.
Speaker 3:You tell me To Senegal, yeah, most of the masses go to the. Uk, no, most go to West Africa.
Speaker 1:The bewilderment is that's crazy. I mean, it's real, but interesting. Foot for thought. Thank you Don't worry and then so it questions that sort of logistics.
Speaker 3:Well, it questions a lot of things, obviously, you know I mean. Like, the fact that 60% of the agricultural land in the world is used to grow cattle feeds is something to be questioned. Obviously, the fact that Kenya, which is part of the exhibition as well you know I called it the vegetable garden of Europe Because everything they produce from spring beans, french beans, mangoes, avocados is all export for Europe, you know I mean it's full of questions. Because you know I mean why is it produced there? Because we, you know, 20 years ago people didn't even know what a mango tasted like. Now we expected a mango to be there at Christmas or any time of the year. So it's our expectation as a consumer that it needs to be there as well. Kenya has an ideal climate because most of the land is at a higher altitude, it's on the equator, they can have multiple harvests.
Speaker 3:It gives tens of thousands people work of thousands of people work Relatively good, logistics flying, I mean it gets harvested this morning, they drive it literally to the airport the same day and that's where it gets cut, washed and packed and it will be on the overnight cargo flight to Amsterdam, london, paris or wherever in Europe and it's going to be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. It's gonna be fresh in your supermarket.
Speaker 1:As we're speaking, we're looking at the video there of beans being packed into the airport of Nairobi. It's all possible and it is admiration it is possible, but do we run?
Speaker 3:like Well, there's no obvious. I mean it's possible because the salaries there for the people who work in that industry is two, three dollars a day, which is honestly in Kenya, is not enough to live on. So the questions of you. Know you're a small box container you buy in a supermarket with the cut mango pieces.
Speaker 3:That's the whole salary, if you're lucky. So if the salaries will go up there, then we won't buy it anymore, because then nobody's gonna pay 10, 15 euros for this small cup of mangoes, and this is something from the last 10, 15, 20 years maybe, like it accelerated a lot.
Speaker 1:It accelerated a lot, like a lot of these things. You couldn't have made this 15 years ago probably? I don't think so.
Speaker 3:No, especially avocados is like no. And the question is obviously avocados is one of the produce which is shipped by ship by containers. The rest is all air freight. Yeah, let's go. So again, I'm not so.
Speaker 1:No, no, but it raises the questions like, I think we often in the regenerative space, we work, of course, on the solution side but we shouldn't forget just the sheer scale and complexity and industrialization and flows of food. And that's why I think imagery you can read all the numbers you want. There's some great numbers at the beginning of the exhibition, but of course it's your like, it's your lens, your lens is photography, imagery, video yeah, we've seen that like apply to the food space, like it's really in your face large pictures, very detailed, very yeah, but it's also, you know, I mean the cliche is also there.
Speaker 3:So, you know, I mean I did a lot of research, which I always do, because I think it there's a necessity that you need to have some knowledge before you speak to people and can make comments, but there was a lot of data research as well, which is complex as well, because, you know, I mean it meant that I needed to find independent, verifiable sources, which are in the food landscape, sometimes hard, yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I see your list of resources is extensive and then you choose.
Speaker 1:Okay, how do you turn it into a visual narrative and story?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm a photographer by origin, but I'm shooting much more video than before.
Speaker 1:Was it already before this, or this was already here? Well, it was already before, because this became a documentary as well, became a series.
Speaker 3:Yeah, in that sense that was kind of new. So you know, I really used all the platforms which were available. But you know, I mean I'm doing this because I want to make an impact as well. So if I can stretch, enlarge my audiences, I will find a way, because not everybody can pass. So it's also for pragmatic reasons, because you know to live, I've been 30, 35 years in the business and and rates, fees have only dropped. So you know, if you have to live just on on photography, it's a very, it's very tough. So filmmaking and being able, you know, makes an extra layer because you know I mean this, it's my initiative.
Speaker 3:There's no one who tells me and says that's a great idea. You go, here's the money and you can do this for three years.
Speaker 1:Have you seen response to video different than because of course it's very different Like this is kind of exhibition, there's a lot of moving images as well, but this kind of exhibition is. I'm not saying like, like this is a photo exhibition with images etc. But you're taking the video elsewhere as well. Has that been easy? Has there been? Is there demand? Quote, unquote for yeah, for thought in like proper video.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because a lot of, uh, you know I'm coming from editorial, so my medium was the prints. These paper magazines, which I still love. I love the paper, you know.
Speaker 1:But a lot you don't see it with your eyes that are shining when you talk about paper.
Speaker 3:Online is prominent now, so online you can mix the video with the stills, so in that sense it gets used a lot and then, as a result, I made a documentary on the Netherlands and then I made a four episode series, which is also it's for television and online, but it's including stills as well. So, it's challenging because you know, I mean, I'm the photographer, I'm the cameraman, I'm the director.
Speaker 1:Logistically it's a mess.
Speaker 3:I'm doing the sound and I'm flying the drone.
Speaker 1:Oh, at the same time. Yeah, that's it, especially in this super intense. We're looking at a container terminal now and some other play. Just practically speaking, how do you even do it? Like you get into this cattle range, like how do you even get in? Like how do you even get them to agree and not see you like another expose journalist that wants to write a scandal piece for the guardian or something which there's a role for that, but it's not your role yeah, you know, I mean you knock, you go and, or how do you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's more complicated than that. I mean the Kettering Ranch in the US is a different story, I'll get to that. But like in the Netherlands, I mean it requires building a network where people could recommend me to the management of companies or farms. It meant often go set up a meeting, go there without cameras, without gear, trying to explain what I was doing and slowly. Initially nobody said yes, literally no one. But you kept doing these meetings for one, I had to be very persuasive and then slowly it started to.
Speaker 3:You know, I could show the list of others that allowed me in, and then it started to become easier. But yeah, I mean, it's true, People had to trust me, you know, I mean, and the thing is that you're which made it hard as well is you're in a very controlled environment, so I was never alone. You know, you're always guided by someone, and most of the time you're guided by someone who's looking at their watch if you're already done, Because they have other stuff to do. Yeah, it's far from ideal for a professional story.
Speaker 1:So there's the constant pressure and speed, yeah, and you have to film flight, yeah you know, I mean, sometimes I had to shoot.
Speaker 3:I had like 20 minutes to bring back good imagery, which is sometimes challenging and it's a one-off right, I mean usually to go back so you can say can I come back tomorrow and do it again?
Speaker 1:That was usually not the case. No, so how long did it take? I mean, you started in COVID.
Speaker 3:You said I mean COVID slowed it down, obviously because I couldn't travel.
Speaker 1:When did this open?
Speaker 3:This opened like a year ago. A year ago, yeah, november last year, so good to know. But when we opened the exhibition I still hadn't been in China, which was on the top of my list to go there. But China was obviously closed for ages because of COVID. So when the exhibition actually opened, I negotiated with the museum and said to them listen, I'm sure I'll get into China and then if, and they decided to keep a room closed and ready for China. So China only opens last April.
Speaker 1:And coming back to the Kettle Ranch, how did that happen?
Speaker 3:The Kettle Ranch was interesting because all my friends and colleagues at the Washington Post or whoever in the US I was shooting for the Washington Post as well, said you will never get into those ranches. You know they sealed off and forget it. Do you then get a?
Speaker 1:challenge out of it. No, I mean you want to use your own name.
Speaker 3:So I got the name and the number of the owner and I just called him and to my ultimate surprise, he said sure, come along Without asking too many questions. And so I thought almost that I was tricked and I was allowed to stay longer than a day because the ranch is so massive. And I asked him after the first day. I said so why did you allow me in? I was just curious. And he said because you're Dutch.
Speaker 3:So a lot of Americans, or a lot of people in the world, think that all the Dutch are still farmers. But most of all, what I didn't think about and was most important was that many of the farmers in the US are from Dutch descent. Certain region, yeah.
Speaker 1:So the guys?
Speaker 3:were Mike de Goot and Dustin de Gaaf, so they were third, fourth generation already. They didn't speak Dutch, but there was a connection.
Speaker 1:There was a connection Interesting. While we're recording this, we're looking at packaging of beans, salads, processing of cabbage, Distribution centers, Distribution centers with robots which look very cool, very complex and interesting. We've done a deep dive, actually, on one in the UK which is fully automated, but that's another story and at a number of just to name some numbers, 46,000 pigs are slaughtered every day in the Netherlands, which means 42 a minute. I think we've been going for 10, 15 minutes. You can do the calculation of how many that are, just to give a and the average meal. I always wonder about that data like 30,000 kilometers for the average meal in the Netherlands, right? Or in general, like globally? I think it's a global number.
Speaker 3:It is. You know it's coming from research from Wageningen University and others.
Speaker 1:Which is insane 30,000 kilometers. That's the Netherlands, australia, the average one, which means there are actually more. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of travel kilometers. And so then, when you capture all of these, you capture all these pieces quickly, sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes a day or two, sometimes, like, how do you even start thinking, okay, did you already have the museum space? Or how do you start thinking about spaces and themes and narrative for people?
Speaker 3:yeah, during. Yeah, I started to talk to the museum while I was shooting and they said they were interested. I was a bit surprised because why would you put this in a maritime museum, right?
Speaker 1:For all these reasons. I mean you can see it, but you can also easily say no.
Speaker 3:The colonial maritime history of the Netherlands has always been food related. Netherlands has always been food related, so it's always been about food commodities, spices coming from Indonesia, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1:So in that sense it makes a lot of sense actually that it's in the maritime yeah but still you need a like, then a leadership team that says actually we want to go deep in a very there's a good director yeah, in a very touchy subject.
Speaker 3:Who is open to challenges?
Speaker 1:because you know I mean and it's been good many people coming right, it's been extended. Yeah, so for them as well. And so you start looking at. Do you start walking around here then as a just to walk through the spaces when there's nothing, just to imagine where things work and fit?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I worked with great designers Kummer and Herman. Well, they changed their name LMNOP now. So we designed the exhibition together and you know, I mean first of all we tried to make an exhibition with the lowest footprint as possible. We tried to make a portable post-set as well. It's carton so it can be recycled. And these steel constructions are actually rented but they are used in distribution centers, wow so you know there's.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. So everything that's hanging here basically is the same systems as they used…. Yeah, which is interesting because it's a very historical building.
Speaker 3:This building was built, I think, in the early 1600s, so to have the metal construction… it's about the contrast. It's very much about the contrast.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you start going and you say, okay, we need one room for China, because we don't know yet. And then yeah, we can take a small walk if you want, and then just from the amount of stuff you shot, like would you guess there's 10% here, 20, 30, or like what's the? Okay? We look at a very disturbing cookie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we look at a very disturbing cookie. Editing your work is very difficult, so obviously it's condensed from all the work that I shot, and the interesting thing about this museum is that all the schools are coming here as well. So it's quite visual yeah, and we made this series for dutch public television. It's four episodes, but now we made a from that. We made a series for school television in the netherlands, so that resulted that there's like educational packages, so the classes, the kids come here with a purpose.
Speaker 1:They already have and have you done have you seen like kids going through here?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, many.
Speaker 1:What's the response from them? Because we often complain. The kids think that we'll come through.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's like 40 kids lying on the floor. I mean, yeah, it's interesting. I think it's interesting for them, as it's probably interesting for everyone, or it should be interesting to to anyone. It's interesting also because, you know, I got a lot of somehow got messages from parents, because there's families coming as well that it's the kids who tell them to become vegetarian, which is, by the way, look at this interesting that's. They're trigger warnings. So it says please note that the next video Shows footage. So it's a trigger warning which is mainly about slaughterhouses.
Speaker 3:I had a discussion with the museum because you know I mean it shows actually how disconnected we are. Right Back in the day, you know, when I was a kid, you know you would go to the bakery to buy bread and I would go with my mom to the butcher and the butcher would take like half a cow out of the cooling and cut a piece of meat from it. So you knew that this had been an animal. Nowadays, if you go into the supermarket, all the meat you buy it doesn't. It doesn't look like it's ever been a living creature so um like it's ever been a living creature.
Speaker 1:So and it's, but it's. You know I mean, but you said you had a discussion, meaning you didn't want to put these notes.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I mean, I understand, I understood where this was coming from, but it's been interesting because there's been many families here with kids where the parents were explaining to the kids what they were looking at. So there has been very but for the series. When the series was launched they have to give it a rating for age. Initially they rated it for 14 years and I was like, really, you know, I mean, is this how far we are now? I mean anything you can watch on television which is rated 14 years is hardcore porno, horror shows and a slaughterhouse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Is that initially? No, it went to 12. Still. So, no, it went to 12. Still. It shows, yeah, the disconnection of. I mean, I've been at more artisanal slaughter facilities, but it's very brutal. If you want to eat meat, that's. I'm not saying you should slaughter yourself, but at least know and see it and be there and understand. Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know. I mean I knew that Slotterhuis would be difficult to get. That I understood. You mean like the Axis piece or Schramm, yeah, the Axis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they don't have the best, but it was not the most difficult. Oh, kipster, we've had Ruud on the show before. It's very interesting that relationship and how far it's food for thought. I mean imagining the amount of people that have interesting conversations From the people I heard that have been here. We see now chickens being what is it in boiling acid to get them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so those are laying, laying hens. So normally they, when they're not, when they're not produced anymore enough, they're being destroyed.
Speaker 1:They bring them to the slaughterhouse and at least at least they don't have a next life, but no, no they will become burgers for the little I think little is one of the. I remember discussing with the group how difficult it was to get the meat also of the non-laying ones, like the cocks etc. To get them into burgers. To get them into meat, because they're normally just destroyed like burnt, that's it. They're gasified, that's it. How did it change? Because you said it started with curiosity in the food, like the food on your plate as well. How has this changed your own eating habits and your buying habits? Have you become super cynical? You don't buy anything anymore or have you become very deliberate Nothing.
Speaker 3:It doesn't taste the same anymore, which is a little disturbing.
Speaker 1:It didn't taste it's not been covered. Cover took away a lot of days.
Speaker 3:Okay, so nothing tastes the same no, and and obviously you know sometimes it's a little obsessive because I'm like in the checking where everything is coming from. So you know, still fun to go out for dinner with, it's okay but you know, I mean, yeah, I'm not strictly vegetarian, I eat a lot. I eat very little meat. You know, a couple of months ago I thought I'm gonna give myself a steak at a restaurant and it just didn't taste that's disturbing.
Speaker 1:Then like, if you, yeah, okay, and in general, are you still enjoying food?
Speaker 3:yeah, but not as much as I did. You know I mean to buy basil now, not as much as I did. You know I mean to buy basil now and, knowing it's from Kenya and how it was produced and packed and it makes it Not, then that's not even talking about the question if you should buy it. Yeah, but everything, every you know the curiosity, how it started. What's on my plate? That problem is solved, but it didn't make it taste better.
Speaker 1:No, so you're starting a farm, you're starting to grow your own food.
Speaker 3:next, yeah, well, I live in the center of Amsterdam, so, yeah, it's difficult to do, it's good you know, have you seen?
Speaker 1:I mean we've not worked the whole thing and we won't have time, but like, have you seen, like potential pathways, or you know, saying solutions, but like directions that excite you also as a storyteller, photographer, I mean you know I mean, yeah, this you know I mean I could, I could work on this for another 10 years because there's more countries I haven't been to than countries I've been to.
Speaker 3:I didn't really look into solutions. It's really shows you the moment, like how it is today. But the good thing is, you know, working on climate-related stories before that, you feel that people feel powerless. It's too late. You know we're going down anyway. What?
Speaker 1:can I do? There's a word for that, yeah, sort of depression, I mean. Yeah, I understand.
Speaker 3:And with this you know I mean it's a complicated issue, but at least you know if you're lucky you eat three times a day and you can think about it. You can think about what you're about to stick in your mouth.
Speaker 1:It's the Like, the other one of like. We actually look at a video now of thrown away donuts, which is a bit disturbing.
Speaker 3:It's interesting actually because it's a company in the Netherlands who's collecting discarded foods from the industry. So you see there the famous Dutch stroopwafels, syrupwafels here, a massive mountain of them.
Speaker 1:So they have donuts macaroni, which is, I think, partly Kipster. One of the ways they figured out is their feed.
Speaker 3:Well, that's the story behind this? Because they're collecting this discarded food from the industry, so it's food commodities which are not like baked well or broken. Packaging is wrong. Normally it would be destroyed. It goes to this company and they turn it into chicken and pig feet, which is very interesting. It's very interesting. At the same time, it's also food for thought, because anything you see at that company you can still consume. It just didn't pass the beauty contest. So why?
Speaker 1:are you feeding it to pigs?
Speaker 3:yeah, but it's true because you know, I mean, if you look at really at the meat industry, how inefficient it is, how much land and water is needed to feed, to grow feed and then to even To feed your kilo of beef it's yeah, so feed.
Speaker 1:And then to even to feed your kilo of beef it's yeah, so yeah, it's an empowering one, but a very diff. I think that's why the food place is interesting. It's such a big one to change but it's so changeable. Not easy at all. No, if we look at the industry, like in just that, the investments made, like the CapEx, like this supply chain that we see around us, but if it won't be built in the last 15 years, 20 years, which means it's possible, like if we really put our, there is a I mean, obviously it's a huge, still a very polarized debate in the Netherlands.
Speaker 3:But you know, I mean I still speak to a lot of companies and actually I'm invited by a lot of companies to speak for their management now, including the companies who didn't even allow me in back in the back in the time, do you?
Speaker 1:ever get a question like why didn't you come to us? And you're like I talked to your whatever manager and they said no.
Speaker 3:But you know, I mean as soon as the door closes and you're with the management, everybody knows that things need to change.
Speaker 1:You know so whatever angle you come from health, whatever angle you come from climate, soil quality, salinity, inequality it's inevitable that this food system will change. The question is how fast and which direction.
Speaker 3:So the reason, to you know, to pick the different countries I mean the Netherlands was obvious. The reason I went to the Emirates and Saudi Arabia was because they were pretty severely affected by COVID, because they were depending, for 90% of their food commodities was import, so there were empty shelves. So they decided that they want to become independent and pick up their own production. So they're building. Money is not an issue, so they're building the biggest greenhouses, vertical farms, poultry farms, dairy farms, whatever. The only issue is water.
Speaker 1:Desalination plants are an energy, but both of them are not necessary.
Speaker 3:Yeah, desalination in the Emirates happens because it's relatively small, but yeah, it's polluting, it takes a lot of energy. In Saudi Arabia it's much larger and that problem is not solved by desalination. So, geoengineering, cloud seeding is the new magical word, so you can make it rain or you can stop the rain.
Speaker 1:You can also make it rain in your neighbors or stop the rain.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I mean it's successful to some extent because, you know, there's been several floods in the region, which were not very common. So the problem is that they yeah, they can make it rain, but there's no off switch, which is very tricky. It's interesting because it's and it has side effects, like you know, severe sandstorms afterward, you know. So yeah, it questions obviously, yeah, no, it's.
Speaker 1:It's an interesting angle in like a theme of the podcast. We've been exploring a lot are small water cycles, like how do you restore land at a size enough that it attracts the rain by itself which you could call natural geoengineering. But because many of these places were relatively green not so long ago, and even in the Mediterranean, if you look at Spain now, the amount of desertification is massive for a region that produces a lot of our veggies in the winter and the water table is like, but it used to rain there way more and way more constant than it does now.
Speaker 3:No, I mean. Kenya is experiencing severe drought. So you know it was literally I was on the farms where it's green and outside the fence there's a drought. You know there's dead cattle, so it's irrigation and obviously you know Deep wells, yeah, and then with the hike in avocados, which is one of the most water-consuming Crops we have, crops we have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's Food for thought. Now we go to the USA, which is bigger, bigger, bigger.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the US. You know, I mean I thought about it because it's a bit of a cliche but at the same time it is the biggest producer, exporter and biggest consumer of meat. You know, I mean, an American eats four times more meat than than we do.
Speaker 1:So four times. Okay, just do so. Any reduction there is like the yeah, yeah, we do a lot of. Actually, most of our, most of our listeners are in north america with global average yeah, so you.
Speaker 3:I mean obviously all that those animals need to eat. So I realized you know I've been after driving around eight states I started to realize that I never saw any land where any crops were being grown for human consumption. It was all for cattle.
Speaker 1:It's probably the biggest lever we have in change. It's how we feed animals and of course that we eat it, but how that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we have the animals here in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam, which I didn't know is the biggest soy port of Europe. So soy from the US and Brazil mainly, is coming into Amsterdam, Half stays in the Netherlands and the other half goes to Germany elsewhere in Europe.
Speaker 1:And it's not even guilty to cows.
Speaker 3:So the number of 30,000 kilometers comes from what's on your plate. If you start calculating, it's not so crazy, or you start to understand how that number came about. Gets there.
Speaker 1:Came about. The visual. There's the logistics the port of New Orleans yeah, it's famous as being one of the biggest. The fragility as well. Like you need one container ship, one like what we saw in. Where was it in? Like you need one container ship, one Like what we saw in. Where was it in the US, a container ship hitting a bridge and thereby blocking an upstream harbor in? Have you measured the amount of people that have turned vegetarian after this? It's interesting. So this is the yeah, yeah yeah, for it.
Speaker 1:So this is the one where you were looking at imaging now of a beef a massive beef. This is the one where you could stay longer. Yeah, this is the one where you were looking at imaging now of a beef a massive beef. This is the one where you could stay longer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is the ranch in Texas.
Speaker 1:Wow, it feels dystopian.
Speaker 3:huh yeah, I mean, when I he said don't walk around, you know, take your car. But I so I kind of understood how big it was, but only when I flew the drone, the drone, yeah, yeah, yeah. I see the image now it's like alfalfa, soy maize yeah, that's the common. I kind of understood how big it was, but only when I flew the drone, the drone, yeah.
Speaker 1:And. I see the imagery now. It's like alfalfa, soy maize yeah, that's the common one which are grown in huge center pivots with irrigation.
Speaker 3:Well, saudi Arabia brought lots of land in the US, like in Arizona in pretty dry states, to grow alfalfa for the cattle back home.
Speaker 1:And who allowed. That is also interesting. Wow. We now see how they're filling the bottles for For the cows, for the cows, for the cows, or, sorry, how they're washing them. And all these workers are yeah, I mean, immigrant workers.
Speaker 3:Yes, like everywhere.
Speaker 1:Like everywhere Like in the Netherlands.
Speaker 3:Just to give you an example, I haven't been anywhere on the production floor in a farm where I spoke Dutch. I would speak Dutch with the management. Otherwise it's migrant workers from Eastern Europe In the US. They're all from Central and South America. With all the debates we have in the Netherlands and elsewhere about immigration, asylum.
Speaker 1:There wouldn't be anything on your plate without that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was thinking what about if the let's imagine migrant workers would strike for a weekend in the Netherlands? Supermarkets would be empty.
Speaker 1:This is a shift, a very dramatic shift. We're seeing bison now that are returning to the Dakotas. Why did you choose to?
Speaker 3:show this as well. Well, you know, because it was like, Because you were so depressed after the Texas one, I mean, this is yeah well.
Speaker 1:It's also a dramatic one.
Speaker 3:We know the dramatic story about the Native Americans and basically, you know, especially depending on the tribe, they were living off their buffaloes, pisons, and they were all killed by the settlers, they were almost exterminated. So they're bringing back now the cattle, the pisons, also to improve their diet because, know, I mean, obviously obesity is terrible. 83%.
Speaker 1:I saw is autistic now. Yeah, so yeah, and it's a cultural thing as well, like the bison is so important way beyond food and grassland management and we can't even imagine the cultural piece to that I've seen them returning, and what it does to tribes. It's like a tribe member coming home. It's like a tribe member coming home. So when you talk to the management, you show photos, you talk about your journey, like management of food companies, once you visit it or not what's there?
Speaker 1:I think you know because they know. Why do they need you to know?
Speaker 3:well, they don't, you know. Because in the beginning I was like I thought, like you know from the city, you think a farmer is a farmer, right? Well, first of all, if you was a tomato grower, when you call him a farmer, he will kick you out in a second. Him a farmer, he will kick you out in a second. So we kind of assume that somebody who has pigs knows what a greenhouse for tomatoes looks like and they don't.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean it's complete and separated industries.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, so they're curious about other sectors. Yeah, about other sectors? Yeah, because they don't know and even you know, I mean the management of Albert Heijn, the big supermarket in the Netherlands they don't know how the works are in Kenya. Yeah, they have some people who once in a while, go there to check on the farms, but in general.
Speaker 1:And so how are those conversations then? Of course without mentioning names, like what's the general vibe?
Speaker 3:It's more and more like I'm invited as a keynote speaker, you know, to bring some food for thought, yeah. And as long as I'm not censored or have to send my presentation beforehand, I'm fine. Yeah, so here we're in Kenya.
Speaker 1:Why did you pick Kenya? I mean, it is the best of all. Well, Kenya, because it's such a huge producer.
Speaker 3:You know, it's not just for the Netherlands, they produce for all of Europe, yeah, of course. So it's massive and it's really food for thought, right? I mean because one of the herb growers they're a huge herb grower because our basil, thyme, oregano, et cetera, all comes from there he says listen, what's the problem you guys have If you grow it back at home, you put it in a greenhouse, which you either have to heat in the winter or you have to cool it in the summer. Here we use natural resources, which is the sun. We grow it in the soil. So what's the issue, which to some extent, he's very right? The question is, obviously, if this all should be exported. And what about the wages? What?
Speaker 1:about the wages? What about chemical use? What about water use? What about the externalities? Of course, it's currently not in the price, so it's to be, you know.
Speaker 3:I mean those farms are huge, you know. So it kind of sometimes gave me like a sense of plantations.
Speaker 1:Just replaced with a bit of wage and then calling it okay and maybe a certification somewhere, and definitely the power dynamics aren't equal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I didn't do much about fish, but you know, in Kenya there's the fish. And why is the fish there? Because I was allowed to go with the food security. You know they check all the imports which comes in.
Speaker 1:They check your selection. Yeah, I was allowed to go with them in Schiphol.
Speaker 3:that's where I saw how I saw that how much vegetables and fruits were coming from Kenya. But they also had this fish, nile perch.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I was like what are we doing with Nile? Because it was like one. Two cargo flights a day arrive from Kenya to Tanzania with Nile perch. It's never on the menu.
Speaker 1:You were like I've never seen it on my plate, like where does it go?
Speaker 3:And yeah, I don't you know. I mean, one of the inspectors said it's. You know the fish sticks, you know which is supposed to carry cod Cod?
Speaker 1:yeah, which doesn't, it's sold as white fish.
Speaker 3:But the story behind the Nile perch is that back in the 50s it's an invasive species. They put it in Victoria Lake, which is the biggest lake sweet water lake in Africa. But it's such a predator that it adds everything, including the indigenous species. The tilapia. So is it good that we're eating it?
Speaker 1:Huh, so it's good that we're eating it. We're eating the plague.
Speaker 3:Well, the problem is that the Kenyans, tanzanians and Ugandans, who share the lake, they don't eat Nile perch. So, okay, it's being exported, but the tilapia is not there. So now the Chinese are farming tilapia in China, and shipping it.
Speaker 1:We've done. It should be out by when this is out, otherwise it's going to be out soon With the biggest tilapia farmer in Kenya and Rwanda and he made an interesting point he said. It really makes me smile when I think that because they sell everything local, nothing is exported.
Speaker 3:When somebody in yeah, there's a farm right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, victoria farms and like somebody here nearby can eat a really good, high quality piece of protein without antibiotics, etc. And somebody super chic in in new york is eating sushi. That's antibiotic salmon. Like she can eat a better one here than you could eat there in many cases. So there are, but, but it's it's. It's a yeah, the cheap tilapia coming in in Mozambique, etc. We just crossed the border into China, which wasn't easy for you to do back in the day when I was in. When you're in, yeah, how was the response there? Like what's there?
Speaker 3:you know I'm I would have never believed if you would have told me, but it was the easiest country to work in compared to all of them, and I think it's partly because China is getting a few things right. Where we were talking about producing locally and shorten the change, they just did that. So they're building the biggest greenhouses around the existing cities or new cities, so fresh produce is always close by. I mean, systems are completely automated, robotized, so it's quite efficient actually. So I think the reason why it was relatively easy is, I think, that they are proud To show.
Speaker 1:Look, we're leading, or at least I mean at one point, for the inhabitants. I never thought… and put security and long-term thinking is. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you know. So they decided that they don't want Same. They don't want to be depending on food imports Like on energy so they're producing locally.
Speaker 3:By the way, what I never realized when I started was like I thought the Netherlands is just a chapter and then it's a chapter, but I didn't realize that I've never is just a chapter and then it's a chapter, but I didn't realize that I've never been in a greenhouse anywhere in the world, including China or the US, which hasn't been by the built by the Dutch, or whether technology is. Dutch Slot lines are Dutch. Most of the vegetables have originate from Dutch seeds, so you know.
Speaker 1:Which is, I mean, probably a better way of export than milk powder and, like for the Netherlands, as an export it's way like you get left with less waste that we are now, of course. So how long have you been in China? Like how many different China was relatively.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've been in All countries. I've been more than once and China was only once and I've been there like two, three weeks. So that was relatively quick, but since the access was pretty good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you don't have to hassle in getting in Also hear the scale again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, obviously there's a few things to say about it, because the Chinese government has come up with this idea that the Chinese should get big on dairy, so they're building these huge dairy farms in Mongolia, like huge. By the way, all dairy cows are Dutch, of course, fish and Holstein anywhere in the world and with the, you know where people are getting better and better off. They consume more meat as well. So there's a few downsides to it.
Speaker 1:We're looking at a cow carousel being milked, where 80 different cows fit in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then we're playing Fury Lees 24-7. I asked the manager what's this? They said they did scientific research that Beethoven keeps the cows calm, happy and productive.
Speaker 1:I mean, they're very intelligent beings. It's just a scale. We're looking at a container port, now the largest container ship, that can carry 24,000 container ships. So what was your biggest surprise? I mean, there's so many, but like if you had to pick one surprise, like seeing all of this, what was really?
Speaker 3:I don't think I can pick one, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, what shocked you the most?
Speaker 3:The scale is just, you know, and the way we organized it, the whole food system, it often just made no sense, but it's also our, you know, we are part of this as consumers, right, we expect everything to be there. We see an. Ai delivery robot driving around with water. Yeah, sometimes it was science fiction.
Speaker 1:Hmm, so many people work in this space, of course Packaging, processing, cutting, delivering.
Speaker 3:Massive gingers. It's not as hectic as elsewhere, you know. I mean they seem to, but they have. Yeah, workforce is not an issue. So we came to the end.
Speaker 1:So this is the….
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is like….
Speaker 1:What do you when you design something? Of course, with the designers. What do you think? Okay, how do I leave people?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this, you know I mean this here like people, maybe kids, they can take a card here from and they can write a question. It's very funny if you read something. Is this fun?
Speaker 1:for you, yes, I see here somebody he can ask for like why, what, who, when and how, and somebody is saying, why can't we just eat with F Meat?
Speaker 3:So I would like to know when animals get the same rights as people.
Speaker 1:I see animals being definitely a theme. Is this a children one? What has that for the animals? Why aren't workers paid fairly? It's a hidden crime. It's more. That's not a question. That's more a statement.
Speaker 3:This one says I want to know why are there so many angry vegan?
Speaker 1:sheep. Fair enough, there's somebody. How do we stop the supermarkets Absurd that you can buy a cut and peeled apple in a supermarket. When can we buy cloned meat in the shop? And my fear with that is that it's just going to be the same size factory, the same size, payments Only.
Speaker 3:Ukrainian yeah.
Speaker 1:We're going to invest in locally sourced food. Big supermarkets, that's okay. Yeah there's many. There's so many Do you sometimes come here and just look at them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we's many. There's so many. Do you sometimes come here and just look at them? Yeah, we collect them. Why is?
Speaker 1:there still with all the genetically modified food, still food waste and spillage? That's a very good question. You collect them and then what do you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the museum is. I think we're gonna you know, we're gonna make some reports and I think they use it in the education as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's some funny food for thought here yeah, there's a farmer cutting onions with a mountain of onions behind him and it says that it wasn't clear who were. If farmer Frank is crying because of the onions cutting onions or because of the horrible deal he gets with the processors, it definitely pushes people. That's what I've. I mean seeing it now, of course, with my own eyes that it's very clear, but it definitely pushes people as well. That nudged us to come here. So it is, and from people that have been at these places have seen this, are working in like. So I can only imagine if you're sort of newish or curious, it's quite a you're not gonna leave untouched, I think. Fascinating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's like in Kenya, it's all manual Mungoes, mungoes, but it's all done manual. You know, I mean the way how automated it is in the In China, in China. So you know, I didn't know they were cutting it.
Speaker 1:Cutting mangoes by hand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for your containers.
Speaker 1:And then in an airplane Like there's so much wrong with that. You never buy mango anymore, cut right. No, no, no, wow, wow, okay, thank you, keleir. We're back here and the numbers keep rolling. So at the end, at the beginning actually, there are a number of interesting numbers about the Netherlands, the different harbors, the different import and export onion kilos, etc. And of course, since the moment we walked in they've been running, except for the number on top, which is the number of people that are starving.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which also should be running is. She says the people are starving worldwide and which?
Speaker 1:is really that's only increasing and not decreasing 435 million, which I think is around 800 now. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for walking us through this and thanks for having me on the show and for for walking us through this. Thanks for having me on the show and for giving us food for thought. We're going to share some imagery. We're going to, of course, nudge people here If you have the chance, go, but also I mean, we have a global audience. Of course you can't, but there are ways to get this to your country if you want.
Speaker 1:There are ways to expose people to food for thought as a mindset shift. I mean we need to work on solutions. We need to hold companies accountable. All of the work which a lot of you listening are doing is fundamental. But until the general audience, whoever walks in the street, has a glimpse of what actually it takes now to produce their food and what it does to all of us, including all non-human beings and the planet, so enough people care is just gonna be a long, a long road. So thank you for doing this hard work, disturbing work, interesting, fascinating and through your lens, your stills and your moving imagery, to bring it to us. You're welcome. 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.
