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
348 Angus McIntosh - Walking the talk on Farmer Angus' land in South Africa
An afternoon stroll through the land of Angus McIntosh, also known as Farmer Angus, where we talk about brands, wine and get interrupted by dogs and, believe it or not, a grazing tortoise. From his South African farm, Angus guides us through his groundbreaking practices, producing everything from grass-fed beef to carbon-negative wine. With every product, he redefines conscious consumption, making a compelling case for how our food choices can drive positive environmental change.
In a landscape where consumer demand for sustainability is rising, the potential for transformation in South African agriculture is immense. Beyond agriculture, we tackle the challenges and triumphs of digital marketing in this field, highlighting the power of storytelling amidst social media setbacks.
More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/angus-mcintosh-2.
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In Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast show 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. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.
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Join us for a very special treat an afternoon stroll through the gardens of Angus McIntosh, also known as Farmer Angus, where we talk about brands, wine, and get interrupted by dogs and, believe it or not, a grazing tortoise. 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.
Speaker 1: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 so welcome and thank you for for having having me here and showing a bit of the bit of the land is going to be um, um, as I to say, only scratching the surface, very short, but I wanted to hear a bit more. I mean, a few things have been happening. This is now autumn or beginning of spring here in South Africa, but autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. So let's say beginning of November or the middle of November. And you recently launched your own wine brand and we've talked about brand before.
Speaker 1:You said I'm not so happy with my name everywhere. It needs to be about me, or I feel like it's needed, even though I sort of reluctantly put in your face and I saw your face in the shop as well. You know the, the products, yeah. So why? Why wine? Why did you like?
Speaker 2:it. So the wines we launched end of July. It's the seventh regenerative product from the farm.
Speaker 1:So after just a few weeks We've had you before.
Speaker 2:So we've done broiler chickens, beef, grass-fed beef, cured meat, charcuterie. So we're the only guys in the country who raise our pigs outdoors. We're also the only guys who cure without adding nitrates, nitrates and phosphates the rooibos tea, which is the most amazing plant, by the way. Why is that? Because if you try and give it fertilizer, it falls over. It just wants to suffer in these conditions. It's an amazing plant and you need to think about that. Every time you drink rooibos tea, you're drinking this plant, imbibing this energy of this ultimately independent plant.
Speaker 1:It's fantastic so you cannot grow rooibos with with fertilizer.
Speaker 2:The guy who's helping us grow it on the farm did his master's in horticulture, his master's thesis, one which was on what is the ideal fertilizer for rooibos, and the answer is rainwater. Um, and then we've got laying hens carbon credits which, unfortunately, is a market that's completely dried up and which is quite frustrating, because 50% of the net income from the carbon project goes to our staff, and for them to get a nice bonus I mean, the unsolved credits for the staff is worth 550,000 Rand, which in euros isn't a big amount, but in rands is huge. So that would be for us. The carbon credits have never been a thing we rely on for income, but it's a really nice thing to talk about because we can then say guys, it's possible to feed the world in a carbon negative way.
Speaker 1:In fact, my wines are carbon negative wines.
Speaker 2:They're not carbon neutral wines because what we've I can talk to you that calculation if you want how we've retired more than four times what we think those wines have emitted from the carbon project, which is why we can say it's a carbon negative one. But our whole thesis is that you can feed, we can eat our way to a healthier, better world and so how come?
Speaker 1:let's go back to the wine. Let's go back to the wine.
Speaker 2:So the so, so, so the wine is in the seventh regenerative product. It was launched four and a half months ago, but officially actually started in 2009, of course, because you have to plant.
Speaker 2:Well, no, no, not just planting, it's the conversion and the first one, so the conversion eventually is organically certified by 2015, but it's only by 2016 that the winemakers at speed who my colleagues in this whole thing figured out or were satisfied with the quality, because what we did is in 2009. I was managing the whole of the speed farm and within the farm there were conventionally managed vineyards. And I said to the guys listen, we cannot have conventionally managed vineyards in the middle of a regenerative, organic, biodynamic, managed farm, which is not going to happen, so let's take vineyards out. And they said well, we think a third of the vineyards, so that's 18 hectares, could make good wines, but we not sure yet. So we said, fine, give us all those years. So we spent years building the vineyard ecosystem with.
Speaker 2:I can talk you through whether it's the biodynamic stuff, whether it's the animals grazing in the cover crops, the cover crops themselves, the chicken feathers that we mulch with which I think you and I have spoken about. So there's a lot of different fertility things that we do by 2016,. The winemakers were like these grapes are delicious, let's start experimenting with making small batches of artisanal wine. And then they just kept refining the model and now we've got three wines in the Farmer Angus range.
Speaker 1:So that's a proof of how long it takes.
Speaker 2:What it's done is that it's given us an opportunity A to meet new clients, because it's a whole new market.
Speaker 1:And a market that's very different, I think, from the meat market.
Speaker 2:Totally different from the meat market. It's much more focused on quality. It's much more discerning in its taste.
Speaker 1:We love to talk about wine and taste and all of that.
Speaker 2:And in our case we really can, because there's also a lot of bullshit in wine. There's so much bullshit in wine Unbelievable. It's been been exciting. I went to, I went um in september. I traveled to eight countries in 12 days to introduce my wines. Um, it's it. People like it. We're going to taste some later this evening, you and I, hopefully, before you get on the plane. Uh, not too much maybe. Maybe you can have lots because you can sleep really well. I think I'll be fine sleeping.
Speaker 2:So it's a logical conclusion, because the vineyards are part of the farm. We don't just do one thing on the farm, and the underlying philosophy for everything is the same. So the vineyards, for example. I don't know how much you care or are interested in or know about how winemaking happens, but the way these wines are made is a very minimalist approach. We take the grapes when they are their correct ripeness, we put them, harvest them, we put them in a chiller overnight, so they get about four, five degrees. We squeeze the juice out of them. Half the juice goes into what we call ceramic eggs and the other half goes into old french oak barrels and then we leave them. We don't add yeast, we don't strip the yeast and then add yeast, enzymes, flavorants, food for the yeast or everything else that goes into conventional wine. The way to think of conventional wine is it's feedlot beef. Yeah, grass-fed, grass-finished wine is what we're doing. Okay, so, and then we rack at the end and add 15 parts of sulfur, uh, and, and, and that's it.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, so so and how different is it to, I mean, apart from the years? Well, I mean, animal protein takes years as well in some cases, like how, how different of a business is it for you to in terms of so?
Speaker 2:the margin distribution. The irony is we're going to make more money out of wine than out of food, and that's another thing that's so wrong in the world.
Speaker 1:I keep saying that, yeah, because you say how to feed the world, which objectively probably alcohol is. It's calories, but it's not the main it shouldn't be the main source, let's say, but there's more money in. In shouldn't be the main source, but there's more money in alcohol, or the money I think in agriculture is in cosmetics and in alcohol the brands, the natural cosmetics brands.
Speaker 2:Amazing if you build it, because, again, kun we failed, as you and I spoke earlier today about true cost accounting it's funny that we spend more.
Speaker 1:We don't have any issues, or don't seem to seem to have less issues, of buying something of high quality natural ingredients that we put on our skin and what we put in our mouth and or we put in our bottle or in our in our glasses. It's just way easier to spend money on that and you're trying to to counter that with charcuterie and with with high quality animal protein, but somehow it's difficult, I mean we make soap from our beef fat great margins on that but our production is just too small Because you know original soaps were from animal fat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you wash yourself with this beef soap, you cannot believe how good your skin feels.
Speaker 1:And so how does the wine part fit into breaking that mold or getting through that also in the in the food part are you planning to do? Because it goes really well together, obviously, but how do you? So it's a great question. It's a great question, so so it's not going to convert everything to wine. No, no, no, no no, we've got.
Speaker 2:We've got 21 hectares of vineyards. Let that's it. And if we are so there is a 10 hectare block that my colleagues want to convert into vineyards and we're going to do a direct swap. They're going to establish 10 hectares of pasture. So every vineyard that wants to be established has to be established on pasture, and also there's only a certain parts of the farm that actually will have a good soil for vineyards. You can't just do vineyards everywhere. So these areas we've identified have to be traded with pasture.
Speaker 1:Okay the credit defaults.
Speaker 2:How does it fit into the bigger picture? The wine will be the growth engine and what the wine will do will allow investment into the other animal protein parts, which will reduce the cost of production of those With scale comes. So, like with cows, I can go and buy a whole lot of cows. Then those cows can have their babies on the farm, and those are some marginal cost, whereas you have to go and buy in cattle that someone else has raised. That's what's expensive, and with the pigs, you know, we can work on possibly growing some of their food on the farm and things like that. So that's where I see it. I see the wine business will obviously subsidize itself and, and eventually we hope to be able to build a seller, as I spoke to you about, very similar to what porto forte and italy have done, which is an incredible. I've physically been there myself, but I've just seen the videos of it. It looks, it looks insane that needs an investment, yeah and and and.
Speaker 2:that's a big investment. So I'm not sure if I've answered your question.
Speaker 1:No, I can see, I think, what we talked about before, how the wine part could be a good margin business when done well, which can help scale the rest, just like a good cash crop can feed the rest of the operations, as long as it doesn't become a single focus and then distorts the system that you explain how you're protecting against that. And um, yeah, we just pay way more attention to to alcohol and wine than we do to many other things to, yeah, which is which is for another podcast, and how's been the response? What's the?
Speaker 2:it's been good. I mean we we we're actually doing better overseas than locally, but that's because our local market is. My colleagues have stuffed up the distribution channels but that last week, literally for the first time in four months, finally got the correct channel. So now it's a shakedown and the thing is that a lot of people are very stuck with their wine producers.
Speaker 2:So despite the fact that I've got a brand in meat, I'm new to the wine business yeah, the wine business has been very very regimented, very loyal, but we, we haven't had, we haven't had anybody with major problems, wine distribution it's, I mean how different is it from I mean, of course, from meat?
Speaker 2:because, meat is all local, so local we can't export. I'm looking at exporting my meat to Dubai, which will be which we'll see if it's going to happen. It'll be great because then I get much better pricing than locally and Dubai is potentially a very big market. Yeah, and I went to dubai in may. The charcuterie is not great. I mean, a lot of charcuterie is terrible, yeah, most of it is and and it burns, you know, because it's filled with nitrates and phosphates and we don't add any of that stuff.
Speaker 2:So that's why people love Ridgebacks, because they are completely protective of their masters. So they he's like he's. He's seeing hey, hey, hey, quiet. Now he's seeing that where's imagine, this is a guard dog. Hey, you just die from laughter. That's the the only way he's going to protect anybody. Those are the forbs that John Kempf talks about. It's an interesting dilemma.
Speaker 2:You want to be focused on food, but yet you want to make the food more reasonable. So I can tell you, on the horizon, the thing that's made me the most hopeful about the food thing and I'm pretty sure we've spoken about this before is Dan Kittredge's handheld bionutrient meter or nutrient density meter. But the latest iteration of it which I'm told by Dan because I saw him in August, that's coming out. But the latest iteration of it, which I'm told by Dan because I saw him in August, that's coming out is the thing that makes me most excited about, and the dogs can't believe their luck. So what I'm most hopeful about in the food space, particularly in the meat space, is Dan's handheld device which he says within six months, maybe even less, is going to be able to show you the Omega 6-3 ratio in meat.
Speaker 2:And just imagine what that's going to do to the feedlots, because their meat beef feedlots, the grass-fed, grass-finished guys who are purists, are going to be able to go. There's the Omega 6-3 ratio, and if we had a people who were focused on medicine, how difficult is it to? Measure it now for you to.
Speaker 1:Is it something you can easily do? You have to send it to a lab.
Speaker 2:That's the beauty of dan's thing is bringing the lab by hand. Okay, of course I can send it to a lab, but I want to be able to so people can walk into a shop and then again. Maybe I'm being naively optimistic, but I believe there will be a retailer that will go.
Speaker 2:We can do it, yeah, and I can promise you. South africa has hundreds of farmers who are desperate for a good market, for a good market who can, and and then it requires clever coordination, but it's entirely because we've got so many different we're such a diverse country with so many different growing seasons we can have this time of the year, these guys will provide that time of year, those guys will provide, and the whole thing will just be one uplifting experience.
Speaker 1:It'll be, it'll be incredible if the consumer or customer or the eater let's say is is ready for that. Do you see that in your? Because you talk to a lot of people, obviously they're specifically buying your stuff. Maybe some other farmers that are already in that. Do you feel that it's growing the interest? Even simply the term omega-3, 6 ratio Is that In a heartbeat.
Speaker 2:People are so focused on that. People understand that most of our diseases today are inflammatory diseases. People understand that it's not a difficult puzzle to I know, but it's interesting.
Speaker 1:Has that shifted in the last years? Do you see the attention? Do you see the?
Speaker 2:I think COVID's made a lot of people think. One, covid's made a lot of people think about what health is. Two, the fact that a lot of people are either dying or getting very sick because of the covert injections is making people rethink the whole medical world, and and and questioning the dogma that gets rammed down our throats by medicine. So and and part of that questioning is going hold on. Why are we sick?
Speaker 1:yeah okay and and I think that that market's growing and they cannot find it now that's what you're saying Because it's not in a supermarket, because you have to go to a shop here, you have to go specifically online. It's not widely enough available. This is what I'm trying to say Is price point an issue as well? I don't think price point is an issue.
Speaker 2:The guys can do grass-fed beef everywhere in the country year-round.
Speaker 1:So what, then? Is that the, the processing?
Speaker 2:The problem is that no one has a market for it. So they raise their beef grass-fed and then they go to feed lots.
Speaker 1:To be finished.
Speaker 2:So the Omega 6, hiroshi, I mean it's interesting to see what it's going to do for my eggs. You know, I don't know, because those chickens are grain-fed. But they are monogastric, so they're designed to eat grain.
Speaker 1:In our last conversation with Dan, he went on about the he says pork and chicken is terrible on the Omega-6 Ferocious.
Speaker 2:He hasn't cut eggs yet.
Speaker 1:but he says the sprouting and fermentation of grains is fundamental to counter that. But I think he stopped eating chicken and pork. I'm quoting him. I was with him a few weeks ago but I don't remember Did he come to Europe, or did you see him in America?
Speaker 1:He came to Europe. I saw him here twice. He did some stuff in Italy, some stuff in France, portugal, and he's coming regularly. Now Don't want to give the itinerary of Dan away, but you can follow him. Sure, sure, sure. And yeah, he gave up, I think, most of pork and chicken. That interview, I think I know a few people listened to it. We interviewed him. He was like, yeah, I really changed my part of my diet, didn't give up eggs yet, but shifted partly to that, and was talking a lot about the fermentation side of thing, because, yeah, they need grain to a certain extent. And what? How do we tackle that without making it an inflammatory food, which would be not really the point?
Speaker 2:the other thing that dan's working on is a, an advanced probiotic, or an advanced probiotic or an advanced you could call it a Bokashi or an EM or whatever it is that you spray onto silage which jacks up the protein content of that silage and therefore takes away the need to feed cattle grain. Now that is a revolution.
Speaker 1:That's a game changer.
Speaker 2:Limited. Okay, that's another revolution that's waiting to happen. It's insane.
Speaker 1:And so are you hopeful, like in the next years, let's say short term, which in farmer terms is always a couple of years and not a couple of months that these kind of things will unlock the market? I'm doing air courts, which nobody sees, the the demand side of things, which will unlock a lot of farmers to be able to I do, I really believe that I don't want to put any more pressure on dan than he puts on himself.
Speaker 2:Okay, but it really is important that he gets that work completed, that he finds a funder who can help him drive the cost down. It's critical Dan doesn't realize what our goldmine is sitting on and it might not make him rich, but it will certainly be a massive thing in the world and I do believe that it will take some retailers somewhere will grasp onto that thing.
Speaker 1:Because this is an opportunity, you can be the first, you can be the…. It's unbelievable that thing. Because this is an opportunity, you can be the first, you can be there. Every diet focus, animal protein focus person in that country is going to find you as a retailer because it's just so not tricky but difficult to find stuff online to get it low inflammatory beef that's what you're selling you can sell it as a medicine and, and if you do it properly, you can tie the carbon story to it.
Speaker 1:Okay, which is good for people who care about carbon, for the supermarkets A lot of people don't do it, but the carbon market, the carbon guys can do it.
Speaker 2:Imagine you're a retailer. Okay, you know your carbon emissions are this, but the farmers you support have pulled so much carbon into their soils.
Speaker 1:For the scope 3.
Speaker 2:It's a cool story to tell do you see anybody?
Speaker 1:we talked about supermarkets last time as well, like in in south africa, here that um could be a first move. Or do you see any interest? Any dances?
Speaker 2:no, because, because, because, at this stage, at this stage, they can't measure the quality. Quality is not measurable. Okay, that's why, people just hide it with sources and and and the source. People are that clever that they can add um all sorts of things that stimulate this msg and there's this umami flavoring.
Speaker 2:There's a lot things you can do, so so I I I'm not convinced that that, um, the retailers are ready yet, but, without trying to sound like a stuck record, dan's thing can literally change the game. Yeah, I'm not saying a retailer will necessarily take it. There's one or two retailers, I think, who could potentially you need one or two to jump.
Speaker 2:Well, actually, in this country you just need one, because they're too probably exactly well. The third one is going down the drain, third big one. So there's really two big, big guys, although they're actually still three big guys, but the one has a has. The one talks as if they're the greenest shop in the world. Okay, so this could be an opportunity for them to actually walk the talk or the other one to actually do something green and then show it.
Speaker 1:I'm still surprised how few. I mean Waitrose, I think, announced in the UK quite a significant regen program, but how few are going down the food and medicine.
Speaker 2:In this country? None, I don't think they understand it. I don't think there's pressure on them to do it. Um, you see the one? Hey, look here. Look who's come to visit us Wow.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is another Walking the Land episode, but with a turtle walking.
Speaker 2:Hello friend, wow, hello friend, wow, hello friend. Oh, pull this head in.
Speaker 1:He's sure, with the dogs around, of course. That's fascinating. Going for an evening stroll, evening stroll, such an ancient creature, unbelievable, hey he was around at the time of the dinosaurs.
Speaker 2:Hello friend, just don't worry about us. Hey, you just ignore Kun and us. It's a shame people can't see what you're doing, kun, because then you can tell them this is a tortoise that's coming to disturb our stroll.
Speaker 1:So people just imagine half a meter tortoise walking the grass where we were strolling around eating nice eating, eating the clover see it's grazing the pasture. Grazing the pasture with this. Wow, that's definitely a first on the podcast. Getting disturbed by dogs we've had many times. That's not a.
Speaker 2:Get disturbed by a grazing tortoise.
Speaker 1:It wasn't something I thought would happen. Yeah, I'm waiting for that as well, like a retailer that I mean we've seen the amazing online ones, of course, pushing for, but we see somebody that really puts food, flavour and quality first and hopefully attracts a significant amount of attention.
Speaker 2:So, koen, what's making you hopeful?
Speaker 1:I would say the influx of talent, like the last few years. I've seen many people like yourself as well, of course, way before that have experience elsewhere in entrepreneurship, finance, like not in the food and agriculture sector necessarily, or even in but let's say not in the region space that somehow get bitten by the soil bug for whatever reason personal health, family health, climate, carbon, water, biodiversity, water cycle, like whatever they see life and entropy, as we discussed before, they see something and it's and then they don't let go anymore. It's like very difficult. And, of course, the whole generation of farmers, a whole group of farmers that start learning, start applying, but I'm that makes me very hopeful. But even more the people that around it that are building the brands that are starting to sell or building the measurement tools that somehow, like the space is getting bigger, still tiny, like most people, no idea when you say nutrient density or Omega six or three ratio, no idea when you talk about cover crops, living roots, etc. But the amount of people I think has grown exponentially in the last few years.
Speaker 1:It's awesome, man, and that's really and we can help. I mean that's what we try to do with the podcast help them speed up another way. I mean, who are the people to talk to in the sector they want to work and who are the people building things, who are the the the people doing stuff, and how can we point resources or help to find ways to make them go faster? And it could be in the farming side, but it could also be on the technology side, on the machinery side, on the sales side, et cetera, et cetera, because many people are starting to try to figure these things out against all odds. That makes me very hopeful. And then, you see, what makes me less hopeful is climate waiting, going bananas, and see the immense pressure on water, biodiversity, etc. That agriculture is on and that doesn't seem to get less. But this seems like, as a good friend of the show likes to call it, an island of sanity and from there we can rebuild when shit hits the fan.
Speaker 2:Excuse my French no, no, it's absolutely right. The island of sanity idea is is totally valid we need them.
Speaker 1:We need them to the recipes. Okay, what works in this specific? Exactly, exactly so, because nobody knows you can, I mean, you have a friend, that's 900 kilometers away, dude you can learn, but it's not.
Speaker 2:I can have someone farming, Dude. I can have someone farming. I can have someone farming 10 kilometers away and they're doing something completely, completely, completely different.
Speaker 1:Which makes it so difficult for all the linear people to understand. Why don't you just copy it you?
Speaker 2:can't, you can try and get similar philosophies going. Yeah, okay, so philosophically we can. We can possibly talk about things like that, but to actually do what works here, you know, I mean, my, my use of water is different, but that again is a beautiful thing, with a possibility of of Dan's handheld meter. Everyone can do grass-fed beef. You can. Certainly in this country Everyone can do grass-fed beef, you don't have to be. Some guys can do it easier because they can irrigate in summer or they can grow pastures in winter.
Speaker 2:You know, because the rest of the country, you know, is this your first time to South Africa? Yes, okay, so you are in what a lot of people will call white Africa, okay, where there's a lot of whiteys here. It's also the only part of South Africa or Africa right northern, north. North Africa there obviously is on the Mediterranean, has a Mediterranean climate, but south of the Sahara, the only Mediterranean climate is here, so we have winter rains with hot, dry summers. The rest the country has summer rain, so it's very cold, much called, or, relatively, sometimes there's a bit of snow, but it's cold, dry winters with no rain.
Speaker 2:But those guys up there who can irrigate, they can grow rye grass and clovers in winter and and then in their summers the rain grows the grass. So there are people who can have grass fed and grass finished beef all year round. But then what will happen? Once you start having those handheld meters, the guys who call it grass fed but who cheat with grain at the end will get caught out, because dan kitchard will show you from his research the minute you introduce grain into the diet, that ratio goes out. The other thing, of course, that I think it could do is it could it could make the market for venison more interesting what is venison.
Speaker 2:Venison is wild, the. The wild game Because that's just organic grown out there Make that market a lot more interesting.
Speaker 1:Now we should all hunt for bushmeat, but there are many places where there's a lot of wildlife that say that should or could be eaten and that we're not. So this, basically this whole conversation, ends up being a strong push for Dan to finish his meat or for someone else or some other, but it's especially anything I don't know. Have you participated in the meat study with Audacious and also Dan, the beef study? Sorry, they are doing and finalizing, I think, as we speak, um to show the influx or the influence of different pasture management in different places on the quality of beef. No, um, research by biodacious with eric smith and, and by nutrient food association, and it's interesting I don't know if if animal protein. I think we had it with with Eric Jackson, who heads up the board of the Bionutrient Food Association, that the entry point for nutrient density and quality is animal protein.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's where the biggest shit is and where the biggest potential is Absolutely. How do you deal? I mean, we covered it partly as well the tortoise just disappeared eh. But in this landscape, if you're a tortoise? I don't think it's so difficult. We're surrounded, beautiful dam we're looking at I mean the water we're looking at Check out the moon, dude, I think it might be full tonight. Beautiful full moon, spectacular birds like I. Have no clue how they're called. They're called the weaver birds, but the red one there is, and the bishop birds.
Speaker 2:So what happens is that bird in winter is completely brown. Those are his summer colors. For two months they're that beautiful, bright orange. There's also yellow weaver birds and red weaver birds. I mean bishop birds. Sorry, they're called bishop birds. Imagine that you get a summer plumage and then for the rest of the year you're just a brown bird.
Speaker 1:That's what humans do with sunbathing and it's the entry point. Do you get a lot of pushback? You're very visible on social media etc.
Speaker 2:from the listen, I was on social media until six weeks ago yeah 9 000 followers and I got hacked and meta. That's whether I'm through instagram or or or facebook.
Speaker 1:I can't but it's someone else.
Speaker 2:I can't get hold of anybody, just say, guys, I've been hacked to help me and they just ignore me. I mean, I'm astounded that Zuckerberg can build an empire of that size with no customer service so next time people ask my customer service, I'm going to go. You can become Facebook with the shittest customer service in the world and keep growing.
Speaker 1:That's appalling does it hurt your sales no.
Speaker 2:so what's happened is I feel I've lost contact, because it's not. It's quite weird. You don't even know I wear barefoot. I'm like one of the most undigital people I know and yet I feel I've lost this. There's a part of me that I've lost. It's really weird. It's been a strange six weeks, but the fact is there's a lot of storytelling that I do through it and a lot of people watch my videos and there's some cool things that happen on the farm almost on a daily basis and I can't share them. So I'm getting to stage. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try until next week, monday. Then it'll be have been seven weeks and then I'm gonna have to start a new account, which is a nightmare, but our dependency, joel Satterton says to you 50% of the time is production and 50% of the time is marketing.
Speaker 2:So I've lost quite a bit of my marketing stuff Power.
Speaker 1:Now Do you get a lot of pushback from the hardcore anti-animal camp?
Speaker 2:No, not at all. Interesting, not at all.
Speaker 1:Or they maybe are not so strong.
Speaker 2:You know I haven't. I actually haven't had. I've had one or two people give me yeah over the years. You know what I mean haven't had, I've had one or two people give me yeah over the years. You know, I mean we've been doing this 16 years now. So so I I, but I've only been on social media for maybe 10, 15, I don't know. I can't remember when I got it. I was on twitter originally and then then I started instagram and then, when my instagram took over and at that stage, with instagram, you could write much more than twitter.
Speaker 2:Twitter you're limited to 4 characters, so I stopped Twitter and also Twitter got a bit argy-bargy. Yeah, a bit of a. So, although I think Twitter's improved under Musk. But be that as it may, I did Instagram and that was nice. But even that I was talking to some social media guys. Guys, you know, they say on average 35 percent of posts. People even see so it's quite a galling thing to think that only 35 out of 100 people yeah, but still 35 percent or 40 percent of 9 000.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of people and I try so hard to sort of conscientize people about it. I met a guy in switzerland on my travels to the wine and he said he looked at my whole. He's a social media guy. Just by chance I was, because I was the only other english-speaking person on the train. He's american and so he latched on to me and he looked through my whole thing. He said listen, you've got to tell the story a little bit more like this take you need to take people more on your journey. So I started doing that over october and then, I've been bloody deeply.
Speaker 2:I've been hacked, um, because because couldn't? The reason we branded pharma as it pharma angus is that it's around a human and humans. What's essential to us, a story to me, that's your podcast. Why is your podcast successful? Because you're telling the stories, um and and so that's. That's also why it's been a good. My wife got me to actually brand it around me. I didn't want to brand it around me. No, no, I remember discussing it. She's right, it's got to be around a human. There's a yellow-billed kite.
Speaker 1:Wow, a bird for all the non-birdies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to wrap up and thank you so much for this evening stroll. It's absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1:Let's go um, let's go this way 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.
