350 Alice Henry - Finally real money for cover crops from sustainable aviation fuel

Crops and sustainable aviation fuel—probably not something you think about every day. Alice Henry, co-founder of Regenrate, took a deep dive into why cover crops, which provide amazing benefits to farmers and farmland, are not more widely used. No big surprise—it’s about the money. Planting cover crops costs money, and the business model of carbon credits isn’t enough to nudge farmers.

Enter the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) market, where there is both money and massive demand due to changing European and global regulations. That means working with big oil majors and helping fossil fuel giants decarbonize. But aviation, in particular, needs to decarbonize quickly. We’re not flying any less—probably more—and electric aircraft are coming, but not fast enough and in too limited a capacity.

Enter non-food and non-feed competing cover crops, grown on land that would otherwise be bare, keeping more living roots in the ground for much more of the year. Regenrate aims to turning cover cropping from a cost into a revenue-generating practice.

More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/alice-henry.

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• 52:18 What do you believe is true about regenerative agriculture that others don’t believe to be true? Inspired by John Kempf

Transcript

Koen van Seijen: 0:33

Cover crops and sustainable aviation fuel. Probably not something you think about every day, but our guest of today went on a deep dive into why cover crops, which provide amazing benefits to farmers and farmland, are not so widely used. Not a big surprise. It's about the money. Putting cover crops in is a cost and the business model for carbon credits isn't developed enough to really nudge farmers to implement them. Enter the SAF market. Sustainable aviation fuel, where there is money and massive need because of change. European and global regulation. Yes, that means working with big oil majors and helping the fossil fuel giants to decarbonize, but especially aviation needs to decarbonize quickly and we're not flying any less. Probably more and electrifying aircraft is coming, but not quick enough and probably too limited. Enter non-food and feed competing cover crops grown on soil that would otherwise be naked and having more living roots in the ground for much more of the year.

Koen van Seijen: 1:31

This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast investing as if the planet 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.

Koen van Seijen: 1:50

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 welcome to another episode today with the co-founder of regenerate, regenerative certified fuels, making feedstock productions and simplified certification possible for sustainable air fuel through cover crops at scale. Welcome, alice, thank.

Alice Henry: 2:57

Thank you, lovely to be here.

Koen van Seijen: 2:59

I mean there's a lot of words that we usually don't use, I think, in the podcast. I mean cover crops, definitely, yes, and scale as well, but sustainable airfuel pretty sure it's the first time I mentioned it here Anyway, maybe somebody will correct me, but we'll get to that and why it's so relevant and interesting for farmers and for land and obviously for soil. But first, starting with a personal question, I mean we've known each other for quite a while through fresh shout out to to the fresh team and we had tim, actually your co-founder on the podcast in september 23, um, with a different business model, with a different like not a different company, but let's say a pre-pivoted company. So we'll get into the journey as well. But what led you to um spending most of your waking hours focusing on cover crops and, in this case, sustainable airfuel? How did you stumble on? Or how did you because I don't think people are born and get out of university and think I'm going to focus on cover crops and sustainable airfuel, like what was what was the journey there?

Alice Henry: 3:53

um, at the very beginning, um, it was just really my love for the food that we eat and for the quality of food, and when we're talking about food, then obviously we're talking about how it's being produced and then we're looking at the soil. So when I joined the Fresh Venture Studio, it was back in November. Well, it was the program first, back in November 2021. The desire was to make higher quality food more available at a global scale, and when I mean higher quality food, it's like food that was tasty. Higher quality food, it's like food that was tasty, was grown more naturally and yeah, I thought the mass, the mass of the consumer, deserved something better.

Alice Henry: 4:52

So that's where I met Tim he's been on the podcast and quite quickly looking at the regency of agriculture practice, then we came down to understanding that cover crops were an essential practice and it was also a practice that did not require a lot of change. It required an extra seeding and then it would provide all those benefits to the soil. So we quickly targeted cover crops as an area where we wanted to start a business in, and we've experimented across a number of products, even before we came up with the Regency Hotline, that were all about cover crops. And quickly we realized that indeed the knowledge around cover crops was not widely spread and that we could have a role to play in advising farmers on planting cover crops and also on other Regency agriculture practices farmers on planting cover crops and also on other regentive agriculture practices. And actually cover crops was the topic where we advised farmers the most. They were the most interested in this. During the entire life of the regentive outline, farmers really asked cover crop questions all over the world.

Koen van Seijen: 6:20

It was an interesting topic for everyone. Just giving a standard for people, like in Europe, or for farmers, like I remember some numbers when talking to Tim back in 2021, but for sure you have them more accurate. Like, how little or how much are cover crops used? Like, how much potential is there still? If you look at just europe or the numbers, you know is it, are we close to 50 fields? Are we close to 10 percent? Like, what's the um? Because it's such a low hanging fruit. It seems from the outside, obviously, and there are a lot of barriers why it's not happening. Um, but I also was. I was almost imagining we were further along, like we were, like most farmers or many farmers do it. Of course, when you drive through agriculture land, you see a lot of, let's say, naked soil, so you know that there are no cover crops in the winter or in the off season. But just to give an understanding, like, what, what numbers are we talking about in terms of um usage and non-usage?

Alice Henry: 7:11

and this is a difficult number to give you because at least in europe um salt cover can also be that you put a little bit of residues on the field so you'd have some straw, and then that's considered soil covered To our perspective it's not.

Koen van Seijen: 7:28

It's not a crop. I mean it's a bad one. No, it's not a cover crop.

Alice Henry: 7:31

There is definitely some soil cover and most of the reports that you have available they will include some of this practice as well in the soil cover. They won't tell you this is the amount of cover crops that are being grown.

Alice Henry: 7:45

This is technically an interesting technical challenge because we do have the capabilities of recognizing remote sensing-wise when the fields are growing something. So not just some residues, but growing something is also a rather costly effort and I would say the resources are probably invested in something else, in Curiosity, at the moment, in terms of presentation.

Koen van Seijen: 8:14

I think it's possible. Right, we just had Tom Eng of OpenGe, of open geo hub, on on the podcast, which might be out at this time or just after, but we're getting to a point, or we might be, that we can yeah, we can distinguish between, uh, just some straw on on the field and living roots, which, of course, is what we're, what we want, and preferably a diverse living roots, uh, let's say, carpet on on the land. So it's difficult to say do you have any ballpark number that you're working with or you're keeping in mind? Like, okay, we want to move it from X to X, x to Y.

Alice Henry: 8:47

So right now we're probably around between 20%, I would say, and 30%, so that's kind of the ballpark number we're working with. And actually, yeah, those growers that already have cover crops, they are very interesting target for us because they're already doing it and usually they want to most want to move this from a cost towards a revenue making because was that the barrier?

Koen van Seijen: 9:13

you saw when you're like in the hotline, you got a lot of farmers um asking about how do I get cover crops in, how do what, what, what should I use, etc.

Alice Henry: 9:23

And exactly, but it's almost always a cost, right, yeah? Yeah. So the next uh answer we would provide would be probably about looking at the context of the farm, looking at the budget they would have, and then, uh, trying to work out something along the line of what they needed for their context, for their budget. And in the end they were like, well, it's still a cost.

Koen van Seijen: 9:45

And I don't really see the benefits.

Alice Henry: 9:48

The benefits are not clear at this point. So it was when I want to move from nothing towards a cover crop in the main cases. Well, maybe next year or the year after, and in the end, um, yeah, the advice on us will also be be lost, right, um? So, um, yeah, that was definitely the main blockers. Main blocker was, uh, the impact that the hotline actually have. It was nice to have advice, but very, I would say very seldomly implemented when we inquire in the end.

Alice Henry: 10:25

And the second blocker was the business model of the Regency Hotline. The farmers were not willing to pay what it costed us to put in place, and we're a technology company. We're also looking to automate some of that advice where possible. Not a long shot of what was needed could be paid by the growers in order for us to provide this advice, at least in the early years. Looking at the amount of order for us to provide this advice, at least in the early years, looking at the amount of data we needed to automate some of that. So, yeah, that couldn't really work in terms of one, the business model we were producing. And second, yeah, the actual impact. It was a cost. There was no clear benefits to a cover crop.

Koen van Seijen: 11:15

Therefore, this was not, and never a priority and so then you go back to the drawing board. Then then, yeah, how, yeah, what do you? Where do you start looking for and unblocking some of those blockers?

Alice Henry: 11:30

yeah, so going back to the drawing board, uh, curiously, uh, at that point of time we had one customer, we had only one paying customer and they were paying very good money and it was a biofuel producer and we didn't quite understand the use case at the time. They were just using our backend to look at the time series of data we were producing on each of the fields that were of interest and looking at when the cover crops were growing and, essentially, when there was cover crop growing and justifying that there was nothing in the past and, yeah, they were not really explicit about what was at use for. So they were asking.

Koen van Seijen: 12:22

Basically they were looking at the data, seeing if there was anything grown in the past on that field, and so they could not certify. But of course you're going there like be sure that the cover crop that was grown on that farm, on that field, was sort of non-competitive to to other things yeah, so we didn't quite know that at the time.

Alice Henry: 12:41

They were just.

Alice Henry: 12:42

They just instructed us on look at the data this way, in this way, and in the end, indeed, we we had time series and knowing where, at which point, what was growing, and it was really about cover crops.

Alice Henry: 12:53

And then we started to realize and indeed we're looking at rice fields, and fields and this biofuel producer was planting were coming indeed, from the season where the rice was not growing and where nothing was growing on the fields, and we started really going down the rabbit hole of why oil crops with rice fields and what was happening here. And very soon we came to the exact use case that we're working on the full versus full debate, the European regulation that there is around it, the certification that is needed for certain type of fuels and we're going back to sustainable aviation fuel in a minute, but that's what they were doing, so we're like, okay. So there is something about cover crop that is interesting and there are certainly one person, well, one organization, that is making money with this and that is paying farmers to grow it. Is that something that we could potentially do?

Koen van Seijen: 14:28

Do you remember when that sort of first hook came up and the rabbit hole opened, because I can imagine it was also a tricky and most probably difficult time, like your hotline is not working as you were hoping, you have one paying customer which keeps sort of the light on, but you also don't know if that's just a fling and it will disappear in a second. And then what triggered you to like, okay, let's look actually, why are they paying us and why are they using only part of what we're offering? Or like asking weird questions that nobody else is asking, like what was that moment?

Alice Henry: 15:34

like um, to start realizing they're like pulling on that threat, basically, and start realizing there might be something there so, um, yeah, so it was not the first pivot that we were doing, so I'm like, okay, we were looking at a product that was not going anywhere anytime soon, so I still do believe that there could be such a product. Uh, and there is a few, uh, other companies that are doing this at the moment. It's not because we have not managed to solve this that others won't um, but it was about looking further, where we were receiving a good amount of money to do a job, and it was really about understanding your customer. What I didn't like about it at that time, I think, was the most difficult personal decision, is fight my idealism.

Alice Henry: 16:29

When I, when I started Fresh Venture and when we started working together with Tim, yeah, there was, yeah, two types of company I really didn't want to work with was fuel companies and and seeds company, one producing chemicals or destroying, destroying what I thought was nature through chemicals, and the other one, the seeds that were patented in nature, and the really hard decision was seeing them as part of the system, as part of an actor that is working like, also trying to do their best on the topic that is, decarbonizing our transportation or moving away from fossil fuel. This was a hard decision for me, because I only wanted to work with, uh with the, with the growers, uh with the, the guys in agriculture, of course exactly, and this?

Alice Henry: 17:41

those actors were not part of, um, the people I wanted to work with. Uh, how did you come to?

Koen van Seijen: 17:48

terms with that. Like now, when you're pitching building the extraction, and we'll get to that, like, how do you, how did you come to terms with that? Like now, when you're pitching building there's traction. And we'll get to that, like, how did you come to terms with that? Yeah, with that tension.

Alice Henry: 18:01

Yeah, it was really seeing how I was locking myself. So there was two options and none of them were good. There was no solution. So the first one was well, I don't work with them, uh, because, uh, this is not what I believe in and I'm someone of principles and I will not work with uh, with such companies, and I won't even start to get interested about it. Because it's really about uh started to open my mind about something different. Right, it's not about. This is good, this is evil. It's really about, like, let's get curious about a topic Um, so yeah, and uh, so there was um, so there was on the other side, there was a fact that if I decided not to work with them, I could look at everything that I'm using.

Alice Henry: 19:01

I'm also taking a car, I'm also taking a plane. Who am I to say this is bad? I mean, they are helping me in a way as well. They're helping me in a way as well. So in both cases, so either, yeah, I was a hypocrite for working with them in the first place, or I was a hypocrite for just saying that I'm perfect and they're not. So, yeah, I made the decision, just yeah, to be an hypocrite anyway, and this was at least going to move the needle further in terms of everything that we can bring to the space. So, yeah, fuel producers they have money. With money we can start experimenting With money. We can start helping growers move the needle on their business and we can start understanding growers move the needle on their business and we can start understanding more of the curiosity of what it is to be regenerative right, so why it works in one way, why it doesn't work in the other way. So, yeah, that opened a lot of doors for me.

Koen van Seijen: 20:06

And so when are you now in terms of Regenerate? I think there's, of course, the pivot. You're starting to focus on a different name as well. It was called FarmOn before, but if you had to describe it now I'm not saying in an elevator pitch, but just to we're recording this in January 2025, just to give people an overview and to also show what happens when you hit an attraction moment or when you hit a market in this case, the sustainable air fuel markets with the right regulation and we get into that, or with regulation that's pushing it like seems to be a perfect storm, or a perfect moment, at least for a market, and there are margins, um, then suddenly a lot of things become possible, um, and, and it unblocks or unlocks a lot of things like what, um, what would you say? Um, you're you, you're currently doing in this, uh, beginning of the year of 2025 so I'm confused.

Alice Henry: 21:01

Is it the one minute elevator piece, or what am I doing? No, no, it doesn't have to be one minute, it's just much longer.

Koen van Seijen: 21:06

It can be much longer. I'm just saying let's not do the one minute because that's just irrelevant in a in an elevator. We're not in elevator, we have time. But if you had to start describing, give a picture overview of the current state, because of course these things change. But in the beginning of the year of 2025, where are you at?

Alice Henry: 21:26

So we planted our first own pilots in 2024. So right now we're in the middle of the growing season. How scary is that? That's like so scary but on the other hand, it's going so well. It's so exciting. Yeah, we're receiving pictures very often. Yeah, the growers are very engaging. They're also trying something new. We don't know whether it will fit the entire season, so we're growing crops over winter and we're growing it in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in Spain and Portugal. So we don't know if the window that we have will be fitting everywhere. And that's also why we have several countries, so we can study different climates, different varieties. We're doing some tests. All the farmers there. They have different practices. We're doing some camelina mixed with other cover crops. We're doing it also pure. We're looking for understanding the environmental benefits, the income generated for everyone. We are looking at climate. Will climate be in our favor? How do you work with climate year over year to ensure something that is stable? So this is all going on like right now, in 2025.

Koen van Seijen: 22:58

So we are anticipating harvests anywhere from april to june, I would say camelina is an oil crop, just to be which time will be crushed into an oil seed. Basically and this is all land that wouldn't have been covered otherwise or would have partly been covered what would be the alternative If you wouldn't have been here into, let's say, the winter 24, 25,? What would have been happening on this land?

Alice Henry: 23:27

So either it's heavy regency farms because we are working with pioneers a little bit at the same time they would have had a cover crop, but they would not have generated any revenue, either they would have had one one is a bit more conventional. You would have had either residues but probably not cover crop. At this point. So I would say, still, the majority of the farmers, uh, that will work with us in the next season. They are, they are retentive and they are placing something already.

Koen van Seijen: 24:00

Uh, there is a portion that are a bit more conservative and therefore have not switched over, and we are the triggering factor um, so it will be hard to do, like it will be harvest in in a number of months and then then what's going to happen?

Alice Henry: 24:17

uh, so it will be harvested in a number of months and then, uh, we're going to store it until the large, uh, the large amounts are coming up because, um, crushing, uh, crushing an oil seed is very expensive when there is not too much quantity and that's why, especially this plant can be found at a very high price. The oil can be found at a very high price because there are very small quantities. So what we will do is we'll store it until all the trials of 2025 are also harvested, and that will be September, october. So what we're also doing is now heavily recruiting farmers, mainly in France at this moment. We think France is a very good region for the summer. So after all the winter crops, such as barley, winter wheat, usually there is another moment where the soil is less bare until they plant the next winter grain.

Alice Henry: 25:30

And we're working mainly in France. We'll be working mainly in France next year for this first season and then the second season, the winter season. Here we'll work probably mainly in Spain and Portugal. That's where we see that it has the most benefit and also the best conditions. So yeah, having a recruiting farmers, it's been alright as well. We've had a lot of demand from farmers.

Koen van Seijen: 26:00

We have quite a high success rate which is a nice difference to have as well.

Alice Henry: 26:06

It's crazy compared to a few years ago when we were selling the Regency of Outline growers had so much I would say trust issues. It's crazy, when we were selling the Regency of Outline, growers had so much I would say trust issues in sharing anything about their farms.

Koen van Seijen: 26:24

Now I know everything Because you come with money in your hand, you come with a contract.

Alice Henry: 26:27

It changed everything. And then I'm like, yeah, and we're also giving that sets of digital tools to you so we can all monitor our investments and yours. And they're like, oh, that's wonderful, can I use it as well for my other crops? I'm like, ooh, that is not what we were used to when we were having the Regency hotline.

Koen van Seijen: 26:47

And just for farmers perspective, like, like on a, of course, on a hectare it depends a bit on the scale. But what would um, what would farmer, what's in it for the farmers in terms of um revenue? And also, what would it normally have cost? Like a regenerative ones, they, they do it anyway, but it's a cost to them. Like what? What? What difference does it make to work with you and have to come, come in and, of course, have it harvested and shipped off from from the farm? Like what's in it for them?

Alice Henry: 27:15

Yeah, so it moves the cover crop from a cost towards revenue making, so you're not going to make the most revenue in it, so food is still the main revenue generator.

Koen van Seijen: 27:35

That's good for the idealist Alice on the call, yeah.

Alice Henry: 27:38

Yeah, exactly, but at least now we're all making something right and, yeah, in some cases it can be yeah, it can be very good. So right now we don't have yet price differentiation for the region that we're working in. We're only working in Europe, so we're not working with other parts of the world yet we have a plan to expand the year after. Yeah, so it can be quite small or it can be a bit more substantial, but in any case it is revenue generating. At the moment it is not a cost anymore.

Koen van Seijen: 28:56

Which is massive for farmers and how important we'll get to the regulation. But the food or feed versus fuel discussion, that what triggered you, what triggered your customer at the time, to even look into this? So how do you make sure that you're not competing against food? Should we be eating this oil crop directly, like what's the answer to the obvious question? I think many people ask okay, great, but why do we have to crush this, refine it and put it in an airplane, apart from the fact that we have to decarbonize airplanes? Um, and electrification is coming, but slow and not everywhere in the near decades or in a near decade plus. So there's a very clear case for sustainable air viewuel, I think. But what's the make sure that it's not feed or food and we don't compete with that.

Alice Henry: 29:52

So I think there are several answers to that. So, first of all, we leave the main season for food, so the main, best season, where you have the most sunlight, this is meant for food and it's not going to change. So, like, the second season that we're looking at is risky. So, like we have climate events, maybe heavy rain, we can have no rain at all, I mean probably in summer. That's what's happening. So nothing, no rain, and therefore, like, the germination can be a bit tricky. So it's a risky season because there is all those factors that we can't really control, and whether we should start planning to make food with that season is up for debate.

Alice Henry: 30:47

The main thing that, as far as I'm concerned, is that the main season where we know things work the best, this should be a food season. Then there is a question of how much food do you need as a country and are we producing what we need at the moment, and how sufficient is the regular season for that? This is also certainly to be looked at. And then, probably the last answer to your question is I'm technically market agnostic, so what I like about the SAF market, it's infinite. However you can produce, however you can sell, I mean, it's a commodity, right, so you have to um make sure that the SAF is sustainable air fuel, just for yeah sustainable aviation fuel.

Alice Henry: 31:40

So, uh, it's a commodity, so we have to make sure that, like it's, it's in balance with regard to the other uh commodities that, um, um, yeah, that are on the market, but right now it's an infinite demand.

Koen van Seijen: 31:57

Um, as long as you have the right price, you will find buyers right and and price wise, like how do you see I mean, you've done calculations, of course you're going to see now with harvest that's, that's mostly theoretical until now like how difficult is it to to get into the right price range? Do you see, with with cover crops that are growing in the quote-unquote wrong season?

Alice Henry: 32:16

yeah, well, that's my job, right, just find the best paying cost. Well, it's just, uh, going to one company's like how much do you pay, and then another one, how much you pay. Who wants to buy, like? And it's a, it's, I would say it's a. It's a matter of who's paying the most, right?

Koen van Seijen: 32:35

so, like, finding the one best place. It might not be the same person, it's the same company year over year and is that currently in like europe in the, the saff market? Is that really like? What's the um, what's the commodity feeling in the sense like, is there a lot of demand for certified um, of course, depending on price, but certified no food competition fuel like is that a relatively easy sell or do you have to do a lot of education there?

Alice Henry: 33:03

no, it's a. It's an easy sell. You're competing at this moment. You're competing on the market, uh, with used cooking oil and animal fats. That's like the two uh, it's a main feedstock that are used for sustainable aviation fuel. But I can tell you that used cooking oil and animal fats are not scalable. It's not because you need more staff that you will eat more animals, or more fries.

Alice Henry: 33:26

So this is not scalable. So at the moment, I would say, probably, the um, uh, the demand uh is roughly balancing uh the production and therefore we kind of align uh on on the price. Or we sell a bit more expensive, uh, because, yeah, we still have a higher cost uh than animal fats and we're investing in the future. Or we sell a bit more expensive because, yeah, we still have a higher cost than animal fats and we're investing in the future. Right, we're investing in something that will provide a scalable plan in the future. Animal fats not scalable. Use coconut not scalable.

Alice Henry: 33:58

So, therefore, let's do something scalable and yeah, so in the future that will be a different perspective and yeah, so in the future that will be a different perspective. So the regulation how much is needed required to be needed, but also the airline themselves, right? So let's not forget that the SAF movement is first to be led. It's a civil society led, so it's companies that decide for themselves to set a higher standard and to use sustainable aviation fuel and only after regulation, came back and said well, this is actually the amount that you need to have at the airport, for instance, in 2025, 2% of SAF at the airport All airlines need to use at least 2% SAF, and this is growing up to 70% by 2050.

Koen van Seijen: 34:58

Which means massive, yeah, but that's a huge increase in just the amount of tonnage, hectoliters or whatever it's measured. It starts small and it's sort of imbalanced, you're saying, but you're also saying you can see on the horizon that the minimum quantities are going up, which simply means, yeah, there's not going to be more animal fat, nor more cooking oil. It has to come from somewhere. Where does it currently, or is that, is that imported oil from elsewhere? Like what's the what, what's the alternative of not?

Alice Henry: 35:34

doing, um, these kind of cover crop based staffs. So there is, uh, there is, a few alternatives. Uh, there is also a lot of attention that is being looked, that is being given at, a lot of attention that is being given at renewable fuels from non-biological origin, so, essentially, making fuel from hydrogen. So this is great. Unfortunately, it wouldn't fly all types of couriers, so the larger airplanes couldn't fly on this type of fuel alone. Maybe later, as we move towards 2050, technology evolve.

Alice Henry: 36:33

Right now, what is sure is there is is a feedstock gap that is being anticipated by all major consulting bureaus, s&p, global. Everybody is talking about the feedstock shortage that we'll see in the next few years. So, yeah, animal fats, use cooking oil still ongoing. Forests, residue from forests, sustainable forests also possibility. Need to be sure, though, that it's all sustainable could be issues as well with sorting and diminishing the size, for instance, of logs. There is different techniques for different approach. Diminishing the size, for instance, of logs yeah, there is different techniques for different approach. It's all, in the end, also a matter of cost. There will probably be a space on the market for all types of feedstock, this included, and the question is now how do we fill the gap for this shortage that is about to happen and cover crops is a huge potential. It is a huge potential and today it's not a commercial practice. It's being explored by a few players, as included the other players, very big players, very, very big. So we're like David in this story very, very big.

Koen van Seijen: 38:08

So we're like david in this story and like your your fundraising at the moment and full disclosure we're investing with, with our syndicate generation re um as well, and do you see, like, on this, this topic, even for the more like, let's say, regenerative focused investors, do you need to do a lot of education um about even the the biofuel market and sustainable aviation fuel and, of course, cover crops like how, how has been the fundraising um? Or are people actually quite quickly uh, grasping the potential here, understanding the potential like? What's the? What has been your conversations with, with investors over the last months?

Alice Henry: 38:41

I think everybody kind of agrees that this is cool.

Koen van Seijen: 38:48

Which is already a start.

Alice Henry: 38:49

Yeah, so this is cool. It depends a little bit to which investor we're talking that the invention is smart, but there is not a lot of IP captured. It's a smart way of doing things. So, yeah, we're a software team, so we're building as well on our strengths on that side. But yeah, I would say it is bringing alternative models to regenerative agriculture in the space. So right now there was only one really business model, maybe two, but I would say the most known one is carbon credits and I would say the second that I think works well is also buying land and regenerating and selling it. I love this model as well, but you need a lot of capital for that. I don't have that much capital.

Koen van Seijen: 39:50

We'll get to that question in a second.

Alice Henry: 39:53

Yeah, but this one is also a business model because, yeah, we're subsidizing a cover crop, not subsidizing, we make money with it ourselves as well, right, uh. But we're also, uh, looking to um, uh, to implement a lot of the technique of regentive agricultures with it. With it, which is minimum disturbance, a very healthy crop rotation. So the core of what what we're doing is having a first smart crop rotation. So we're never mixing, so we're developing currently, camelina, right, and we're never mixing camelina before beet, for instance. It's a bad rotation, it will not help anything. So we're also looking at all the plants that this could be great. It could be great with, always, soybeans, because soybeans um, repel some of the system methods, uh, that soya is attracting. So, um, it is a first step in the right direction with a business model that is very interesting, far better, way more interesting than carbon credits?

Koen van Seijen: 41:01

yeah, way more interesting slides from a long time ago, like per hectare I mean, we're not going to name exact numbers here, but let's say having another cash crop, because this is another cash crop with uh cost associated to it and actually a lot of benefits for your soil and, when well implemented not before beats apparently um, it makes a lot of sense in your.

Koen van Seijen: 41:21

Of course it's a more longer term, but it makes a lot of sense in your, of course, it's a more longer term, but it makes a lot of sense in your soil management and health strategy as well. And so we love to ask this question in a way like what do you? Let's say, we do this on stage. Of course our podcast and syndicates are virtual, but let's say we do this on stage somewhere and we have a room full of investors and, of course, people are excited. We show a lot of pictures. They're interested, but what people also forget, like what would be one thing you want people to remember the next day in their office if they have to do something, like what would be a seat you would like to plant in, let's say, a room full of financially focused people.

Alice Henry: 41:59

A room of financially. So that means their condition is, or they already have this focus right, they're already financially focused. That's what they're financially focused yeah and they want to uh invest in residency agriculture there would be a nice outcome.

Koen van Seijen: 42:15

That's not necessarily. It could be, let's say, a room full of people managing their own wealth, and maybe other peoples could be partly institutional and they're curious, let's say. But fully convinced maybe not. But if there's one thing you, you want them to remember from an evening where we have a lot of conversations about cover crops, and and and, safs, et cetera, what would be the one thing they, they really should remember about this space?

Alice Henry: 42:38

Yeah, I think that to me, the one thing that would make sense it's like it's a space where everybody's learning and everybody's experimenting and, yeah, and working with nature is not straightforward, but it has tremendous potential. Yeah, it has tremendous potential in the sense that we want to work together, I guess, with nature as a system and not, you know, we have to be part of the system and that nature works with us, but we also have to understand how nature works. So, yeah, I guess my one thing that I would like to tell them is well, there is probably not a simple recipe that can solve it all, solve it all, and probably that local solution also can work and can provide good returns, especially in the field of agriculture. There is a paradigm in investment that is always about scale and scale as much and like straight away from the get, go and getting my 10x in the next five years in agriculture.

Koen van Seijen: 44:07

Come on, man that's a very good point. Yeah to. To make and to drill into people like this takes time. Immense opportunities, um of impact we probably cannot even imagine, but it takes time, it's's working with nature.

Alice Henry: 44:25

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, well, I will also maybe add it it's fun, just get interested Like it's really fun. So maybe you wait a bit longer on this investment than it is on another, but maybe it can become very fun and understanding. Oh, this works, oh, that doesn't. Oh, how can we make fun and understanding? Oh, this works, oh that doesn't. Oh, um, how can we make this and this in slightly different things so it works as well? Things that we works can be very, very, very big yeah, and I think that people are like it.

Koen van Seijen: 44:58

There's an there's a curiosity within farmers that are on this journey. There's a curiosity within people that are working here. There's a curiosity within farmers that are on this journey. There's a curiosity within people that are working here. There's a curiosity of figuring knowing we're very early, but also figuring a lot of these things out, and sort of realizing we're on a special time, that we're figuring a lot of these things out. And we have technology that's coming in at a way that we didn't have two, three, four, five, let alone 10 years ago. And we have, of course, climate weirding. But we also have markets that weren't there a few years ago to pay for cover crops, that suddenly it makes sense.

Koen van Seijen: 45:30

And if we would switch I mean, you also hinted a bit to it already before but if we would switch the, let's say, the side of the table and give you a significant investment portfolio of, let's say, a billion euros, so one with nine zeros? I'm not looking for investment advice, obviously, which we're not giving here, and I'm not looking for exact numbers, but I'm curious what would you focus on if you had, let's be clear, a very crazy amount of money to put to work could be very long term. There's no need to have it back in three years or five years, etc. But it had to be put to work. What would you do if you had that amount of money to put to work?

Alice Henry: 46:05

do I need to absolutely focus on one thing, or can I diversify?

Koen van Seijen: 46:08

no, no super diversified.

Alice Henry: 46:11

Please go ahead oh, yes, okay, so I would probably put a good portion in uh, in buying land and regenerating land. So this is, um, yeah, this is a business model for me that proves to be working. The demand is going up. Making it more fertile is great, so I think I would definitely put a rather large portion into that. But, all the hover, if it's just $1 billion, it's not that much money, it goes quickly. Then I'd probably invest a little bit in technology, just making sure we collect learnings across the globe, at least across my portfolio that I want to make a bit more efficient. And, lastly, I will invest some of it in science and science that has not very much been explored.

Alice Henry: 47:19

And here looking at two sites that are fascinating I don't know much about it because I don't have a lot of time to look and learn new crazy science about chemistry and in-depth, but it's the redox potential of the soil. I think it's really fascinating. Redox is an acidity ratio on conductivity ratio and how some redox potential are more favoring life while some other are more favoring fungus or bacteria and therefore could be very interesting to explain how some certain types of soil are more into developing some certain bacterial fungus. And the second thing I would spend a little bit of my money on is on easy water. So easy water is also a structure of water. I think it's really interesting. It goes down to the quantum physics and how water is being structured and basically how water is transporting the property of the soil back into the plant. So yeah, I think two very interesting domains that I don't have much time of exploring, but I think it's fascinating and could very well complement what is going on in the other two parts of the business.

Koen van Seijen: 49:07

And like in terms of geography, would you focus somewhere like what's in terms of crops as well, like in terms of farmland buying? Where would you move first? If you have thought about that?

Alice Henry: 49:15

Well, I definitely don't have thought about that.

Koen van Seijen: 49:20

Like more Mediterranean or like I mean, of course, if you go into certain countries like the Netherlands, your money finishes way quicker in terms of hectares you can buy and, of course, other places are potentially easier to get access to. I mean it. I think it depends on yeah it depends on the ROI and places and who's going to farm.

Koen van Seijen: 49:40

That's always the thing. The successful examples we've seen is when people partner with experienced Regen farm managers on the ground, because otherwise it can quickly end up being very costly. But if you do that, I think that combination is very, very interesting.

Alice Henry: 49:58

So now, quickly thinking about it, I probably use a principle based decision making on that and since I'm a European person living in Europe, that probably means that I have a responsibility of fixing the system wherever I am. Not at other places of the world. There is highly qualified and great people that can do the same for where they're located. So I'll probably work where I am and try to move the needle around me. If I move houses and location, I'd probably be part of a problem somewhere else, so I'd probably want to do something somewhere else, probably in Europe.

Koen van Seijen: 50:38

For that reason, yeah, and changing gears in terms of question. You're no longer in charge of your investment portfolio, but you do have a magic wand so you can change one thing overnight, only one thing. This is an impossible question, I know, but it's interesting to see again where priorities are with people. If they could, actually, anything just could be better taste, better flavor, global consciousness, consciousness or very practically changing the cup, the common agriculture policy in in europe, or anything else could be not within food and ag as well, but if you could change one thing, and one thing only, what would that be?

Alice Henry: 51:17

I think I would, uh, I would want to have, I would want the growers to be in a good place financially, because if that's the case, like all growers I've met, they're curious, they want to experiment, they want to understand how their land works and what they can do better and what they can change. And if you just remove the financial pressure, I'm pretty sure there would be a lot more people willing to experiment and to be curious and try new things, because they don't have to run towards revenue for their family and their lives. So I would just do that make them in a financially good place.

Koen van Seijen: 52:02

Eradicate a lot of farmer debt. Uh, would probably help with that, yeah. And like within, you're now moving yourself within the state, uh, the SAF um world I'm not sure how big it, um for sure that conferences and events and and like within your bubble, um of the sustainable aviation fuel, where do you think different? Like this question is inspired by John Kempf that always fuel. Where do you think different Like this question is inspired by John Kemp that always asks what do you believe to be true about agriculture that others don't? In this case, what do you believe to be true about sustainable air aviation fuel that others don't? And so where do you think contrary in that space? And where do you think different?

Alice Henry: 52:41

Well, I think I'm in this very paradigm. Sustainable aviation fuel can subsidize regenerative agriculture. I think that if you yeah, if you're having that type of discourse, it's not a common discourse, yeah so I think this, and then you get a lot of pushback like, is that?

Koen van Seijen: 53:05

um, because I'm asking both, I think in the regenerative space, that's probably raises a few eyebrows, but and in, let's say, in the sustainable air fuel, space or aviation fuel, do you like? Where do you get weird looks or not pushback, but like, oh, like. Is that? Like, how different are you in that world?

Alice Henry: 53:26

Well, in that world, I'm solving a problem, and I think there is a lot of pragmatism. Well, can you bring me what I need? For something that is affordable like that, the price is good to me and if I can do some communication on it, great, so which is nice to have a pragmatic approach. I think it's probably a lot more pragmatic, I'm thinking compared to the big ones.

Koen van Seijen: 54:00

You say a few people are developing these, like, but they're very big companies and we're small. Is there a different approach or a different way of doing things, or it's everybody's?

Alice Henry: 54:10

trying to figure out these things yeah.

Alice Henry: 54:13

So, uh, there's definitely a different approach. So we build on the relationships we have with farmer and and the and the technical advice and the guidance. Um, this is not something that the very big are doing. They're, um, they're giving out PDFs and they're like you do this. If it's like the way I want, I buy it. If it's not the way I want, I don't buy it. So there is no. There is no uh guidance there is. It's just like a relationship that is like that doesn't really exist and for us it's the opposite. So we're really, uh, investing in the relationships because, uh, we want to learn. Uh, we see it as an iteration. It's not because this year we we have nothing, that next year we won't have nothing like. We see it really as an iteration and I want to learn from every case where we fail. So next year we have the opportunity to succeed, or the year after, and not only succeed but grow over time.

Alice Henry: 55:12

So to me, it's a relationship and this is very different and also because we have the capacity of, yeah, with the hotline, we have the capacity, with the technological capacity of handling a lot of farmers' relation and we'll see put that product to stress in the next year or two, probably at the end of the year already we'll put to a stress that it has never been.

Koen van Seijen: 55:40

It's been used more than it had been when it was the core product.

Alice Henry: 55:43

Yeah, we've entirely become internal customer of our own tech.

Koen van Seijen: 55:48

Initially, which is how many good tech products are born. I think, in terms of fixing an issue you have yourself and then see if others have the same, um, I think it's a good. I think that the focus on relationship is a perfect way to wrap up this conversation. It's again John Kemp, I think, and others is like, I think mentioned something.

Koen van Seijen: 56:11

I'm butchering the quote, for sure, but the journey in regenerative agriculture is mostly or regeneration is mostly about restoring relationships between people on the land, but also trees and soil, plants and soil animals and trees, animals and plants, and all of that combined, so it's a perfect way to wrap up this conversation. I want to thank you so much, alice, for being here, for sharing the pivots along the way and coming to a very interesting point and, of course, for allowing us to invest with our syndicate and thanking for you for coming on here to share about the journey Won't be the last time. I think I can't imagine massive pivots in the next time but, of course, looking forward to checking in of how sustainable aviation fuels have taken off, cover crop adaptation across Europe, which would be great to see happening.

Alice Henry: 57:02

Thank you so much, Kun, for the opportunity.

Koen van Seijen: 57:12

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.