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
371 Benedikt Boesel - Fully integrating 300 cows into a 1000-hectare arable very sandy farm
It just doesn’t happen very often we record in a field surrounded by cows just after a cow gave birth to a calf. There is not more fitting place to explore the super complex role of animals in the food and agriculture space than walking the landing- and standing amongst the cows- with Benedikt Boesel, founder and farmer at Gut&Bosël, in Alt Madlitz, in Germany.
We discuss everything from how much joy animals bring to a farm and how complex it is to treat them well and how they are a direct mirror of your actions. We talk as well about the moment in which the cows are taken out of the system, and how Benedikt does that.
More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/benedikt-boesel-2.
This is a Walking the land episode, find the video on our Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@investinginregenerativeagr8568
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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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With the shot. He just collapses deadly in a second. He doesn't even hear the shot. Luciano would lift the fence, the cows go over within 20 seconds, 30 seconds, the fence goes down again and the cows graze and that's it. There's no pain, there's no nothing, there's no stress, there's no worries, there's nothing out of the ordinary.
Speaker 2:I think it's probably the most beautiful death that you can have. They constantly hold a mirror that you see yourself taking decisions, interacting, doing things. It has a beautiful way of making you, first of all, understand that you are really just a very unimportant little piece in the universe. Second of all, that nature is just not controllable, not understandable, nothing like that. It just really gives you the impression that you're a guest and you can do the best that you can possibly try, and you should, but you'll never get it right. My intention always was to never have a cow that's had the best possible life on our farm to be forced onto any means of transportation that they've never, ever seen in their life and driven away with all the smells and things that they've never seen.
Speaker 1:So I always knew that if a cow leaves the premises, then dead, and that I want to be the one who shoots them, takes them out of the system this is the investing in regenerative agriculture Food podcast, where we learn more on how to put money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems, while making an appropriate and fair return. This podcast series explores the key role of animals in the food and agriculture system of the future. This series is co -produced and supported by the DataMars Sustainability sustainability foundation. Find out more on datamarsfoundation or in the link below. Yeah, so welcome to. Uh, I have a feeling I always say special episode, but it doesn't make it special, of course, if everything is special, but this is a definitely a special one with benedict bozo, who's been on the show probably the most times, as you were a co-host for eight episodes back in the day you were there asking a lot of questions as well.
Speaker 1:It doesn't really okay as a guest. It's, uh, it's different, but we're back on the farm, surrounded by an amazing herd of cows, which, for sure, we're going to hear as part of this series on, as you just stood in. Some say liquid gold. Yeah, that brings luck. That brings luck in this series on the role of animals, and I couldn't imagine with a better farmer to kick off this series. As we covered the science part of it with with ish ishrani wheeler talking about empty forests and the role of big animals and we need more animals. As we covered the science part of it with Ish Ishwani Wheeler talking about empty forests and the role of big animals and we need more animals and all of those fun things. We now decided to bring it to the field. So, first of all, welcome back, benedikt, and thank you for having us here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good to have you back on the farm. It's been a while 2021 was the last time.
Speaker 1:Oh really, yeah, with Jan schultze shout out to jan incredible. Yeah, it's been a lot of changes in growth and like exponential growth as we use it in actual terms, but in this case because of life more cows, more trees, more soil, biology, and you can hear the mulching and just imagine you're in a field in east of berlin like brandenburg, slightly hilly, some trees, lush grasses and how many cows are around us that's around just above 300 heads.
Speaker 2:So growing into into, let's say, 120 mother cows.
Speaker 1:Look, you can see quite well. This is where we're currently moving them three times a day. This is where we moved them just at 11.30, so two hours ago.
Speaker 2:You can exactly see the difference.
Speaker 1:You can exactly see where the line was. We get one of the French bodyguards commenting on our presence.
Speaker 2:Let me just check, because I think one of them is calving. Actually, I think this is the one here.
Speaker 1:And then there are a good amount of small ones as well. Calves about 50-60?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got, should be 64.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah we're recording this in May, so it's full-on calving season. The weather's turning to summer, late spring or spring, some rain, not a lot of rain, but good growth.
Speaker 2:There's always reasons to complain. We've been lucky in getting around 17 liters three, three and a half weeks ago, so that was really helpful, and then this weekend we only got four or five meters, so it could be worse. It could be better.
Speaker 1:But you have enough, let's say past year before them, to enough biomass to keep them rotating three times a day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as far as the cows are concerned, the problem is probably the smallest, the least, because we always plan for droughts and in that sense we always manage with the cows. But as far as the arable farming is concerned, and agroforestry and all that, of course, the risk profile there is very different and as such its bottom line has a bigger effect on the farm financials than the, let's say, proposed biomass production. Photosensitive capacity of the calves. Let's just go over there, because I think that's her and I'm not sure if she's calved or if she's.
Speaker 1:Let's have a look.
Speaker 2:I think, her calf is lying on the outside of the fence. Tell me what you do.
Speaker 1:I'm a city boy, no clue, or what not to do, you just follow me basically Okay, don't make any hidden moves.
Speaker 2:Certain moves Look at how she's looking at us. Look at how she's looking at us. Now. There's this phrase from people that, back in the day, were hunting buffaloes in Africa. They always said a buffalo looks at you as if you owe him money and our Saler cows are a bit like that also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the Saler is this old French breed, right?
Speaker 2:Look at her, look how she looks at us. Let me go have a look. Yeah, yeah, Hi Spitzy Hi, Spitzy, Hi Spitzy. Oh yeah All good. Oh yeah All good, All good. All good Is good Is good Is good Is good.
Speaker 1:So Benedikt is going to have a look, is having a look at the just born cow, salera cow and all the other cows come, as you can hear, to come and have a look at their neck to show his new life and new support they're so naughty.
Speaker 2:Can you hear the?
Speaker 1:difference in sound of the Salera ones as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, deeper much. Yeah, the Salera are just an incredible breed. We love them so much. Our herd has 20 old Saleras, sorry, 10 old Saleras. These are all around eight years old now and when are the first ones?
Speaker 1:you got right as well, yeah they were the first ones.
Speaker 2:So I bought 10 Salera and 10 Angus in spring of 2019. And then in spring 2020, I bought another 30 Ang Angus and with those 50 and a few bulls, of course, at the certain different times we built a herd. So the whole herd you see here is just 50 that we bought and all the rest is basically from their own work.
Speaker 1:Why so early on in your so early on in your journey? Transition like came the trigger to I need some cows or I need animals, because getting them onto a large organic but industrial organic farm like this a thousand hectares arable and 2000 forestry, like getting animals on there is not an easy or it's not a it's quite a big shift yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:I think it's a lot of different things which led to it. I think, first and foremost, I grew up on the farm and my connection to, let's say, nature, bigger context of things, was always through hunting and fishing and raising animals and working with animals, right. So I always had this huge fascination for any kind of animal and it was always super, super close, and so that was always something that you know. That was what being outside was for me.
Speaker 2:In that sense, also working with animals it was always in a in a way where you admire them and you respect them and you want to care for them, look after them, be somehow part of whatever they are doing and how they interact in the ecosystem, so that that sort of wasn't even a question when you took over the farm well, it was for sure because, like in the beginning, like, as you said, like we were an animal, like we had no animals, we're just a large arable farm and just taking over the farm and the forestry, especially in the times back then where we had severely economic problems through droughts and storms in the forestry and so forth, it was, of course, a huge risk because if you start something where you don't have that much experience, if it goes wrong, is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's complicated to add something Complex to it, complex to an already existing operation. But what I realized quite early when I took over in December 2016, was that if we want to have a chance at transforming the farm in a way that I can get rid of the debt and I can create business models that allow my kids or my sister's kids to take over the farm at some point and have fun doing it, I need drastic changes. It's not going to be enough just to include a crop in the computation yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 2:I knew it has to be drastic and at the same time I also I like I mean, it's also a bit of a personal background, I guess. But, like, for me it was always about when I was young and not yet in farming I wanted to earn as much money as I can, as fast as I can, just because I love to be independent and free and I always believed that money gives me freedom, which I guess to some extent is still true. But when I took over the farm, I realized quite fast that this is my life's passion, this is what I want to do with my life. And at the same time I realized I'm never going to be as wealthy as I would hope to have been when I was in investment banking. But what came with that was to say I have a different form of freedom right now because if I farm, I can be. It's a creative process, it's something that never stops, it's something that you're building, something You're impacting so many things.
Speaker 2:And at the same time I realized how much our operation back in the day was completely dependent on, of course, many different things subsidies, world market prices, input prices, but also nutrients. Because if you're an ecological industrial farm with a considerable size of a thousand hectares. You have to. You're constantly looking how can I close the nutrient cycle? Bringing in stuff, yeah, and you can't do it with just nurse crops, cover crops, crop rotation. That's all nice and good, but you need additional nutrients and in that sense you're bringing in the cow shed.
Speaker 2:You have to buy cow shed, you have to buy chicken manure. You have to buy chicken manure. You have to think about the logistics and you don't know where it comes from. That you quality plastic in there. You have some processes in the composting or composting nice, but where it's stored, that, you know, is obviously not what you want.
Speaker 1:So dependency there and a freedom, and yeah, it's better to have them on four exactly so even if you take out the meat question, which we'll get to but you bring the fertilization to your farm and integrate, because here they are fully integrated into rotation right. I remember from our earlier visits like it was much more seen as a part of the fertilization, part of the farm than the meat business necessarily yeah, 100 just to add to that, like wanting to be independent was one of the main driving forces.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, I also, of course, reading through all the legends, understood the potential impact of the cars for water retention and photosynthesis, photosynthetic capacity and also, just as a sort of risk, diversification of product.
Speaker 1:Right now, here we're standing amongst, let's say, I don't know I'm still standing, but I'm pushed back by a cow on a plate.
Speaker 2:He's a sweet one. We're standing here around, let's say, probably 600,000 euros worth of cows. It's a storage of value. Exactly, it gives me some room to wiggle. If imagine it wouldn't rain now for the next 14, 12 weeks, whatever which has happened before, that would mean we would have probably 30% of our arable revenue that we can probably sell as we would plan to, and we would have a write-off of 60-70%, which is obviously a considerable amount, and the cows couldn't cover all of that delta, but they could potentially cover liquidity problems. So if I have to get through a month usually around June, july, which are often tough months liquidity-wise, if I'm forced to, I could sell 30 animals or 40 animals.
Speaker 1:I remember you said somewhere on stage I think if I have to make payroll in a difficult month, this is a stored value. You don't want to because you're building up a herd and you need the size and the quantity in terms of impact. But it is relatively easily made liquid, with all the respect in that.
Speaker 2:It's the worst case scenario, of course. Relatively easily made liquid, with all the respect in that, but yeah, if you can survive, it's the worst case scenario of course, but if you can survive through that, yeah, but if I'm forced to sell land, one more option to sell a few cars. That in that light it's not such a bad option.
Speaker 1:And then have you seen, like from the of course it's a learning process, etc. But the integration of and I think this was in 2006 took over in 16. You got the first cars in 19. Like how steep has been the learning curve to manage, because it's a huge responsibility with an agroforestry system. Once you plant it, you can go away for a few days, like it's here. You can't. Somebody has to move them, in this case, three times a day, and they will let you know when they're not happy, when the past year is not up to their standards or their size, as we've seen yesterday morning. They didn't, they were moved. They didn't like the quantity nor the quality of the grass and they were very loud about it. Like, how has been that learning curve to reintegrate animals into a system where it hasn't been for, at least not in your work or lifetime, I mean I don't really know where to start.
Speaker 2:Like, the learning curve is just. It's just probably one of the most let's say beautiful things about the whole thing, specifically with the cows you have. You have a similar learning curve in all the other areas, if it's composting or agroforestry or whatever it is, when you do something new, but with the cows it's on so many other levels because they are, they are sensitive beings, right? So not only do they work as individuals and completely, as you said, special within themselves, but also as a herd so they're more or different than the sum of their parts, definitely yeah, and the you find it fascinating, psychology is exactly and also to, if you're you're so strongly mirrored the mistakes that you do.
Speaker 2:You have such a direct feedback which is really something which is quite pure and quite. We don't have that so much anymore.
Speaker 1:Feedback looks in agriculture are long, most of the time In life. Just as much, right? Yeah, of course your system could take five years before you know you made a mistake Exactly here. You know it in a minute probably.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the thing is just like, also the way, how you like, how what that does with yourself, right, because you can constantly they constantly held a mirror, hold a mirror that you see yourself taking decisions, interacting, doing things, and that has a beautiful way of making you, first of all, understand that you are really just a very unimportant little piece in the universe.
Speaker 2:Second of all, that nature is just not controllable, not understandable, nothing like that. It just really gives you the impression that you're a guest and you can do the best that you can possibly try, and you should, but you'll never get it right, like, for instance, when we started, I remember, cause, like after the calves are born, you have two or three days maximum where you can put the ear tags in, which is not such a nice process, cause obviously there's two big piercings in one in each ear and, of course, the Saleas have huge horns and they have a lot of character. So, if they don't know you, this is a dangerous combination. So in the beginning we built this huge, I don't know metal structure that looks like one of those things you put into the ocean when you want to look at a white shark or you protect it behind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess it worked really well.
Speaker 2:We still have it. And then we were like driving with a huge front loader over the field. I think I've seen it Incredible sound, and then we put it over the young calf and all the mothers went crazy, the calf went crazy, which was absolutely terrible, and then from there we kept saying, okay, this can't be it, this is exactly not what we want.
Speaker 1:We want to have a trusting relationship with the cows.
Speaker 2:We want to be able to read them. We want them to read us, understand us, which is obviously so much about your calmness and things that you can't tell from the outside if you're not, I guess, a cow or in that moment. So then the next step was to say, okay, we do it differently, so we build the same thing for, but in smaller, for, a quad, so you could drive with the quad next to the calf and then capture it, but the same thing, you're separating it from the mother, and that wasn't great. Then the next afterwards. So this is always like a season, the next season we pull the calf just underneath the fence to do it on the other side of the fence.
Speaker 2:But still, even if it's just a meter, the calf is still separated through a fence, although it's only very little, but same thing. So now we, when we get the cars, we just know that this is a very special time of the year. Obviously it's only about two months. It's a beautiful time. So the way we do it now is that we just take more time and we spend more time with animals. So now, if we have a new calf, like the one that we have up there, that we just saw.
Speaker 1:you might see it in the imagery. We're also capturing some of this with video and otherwise you'll hear the audio.
Speaker 2:For now we will leave them alone, because the mother just has a birth behind her and the calf is also where I'm at.
Speaker 1:So you give them some space.
Speaker 2:But tomorrow we'll go there.
Speaker 1:And in the beginning we'll just sit next to the calf and be two or three meters and the mother will come.
Speaker 2:She will have a sniff, she will be like she'll be nervous in the beginning. In this case, it's just proper horn, so you will be nervous. Yeah, but you might also be, nervous because.
Speaker 2:But then as long as you sit there for a few minutes, you calm down. She realizes that she comes down. She's had a sniff, she knows, hey, I know this guy, nothing's gonna happen. And then quietly and you just move on to the calf. You do the ear tags and there's no you, there's no trust being broken. She might not like it still because she's okay, why is the calf wiggling underneath him? And the calf also might complain, but she'll trust that process, so that.
Speaker 2:So that's one way of the something I think that you don't see so much and hear about so much, but it's that building that relationship, building that connection to the animal and working with it. And that is something fascinating, because calving season is the best example. But you just really never know. You only have your instinct and your experience to go by and whatever decision you take, it might be the wrong one, but maybe it's the right one. You have six years and your experience to go by and whatever decision you take yeah, and you have it might be the wrong one, but maybe it's the right one you have six years under your belt, but it's not that you have 50 years of pastoralism in brandenburg in your genes or something, so that's.
Speaker 2:And they're not so many people like how many farms around here have animals on them, but they're like people, you can tell but in these structures, where we're surrounded by farms that have 2000 to 7000 hectares, most of the animal is a classical, the animal operation is a classical animal production. So they'll be in the stables and maybe some of the months they also come Because this is fully outside 365, winter pastures and then fully integrated in the arable piece as well, yeah, we don't have any pastures, actually Not permanent.
Speaker 2:No they're completely integrated in the arable crop rotation and we always separate between the summer where we have a very diverse pasture mix of herbs and legumes and grasses and everything, and then in the winter they go on arable land where we've just harvested crops in in the summer and they are they usually have. First rotation is usually on cover crops because just for the nutritional value, and then when it gets colder and a bit muddier, towards, let's say, december, january, february, we move on on fields where we had nice crops so they have got a very nice sort of root system through the grasses and also actually it's quite nice nutritional wise for longer than you may think.
Speaker 1:So yeah, this, by the way, is zora, she's the boss, she looks like the boss, she is amazing, it's incredible we were with her with a group last week and I think she came out to check you, or at least she was observing the whole thing from a distance, like constantly. Well, the others lost interest very quickly but grazing, and they just went back to grazing, but she wasn't and going to the same, like with your insects, and reading the herd and really connecting in the mirroring, in the calmness. How does that relate to the one, as joel salatin likes to say, the one bad day? Because you do harvest them or you do sell some hopefully not when you need to for making payroll, but it is like you are shooting some of them. You do it very differently than I think many people expect. Maybe some people have seen it on Farm Rebellion in an episode, but I was able to see it yesterday and can you walk us through?
Speaker 1:Did it also start like that when you started realizing, okay, I might want to harvest one or two, I might want to start working on the meat side of things? How did you go about it? Did you send them off first, or this? Was it also a process of figuring out what works for you? And, in this setting, when the one bad day comes? And let's say hi to zora, who, by the way, knows when you do that and is the one that understands very well when you show up with a rifle to be honest with you, when I first got the cars, I always, I always said I will, I, I never wanna, or that's pretty definitely when I started with the cars.
Speaker 1:My intention was it never is a big work, yeah yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:It is never and so far it has been never. But my intention always was to never have a cow that's had the best possible life on our farm to be forced onto any means of transportation that they've never, ever seen in their life and driven away with all the smells and things that they've never seen. So I always knew that if a cow leaves the premises, then dead, and that I want to be the one who shoots them, takes them out of the system and, having grown up hunting everything that you can in our ecosystem, so mainly, giraffes mainly rats and foxes and a few deer and wild boar or whatever.
Speaker 2:But that has always been part of my life. So even from a young age I was trapping animals and things like that. So I grew up also my parents are we, our whole family hunts. So that part of taking a life of an animal has never been. I grew up with it. There's pictures of me climbing into a red stag, into the inside, when, when I was like three years old, I knew that is the way that I want to do it, because for, let's say, more or less obvious reasons. But of course the quality is just not comparable. You can a cow can have the best life possible on this planet and the best food and everything could be the absolute best. But if then that animal is loaded on a truck and driven to a butcher and the cow is getting panic and smelling all that shit, then you cannot keep that quality up.
Speaker 2:That would be the biggest waste of love that has gotten into the process in the beginning, and the cows the way that we shoot it or the way that we do it. Is that, of course, because we move the cows so regularly? When we come in the morning, they already know okay, we're going to be put on the next and they want to. Yeah, yeah, they're just waiting for it.
Speaker 2:Like, if you're 10 minutes late, I'll let you know hello, some people have a moon clock, but exactly, you have a life one, so they'll be waiting at the fence and they'll build like this sort of half moon structure around you, because I know the person that is at the fence will lift it and we go all underneath the fence and into the next of the next plot.
Speaker 2:And that kind of move and being drawn to that sort of next plot is what we use when we do the.
Speaker 2:When I shoot a cow, so I stand next to luciano who's managing our cows, and then we both look towards the back where there's an ox that we would shoot, something like 24 to 34 months old. And once I've chosen the one I want to shoot, I go through the herd nicely and slowly. I've got my weapon on my shoulder and two knives at the back, and then I basically just walk towards him and, depending on where he stands and how he stands, I usually also move him back a little, because you, first of all, you don't want to have any other animals standing behind and also you want to make sure that if you shoot it and you would prolong the shot if it was missed you would hit the floor and don't risk anything on. And so I do that. And then, once I've in some sense separated him, I shoot him in the brain, looking at me, because he will automatically always turn to the herd wanting to go, and I'll be standing between him and the herd.
Speaker 2:So then I shoot him in the head and with the shot he just collapses deadly in a second. He doesn't even hear the shot. Look, the calf is now standing up for the first time you can see being licked. And in that very second where I shoot, luciano would lift the fence, the cows go over. Within 20 seconds, 30 seconds, the fence goes down again and the cows graze and that's it, and it's it's the most.
Speaker 2:I think it's probably the most beautiful death that you can have, because that cow that I, the only thing that cow is thinking in that moment is why is that idiot standing in front of me At fresh grass? Yeah, why is he standing between me and the fresh grass? And then it goes like this and this is it, that's there's no pain, there's no nothing, there's no stress, there's no worries, there's nothing ordinary, like out of the ordinary, and and you can, not only is that, I think, the most, it's the difficult word to use in that sense but humane, yeah, but but of course, as far as quality of the product is concerned, it's unbeatable, and yet do I think that's the model that everyone can. It's going to be my next question yeah, it's abeatable, and yet do I think that's a model that everyone can.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be my next question, yeah it's a privilege to be able to do it it's a privilege, but it shows what's possible and in the calmness and in and do you have you're close to berlin have you gotten a lot of pushback for having animals in general and also being quite vocal about the meat part and the animal protein part.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's very much comparable to anyone who's out there with an opinion right. There's like pretty much two groups. There's one group that is anonymous and happens in the world of of I don't know the internet, so to say yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's a big difference.
Speaker 2:If people comment on your instagram, I mean, we have interns here that that come here and have been eating vegan for a few years and they start occasionally eating some of the meat. We have people here that come to farm tours that also come with a more vegan background and they're quite critical and they give us the chance to also be right in a conversation, which is valuable and rare. And suddenly they're like you know what? I did not know this.
Speaker 1:What's the biggest surprise for people? What's the biggest surprise for farm tours or people? I did not know. The integration of fertilization, yeah, and that's so much about it because the picture of cow is the climate killer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so easy and it's that makes life easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, obviously, just to stick with that world is better without cows, yeah, and then if you open that argument and you say, what about the water cycle and the hair? What has a cow to do with water? But what about biodiversity? What about this? What about that? What about? They're suddenly like wow, I never knew that all these considerations even exist. And then they start. I think that's the. That's like probably as many of us who you know, at some point came across soil, thinking I don't know, I'll walk on it, and then suddenly wow.
Speaker 1:The rabbit hole opens.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I think that's I often think about that. Like, how can we do large scale transformation of the agriculture and food systems? Well, of course, it's thousands of technical things and thousands of system things and education, science, finance, extra land, whatever. But like, where is the deep transformation going to come from? If, from anywhere, it can only come through people and love. And like fascination for something not from the negative Don't eat meat, no, come on. Like life is never black and white, there's so much more to it. Like fascination for something not from the negative don't eat meat, no, come on. Like life is never black and white, there's so much more to it. And yeah, so yeah, I think. As far as answering the question is concerned, for me, my biggest surprise is how many really well educated people still believe this without even doubting it.
Speaker 1:That is this meaning will be better without cows or agriculture as possible, or yeah, exactly if everybody goes vegan, we're fine. Yeah, exactly, yeah, it's. It's funny in our little bubble, of course, of the region world it's not. I'm not saying opposite, but many are like let's eat more and almost the other extreme, which, which is also quite tricky.
Speaker 2:But at least it accepted that it's part of Just one second. So this is an interesting moment because it could be that within the next 10 minutes, like 80% of the herd is going to be lying down.
Speaker 1:Should we be calm Because they're the big boss.
Speaker 2:No, they don't mind us, but it's just like a group pressure thing. If you start, start, then the other ones are like ah, okay, it's interesting, that's a good idea, no one is eating anything away from me. And then they're like actually, I feel like it too and they need to.
Speaker 1:They need to re-eat, right, yeah, for a while yeah, this is the herd.
Speaker 2:The herd dynamics are just amazing.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was ruminating.
Speaker 1:No, that's not a word, I was thinking on the.
Speaker 1:I have the feeling it's shifting a bit, or at least I've seen hardcore vegan or like activists and certain groups also starting to show up on region, ag and food conferences.
Speaker 1:Really good, because they suddenly realize farmers are part of this discussion and how we're going to transition and how we're going to work with them up on region, ag and food conferences. Really good, because they suddenly realize farmers are part of this discussion and how we're going to transition and how we're going to work with them, instead of just calling everything should be plant-based and just to be very clear, of course, the current way of 90, whatever, depending where you live and depending on animal protein, but 98% or 99% of animal protein is farmed very differently than this, let's put it mildly. But I sense a certain shift in approaching this of cows could be or ruminants may be, and we need more research in methane and all of that. Have you seen a mood shift at all in the last six years or has it been relatively constant or just a constant drip of interns that come and visitors and have people been more open? I think?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I'm not sure if I have a distinctive opinion about it. I don't go to so many conferences, so I wouldn't be able to tell from that side.
Speaker 1:You speak at a few here and there, but not consistently enough to see who shows up and who doesn't?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I also don't really care. I don't really, yeah, I don't really care. I do care, of course. I do really deeply care of how cows are perceived, because I believe them to be one of the most important allies to overcome some of the biggest problems that we have on so many levels. So I do care, but I don't really follow it actively, so to say. Because what upsets me about, first of all, I think, the whole vegan movement, or so many different movements, but they have shown how you can actually get quite a lot of people to interact with something that they seem that they believe to be valuable. Valuable, which, first of all, is a good thing. Right, in food, which is not so easy, yeah, but I just what wouldn't? What I'm bothered by is, like the waste of energy that goes into that right, because I think you're sort of the sunlight and not being transformed by grace.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's another one, but you mean other energy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but so we have one video where I think it's on our Instagram channel, where I basically go through the process how we do the shooting a cow on the pasture, and it had, I don't know, a lot of views and a lot of comments, and those comments are either people that appreciate the work that we put in and understand why we do it, and then the other side is people that don't believe in this kind of stuff because they chose to have a different opinion or eat vegan or whatever, and most of those comments are super, super negative. I don't know, it's very simplistic go vegan. It's not that negative, but that's what? Where you read what you read everywhere, but some of the you're a murderer and like quite extreme a romantic murderer and whatever.
Speaker 2:And I'm just thinking I wish it would be like you would say at least this is my opinion right, but we know we've got like incredible challenges to face, right, and we have to find solutions, and 100 there's going to be very many different solutions and approaches and none of us have the answers. And and if you're emotional about something, that's great, that means you, you care, that means you've got the stamina to fight for whatever you want to do. But using that to tell other people what to do and try to convince them that you are the one that knows you know what the best solution is, it's just such a waste of time because you're never going to change them.
Speaker 1:That's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:If someone would say, oh, whatever, I have this amazing vegan recipe, like you have to try it and it's like insane how the tomatoes interact with this and that and this, then I'd be like I'd love to try that, but if someone tells me you're a, you're an absolute idiot and everything that you believe is super stupid, although that's what your life has been for 40 years.
Speaker 2:You're not gonna get me. So I think there's just so much negativity and the wrong energy in that, because there's so much to be joyful and amazed and inspired by from all the solutions that are out there. Eating more plant-based is, of course, one big part of it, but it's not the single solution. Yeah, whatever.
Speaker 1:And what do you see as the next phase? Like you're growing significant agroforestry systems, always with the animals in mind, like fodder trees. What do you see as an agroforestry systems, always with the animals in mind, like father tree tree. What do you see as naguar in a field without any trees I mean trees around like? What excites you about the next phase of the animal side, apart from growing a herd and then, of course, starting to select and select the herd more and more on what you need here. But what is what excites you on the animal side over for the next years?
Speaker 2:first of all, the most exciting thing is we're going to buy three Saler bulls. So that means in about four or five weeks we're going to have five Saler bulls running into this herd, and it's just going to be incredible.
Speaker 1:Would you have an only Saler herd going back? Would you have made different decisions in knowing what you know now?
Speaker 2:no, no, there was a time when we started we had the 10 saler and then, after the second year, we had 40 angus and at that point I was like, okay, maybe it was a mistake to get 10 each, because 10 of course have huge horns, and then 40 in that sense, or 10 and then 40 had none, that being the angus and there was really, there were really two herds, because the salere were just so dominant and I thought, okay, that that wasn't smart or whatever.
Speaker 2:Because then you know, depending on your food structure or minerals or water, if you have a group that is just pushed back, they always wait until it's their turn and the other ones have eaten first, and that's not necessarily what you want to have. But the but that really changed and they really started to intertwine as a herd and become a group, with the different calf seasons and just the herd growing in itself.
Speaker 1:So now there's no separation like that anymore obviously the salers are dominant, but they are also the more intelligent watching out for trouble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the whole system also develops more into a system where there is enough space right here for even the weak animals. So no, I wouldn't have done anything else. We've got Guddenbösel Zangos, our own breed, our own breed with Saler mother and Angus bull Branding is important.
Speaker 2:And three quarters of the herd that you see here is part of this ecosystem. They have been given birth to on this pasture, they have grown here, they have had their own calves, some of them have had a few own calves, so they are really intertwined with the system and as such, it wouldn't change anything. Yeah, but going back to your question, what excites me as far as the cows is concerned? Really everything. We're now slowly reaching that sort of that maximum number that we believed would be a good number to have fully incorporated into the coop rotation. On, let's say, 700 hectares.
Speaker 2:We've, just opposite of this forest strip here, we've just built a fence of around another 120 hectares. We've just installed the water pipes there for 150 hectares. Within that system, we're planting a 50 hectare semi-syntropic agroforestry system there this winter, which is of course let's say, 75% designed for the cows, not just as fodder but of course also shadow and dry lying spaces in the winter, and then that we're going to scale the year after on another 80 hectares. So those 120 hectares are basically completely designed in a very pastoral agroforestry system where we combine the whole, let's say, cow operation with the regenerative elbow farming, as well as agroforestry sites and that connected with all the research that we are lucky to be able to do through our foundation. It's beautiful just to see how natural everything is, scaling A lot of hard work.
Speaker 1:But it seems to be I don't know, it's a more general observation after being here a couple of times, the pleasure of being here a few times that it starts to get to again a syntropic system you can use syntropic for anything, of course like more mature, like the pioneering plants have done their work, have created the microclimate for the others to follow the next strata and it starts to be seems to be emerging a plan and a design and different concepts and different pieces and puzzle pieces start to not be in place, but at least shape and form. You start to see okay, these are directions that work on the social side, on the financial side and, of course, the ecological side. Yeah, it's very different than a couple of years ago. It feels for me at least, being here a few days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:You're in it every day.
Speaker 2:of course it's not comparable to a few years ago and I don't think you could have necessarily have planned for it, no, and we've gone through hard, let's say, ups and downs and struggles, for sure, but we've always been incredibly lucky that we found people and partners and supporters and the whole.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's's really none of us can do it alone. If it wasn't for everyone that is part of it either being here or being not here, but still having some playing some part in the development, like such as yourself, it would never be, you could never do it and in that sense, yeah, I sense, yeah, I'm just excited, but I'm just excited full stop. It's the most beautiful thing to be working in and the times, of course, are incredibly challenging and all over. But my sort of naivety is always that hardship in life in cities, be it wars, be it whatever it is, could nudge us to come back to nature, understand we're part of nature, understand the value of nature, of farmers' work, of food, of course. That, for me, is, I think, the biggest thing that we need to find closing that gap.
Speaker 1:You do that. You do it actively with tours and, of course, through a lot of media or social media. And are you planning to scale that further media or social media and are you planning to scale that further like bigger farm tours and buses and like how do you because what you said before, like when people are here have experience, even if it's a morning, it for many people fundamentally changes because them, because it's such a different vision of what they had, what agriculture and food production and animals and forestry and trees etc. Could be. Is that, do you see that as one of your roles as well, to make sure more people manage to? You're close to a massive city, obviously relatively well-connected to have more people over, or is that also just going to be quite a bit for the local village and quite a bit for the team?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, we do that, we have. We used to do farm tours, I don't know every two weeks during the summer months and that's great fun.
Speaker 1:It's almost uncomfortable, but some people drive, I don't know, 500, 600 kilometers here you don't underestimate how impactful that can be on farmers and non-farmers and citizens eaters, and which I mean we're all, if you're lucky enough, eaters. But I, yeah, I can imagine people are like this is a unique place in this ecosystem. There are not many places where you can see this scale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the thing is, for me, of course, farming is always pressure and responsibility, and I think that's quite obvious, but I never really, I'm never like, like that doesn't really do much with me. Of course, I've learned and trained resilience through many years of droughts and bad economics, so to say.
Speaker 1:You're meditating with the cows, so that helps yeah that helps for sure.
Speaker 2:But if someone comes here driving that long because they are emotionally looking for hope, for instance not that we can give that in any sense, but that that that is something that touches me really deeply because it just gives you a glimpse of of how scared many people are, how afraid, and that, I think, is actually, if I would let my, my, my thoughts slide into that would that I would get nervous thinking about that that that people associate your work with their well-being or the well-being of future generations and and at the same time, that's, I think, is the brilliant beauty of agriculture and why it is worth doing whatever I can, but really whatever we can, to let people know, because agriculture is the reason to be hopeful, to wanting to get active and positive and exploring and experiencing, putting your energy into something worth doing, and I think that's the view of agriculture. Regeneration per se. It's always worth fighting and nature shows you best how well adapted and how really also fast you can regenerate have you seen that personally as well?
Speaker 1:like through food, and of course, you should have done like a gut microbiome check when you moved back in 2016 too, because many people come in through it also from personal health or nearby health, trauma or scares. Have you seen that as well? Like you regenerating on the spiritual level? We talked about the meditation of cow with cows. Like compared to 10 years ago when you were in the investment banking world so repeat the question how has you changed?
Speaker 1:huh, both physically and mentally and like coming back to the farm and coming back to you and, for sure, eating differently and interacting with food, completely different if at all, and maybe you were already no.
Speaker 2:No, I'm pretty sure I changed quite drastically. It's just not easy to pinpoint as to why. Obviously, I also got much older, which helps, Doesn't help or does?
Speaker 2:Depending from where you look. But yeah, I don't know. I think those first 10 years of my life when I was in the financial industry, where I was doing banking and venture capital stuff and all this, I was very much still looking for my place in the world. So to say, right, I hadn't yet, it hadn't yet clicked. That and what always had been my passion growing up, is also what I want to do from a professional standpoint. So those years, as much as I enjoy them and as much as I'm thankful for having them like, I don't think much of how I was and thought is still part of how I am and think today. Everything that I can tell you is that I'm I've been incredibly fortunate and privileged If it wasn't for my parents having gone back here on the farm when the wall came down, having put their life's work into building it, having then decided to trust me with it organic an idiot somewhere in the city doing stuff without.
Speaker 1:Did you know when you took over, when you said it before, that this was your like, agriculture was your life's work? Or did it click afterwards, like when you took over already?
Speaker 2:No. So when I took over first because I came from the venture capital side of things and we were looking at startups in the ag space back then I thought I'll do like this venture capital accelerator practical use case scenario I would offer places to stay for startups, connect them to universities and corporates and let them play on the land, give them the machines in the land to test, develop their products and then be immersed by having some equity in their respective companies. So that was the first strategy when I came here. And then only through going through the process of having to understand that in order to do that, I would have had invested I don't know one and a half million easily just to bring our sort of technological base of our combine harvester, our agriculture software, our tractors, et cetera, et cetera, to a minimum level, and I realized okay, this would mean that for the next 15 years I'm not doing anything.
Speaker 1:but paying back the debt, because you needed a minimum level for others to even plug in and play with it and look what's actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also be able to get the data, understand yield estimates and yield differences and so on and so forth, and only through that and the first huge drought.
Speaker 1:I realized that. In which world was I living.
Speaker 2:And that's how the whole journey for me started, of saying what am I going to do? I've got like 3,000 hectares of sand. I know the way that we did the operation being ecological, industrial is not going to be able to help me pay back debt or make a viable business model out of it that maybe at some point my, my kids would want to take over. I was completely lost. The only thing that I did know is that this can't continue, and then only through finding, like the pioneers of that I think we all are very much aware of, from agroforestry to holistic grazing, compost, composting and all the different, let's say, instruments of regenerative agriculture. And I realized at the same time how little this was known. No one was talking about it. I was like how is that possible? These guys obviously have the answers to some of the biggest problems of our time, yet no one is talking about it. There's no science, there's no machines, there's no nothing.
Speaker 1:There's no finance yeah, and when.
Speaker 2:I realized that in connection to saying we have a farm which is only now out of Berlin and it is super challenging because it is very sandy soil and we have low precipitation, but this is the reality that is exponentially growing across the globe, I knew, okay, this is it. This is the first moment in my life. I was like, thank you, you.
Speaker 1:Those are the two puzzle pieces I was looking for yeah and once that, once that clicked, everything changed for me and talking about that, the other 2000 hectares forestry or trees on it, the first tree. It's challenging as much or even more than arable any plans on other animals or integration there. I know you wanted to put cows in. That wasn't possible and grazing the forest is that? Or even with pigs, is that something you're thinking about looking at? Like, beyond the cows that you're saying? This is reaching its sort of maximum herd size. Maybe you can push it with great management and the soil biology comes back and work, but it's not gonna. You're gonna have 3 000 cows anytime soon. Are you thinking, okay, what's the next level of animal integration or the next phases in that?
Speaker 2:yeah, I would love to first of all. I mean we tried to. We did fence quite a considerable amount of pine monoculture a very young pine monoculture, next to one of our arable fields and it only took about four weeks until I was sued because that's interesting.
Speaker 1:What's the? What was the reason? So the?
Speaker 2:don't know, I haven't studied in detail but the laws in germany basically prohibit you of growing food in the forest for many obvious reasons. In that sense you're not allowed to graze the forest with cows because Because it's the food part, not necessarily the cow's part. Yeah, in that sense it's also the cow's part. You're just not allowed to graze it because they believe it to be harmful for the forest. But then if you have a worthless pine monoculture, that is a ticking time bomb in itself. There's not much they can destroy.
Speaker 1:So you can go through it, because they bring in seeds.
Speaker 2:they bring in nutrients, but seeds, they bring in nutrients.
Speaker 1:But yeah, is that something you're?
Speaker 2:working on. You're not allowed to confine a space in the forest. The forest has to always be able to move around.
Speaker 1:So there the colors could help. Is that something you're interested in, like engaging in that kind of policy change?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. So my strategy what I wouldn't want to be doing is going to Berlin and speaking to people about why we're not letting. That's not my style.
Speaker 1:What would be your strategy then?
Speaker 2:I would just do it and then get sued and then go to court. I would do that if, let's say, in three to five years' time, if everything goes to plan, we hope, and the operation is more or less as we would want it to run, specifically economically, and I have a certain degree of safety in that.
Speaker 1:I've known investors that said I would pay for court cases like that.
Speaker 2:That's the activism that would help, but also because, in some sense, what you would do is you would challenge the regional authorities, and that is not something that I would recommend incredibly. Yeah, I've done it. We put a lot of work into being close with them and them trusting us, and if because you might, then we couldn't do what we're doing and you might win one case. But you annoy so many people yeah, they got, even if you don't win.
Speaker 1:It's a very it could be a very risky strategy, because you're for sure you need their support and all the other things Exactly. So this is.
Speaker 2:It's not something that you do on the side. This needs to be structured, well thought about. But the thing is, the underlying thing, which I'm convinced of if something is forbidden and the reason why it is forbidden is for lack of a better word wrong.
Speaker 1:Or no longer valid. Then you should do something against it, otherwise you're part of the problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're integrating the cows in the forest, managed they are, depending on the context and the region and the forest, etc. Etc. But they're quite valuable. So in that sense, that's something I would definitely do and like to do. Look, I think she's getting a calf over there, or maybe not. It just looked like she was pressing.
Speaker 2:Then, of course, Surrounding is specific which one are you looking at Just the one lying there? Then introducing pigs in the forest, that is actually something that is allowed because it goes back to a very old form of having pigs, but that's at the moment not a good idea because we've got the African swine flu just around the corner, great Wild boar everywhere. Yeah, then chickens we were going to scale.
Speaker 1:You had chickens. I remember Big like the biggest chicken trailer I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 2:It was good fun, but that is something we were actually going to scale. Just then the war in the Ukraine sort of started, and then, of course, it wasn't a good time to grain.
Speaker 1:Started buying a lot of organic grain could you? Use your own left. Is that an integration?
Speaker 2:but then yeah, you can. I mean, there's a whole producing x is much more complicated than if you would go for meat, because meat we've got the infrastructure now set with the online shop and butchering all ourselves and stuff, so that would be an easier path for us specifically also because the reason why we mainly stock the eggs was because we get bird flu every winter and if you raise cows beautifully outside and then in the wintertime you put them inside, you know it's a beautiful part of that gets the chickens you mean quite fast, and they're not used to be inside they get incredibly aggressive and yeah, exactly, it's just not something that you want to go with.
Speaker 2:Apart from that, I do have my three jersey cows two and a half which gives me an incredible pleasure, and I love milking and having that product for the family. It's for me, yeah, it's absolutely beautiful, but other than that, for now I think it's enough, even if I would want to, yeah, I think max and bastian and a few others who are vital to our operation, of course would tell me to please Tone it down a bit. Don't start something new. Let's just make sure we do what we do fairly manageable.
Speaker 1:And, like for others, have you had neighbors or other farmers that come? Advice is always tricky. All the contexts are completely different. You already mentioned this is maybe not the most scalable or everyone could do this, but what you've seen here, what you've experienced and lived experience from integrating animals back into a, an arable farm, what have you told others that have come, maybe ask things or advise? And you said what is your? Again, not advice, but what is your, what are some paths you've told others to, to explore, to look into if it fits in their context, or if you said don't do it.
Speaker 1:it's absolutely a nightmare, which it doesn't seem to be, but no, I think I like have neighbors ask things, for instance, like the 6000 or whatever hectares you mentioned before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the production systems that we are surrounded by. For them, this is not a realistic case, because these are investor-led operations that are more managed on an excellent sheet than they are on the outside and, of course, they have different value systems, different, let's say, economic context. They don't live here.
Speaker 1:We are a family farm, right yeah?
Speaker 2:So in that sense, there's not much, I think, that we can add, other than them coming to borrow a tractor and then seeing the cows and saying, wow, this is beautiful Would you graze their land, Would you?
Speaker 1:is that something you need more like in interaction? Does it go beyond interaction with neighbors than borrowing a tractor in there?
Speaker 2:Not with animals, because we we plan to obviously be able to solve our problems ourselves. But this could realistically be like. This could be an option. I don't think that is something that I find too attractive, because it makes things just more complicated than they would need to be. But I don't know. When people come and they ask for whatever reason, I do what I do, we do what we do, I just try to tell them as honestly and as transparently why, first of all, but also I always start with all the reasons not to do it. Because it's easy. If you love an animal, it's easy to say, all right, let's do it, get some cows. But it is super, super tough. It is incredibly challenging. It is super complex. It's going to take years of implementation until you can somehow find a calculation that looks all right. It's a lot of additional know-how you have to build. It's super, super tough and there's unfortunately it's very real why it is so hard and why we separated it yeah, and even for us, whatever that means.
Speaker 2:But we have a bit of a brand, let's say, in germany not necessarily for what we would like in in terms of if you want to eat really, really good meat, you can buy it with us on the online shop.
Speaker 1:Rather maybe for other reasons it's not a product brand, exactly which is also okay, because we stand, we want to stand for agriculture on a bigger impact, so to say but it's the one thing you can buy, so you can come here just to finish the thought but because it's really so.
Speaker 2:How is it?
Speaker 2:right now we're shooting around 40 cows a year and if we sell them well through the online shop, we can have sales of around 4,000 to 4,500 euros per cow. Now, if you scale that to the number that we want to get to, which is going to be in the next two or three years, we would be looking to shoot around 100 cows a year Now. Then suddenly, of course, if we manage to sell it through the same infrastructure, we're talking about a lot of sales. But just to keep that infrastructure alive means you need to have a team of three, maybe four people that do the logistics, do the customer relation, do the branding, do the social media the complaints and at the end of the day, your margin is gonna be not really significant.
Speaker 2:So, being in that spot, the next thing is do I really want to have all the trouble for having a few percent margin more, or should I just have cows, be happy with it and sell three truckloads of 30 each per year? Maybe I have only one decimal margin, if maybe I probably have to pay that on top.
Speaker 1:But that makes my life so much easier, but it means you're leaving a truck and it's like coming back to the values we shared at the beginning yeah but it's also an economic decision and if you have three or four staff and it like, what is it saying? I wish you a lot of personnel, but imagine you have to build a brand.
Speaker 2:Imagine you're an arable farmer. You do whatever you do. Then you want to start like cows in that setting with all those ideas of wanting to give them the best life outside, shooting them whatever. Then you have to build a brand. You have to do social media, you have to do the packaging. Then you have to do logistics.
Speaker 1:You have to do social media, you have to do the packaging, then you have to do logistics and you have to compete with the other ones that do the same Exactly.
Speaker 2:It's nearly undoable if you don't have a family, your spouse, your brother, your sister, your mother, your daughter coming in to say you know what? I'll do this the next half a year. I'll set everything up, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, set everything up, we'll see how it goes. So, yeah, their brand, other, of course it's a, it's the, not a fallacy, but like a sort of a naive thought that every farmer should be their own brand and their own shop and their own, which it currently is, like the successful ones we see and the direct to consumer to a certain extent. But of course, how does that scale? And not everyone wants to be or can be, because then, how much else are they supposed to do also?
Speaker 1:and the best marketeer and a good accountant.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, you have to keep all this environmental data as well, exactly, and then also be a custodian and build biodiversity and plant trees. Let's not forget that exactly do you see?
Speaker 1:there are opportunity for brands around it or companies that are that like okay, we will build the infrastructure. Of course, you're disinterested again a bit, but at least you take away a lot of that, like the butcher boxes, and they're different. There's grotto in the netherlands, pasco, which unfortunately didn't make it in italy. They say, okay, we'll buy from you really good price and make sure it's as humane maybe in field, maybe not, whatever is possible, and then we'll do the rest, because we cannot expect everyone to become an online entrepreneur in selling frozen meat or yeah, I think there's, there's great examples if you look at crowd farming, for example, you know that one maybe specifically because it's also farmer led- do you see yourself doing that at some point, like starting to buy from others and helping them with the infrastructure you have?
Speaker 2:No, I mean, who knows what happens in the future? I think I have two. I've got two hearts, that sort of, in my chest. One is just our farm. Right, I want to.
Speaker 2:In our universe of the farm that we operate on, I want to make it the best possible setup for young kids, specifically mine or my sisters. If mine wouldn't want to do it, to be like, wow, I love it, I want to do it, I love farming, I'll take over and I've got safety and some cash to to live a life that is worth living. That's my number one priority. And then my other priority and there's this kind of a space where we've been in now, I know, for I don't know, a year or two or a few months actually is to say what's the biggest impact that we can have with the work that we're doing here on the farm through our foundation?
Speaker 2:But also, is there other ways of having an impact? Is there economic models that we're doing here on the farm through our foundation? But also, is there other ways of having an impact? Is there economic models that we would want to explore with the experience that we can bring? Because I think there are. I mean there's going to be incredible sums of capital flowing into the whole biodiversity side of things. There's going to be and farming as well, yeah, of course, and there's going to be incredible amounts of land waiting to be managed because many farmers are going to stop in the next 5 to 10 years.
Speaker 2:There's obviously some private putting plays exactly that would be exciting to explore.
Speaker 1:So your old, former. Yeah, on your shoulder opportunity, drawing me back in money, no.
Speaker 2:but like these are exciting thoughts, not in a bad way.
Speaker 1:Sorry, kyle, I scared you, not in a bad way. I think we need that because whatever amazing thing you do, you earn 3,000 hectares or more or less. Whatever the number will be, the necessary impact is so much bigger. And even if this is perfect and you're in an ocean, surrounded by an ocean of desert, dying pine trees, and then that still is not going to be enough. And you have a lot of experience now, like with the compost, with the cows, with the agroforestry, you've done a lot of r&d that others don't have to do, or differently or faster, or there's so many ways you can help people. Of course it needs structures, it needs a lot of it's a lot of other work, but there is a potential role there. You don't think you have to, I mean yeah, for sure, and I think it's also they're thinking they're gonna move soon.
Speaker 1:They're starting to move yeah, they're gonna get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not alone such a good internal clock there's also I I mean, I think even some of the strongest value in some sense is knowing the complexities of execution, Because we've done these things now for quite a time and we basically fuck up still to the same extent as we did back then. But that process allows us today quite easily to come up with the first 15 deal breakers that you wouldn't think of if you haven't gone through that process before.
Speaker 2:That are super, super valuable to be considered of before you start. So it's often like the very simple questions that you tend not to answer when thinking of implementing like things like that, or new things and new concepts that need to be answered and thought about before you do it, and you can save.
Speaker 1:Save people still make a shit ton of mistakes, but you can save them a beginning piece of that or like at least there's an acceleration of learning, that you can help with people, and so they decided all to move Some some. I think it's a perfect moment to wrap up as well the cow injuries and I want to thank you so much for coming back on. I know the co-host didn't count, so let's say this is number three or four, I think. And yeah, thank you for what you do in the space and for spending most of your waking hours thinking about cows and soil and trees and forestry.
Speaker 2:yeah, thank you so much. This has definitely been the most enjoyable podcast I've ever been on With the best company you mean the cows- right and a calf, almost live-born, on the podcast.
Speaker 1:That's a first, yeah.
Speaker 2:Amazing how she was lying there on top while the whole group was down here and she was just lying there next to her calf, looking down, seeing everything.
Speaker 1:So now the calf is on the move with them, right. Or just move with the whole group.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there was one that looked a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it was around here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she walked over here, I think there's another one that was born, we'll see. This is the investing in regenerative agriculture and food podcast, where we learn more on how to put money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems, while making an appropriate and fair return. Why not share it with a friend and get in touch with us on social media, our website or via the Spotify app, and tell us what you liked most and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your podcast player. That really really helps us. Thanks again and see you next time.
