Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food

A conversation with Laimonas Noreika, founder of HeavyFinance, about providing loans to farmers, bringing innovation to the traditionally stagnant agri-loan sector (some numbers: over €70M loaned to farmers and over 13,000 individual investors have invested through them).  The profitability of regenerative agriculture isn't just a theory—it's backed by hard data from hundreds of thousand...

A conversation with Kiira Heymann, Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Non-GMO Project and the Food Integrity Collective. After the success of the Non-GMO Project in the U.S., which is now featured on almost 63,000 products, the team is launching the Non-Ultra-Processed Food verification. In this conversation, we discuss why—why introduce another label? And why is it so important for the foo...

A deep dive into the world of intensive—or super-intensive—tree crops, particularly olives and almonds with Dimitri Tsitos, co-founder of Agrosystemic, the Regenerative Agroforestry Podcast, the Arbo-Innova project and Mazi Farm. In Portugal, the sector is booming—highly profitable yet highly destructive—due to its high- input, high-output nature, with heavy reliance on fertilizers and chemicals....

A long-overdue check-in conversation with Tom Hengl, director at OpenGeoHub, one of the leading scientists in earth observation and remote sensing—one of the most cited in his field, belonging to the top 0.1% (based on Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers). We discuss the significant changes in the world of remote sensing, satellites, and the hype surrounding AI, machine learning, and large language...

An overdue check-in conversation with Dan Barber,  chef, co-owner of Blue Hill restaurants and co-founder of Row 7 Seeds, where we dive into the fascinating world of seeds and how breeding is evolving with the explosion of AI and other technologies. No, we don’t need GMOs, CRISPR, or other risky blunt instruments. We discuss the implosion of the fake meat hype, which was at its peak when we last s...

A conversation with Sébastien Crépieux , founder of Invers, developing a decentralised insect farming supply chain for animal nutrition, placing farmers at the heart of the model. The role of animals and livestock in farming is something we cover frequently, but we’ve never discussed insects which can transform immense amounts of agricultural waste—such as leftovers from beer brewing or wheat mill...

A conversation with Matt Schmitt, founder of Structure Climate, about how to get institutional investors invest in the regenerative food and agriculture transitions. These are big terms we use regularly, but what do they actually mean and, more importantly, how do we get there? How do we get novel climate technologies- like biochar machinery, chestnut agroforestry systems, biofertilizer plants, or...

A conversation with Paul Clarke, technologist, innovator, inventor about technology and innovative tools from various domains, including modelling, digital twins, digital shadows, robots, and other smart hardware solutions that are crucial for the regenerative transition—tools we’ve barely begun to consider, let alone adopt. We often hear about AI, machine learning, and large language models, but...

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 S...

A conversation with Joseph Rehmann, co-founder of Victory Farms in Kenya, with the mission to be the world's most sustainable fish business and provide high nutrition protein to the mass market in Africa. How do you go from being a happy but unfulfilled banker to co-founding one of the leading and largest animal protein companies in East Africa? We unpack Joseph's journey into fish farmi...

An afternoon stroll through the land of Angus McIntosh, also known as Farmer Angus, where we talk about brands, wine and get interrupted by dogs and, believe it or not, a grazing tortoise.  From his South African farm, Angus guides us through his groundbreaking practices, producing everything from grass-fed beef to carbon-negative wine. With every product, he redefines conscious consumption, makin...

A conversation with Marcelo Salazar & Zé Porto, co-founders of Mazô Maná, about how we preserve what is left of the Amazon rainforest, regenerate the forest and, most importantly, truly partner with the Indigenous peoples of the forest who have been stewarding this ecosystem for generations. Yes, the Amazon is a vast, managed agroforestry system. Marcelo e Zé, after decades of working with NGO...

In the second episode of the two-part conversation with Antonio Nobre, Brazilian agronomist by training and world’s leading Earth scientist, serving as the scientific director of the Biotic Pump Greening Group, we explore how he would invest $1 billion—and yes, it involves nature unicorns. We’ll dive deep into water cycles, the biotic pump, and why combining biotic pump knowledge with syntropic ag...

A conversation with Antonio Nobre, Brazilian agronomist by training and world’s leading Earth scientist, serving as the scientific director of the Biotic Pump Greening Group. He has dedicated his career to studying the Amazon's ecological dynamics and its crucial role in climate regulation and is an expert on water cycles, native Indigenous knowledge, and much more. We talk about how Antonio...

Our 2024 wrap up,  a year that brought hope but also served as a wake-up call. With skyrocketing temperatures, droughts, fires, and floods, the challenges have been immense. But we were very lucky that we—both online and offline— had the chance to come together with many of the pioneers and builders in regenerative agriculture and food. At the same time, we were reminded that we, as part of nature...

A conversation with Kadir van Lohuizen, Dutch multimedia photojournalist, filmmaker, and a co-founder of NOOR, while walking his exhibition Food for Thought at Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam. We talk about the power of photos and videos, how disconnected we are from nature and how our current food system works. We talk while walking though photos of large dairy facilities in Mongolia, farms in...

A deep dive with Jacob Parnell, director of Agronomy at Biome Makers, into the evolving world of soil biology and biological inputs. Soil biology is the answer—no matter the question. While this may sound black-and-white, it is safe to say that soil biology holds the potential to resolve many global issues. So, where do we currently stand with soil biology research, and, more importantly, what doe...

A conversation with Ali Bin Shahid, an engineer with a deep background in permaculture (and a military one too), a passion for modelling and one of the very few people using data and engineering approaches to tackle critical questions about regeneration. We explore how to put numbers to abstract ideas like slowing water down, spreading it, and soaking it. What does "slow" actually mean?...

A conversation with Laura Ortiz Montemayor, Chief Purpose Officer and co-founder of SVX Mexico, and managing partner at Regenera Ventures Fund, covering the global nature of regeneration exploring what has been happening in Mexico and the rest of the Spanish-speaking countries in LATAM. They hold the key to many of our biodiversity challenges, and many tropical or subtropical commodities are farme...

A check-in conversation with Philipp Stangl, co-founder of Rebel Meat (now Rebel Kids), a company we featured earlier working on hybrid blended meat. The story isn’t over, but definitely didn’t develop as we discussed more than 3 years ago.  Let’s all talk much more about changed plans and pivots and companies not being overnight unicorn successes. The founders of companies, in general, have to be...

Why land tenure and security are key to the future of food . We’ve touched on the massive issues of land tenure, access, and security on the podcast before, but never enough. In many regions, land prices have been rising steadily for the past 50–100 years, becoming entirely disconnected from the land’s productive value—especially for those wanting to farm using regenerative agroecology. This has m...

A conversation with Marco Carbonara, cofounder, owner and farmer at Pulicaro Farm, in Lazio, Italy. A special early morning walk through permanent pasture surrounded by multispecies graziers, donkeys, cows, sheep, goats, chickens and, of course, some guard dogs, which means a lot of pleasant and present background sounds. We are in the hills between Rome and Florence and have the great pleasure to...

A conversation with John Holmyard, founder and managing director of Offshore Shellfish, 21st century mussel farming: guilt-free food that helps regenerate marine biodiversity and captures carbon. We talk about protein. With a growing population, we need more and more of it. So, what is the lowest impact and positive impact protein source we can grow? A deep dive into the largest offshore mussel fa...

A conversation with Kevin Wolz, CEO of Canopy Farm Management and former founder of the Savanna Institute . Canopy provides tree planting and management services to farmers and landowners in the US Midwest. They establish perennial crops, timber plantings, conservation practices, and integrated agroforestry systems. We have been talking about agroforestry systems and investing before (see link at...

A conversation with Cindie Christiansen and Analisa Winther, founder of Top 50 Farmers, about the narrative around farmers and how it has to change. Less than 12% of farmers in the EU are under 40, and it isn’t seen as "sexy." The stereotype of a 60-year-old white man on a tractor isn’t helping, and no, driverless tractors are not going to take care of our farming anytime soon. So how do...