Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food

A conversation with Paul McMahon, co-founder of SLM, about why it makes so much sense to put money to work in real regenerative agriculture, yields, and more importantly, profits and the regenerative edge, and more. Few papers in regenerative agriculture have been shared more than the Investment Case for Ecological Agriculture written by Paul McMahon. We have shared it countless times, learned a w...

A conversation with Abby Rose, co-founder of Vidacycle and Farmerama, about the role and potential of AI in observation, alternative investment, the power of transparency, why regenerative viticulture is so interesting, and more. Why did someone who didn’t really need the money and had serious and reasonable questions about the tendency of startups, both in and outside the regenerative space, to k...

A conversation with Brett Hundley, President of Agroforestry Partners (AP), a fund that invests in agroforestry projects on farmland with the strategy of providing uncorrelated and attractive nature-based investment opportunities for investors.  We talked about moving away from an agricultural system that relies on annuals to a system that relies more on perennial trees. If trees are the answer to...

A conversation with Joachim Ewechu and Hannes Van den Eeckhout, co-founders of Rootical, a start-up studio that enables purpose-driven entrepreneurs in Uganda to build and own their regenerative agri-food companies. We talk about why Uganda is the place to launch and build agroecology, regenerative agriculture, and food companies, why Uganda enjoys political support for agroecology, the importance...

This is the wrap-up of the Regen Mind series, where Emma shares more about her motivation for this series, her lessons learned, the themes that emerged, and of course, her surprises like like how quickly the conversations evolved from mind/mindset to consciousness. Find out why the mind is like soil and how we can adopt a systems-thinking lens, which is imperative for system change. --------------...

A conversation with Heather Terry, CEO and founder of GoodSam, about how an exit from a chocolate company led to a female-led consumer goods company, how education of consumers is key, networks vs. chains, multi-crop buying, and much more. Every CEO and high-ranking manager working in food companies should be obligated to visit the farms and farmers they source from. So many decisions in the board...

A conversation with Martin Reiter, former senior manager at Airbnb and Wayfair, and prior to this at McKinsey and Groupon, about what excites him about regeneration, where are the Steve Jobs and Elon Musk of regeneration going to build their companies, and how can we help more talent flow into the space? Why did Martin, after he grew Wayfair's European Business by 100x over 8 years and led Ai...

A conversation with Jessica Hutchings, a Maori researcher and apothecary, about indigenous knowledge, letting go of old mindsets, our relationship with nature and the deities of our landscapes. A deep dive in the New Zealand food system, indigenous ways to connect with soil and the food web, sound of plants, vibration of nature and much more. This episode is part of the Regenerative Mind series ,...

A conversation with Keith Agoada, CEO and co-founder of Producers Trust, a global network of farmers, farmer groups, and producer groups, about indoor greenhouse growing, aggregation, sorting, quality control, packaging, processing, and more. From indoor greenhouse growing to founding a company, which is now turning into a regenerative landscape orchestrator, and why we are in the perfect storm at...

Emma Chow and Calla Rose Ostrander explore the regenerative mindset and the importance of integrating human behaviours into natural cycles, recognising abundance and the physical capacity for healing, burnout, the perception of time scarcity, prioritising regenerative activities, and much more. Regenerative mind is about healing. It makes Calla Rose think back to her experience suffering a brain i...

A conversation with Nicolas Enjalbert, CEO and Co-Founder of SeedLinked, an innovative company digitizing collaborative breeding and a seed breeder, about our current seed system, flavour and nutrients, collaborative seed research, and much more. Seeds, it all starts with seeds (and soil) but mostly seeds. And our current seeds system is structurally not able to grow seeds that are adaptive to loc...

A conversation with Luis Camargo and Thomas Legrand about the regenerative mindset in food systems, transforming the inner capacities for sustainability and regeneration, personal growth through reconnection with nature, food systems and narratives, and much more. This episode is part of t he Regenerative Mind series , supported by our friends at Stray who are exploring systemic investing with awe...

A conversation with Eric Smith, CEO and co-founder of Edacious, who is building a technology platform for differentiating quality of food. Eric and Koen talk about measuring quality and how to turn around objectively one of the most complex systems ever, from one driven by chemicals to one driven by biology, with abundance as an outcome. The solution, according to Eric, is radical transparency. Ge...

As we are wrapping up 2023 we look back at a year which feels even crazier than 2022. Another war has started and we have been flooded literally with extreme weather events. Every month seems to have been the warmest, driest, wettest etc. in history! Let’s look at what we covered and learned in the podcast: This Changes Everything: Cooling the Planet What if water is more important than carbon? It...

A conversation with Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, CEO of Tree Range Farms, farmers and producers which a focus on establishing or maintaining a “jungle like” habitat that honours the true natural environment of chickens. When they do this, they not only create a better habitat for the chickens, they create a better world. We talk about using indigenous knowledge to transform the food system, how ch...

We welcome back on the show Ethan Soloviev, founder of Terra Genesis, now Chief Innovation Officer at HowGood and an advocate for regenerative agriculture. We take a deep dive into the four paradigms of agriculture and how regenerative agriculture is a journey, not a destination. It is not romantic nor naive, it is not anti science nor anti technology.  Welcome to a very special episode. This is p...

A conversation with Lucio Usobiaga, cofounder of Arca Tierra, about Chinampas, a wetland ecosystem in Mexico City with a rich history of food production and cultural significance, regenerative agriculture and its connection to soul and purpose, chefs and gastronomy in Mexico City, and much more. This episode is part of the Regenerative Mind series, hosted by Emma Chow. Through a series of conversa...

A conversation with Taimur Malik, founder of Drawdown Farm, a regenerative organic, biomimetic, no-till carbon farm in the Thal desert in Pakistan, about how they built one of the largest Johnson and Su compost facilities, plus the largest vermicompost in Pakistan. We talk about inputs, outputs, and why the timing is now for a regenerative transition in Pakistan and beyond! This is a long and rich...

A conversation with Giles Hutchins, executive coach, keynote speaker and author of Leading by Nature, about the role of mindset in regenerative food systems, the achiever mentality, reconnecting with nature and achieving a more sustainable business mindset, interconnectedness and the “field” in science and spirituality and more. We kick things off by diving into the crucial shift towards a regener...

This is a conversation between Koen van Seijen, host of the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast, and Dayana Andrade, researcher, author of Life in Syntropy | Vida em Sintropia and farmer at Amadeco Syntropic Farm. A deep dive into syntropic farming, companion crops opposed to the olive monoculture afflicting the Apulian region, in the South of Italy. Dayana shares her personal j...

A conversation with Laurence Tremblay, co-founder and business manager of Guatemalan social enterprise, Cacao Source and founder of the nonprofit arm, Give Back to the Source. Emma Chow, the host of the Regenerative Minds series, explores with Laurence the regenerative mindset in the chocolate industry, cacao's potential for regeneration, cacao farming, culture, and community in Guatemala, an...

A conversation with Josh Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell, producers, directors, and writers of the movie Common Ground and previously Kiss the Ground. We talk about their two movies, food choices and their impact on the environment and health, the chemical agriculture model going bankrupt and much more. What do you do after you create the enormous hit Kiss the Ground? More than 10 million peop...

A conversation with Sara Balawajder, Vice President of Builders Vision, who leads the impact first food and agriculture portfolio, about the opportunities of regenerative agriculture and food, and specifically nutrient density, and insurance, not health insurance, but farmers' insurance. Lukas Walton, a grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton, established Builders Vision as an umbrella for his...

A conversation with Jan-Gisbert Schultze, a VC investor who turned into a regenerative enthusiast and bought a small olive farm, which he is turning into the first syntropic farm in Salento, in Puglia (Italy), a region battered by monoculture olive trees. After reading The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollen, Jan got bitten by the regeneration bug. He attende...

A conversation with Rodger Savory, ecologist, land manager, and ranch owner, about scale and cows, how to kickstart regeneration in desert situations, changing local weather patterns, abundance, soil bacteria, conventional agriculture, WW2 and much more. Many millions of hectares of agricultural land around the world have turned into deserts, and many millions are about to turn into deserts with c...