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
381 Sarah Hellebek - Training Denmark’s next farmers with practitioners, not professors
A walking the land episode with Sarah Hellebek, deputy head at Krogerup Højskole, who spent years at the heart of Denmark’s climate activist movement. By most measures, she was successful, climate made it onto the political agenda, though never strongly enough. But the fight came with a cost: it also made her pretty depressed, she was- in her own words- mostly shouting in front of the Parliament.
Until a tour visiting progressive Danish farmers exposed her to the world of regeneration and she dove right into it. After spending a lot of time on different farms she noticed the need to train the next generation, as the current ag school system in Denmark (and everywhere else for that matter) doesn’t prepare you to run farms and embrace complexity. So she started her own school, outside the free super subsidied Danish school system.
We talk about why the next generation of farmers has to be trained by practitioners not teachers and why your holistic context is so important and pretty scary to dive into that in week 1 of your education.
She felt she had to get some dirt under her nails and set up a market garden which hosts a lot of activities. We end with a deep dive into our role as positive key stone species.
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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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Today we walk the land with someone who operated for years in the climate activist movement in Denmark and, by all means, was pretty successful. Climate has been a strong piece on the agenda of course not strong enough in the Danish political system, but it also made her pretty depressed. She was, in her own words, mostly shouting in front of the parliament Until a tour visiting progressive Danish farmers exposed her to the world of regeneration and she dove right into it. After spending a lot of time on different farms, she noticed she needed to train the next generation, as the current ag school system in Denmark, and everywhere else for that matter, doesn't really prepare you to run farms and embrace complexity. So she did the thing everyone would do in her position she started her own school outside the free, super subsidized Danish school system, and it took off.
Speaker 1:We talk about why the next generation of farmers has to be trained by practitioners, not teachers, and why holistic context is so important and pretty scary to dive into in week one of your education, and why the students need to work full-time on regen farms throughout the country and bring that knowledge back into the lessons, into the classroom, which of course, is on a farm Like this. The teaching is done with real case studies on top of regen farms throughout Denmark. Bye-bye outdated textbooks. This is the cutting edge. She felt she had to get some dirt under her nails and set up a market garden which hosts a lot of activities. We end up with some very concrete calls to action and, of course, a mini deep dive into our role as a positive keystone species. Enjoy the walk.
Speaker 1: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. Welcome to another Walking the Land episode. I have the feeling I keep saying special quite a lot the last month, so everything cannot be special, because then it's normal. But this is a special place to be actually, and we're going to get a bit into that as well, and we're here with Sarah. Welcome, sarah.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:And we always start with a personal question why and how come you spend most of your waking hours and probably potentially also your not waking hours thinking around soil and regeneration and farming? What has been the journey into this fascinating but not easy world?
Speaker 2:I think it comes both from a very like actually depressing worldview, seeing the catastrophe around us, seeing the depleted soils, the communities in disharmony with the ecosystems around them and but also from the very hopeful and joyful experience I've only had whenever I've been myself working with farming. But also, actually it was sparkled by meeting some of the progressive farmers in Denmark on a tour around the country, and so many like basic realizations came to me when I was out visiting them. So, for example, just the fact that it's not the same when it rains in the city as when it rains in the countryside, because in the countryside it is life-giving, it is a part of the cycle, although of course, in the light of climate change, rain can also be disastrous too much yeah and for the soil surface, but still it's completely different.
Speaker 2:so I was yeah, um, I entered this world and and maybe as a climate activist, I've spent a lot of years screaming in front of the parliament in Denmark, and then, when I got out to the countryside and people started talking about plants and living soil and animals in harmony and in the circles of life out here, I had to shut up.
Speaker 1:And they didn't scream probably at you, right, they were talking. There was no screaming. I had to shut up. And they didn't scream, probably at you, right, they were talking. Yeah, there was no screaming.
Speaker 2:No, screaming, but only like a big humility and a big curiosity.
Speaker 1:That was like the only way to go, which is such an interesting point because I think, from the depression that the polycrisis sees, is that a word yes Can give us and many, I think, have experienced it and continue to experience and then somehow get exposed to and none of this is easy, obviously in in regenerative food and agriculture, but exposed to the life, the potential regeneration in some shape or form. Some people go to visit aquifercy system somewhere, some people visit a farm nearby, some people depends, of course, your context and yeah, then there's no shouting, there's just a lot of hard work to be done. Yeah, but it has that positive potential food and agriculture compared to being a climate activist which is mostly shouting and blocking roads, which is super important, getting legislation passed through, but it's a very could be very demotivating, especially the last few decades, as it didn't move and doesn't move so far as we want yeah, there has.
Speaker 2:To my opinion, there has been success to the climate movement, definitely like.
Speaker 2:But I really, when I'm out in a, like, more biodiverse landscape, when I'm out in a market garden, as we're standing in right now, I'm more in contact with the world that I wish to see in the future, instead of only being in contact with or in frustration over, like, how society is today.
Speaker 2:So it's also to me pre-figurative for the future to be out here, and not only because, like, we are producing food in a way that I think is the right way to do it and it's also possible to do in in the decades to come, but also because it's like, also because it is in resistance of a system that is really not helping us doing this, like, the system is upholding a very destructive way of farming.
Speaker 2:But out here we are trying our best and you really always end up with a lot of yeah, as I said before humility and curiosity to the processes that are working here, because they're so much greater than you. You're just like out here trying to be in service of producing some food that is nutritious and trying to create also a workspace that is nice for people to be in, and also and I think that is like my biggest wish for this farm that I was co-starting last year and that people get out here and get more excited about the transition of the future system because it gets so technical and yeah, but if we don't get excited, if you cannot see it, and how do we're going to get people?
Speaker 2:we're not going to get people on board with a peer-reviewed paper no, exactly, and also like we have to, you might even say, seduce people.
Speaker 1:And food is a great way. How do we, let's say, the progressive movement I don't think we've been the best in quote unquote selling good stories and in future, ones like these are things? Often it was about less and is, and often it's about quite depressing instead of making a future that has a lot of things less and a lot of things more of, and is actually a much more desirable place full of life as we look around us but we haven't really been able to communicate that very clearly. It's more about who's taking away my burgers I'm not allowed to do this anymore, etc. Etc. Etc. And instead of, if you come to places like this and if you taste, then suddenly it's like oh, but this is more flavor, more biodiversity, more life, more insects, more water, more carbon, of course, in the soil, etc.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And when you no, go ahead.
Speaker 2:But I'm also thinking like a very like depressing mistake in the system right now is also that people's meat with the food is in the supermarket. Is also that people's meat with the food is in the supermarket, Like they actually when I ask people to go around the field and to identify some of the plants, like they don't know how they look when they're out in the soil.
Speaker 1:When they're not in their plastic bag.
Speaker 2:They're so disconnected to how food is actually grown. So I think also just enabling people to have that look on the food that they are depending on is really a big gift to me. And then I think a lot, of, way too many people they are spending way too many hours sitting in offices moving around papers and of course, it's also nice to send emails and do coordination and stuff Like there's also a lot of paperwork behind having a garden like this, coordination and stuff like there's also a lot of paperwork behind having a garden like this.
Speaker 1:But like if I am to bet on what is lasting in the next hundred years, I would prefer more farmers to more people only sending emails more people on the land and more eyes and ears and hands, and from that tour you were doing, visiting a number of the progressive farms, let's say in Denmark. Then what made that shift for you? Because that could have been okay. I continue my activism and maybe I'm going to volunteer on a market garden close to Copenhagen or somewhere and I'm pushing, putting this in my I don't know free time quote, unquote, or my hobby or something, but that is not, I think, what happened. This was quite a radical shift in terms of work and life. What happened after the realization of art? There's actually, in the climate movement, also a positive niche, somewhere where people are enabling life, and I actually want to be there more.
Speaker 2:I think the first thing I did was actually combining some of my climate activism by being a board member of an association called Andelsgård, so like the Union of Farms, which was a union established in 2018 in Denmark, now consisting of six farms across the country, and there I both had to work politically with the small-scale farming movement in Denmark, but I also had to get very close to the people working on the farms, understanding their practical reality.
Speaker 1:This is like a body to represent the future of farming, not the large extractive industrial ones, exactly.
Speaker 2:So giving a rise to a small-scale movement in Denmark that has been completely under-prioritized.
Speaker 1:Like almost everywhere else.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Ah, they exist. Interesting Policymakers are like there's another potential. There are many other potential scenarios, except for beyond the super intensification of even more farmland. Ah, there are farms out there, unbelievable. But it's also yes and no, because many of these farms and farmers are pioneers and I don't know if we can expect from the pioneering species to stay in the metaphor of syntropic, et cetera, to also organize themselves and have an active voice, because they are already so busy and, against all odds, created farms that should not really exist if you look at the subsidy schemes in society in general. So they did that, which is a miracle, and then we expect them also to be like regularly in Copenhagen in the parliament discussing policy changes. I don't know if we can. It's great that we start to organize. I see many more places now, of course, eara, the European Alliance for Reg, regenerative agriculture and others. We need to get a voice out there and it needs to be organized and structured, because otherwise we're going to be out lobbied constantly definitely like the power.
Speaker 2:Inequality is so enormous. But that was also the idea with andy's goal to bring together actually the people both in the countryside who are not working on farms and we were also distant to the farming and also people from the cities. So the association also buys up land, not much but one hectare by one hectare, and then gives the opportunity to a new generation of farmers to actually start their own farms. So I was working in there, or I was part of the board there, trying to help our farmers.
Speaker 1:One leg in the policy side and one leg on the land.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and then one of the barriers we were facing were actually to recruit new farmers that had the skills that you need to succeed, or at least try to work with complexity and be an entrepreneur at the same time and all that success look like exactly anyway you need to define that yourself.
Speaker 1:That's a very embrace, embrace the complexity, be able and willing to dance, yeah exactly, and because I'm imagining. Sorry to interrupt, but I'm imagining, let's say, the danish farming schools weren't or aren't maybe let's say the positive one in the past teaching that necessarily People going through that. It's not that they were ready to manage complex systems.
Speaker 2:That was exactly my point that we realized that the farming schools and the schools in gardening they're not teaching any young people to be able to do a market garden or agroforestry, or at least they were not. So that led me to find another amazing woman called Sandra Willumsen, who is a farmer at Farnløse Måsseri, also one hour located south of Copenhagen, and we together we founded the Regenerative Farming School, so a new school or educational initiative established outside the school system. And in Denmark that's quite radical. Actually, I've realized, because we are so lucky in Denmark, that part of the welfare state is also education. So that means that you get paid in Denmark to study or to go to school and you also like. Of course, the school system is heavily supported by the state. So when you create a school outside the system, you have to finance it yourself and the students have to pay to go to the school.
Speaker 2:And we then tried, because we wanted to have as many young people as possible to attend the school, to keep the fee as low as possible, and that meant that we had to do all the like to build the school ourselves as low as possible, and that meant that we had to do all the like to build the school ourselves as cheap as possible and, of course, get a like very little funds and then just put in a lot of hard work.
Speaker 2:And that was both a building the facilities for a, like the classroom, the kitchen, because it's a school organized in a way where the students sleep.
Speaker 2:One have like seven weeks during a season at the school located or like placed in different months, and then, when they're not at the school, then they are out in a farm that they have chosen themselves, so they are doing practical work most of the time, and then they are going back to the school to get some theoretical new inspiration, but also to share their thesis from the farm with the other students. So actually, it was when we had our first year in 2022 with the first group of 10 students. That was when I realized OK, this is actually one of the most interesting places to be in Denmark right now, I would say because this is where you are doing the knowledge sharing from the most progressive farms across Denmark, because all the students they were bringing back knowledge and, as you were saying before, the farmers themselves. They don't have time to attend a lot of courses and to organize themselves because they have such a hard time working with the complex system and taking care of the system that they are managing.
Speaker 1:Sort of the mycelium network. One of the nodal points was the school, because everybody brought back their experience of the last weeks working on these farms and then looking for answers and solutions, and or just also company and then going back.
Speaker 2:Exactly so, like what really motivates me, and I think what is the solution to some of the crisis that we are facing is to sit down with the blank paper and then really try to build up the structure that is the most relevant one and the one that seems to resonate the most with the group of people who are taking this initiative.
Speaker 2:So we really try to find a structure and also, of course, to choose the curriculum and the teachers based on some principles that we were defining. And what is also characteristic for the school is that it's only practitioners who are teaching at the school and it means that, as I said before, the students have about seven weeks of teaching, meaning that they have about 70 different teachers during their year, because when we are to talk about holistic racing, then we want to find the most interesting practitioner doing holistic racing who comes, and then it is my job as the school coordinator to make sure that the tea, or, like that, the farmer, is actually able to share his or her knowledge which is not always the case, but that's a facilitation of knowledge sharing, which probably is more relevant than a shiny teacher that has spent a lot of time in the classroom exactly, and that gets outdated, because this is everything is about like, also reading or sensing the feedback that the system gives you and then trying to redirect afterwards.
Speaker 2:So that means that it's really relevant to have practitioners teaching, because they can always bring the newest knowledge, so they are actually doing, in my opinion, a lot more interesting research than what they conduct at the universities which is a big topic actually on on the podcast.
Speaker 1:We haven't had so many scientists like scientists, scientists especially from the ag universities. We've had some that left and then set up their own farms, specifically in the us jonathan landrun who we have back soon, actually who said yeah, the research I'm able to do within the USDA is not the most cutting edge, because I see, on these farms and in this case was Gabe Brown and the others I see things that don't make sense according to my university. So I have to leave and set up because I need to be in service of farmers. So I will set up my own commercial farm small but I need to pay the bills with the farm and then I will start doing research, like applied, actual, and they're doing the most interesting research out there at the moment because they have that non-university farm perspective where it doesn't really matter what you do because, yeah, there's no, there's no bills to pay at the end and and it's not applied because it's not connected to real farms.
Speaker 1:Of course there's some exceptions, but you see quite a trend in that, like, probably the most cutting edge things are happening on the most progressive farms but we don't know about it because nobody's writing papers about it unless they come somewhere and talk about it. But even there, it's not that we kept perfect data, et cetera. Completely understandable, but I always wish more of the researchers would go on farm, follow it and somehow deal with the complexity, which is not easy. And from the scientific mind, because this is where the real innovation happens, in the real and real relevancy, because there are so many other farms that are looking for these things and they didn't know it existed, because nobody talks about it. And so how is that going? 2022, first cohort, first year. Now, a few years later, has it taken off? Isn't in a continuum?
Speaker 2:like there is a limit in the school facilities to only host 16 maximum 18 students, so that has been like the maximum for the last three years and how's the demand?
Speaker 1:is there more than that?
Speaker 2:yeah, more applications than that. And what we did was also to demand that people are doing a full-time school practice in the farm. So in order to maximize their learnings from that given season that they are at the school, they have to do it full-time out at the farm. And we also insist on the school, the teaching of the school, having also the entrepreneur lessons as part of the curriculum. So we got a lot of interest also for, like, mid-aged people who are really interested in the regenerative movement but who are primarily focusing on their own consumption or their own gardening in their back. And this school was like. Our idea with the school was to help a new generation to enter and to try to learn new methods and to structure that knowledge from the, as I said, most progressive farmers. So we had to also, like I suggested, first of all, that there should be an age limit to 40. And I got a.
Speaker 2:It was not a real shitstorm, but it was close to Because a lot of people aged above 40 really wanted to access the school and to me it's not really, it's not at all a success criteria that we get more applications than what we can actually host. I think that's really sad, but we need to prioritize, in my opinion, the farmers, the young people who really want to enter farming but who don't see the formal farming schools in a more regenerative way in Denmark, so all the schools are now talking about it and although it's only going to be introduced with one theme week or one lecture or whatever, I think I wouldn't have been able to contribute with the same transformation of the formal education system if I had worked from the inside. I think that's really an interesting like that. You need to build up the alternative outside the system and then you need to, in that way, show that this world is possible and then draw the conventional what is it?
Speaker 1:the in systems change, the three horizon framework, where horizon three, which is clearly is, pulls horizon two and two, two plus up to horizon three and, of course, horizon one we're shouting in front of the parliament and all of those exist at the same time. But yeah, if you said you would have, probably in three years, would have never been able. We don't know. There's no certain scenario where, but like like entering the formal Danish farm school system and have this kind of impact? Questionable, probably not.
Speaker 1:I could have attended so many meetings that would have been, and there would have been so many minutes and so many like quality of life that would have been so much time spent on just talking and I really don't think we have time for that no, so create the alternative, however small, because 10, 16 farms is amazing, but actually that pulls a much bigger system when the timing is right in that direction, which means hundreds of people are influenced not to that depth, but enough to get exposure and they can find their way but it's also interesting, like there is not no decision has been made about how the school like the virginia farming school, how the future of that school will be.
Speaker 2:but I think we actually got an offer to move the school to a very big place and to scale it up in a very big way, and I think what was totally clear was that was not the right way to do, because it needs to be located on a farm, it needs to be close to the practitioners who are also part of leading this movement. Another organization cannot just capture this because it's so fragile in a way, because the community is fragile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they won't show up. Probably if it's a massive classroom with 200 people, exactly why would they spend their time?
Speaker 2:you cannot create the same atmosphere and also to be like. One of the principles in regenerative economy is also like to be true to the ecosystem around you, or like to the local space that you are grounded in, and I think much more like the right way to scale is to copy. So that would be. My dream scenario would be that there was regenerative farming schools all over the country, if just instead of just one like leading central school the central versus the decentral is always interesting.
Speaker 1:Like lead us as well when you want to walk, if you want to.
Speaker 2:Let's continue to the field.
Speaker 1:And have these like that I think could be an indication of success in that case that people have been able to start farms or get into farming of the original cohorts and groups.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because if they all ended, up in accounting.
Speaker 1:it would be a bit sad, or?
Speaker 2:get into farming of the original cohorts and groups? Yeah, Because if they all ended up in accounting it would be a bit sad. Yeah, true, yeah, I think partly. We succeeded Some of the former students. They have been able to start their own farms, but others have also tried and have not been able to succeed in it, because it is a really tough job to actually succeed as a new entrepreneur. So what has like my motivation was four years ago was to create the right environment for new education, and now I'm actually more interested in like helping the new generation to actually succeed as new entrepreneurs, and that is something that I think we have a responsibility as a school to actually help people, when they are done with the school, to actually get access to land, know how to do their budget, know how to do the production plan, know where to buy their infrastructure, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Which de-risks and reduces the amount of failures, exactly so. You mentioned entrepreneur a number of times. How, like in the Danish farming scene, are farms seen as enterprises or companies, and is that also seen in the school? Because sometimes I'm just the background of the question in the region, not saying the purist movement in the region movement and one of the reasons we host this podcast actually like I think we should talk about money, we should talk about entrepreneurship and, yes, we should talk about all the issues with the current money system, economic system, but it is the system we have now and can we, even within that system, create thriving ecosystems with the tools we have? And it's a tool and we've not been really good at using the language, nor accessing finance, nor using, let's say, the tool, and let's say, the extractive industrial ag system has been really good at using the tool of finance. Is that on purpose? You're saying entrepreneurs, budgets, etc. Is that? Has it always been a fundamental piece of the school, but also of your work?
Speaker 2:I would say that was clear when I made the first schedule of how the school calendar should be. I wanted them to be introduced not only to the stuff that you do on the office but actually to the framework of holistic management introduced by Alan Savory and the Savory Institute, Because I really wanted the students to work with their statement of purpose and to their quality of life sentences.
Speaker 1:It's funny how many times it's been coming up this week With Fred Hansen as well. Yeah, what's your holistic context? And very interesting how people in economy are using that way.
Speaker 2:Beyond making a grazing plan, which is often what alan gets credited for, but actually probably his impact will be much to me, it's a mind-blowing framework to actually be able to define or investigate your core values and to set up some framework for how you want to actually define success and how you want to. What kind of production system is resonates with you?
Speaker 1:and what fits, yeah, and it's, and what doesn't fit? Probably that's exactly and such an important thing for students in general, I think, at all ages, or people at all ages, to do and sit down with their partner, with their business partners, with potential future business partners, etc.
Speaker 2:But I introduced it in the first week of the farming school with the students, and it's also actually a bit terrifying for them to be confronted with, I think it. But that is where something is like at stake. Something is poking to their inner core, something is challenging them to say or to actually confront things yeah, both in themselves, but also in a broken world. And then what is always necessary is to move that realization into the action. Like what can they do? How can they see themselves as someone with power to actually make change?
Speaker 1:yeah, because it can also paralyze. I think a lot of these.
Speaker 2:But then when it?
Speaker 1:gets translated into action and, okay, this is one of the paths forward and these are paths that I'm not going to take. I think it's very empowering. Definitely like apathy is everywhere today, I would say Walking in a beautiful field by the way, I'm just bringing people along and a majestic tree that has been here for a while that definitely took action when the seed hit the ground 30, 40 years ago.
Speaker 1:Actually, this is what I love the most about this place the old oaks, and also like all the different trees that are the most you see how I avoided to call the tree, because, truth is, I'm from the city center and I've been on many farms, but I still don't really know the trees and the plants. And don't criticize me on that, please. But it's a majestic one. That's why I was drawn to it anyway, without knowing it was an oak.
Speaker 2:They're so majestic.
Speaker 1:And yeah, we'll talk about the place as well, but it's sad. And then the first week, that must be quite an opener. You just everybody knows each other's name by then, and then boom.
Speaker 2:Exactly, but I think that is what is needed in these days. I want to talk to people and to engage people with the highest level of relevance. I think it's the best way to frame it, like.
Speaker 1:I don't have time for yeah, I don't want to take anything for granted.
Speaker 2:I want to actually give people a space to also redefine themselves, like you might have been this before you entered this school. Now you have the chance to actually state what is your new ambition or dreams new.
Speaker 1:How often do you get that dreams permission or do you take that permission from yourself to do that and to sit down and have a year and so much time with the most brilliant minds and hands in the space and other people around you to redefine, or we there must be such a powerful moment and scary definitely like.
Speaker 2:I think I see my own part in this movement as being in service of some of maybe most of all, the generational shift, and I want to empower the new generation. So I see myself as being a facilitator of that, and that means both being able to facilitate the relevant conversations and learning space and also to try to help them create a community in themselves or among themselves.
Speaker 1:So I don't actually I don't do that a blank sheet in my own life that often, although I think I'm about to yeah, I was thinking actually the same that I like it's the world of the podcast and everything around that, everything we do in the space probably would benefit as well to spend some time, maybe this summer, to sit down and do that again.
Speaker 2:We've done it before in certain ways, but it's good to check in and to realign and but what we are, what this deals with, is constant feeling of urgency within me, like I really have to spend or activate all my knowledge, all the things that I have been privileged to learn and to to reflect on, and stuff like that, into making a more just world when it's burning around us. But I think so it is quite challenging to me to actually say, okay, the right thing is to sit down and reflect.
Speaker 1:We don't have time for that, yeah no, but I think that is actually what we, of course what we need to do what is it? A meditation motto, she said.
Speaker 1:I can't sit still for 20 minutes and probably the guru you should do it an hour, and that's so true and so challenging at the same time. And then you talked about generational shift. Do you work or planning to work, or want to work, or have you worked with, let's say, the generation that is handing over or is about to, and many places denmark one of them the average age of the land owner and holder and is quite high, and there's a massive generational shift in wealth, in assets, in land, in money, in all of those things, in buildings, over the next, let's say, 10 years. Have you been at all interacting with the generation that is about to hand over this in whatever way, hopefully, region way possible? It?
Speaker 2:actually happens quite often that an older farmer contacts the regenerative farming school and states that the farm needs a new generation to take over, and sometimes we are able to find the match, and so I have a little contact with some of them. I think what is also really important to remember is that it's not only about having a piece of land, like if people are to to not only succeed as farmers, but also to live the lives that they want to, there are so many factors that you need to take into account. So, although we have a generation that might be or some of the farmers at least, that might be able to make a better access to soil for a new generation, there is still so much work that needs to be done.
Speaker 2:And it's really hard to find the right match. But I see a willingness in some of the farmers. But some of them are also bound by culture, by generations, history, to that certain place and that makes it really difficult for them to give up their privileges.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is what this is all about your position of power and privilege and recognizing that it's no longer fit for the world of the future. But then recognizing and action are two very different. They're close to each other but doesn't mean that it happens. Would be good, almost like a holistic mindset school etc for the current 55, like where you have a limit but on the bottom, like you have to be over 50 or over 55 to attend, instead of the other way around.
Speaker 2:It could be very interesting yeah, and, like I'm, my own political opinions is also that we need to be yeah, I dare to actually say more aggressive in the redistribution of these resources in order to actually really transform the agricultural sector, because otherwise we're just actually burning out the most progressive ones and not making long-term change no land ownership is probably the big elephant, pink elephant, whatever color in the room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but also the infrastructure, also the processing Exactly it's the whole system that needs to take that responsibility and it's getting more concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer, which always leads to issues. It only leads to some extra return for those, and then everybody else is getting squeezed at some point. And I know here on site people are working on a soil fund and we've interviewed a few other people around mostly europe like working on land ownership redistribution, bringing it back into the commons, how to do that and how to give the next generation access without the ownership, which is always that also that very interesting. How attached are you to that?
Speaker 1:To say this is my land quote, unquote, I'm doing air quotes and are you still able to farm long term, even though you know your children are not gonna inherit it, which is that fine or not? There's a lot of cultural things to work through, but definitely possible and super needed. And so how did you end up then? How did you end up starting the market garden here? Were you spending too much time in the classroom or at a computer answering or sending emails and you thought, okay, I need to get my hands dirty or fingernails.
Speaker 2:It was both the wish for having more time outdoor actually and trying myself not to work in such a academic way.
Speaker 2:But actually, primarily it was because, as I've been a board member co-founding the school, I've been talking a lot about farming the past years, doing a lot of activism on farming, and I really wanted to put myself out there, not only to visit one day and then go home again, but to actually take on the burdens and also the all the joys that comes with co-owning a farm.
Speaker 2:So that was what led me to try to start my own market garden together with my friend, my, and, and we started last season. We are renting a piece of soil up here in Humlebeg. We call the farm jordfrid in Danish, and in English it means like the holiness or the happiness of soil, and our field is both, of course, a place for growing vegetables that we sell to restaurants and canteens and to consumers in the local area, but it's also a place where I take some of my students from the folk high school that I'm also working at. I take the students with me out there to teach them about the food system and how to do regenerative farming, and it's also a place where we host dinners out in the field, surrounded by all the greens, where people from our local community can join and have a nice summer evening. So in that way we really try to activate or to give access to as many people as possible to this place and imagine you would do.
Speaker 1:maybe I've done it actually an evening or a summer evening, which at this time of year, lasts forever, basically in terms of light, but then with a group of people from the financial sector, investors either their own wealth or maybe pension funds, or people that are in control of very powerful but potential destructive resources, and after the evening, of course, we've done a nice farm tour and we've done some fireside chat, etc. What would you like them to remember? If there's one thing, one seed you could plant in the minds of people that are, I'd say, more in the financial, spending most of their time at a laptop, unfortunately, but could, yeah, nudge the world of finance, if there's one thing you want them to remember from an evening, what would that be?
Speaker 2:I think I want the evening to be so magical, so amazing, that they cannot avoid to tell it to other people, and then it would be my task during the visit.
Speaker 1:Nobody ever said that it should be so.
Speaker 2:Success is not the goal. For me, that's only the symptom. We need to facilitate community building, to share worldviews, reflections, some of the most intense feelings, actually, both the really sad ones and also the most happy ones, like within this space, and I think what I would really feel obliged to say to them while they were visiting the place would be that this is not something that they can take for granted. This is hard work, both from people involved in it, but also from a lot of the living organisms in the soils. This food has been made by a lot of sun, energy, a lot of water cycle, nutrient cycles, by a lot of hands. Like there is no, not really any machines driving this is our bodies, our hands that are doing this, and it's not to be so romantic about it, but to me it's important that people really understand that we could choose to have more of this, but right now we choose to suppress a world that looks like this, and some of it, I would say, are live, and some of it. I would really hope that they would be able to reflect on themselves or to know themselves, when they are leaving, that this is so good that they would need more of it and would be willing to support it. And then and maybe that's my old activist energy that comes up to me, but I would all I never I try to never leave a crowd or a group of people without telling them really like, directly, how they have at least two or three different opportunities to act in a new way. So that could be.
Speaker 2:It is really important that you attend a climate march next time you get invited. Or please try to support your local farmers more by showing up to next farmer's market. Or have you thought about asking the canteen at your workspace where you get your vegetables from? Trying to actually confront people by making it very concrete how you can take action, because otherwise people say it's too overwhelming and the crises are everywhere and we don't know what to do. So by suggesting some different ways of acting, I'm trying to do it more realistic to people and as soon as you have taken the first step to me at least, it becomes almost an addiction, I would say. But to try to say, okay, how can I be more in service of this community or of this future that I really want to help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think as soon as you're unseeing what is possible with food and agriculture, it's very difficult After you've experienced dinners at places like this and the taste and the hard work, but also how different it looks like from, let's say, conventional fields or conventional or vegetable fields etc. And then it's very difficult to not. It's easy to suppress that, but then as soon as you start taking action, the flavors etc. It's a sliding slope, let's say. And if we would flip the question and put you in a position of tomorrow morning, you wake up and you find that you have a significant amount of money on your bank account with the obligation to put it to work.
Speaker 1:Could be very long term, doesn't have, could be partly in activism, lobbying, etc. But let's say we like to ask what would you do with a billion euros? Not because we think anybody should have that kind of concentration of wealth they shouldn't but these are numbers and amounts that start to get interested in the regeneration space and I always like to ask practitioners deep in the field like what would you do if it's not a lottery, but let's say it happens and you suddenly are in control of a very powerful concentrated sunlight, basically, but resource, what would you do?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't take any decision, only on my own, I would first of all, gather a group of people that I trust.
Speaker 1:Gather the elders and yeah.
Speaker 2:To share ideas. I think I would be very aware that this amount of money is not something that I have earned, or it's like I would say, see it as a luck or as a coincidence that I had gained this amount. So I would say that it's not something that should fulfill my needs. Be the facilitator of bringing life to others. And then I would look at the inequalities and see, okay, there's the ones with the least power is the other species and also the new generation of farmers, and then I would try to be in service of them, and I think it would be, in practice, buying a very big area of land and a farm and trying to spend all the money on creating life for them there, and that means a lot of restoring nature areas, but also, but also, trying to host as many young people in a startup school or something.
Speaker 1:A farm venture studio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but trying not to. It would be such a big honor and joy to me to see that a democracy and a community among the students would be the one kind of driving the place. Of course there should be some ground rules, but I would really try to. Let's not put solar panels? Everywhere on the fields, exactly, but really to succeed in empowering other peoples, I think they need to be given a very big opportunity and also, with that growth, automatically I would say say a big responsibility and would you do that in denmark?
Speaker 1:would you somewhere else? Or, depending on your context, what would be? What draw draws you?
Speaker 2:I think, I would do it in denmark because this is where my like co-network is and also because this is where this is where I feel at home, and this is where I feel at home and this is where I could do the biggest change, I would say, because I already have connections and people. I would reach out to, and then I would have as a criteria that everything we do should be open source, so a lot of things should be translated and hopefully be resources that others could use as well.
Speaker 1:And it's a natural bridge to another question we like to ask. Unfortunately, you lose your investment vehicle, but you do get one wish, like a magic wand, to change one thing overnight, potentially in the food and agriculture space, but could be elsewhere. We have heard anything from global consciousness to banning factory farming and everything in between to be as practical or as as non, if you want to be. But if you had the magic power to change one thing overnight, what would you change?
Speaker 2:like the regulative framework of this system because it's really unfair and unethical how this system is structured, so it would be banning a lot of things. That is legal today but shouldn't be it. Or even that's illegal but not followed up or at all checked, or something like that, because I think right now it's so unfair that some of the things we know are doing such great damage to the living planet is still accessible for people or is still accepted in our culture.
Speaker 2:So I think that will be Because, as soon as that Sorry my language, but shit is done, then we could try to start to build up what we want instead. But I think right now, how we are competing or how we are working is just wrong everywhere I look. So we need to try to build up the alternative, but we cannot succeed with that when we continue being against such unfair powers.
Speaker 1:And as a final question, which often leads to other questions, but let's say potentially final question, inspired by John Kempf, who always asks what do you believe to be true about agriculture that others don't? I like to ask it what do you believe to be true about regenerative agriculture that others don't? I like to ask it what do you believe to be true about regenerative agriculture that others don't? Where are you, let's say, within the bubble, within the scene, a bit contrarian or thinking differently?
Speaker 2:no, it's a good question. I don't think I'm the only one who are thinking this, but I didn't say how unique like how are you? At least like take a common yeah but I think what pops up to my mind is that we underestimate the human journey, like the mindset that people need to learn and also all the ideas that people need to unlearn in order to actually meet this complexity with honesty and with respect and to to keep working in this unfair system like and.
Speaker 2:I think it is true that we need to be amazed by the living organisms in the soil and the life-giving functions or qualities of all the trees that we are looking at right now, for example, but we also need to see it.
Speaker 2:It's not only to actually see it in a microscope, but it's also to actually embody it and to learn how to be grateful about it, then, following that, actually act to not destruct the ecosystem but actually try to restore and to build stronger communities. So, yeah, to sum up, I think that it's really important not to underestimate the human part in the regenerative story, because a lot of my students they actually sometimes reflect or end up in a very sad place where they think that the only good solution to this is that there are no humans inhabiting this planet. And I think we need to put ourselves in a position where we say we actually have a very important work to do and we can actually be a very great influence to create more biodiversity, but we need to completely redefine how we are living and how we are yeah, it's the piece of overlapping with the other species we are definitely a keystone species in terms of impact and let's say, the last few hundred years a few thousand, depending on where and what context we've been mostly a negative keystone species.
Speaker 1:But can we be a net positive one? And we see that from it's, but that that feeling is very true. Many people wish themselves away, basically and but you see it actually from research as well like as soon as management is not there. I think just a paper came out in japan where, of course, shrinking population and it actually harms biodiversity in many places, not only because of crawling like sprawling cities, but also because of abandonment and no longer being managed, and of course, managed can be many different ways.
Speaker 1:But we can absolutely have, or we should strive for, a positive, net positive, because we're always going to have negative things a net positive impact. The choices if, or the option is if we take it or not, and that's a very empowering, very scary I think, but otherwise you go into the okay. Well, basically, the best thing to do is to reduce humanity and then everything will be fine, which, apart from that, I don't think it's true and it's also not very hopeful or active, like it's not going to activate anybody with that message and it's not going to get us anywhere. And when you're on a farm and you see what you can do, we see here some fields like versus management, versus not. It's a big difference in life, in diversity, in full of life, in food, obviously. Thank you so much for a beautiful walk and talk, which is the concept walking the land with a regenerative farmer. So much more to discuss, but that will be another time. I think we're heading for lunch can I get?
Speaker 2:can I say one last thing?
Speaker 1:you can say as much as you absolutely want.
Speaker 2:Yeah I was thinking when we walk through the forest. I proclaimed that I always tell people to do concrete action, so now I need to do the same very good point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I should have picked up on that.
Speaker 2:I want all the listeners to go out and, during the next half year, to actually visit a farm and to be to ask a lot of questions and to ask how they can help and to actually be willing to then follow up and do some action in regards to what the response becomes. I think we really need to build stronger alliance and stronger relations between the farmers and all the people who are part of this network because they are so important, but it really we need to start with going out to the field.
Speaker 2:Like you, cannot make your conclusions from your spreadsheet you cannot be a spreadsheet farmer.
Speaker 1:No, and it's such an important piece and when you go, just an add-on piece of advice ask a lot of questions and listen intensively and deeply and be humble and be ready, especially if you visit the more progressive ones that a lot of things you thought, even if you've been listening for this podcast for a long time, but still you thought about food and agriculture might be slightly different or more nuanced. For sure they're more nuanced, but also very like ideas of native species and weeds and the role of animals and the role of humans and the role of technology and the role of, etc. Etc. Etc. Might be, you might be in for some surprises and be ready for that. Spend some quality time. Don't go an hour or two like actually, and, yes, ask how can I help? And it could be volunteering, could be, it could be volunteering, could be donating, could be organizing things, could be investing, could be anything, because these pioneers need community and we need to show up. There's no quick fix.
Speaker 2:Enjoy it Enjoy.
Speaker 1:It's probably the best. Everybody, not everybody, most people enjoy visiting these kind of places because it I don't know, it's a very deep, innate thing. We like to see places full of life, I think, which is still the best of all. You know, wild farm did an amazing job with full of life, and these places are full of life and you can see it, smell it, hear it. You heard the birds today and the insects and the forests. The weather helps as well today now we're longing for rain yeah, of course, there's always this pendulum that swings interestingly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much you're welcome. It's been a pleasure thank you for listening all the way to the end. For show notes and links discussed, check out our website investinginregenerativeagriculturecom slash posts. If you like this episode, 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.
