ASH CLOUD
This is series of conversations discussing global food sustainability with guests who bring a deep understanding of the environmental and cultural challenges facing our society and creative ideas on how to address them.
ASH CLOUD
Regenerative agriculture with Anastasia Volkova, Regrow Ag
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Forty leading global food and agriculture companies recently declared their commitment to regenerative agriculture. This unprecedented industry alignment signals that the sector has moved beyond looking at sustainable farming an aspirational ideal and into investment and scale. Yet challenges remain as adoption of regenerative practices is sliding backward in North America.
Satellite imagery processed with AI and biogeochemical modeling reveals that cover cropping and conservation tillage adoption have declined over recent years. In many Midwest states, the losses reach double digits percentage points.This data comes from monitoring 1.5 billion acres globally, representing 52% of global arable land. Simultaneously, farmers are facing a squeeze with rising diesel and fertilizer costs coinciding with weak commodity markets and decreasing government funding. The $3.8 billion investment in climate-smart practices from the Inflation Reduction Act has been partially replaced by a $700 million regenerative pilot program
Today we are joined by Anastasia Volkova from Regrow Ag, an early leader and advocate for regenerative agriculture. Regrow has evolved from evangelizing regenerative practices to managing a critical transition to making regenerative agriculture repeatable and scalable across radically different conditions through creative co-investment, alternative funding mechanisms, and regional innovation.
Regrow’s framework identifies three distinct market stages: the evangelizing phase focused on building common nomenclature, the investing phase amplified by government dollars and corporate commitments, and the current challenge of making practices repeatable in a constrained funding environment. Her work spans North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, revealing how different regions activate different capital sources, from European carbon certification frameworks to Brazilian vertically integrated agro-holdings pioneering methane measurement in livestock. The conversation explores how emerging allies, water markets, and MRV technology innovations could replace disappearing government support without compromising farmer economics or climate outcomes.
00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:58.000
Ash Sweeting: Anastasia, thank you so very much for joining me today.
00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:00.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate being here.
00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:21.000
Ash Sweeting: So, you have been a leader and an advocate in the regenerative agriculture space for a long time, um, one of the early leaders in that space, and in light of the recent declaration by 40 leading global food and ag companies to support regenerative agriculture, how have you seen.
00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:33.000
Ash Sweeting: uh, this, you know, the thinking and the implementation, or the adoption of regenerative agriculture change over recent years? And, um, where's there been great progress, and what still needs to be done?
00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): That's a great question, Ash. So I see a couple of different important.
00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:47.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): context pieces to put in place for our discussion. So you're asking, how do things change over the last 10 years?
00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:49.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I would say, um…
00:07:49.000 --> 00:08:01.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): that there is data to show you what actually is happening on the ground. And we were sharing with some of our community in the local meeting in the Midwest region where we operate. We operate globally, but in that region specifically.
00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:09.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): that we're seeing the adoption sliding backwards in the Midwest right now. So whilst many people might be thinking.
00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:14.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Okay, we might have slowed down, we might not be as aggressive on the adoption, but.
00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:20.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): we are still moving in the right direction. Actually, the data. So satellite imagery processed with our.
00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:28.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Gen. AI models. And through our biogeochemical models that helps us understand what the practices are on the ground.
00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:32.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and then understand the outputs of those practices and the impact on the environment.
00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:42.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): The practice piece is going backwards. So there's less cover cropping, less conservation tillage adoption than there was previously within the same decade. Sometimes.
00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:49.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): in terms of different states. It could be a single digit movement, but actually, in more places than not, is.
00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:56.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): low double digits, so tens of percentage points, and there are, of course, hotspots where.
00:08:56.000 --> 00:09:04.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): the adoption is doing really well, and we're diving in in the communities there to understand what are they doing? That is.
00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:11.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): keeping them moving in the right direction, retaining the practices, and continue to build on it. So this is what I see.
00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:20.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): from our data set covering almost 1.5 billion acres globally. So more than 52% arable land. This is specifically diving into the Us. Market.
00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:33.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): The data set obviously shows very different things for other markets. But this is the leading market that underwent a lot of change in the last 3 years we were 1st in the.
00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:35.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Part of the investment.
00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:38.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Oh, with climate smart practices.
00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): within the Ira bill of those 3.8 billion dollars, and we have now seen.
00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:52.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): part of that funding being replaced in the Us. With the regenerative pilot program. That's.
00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:58.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): 700 million, and it also has certain parameters that might.
00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:02.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): enable the producer might not enable the producer to actually.
00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:11.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): undertake the transition. If they need to enroll the full farm, that can be challenging, because some of the food programs can only be paying for specific crops in rotation.
00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:13.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And so, if this…
00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:19.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Confluence of factors. Just looking at the US, I'm sure we'll have time to look at other markets because they behave very differently.
00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:22.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): This confluence of factors makes me.
00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:25.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): draw the following arc.
00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:27.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): we were.
00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:29.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): in the place of evangelizing.
00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:36.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And that was a very important place. That place had its own challenges, like common nomenclature.
00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:46.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): like understanding what we're referring to. We've moved from evangelizing to investing in the second part of that period.
00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:58.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And what we've seen over the last three years is really a lot of investments going into the ground, co-invested with government programs, co-invested with supply chain partners.
00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:05.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Co-investment, co-investment, co-investment. Very important to unlock dollars if company wants to put in dollars. That's what activates capital.
00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:07.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Now, we are in a…
00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:13.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Some might say tough as pot, but it's a different context from the funding environment.
00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:18.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I'm from political, geopolitical environment, supply chain environment, and there is.
00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, they need…
00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:23.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to. I would use a Sas analogy here to make it repeatable.
00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:28.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): So if we move from evangelizing to needing to make it repeatable in completely different conditions.
00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:39.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And this is where I have some thoughts on what we might do, but I'm a little nervous that we haven't solved for it yet, and we can't just, you know, take our hands off the wheel and let the car drive itself.
00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Okay.
00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:58.000
Ash Sweeting: Okay, that's fascinating. There's a lot of stuff going on there. There's the fact that government funding has greatly changed, but there's also the fact that things like fertilizer and diesel costs have gone up, and both of those seem to be pushing in different directions, and.
00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:07.000
Ash Sweeting: I imagine there's a lot that can be learnt when you really, really dig into that data.
00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:17.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Absolutely like. If you want to look at the farm level and the increased diesel prices and increased fertilizer prices are really squeezing the farmer because the commodity markets are not.
00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:23.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): performing really well. It's this kind of post tariff state that is changed.
00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:30.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And there is the added inflation that food companies are accounting for where it's pulling some of their resources away.
00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:37.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): So what I'm seeing so far is that we are in this new make it repeatable stage. And.
00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:41.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): This comes from Saster framework by Jason Lemkin. For anyone interested.
00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:54.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): But in this stage I think we're keeping the investment that we had before. When I'm looking at the main sponsors of the programs that excite the transition that ignite the transition to the food brands and the manufacturers.
00:12:54.000 --> 00:13:07.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): We are seeing slowly more entities come to the table because we're certainly realizing that that co-investment is not coming right now from the government. So can it come from other parts of the value chain of other supporting systems?
00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:18.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Can it come maybe not from federal, but from local government? Can it come from some additional incentives from the bank and insurance? And of course, we've been talking about it, but I think now.
00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): that we're seeing like irrigation water restrictions in Nebraska. We're seeing that really hitting the farmers and farmers taking a prevent plant payment instead of the farming that land that's.
00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:32.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): A real…
00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:38.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Natural resource constraint resulting in a planting decision.
00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:44.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): that further exacerbates just food security nationally. And there's a lot more national thinking that has been.
00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): um…
00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:50.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): starting to percolate, and then maybe there was more global thinking before.
00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:51.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): So I would say.
00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:53.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): We are…
00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:03.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Seeing farmers being a tough spot, food companies being a tough spot, and we're yet all trying to figure out as a system together, as a community together, the industry that believes in the fact that region ag is necessary.
00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:05.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): For us to get…
00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:08.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to the benefits of the conservation on the other side.
00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:09.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to…
00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:15.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): be able to withstand the climate shocks, to be able to steadily produce good yields.
00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:20.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): We're seeing the opposite… it was the opposite of that in the news.
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:26.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and that's important to prove the point why we should all align on conservation. So I think there's more work for us to.
00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:27.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): form.
00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): maybe unexpected alliances, maybe bring more allies.
00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:34.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): on board with the conservation to unlock more funding there.
00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:36.000
Ash Sweeting: Yeah.
00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:55.000
Ash Sweeting: On that note, you mentioned some thoughts you had, and especially around what you just said about the, um, you know, unconventional allies and bringing them together. What are you able to share in terms of your thoughts on how to move this forward? Because especially that transition from government money for that.
00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:07.000
Ash Sweeting: evangelist stage to the sustainable stage, which will not be… or scalable stage, which will not be, you know, can't be reliant, you know, for a long term on that government, on those government dollars.
00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:24.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Absolutely. So I think we're looking to attract more public funding in different shapes and forms. So maybe there's other funding programs that are not this wholesale that start new, but actually more regionally accessible programs, maybe like the RPP.
00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:30.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): one that is still lined with an Rcs equipped for the Us. Where we can.
00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:48.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): um, bring that funding along. What about novel instruments? Is it warranties, um, to, um, pay for any yield gaps for those farmers that are more conservative further down the adoption curve? Um, is it, um, figuring out other co-benefits? Because we are actively working on that as well.
00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:57.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): regrow is able to estimate the water quality outputs for its regenerative agriculture programs that are on regrow. Mrv. But we do not necessarily have.
00:15:57.000 --> 00:15:59.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): a clear market there from.
00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:07.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): companies aligning on the standard and saying, this is exactly what I need. This is our internal ambition. This is what we're trying to do in protecting water resources.
00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:15.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and water is valued in point trading opportunities and municipal level, and will.
00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:20.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): no doubt continued to be the constraining resource for the agricultural production. So this is what I see.
00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:26.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): in the US specifically. Now, if we look to Europe, for example, um, we are seeing.
00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:27.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, the…
00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:36.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): continued co-investment from the government, there's continued subsidy, there's also interest, um, the team was participating in the CRCF days, uh, the…
00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:44.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): It's a framework for carbon removal certification, and it's been stood up by the European Union, where they are looking to combine.
00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:46.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, effectively, a way.
00:16:46.000 --> 00:17:03.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): for private industry to come together with public funding to compensate farmers for additional outcomes of the transition beyond what the basic subsidies do. And we see also in places like Europe where there's a very diversified rotation.
00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:12.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): of the crops, the need for more coalitions. It's the word that I've been hearing more than any other word in the last 6 months, because.
00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:24.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I believe it's code word for cost sharing and co-investment that otherwise the programs would not pass the investment review unless you're able to unlock additional dollars. So we all need to be thinking about.
00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): who are those partners? How can we contribute? How can we cost share? And I also don't want to be sitting here pointing fingers in every direction at regrow. We've been working very hard to ensure longevity of our own business and to lower the costs and.
00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:47.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I am pretty proud of what team has been able to achieve with affordability of our solution and diversification as well.
00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:53.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And you know, we have performed the acquisition of Latin American Mrv. Puma Plataforma Puma.
00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:55.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And that brings, uh, in-house.
00:17:55.000 --> 00:18:00.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): a wider range of Mrv. Options as well. That literally leads me to my.
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:06.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to answering your 1st question, they are supporting sai regenerate together framework that.
00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:14.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): We're seeing European and Latin American markets aligned too. And this is what supports lower costs of MRV.
00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:25.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): that leaves more money to the farmer. So I think we're all doing the right things, but we have to be doing them. This is where the hard work is. We're no longer going after the biggest fruit in the garden. We're picking.
00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:29.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): all the fruit, medium size, small, everything we can get all together.
00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:41.000
Ash Sweeting: There's a lot there as well. I think there's one of the things that's come up frequently is the importance of, you know, getting the capital to.
00:18:41.000 --> 00:19:02.000
Ash Sweeting: to, you know, pay for all this. And if we take a step back and you think that what the, I guess, natural services or the natural nature's contribution to our food system, which everyone has taken for granted as basically being free for, you know, the last 100 or so or, you know, 10,000 years, whichever metric you wish to choose. And now, now that bill.
00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:20.000
Ash Sweeting: needs to be somehow paid. And we've got this system where everyone's used to the cost structures from the consumer all the way back up to the farmer, and we need to find these extra dollars, because if we do want to grow food sustainably, it may be more expensive than.
00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:26.000
Ash Sweeting: Uh, growing it the way we've grown it over the last 50 years. So, there's the…
00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:29.000
Ash Sweeting: It's mobilizing those dollars and how that is.
00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:45.000
Ash Sweeting: you know, where… who pays for what, all the way from the consumer, all the way up the chain. And… and then there's also looking outside the financial side of things, and what's motivating the farmers, aside from the financial aspects, or is this all a financial.
00:19:45.000 --> 00:20:00.000
Ash Sweeting: driver, because I think, you know, in my thinking, you know, we've been talking about climate change and need for change, but it's always come back to who's got to pay for it. So where's the balance between the need for the money and just, if we just accept that that's the main, the main.
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:02.000
Ash Sweeting: uh, requirement. Um…
00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:05.000
Ash Sweeting: Or is there other things that we need to include?
00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:08.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Absolutely. Actually, I'm…
00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:17.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): reading in your question something I fundamentally agree with. There's also this question like, what is the money needed for? And what is the money going towards?
00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:33.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Like what are, as my friend and mentor recently said, the energies we're working here, there's already an energy in that system. Where's that energy going? Because nothing, you know, from the physics perspective ever gets created or ceases, it changes its state. So what is the energy we're trying to maybe…
00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:35.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): divert.
00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:41.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): maybe change the course of to bring it into the funding of this transition.
00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:51.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Do see in my mind somehow pretty clear that we are paying for the lack of the transition in arrears from the perspective of insurance.
00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:52.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And…
00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Effectively handouts to farmers. We could be.
00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:02.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): assuring the system as opposed to insuring it. And what I mean by that is when there's.
00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:06.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): failures from climate disasters when there is.
00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:11.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Now, desire to not plan because there's no irrigation water and it's perfectly sensible.
00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:13.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): economic and.
00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:20.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): farm management decision, that all points to natural resources constrained that are a public good.
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:21.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and.
00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:28.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): If we're looking at that public good, it's the crop insurance that is currently not motivating the transition.
00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): additional subsidies that are more on.
00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:32.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and.
00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:35.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): spot based events that go out.
00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:37.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Those are.
00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:39.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, incredible sums of money.
00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:41.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): compared to.
00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:44.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): The private industry capital put into this and.
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:49.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): We're aware that it's also hundreds of millions of dollars that some of the companies are putting into it, but.
00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:52.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): By and large, the program budgets are much smaller.
00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:00.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and all combined. I believe they're still smaller than that crop insurance budget that is currently not motivating the resilience of the system.
00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:09.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): But is motivating the existing entrenched structure that was optimized to ensure that the industry could scale.
00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:11.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to feed the world.
00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:17.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Because we were dealing with other challenges. Now we're dealing with a combined challenge of continuing to need to feed the world.
00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:18.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and.
00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:24.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Some might disagree because I said that because we actually are wasting a lot of food, so maybe we already grow enough, but.
00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:26.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Anyhow, we're not going to…
00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): stop needing to feed people. We continue to have a need for productivity in the system.
00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:35.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And additionally, for that to be sustainable, we needed to be nature forward.
00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:46.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): So I do think that capital is what's on everyone's mind. It's not necessarily net new capital is how I think it needs to be seen.
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:52.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): It needs to be seen as an exchange of the capital that either will be spent in the future.
00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:59.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): or was spent in the past. And what I'm hearing from our community of customers and their supply chain partners.
00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:02.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Is that when a company has had the experience.
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:04.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): with an ingredient.
00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:08.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Price increase due to a climate disaster.
00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:10.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): It's easier for them.
00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:17.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to have that internal knowing at the leadership team level that there is a need to invest in their supply chains.
00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:29.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Of course, individual companies cannot get there alone because if we sum up all of the food industry's demand globally, that's not all of the acres. And if we just have the…
00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:32.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): food system rather than, say, animal agriculture.
00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:36.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): There's a lot of land majority that we're using for.
00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Even animals and even the fuel stocks.
00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:46.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): So how much is the food? Is it 10%, 15%, 20% based on the country? Some countries may be more.
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:50.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): So if we definitely need some system-wide changes where.
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:53.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Those other pieces need to come along as well.
00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:57.000
Ash Sweeting: A lot of what you're mentioning.
00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:16.000
Ash Sweeting: links very, very directly into government policy. And if we think back 100 years, give or take, in the Dust Bowl, and the… the crop insurance program, I think it was President Roosevelt, and the land-grant university system, and all these things that have kind of got us.
00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:31.000
Ash Sweeting: to where we are today were very innovative at the time, and they've been hugely successful when they were implemented post such a huge shock and such a huge impact on food security and food production as the Dust Bowl was.
00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:26.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Mm-hmm.
00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:51.000
Ash Sweeting: And I guess my concern is, do we need to have… do we need to have, you know, that punch in the face, for want of a better term, to get us to act? And what you said about the different companies, it's almost like if they have been punched in the face, for want of a better acronym, they react, and until they have.
00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:55.000
Ash Sweeting: They seem to bury their head in the sand.
00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:57.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I…
00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:02.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Cannot disagree. I think nothing teaches us better than direct experience of having the shock.
00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:05.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And having to respond to the shock.
00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:07.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I think we're seeing.
00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:11.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Diff other behaviors in other markets.
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:14.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): In Europe, we're seeing a forward-looking.
00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:15.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Very…
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:22.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): socialist leaning protection of public good. They're trying in a democratic process to figure out how to how to do it. And.
00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:29.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Command them on it. We're seeing in Asia, the governments of Singapore and Japan are so committed to this transition that they are.
00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:36.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): stimulating the local sector. They are investing in other countries' efforts to mitigate their methane.
00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:41.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): emissions from rice systems and effectively help.
00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:46.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): assure some of the supply chains locally, um, through those.
00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:49.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): supporting investments. So I think ultimately.
00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:57.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Resource. The resource constraint is something that farmers are extremely experienced with in those situations where don't have any other way.
00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:02.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): of producing food. They are transitioning and areas where it's.
00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:08.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Still a little bit unclear how the environmental benefits of producing.
00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:11.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): with more conservation practice compared to conventional.
00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:13.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Hang out for them in their own.
00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:19.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): profit and loss statement. This is where maybe we're lacking the transition where we have more of the resource abundance in some cases.
00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:24.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Or where we are seeing complete lack of capital for the transition, say.
00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:35.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): they need a more efficient irrigation infrastructure, and that requires capital as an example. So I think there's different ways and different cultures look at it differently. But.
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:41.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): If you are looking at capitalistic private market structure that is, um, looking to.
00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:43.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Private businesses to lead.
00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:52.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): It's that P&L impact that would encourage them to put the investment forward and be able to justify it to their shareholders.
00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:07.000
Ash Sweeting: We've mentioned Europe, we've mentioned and discussed the US quite broadly. Uh, what about other… other parts of the world? How… you said it was quite different in different parts of the world. How are things playing out elsewhere?
00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:12.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): What we're seeing, which is also why, um, we've.
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:17.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Assigned this partnership with Platoforma Puma is that the Latin American market is.
00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:22.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Rapidly catching up to European input control requirements and the desire.
00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:24.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to not just.
00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): ensure that there's no deforestation, but to go beyond and look at how sustainable those commodities are.
00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:37.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): What are the emissions of those ingredients that they're buying? How can it be insured?
00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:43.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): That those commodities can produce in those regions for the years to come as well. And so we're seeing.
00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): maybe with us.
00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:48.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): as a trading partner changing its stand.
00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:50.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, a lot of…
00:27:50.000 --> 00:28:00.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Additional energy of international companies is going towards the trade flows between Latin America and Europe, or into just the Latin American region.
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:14.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And this is where we see the alignment broadly for the declaration signed in support of SAI, Regenerate Together Framework. I keep saying that food companies who haven't joined yet should definitely take a look and join.
00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:16.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, because the alignment is.
00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:24.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): just wonderful for everybody in the system. You have the reporting alignment, the data collection alignment, the impact alignment.
00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:29.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And their context analysis is also fantastic, where you look at areas and what you would.
00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:30.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): um…
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:43.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): be facing as risks, and what practices would be able to mitigate those risks. So when we look from that lens in Latin America, we are seeing… it's not, of course, a one… one country, Latin Central America. Um, you have Brazil, who's…
00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:48.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): that that's its own little universe. And we have Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay.
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:51.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and Chile and others.
00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:53.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): We are finding that.
00:28:53.000 --> 00:28:54.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): when we.
00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:55.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): of.
00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): the ability now to operate in these different countries.
00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:00.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, of course.
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:12.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): livestock systems are very centered there. There's a lot of integration between cropping and livestock systems. There is interest to drive the transition on both of those fronts. And.
00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:19.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): that's off to all the Brazilian innovators. There's definitely just so much interest they've been transitioning to.
00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:27.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): more biological inputs. The vertically integrated agro holdings in Brazil have been.
00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:32.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): pioneers on a lot of different levels of technology, vertical integrated farming tractors.
00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:35.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): some of these NASA-like.
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): dashboards of their farms. So I think.
00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:44.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): In that region, we will see a lot of innovation out of Argentina, out of Brazil, and out of.
00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:54.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): neighboring countries. The dynamics continue to be pretty complex on the trade. Sometimes one country is rising, rising in terms of exports. Sometimes it's the other.
00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:57.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): But I definitely encourage people to.
00:29:57.000 --> 00:29:57.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): um…
00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:00.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): If you are looking at the regional transition around the world.
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:01.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Okay.
00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:11.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): dedicated separate attention to that region, because it's unlike any other, and they've already adopted a lot of the no-till practices in the region. But what.
00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:16.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): more they can do. They're really looking at diversified rotation, cover cropping in many cases.
00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:22.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and better inputs. So just like in Canada, we can look to them, look to Australians.
00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:30.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and see? Okay, in this different form factor, what was the transition? And what does this mean for other areas that would need to transition.
00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:48.000
Ash Sweeting: With Brazil, they've… they, in the last 50 or so years, they've gone from a net food importer to one of the world's largest food exporters, and obviously there's many, many factors involved in that, but one is the role of Embraer and how they have sent.
00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:57.000
Ash Sweeting: students to world-leading universities to educate them, and brought that knowledge back to Brazil. Um…
00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:17.000
Ash Sweeting: and you know that's not a that's not a overnight success. That's a 30 or 40 or 50 year success that they've they've done there. How how important do you think that foundation is in terms of the transitions that they're currently going through? And I guess, what do other regions say Africa or.
00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:21.000
Ash Sweeting: or parts of Asia, what could they learn from the Brazilian approach?
00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:27.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Yeah, it's a brilliant observation. I love how historically grounded our conversations are because you're leading them.
00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:28.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um…
00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:41.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I would say that we see that everywhere around the world, right? You see that in Australia, you see that in the US, you see it in Europe, everywhere there is a high research investment. It takes decades, but it does result.
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:48.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): in better crop varietals, better adjusted farming practices to local conditions, better guidance.
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:58.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): You've mentioned land grant universities before. The importance of the conservation extension agents in every location around the world is.
00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:00.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): impossible to.
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:12.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): underscore enough because they are critical to this transition, and and they are definitely not getting enough funding. Some companies are making priority to fund it to fund them specifically. But we're seeing again.
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:19.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): US Federal funding, for example, being rescinded from them. So when we look at the opposite approach of continuing to invest.
00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:25.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And research continuing to invest in extension, importantly, after the research of R&D and E.
00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:28.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): because without the E. The R. And D. You don't go anywhere.
00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I I think that platform is.
00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): one of the most important platforms. We are very lucky to have partnered with improper to actually implement.
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:52.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): our model locally, and for them to be our partner in extended calibration for each of the regions, and just the wealth of knowledge and the investment that they have put into place.
00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:54.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to, um…
00:32:54.000 --> 00:33:07.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): generate this data. It doesn't just fall from the sky on you. If you're talking about longitudinal soil carbon studies with all the different types of treatments and practices on all the different soil types and all different crop rotation systems.
00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:17.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): an incredible amount of investment, and we are very glad that they're co-investing with us to calibrate the model for the region to make sure that this is.
00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:20.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): a world class system that connects natively to.
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:21.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um.
00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:23.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Effectively, this…
00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): way of recognizing the farmers and claiming the impact of recognizing the impact on the corporate balance sheets or on the supply chain balance sheet.
00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): They bought into that idea because they have that science backbone, and they see that that's being used in other regions. They want to join that level of.
00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:46.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): export assuredness. Not only it comes with good product, but it also comes with all of those.
00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:54.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): impact numbers, if we may, and all the verification validation around it that's needed. I think that's very.
00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:05.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): forward-looking of them, and you can see that you cannot really cut your way into success. As my other friend says, you can only invest your way to growth and to success. So.
00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:05.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Yep.
00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:23.000
Ash Sweeting: On the MRV and the scaling MRV side of things, if you think of the human genome program, when they first mapped the human genome, it cost billions and billions of dollars and took decades. And now you can get a genomic sample done for under 100 bucks.
00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:43.000
Ash Sweeting: But you are never going to make that step in one big jump. It just doesn't work that way. So you've got this need, and you've mentioned that you are looking at readjusting, and your team's worked very hard to get your costs down so you can provide a better service to farmers and to the industry.
00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:44.000
Ash Sweeting: But.
00:34:44.000 --> 00:35:00.000
Ash Sweeting: How do you? It's a very difficult bridge, because people say, Oh, the Mrv. Is too expensive. But when it's in that early stage you're never going to get it down to the price without going through a stage a few steps along the way. So how do you? How have you navigated that? And.
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.000
Ash Sweeting: And what do you think?
00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:08.000
Ash Sweeting: is needed more broadly to get other critical MRV systems.
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:13.000
Ash Sweeting: to that level where it's at that commercial affordability stage.
00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:23.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Yeah, um, I appreciate that question, given it's my lived experience, and I'm really happy to share it. That first, when we started, it's true that the innovative customers that have.
00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:32.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): They've seen the opportunity, they've supported us, and they've made pre-commitments at scale that this would make sense to them at that level.
00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:39.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, and over time, we saw there was a need for one more capital, uh, to move to farmers and.
00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:50.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): more and more uncertainty control and decreasing the uncertainty of the estimate. So you need to simultaneously keep investing and improving the model to a certain extent, so that you.
00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:55.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Can reduce the uncertainty and make the greatest payout possible to the farmer.
00:35:55.000 --> 00:36:01.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, so all the incentives are aligned there. We never built the company in order to.
00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:10.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): reach ourselves, uh, and, um, you know, keep raising our prices. This is definitely not the point. The point is to become this almost.
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:15.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): invisible, present, trusted layer of.
00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:20.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): validation of that impact and provide the information where the impact is needed.
00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:25.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): how that leads to de-risking and resilience of supply chains in the way that you, you know.
00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:37.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): tap your card now, not even thinking what Nfc. Technology is or was and there's probably a square logo on the white tablet that buzzes back and.
00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): you are not even thinking that there's probably part of the transaction that the vendor is paying to make sure that it's a trusted transaction. So I.
00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:50.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Believe still in the fact that the world of agriculture and food.
00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:53.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): production, the industry.
00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:58.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): will continue to need the trusted information to.
00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:02.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): transact between the natural capital and the.
00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:14.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): financial capital and to ensure supply chains. I also believe that this is important for the transition. So hopefully, one day this problem will be solved, and you wouldn't be asking a question.
00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:16.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): You would just be saying, oh.
00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:26.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Conservation is a standard now. For this region, I expect this standard of conservation, and this is what I'm getting. Otherwise, maybe I'm not even buying from the supplier, or otherwise.
00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:35.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): That supplier doesn't even exist anymore because we've already transitioned because otherwise it's impossible to get insurance. It's impossible to get other things. So we're in this new state.
00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:37.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Now, to your question of.
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:52.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): How do you navigate that cost reduction and how can you bring other systems into it? Because the MRV technology now is being applied. And I'm very, very glad that that's the case because we were really fighting to establish this category so hard. You've seen this.
00:37:52.000 --> 00:38:08.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Now, Mrv. Is referred to more broadly, not as just a digital system where you enroll farms into region ag, but anything and almost every technology that can be used to understand that environmental impact, whether it's on soil or on animals or on other aspects of the ecosystem, which is.
00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:09.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): She's great.
00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:12.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Usually it's 1 of the letters, not all 3.
00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:17.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): maybe measurement or monitoring, reporting, verification. In some cases it's it's all of them.
00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:22.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, the way that we've done it is with the industry support of these.
00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:29.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): commitments that we're able to announce. I would also say that we are in the moment in time.
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:35.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): For the row cropping industry, for the croppers, we'll talk separately about livestock.
00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, that the capital is a bigger bottleneck than the lack of alignment on MRV, and I think this.
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:50.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Sai 40 companies signing the declaration is almost like a heralding moment for that. It's like, okay, great like, we've done this, and I'm sure there's more companies that will join that. And.
00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:57.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): kudos to them. They've done that done nothing about it. So that's fabulous. But I think Mrv. Now.
00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:03.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): is becoming something that people can expect, can talk about, can almost assume.
00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:05.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, and it is…
00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:10.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Very cost effective. If anyone says MRV is expensive, I suggest you ask them.
00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:19.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): What is the volume they're talking about? Because it's probably less than 5,000 hectares. And if that's actually what they're talking about, then maybe MRV needs to be expensive.
00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:26.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Because it's a tiny, tiny, tiny level of impact. And in some supply chains, that's all that's being sourced.
00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:32.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and that represents 500 farmers like I'm that's not lost on me. We have projects in Vietnam and in.
00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:43.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): India and in other places where it's tiny, tiny holdings. But what you do in that case is you aggregate. You work with the community aggregators. You work with cooperatives to make sure that.
00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:47.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): If you're deploying digital technology, it can be deployed efficiently, because at that starting off.
00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:58.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): um, volume or level of commitment. It's true that the price can be high, but I think we're so far beyond that, um, at this point. And so when we're looking at livestock now.
00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:02.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): There is still a need for some additional foundational investment.
00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:03.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Okay.
00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:04.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): R&D.
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:05.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): on…
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:15.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Community is apparently going to be coming out soon with some additional data sets that we're very excited to support the commercialization of or work with whoever does that.
00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:24.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): because you still need to move through. Not just what we know about the enteric fermentation and feed regimes, not just what we know about amp grazing, but actually.
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:29.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Can you estimate the changes in pasture soils from.
00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:38.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): the paddock based and grazing? Or can you not? Can you scale that? Or do you have to sample it? Because if you have to sample everything.
00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:47.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and that becomes half of the project budget. That's a non feasible starting proposition. If you still have to do that. But you're confident and.
00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:53.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Next time you sample, you will be able to model and then scale from there. So it's more cost effective.
00:40:54.000 --> 00:41:00.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I can see the same path for that space, and we're actively involved, and I think the livestock industry is.
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:03.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): very interested in continuing to support that direction.
00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:21.000
Ash Sweeting: On the livestock side of things, some recent episodes with Matt Wilson from West Virginia University and Troy Rowan from University of Tennessee, they talked about feed and feed conversion efficiency. And Troy Rowan actually.
00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:37.000
Ash Sweeting: you know, said that when researchers first put cows into boxes back in the 1950s and 1960s, they weren't interested in monitoring their emissions for the climate. They were interested in monitoring their emissions to understand the animal's metabolism and how effectively they convert.
00:41:38.000 --> 00:42:00.000
Ash Sweeting: pasture or feed into production. And that science is still very, very relevant today. And so they're focusing on that space to try and use the methane as a way of identifying the most feed efficient animals and then aligning that with genetic selection. And the climate's a secondary.
00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:10.000
Ash Sweeting: benefit, with productivity being the first benefit. Um, how do you… how do you see that kind of approach in terms of trying to.
00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:17.000
Ash Sweeting: Rather than have a headwind and a tailwind, trying to find two tailwinds to help drive adoption.
00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:23.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): It's a brilliant observation, and I would say this applies so much more broadly, I think.
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:30.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Most of adoption of conservation practices that we will see in the near term will be.
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:34.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): at least in the American market, and in either.
00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:39.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Markets that are not supported by subsidies, i.e. everything else that's not Europe.
00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): will likely need to be paired with significant.
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:47.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): improvement in costs.
00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:57.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): on the farm or a ranch. And this is particularly of interest because of that margin squeeze that we talked about on the high fuel prices, high income prices.
00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:03.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Not growing market prices, maybe low or depressed market prices in some cases.
00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:08.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, if the rancher or the farmer sees the opportunity, um.
00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:19.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): That's what they go for. In one of the programs that I'm happy to mention, Legacy Landscapes, Nestle Purina was the founding partner for it, and it's a very big tent approach, so other brands are joining.
00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:28.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, both on the manufacturing, on the retail side. It's fantastic to see, um, folks come in to co-invest into a LifeSec system.
00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:38.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): It is a Us. Range-based program, and it's with our partners at Greweb and National Grazing Livestock Coalition.
00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And what we're seeing is that.
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Program is squarely presented as the farmer.
00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): But as a rancher.
00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:55.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Optimization opportunity to learn with experts to implement something custom to their operation to improve their budgets.
00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:56.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and.
00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:59.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): how the ins and outs of it flow.
00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:04.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Yes, genetics is a piece of it. Yes, feed is a piece of it. There's many other pieces of it, like the.
00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:07.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): So carbon sequestered in pastures.
00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:17.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, so this point that you're making is definitely applied more broadly. We're seeing the cropper is doing the same thing now that we have really.
00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:19.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Belt the brunt of.
00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:21.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): doing more passes on the field with diesel.
00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:24.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): um doing more um.
00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): synthetic purchases of inputs, we are starting to be interested again.
00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:35.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): In getting the farm off of that treadmill, and getting it to.
00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): maybe try generated some of its own nutrition and limit the number of.
00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): of of passes that the equipment needs to go through. So.
00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:52.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): As you say, we can see this current situation as a huge headwind, but we could also see it as.
00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:55.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): a tailwind for adoption. If we can.
00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:56.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): find the resources.
00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:57.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, to…
00:44:57.000 --> 00:44:58.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): support it.
00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:07.000
Ash Sweeting: So that, that equivalent to the, the dust bowl in terms of that shock to the system that, you know, drove that behavioural change.
00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:09.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I believe so.
00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:13.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Well, if maybe it doesn't need to be so drastic. But even the episode in.
00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:14.000
Ash Sweeting: We don't want it to…
00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:19.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): We don't want it to be drastic, but even the episode with Nebraska irrigation water.
00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:24.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): restriction is being called kind of like a mini dust ball moment. So I think.
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Any of these small episodes regionally on climate shocks are reminiscent of that.
00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:43.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): original trouble that befell this place that led to engaging industry, uh, and the Green Revolution. Um, and I think now we just have a different set of parameters to solve for, and I…
00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): my hope is.
00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:51.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): That if we can align around the belief that conservation is profitable to everyone at the end.
00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:53.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to policymakers.
00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:59.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): To government entities, to local communities, to farmers themselves, to consumers.
00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Then…
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:01.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Hopefully.
00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:04.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): We'll be able to align on it being the priority.
00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:16.000
Ash Sweeting: How involved were you in the SAI agreement or declaration? Did you play a major role in that, or were you more sitting on the sidelines? Or if you can tell us that.
00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:29.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Yeah, absolutely. Happy to share that we were definitely on the sidelines of it. What I think Regrow has been doing is encouraging all of our partners to.
00:46:29.000 --> 00:46:33.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): align on SEI so that we have one standard.
00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And we're very glad to see a significant cohort of partners join in, and we believe that.
00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): There is more that that coalition could grow. It's a great example.
00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): of…
00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:48.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): needing the coalition.
00:46:49.000 --> 00:46:51.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): To get the co-investment.
00:46:51.000 --> 00:46:59.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Makes you believe that agreeing on the metrics of co-investment is an equally important part of the equation.
00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:01.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): So, said differently.
00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:05.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): If you have the shared outcomes you want to see, it's easier to co-invest together.
00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:11.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And so that standard that establishes the shared outcomes is the essay I regenerate together.
00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:18.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And largely, as we see it adopted in Europe, where that need for co-investment because of the grade of rotation is even greater than elsewhere.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:22.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): But we're hoping that the international companies that have adopted this.
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): We'll distribute it everywhere else in the world. We're definitely seeing and have the capabilities to provide those metrics in other geographies. Primarily, it would be the Americas.
00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:33.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and we see them being.
00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): of interest in the Americas, where those multinational organizations operate, and that might become.
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:46.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): one of the key, if not the key standard for this space that different Mrvs can align to.
00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:48.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): in the corporate reporting space.
00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:59.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And those metrics are also valuable to the farmers. They're very readable. It's things like what we talked about, nitrogen use efficiency, phosphorus use efficiency, irrigation efficiency.
00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:01.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): It's ah things that are.
00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:06.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Looked at from the perspective of what can be of value to the farmer, not just.
00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:08.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): of this abstract value.
00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:09.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to…
00:48:09.000 --> 00:48:13.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): climate, which is a shared good. But it's really hard to relate to.
00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:28.000
Ash Sweeting: I think that goes back to what we've cut, what we've touched on quite a few times in terms of that, that value to the farmer so that the, the economic and the value proposition is where, where the, where the change.
00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:36.000
Ash Sweeting: is actually implemented, that person needs to be rewarded for their efforts.
00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Absolutely, absolutely. And that reward.
00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): If there's an intrinsic motivation, if you see portion of.
00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:46.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): your…
00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:47.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Bill…
00:48:47.000 --> 00:48:50.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): be reduced. If you see a greater paycheck.
00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): That is something that you can start reinvesting.
00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:58.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and reinvested in your community, in your land, in your family.
00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:14.000
Ash Sweeting: And we're yet to discuss Oceania in Australia, so what's Regrow or Fluorosat, you know, originally came from down that part of the world, so what's going on down there?
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:20.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): What's going on down there? What we're seeing is a thriller operates according to its own.
00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): National Registry rules, and I think there is.
00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:32.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): a growing interest in connecting with global supply chains. So we've definitely operated several programs like.
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:39.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): our partnership with Cargill locally in Australia, and a couple other partners, and that are.
00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:44.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): both part of that program and beyond. Um, we've definitely seen that this.
00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:49.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Private market driven inserting approach, if I may use some jargon here effectively.
00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:54.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): paying the farmers in your own value chain for the transition, and.
00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:57.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, acknowledging those outcomes in some way at a corporate level.
00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:00.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): We've definitely seen it be more.
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:06.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): rare because of the how isolated those supply chains are. Australia supplies.
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:08.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): as an exporter.
00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:16.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): To a lot of countries in Asia and in Asia, as I've mentioned, we're seeing this movement led by Japan and Singapore.
00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:23.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and to accomplish their nationally determined contributions that they're committed to. And also I.
00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:25.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): can imagine, to also assure.
00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:30.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): uh, assure their supply chains. So, um, there is a need.
00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:41.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): for greater integration in that region. And it's connected a little bit to our conversation how the US exporting into Asia is also struggling with that portion of the rotation.
00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:42.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): To be very direct.
00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:54.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): If you're growing a commodity that the off-taker is not interested in climate benefits, it's very hard to do anything with that part of the rotation, but you're still very financially motivated to grow it, so if you grow.
00:50:54.000 --> 00:51:07.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): beans. You're not going to stop growing beans because you need the nitrogen sequestration like you're definitely growing beans. Maybe you're growing more beans than you've ever grown with this current price of nitrogen, and maybe you're prioritizing that rotation.
00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:12.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Depending on what the market, of course, shows you, because if the market is not motivating you.
00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:17.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, you can't do anything about it. Um, but with that part of the rotation not being.
00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:22.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): of any value motivationally from the climate perspective to downstream players.
00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:27.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): that prevents you from additional investment. And so, as long as.
00:51:27.000 --> 00:51:28.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): The feed…
00:51:29.000 --> 00:51:30.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): to livestock.
00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:34.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Supply chains that are connected to deep Asia are.
00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:36.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Separate from this.
00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): conservation movement and global agriculture that we're all trying to fund, there will be missing pieces that we have to work with. And I think Australia.
00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:47.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Specifically.
00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:58.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): has seen that as an exporter. Um, those are complicated systems. Japan can say, oh, I will buy into this program or into this program, but they're also importing a lot of their grains.
00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:02.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): broadly from Australia through national systems, and.
00:52:02.000 --> 00:52:07.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I believe that those people are brilliant enough to integrate those nationally.
00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:09.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): procured grains.
00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:13.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): with climate contributions they want those grains to have. But it just hasn't happened yet.
00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:29.000
Ash Sweeting: It's interesting, the Singapore example, because it does make me reflect on what's happening in the Gulf, the UAEs and the Kuwaits and Qatar and those countries that their food security is hugely oil rich countries.
00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:43.000
Ash Sweeting: whose food security is very dependent on a global abundance of traded food, so they can just buy it on the open market, because they'll never be able to grow it locally. Uh, is there much of an appetite in that part of the world?
00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:40.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): In.
00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:52.000
Ash Sweeting: more like Singapore has engaged, or are they more using the similar approaches that they've used over the last 20 or 30 years?
00:52:52.000 --> 00:53:01.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I would say they're very engaged because of their understanding of the need for local supply chains to thrive, to continue to get access to them.
00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:07.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): I think right now it's just easier to do things through the offset market, which is effectively.
00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:19.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): when the food and its climate impact are disjoint and where the investment can be made separately into the impact that the practice has compared to the commodity itself that is being produced.
00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:21.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, I would…
00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:31.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): love to see a more joint approach where the policy can bring those together. I think that will further spur.
00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:43.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): the investment into conservation practices. And we see it that in more vertically integrated supply chains, it's a lot easier. It's traceable. You have fewer people to agree with. You can claim the impact.
00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:45.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): A lot more directly.
00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:48.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Let's look for a second.
00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:52.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): On the fiber supply chain, we have not looked at it as much, but Australian cotton is.
00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:55.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Pretty big in the global scene. It's a premium cotton.
00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:05.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): You, of course, have cotton growing everywhere else in the world, not only in Australia, but that supply chain is so disaggregated. You have so many steps of processing.
00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And that it can be challenging to track the fiber.
00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:10.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): To the garment.
00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:13.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): for the brand to ultimately be able to say.
00:54:14.000 --> 00:54:21.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): This is regeneratively grown cotton. Some brands were able to achieve that, and that's fantastic, but this is where we see a need.
00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:28.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): for them to form coalitions because they use shared manufacturing facilities, and so they need to be united front.
00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:34.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Um, but this is where you can see the more nodes in the supply chain, the more complexity that is.
00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:41.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): And I see that parallel directly with the Oceana Asian market, Australia as well.
00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:52.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): That if there is export, if there is product changing hands multiple, multiple times, if it's an open market, it's less predictable. You can't layer that level of contracting on top to say.
00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:54.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Tell me not just the product, but tell me the attribute as well.
00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:58.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): But there are other ways of doing it. They're just not.
00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:03.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): the same like we talked about. There could be a procurement contract that someone can bid on.
00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:05.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): and get that attribute paid for.
00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:14.000
Ash Sweeting: Anastasia, we're almost out of time. So before we go, is there anything you'd like to say that we haven't already covered?
00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:17.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): No, I think we've gone and.
00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:18.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): so many…
00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:19.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): in reaching.
00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:22.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): places that I hoped the audience.
00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:25.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Listens to, engages with us.
00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:35.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): shares their thoughts that I also hope that me sharing the latest thinking you sharing your latest thinking will help them to advance in their thinking. And that's my hope.
00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:36.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): for this hour.
00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:41.000
Ash Sweeting: It's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you as always, so thank you very much.
00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:42.000
Anastasia Volkova (she/her): Thank you so much for having me.
00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:53.000
Ash Sweeting: Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's always great. I love speaking.