“Please don’t invest in another random technology which is going to save us all” says Abby Rose

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Regenerative farmer and physicist, turned AgTech founder, Abby Rose is also co-host of Farmerama.

LISTEN TO THE CONVERSATION ON:

AgTech company Vida Cycle

Natural wine company

Great monthly podcast sharing the voices of smaller-scale farmers in the UK and beyond

Key takeaways of the interview:

  • we need to build a fire friendly landscape 
  • fires have always been there but not the intensity and degree burning over 1m acres
  • Abby is mostly surrounded by mono culture pine forests which burn like nothing else
  • moisture in the soil to have all year round plants which don’t burn so easily
  • if you have a very diverse microbial life in the soil, it is potentially reflected in the nutritive value in the produce 
  • Abby worries any single measure, if she had to pick a measure the measure would diversity! 
  • the reason for starting Vidacycle was the lack of data from the olive farm. They planted 8000 trees but had no idea which trees were performing or not
  • the more we can support small to medium scale farmers to flourish more the better
  • the tech solutions weren’t there or were way too expensive
  • fundamental about all of our technology is empowering farmers
  • farmers are perfectly capable in understanding how their soil system works
  • first they developed sector mentor to help manage olive farms, vineyards etc. 
  • soil mentor for soils, very simple DIY soil testing for farmers, using only equipment already present on the farm
  • very excited about the opportunities to work with a number of small to medium size vineyards in Oregon
  • biggest issue in food and ag: food prices, food is so cheap, but the truth is food isn’t cheap. 
  • technology is not going to save us, what will save us is changing mind sets
  • technolog is a tool which will aid people
  • please don’t invest in a random technology which is going to save us all

If Magic wand, true cost accounting system for food

We have discussed that before! With Volkert of Eosta/Nature and More: 
Organic isn’t too expensive, conventional (chemical) farming is too cheap!

True cost accounting

Advice for investors:
Go and work on some farms, and understand the reality of farming

Books Abby suggests:

Farming While Black

One straw revolution

Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown

Soil of Woody Tasch

Other podcasts on Land Trusts:

Thomas Rippel about Farmland Stewardship Organisations

Ian McSweeney on land trusts in the US

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Feedback, comments, suggestions? Reach me via Twitter @KoenvanSeijen, in the comments below or through Get in Touch on this website.

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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

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