Antonella – Investing in regenerative agriculture

Dimitri Tsitos – Making regenerative intensive tree crops profitable

11th March 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

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

This raises the question: can there be another way? That’s exactly what Dimitri and his team have been researching over the past few years—on real farms, running large-scale regenerative plots alongside conventional ones. The bad news? It’s not easy. It demands a systematic shift in machinery, protocols, and inputs. But the good news is the results are extremely promising: much higher quality olive oil, only a slight drop in production, significantly better price points, lower costs from day one, and biodiversity that bounces back remarkably fast.

It’s a booming industry that, like CAFO factory farms for animal protein, is reaching its limits in terms of public acceptance, climate risks, biodiversity loss, quality concerns, and rising input costs. But don’t despair—this is a hopeful discussion. There’s plenty of low-hanging fruit (pun intended) ready to be rolled out quickly, following an initial phase of research and development.

Tom Hengl – We should reward the stewards of the land like we celebrate Olympic champions

4th March 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A long-overdue check-in conversation with Tom Hengl, director at OpenGeoHub and one of the leading scientists in earth observation and remote sensing—one of the most cited in his field, belonging to the top 0.1% (based on Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers). We discuss the significant changes in the world of remote sensing, satellites, and the hype surrounding AI, machine learning, and large language models over the past three years. While the hype has brought some interesting advancements, it also distracts people from the real work that needs to be done.

We delve into the AI4SoilHealth European project we are part of, discussing how we can already monitor and observe most places on Earth from the sky at a resolution of 30 by 30 meters. Importantly, we can now look back nearly 25 years for almost all locations in Europe and analyse changes on a field-by-field basis. While we might not know the individual farmers, we can identify their fields, and we can train models to make predictions and provide actionable, relevant advice.
We explore the idea of celebrating farmers and land stewards who have successfully regenerated their plots of land over the past decades. But how do we shift a culture that celebrates sports over regenerative farming? Finally, we touch on the challenges holding back some of this work, including the need for reliable and affordable in situ in-field soil health analysis.

Dan Barber – AI-Powered natural breeding: The End of GMOs, Gene Editing, and CRISPR?

25th February 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

An overdue check-in conversation with Dan Barber, chef, co-owner of Blue Hill restaurants and co-founder of Row 7 Seeds, where we dive into the fascinating world of seeds and how breeding is evolving with the explosion of AI and other technologies. No, we don’t need GMOs, CRISPR, or other risky blunt instruments. We discuss the implosion of the fake meat hype, which was at its peak when we last spoke four years ago, why insane umami flavor and potentially self-nitrogen-fixing tomatoes are revolutionary. This is a deep conversation about bread and wheat—and why breeding wheat specifically for whole meal flour is so important, where Row 7 Seeds, his seed company, is headed and why they’re launching a CPG brand using pressure-cooked vegetables (because processing isn’t a dirty word).

When your vegetables come from incredible seeds and are grown in healthy soils, you don’t need unhealthy additives. We kick things off with mouthwatering winter spinach and dive into a long conversation about the role of technology in food and agriculture. No, we shouldn’t go back to the past. No, we’re not Luddites. In fact, Dan is incredibly bullish on the role of AI in natural breeding—perhaps the best of both worlds, enabling faster breeding for local conditions rather than global crops that lack flavor, nutrients, and rely on excessive chemicals.

Get ready for a firehose of stories on food, seeds, soil, and culture!

Sébastien Crépieux – Decentralised insect farming, the perfect livestock for arable farms

18th February 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Sébastien Crépieux, founder of Invers, developing a decentralised insect farming supply chain for animal nutrition, placing farmers at the heart of the model. The role of animals and livestock in farming is something we cover frequently, but we’ve never discussed insects which can transform immense amounts of agricultural waste—such as leftovers from beer brewing or wheat milling—into high-quality protein and fats. Perhaps most importantly, their frass (manure) is an amazing fertilizer.

Of course, humans could consume insect protein directly, but in the Global North, this is rare and may take a long time to change. Insect protein is also an excellent poultry feed, but its greatest impact may be in aquaculture—specifically, fish feed. The immense destruction caused by industrial bottom-trawling fishing fleets is difficult to describe and comprehend. However, it’s safe to say that catching anchovies or krill for fish meal—to feed salmon and other fish—is highly inefficient and environmentally harmful.

With Sébastien we explore a decentralized approach to insect farming in France, one that focuses on putting farmers at the centre—not by reintegrating large ruminants into farms, but rather small mealworms. Why not go super-centralized with massive facilities and raise hundreds of millions of euros, as some other companies have done? Why hasn’t more insect meal been sold to the aquaculture sector to help reduce pressure on the oceans?

Matt Schmitt – How to make regenerative food and agriculture bankable

11th February 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Matt Schmitt, founder of Structure Climate, about how to get institutional investors invest in the regenerative food and agriculture transitions. These are big terms we use regularly, but what do they actually mean and, more importantly, how do we get there? How do we get novel climate technologies- like biochar machinery, chestnut agroforestry systems, biofertilizer plants, or weeding robots- bankable? Novel technologies often start as luxury goods with a clear customer demand, even if they don’t yet have many existing transactions, just very clear customer interest.
How do we make these technologies investable, or at least recognisable, by major financial institutions (like the big, “boring” banks, insurance companies, and pension funds). We need billions and trillions to flow to the soil. So, how do we get these asset managers over time to start financing this seriously, in the same way they do solar projects or sustainable real estate?

How does a capital stack for a novel technology look like, and how do we financially engineer it with creativity—the good kind, not the kind that caused financial crises in the past decades? To roll these technologies out across farms and landscapes, we need scalable solutions. While commodification in food and agriculture has a bad reputation, turning enabling technologies into bankable commodities can be a good thing. It helps farmers adopt systems that hold more complexity and resilience on their land.

Paul Clarke – Smart Machines, AI and Modeling: engineering our way out

4th February 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

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

We often hear about AI, machine learning, and large language models, but these represent only a fraction of what is currently available. Paul argues that the challenges we face are so immense that we cannot afford to ignore the potential of these technologies. They are essential for building better farms, advancing farm technologies, creating smarter robots and hardware, developing improved food systems, optimising food warehouses, and so much more.

Alice Henry – Finally real money for cover crops with sustainable aviation fuel

31st January 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

Crops and sustainable aviation fuel—probably not something you think about every day. Alice Henry, co-founder of Regenrate took a deep dive into why cover crops, which provide amazing benefits to farmers and farmland, are not more widely used. No big surprise—it’s about the money. Planting cover crops costs money, and the business model of carbon credits isn’t enough to nudge farmers.

Enter the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) market, where there is both money and massive demand due to changing European and global regulations. That means working with big oil majors and helping fossil fuel giants decarbonize. But aviation, in particular, needs to decarbonize quickly. We’re not flying any less—probably more—and electric aircraft are coming, but not fast enough and in too limited a capacity.

Enter non-food and non-feed competing cover crops, grown on land that would otherwise be bare, keeping more living roots in the ground for much more of the year. Regenrate aims to turning cover cropping from a cost into a revenue-generating practice.

Joseph Rehmann – Climate-positive fish is possible and its eggs are delivered by drones

28th January 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

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

We unpack Joseph’s journey into fish farming—specifically tilapia, a species indigenous to the region- and how he and his company are proving that it can have a net positive impact on the environment, people, and finances. Of course, Victory Farms’ journey hasn’t been without challenges. Feed is obviously a challenge and led to starting their own feed mill, reducing import of soy and maize from abroad and experimenting with local feed ingredients and cold chain and spillage. Managing the cold chain has been another significant challenge—especially in the East African context, where stable and clean electricity is notoriously hard to come by. Yet, they managed to figure out solutions using AI and machine learning and reduced spillage to under 1%, a remarkable achievement in an industry where losses often reach 30–40%.

We also dive into their bold decision to outsource a critical part of their value chain: the growing of eggs. By partnering with local village entrepreneurs who manage their own ponds, they’ve created a system where harvested eggs are delivered to Victory Farms using drones. This isn’t just a flashy gadget; but makes scale possible. A single drone carrying up to 500,000 eggs completes a trip in six minutes—a journey that would take a cooled truck two hours, assuming a road exists at all.

Angus McIntosh – Walking the talk on Farmer Angus’ land in South Africa

21st January 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

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

In a landscape where consumer demand for sustainability is rising, the potential for transformation in South African agriculture is immense. Beyond agriculture, we explore the challenges and triumphs of digital marketing in this field, highlighting the power of storytelling amidst social media setbacks.

Marcelo Salazar and Zé Porto – A forest super shake to preserve and regenerate the Amazon, the world’s largest agroforestry system

14th January 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Marcelo Salazar & Zé Porto, co-founders of Mazô Maná, about how we preserve what is left of the Amazon rainforest, regenerate the forest and, most importantly, truly partner with the Indigenous peoples of the forest who have been stewarding this ecosystem for generations. Yes, the Amazon is a vast, managed agroforestry system. Marcelo e Zé, after decades of working with NGOs deep in the Amazon and building careers with corporate tech giants like Google, decided to create a superfood shake made purely from nutrient-dense ingredients—up to 14— directly sourced from the forest, avoiding monoculture. Indigenous peoples partly own the company.

Why did they choose this model, and why are regenerative brands essential for elevating awareness and consciousness around deforestation? A healthy Amazon is crucial not only for the planet but also for local climates, as recent floods in São Paulo demonstrate. So, how can we encourage health-focused consumers in cities like São Paulo and Rio to buy superfoods from their “backyard”, rather than relying on imported products from overseas marketed by fancy foreign brands who are mostly good at marketing?