Antonella – Investing in regenerative agriculture

Julia Kasper – Rewetting peatlands is the biggest climate opportunity to cut CO2

11th November 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

Meet Julia Kasper, cofounder and CEO of Zukunftmoor, a company rewetting drained peatlands and growing sphagnum moss to transform how we think about agriculture. Their powerful approach reduces greenhouse gas emissions and makes climate-friendly farming possible in peatland regions.

Peatlands, peatlands, peatlands: the biggest climate opportunity in agriculture isn’t cover crops or even silvopasture, but rewetting the humble peatlands. They cover only 3% of the global land surface, yet hold immense amounts of CO2. And when they’re drained- as many are- they release it, not just once, but year after year after year. Like a bathtub with the plug out and the shower still on.

These lands, at least in Europe, are often farmed and not very profitable. But before these farmers risk their livelihoods, we need concrete alternatives to transition. That’s what Julia works on: how to grow something that can replace current agricultural methods on peatlands while rewetting them. And it seems they’ve found a big part of the puzzle: rewetting peatlands and growing sphagnum moss. Currently, when you buy a plant in a shop or when plants are grown in greenhouses, the growing medium contains a lot of extracted peat, which comes with huge emissions and will soon be illegal in Europe. Sphagnum moss can replace this 1-to-1.

It’s still early days, but the signs are promising. We talk about how to rewet a peatland, how to seed it (hint: with drones and by hand), how to harvest — and much more. How do you create enough investor interest to actually build a company?

Nicola Giuggioli – Building a regenerative brand: from soil health to living wages

4th November 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

Can you pay a decent year-round salary to farm workers, enough to go to a bank, get a mortgage, and still not charge prices that make your produce accessible only to the happy few? What do vibrations, pest management, nutrient density, and processing have to do with it?

With Nicola Giuggioli we walk the Quintosapore land, on a hilly but stunning landscape in the green heart of Italy, Umbria, where GPS auto-steer tractors don’t exist because simply keeping the tractor in a straight line without slipping down the hill is already an achievement. Quinto Sapore is new farm, only 5 years old and 2.5 years into serious business, but it is making huge steps.

They are building a brand, paying attention to revenue and costs, measuring nutrient density, and paying living year-round wages. Is it easy? Of course not. But for the past few years, they’ve been going deep, very deep, into the next frontier of agriculture: vibrations, frequencies, and more. In this episode we cover it all: seeds, living wages, trying to intervene as little as possible, quantum agriculture and transformation, and processing. Of course, not ultra-processed, but actually old school and high tech at the same time.

Jonathan Lundgren – You need more cows, not fewer, to save the planet

28th October 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A new conversation with Jonathan Lundgren, one of the world’s most interesting and most cited scientists when it comes to regenerative agriculture. For the last four years, Jonathan and his team have been in full swing with their 1000 Farms Initiative, where they document research and follow regenerative farms, actually closer to 1600 farms now.
An episode where we talk about data, data, and more data. We unpack a four-year effort that spans commodities, ecoregions, and management styles, revealing how regeneration scales in the real world. The results are striking: equal or better yields, stronger profits, higher biodiversity, improved water infiltration, and a path to substantial soil carbon storage, all without needing more land.

But it isn’t just about that. It’s about farmers’ health and happiness. It’s about pushing our imagination of what farmland could look like. It’s about the outliers in these studies that show us what is possible: more people on the land, more farmers connected to every acre being managed. It’s about producing food for your family and community. It’s about revitalizing rural communities and bringing back the life that has been sucked out of there. Enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Jonanhan (though, as always, it feels too short!).

Justin Bruch – Organic out-earn conventional, how do we transition more farms and farmers?

21st October 2025 koenvanseijen 1 Comment

A conversation with Justin Bruch, Cofounder-President & CEO of Clear Frontier, born and raised 5th generation Iowa farmer. He has actively farmed on 4 continents and has spent his entire career working in agriculture across North America (USA/Canada), South America, Europe, and Africa.

Organic makes more money. This is a financial decision first. This doesn’t mean the whole world should go organic tomorrow. It’s refreshing, right, to hear somebody say that out loud. Of course, it’s context-specific: we’re talking about the Midwest in the US, corn, soy, and specialty crops. But a fund that has been operating for the last six years clearly shows it makes more financial sense to farm organically. Not saying it’s easy, you have a lot of things to manage: crop rotation, pest management, weed pressure, manure, and all of that. But it does make more money.

So now the question becomes: how do we get more farms and farmers to transition? What are the financial models? What are the investment models to unlock this transition at scale? Not too fast—organic scale obviously, but still at scale.
That’s what we discuss today with one of the leaders in the space.

Douglas Sheil – Why fixing water fixes carbon

14th October 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

Wow, it seems so simple: healthy forests bring in and trigger their own rain. But, since most rain comes from elsewhere, shouldn’t we be more interested in this “elsewhere”? Why aren’t farmers, investors, entrepreneurs, and policymakers in agriculture, forestry, and land use more engaged with this bigger picture? For example, if China realises that most of its rainfall comes from beyond its Western borders- even as far as Europe. would they get involved in restoring farms and forests all the way to Europe? Big ideas. And you could argue: it doesn’t get much bigger than this.

Yes, we’re talking again about water cycles and this time with Douglas Sheil, Professor of Forest Ecology and Forest Management at Wageningen University, one of the most famous agricultural universities in the world. Why has it been so difficult to get scientific discoveries, like the biotic pump theory in physics, to enter other fields like climate science and forestry? We talk about the huge pushback biotic pump scientists have faced in publishing papers and gaining recognition over the past 20 years.

But we also talk about optimism, why water is a much easier sell than carbon, and how it could spark far more cross-border cooperation. Still, to make it work, we need to think big and get much better at working together, which is no easy feat. It’s a wide-ranging conversation on tropical forests, science, the Sahel, natural regeneration, and politics.

Lauren Tucker – Inner regen work, gut molds, almonds groves in the Central Valley and taste buds

7th October 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

This is a check-in conversation with Lauren Tucker, co-founder of Kiss the Ground and Renourish Studios. We talk about wrapping up the cohort at Renourish Studio, where they’ve worked for three years with a diverse group of entrepreneurs and investors across the US food and agriculture system.

How do you bring the fact that we are part of a living system into your work in commercial organisations? Lauren shares lessons learned, and what they’re doing moving forward. How much of this work is inner work—how we see the world, what we think is possible and not—vs. outer work like planting cover crops, digging swales, showing the financials and nutrient density of almonds, and demonstrating how regenerative farming systems are more alive by measuring biodiversity? How do we open up to opportunities like small water cycle restoration, instead of only thinking about cover crops on our farm?

Maria Jensen – Giving cows a voice through epigenetics while improving animal welfare and profitability

30th September 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Maria Jensen, co-founder of Antler Bio, helping dairy farmers identify and address factors limiting their herd’s full potential. What if cows could speak? Especially dairy cows. They would probably share not only the horrors of the dairy industry, but also stories of many dairy farmers who truly try their best to care for their animals and yet still fail. Their cows are neither healthy nor happy, their bank accounts look worse every year, and their mental health and marriages are shaky. Intensive dairy, unless you are massive, is a very difficult industry.

Yes, all dairy cows (and cows in general) should be, depending on the context, almost permanently outside. And yes, calves should stay with their mothers as long as possible if we are even going to start talking about regenerative dairy. But for many dairy farmers, this is still a distant pipe dream. We need to meet them where they are. If we don’t give them concrete tools now, they will never change and instead go out of business. And no, dairy won’t disappear any time soon. The market will just be absorbed by even bigger dairy cow factories, where cows never see grass or sunlight.

So how do we change this gridlock? By taking technology from the racehorse industry to let cows and herds speak: to share what’s missing, what could be improved. And, surprise, there is plenty of low-hanging fruit in improving dairy cows’ lives practically overnight from better minerals to more water points, and of course the holy grail: super-diverse pasture management.

This leads to healthier cows, fewer vet costs, and more milk. Importantly, it also points toward potentially healthier milk, and thus healthier people. It’s still too early to connect this directly to nutrient density and quality, but that’s the direction we’re headed.

We also touch upon much more: the risks of raising money from the wrong parties for such a disruptive technology, the fact that while animals and farmers win, input companies and pharmaceutical companies will likely lose. Suddenly it becomes clear which interventions work and which don’t.
And what about raising finance as a female founder? Surprise surprise—it’s not easy. Male investors, especially, waste a lot of your time.

Get ready for a conversation about disruptive tech, dairy farming margins, raising capital, and horse racing.

Thomas Kliemt – A farming incubator with a 75% success rate (that nobody knows about) lands in Germany

23rd September 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A check-in conversation with Thomas Kliemt, a true serial entrepreneur in regenerative farming systems and previously part of Kulturland, always busy with the big topics in agriculture and never afraid to take them on head first. We catch up on what he has been working on: access to land in Germany, how Kulturland- the organization he has been involved with for the last 8 years- has been growing, and why they are suddenly, after 10 years in the making, an overnight success. In the first 6 months of 2025, they accelerated their fundraising by 100%, raising the same €2.5m they raised in all of 2024.

Then we shift to the next piece of the puzzle: once you enable access to land, transition it into the commons as an anti-speculation measure, and remove the huge debt burden new farmers face, who is actually going to farm this land?
That’s what Thomas’ next venture is working to solve, inspired by a highly successful French model. Over the last 20 years, this approach has trained hundreds of farmers in running their businesses through incubator farms: new farmers work their own land for 3 years, run their enterprises, and receive a salary. Afterward, they are ready to take over a farm elsewhere and, remarkably, over 75% of them do. Many of the rest join other farms as employees. This is an incredibly high success rate for any incubator, and the model has already scaled to Belgium, Spain, and Finland. Now Thomas is bringing it to Germany, and the timing seems perfect.

He has already raised several million in government funding, with different regions competing to host these incubator farms. This could become the launchpad for a much stronger regenerative farming movement. We talk about the huge impact successful regenerative farms can have on their regions, the importance of community, and why this mission is so deeply personal for Thomas.

Rasmus Nørgaard – From bricks to soil: rethinking real estate from the ground up

16th September 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

We all have a roof over our heads and a bed to sleep in if we’re lucky. And if we’re unlucky- which most of us with homes actually are- we spend a significant portion of our monthly budget on housing. This is only increasing: the size of houses, the cost of rents, and mortgages, especially in highly sought-after cities. As a result, many people are left with less budget for high-quality regenerative food. This situation isn’t sustainable, economically or socially, especially given that the building sector is incredibly wasteful and consumes vast amounts of fossil fuels.

Straight from Copenhagen, a conversation with Rasmus Nørgaard, co-founder of Urban Partners, Home.Earth and Nordhus , with over two decades of experience in real estate, pushing the boundaries of sustainability within conventional systems. With Rasmus we dive deep into the world of real estate. Not “real assets” (although buildings are assets), but the actual built environment: homes, concrete, steel, and hopefully a lot more wood in the future. The built environment is one of the three major sectors that needs a complete systems change, alongside with agrifood and energy.

So, what can we in the regenerative agriculture and food sector learn from one of the pioneers of sustainable real estate? Rasmus is building a much more holistic (dare we say Horizon 3?) for-profit company that is reinventing real estate from the ground up. And he’s convinced: long-term real estate companies like this will prove more profitable, even financially, than those driven by short-term thinking. Yes, we talk a lot about buildings and homes, but there are so many overlaps with agriculture and food. Let’s face it: soil is a real asset in investment terms.
We ought to learn from the best in real estate to bring more aligned capital into the ground fast.
In the end, it’s all about aligning incentives and creating the right structures to build things that last.

Dianne, Ian and Matthew Haggerty – Food, not commodities: how regenerative agriculture works at scale on 63,000 acres

9th September 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

Legend alarm on the podcast! We are happy to welcome the Haggerty’s family, Ian and Dianne, together with their son Matthew, on the podcast sharing their 30+ year journey- from being considered the hippie weirdos to leading a movement in Western Australia- showing that you can absolutely farm regeneratively at scale, in this case over 60,000 acres, with deep regeneration.

They regularly take on new land, but only if they feel the land wants and needs them to manage it. In other words, they don’t go looking for land, the land finds them. Often this land is extremely degraded, and they bring it back to life with the help of sheep, whose gut microbiome kickstarts regeneration, followed by well-integrated annuals.

We talk about how fundamental it is to allow anything that wants to grow to grow in a brittle environment. They don’t have the luxury of discussing the concept of weeds: anything that can stay green and alive, with living roots in the soil pumping out exudates during the brutal hot summer months, is welcome.

We also dive into the different water cycles they are influencing and how these have even affected local rainfall. Of course, we unpack the massive mindset shift that is fundamental in the regenerative transition, vibrations, quantum agriculture, and rebuilding local supply webs. We cover it all.