Koen – Page 2 – Investing in regenerative agriculture

Sowmya Balendiran – How to turn seaweed farming into an industry? Start by farming 1000 football fields of tropical seaweed in Indonesia

23rd July 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Sowmya Balendiran, co-founder and chief business officer at Sea6 Energy, about regenerative aquaculture, how to restore the oceans and use them more to reduce the pressure on land systems, get fossil fuel use down drastically, like in fertiliser, plastics, and in food of course.

Sowmya is one of the pioneers who helped create the first signs of a tropical seaweed industry. What do you do if you have to invent both sides of the business? How do you grow seaweed industrially at scale and price points that make sense? And how do you process seaweed into products that sell for an interesting enough margin?

Someone will soon mention seaweed. It sounds magical, some species grow super fast, you can harvest them year-round, they don’t need any inputs, don’t need land but sea, which we have a lot of, etc. So, why hasn’t seaweed taken over the world yet? What is needed to industrially farm tropical seaweed? Industrial might sound like what we don’t want, but in tropical seaweed, most work is done by hand, standing knee-deep or neck-deep in the water. We can agree that that won’t scale and get us to a seaweed industry that can replace large amounts of fossil fuels.

Jay Albany – Despite the graveyard of D2C companies, it can actually work in the world’s most remote city

19th July 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Jay Albany, CEO of Dirty Clean Food, about what it takes to build a successful direct-to-consumer business- basically buying from regen farmers and delivering to consumer, restaurants, etc.- in the regen space and in the most remote city on the planet. Despite all challenges of B2C, Jay makes a passionate case for the contrary. A deep dive full of golden nuggets of direct-to-consumer companies, what works and what doesn’t, but also a long conversation on the power of transparency within businesses and the most important return of all, inspiration.

What are the lessons learned? Looking at the graveyard of direct-to-consumer companies we have seen, especially in COVID years, raising a lot of money, struggling, or shutting down. Does that mean disrupting the current supermarket oligopolies isn’t worth it?

Maarten van Dam – How to fund the transition of the first pioneers in regenerative agriculture

16th July 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Maarten van Dam, founder of Schevichoven Regenerative farm, about numbers when transitioning from conventional to regenerative agriculture and keeping records on inputs, prices, and machinery. Maarten is changing that and keeping a lot of records of their pioneering farm transitioning from a mono dairy farm to a diverse agroforestry system.

Remember the Dutch farming protests? What do we miss when we talk about the transition of conventional? We miss numbers numbers numbers. Many of the pioneers- rightfully so- didn’t keep good records, on inputs, prices, machinery and, of course, hours. Nobody tracks hours in agriculture. What does it cost per hectare, and what off-take do you need? With a minimum of 50K euro per hectare in the Netherlands, you can transition in about 7 years to a diverse perennial agroforestry system, only counting wholesale prices, counting all your hours, and paying a fair wage. Of course, at Schevichoven they are only in year 4, so all of that has to be proven. But what does it mean for the rest of the 50.000 farmers in the Netherlands? What are the types of regen systems they can apply? We need about 150 billion to transition them. It sounds like a lot, but is doable.

Fireside Chat with John Kempf & Koen van Seijen @ Groundswell ’24

9th July 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

Ever wondered how podcasting can transform the field of regenerative agriculture? This fire side chat with John Kempf and Koen van Seijen, hosts of the most followed and longest existing podcasts in the regenerative agriculture and food space, was recorded live at Groundswell 2024.

This is an intimate conversation where we dive deep in the the long-term dedication needed to engage an audience genuinely, the nerve-wracking journey of publishing the initial episodes and the relentless effort required to build a loyal listener base. We highlight the importance of mentors, the art of storytelling and how digital platforms can amplify critical ideas and drive change.

We uncover how the overuse of nutrients like nitrogen and potassium can actually harm crops, making them more susceptible to diseases and pests, and ultimately reducing yields. We explore the research on plant nutrition, plant health and fertilizer use and questions traditional agronomy practices. John shares about Advancing Eco Agriculture’s fundraising experience within the farming community and the strategies for reaching wider audiences, including turning our podcast episodes into books. Plus, a sneak peek into the shared upcoming projects focusing inputs from innovative companies.

Henk Mooiweer – If you can get paid now by Nestlé, Shell and Microsoft to change grazing practices, why wait?

1st July 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Henk Mooiweer, co-founder of Grassroots Carbon, about the current state of carbon markets, high quality soil carbon removal credits, how this company manage to sell 5 million dollars’ worth of them, and where the market is going. Why did Nestlé, Microsoft and Shell start buying? Why does Henk argue that now is the time to sign up as a rancher and not wait to sell your carbon later? Where is the science in all this regen grazing? What about methane? And why is this actually not about carbon?

Jason Hayward-Jones – Corporates paying for low carbon grains and why virtual twins are key in gaming and Scottish whiskey

25th June 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A check-in interview with Jason Hayward-Jones, founder & director at REGENFARM Ltd., and Sustainable Agriculture Specialist at Cefetra, about why corporations are suddenly paying for low-carbon grain, what it has to do with virtual digital twins, why that is such a potentially disruptive technology and, finally, why it is connected with gaming and Scottish whisky.

Bridget Emmett – Moving over carbon soil compaction is the real issue in agriculture

21st June 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Bridget Emmett, British ecologist, Professor and Science Area Head for the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, about the EU Mission Soil, what is the role of technology, remote sensing, digital twins, etc, and what role should and could policy play.

Georg Baunach – More than half of the fish you eat is farmed: basics, potential and risks of investing in aquaculture

18th June 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Georg Baunach, managing partner and co-founder of Hatch Blue, a knowledge-driven aquaculture and alternative seafood specialist. We discuss what aquaculture is and why it is important; what, where, and how to farm; what are the potential and challenges of regenerative aquaculture, and why is it important to look into it. We end with the risks and challenges of aquaculture, the feed conversion ratio and why it is important, the role of algae, waste, medicines, microplastics, and more.

Kat Bruce – Going from putting insects in a food processor to raising $27M in 10 years and building the biggest eDNA biodiversity monitoring company

14th June 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Kat Bruce, founder of Nature Metrics , going from scooping insects with a small net and putting them in a food processor, to analysing the goo with an eDNA machine, to working with lots of large food corporations on measuring their biodiversity, food footprint, and impact.

How do you look back at raising 27 million dollars and spending 10 years building the biggest biodiversity measurement company using eDNA in a time where very few people care at all about biodiversity, let alone invest in measuring it. How do we analyse water at a catchment area to see what lives in that area? How about soil measurements for DNA at scale, and what about air sniffing and analysing? And why are the corporations only coming in in the last few years? Where are people moving, and what is still missing?

Fernando Russo – From selling Playboy’s to growing coffee, cacao, credit and lots of cows

11th June 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A deep dive conversation with Fernando Russo about the reasons why he is going deep into coffee and cacao without being a coffee drinker and how he turned from being a Playboy’s salesman and a travel entrepreneur to an impact investor in the regenerative agriculture and food. We also talk about fashion and heights, the Amazon, deforestation, reforestation, the role of cattle—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and, of course, the potential and why he is in the water camp, not the carbon camp.

What is driving one of the most active impacts investors in the regenerative space? What Fernando tells fellow impact investors when they ask him about this regen thing?
Getting credit and other finance into the hands of farmers and land stewards who want and can change is way more important. Let’s get to work.