Category: Beyond Food

Neal Collins – Agrihoods for free-range kids: A Trojan horse for regenerative agriculture

24th February 2026 koenvanseijen Beyond Food, Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 0 Comments

Think about where and how you live. Close your eyes and picture your ideal neighbourhood. We bet it looks something like this: a walkable neighbourhood designed around a fully functional farm, with different types of houses built from healthy, non-toxic, natural materials, multifamily, aging-proof, small but not too small, with plenty of privacy, and affordable. The neighbourhood is designed for meeting your neighbours, hence the word neighbourhood. Cars are confined to a designated area, and most importantly, there are lots of free-ranging kids and chickens.

But wait, isn’t this an agriculture and food podcast? Why are we talking about real estate? Because so much agricultural land is being swallowed up by “development”. Cities are expanding, often building super ugly, incredibly toxic suburban homes on that land with big gates and big cars parked in driveways or garages, and kids who never go outside.

At the same time, real estate is very good at raising money and investing it, often without taking negative externalities into account. So, what can we learn, and how can we use the highly developed real estate capital markets to build agrihoods and thriving regenerative farms, enabled by well-planned, healthy neighbourhoods? And yes, we can achieve market-rate returns.

Happy to welcome on the podcast Neal Collins, founder of Hamlet Capital on a mission is to create more agrihood and conservation communities, serving a largely untapped yet growing demand for these unique living environments

What we learned in 2025 about making regen bankable, animals, water, chefs, scale, Al in ag, agroforestry, education, food as medicine, ROl, storytelling

26th December 2025 koenvanseijen AI 4 Soil Health, Beyond Food, Diet Change, Ecosystem Services Payments, Farmers First Tech, Farmers' Philosophy, Investor Stories, Landscape Design 2.0, Landscape Tech, Nutrient Dense Food, Nutrients to Soil, Ownership, Policy and Legislation, Regeneration Newsroom, Regenerative Agriculture, Regenerative Aquaculture, Regenerative Education, Regenerative Mind, Role of Animals, Role of corporations, Short Food Webs, Soil Builders, Transition finance, Walking the Land with a Regenerative Farmer, Water Cycles 0 Comments

If 2025 had a soundtrack, it would be the sound of stress: stress in the system, stress in humans, stress in animals and in all other non human beings.

And then the cycle of Heat. Drought. Fire. Flood. Over and over again.
And yet, between the headlines, something else seems happening. We spent the year in conversation—with farmers walking their fields, scientists questioning old assumptions, investors rethinking risk, and builders experimenting in the real world. Online and offline, we found ourselves in rooms where regeneration wasn’t an abstract ideal, but really happening.

As 2025 comes to a close, it’s hard not to feel cautiously optimistic. The signals are there. Regeneration works and the direction is becoming clearer.

Anat Shenker-Osorio – Why climate messages don’t land and how to rewrite the regenerative narrative

8th July 2025 koenvanseijen Beyond Food, Regenerative Agriculture 0 Comments

A conversation with Anat Shenker-Osorio, founder of A.S.O. Communications, a progressive political communication bureau known for slogans such as “Don’t take the temperature, change it” and “A great message doesn’t say what’s already popular; a great message makes popular what needs to be said”.

We try so hard in the regenerative (and probably any other progressive) space to work on our messaging, how to communicate, how to reach people inside our bubble and beyond. We try to speak to those within the agrochemical and food industry, to make them see how environmentally sound, healthy, and economically interesting a different food and agriculture system could be. But somehow, we haven’t gotten very far. We’re constantly out-lobbied and outsmarted by the very well-organised extractive ag industry. (No, this isn’t an evil conspiracy, but it is definitely well-organised.)

With Anat we dive deep into the world of effective campaigning, messaging, and communication. Because we’re always going to be up against a much higher budget, but let’s at least use the airspace we do have as effectively as possible.
One example: the pioneers, the activists, the “pioneering species”- which all of you listening, following and reading this probably are- love a challenge against all odds. You love the David vs. Goliath stories. You’re fighting for the currently losing team. That’s why you’re in this space.

But we’ve got news for you: most people don’t want to join the losing team. So, stop communicating like we’ve already lost. Start getting people to join the small but winning team. Don’t deny reality and never lie. But do understand what makes people listen, and more importantly, what makes them take action: consume differently, protest, organise, vote (if you can).
Because in the end, this is all about who has the power.

Louis De Jaeger – Eat More Trees: a Masterclass with thé storyteller of the Regen Space

1st April 2025 koenvanseijen Beyond Food, Farmers First Tech, Ownership, Regenerative Agriculture, Short Food Webs 0 Comments

A conversation with Louis De Jaeger, international keynote speaker, author, award-winning filmmaker, and landscape designer, about dreams, action, and storytelling—how to reach and touch people. We discuss why storytelling is highly underrated and underfunded, and why he is organizing a festival—not the next Burning Man, but a regeneration festival.
He shares his excitement about small water cycle restoration, the biotic pump, and much more. And in the end, it all boils down to one simple message: Eat More Trees.

During his 5-year sabbatical that turned into a lifelong mission to regenerate landscapes, Louis’ revelation came during world travels where he witnessed environmental degradation firsthand—monoculture landscapes so depressing “you want to drive against a tree, but there are no trees.” This observation sparked his mission to regenerate 550 million hectares of land globally, potentially cooling our planet by two degrees Celsius.

Beyond the environmental benefits, Louis paints a compelling vision of a regenerative future characterized by abundance rather than sacrifice. “We’re going to have an even more luxurious lifestyle, we’re going to have better food that tastes fantastic” he assures us. His approach isn’t about shaming people into environmentalism but showing how regenerative practices create healthier, more desirable lives.

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

31st January 2025 koenvanseijen Beyond Food, Regenerative Agriculture 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.

Kadir van Lohuizen – Walking the museum full of Food for Thought

24th December 2024 koenvanseijen Beyond Food, Diet Change, Regenerative Agriculture, Short Food Webs 0 Comments

A conversation with Kadir van Lohuizen, Dutch multimedia photojournalist, filmmaker, and a co-founder of NOOR, while walking his exhibition Food for Thought at Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam. We talk about the power of photos and videos, how disconnected we are from nature and how our current food system works. We talk while walking though photos of large dairy facilities in Mongolia, farms in Saudi Arabia, beef operations in the US and onions farms of the Netherlands and vegetables and fruits plantations in Kenya, with produce cut in pieces and packaged ready to fly overnight to Amsterdam, London, etc.

A deep dive and a reality check of the current food and agriculture system and the power of visual storytelling.

Josh and Rebecca Tickell – If you like sick people and climate chaos keep investing in chemical agriculture

28th November 2023 koenvanseijen Beyond Food, Diet Change, Nutrient Dense Food, Regenerative Agriculture 1 Comment

A conversation with Josh Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell, producers, directors, and writers of the movie Common Ground and previously Kiss the Ground. We talk about their two movies, food choices and their impact on the environment and health, the chemical agriculture model going bankrupt and much more.

Cate Havstad-Casad – Why are we okay in wearing fossil fuel, oil-based clothes on our bodies?

30th May 2023 koenvanseijen Beyond Food, Regenerative Agriculture, Role of Animals 0 Comments

A conversation with Cate Havstad-Casad, farmer rancher on a regenerative farm in central Oregon, designer and food system activist, about how the fibres of the clothes we wear every day are made of petroleum or are coated in plastics and other petroleum chemicals.

Claire Crunk – Why the regenerative revolution starts with a hemp based tampon

23rd May 2023 koenvanseijen Beyond Food, Regenerative Agriculture 0 Comments

A conversation with Claire Crunk, health nurse practitioner, founder, and CEO of Trace. As a pioneer 5years in the US hemp fiber agricultural movement, she joins together exciting new practices in healing the earth through hemp and regenerative farming techniques with her knowledge of menstrual healthcare. We talk about fossil fuel-based products, natural fibres, cotton, hemp and maybe the biggest overlooked industry in regeneration: tampons!

200th EPISODE Emma Chow in conversation with Koen van Seijen – Regenerating ourselves before working on regenerative agriculture and food

3rd January 2023 koenvanseijen Beyond Food, Investor Stories, Ownership, Regenerative Agriculture 0 Comments

The 200th of this podcast sees Koen van Seijen in conversation with Emma Chow, former head of food at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Emma Chow, former head of food at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, she’s back on the podcast to talk about her journey, her burnout, coming back from the Amazon to London and re-engaging with the food space. In a second part of the interview, though, Emma and Koen switch mics with Emma becoming the host and asking Koen about his lessons learned over the past 200 episodes.