Category: Transition finance

Edd Lees – After 23 years in finance, a new career full of life, soil, bread and a famous DJ

22nd October 2024 koenvanseijen Regenerative Agriculture, Role of corporations, Short Food Webs, Transition finance 0 Comments

What happens when a seasoned finance professional trades his suit for soil? In a conversation with Edd Lees, co-founder of WildFarmed, we explore what it’s like to help create one of the most renowned brands in regenerative agriculture. Inspired by his friend Andy Cato, Edd, the financial mind behind WildFarmed, embarked on a mission to revolutionize food systems, beginning with a bakery in southern France. Today, they work with over 100 farmers across 10,000 hectares in the UK, supplying regenerative flour to some of London’s best bakeries.

We explore Edd’s transition from 23 years in finance, his pragmatic approach to changing the food system (avoiding dogmatism), and his strategies for scaling the business. This includes expanding beyond their core market of artisanal bakers and finding ways to introduce their products to supermarkets. For WildFarmed, it’s all about scaling up, impacting as many hectares as possible- ultimately at a landscape level- while guiding farms on their regenerative journey, one step at a time, all while maintaining financial sustainability.

Frederik Lean Hansen – Small individual farms are probably not the future of farming in Europe

17th September 2024 koenvanseijen Regenerative Agriculture, Role of Animals, Transition finance 0 Comments

A wide-ranging conversation with Frederik Lean Hansen, a regenerative farm business consultant who spent a year traveling and working on 12 farms alongside regenerative farmers across Europe. He is currently active as a Farm Finance genitor and is now starting his own silvopastured poultry enterprise on his parents’ farm in Denmark. We discuss topics such as finance, CapEx, OpEx, income statements, and cash flow, as well as the myth of small-scale farming and whether economies of scale truly matter. Fred shares insights on how farmers can organize together to access better markets, run more financially successful businesses, and improve their quality of life. We also delve into the importance of inner work, which is often neglected in our sector—or any sector, for that matter.

Mark Lewis – After putting half of their $50M fund to work in regen, what has one of the leading VCs in the world learned?

23rd August 2024 koenvanseijen Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 2 Comments

A check-in interview with Mark Lewis, managing partner at Trailhead Capital, about the inevitability of the “regenerative revolution” and the potential for significant financial and non-financial returns in this space. What does putting almost half of your $50 million VC fund to work in businesses active in the regen space in North America, taught Mark about the space and what has changed since 2021, and what big opportunities haven’t we collectively invested in? What is missing and what is needed? And we discuss why Mark is no longer hunting for unicorns but is still very positive about the potential for financial returns in the regenerative food and agriculture space.

Willem Ferwerda – Kickstarted the restoration industry with Commonland 11 years ago, now finally big money shows interest, but we need billions 

13th August 2024 koenvanseijen Farmers First Tech, Landscape Design 2.0, Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 2 Comments

A conversation with Willem Ferwerda, one of the founders of the regeneration space, which barely existed 11 years ago when he started Commonland. How and why is it so fundamental to take a landscape view and get all the stakeholders to look at a map- yes, a physically printed large map- together? Because chances are they never have done that. The farmers, the real estate developers, the nature conversation professionals, the local politicians spent most of their time in their own silos and if they talk to each other often it isn’t very friendly.

How do you get them to develop a shared vision of what they want their landscape to look like in 20 or 30 years? How do you trigger that kind of inspiration? Nobody likes to live in a dying landscape where biodiversity has left, where people have left or are leaving, schools are closing, and shops as well.

We are at the beginning of what was barely a space 11 years ago, of course holistic landscape management existed in indigenous circles and ecology silos, but barely outside of that. And now we see the financial space starting to dip its toe into this and we will need them, as we talk billions of real green infrastructures, not hard infrastructure made of concrete, but soft, healthy spongy soils, thriving ecosystems, beneficial keystone species including people coming back to the countryside and managing landscapes holistically.

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

16th July 2024 koenvanseijen Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 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.

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

1st July 2024 koenvanseijen Ecosystem Services Payments, Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 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?

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

11th June 2024 koenvanseijen Ecosystem Services Payments, Investor Stories, Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 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.

Henry Dimbleby – From designing the National Food Strategy for England to starting a £50M fund focussed on food transition

28th May 2024 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 0 Comments

A wide range conversation of almost two hours with Henry Dimbleby, founder of Bramble Partners, a venture capital firm, that invests in businesses seeking to improve food security. Before Bramble Partners, Henry co-founded Leon Restaurants and the Sustainable Restaurant Association and also served deep in the heart of the UK government as he was appointed lead non-executive board member of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

In this exchange we discuss everything from Donella Meadows in complex systems to what that means for all of us trying to influence these systems and policies and how you actually change policy. How it was to manage the COVID crisis from within the UK government, keeping food on the shelves of the supermarkets and local shops, and trying to drastically improve school meals and their accessibility for children living in poverty in the UK. Plus, a deep dive into the junk food cycle, the differences between ultra-processed food and junk food, and the crazy ultra-processed food addiction we all, or mostly, have fallen victim to. And finally, how eating lentils can change everything.

Koen van Seijen interviewed by Naeem Lakhani and Antony Yousefian on his journey in regenerative food and agriculture and the introduction of Generation-Re investment syndicate

14th May 2024 koenvanseijen Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 0 Comments

Koen van Seijen settles into the guest chair for a special 300th episode celebration and is interviewed by Naeem Lakhani and Antony Yousefian. Starting from a coffee with Tony Lovell of SLM Partners, we recall moments and conversations that pivoted our path from a general interest in food to a passionate advocate for regenerative agricultural practices and the untapped investment opportunities beneath our feet.

We share how the podcast has served and serves as a bridge, connecting people and ideas and how embracing the role of an investor has deepened our commitment while putting “skin in the game”.

The journey has led recently to the launch of the investment syndicate Generation-Re (https://www.gen-re.land) and the thrill of shared investment. Of course, turning tables and mics, you will find as well Koen’s answer to the 1 billion dollar question.

Cameron Frayling – Forget biodiversity credits (for now). Regen ag farm land funds and regulation are driving the biodiversity sector

7th May 2024 koenvanseijen Ecosystem Services Payments, Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 0 Comments

A check in conversation with Cameron Frayling, CEO of Pivotal Earth, about biodiversity, one of the most important sets of things we should track and measure, and yet it is super difficult and mostly hasn’t been done until now at scale at all. The data is simply not there, so what do we do? With Cameron we check in with one of the leading companies trying to bring technology to this space and make biodiversity measured at scale and cost-effective.

We learn a lot about the current tracking devices and new hardware Cameron would love to see developed, how little most biodiversity experts actually know and not many are able to identify the right insects, etc. What data to trust and how to build trustworthy data, plus the most active customer of the company, not biodiversity credit developers, but regen farm land forestry developers that want to report to their investors about biodiversity gains because the investors are asking for it or regulation is forcing them.