Tag: animals

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

28th October 2025 koenvanseijen Animals' Role, Regenerative Agriculture, Role of Animals 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!).

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

9th September 2025 koenvanseijen Animals' Role, Farmers First Tech, Ownership, Regenerative Agriculture, Role of Animals 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.

Ichsani Wheeler – We need more large animals in our landscapes

10th June 2025 koenvanseijen Animals' Role, Nutrients to Soil, Regenerative Agriculture, Role of Animals 0 Comments

Ichsani Wheeler, co-founder of OpenGeoHub and Envirometrix, challenges dominant assumptions in land use and agricultural design, making the case for more large animals in our landscapes—not fewer. She explains why understanding the maximum ecological carrying capacity of agro-ecological systems is essential for restoring function, productivity, and resilience in both natural and farmed environments. Wheeler advocates for granular, place-based research to better inform ecological planning, arguing that broad generalizations fall short when it comes to the complex realities of nutrient cycling and biomass distribution. Megafauna plays a critical role in ecosystems as mobile nutrient cyclers, their absence leads often to stagnation and imbalance.

Chris Bloomfield and Daniel Reisman – We need animals outside to feed the planet sustainably

22nd March 2024 koenvanseijen Farmers First Tech, Nutrient Dense Food, Nutrients to Soil, Regenerative Agriculture, Role of Animals 0 Comments

A conversation with Chris Bloomfield and Daniel Reisman, co-founders of Collie, a provider of virtual cow guidance system for managing production in grazing, about enabling regenerative dairy, how virtually fencing and cow guidance drastically reduce labour and boost production. To feed ourselves and the planet sustainably, we need to include animals as part of agriculture. We dive deep into going from vegan to grazing, animal welfare, and the state of our planet. How do we enable more farmers to hold complexity on their farms? How do we use technology to enable complexity instead of using technology to make everything mono, as we have done in the last 50 years?

Peter Byck – Roots So Deep (you can see the devil down there)

16th May 2023 koenvanseijen Farmers First Tech, Nutrient Dense Food, Regenerative Agriculture, Short Food Webs 1 Comment

A conversation with Peter Byck, filmmaker and a wrangler of scientists, about regenerative vs conventional grazing and his new 4 part documentary series Roots So Deep (you can see the devil down there).

Fred Provenza – What should we learn from domesticated animals when it comes to food as medicine

15th November 2022 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Nutrient Dense Food, Nutrient Density in Food, Regenerative Agriculture 2 Comments

A conversation with Fred Provenza, professor emeritus of Behavioural Ecology in the Department of Wildland Resources at Utah State University, about domesticated animals, their ability to self-select medicine and food and figure out what they need in terms of energy, vitamins and phytonutrients. We also discuss what they can teach us about rediscovering our nutritional wisdom.

Matt Chatfield – I’m too lazy to farm against nature

18th October 2022 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Ecosystem Services Payments, Nutrients to Soil, Regenerative Agriculture, Role of Animals, Short Food Webs 3 Comments

A conversation with Matt Chatfield, the founder of Cornwall Project, to talk about the crucial impact of ruminants on land, how to build a successful business by farming with nature, and how to create a guaranteed market.

Mariko Thorbecke – Let’s focus on making agriculture fossil fuel free

26th July 2022 koenvanseijen Ecosystem Services Payments, Nutrients to Soil, Regenerative Agriculture, Role of Animals 0 Comments

Mariko Thorbecke, expert in Life Cycle Assessment, independent consultant bridging between corporate climate, net-zero commitments and regenerative agriculture, joins us to talk about the importance of fossil-free farming, the greenhouse gases presented into a single metric of CO2 equivalents and much more.

Jonathan Lundgren on why all agriculture scientists should become farmers first

14th June 2022 koenvanseijen Farmers First Tech, Nutrient Dense Food, Regenerative Agriculture 3 Comments

A check in conversation with Jonathan Lundgren, founder of Blue Dasher Farms and the Ecdysis Foundation, who talk about the 1000 Farm Initiative, the real innovation on regen production in the United Sates and beyond, and his scientific approach to regen farming practises.

Charles Eisenstein – Money or ecology: investors have to make a choice on which master they serve

31st May 2022 koenvanseijen Beyond Food, Diet Change, Farmers First Tech, Nutrient Dense Food, Ownership, Regenerative Agriculture, Role of Animals, Short Food Webs, Transition finance 3 Comments

A conversation with Charles Eisenstein, writer of Sacred Economics and Climate: A new story, about his fascination for soil and regenerative agriculture, his advice to investors as well as the role of animals in regeneration, his thoughts on our fascination for quick technology fixes, vertical farms and clean lab-grown meat.