Tag: oranges

Herb Young – After 36 years at Bayer, growing regen citrus with 8x the nutrients

15th April 2025 koenvanseijen Diet Change, Nutrient Dense Food, Regenerative Agriculture, Short Food Webs 0 Comments

A conversation with Herb Young, farmer who, after 36 years in the chemical industry working for Bayer, retired and bought a small farm in Georgia—where things quickly got out of hand. While researching organic premiums, Herb came across regenerative agriculture—and fell deep, very deep, down the rabbit hole. For over a year, he read everything, listened to everything, and then planted his first trees.

A few years later, Herb is now one of the leading regenerative citrus growers in the country, conducting cutting-edge research while selling his first harvest directly to consumers in over 36 states. And the most surprising part? His citrus is, on average, eight times more nutrient- dense than conventionally grown oranges. That means you’d have to eat eight regular oranges to match the nutrients of just one of his. Suddenly, the idea of food as medicine becomes very affordable. And, of course, his citrus is incredibly tasty.

We also discuss his history in the agrochemical industry, what his former colleagues think of his new “hobby” and what excites him most about the upcoming second season.

Sonja Stuchtey – Have billions flow into regeneration by having accountants agreeing that it is an investment, not a cost

9th April 2024 koenvanseijen Regenerative Agriculture, Transition finance 0 Comments

A conversation with Sonja Stuchtey, co-founder of The Landbanking Group, about innovative financial strategies, accountancy standards and rules, reliable sourcing, better quality and lower prices, investing in the value chain and more.

Let’s say you are an orange juice or chocolate bar producer: your margins are under pressure because the costs of buying raw ingredients have exploded the last few years. What do you do? In any other business you would likely invest in your supply to secure reliable sourcing, better quality and potentially lower prices. Why haven’t we done that in regen (with some exceptions of fully vertically integrated brands)? Now it seems possible for companies to invest in their value chain so to allow orange farmers to make regen changes in the practises to future proof them. 

How? Crucially it comes back to treat it as a long term investment and not as a short term cost which will hurt you margins and, thus, annoy your shareholders. Treating investments (which btw we need billions) in regen as an investment and not a cost sounds so trivial and simple, but it takes a whole lot of technology to measure, report and a lot of talks with the big four accountancy firms to get this done.

Osvaldo de Falco, connecting Italian organic fruit farmers directly to consumers

8th December 2017 koenvanseijen Ecosystem Services Payments, Regenerative Agriculture, Short Food Webs 1 Comment

How do we pay a fair price to our farmers? If not they can’t take care of our land. An interview with Osvaldo de Falco, co-founder of Biorfarm, a platform which connects Italian organic fruit farmers directly to the end customers, while paying the farmers a fair price.