Tag: real estate

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

24th February 2026 antonellatotaro 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

Rasmus Nørgaard – From bricks to soil: rethinking real estate from the ground up

16th September 2025 koenvanseijen Investor Stories, Regenerative Agriculture 0 Comments

We all have a roof over our heads and a bed to sleep in if we’re lucky. And if we’re unlucky- which most of us with homes actually are- we spend a significant portion of our monthly budget on housing. This is only increasing: the size of houses, the cost of rents, and mortgages, especially in highly sought-after cities. As a result, many people are left with less budget for high-quality regenerative food. This situation isn’t sustainable, economically or socially, especially given that the building sector is incredibly wasteful and consumes vast amounts of fossil fuels.

Straight from Copenhagen, a conversation with Rasmus Nørgaard, co-founder of Urban Partners, Home.Earth and Nordhus , with over two decades of experience in real estate, pushing the boundaries of sustainability within conventional systems. With Rasmus we dive deep into the world of real estate. Not “real assets” (although buildings are assets), but the actual built environment: homes, concrete, steel, and hopefully a lot more wood in the future. The built environment is one of the three major sectors that needs a complete systems change, alongside with agrifood and energy.

So, what can we in the regenerative agriculture and food sector learn from one of the pioneers of sustainable real estate? Rasmus is building a much more holistic (dare we say Horizon 3?) for-profit company that is reinventing real estate from the ground up. And he’s convinced: long-term real estate companies like this will prove more profitable, even financially, than those driven by short-term thinking. Yes, we talk a lot about buildings and homes, but there are so many overlaps with agriculture and food. Let’s face it: soil is a real asset in investment terms.
We ought to learn from the best in real estate to bring more aligned capital into the ground fast.
In the end, it’s all about aligning incentives and creating the right structures to build things that last.