What if the best argument for regenerative agriculture isn’t the planet, but the profit? Francisco Roque de Pinho didn’t set out to become a regenerative farmer. He came from capital markets, carbon trading, and strategic consulting — and stumbled into farmland management almost by accident, when distressed clients needed someone to turn around underperforming farms in Uruguay.

Francisco co-founded The Land Group in January 2016 alongside his business partner Joaquin. Today they operate 20,000 hectares across seven farms in Uruguay — and are now expanding into Iberia, drawn by the neglected potential of Portugal’s ancient Montado landscape. But what makes their approach distinctive isn’t the land. It’s the language.

They don’t pitch regenerative agriculture to investors. They pitch precision grazing, higher yields, lower costs, and better asset values. And it works. In this conversation recorded in Lisbon, Francisco explains why the sector may be its own worst enemy, what the real financial returns look like, and how he’d deploy a billion euros if given the chance.