Shows
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food377 Rob de Laet - Water is key to cool the planet within 20 yearsA conversation with Rob de Laet, project lead of Cooling the Climate and co-author of the book Cooling the Climate: How to Revive the Biosphere and Cool the Earth Within 20 Years. The science is pretty clear and getting clearer by the day: water cools the planet. The more living, healthy vegetation we have on this planet, predominately perennials and thus trees, agroforestry systems and healthy forests, the cooler the climate is and the less extreme weather events occur. Living plants literally make the Earth sweat and remove heat from the biosphere.Humans have systematically devegetated the planet...2025-08-051h 11
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food376 Sheila Darmos - Why Greece is leading the regenerative agriculture movement and what the world can learnA conversation with Sheila Darmos, co-founder of the Southern Lights, based in the southern Peloponnese, Greece with the mission is to spread knowledge, techniques, and the mindset for regenerative practices across all domains of human activity. Sheila is also a co-founding farmer of the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture (EARA) and serves as an EU Soil Mission Ambassador.A question we get very often is: which place or country is leading the regenerative movement? It’s obviously a very complex question to answer, but after talking to Sheila, our answer might be Greece. Having battled numerous economic an...2025-07-291h 03
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food375 Matt Orlando - From Noma to building the world’s most circular restaurant and disrupting the chocolate industryA conversation with Matt Orlando, chef, entrepreneur, and former head chef at Noma. He is also the founder of Amass, one of the most circular and fully organic restaurants in the world, which closed at the end of 2022. He then focused on a project in Singapore and is now back in Denmark, currently very busy with, among other things, a new restaurant in Copenhagen.What happens when someone who worked as a head chef in one of the best restaurants in the world, Noma, starts going deep—deep—down the rabbit hole of sustainability and responsibility?We...2025-07-221h 55
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food374 Birker, Bösel, Mazzola – The Regenerative Agronomy Gap: who do farmers call?A conversation with farmer Benedikt Bösel, farmer and regen agronomist Matteo Mazzola and Philippe Birker, co-founder of Climate Farmers. We need regenerative agronomists. Because let’s face it — most farmers trust their agronomist, and the chances that their agronomist is trained in regen are pretty small. We’re moving from the first group of super ambitious, entrepreneurial, and slightly rebellious farmers who have made the transition, to a larger group who want to transition but can take less risk and will need support. So, who do they call when they want to start t...2025-07-1548 min
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food373 Anat Shenker-Osorio - Why climate messages don’t land and how to rewrite the regenerative narrativeA conversation with Anat Shenker-Osorio, founder of A.S.O. Communications, a progressive political communication bureau known for slogans such as “Don’t take the temperature, change it” and “A great message doesn’t say what’s already popular; a great message makes popular what needs to be said".We try so hard in the regenerative (and probably any other progressive) space to work on our messaging, how to communicate, how to reach people inside our bubble and beyond. We try to speak to those within the agrochemical and food industry, to make them see how environmentally sound, healt...2025-07-0850 min
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food372 Anand Ethirajalu - Harvesting the clouds: how to transition over 10,000 farmers a year, reducing input costs and increasing profitsA conversation with Anand Ethirajalu, farmer-turned-ecologist and project director for the Save Soil movement.We don’t talk about it much, but we should: a remarkable transition has been unfolding on the Indian subcontinent over the past few decades. Hundreds of thousands- if not millions- of farmers have been trained in regenerative practicesand have successfully made the switch. Yes, with higher yields and greater profits, largely due to significantly lower production costs.In the conversation, we focus on one region where the Save Soil mo...2025-07-011h 22
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food371 Benedikt Boesel - Fully integrating 300 cows into a 1000-hectare arable very sandy farmIt just doesn’t happen very often we record in a field surrounded by cows just after a cow gave birth to a calf. There is not more fitting place to explore the super complex role of animals in the food and agriculture space than walking the landing- and standing amongst the cows- with Benedikt Boesel, founder and farmer at Gut&Bosël, in Alt Madlitz, in Germany. We discuss everything from how much joy animals bring to a farm and how complex it is to treat them well and how they are a direct mirr...2025-06-241h 10
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food370 Thomas Hogenhaven – The €22M regen fund that said no to €7MAfter three years, Thomas Hogenhaven, founder and managing partner of Planetary Impact Ventures, is back on the podcast. Thomas and his team just turned down a $7 million investment in their fund. That’s right—said no to $7 million. And this wasn’t some shady source of capital either. This was a serious, institutional investor, fully compliant with KYC requirements. So… why walk away?More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/thomas-hogenhaven.==========================In Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast show we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agricult...2025-06-171h 12
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food369 Ichsani Wheeler - We need more large animals in our landscapesIchsani 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 eco...2025-06-101h 21
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food368 Béla Hatvany - Born in 1938, now thinking AI, enoughness, precision fermentation and building a care economyA conversation with Béla Hatvany, pioneering entrepreneur in the automation of libraries and the information industry, born in 1938, turned into angel investor and philanthropist, on his journey, what’s enough, the role of AI and EI (empathetic intelligence), and the potential of precision fermentation.Growing up during WWII with bombs literally blowing through his window, Bela's early anger about the state of the world transformed into action after a pivotal moment of self-reflection. This led him to create businesses with what he calls "six bottom lines" - serving employees, investors, suppliers, clients, communities, and Earth in bal...2025-06-0359 min
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food367 Anthony James - Learning from the legends how to become a positive keystone speciesA conversation with Anthony James, host of The RegenNarration podcast, a Prime Ministerial award winner for service to the international community and Honorary Research Fellow at UWA. He has had many legends at his microphone and joins us to share what he’s learned, what he sees, and what he thinks is coming next in regenerative food and agriculture.The pioneers who spent decades developing innovative approaches to land stewardship won't be around forever, but they're actively passing their hard-earned wisdom to a new generation eager to accelerate positive change. Anthony shares how his own journey from bu...2025-05-271h 27
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food366 Austin Unruh - Silvopasture, planting trees on millions of acres of grassland, is the most scalable and profitable regen solutionA conversation with Austin Unruh, founder of Trees for Graziers, about the investment case for silvopasture. What if we could plant hundreds of millions of trees on degraded, low-value pasture land and make money from it? What if we planted trees that are beneficial for livestock—ruminants, pigs, and poultry? The market for meat and animal products is fairly stable (unless we get a massive breakthrough in precision fermentation soon, but that’s hard to predict). Trees can dramatically lower costs and increase production.Austin argues that this is the best entry point to get many more trees into...2025-05-201h 05
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food365 Philip Kauders - From Goldman Sachs to investing hundreds of millions in agroforestry in BrazilA conversation with Philip Kauders, CEO and co-founder of Courageous Land, working on reforesting landscapes via large-scale biodiverse agroforestry. We can invest hundreds of millions into regenerative agroforestry, maybe even billions. No, we don’t need new regulations or new technology (drones that prune, for example— sure, they’ll help, and they’ll come, but they’re not essential). According to Philip the puzzle pieces for making large scale multi strata agroforestry systems are there. The place: Brazil. The land: the former rainforest which is currently bare or maybe grazed a bit, so underperforming financially and ecologi...2025-05-131h 12
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food364 Paul McMahon - Why regen forestry is natural capital’s Trojan horse for institutional investorsA conversation with Paul McMahon, co-founder SLM partners, about forestry being the gateway drug for natural capital for institutional investors to put money to work. Why? Because they are used to investing in forestry — it is a well-established investment sector with very long-time horizons. Rotations here are 30+ years, but it’s also one with many challenges: current practices usually mean cutting down a forest after 30 years and completely replanting it. That basically scars a landscape for life — mostly monocultures.Interestingly, alternatives have been popping up over the last few decades. Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF), where you selectively harves...2025-05-061h 06
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food363 James Arthur Smith - Mercury-free, microplastic-free, and Omega-3 rich: the future of seafoodA check in conversation with James Arthur Smith, founder of Seatopia, about their data-driven focus on nutrient density (plus mercury/microplastics testing) resonates more strongly than abstract “sustainability” marketing strategy and it ultimately driving real ecosystem restoration. We explore how Seatopia defines regenerative aquaculture in a multi- trophic system—integrating finfish alongside shellfish and seaweeds, how they measure and quantify our impact at every step and how they partner with artisan milling companies developing species-appropriate feeds that eliminate fishmeal, soy, corn, and canola oil—pivoting toward insect protein and algae-based oils.More about this episode on https...2025-04-291h 07
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food362 Mike Velings - VC & PE won’t deliver regeneration — €250M evergreen proves itA conversation with Mike Velings, co-founder of Aqua-Spark, a global investment fund for sustainable aquaculture, about how an invite he should have never received lead to the creation of the largest aquaculture fund in history, with over $250 million in assets under management (AUM) and ambitious plans to grow to $2 billion or more. This conversation goes beyond the billion dollar question—it’s already been answered. We explore why focusing on long- term investments is essential for transforming an industry and why current venture capital and private equity fund models might cause more harm than good. How can we b...2025-04-221h 24
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food361 Herb Young - After 36 years at Bayer, growing regen citrus with 8x the nutrientsA 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 m...2025-04-151h 06
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food360 Ethan Soloviev - AI, good food at Davos, food as medicine and regen taking offA check- in conversation with Ethan Soloviev, Chief Innovation Officer at HowGood, about how regenerative agriculture is truly taking off, its position within large food and agriculture companies, and whether we risk watering it down or falling into greenwashing (Spoiler: Surprisingly, we're doing a lot about it!). We also get an update on HowGood—they're doing well and focusing more on nutrient density-, plus, we talk about Regen House, which is revolutionizing the way good food fosters meaningful conversations at major events like COPs, climate summits, and Davos, bringing farmers, indigenous community members, an...2025-04-0856 min
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food359 Louis De Jaeger - Eat More Trees: a Masterclass with thé storyteller of the Regen SpaceA conversation with Louis De Jaeger, international keynote speaker, author, award-winning filmmaker, and landscape designer, about dreams, action, and storytelling—how to reach and touch people. We discuss why storytelling is highly underrated and underfunded, and why he is organizing a festival—not the next Burning Man, but a regeneration festival.He shares his excitement about small water cycle restoration, the biotic pump, and much more. And in the end, it all boils down to one simple message: Eat More Trees.During his 5-year sabbatical that turned into a lifelong mission to rege...2025-04-011h 19
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food358 Laimonas Noreika - From FinTech to Farms: bridging the €60B loan gap for Europe's small farmsA conversation with Laimonas Noreika, founder of HeavyFinance, about providing loans to farmers, bringing innovation to the traditionally stagnant agri-loan sector (some numbers: over €70M loaned to farmers and over 13,000 individual investors have invested through them). The profitability of regenerative agriculture isn't just a theory—it's backed by hard data from hundreds of thousands of hectares across Eastern Europe. According to Laimonas, the financial case for regenerative farming methods is compelling, showing roughly 20% higher profits compared to conventional approaches, even without factoring in potential carbon credit revenue.Traditional banking institutions have created a €60 billion annual financi...2025-03-2552 min
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food357 Kiira Heymann - From Non-GMO to Non-ultra-processed: everyone has the right to know what’s in their foodA conversation with Kiira Heymann, Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Non-GMO Project and the Food Integrity Collective. After the success of the Non-GMO Project in the U.S., which is now featured on almost 63,000 products, the team is launching the Non-Ultra-Processed Food verification. In this conversation, we discuss why—why introduce another label? And why is it so important for the food sector to focus on increasing consumers' capacity to demand more from their food system, rather than just adding another label?This isn't just another label—it's a carefully considered intervention designed to reconnect people with...2025-03-1844 min
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food356 Dimitri Tsitos - Making regenerative intensive tree crops profitableA deep dive into the world of intensive—or super-intensive—tree crops, particularly olives and almonds with Dimitri Tsitos, co-founder of Agrosystemic, the Regenerative Agroforestry Podcast, the Arbo-Innova project and Mazi Farm. In Portugal, the sector is booming—highly profitable yet highly destructive—due to its high- input, high-output nature, with heavy reliance on fertilizers and chemicals.This raises the question: can there be another way? That's exactly what Dimitri and his team have been researching over the past few years—on real farms, running large-scale regenerative plots alongside conventional ones. The bad news? It's not easy. It demands...2025-03-111h 28
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food355 Tom Hengl - We should reward the stewards of the land like we celebrate Olympic championsA long-overdue check-in conversation with Tom Hengl, director at OpenGeoHub, one of the leading scientists in earth observation and remote sensing—one of the most cited in his field, belonging to the top 0.1% (based on Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers). We discuss the significant changes in the world of remote sensing, satellites, and the hype surrounding AI, machine learning, and large language models over the past three years. While the hype has brought some interesting advancements, it also distracts people from the real work that needs to be done.We delve into the AI4SoilHealth European pr...2025-03-041h 02
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food354 Dan Barber - AI-Powered natural breeding: The End of GMOs, Gene Editing, and CRISPR?An overdue check-in conversation with Dan Barber, chef, co-owner of Blue Hill restaurants and co-founder of Row 7 Seeds, where we dive into the fascinating world of seeds and how breeding is evolving with the explosion of AI and other technologies. No, we don’t need GMOs, CRISPR, or other risky blunt instruments. We discuss the implosion of the fake meat hype, which was at its peak when we last spoke four years ago, why insane umami flavor and potentially self-nitrogen-fixing tomatoes are revolutionary. This is a deep conversation about bread and wheat—and why breeding wheat specifically for whole meal...2025-02-251h 05
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food353 Sébastien Crépieux - Insects, the perfect livestock to reintegrate into an arable farmA conversation with Sébastien Crépieux, founder of Invers, developing a decentralised insect farming supply chain for animal nutrition, placing farmers at the heart of the model. The role of animals and livestock in farming is something we cover frequently, but we’ve never discussed insects which can transform immense amounts of agricultural waste—such as leftovers from beer brewing or wheat milling—into high-quality protein and fats. Perhaps most importantly, their frass (manure) is an amazing fertilizer. Of course, humans could consume insect protein directly, but in the Global North, th...2025-02-181h 06
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food352 Matt Schmitt - How to make regenerative food and agriculture bankableA conversation with Matt Schmitt, founder of Structure Climate, about how to get institutional investors invest in the regenerative food and agriculture transitions. These are big terms we use regularly, but what do they actually mean and, more importantly, how do we get there? How do we get novel climate technologies- like biochar machinery, chestnut agroforestry systems, biofertilizer plants, or weeding robots- bankable? Novel technologies often start as luxury goods with a clear customer demand, even if they don’t yet have many existing transactions, just very clear customer interest. How do we make these technologies investable, or at...2025-02-111h 06
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food351 Paul Clarke - Smart Machines, AI and Modeling: engineering our way outA conversation with Paul Clarke, technologist, innovator, inventor about technology and innovative tools from various domains, including modelling, digital twins, digital shadows, robots, and other smart hardware solutions that are crucial for the regenerative transition—tools we’ve barely begun to consider, let alone adopt.We often hear about AI, machine learning, and large language models, but these represent only a fraction of what is currently available. Paul argues that the challenges we face are so immense that we cannot afford to ignore the potential of these technologies. They are essential for building better farms, advancing farm tech...2025-02-0458 min
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food350 Alice Henry - Finally real money for cover crops from sustainable aviation fuelCrops and sustainable aviation fuel—probably not something you think about every day. Alice Henry, co-founder of Regenrate, took a deep dive into why cover crops, which provide amazing benefits to farmers and farmland, are not more widely used. No big surprise—it’s about the money. Planting cover crops costs money, and the business model of carbon credits isn’t enough to nudge farmers.Enter the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) market, where there is both money and massive demand due to changing European and global regulations. That means working with big oil majors and helping...2025-01-3157 min
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food349 Joseph Rehmann - Climate-positive fish is possible and its eggs are delivered by dronesA conversation with Joseph Rehmann, co-founder of Victory Farms in Kenya, with the mission to be the world's most sustainable fish business and provide high nutrition protein to the mass market in Africa. How do you go from being a happy but unfulfilled banker to co-founding one of the leading and largest animal protein companies in East Africa?We unpack Joseph's journey into fish farming—specifically tilapia, a species indigenous to the region- and how he and his company are proving that it can have a net positive impact on the environment, people, and finances. Of course, Vi...2025-01-281h 20
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food348 Angus McIntosh - Walking the talk on Farmer Angus' land in South AfricaAn afternoon stroll through the land of Angus McIntosh, also known as Farmer Angus, where we talk about brands, wine and get interrupted by dogs and, believe it or not, a grazing tortoise. From his South African farm, Angus guides us through his groundbreaking practices, producing everything from grass-fed beef to carbon-negative wine. With every product, he redefines conscious consumption, making a compelling case for how our food choices can drive positive environmental change.In a landscape where consumer demand for sustainability is rising, the potential for transformation in South African agriculture is immense. Beyond agriculture, we t...2025-01-2136 min
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food347 Marcelo Salazar and Zé Porto – A forest super shake to preserve and regenerate the Amazon, the world's largest agroforestry systemA conversation with Marcelo Salazar & Zé Porto, co-founders of Mazô Maná, about how we preserve what is left of the Amazon rainforest, regenerate the forest and, most importantly, truly partner with the Indigenous peoples of the forest who have been stewarding this ecosystem for generations. Yes, the Amazon is a vast, managed agroforestry system. Marcelo e Zé, after decades of working with NGOs deep in the Amazon and building careers with corporate tech giants like Google, decided to create a superfood shake made purely from nutrient-dense ingredients—up to 14— directly sourced from the forest, avoiding monoculture. Indigenous peoples partly own the...2025-01-141h 17
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food346 Antonio Nobre - Why would one of the world’s leading earth scientists invest in nature-based unicorns?In the second episode of the two-part conversation with Antonio Nobre, Brazilian agronomist by training and world’s leading Earth scientist, serving as the scientific director of the Biotic Pump Greening Group, we explore how he would invest $1 billion—and yes, it involves nature unicorns. We’ll dive deep into water cycles, the biotic pump, and why combining biotic pump knowledge with syntropic agroforestry is a match made in heaven. There’s so much more in this episode, including the latest advancements in genome research and how we can harmonize technological progress with ecological preservation.---------------------------------------------------Join o...2025-01-071h 09