April 22, 2024

Harvesting Harmony: The Synergy of Regenerative Farming, Landscape Architecture, and Earth's Nutrient Wealth with Matthieu Mehuys

Harvesting Harmony: The Synergy of Regenerative Farming, Landscape Architecture, and Earth's Nutrient Wealth with Matthieu Mehuys
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Matthieu is the co-founder Paulownia Landscape Architects. Their mission is to create sustainable and ecological outdoor spaces where people and nature are in harmony. He has a Masters of Engineering in Landscape Architecture and has a goal to make our world a greener, healthier place.

Embark on a transformative journey with landscape architect and agricultural innovator Matthieu Mehuys as he shares the fertile secrets of soil health, regenerative farming, and the fusion of beauty and sustainability in landscape design. Discover how traditional agricultural practices pale in comparison to the productivity and ecological harmony of nature-aligned techniques. Our conversation peels back the layers of environmental impact, diving into contentious studies and emerging technologies that could change the way we view our food's nutrient density.

Matthieu's personal evolution from a farming enthusiast to a visionary in landscape architecture unfurls before us, colored by his global explorations and the political complexities facing European farmers. His brother's success story illustrates the economic viability of regenerative methods against the backdrop of bureaucratic pressures. We're not just talking about farming here; this is an insightful narrative on creating spaces where aesthetics meet ecological responsibility—a dual triumph in design and stewardship.

We consider the health implications of crops' nutrient density and the architectural challenges in warmer climates. Urban farming takes center stage with examples of its power to transform rooftops and small plots into productive, life-sustaining oases. Matthieu's "Farms of Eden" masterclass emerges as a guiding light for those ready to cultivate a deeper connection to the earth, signifying a movement toward sustainability that nourishes both our bodies and the planet. 

Connect with Matthieu:
Website: https://www.paulownia-la.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthieu-mehuys-64b0b5111/
Business Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulownia_la/reels/
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matthieumehuys/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matthieu.mehuys
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valley.of.eden3

12 Universal Laws of Nature: How To Use Your Land To It's Full Potential
Pre-Order His Book: https://www.12lawsofnature.com/

Stay Connected with Parker Condit:

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DISCLAIMER This podcast is for general information only. It is not intended as a substitute for general healthcare services does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. If you have medical conditions you need to see your doctor or healthcare provider. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction

02:30 - Individual Farms vs Factory Farming

09:50 - Journey From Farming to Landscape Architecture

16:08 - History of Agricultural Subsidies and Consequences

22:53 - Regenerative Farming and Soil Health

35:30 - Regenerative Farming and Carbon Capture

47:51 - Nutrient Density in Modern Agriculture

56:12 - Urban Farming and Sustainable Landscaping

01:04:30 - The Power of Gardening and Farming

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:00.059 --> 00:00:03.088
Hi everyone, welcome to Exploring Health Macro to Micro.

00:00:03.088 --> 00:00:04.711
I'm your host, parker Condit.

00:00:04.711 --> 00:00:12.794
In the show, I interview health and wellness experts around topics like sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress management, mental health and much more.

00:00:12.794 --> 00:00:22.135
So by the end of each episode you'll have concrete, tangible advice that you can start implementing today to start living a healthier life, either for yourself or for your loved ones.

00:00:22.135 --> 00:00:23.946
And that's the microside of the show.

00:00:24.579 --> 00:00:29.865
The macro side of the show is discussing larger, systemic issues that are contributing to health outcomes.

00:00:29.865 --> 00:00:38.976
An example of that is understanding how our food is grown can have a profound impact on the quality of that food, the soil and the environment at large.

00:00:38.976 --> 00:00:42.009
My guest today discussing that is Matthieu Mehuys.

00:00:42.009 --> 00:00:45.789
Matthieu is the co-founder of Polonia Landscape Architects.

00:00:45.789 --> 00:00:51.773
Their mission is to create sustainable and ecological outdoor spaces where people and nature are in harmony.

00:00:51.773 --> 00:00:58.374
He has a master's of engineering and landscape architecture and has a goal to make our world a greener, healthier place.

00:00:59.142 --> 00:01:04.939
We talk a lot about soil in this episode, which is something I never thought I would base a whole episode around, but here we are.

00:01:04.939 --> 00:01:15.120
But I do think from a foundational standpoint, it's really important to understand that the quality of your food is going to be determined largely by the quality of the soil where that food is grown.

00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:30.599
So if you eat food and I'm assuming that most of you listening do eat food and you care about your health then understanding soil is actually a really important aspect of that, and I get that this is probably a topic that not a lot of people are actively pursuing, but I think it's very important nonetheless.

00:01:30.599 --> 00:01:38.120
So I think this episode can act as a way to get a bit of a more well-rounded understanding of the agricultural ecosystem as a whole.

00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:43.831
So in the show we end up discussing soil and how it influences the quality of our food.

00:01:43.831 --> 00:01:47.560
We talk about regenerative farming and clear examples of how it outpaces traditional farming.

00:01:49.564 --> 00:01:53.760
We go into Matthieu's upbringing and how he was raised in a farming family and how that's helped shape his worldview.

00:01:53.760 --> 00:02:00.540
He introduced me to the idea of harvesting sunlight, which was a very helpful term for me to understand carbon capture.

00:02:00.540 --> 00:02:08.795
And then, finally, we talk about how the future of business is going to be working more in line with the harmony in nature which is a common theme throughout this episode.

00:02:08.795 --> 00:02:22.199
And then, finally, I want to mention that Matthiue is the author of the recently published book 12 Universal Laws of Nature how to Use your Land to its Full Potential, which expands on many of the topics that we discuss here today.

00:02:24.383 --> 00:02:28.175
So, without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Mattiue Mehuys.

00:02:28.175 --> 00:02:33.000
Matthieu, thanks so much for being here.

00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:57.360
We're going to be talking a lot about sustainability, landscape design, architecture, green spaces, but I do want to start with this recent study that just came out of the University of Michigan, approximately saying that growing having like an at-home garden has five to six times the carbon footprint of traditional farming per unit of fruit or vegetable.

00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:03.758
I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on this, just to see where what the tone of this conversation is going to be.

00:03:03.778 --> 00:03:07.479
Yeah, definitely, but first of all, parker thank you very much for having me on the show.

00:03:07.479 --> 00:03:14.360
It's an honor here to talk about what you do and what we can bring together into the world.

00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:25.039
Now I think this study I would want to read the details of it, but I think I cannot believe that is nowhere near the end.

00:03:25.039 --> 00:03:28.150
I cannot believe that is nowhere near the truth.

00:03:28.150 --> 00:03:34.073
Obviously it's just a statement that you cannot prove right.

00:03:34.073 --> 00:03:42.875
Like, how do they even measure saying that people at home have a higher carbon footprint than food that is growing somewhere else?

00:03:42.875 --> 00:04:06.735
Like there's ways that if you grow food at home, on your own, in your own garden, and you do it in a certain way, which we can discuss more about it that you're actually going to be carbon negative Because, as it turns out, how plants work is that you probably heard of photosynthesis, but plants will take carbon from the atmosphere and put it into the soil.

00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:19.120
Now, obviously, if you have a home garden and you use all kinds of pesticides and you spray everything at home, yeah, then this garden is definitely going to be a carbon like, it's going to pollute the atmosphere.

00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:20.959
That's 100% clear.

00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:33.279
But if you do it the right way, which isn't harmony with nature, you're actually going to be storing carbon into the soil, so I think this research is very, very, very dangerous, honestly.

00:04:33.279 --> 00:04:36.040
Yeah, so I did look into it a little bit.

00:04:36.639 --> 00:04:47.120
A big part of what the researchers were saying was it was the infrastructure of setting up the home garden, like all the tools you need to buy the sheds or the raised beds or whatever it's going to be.

00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:51.980
So it's the actual physical infrastructure that was the biggest sort of carbon hurdle.

00:04:51.980 --> 00:05:06.555
I also don't know if this was like a longitudinal study where they're checking the carbon footprint after five years of having a home garden set up versus the initial set up and the first yield of fruit.

00:05:06.555 --> 00:05:15.358
The other thing the study did not mention was food miles involved, and I think that's something you were sort of alluding to.

00:05:15.358 --> 00:05:19.451
The average distance your food travels is 1,700 miles.

00:05:19.451 --> 00:05:29.535
So you know again, I'm not like a carbon expert, but there's got to be some benefit to getting the fruits and vegetables from your backyard versus half the distance of the country away.

00:05:29.980 --> 00:05:32.668
Yeah, that's definitely one big part of the Well.

00:05:32.668 --> 00:05:37.040
It's actually not that much of a part of the equation.

00:05:37.040 --> 00:05:47.692
Well, if you look objectively, it kind of makes sense that transportation would be the biggest hurdle in terms of carbon emissions.

00:05:47.692 --> 00:05:50.355
But it's not actually the biggest issue.

00:05:50.355 --> 00:05:53.829
In fact it's the way that the farmland is being used.

00:05:53.829 --> 00:06:05.028
It's the way that chemicals are used into the soil and they are actually depleting the soil and this sets out huge amounts of carbon dioxide.

00:06:05.028 --> 00:06:10.879
And in this whole carbon balance, transportation is only a minor thing.

00:06:11.100 --> 00:06:22.230
Obviously it's good to reduce the food miles, but it's not that much of a huge impact and in fact sometimes it gets a bit complicated.

00:06:22.230 --> 00:06:30.492
But in some cases it will even be better to and this is linked to the food patterns of how we all eat.

00:06:30.492 --> 00:06:40.355
Like, if you want to eat an apple in your early summer, then it will be more sustainable.

00:06:40.355 --> 00:06:47.894
So the carbon footprint will be lower if that apple comes from the other side of the world than if you would eat it locally.

00:06:47.894 --> 00:07:04.869
Because if you have to eat it locally, it will be harvested nine months earlier and it will be in a cooler, that is, in a controlled environment, for nine years, and that will actually have a way bigger footprint.

00:07:04.869 --> 00:07:14.141
So it's kind of like it gets quite complicated to say, okay, this practice is bad and this is good and that's what.

00:07:14.322 --> 00:07:16.084
In all of the things that I talk about.

00:07:16.084 --> 00:07:18.670
It's not so much about what we are doing.

00:07:18.670 --> 00:07:20.072
That is the problem.

00:07:20.072 --> 00:07:27.660
Like you can say, home gardens are bad, or cows are bad for the environment, or you think soybeans are bad for the environment.

00:07:27.660 --> 00:07:37.115
Everybody comes up with some sort of issue and they might be true in a way, but it's not really about what it is.

00:07:37.115 --> 00:07:38.903
It's about how it is produced.

00:07:38.903 --> 00:07:44.673
This is the key issue that nobody, or very little people, are talking about.

00:07:44.673 --> 00:07:49.029
Like we're all talking about oh, you should be vegan or you should only eat meat.

00:07:49.029 --> 00:07:53.761
The world is going crazy in terms of what is healthy food, like.

00:07:53.761 --> 00:08:01.189
If you go into that rabbit hole, it's endless, right, but I believe that it doesn't actually matter.

00:08:01.189 --> 00:08:06.692
It's really about how the food is produced, how the cow has lived, how that soybean has been grown.

00:08:06.692 --> 00:08:14.192
That is where the huge impact on our planet is, or can be seen.

00:08:14.192 --> 00:08:15.434
Does that make sense?

00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:26.932
It definitely makes sense and that's why I appreciate the opportunity to interview people like you and also have this long-form format where we can spend a lot of time kind of digging into the nuance.

00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:35.279
Because the apple example you gave, for example, I understood that eating seasonally it's just going to be sort of better and it makes more sense.

00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:38.048
I didn't know that apples would be stored for nine months.

00:08:38.048 --> 00:08:40.427
I'm sure a lot of people didn't know that.

00:08:40.427 --> 00:08:50.465
I also, in my mind, in my very limited view of how carbon footprints and carbon emissions work, I didn't know that it would be.

00:08:50.465 --> 00:08:57.171
But it makes sense that it would be sort of flexible based on the thing that you're measuring against and the time of the year for seasonality.

00:08:57.171 --> 00:09:03.363
So it's super layered but hopefully we can try to unpack that a little bit as we go through this conversation.

00:09:03.363 --> 00:09:08.863
But we're definitely going to get to sort of best farming practices and gardening practices.

00:09:08.863 --> 00:09:19.340
But I do want to start a little bit with your background, understanding how sort of growing up in like a farming family has influenced your career path and sort of your worldview.

00:09:20.322 --> 00:09:21.302
Yeah, I love that question.

00:09:21.302 --> 00:09:27.835
Thank you for asking that and it's I have to go back way in time.

00:09:27.835 --> 00:09:32.508
Like you said you mentioned already, I grew up on a family farm.

00:09:32.508 --> 00:09:35.445
My father is a farmer, my brother is a farmer.

00:09:35.445 --> 00:09:38.735
My brother is doing some amazing work.

00:09:38.735 --> 00:09:48.081
We can talk about that more about regenerative farming, but I grew up on this farm and about it must be at a very, very early stage.

00:09:48.081 --> 00:09:50.486
I think it was between three and five years old.

00:09:50.988 --> 00:10:05.616
When I was between three and five years old, I just got intrigued by what my father was doing on the farm, the fact that he would put seeds in the on the land and that it would grow into a crop and then it would be harvested.

00:10:05.616 --> 00:10:11.993
And like it's one of my earliest memories of being on this planet and that just completely blew my mind.

00:10:11.993 --> 00:10:21.706
I still remember the, that I started to realize how crazy it, how magical it is that if we take a seed, you put it in the soil, it can grow into a plant.

00:10:21.706 --> 00:10:24.772
It can even grow it in a majestic oak tree.

00:10:24.772 --> 00:10:27.124
Like how the hell is this possible?

00:10:27.124 --> 00:10:34.162
And from that fascination I said to myself oh, I want to grow my own food.

00:10:34.162 --> 00:10:41.410
I want to start my own vegetable garden, and at that time what I did was I started out with radishes.

00:10:41.410 --> 00:10:47.201
I don't know why I started with radishes, I just maybe my grandfather gave it to me.

00:10:47.201 --> 00:10:50.187
But this is something for your listeners as well.

00:10:50.187 --> 00:10:55.407
If somebody wants to grow vegetables at home, radishes are the easiest vegetables to grow at home.

00:10:55.407 --> 00:10:58.113
You just seed it, it pops up, you get it.

00:10:58.113 --> 00:11:01.770
Couple weeks later you have radishes to harvest.

00:11:02.312 --> 00:11:09.230
So my, as a kid, my first garden endeavor was okay, I'm going to put some radishes in.

00:11:09.230 --> 00:11:13.802
So I did that, and what happened was I had a huge success.

00:11:13.802 --> 00:11:15.788
I was able to grow my own radishes.

00:11:15.788 --> 00:11:20.885
And then I was like, ah, I found it, now I can grow any kind of vegetables.

00:11:20.885 --> 00:11:25.581
And I thought, okay, if I can grow radishes, I can grow tomatoes, everything.

00:11:25.581 --> 00:11:32.225
So I bought tons of seeds, I had my own little garden, I prepared the soil and I started seeding everything everywhere.

00:11:32.225 --> 00:11:42.292
And then I thought, okay, this is so easy, I'm just going to come back a couple weeks later and it'll be full of vegetables and I can eat it and share it with my family.

00:11:42.879 --> 00:11:50.360
Well, I guess, parker, you know what happened next, right, I came back like I was with my cousin as well.

00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:58.885
I think I was maybe away for a couple weeks, visiting my cousin or something, and I thought, oh, I'll come back and it will be full of vegetables.

00:11:58.885 --> 00:12:09.448
Now, of course, the whole garden was overgrown with weeds, because we had also put in some compost and some other things to make things grow better, and it was just full of weeds.

00:12:09.448 --> 00:12:10.812
So I was devastated.

00:12:10.812 --> 00:12:13.282
I was like what, how is this possible?

00:12:13.282 --> 00:12:15.769
It's just like it doesn't make sense to me.

00:12:15.769 --> 00:12:25.134
I was really devastated and from that day onwards I actually said I tried to understand how nature works.

00:12:25.897 --> 00:12:27.923
And this has governed me actually throughout my life.

00:12:27.923 --> 00:12:36.402
Because later on, after studying modern languages and economics, I said I want to learn something practical.

00:12:36.402 --> 00:12:44.798
I'm going to study landscape architecture because I really want to understand more about how nature works and how we can actually play with it.

00:12:44.798 --> 00:12:51.732
So from that study I did a bachelor's and a master's degrees and I then went.

00:12:51.732 --> 00:12:59.139
Well, I did my master's in Germany and Munich, because the Germans, they are very good at doing things properly.

00:12:59.139 --> 00:13:01.875
So I said, okay, I'm going to go and study in Germany.

00:13:01.875 --> 00:13:04.160
And then I Very good process.

00:13:04.710 --> 00:13:05.774
Yeah, exactly.

00:13:05.774 --> 00:13:10.982
So I had my master's degrees and then I applied for a job, thinking like this is it?

00:13:10.982 --> 00:13:12.636
I'm going to get my nine to five job.

00:13:12.636 --> 00:13:14.296
It's going to be amazing.

00:13:15.230 --> 00:13:21.062
Well, I got a job and a couple of months down being in that job, I kind of get depressed.

00:13:21.062 --> 00:13:25.696
Being part of the nine to five work, I said like this is really not for me.

00:13:25.696 --> 00:13:32.042
And, yeah, I kind of became depressed, I would say, but I kept doing it because I learned a lot.

00:13:32.042 --> 00:13:38.942
Like I don't regret doing that, because I learned a lot from the process of how people in Germany think and work.

00:13:38.942 --> 00:13:41.738
It's really interesting to have that experience.

00:13:41.738 --> 00:13:44.735
But then, after three years, I said this is really enough.

00:13:45.317 --> 00:13:57.173
I quit my job, I packed my backpack and I said I'm going to go out into the world and travel and see where there are equal resorts, where farms are doing something different, different that is good for our planet.

00:13:57.173 --> 00:14:02.200
Because obviously I became aware like, okay, we have to do something about our climate here.

00:14:02.200 --> 00:14:06.217
This is, this is really something that we have to take control of.

00:14:06.217 --> 00:14:23.441
And from that I visited lots of farms, I did lots of trainings, I kept on learning and learning and then I came back to well, there were some other countries in between, but I came back to Belgium and started my own company.

00:14:23.441 --> 00:14:34.716
My own company is called Paolonia Landscape Architects, so in that company we really look into garden design in a way that is aesthetic but it is also good for our environment.

00:14:34.716 --> 00:14:39.779
So we bring those two aspects together and we bring that in harmony.

00:14:41.831 --> 00:15:21.472
And now, more recently, because I've also had a lot of experience with helping my brother on the farm how to transition to more regenerative farm and we can talk about that more in depth I now also consult other farmers globally to make the transition and to take back control of their own farm, because whatever is happening in the environmental area, that things are not working, it's affecting the farmers today and it's kind of mixed with the politics as well, and I see so many farmers are hurting because, well, they're kind of a boxing ball of politics, especially here in Europe.

00:15:21.472 --> 00:15:24.520
You've probably seen the old of the farmers being out there.

00:15:24.520 --> 00:15:36.414
Well, I'll tell you this, my brother is one of the few farmers who isn't out there because he decided to change in a certain direction that's more in harmony with nature and he's way more profitable today.

00:15:36.414 --> 00:15:42.863
So he doesn't have to go out on the streets and protest because he has made the shift already and I want to help.

00:15:42.863 --> 00:15:49.503
Well, I now dedicated my life to helping farmers and gardeners and landowners to make that transition.

00:15:50.293 --> 00:15:51.135
Yeah, it's a great point.

00:15:51.135 --> 00:15:54.023
So there's a lot we're going to want to get into.

00:15:54.023 --> 00:16:08.037
But just because we're kind of on it now talking about the farmers, are they sort of striking and protesting Because at least in the US I know a lot of farming, at least a lot of crops, are subsidized, because running a farmer is just generally not profitable?

00:16:08.037 --> 00:16:16.038
Is it the same thing, like there's subsidies have been changed or the reimbursement, something like that, where they're just not happy with what the government assistance is at this point?

00:16:16.932 --> 00:16:18.774
Yeah, exactly that's the reason why.

00:16:18.774 --> 00:16:28.277
So I'll tell you what in the European Union, 90% of the budget that's being spent from the European Union is spent in agriculture.

00:16:28.277 --> 00:16:41.360
So, all of well, we obviously have also national tax paying, but the part that we pay to the European Union as for taxes, 90% is spent on agriculture.

00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:42.202
And the reason why?

00:16:42.202 --> 00:16:45.278
Well, we have to go a little bit back in history again.

00:16:45.278 --> 00:16:52.312
But after the world wars there were some big famines, like in Ireland.

00:16:52.312 --> 00:16:53.296
There was a huge famine.

00:16:53.296 --> 00:16:56.794
Europe was under a lot of stress.

00:16:56.794 --> 00:17:01.921
Food was not readily available, especially all of the diversity that we have today.

00:17:01.921 --> 00:17:03.052
It wasn't there.

00:17:03.052 --> 00:17:08.941
So it kind of started from that idea okay, we never want to have hunger again in Europe.

00:17:08.941 --> 00:17:29.781
So they started to push forward an agenda that is really focused on having huge quantities of food and super industrialized and super specialized, that we would never have to experience being in famine, which is kind of a logical thinking, and it made sense.

00:17:29.781 --> 00:18:03.299
And then, a couple years later, we had the 60s, where or the late 50s, 60s where we have what they call the Green Revolution, where agriculture extremely changed in a very short time, at a very, very short time, where all the chemical pesticides got introduced, where all the chemical fertilizers, all the things that in fact increased the yields of farms, and at first it looked like an amazing thing, right, farmers were making more money, they were earning more, the yields increased.

00:18:03.299 --> 00:18:06.578
It was like a magic thing that they found out about.

00:18:06.578 --> 00:18:08.736
So this became so big that.

00:18:08.736 --> 00:18:16.200
But one important thing that we forget in this whole process, or that was forgotten in that process, is that we were depleting the soil.

00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:25.117
With each use of chemicals you kind of get all the natural resources out of the soil Together with that, also the carbon emissions that we talked earlier.

00:18:25.117 --> 00:18:48.797
So now we are 40, 50, 60 years later and we kind of stuck with this system that's heavily subsidized, it's heavily industrialized, it's monoculture, like all of the farms were put into a direction that they had to focus on one thing, and again it all kind of makes sense.

00:18:48.797 --> 00:18:57.867
But we forgot about that we are working with nature and that nature can only handle a certain amount of things at a certain time.

00:18:57.867 --> 00:19:24.701
So now, today, it's actually in the last five to 10 years, I would say on top of the fact that the soil is depleting and farmers are losing their soil literally, and climate change, on top of that, the weather patterns get more extreme, farmers start to see that things are not working as it used to work.

00:19:24.701 --> 00:19:35.053
So they're kind of already in a lot of stress in what's happening with how they were used to farm, because they grew up in that way, like even my own father.

00:19:35.053 --> 00:19:38.554
It's just how things were going when he started.

00:19:38.554 --> 00:19:47.633
It was how things were done, and I'll tell you more if he wouldn't have continued to industrialize and scale up, he would be out of business.

00:19:47.633 --> 00:19:54.480
So even my father is an industrial farmer and we are changing that step by step.

00:19:54.480 --> 00:20:00.300
But he didn't have another choice, otherwise he wouldn't be able to provide for a family.

00:20:00.300 --> 00:20:03.536
That's just how he was kind of pushed in that direction.

00:20:03.536 --> 00:20:13.662
So now today with the climate and now with more recent, well, we have.

00:20:14.262 --> 00:20:17.938
This is another interesting thing that I heard in the news.

00:20:17.938 --> 00:20:30.382
I try not to list too much to the news, but somebody said like there's a difference between somebody that goes to vote and then somebody that goes to the grocery store.

00:20:30.382 --> 00:20:34.058
It's one person, but they are in fact two different persons.

00:20:34.058 --> 00:20:36.273
So what in the politics in Europe?

00:20:36.273 --> 00:20:43.953
Everybody wants a greener, more sustainable and a better environment, and it completely makes sense.

00:20:43.953 --> 00:20:46.615
But then if they go to the grocery stores.

00:20:46.615 --> 00:20:48.711
They don't buy the organic food they don't buy.

00:20:48.711 --> 00:20:50.396
They only buy the cheap food.

00:20:50.396 --> 00:21:00.161
So now the European Union and all the local governments start to say, okay, we need to cut down on chemical use, and we're going to.

00:21:00.161 --> 00:21:14.260
So they say, okay, we're going to just take away the subsidies, while now the farmers go crazy, right, because they are already on so much stress, and now they're going to start cutting back to the subsidies that they've been getting for such a long time.

00:21:14.260 --> 00:21:20.153
So it's kind of a perfect storm that's happening now, and it's only going to get worse.

00:21:20.153 --> 00:21:20.955
I'll tell you that.

00:21:21.538 --> 00:21:27.492
Yeah, I believe that I appreciate you kind of walking us through the history of all that, because I think it's easy for people to get lost up.

00:21:27.492 --> 00:21:44.060
Or get lost or caught up in the more recent narrative of you know, I think there's been plenty of nefarious things that have happened in the agricultural community, but to understand that a lot of this originated from sort of a fear of famine.

00:21:44.060 --> 00:21:51.001
That makes sense and sometimes this shows usually more around healthcare and healthcare in the US.

00:21:51.001 --> 00:22:00.269
Again, there's a lot of nefarious activity in there, but if you go back to the history you just see the complexities and the, I guess, the inefficiency of the healthcare system.

00:22:00.269 --> 00:22:15.421
Now you can go back and you can track the steps and usually it's lots of well intentioned policies that are sort of stacked on top of each other and then you just get unintended consequences that are sort of compounding over time.

00:22:15.421 --> 00:22:34.739
So it sounds very similar to what's happening now, where a lot of these things maybe not coming from nefarious or a malintentioned place, actually coming from a good place, but now we're just dealing with the long term consequences of that, some of which I think has been like willful ignorance on a large part.

00:22:34.739 --> 00:22:45.778
Like I think it's not a secret that monocropping is just depleting the soil and is just ravaging like the nutrient density of soil and of the foods that we're eating.

00:22:45.778 --> 00:22:50.201
But still, like a lot of this started kind of from a good place.

00:22:50.201 --> 00:22:52.016
So I appreciate you walking us through that history.

00:22:53.131 --> 00:22:59.674
I think the most natural place to go is to start talking about regenerative farming Also, just the need for innovation.

00:22:59.674 --> 00:23:04.421
That's kind of what you're getting at in that a lot of these industrialized farmers were.

00:23:04.421 --> 00:23:06.836
This is just how we did it when we grew up.

00:23:06.836 --> 00:23:13.013
We're going to keep doing it that way, but subsidies change, the environment changes and we need to adapt.

00:23:13.013 --> 00:23:17.500
So I think regenerative farming is one of the more innovative approaches.

00:23:17.500 --> 00:23:29.535
So I think, for anyone who's not familiar with that, getting an explanation of what regenerative farming is and then I'd love to be able to dive into sort of the benefits and specifics of that as well- yeah, definitely.

00:23:29.690 --> 00:23:31.979
So I can explain that more in that.

00:23:31.979 --> 00:23:36.355
But I'll start, maybe, to explain what organic farming is, because it's kind of linked to it.

00:23:36.355 --> 00:23:43.330
Now, organic farming is just the way that you say you don't want to use any, or it's not that you don't.

00:23:43.330 --> 00:23:58.518
In organic farming, you don't use chemical pesticides and chemical products, even though now today, even in the organic system, you can use organic materials, such as copper, which are highly toxic.

00:23:58.518 --> 00:24:01.238
But that's that's part of another discussion.

00:24:01.238 --> 00:24:05.031
So this is just what organic is In Europe.

00:24:05.031 --> 00:24:08.634
It's quite highly protected, the standards are quite high.

00:24:10.471 --> 00:24:19.922
But the only thing that this again, it's a good intention, right, we don't want to be using chemicals and we don't want to have all these things in our food.

00:24:19.922 --> 00:24:24.700
Now, that's a good intention, but it's not fixing the problem with the soil.

00:24:24.700 --> 00:24:30.061
So they've, in this whole narrative, a big, big part is forgotten.

00:24:30.061 --> 00:24:42.681
Now what we see in organic farming is that they have to use way more like ways to do weeding and all these things, because they're so focused on not using chemicals.

00:24:42.681 --> 00:24:54.652
It's like you focus on that and then you're not solving the bigger problems, and then that's kind of where regenerative farming comes in, which is, in essence, a way to farm.

00:24:54.652 --> 00:24:55.534
That is way more.

00:24:55.534 --> 00:24:57.419
That is more in harmony with nature.

00:24:59.191 --> 00:25:13.451
And what I mean by more in harmony with nature is that if you go out and look into the world and into the natural world, into nature, where will you find a bare soil, a soil that is naked Like.

00:25:13.451 --> 00:25:17.961
Go and go and find me a place in nature that has a bare soil.

00:25:17.961 --> 00:25:21.557
It's very difficult to find.

00:25:21.557 --> 00:25:26.859
It only happens when there's a landslide or a wildfire that you get in a bare soil.

00:25:26.859 --> 00:25:37.741
So this is the first thing that we have to avoid as much as possible to have a bare soil, because a bare soil in nature is like it's very vulnerable.

00:25:37.741 --> 00:25:49.635
It's kind of like opening your own skin, and that's how I explain it as well, that the topsoil of our planet all across the world is kind of like our top skin.

00:25:49.635 --> 00:26:00.714
It needs to be protected, but if we continuously rip it open, it kind of it gets infections, and it's exactly the same with the soil.

00:26:00.714 --> 00:26:02.097
Now, what regenerative?

00:26:02.118 --> 00:26:03.321
It gets dry and flaky.

00:26:03.770 --> 00:26:08.479
Yes, it gets dry and all of the humidity also gets lost.

00:26:08.479 --> 00:26:10.755
It evaporates way more.

00:26:10.755 --> 00:26:14.378
So that's another issue in water that we're facing more and more.

00:26:14.378 --> 00:26:38.032
But then what regenerative farming does is to obviously you have to disturb the soil to put your new crop and to harvest and to do all these things, but you minimize as much as possible, and one way of doing that is to do no tillage or avoid, like minimal tillage or no tillage, because what tillage does?

00:26:38.032 --> 00:26:42.502
It's an age-old practice in farming.

00:26:42.502 --> 00:26:49.651
In fact, it was how farming was revolutionized when it started, like more than 4,000 years ago.

00:26:50.809 --> 00:26:57.900
This tool enabled us to work the land more efficiently, but what it does as well is that it completely turns everything around.

00:26:57.900 --> 00:27:15.637
And I'll tell you this in a healthy soil, this is a complex, a complex system that we don't even know everything about, that there's a huge interaction between microorganisms, between the roots, between other organisms that create a soil that is healthy.

00:27:15.637 --> 00:27:24.759
And, in fact, what is more striking is that and this is related to your work is that what happens in the soil.

00:27:24.759 --> 00:27:27.445
It's very similar to what happens in our gut.

00:27:27.445 --> 00:27:31.641
Now, I think, in healthy lifestyle.

00:27:31.641 --> 00:27:35.188
Gut is quite a bespoken topic nowadays.

00:27:35.188 --> 00:27:45.722
Well, maybe it kind of comes together with farming and agriculture, because it's now becoming more a bespoken topic in agriculture as well.

00:27:45.722 --> 00:27:51.123
Now, what we do if we till the soil completely?

00:27:51.123 --> 00:27:54.209
We don't want to do that, but it's a common practice.

00:27:54.209 --> 00:28:13.407
We mix up all of these organisms and to get even more in details, like each millimeter and centimeter or inch for you, each and every inch has different types of microorganisms, that some like more oxygen in the soil, some like more other things in the soil.

00:28:13.407 --> 00:28:16.023
So each layer has different types of micronutrients.

00:28:16.023 --> 00:28:17.580
So it's hugely complex.

00:28:17.580 --> 00:28:24.480
In fact, we know more about the galaxies and everything that's happening around us than what's happening under our feet.

00:28:24.480 --> 00:28:28.541
It's still like an area of research.

00:28:28.602 --> 00:28:30.224
That's not completely.

00:28:30.224 --> 00:28:33.738
We don't know everything about it, let's say.

00:28:33.738 --> 00:28:40.876
But we do know that if you turn the soil around, it has a huge impact and it kind of messes everything up.

00:28:40.876 --> 00:28:48.166
So in regenerative farming you avoid that and one way of doing that is using cover crops.

00:28:48.166 --> 00:28:50.338
So now we're getting really technical.

00:28:50.338 --> 00:28:53.738
But cover crops is actually a crop that you do between crops.

00:28:53.738 --> 00:29:00.876
So what happens is that and I'll give an example from our own farm that I helped to install.

00:29:01.555 --> 00:29:08.027
So on our own farm we had a rotation of potatoes and pumpkins.

00:29:08.027 --> 00:29:21.746
So we would have, we would plant the potatoes, and it was an early harvest of potatoes, so the potatoes would already be harvested in early summer here in Europe.

00:29:21.746 --> 00:29:38.646
Now in other, when we were not practicing regenerative farming, after the harvest of the potatoes, the land would just be like bare and we wouldn't do anything with it for probably nine months, because the pumpkins is only the next year in spring.

00:29:38.646 --> 00:29:41.722
So there's like a gap of nine months where the soil is left bare.

00:29:41.722 --> 00:29:52.906
And now that I explained you before that this is not what you want, what happens is, when the soil is bare, all kinds of weeds aggressive weeds also start to grow.

00:29:52.906 --> 00:30:04.423
Now, if you then want to plant your pumpkins, you have to use pesticides to kill the weeds, to start putting your pumpkins, but then you're killing the soil even more, so the pumpkins don't even perform how they should do.

00:30:04.994 --> 00:30:12.221
So what we did is we introduced a cover crop and, moreover, a diverse cover crop, because in nature there's a lot of diversity.

00:30:12.221 --> 00:30:24.721
So we had picked specific seeds that have certain functions to improve the soil, and it's a whole mix, and we implemented that.

00:30:24.721 --> 00:30:28.376
In those nine months, the soil was able to restore itself.

00:30:28.376 --> 00:30:35.607
Moreover, it was able to perform photosynthesis, because when the soil is bare there's no photosynthesis.

00:30:35.607 --> 00:30:43.057
So it's putting carbon from the atmosphere into the soil and it's improving, it's creating lots of roots.

00:30:43.057 --> 00:30:47.896
Over the nine months we even see more biodiversity, more butterflies, more insects.

00:30:47.896 --> 00:30:49.541
So it has a huge impact.

00:30:49.541 --> 00:31:05.903
Now, because we select the cover crop so specifically and it's full of annual plants that only live one year, that only live one year, the cover crop naturally starts to die off and in that time we are there to plant the pumpkins.

00:31:07.035 --> 00:31:14.282
Now I'll tell you this when I first talked about this with my father to implement this on the farm, he was like are you crazy?

00:31:14.282 --> 00:31:19.265
Are you some kind of a hippie to think that plants are going to solve everything?

00:31:19.265 --> 00:31:22.366
He's like never that you're going to do this on my farm.

00:31:22.366 --> 00:31:23.814
It doesn't make sense.

00:31:23.814 --> 00:31:25.038
What are the neighbors going to think?

00:31:25.038 --> 00:31:39.462
But I persisted and, together with my brother, we convinced this was like seven years ago and we persisted and we continued and we said, okay, let's do a test, let's do half of the field your way, the old way and our way.

00:31:39.462 --> 00:31:46.974
And we persisted and doing that and the incredible part was that the pumpkins would grow way faster.

00:31:46.974 --> 00:31:51.760
Because do you want me to tell even more in detail what happens under the soil.

00:31:51.760 --> 00:31:54.780
Is it okay to put more in depth?

00:31:55.256 --> 00:32:00.781
Yeah, I mean anyone who's still here at this point you better be interested in soil, because I think soil is really interesting.

00:32:00.781 --> 00:32:05.314
Just one of the notes I had jotted down when you were talking about tilling.

00:32:05.314 --> 00:32:11.380
But yeah, I definitely want you to share more about soil, the tilling and sort of the disruption.

00:32:11.380 --> 00:32:23.063
If you were to think of like soil seems to be this very intelligent thing where there's so much microbiome and sort of bacteria and they're in particular layers for a reason.

00:32:23.063 --> 00:32:27.525
Anything in nature, it doesn't do it haphazardly.

00:32:27.525 --> 00:32:30.982
Everything is there in a particular place for a reason.

00:32:30.982 --> 00:32:40.664
So if you were to think of the layers of soil that you're talking about, disrupting them, it's like you're just disrupting the natural intelligence that's sort of built into nature.

00:32:40.664 --> 00:32:45.383
So that was all I wanted to say, but yes, please go on even more about.

00:32:46.894 --> 00:32:48.039
We have some more time right.

00:32:48.039 --> 00:32:55.461
So I love to talk more about the technical parts of what's happening under the soil, because it's so intriguing, because we don't see it.

00:32:55.461 --> 00:33:02.320
You only have to test it, you have to prove it, and sometimes we dig up a part of the soil to see what's happening with the roots.

00:33:02.320 --> 00:33:10.603
But then now what happens is that this cover crop that I talked about I said it kind of dies off, naturally because it's annual plants.

00:33:10.603 --> 00:33:11.936
Now what happens?

00:33:11.936 --> 00:33:25.925
If you plant the pumpkin there, the roots of the new pumpkin will actually use the channels from the plants that died off, so the pumpkin will be able to grow roots way deeper, way faster.

00:33:25.925 --> 00:33:37.964
Now what happens when drier area, like with climate change, now the rains don't come as frequently, but these pumpkins have way deeper roots.

00:33:38.674 --> 00:33:40.121
And on the other field we didn't do that.

00:33:40.121 --> 00:33:48.929
So it was incredible to see that on that field, how the field was closed by the pumpkins.

00:33:48.929 --> 00:33:56.707
It was way faster, and so that also, again, because the pumpkins grow faster, it protects the soil way faster.

00:33:56.707 --> 00:34:05.087
So already it's kind of like a parabolic move up, because it stacks up the advantages.

00:34:05.087 --> 00:34:07.138
So what we then saw is what?

00:34:07.138 --> 00:34:17.766
It's just amazing, the soil was covered way quicker and then the harvest was just the 20 to a 30% higher and the inputs were way lower.

00:34:17.766 --> 00:34:21.521
We had to like the way to maintain it and to weed it.

00:34:21.521 --> 00:34:33.461
On that one field that closed, there was no weeding to be done, like it's still done manually with a shovel, like you shovel the soil On that other field, we still had to do that.

00:34:34.235 --> 00:34:46.242
And now comes the amazing part is that and this is what farmers need to see and realize that my father, when we did that, he was like oh my God, we never really talked about it, but he was amazed about it.

00:34:46.242 --> 00:34:52.480
And now it's become a common practice and he's actually doing it because he came to understand how it works.

00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:54.958
And that's something that I think this is.

00:34:54.958 --> 00:35:07.686
A key aspect in making the change is to show people, or do tests and prove that it's way better, and then people also like I'm explaining it to you now you understand better why it's so important.

00:35:08.327 --> 00:35:15.710
Yeah, I also like having sort of these in depth conversations because, at the very least, it's going to give people much more appreciation for everything that goes into food.

00:35:15.710 --> 00:35:20.076
I think it's so easy to just grab food from the supermarket and just not think anything of it.

00:35:20.076 --> 00:35:24.724
So just next time you're grabbing a potato, just think about everything that can go into it.

00:35:24.724 --> 00:35:28.201
Actually, now, so it's really interesting.

00:35:28.201 --> 00:35:31.503
Did you know this was going to work?

00:35:31.503 --> 00:35:33.483
Like, have you seen this done elsewhere?

00:35:33.483 --> 00:35:40.375
Or did you just have sort of your theoretical knowledge and you were so confident that it was going to work that you just stuck with it?

00:35:40.375 --> 00:35:50.965
Because it's such a different practice from the norm of farming, it's like you must have been hugely confident to try to implement that on your dad's farm.

00:35:51.264 --> 00:35:52.668
Yeah, no, that's a great question.

00:35:52.668 --> 00:35:58.065
And there's this great saying that we always built on the shoulders of giants.

00:35:58.065 --> 00:36:00.108
Right, I didn't invent this.

00:36:00.108 --> 00:36:02.684
In fact, it was invented by nature at some point.

00:36:02.684 --> 00:36:20.318
But I had a mentor at that time who was part of a company called Soil Capital, and they are a great company that is consulting all across the world farmers to make that transition as well, and I learned it from him.

00:36:20.840 --> 00:36:31.019
From him, and I kind of I always had that interest about how nature worked, so I didn't really understand it fully, but the moment it clicked for me it was like, of course we have to do it.

00:36:31.019 --> 00:36:33.059
It's just complete logic.

00:36:33.059 --> 00:36:39.909
There's no doubt that this is not going to work Like, obviously, I was scared if it's going to work, but it was.

00:36:39.909 --> 00:37:05.483
It's just how nature performs, and this is something it's also part of my upcoming award-winning book 12 Universal Laws of Nature how to Get the Most Potential Out of your Land, and in that book I go quite in depth more about look, nature has been governed by certain laws for over millions and millions and millions of years.

00:37:06.974 --> 00:37:19.121
Now, if you think that you can try and ignore these rules or even work against them, it's going to be a tough time, and this is what's happened in agriculture.

00:37:19.121 --> 00:37:24.887
They try to industrialize it, to monocrope it, do everything that is not happening in nature.

00:37:24.887 --> 00:37:29.726
Again, it's not that they wanted to do something bad or something.

00:37:29.726 --> 00:37:31.320
It's not that.

00:37:31.320 --> 00:37:34.389
It's just they didn't have the knowledge now.

00:37:34.389 --> 00:37:41.264
But we are now in an age where we are starting to understand more of it, so it's our responsibility to also act upon it.

00:37:42.315 --> 00:37:47.007
Yeah, it seems like not just in agriculture but collectively At least I hope so.

00:37:47.007 --> 00:38:02.065
Maybe it's just the circles I run in, but it does seem like there's from a societal, maybe cultural standpoint, that there's a slow shift back towards a better alignment, or at least there's more people talking about it, but it does feel like there's sort of a shift in that direction.

00:38:02.065 --> 00:38:06.505
So for agriculture to be moving that way too is definitely encouraging.

00:38:06.505 --> 00:38:09.983
Can you share more of the benefits of regenerative farming?

00:38:09.983 --> 00:38:17.119
So we talked about sort of the efficiency in yield and not having to, obviously the better soil quality.

00:38:17.119 --> 00:38:25.887
But can you talk about maybe the carbon capture that happens from that, the increased nutrient density, because potatoes grown two different ways are not.

00:38:25.887 --> 00:38:33.867
They may weigh the same but they're not apples to apples, from a nutrient density standpoint, sort of a quality standpoint.

00:38:34.516 --> 00:38:40.105
Yeah, that's a really good question, and well, we can talk about a couple of.

00:38:40.105 --> 00:38:45.164
Do you want to go first in the carbon or the health, the nutrient density aspect?

00:38:47.235 --> 00:38:49.623
Let's go with carbon and then we can go to nutrients.

00:38:50.195 --> 00:38:54.626
So with carbon again, it's logical.

00:38:54.626 --> 00:39:06.106
We have to start thinking logical how nature performs in the nature, like before the humans were so dominant on our planet and we still have pristine landscapes.

00:39:06.106 --> 00:39:10.365
If you go and look at these pristine landscapes, it's very diverse.

00:39:10.365 --> 00:39:16.798
There's grasslands grazed by animals, there's forests, there's shrubs, there's all kinds of different plants.

00:39:16.798 --> 00:39:34.382
Now, if you can start to mimic that in a well-organized way because you still have to perform, you still have to get the guilt, you still have to make sure that everything is well-organized If the purpose of your farm is to be profitable, maybe.

00:39:34.382 --> 00:39:48.463
If it's not, then you can do other things, but let's say that this is the goal of your farm then what's going to happen as well is that you will be capturing way more sunlight.

00:39:48.463 --> 00:39:55.467
Like the thing that I talked about, if the soil is bare, there's no photosynthesis happening.

00:39:55.467 --> 00:40:05.746
Now, if there's no photosynthesis happening, what's happening is that the sun goes onto the land, it heats the soil and we get global warming what we're faced with as well.

00:40:05.746 --> 00:40:30.297
So, whereas if you have maximum plants growing on your land through these cover crops or there's other things like can add trees in your system as well, but maximizing the amount of sunlight that you can harvest is just maximizing the transition of carbon dioxide.

00:40:30.297 --> 00:40:43.795
So carbon in the atmosphere, or atmospheric carbon, will be drawn into the plants, into the soil, into the roots, and it will deposit carbon even into the soil.

00:40:43.795 --> 00:40:49.057
And then we get back to how the microorganisms interact and this whole complex thing.

00:40:49.057 --> 00:40:51.228
Well, that's what's happening.

00:40:51.228 --> 00:40:57.001
If the soil is healthy, the plants will perform better at doing photosynthesis.

00:40:57.001 --> 00:41:00.117
So it's kind of like a flywheel.

00:41:00.117 --> 00:41:04.233
When you start to doing it, it keeps becoming better and better and better.

00:41:04.233 --> 00:41:06.764
So that's really how that's.

00:41:06.844 --> 00:41:14.476
The incredible story of all the challenges we are facing today is that they can be sold very rapidly if we take the right actions.

00:41:14.476 --> 00:41:15.981
It's really amazing.

00:41:15.981 --> 00:41:28.184
But now you understand that this will increase the carbon content of your soil and just the benefits of having a hybrid carbon content is so huge.

00:41:28.184 --> 00:41:33.599
Like just one aspect is that your soil will become more like a sponge.

00:41:33.599 --> 00:41:34.661
We all know a sponge.

00:41:34.661 --> 00:41:48.913
If you have a sponge at home, if you hold it under the water like, it will firstly absorb the water, but then, once it is saturated with water, it will drain the water through.

00:41:48.913 --> 00:42:04.411
And that's exactly what happens with that type of a soil, which is higher in carbon it becomes like a sponge, whereas the industrial land that has been like plowed and destroyed over and over again doesn't have that capacity.

00:42:05.074 --> 00:42:27.795
Now again, we're facing with climate change, where rains and come less frequently, so it just has such a huge advantage it's gonna become like a no-brainer to farmers to go into that direction or at least I'm trying to convince them of that because it's like politics are trying to push them in that way.

00:42:27.795 --> 00:42:32.963
But if it's not politics, it will be climate change that will destroy their business if they don't jump on the wagon.

00:42:32.963 --> 00:43:05.201
And then what is more interesting and we talked about it before we started our call but the carbon accreditation industry, which is okay, we can discuss is it greenwashing, is whatever it is but there's a huge industry that is starting to take off where companies that have a certain carbon footprint or even me, if I have a certain carbon footprint I can start paying farmers to farm in that way that I've explained, because it's gonna put carbon into the soil.

00:43:05.201 --> 00:43:08.677
So I'm kind of paying my carbon credits.

00:43:08.677 --> 00:43:10.222
That's the name of it.

00:43:10.222 --> 00:43:27.280
So, other than the general benefits of becoming a regenerative farmer, focusing on the health of the soil, is that you will be awarded for it financially, and I've been looking at some research either.

00:43:27.360 --> 00:43:29.829
In tree growings like it, I've seen some research.

00:43:29.829 --> 00:43:32.842
It's crazy what it will bring it.

00:43:32.842 --> 00:43:43.672
There's some research saying that you can get up to 50 tons per hectare sequestered into the soil while it still has to be proven.

00:43:43.672 --> 00:43:51.637
But carbon one ton of carbon is currently traded on the market for around $40 to $70.

00:43:51.637 --> 00:43:56.831
It's kind of still a starting industry so, but it's in that range.

00:43:56.831 --> 00:44:05.295
So imagine as a farmer you can add $40 per ton and if you're doing 50 tons it's an extra.

00:44:05.295 --> 00:44:07.378
Help me out here.

00:44:07.378 --> 00:44:08.721
What is it an extra?

00:44:11.452 --> 00:44:18.047
$40 20 yeah, an extra $2000 that you earn per hectare per year.

00:44:18.047 --> 00:44:21.597
I'll tell you what farmers are you earning today.

00:44:21.597 --> 00:44:29.998
Their profits margin today is less than $2000 a year, most for most farmers way less yep.

00:44:30.259 --> 00:44:36.724
So it's gonna revolutionize the way we farm and obviously 50 is in the high range.

00:44:36.724 --> 00:44:42.105
And this is specifically for a type of tree actually it's the name of our company, paolonia.

00:44:42.105 --> 00:44:51.130
It's a type of tree that it's called the oxy tree, and this tree is like in the class of photosynthesis.

00:44:51.130 --> 00:44:56.606
It is the best it's, it's always the first because it's it.

00:44:56.606 --> 00:45:06.454
For some reason, it has an ability to grow extremely fast and obviously when it grows faster it can capture more carbon.

00:45:06.454 --> 00:45:12.373
So I'm looking into that as well, to to start plantations of these type of trees.

00:45:12.373 --> 00:45:16.952
But even if you want to grow food, farmers will be rewarded for that.

00:45:17.755 --> 00:45:29.679
Isn't that interesting, it seems yeah, it seems like a really interesting way to sort of subsidize the, the innovative shift, as they would need to be right anytime you're introducing a new technology.

00:45:29.679 --> 00:45:33.840
Generally, it's inefficient in the beginning, so it needs to be subsidized.

00:45:33.840 --> 00:45:38.068
So, yeah, that's a really clever way to do it and also very encouraging.

00:45:38.068 --> 00:45:59.806
You said something earlier which I've never thought of before, which is harvesting sunlight, which is like I've I've been interested in sort of soil quality for a few years now, very passively, but I've never thought about the idea of harvesting sunlight and I've always just thought, well, if you have healthier soil, that's just better, because soil just absorbs carbon somehow.

00:45:59.806 --> 00:46:13.719
But I've never thought about the need for there to be some sort of probably green green space or something on top that's actually grabbing the sunlight and then that's sort of where the sequestering of carbon comes from.

00:46:13.719 --> 00:46:15.563
So I don't know.

00:46:15.563 --> 00:46:19.811
It was something you said and like, I've just never had anything click like that before.

00:46:19.811 --> 00:46:33.050
So maybe people that are listening and you've seen farms like I know there's a fair amount of people listening in New Jersey, where I grew up, we grew up in a very farm-heavy area but you know a lot of corn, like a lot of vegetables.

00:46:33.271 --> 00:46:34.295
New Jersey is actually a great.

00:46:34.295 --> 00:46:44.041
It's called the garden state, so there's a lot of a lot of farming and vegetable growing there, but you would see throughout the year just big empty open fields.

00:46:44.041 --> 00:46:48.280
And then we're sure it's way worse in the Midwest where it's all monocropped.

00:46:48.280 --> 00:47:02.318
But just to kind of have that, that frame of thinking, what else can and possibly should be growing here symbiotically for the non-growing season, to sort of harvest sunlight throughout the rest of the year and sort of replenish the soil?

00:47:02.318 --> 00:47:03.913
That was a really helpful term you used.

00:47:04.474 --> 00:47:06.681
Yeah, and this actually just to jump on there.

00:47:06.681 --> 00:47:19.514
But this actually erases the need for chemical fertilizers because the plants are putting it into the soil and the next crop can use that because it digests into the soil.

00:47:21.581 --> 00:47:22.204
Is that makes sense.

00:47:22.204 --> 00:47:33.074
And then the other thing you said yeah, the other thing when you're giving the example of the pumpkins was really interesting, of whatever the ground cover was prior to that sort of the roots, sort of like pre-digging.

00:47:33.074 --> 00:47:34.237
It's like pre-drilling a hole.

00:47:34.237 --> 00:47:49.657
It's just way easier for them to navigate and it's not having to struggle and fight to get through like one really tough, dense sort of depleted soil or more dirt than soil really, but then the soil is much more beneficial.

00:47:49.657 --> 00:47:55.945
Can you go on to speak about the nutrient benefits of this type of farming?

00:47:56.184 --> 00:48:01.211
Yes, I think this will blow the mind of your listeners because it's more related to health.

00:48:01.211 --> 00:48:01.733
Obviously.

00:48:01.733 --> 00:48:09.284
Now we've talked about all of the other benefits that this way of farming we didn't even touch upon what it will do for us humans.

00:48:09.284 --> 00:48:11.932
Now I'll tell the story.

00:48:11.932 --> 00:48:14.440
Well, it's not a story, it's a fact.

00:48:14.440 --> 00:48:20.239
There are oranges out there that are being produced and that have no vitamin C.

00:48:20.239 --> 00:48:29.731
Now tell me why you buy or most people buy oranges in winter is because we want to have more vitamin C, right?

00:48:29.731 --> 00:48:34.199
So that is crazy.

00:48:34.199 --> 00:48:45.588
So if we now farm in this specific way, we'll actually have we'll have back oranges that do have huge quantities of vitamin C.

00:48:45.628 --> 00:48:49.300
And I'll tell you something more interesting, even that I heard about.

00:48:49.300 --> 00:48:58.402
There's a new technology that it should be coming out soon and it will probably, while the ability is that it's just, it can be just part of our iPhones.

00:48:58.402 --> 00:49:16.461
It's a scan that will measure the nutrient density of fruits and vegetables and any food, and the way it kind of works is that food that is higher in nutrient density vibrates at a way higher frequency.

00:49:16.461 --> 00:49:30.577
So if you have a machine that can or not a machine, but a scanner on your phone that can detect the frequencies, you can actually already define if it's going to be higher nutrient density or not.

00:49:30.577 --> 00:49:44.275
So that's something I'm very hopeful and curious about, because imagine now we as consumers, we go to the supermarket and we can actually scan the food and it's like, oh, this is an orange and it doesn't have vitamin C.

00:49:44.275 --> 00:49:50.940
Why the hell would I pay money for it, even if it's super cheap, why would I even buy it right?

00:49:50.940 --> 00:49:55.072
So that's something interesting that I'm very hopeful about.

00:49:55.072 --> 00:50:13.509
And yeah, just to again to tie it back to where we started, with the whole idea of farming being something that we have enough food for the whole planet, or for certain areas here specifically in in Europe.

00:50:13.528 --> 00:50:23.119
But it's the same story in the US that, by focusing on quantity, the whole nutrient density is not considered.

00:50:23.119 --> 00:50:40.436
So now we're growing huge amount of food, but it's actually doesn't have any or it has very low nutrients, and it actually is probably the main cause for most of our more modern diseases all kinds of cancers, obesity.

00:50:40.436 --> 00:50:43.907
All these things are related to how the food is produced.

00:50:43.907 --> 00:51:00.197
Now, if the nutrient density would be way higher, we wouldn't even have to eat that much of the same food, because it would be packed with way more vitamins, minerals, all, even proteins, everything that we need.

00:51:00.197 --> 00:51:15.815
So again, if we can quantify that, we can inform consumers to say, like, even if that product is cheaper, it's not healthier and it's not going to give you the nutrients that you need.

00:51:15.815 --> 00:51:23.112
Just buy a little bit less and because of the higher quality, it's going to provide you with way better things.

00:51:23.112 --> 00:51:32.527
And then this is where you come in, that the food that we eat is really how, who we are, if that makes sense.

00:51:34.750 --> 00:51:48.356
I'm glad you brought up oranges as an example, because I had read something maybe three months ago I thought it was hyperbole, saying that you would need to eat eight oranges today to get the equivalent sort of nutrient density of an orange in like the 1960s or something like that.

00:51:49.186 --> 00:51:59.536
But it's probably not exaggerated if there are in fact oranges being produced with no vitamin C, which is usually when you think of what's a good fruit for vitamin C, you think of oranges.

00:51:59.536 --> 00:52:01.831
So maybe that wasn't hyperbole.

00:52:01.831 --> 00:52:03.768
And then the other thing I wanted to mention.

00:52:03.768 --> 00:52:08.492
That is a very interesting technology about the frequency of foods.

00:52:08.492 --> 00:52:19.887
I never understand the stuff, maybe as well as I want to, but, like Nicholas Tesla says, if you want to understand the secrets of the universe, think in terms of frequency and vibration.

00:52:19.887 --> 00:52:23.655
So when you said frequency, I'm like there's probably something to that.

00:52:23.655 --> 00:52:31.737
Maybe in a few years I'll understand it better, but it sounds like one of those things that is just very in harmony with nature, if you will.

00:52:32.846 --> 00:52:36.313
Yeah, definitely, even if I can jump in there.

00:52:36.313 --> 00:52:38.878
This is again how nature works.

00:52:38.878 --> 00:52:41.731
It's part of one of the laws, is what?

00:52:41.731 --> 00:52:42.873
Well, it's also in my book.

00:52:42.873 --> 00:53:00.751
One of the laws is the law of vibration, and it's proven in nature that if a plant becomes sick, because of whatever reason, that plant will also vibrate on a lower frequency and this, in terms, will attract insects to kill it.

00:53:00.751 --> 00:53:06.853
Because that's how nature works it kind of decomposes and it gets rid of what it doesn't need.

00:53:06.853 --> 00:53:12.797
So that's how insects actually get attracted to plants.

00:53:13.204 --> 00:53:17.295
Now let's tie it back to modern industrial agriculture.

00:53:17.295 --> 00:53:28.418
Most of the plants are not healthy, so all of these farmers that are doing it in that way are faced with a lot of insect problems.

00:53:28.418 --> 00:53:34.208
Now they use chemicals, obviously, to get rid of it, but it's like it's the flying wheel in the wrong direction.

00:53:34.208 --> 00:53:43.391
If your plants are not performing well, they're going to be eaten by a lot of insects, and that's just how nature works.

00:53:43.391 --> 00:53:45.913
You can try and work against it.

00:53:45.913 --> 00:53:56.519
You've done it for 60, somewhat 60 years, probably more, but it's not an endless treat.

00:53:58.528 --> 00:53:59.813
Yeah, it doesn't seem like that.

00:53:59.813 --> 00:54:06.052
You know again, just kind of going in, especially if you're looking at long enough timelines like 60 years, is just a tiny blip, there's nothing.

00:54:06.784 --> 00:54:08.704
So clearly it's not sustainable for a long period of time.

00:54:08.704 --> 00:54:09.989
It's a blink of an eye in the universe.

00:54:10.965 --> 00:54:15.230
Yeah, like with enough manpower and resources you can do it, and I think that's what we've done.

00:54:15.230 --> 00:54:22.873
We just like we're just going to throw manpower and technology and resources at this and you know it's worked up until up until it doesn't.

00:54:22.873 --> 00:54:24.990
So I'm glad there is a shift away from that.

00:54:24.990 --> 00:54:38.454
I kind of want to talk about climate change sustainability more from like an architectural standpoint, because I live in Phoenix, Scottsdale, so it's already a very hot place, right.

00:54:38.454 --> 00:54:46.554
So this is going to have to be one of the first places that's really taking steps to mitigate or sort of like build cities for the future.

00:54:46.554 --> 00:55:06.490
So I'm not sure how you, how you want to take this, but I know you have expertise in landscape design and I'm just kind of curious how you think, how you think cities of the future are going to have to be designed or redeveloped to deal with warmer climates and not just building like big concrete buildings everywhere.

00:55:08.047 --> 00:55:37.097
Yeah, that's a really good question, and I think the greenery that we can grow in the cities will have, or has already, a huge impact on the climate, just a local environment, not even on a global perspective, but there's research about streets with width and without trees, the temperature difference in the heat of summer, it's like, can be 20 degrees Celsius, and not 20, but 15, 10 degrees Celsius.

00:55:37.097 --> 00:55:39.532
That already has a huge impact.

00:55:39.532 --> 00:56:09.878
So it's just it kind of just makes it logical to focus on green infrastructure in cities, and I know that you are from an environment that's very arid and very difficult, but even in those environments you can, with very low water input, you can actually grow plants that are more adapted to these difficult circumstances and still have like a soil coverage.

00:56:09.878 --> 00:56:10.259
Right.

00:56:12.007 --> 00:56:13.414
Yeah, I had somebody on here.

00:56:13.414 --> 00:56:16.487
I think when this comes out it'll be two or three episodes before you.

00:56:16.487 --> 00:56:26.693
His website is urbanfarmcom and he grew, he ran a farm, an urban farm on a third of an acre here in Phoenix for like 30 years.

00:56:26.693 --> 00:56:32.213
Now he lives in Asheville but he still sort of does seminars out here because he had such a big following for so long.

00:56:32.213 --> 00:56:34.045
But it was incredible to hear how?

00:56:34.065 --> 00:56:39.150
Is he the guy from the movie, wasn't he in a quite known documentary?

00:56:40.172 --> 00:56:40.673
He might have been.

00:56:40.673 --> 00:56:41.637
His name is Greg Peterson.

00:56:41.637 --> 00:56:49.054
Yeah, I think I heard about him, yeah, okay, yeah, it's funny that you would have heard of him in sort of in these circles.

00:56:49.054 --> 00:57:03.916
But it was amazing how, on such a small plot of land and in such an arid environment, he goes oh, there's plenty of things that prefer to grow out here, and it was just really eye-opening to see how much you can grow in sort of an environment like this.

00:57:03.916 --> 00:57:25.085
And he said because I had my basically entire plot of land so well organized from sort of a landscape architecture standpoint, he goes it helped with water capture keeping, like cooling my house, he goes he just had so much greenery and then he also had so many fruits and vegetables that were grown there throughout the year.

00:57:25.085 --> 00:57:28.320
It was very encouraging, yeah exactly.

00:57:28.847 --> 00:57:38.552
He's just he's doing the right things for the soil and how to grow the plants, and probably with a minimal water supply system.

00:57:38.552 --> 00:57:56.985
You, you, that's the thing, right, that if you wouldn't, if you want to grow your own garden and you're just like thinking like, oh, I just have to water it all the time, but you don't care about how to improve the soil, how to treat the soil, what like how to make compost, even then it's not going to work.

00:57:56.985 --> 00:57:59.793
All your plants are just going to die, especially in your environment.

00:57:59.793 --> 00:58:12.217
So it's super important to get, like, the right guidance and the knowledge of, and following the people that have already done a lot of research around it.

00:58:12.217 --> 00:58:18.135
And again, jumping on the on the back of, on the shoulders of the giants, right?

00:58:20.300 --> 00:58:21.748
Yeah, exactly no, it was.

00:58:21.748 --> 00:58:33.217
He provided a lot of really good resources, so hopefully people will check those out if you're interested in sort of at least the desert, the desert growing needs, also because I live like in a condo.

00:58:33.217 --> 00:58:36.914
So my main question was like, how do I start growing stuff on a balcony?

00:58:36.914 --> 00:58:38.150
He goes oh, you can definitely do it.

00:58:38.150 --> 00:58:39.507
He's like you don't need.

00:58:39.507 --> 00:58:41.512
He's like you don't need a lot of space necessarily.

00:58:41.512 --> 00:58:43.215
Yeah, that's right.

00:58:44.146 --> 00:58:47.012
Can you talk more about like business in the future?

00:58:47.552 --> 00:58:56.231
Because I think before I don't think we were recording it, but I think you're in such a good space given what you do, because there's going to be a need to.

00:58:56.231 --> 00:59:08.364
I think, even from a landscape design perspective here in Arizona we have a lot of non-native species just to make things look better around here, but you get sort of because we brought in a lot of non-native species.

00:59:08.364 --> 00:59:15.755
This is the first time in my life I've ever had allergies, but a ton of people here have allergies because there's a bunch of stuff growing here that shouldn't be Really.

00:59:15.755 --> 00:59:22.971
So I think there's going to be a need to shift back to more native species, and not just here but anywhere we're living.

00:59:22.971 --> 00:59:28.387
So can you just talk about, like what the future sort of landscape design is going to look like, and I think it's also just going to be.

00:59:28.387 --> 00:59:40.309
I think that that sector is going to grow so enormously over the next 20 or 30 years because there's such a need for utilizing the Earth's resources in a much more efficient manner.

00:59:42.168 --> 00:59:50.077
Yeah, that's a good question and I think it's just going to become inevitable, right?

00:59:50.077 --> 01:00:08.315
Like if, for your home or for your property or for your city, you can get an expert in, that will make the city way more livable, way more attractive, it will attract more investors, it will become more sustainable on the long run.

01:00:08.315 --> 01:00:11.710
So in that way it's just.

01:00:11.710 --> 01:00:15.958
I mean, we can talk about the future, but it's already happening.

01:00:15.958 --> 01:00:22.255
Today I see a lot of my clients that they just don't have the knowledge of how to do it.

01:00:22.255 --> 01:00:36.503
Like I have a masterclass where I teach people how they can design, create and maintain their own garden, and we talked about a couple of things it dives into the soil more in depth as well, but then also how to use which plants.

01:00:36.503 --> 01:00:44.547
And all this knowledge and people are amazed by it because there is also a huge audience that wants to learn it themselves.

01:00:45.644 --> 01:00:51.338
And then, talking about the future, actually, yesterday I was in an AI course.

01:00:51.338 --> 01:01:07.688
I took a two-day artificial intelligence course, because this industry is going to completely shift how our world will look, not even in 10 years, probably not even in five years, probably in less than three years and in fact what it will do, I think, is.

01:01:07.688 --> 01:01:18.516
It will erase a lot of the jobs on our planet that nobody likes to do, like just people doing nine to five jobs, to kind of be a corporate slave.

01:01:18.516 --> 01:01:24.257
And all of these jobs are under pressure, I think in the next, very soon.

01:01:24.257 --> 01:01:27.632
So I'm very in that way.

01:01:27.632 --> 01:01:34.695
I'm actually very hopeful about it, because this will open up a whole new world that we can actually start focusing on things that we like doing.

01:01:34.695 --> 01:01:36.809
Why not become a gardener?

01:01:36.809 --> 01:01:38.373
Or why not learn about gardening?

01:01:38.373 --> 01:01:44.155
Or why not create a whole community of gardeners that know how to do it good for our planet?

01:01:44.155 --> 01:01:51.778
And in fact, it will be the only way, because our climate is only going to become more rough.

01:01:51.778 --> 01:02:02.858
It's like the damage that's been done over the last 60 years and in fact, it goes back to the beginning of the climate change that we're facing today.

01:02:03.045 --> 01:02:07.476
Many people say, oh, it's because of the industries and everything, but it actually goes way back.

01:02:07.476 --> 01:02:19.976
It goes to the hunter-gatherers that started to change the landscape because they were hunting and gathering and then they started farming and this was where, already, the big impact changed.

01:02:19.976 --> 01:02:25.177
Like in the Roman times, they cut down half, more than half, of the forests in Europe.

01:02:25.177 --> 01:02:26.688
So we shouldn't just.

01:02:26.688 --> 01:02:30.936
Well, we don't have to blame anybody, but it goes way back.

01:02:30.936 --> 01:02:50.293
But the point that I'm trying to make here is that, with AI, that is going to revolutionize our industry, and probably robots as well it's going to open a whole new world of people to do a job that they might actually like, and I think one of which can be farming gardening.

01:02:50.293 --> 01:03:01.775
So I see a lot of potential for that in the future People learning it themselves and farmers becoming more proficient in doing it in harmony with nature.

01:03:02.657 --> 01:03:12.615
Yeah, I think there's something incredibly therapeutic about working with your hands with soil, with dirt, and then also something related to food, just so innate to our nature.

01:03:12.615 --> 01:03:16.795
I think for a lot of people that'd be a very gratifying thing.

01:03:16.795 --> 01:03:27.436
I think the concern is that gardening takes a lot of time and there can be failure involved in it early on, as you found out.

01:03:27.436 --> 01:03:34.135
When you're like I'm just going to go plant seeds everywhere and come back and it's going to be, I'm going to have my bounty of food, and it was not the case.

01:03:34.135 --> 01:03:37.733
So I think a lot of people can have been discouraged up until this point.

01:03:37.733 --> 01:03:47.217
Can you share a little bit more about what your masterclass involves, Just to give people an idea of the step by step how you take people through that?

01:03:47.686 --> 01:04:07.932
Yeah, definitely, and I really like what you said is like it clicked for me that people don't have to go through my whole lifetime of learning and experiencing all these wins and failures and wins and failures, because that's what I've been going through and I've gathered massive amounts of information.

01:04:08.804 --> 01:04:30.054
So I've boiled this down now into a masterclass where it's completely online and you can learn how to do everything exactly to build that dream garden, like that garden that you've always dreamt of, and in fact, that's the name of the program it's how to create the garden of your dreams masterclass.

01:04:30.804 --> 01:04:46.018
So it really dives into that the urge of people to become gardeners because it's something magical that's intrinsically part of our being human to have a connection with nature.

01:04:46.018 --> 01:05:01.500
Gardens are the best way to have a direct connection with nature and, as well, what you brought up the fact that if you put your hands into the soil, it elevates your mood, and it's not just the fact that you're doing something physical.

01:05:01.500 --> 01:05:15.708
There's even research that's proven now that all of these microorganisms that I was talking about earlier, that if you put your hands into the soil, these microorganisms will get the healthy ones that you want in your garden.

01:05:15.708 --> 01:05:30.311
You're going to absorb them in your own body and they're going to improve your gut health and your brain health, because I told that to you that the microorganisms in our soil are actually very similar, or some are exactly the same as in our own gut.

01:05:30.311 --> 01:05:39.992
So now, if you become a gardener, it will just transform your whole life in many aspects, and that's what you learn in this program.

01:05:40.947 --> 01:05:42.010
It sounds like a great program.

01:05:42.010 --> 01:05:45.590
I did a lot of landscaping when I was growing up.

01:05:45.590 --> 01:05:56.431
Growing up in that part of New Jersey, like I mentioned, you just end up working on farms doing landscaping and I always thought I was so happy at that time and I just so thoroughly enjoyed it.

01:05:56.431 --> 01:06:00.496
And there's probably something to be said for the lack of stress that a 17-year-old has in general.

01:06:01.365 --> 01:06:06.126
But, I've also just been like every job I've had since then I've been like sort of chasing that be like.

01:06:06.126 --> 01:06:08.594
When am I going to be able to feel this again?

01:06:08.594 --> 01:06:18.653
And I think there is just this innate part of just working with nature that you probably can't find unless you're working with nature in some other field.

01:06:18.653 --> 01:06:25.577
So I'd highly encourage people, if you have any time to do it, to go to a community garden.

01:06:25.577 --> 01:06:27.864
Start your own garden, are you?

01:06:27.864 --> 01:06:31.813
Do you think community gardens are going to become much more prominent?

01:06:32.335 --> 01:06:32.956
as we move forward.

01:06:32.956 --> 01:06:57.237
I definitely believe that, especially in the urban or peri, in the surrounding of bigger cities and even in cities, because if you're living in a city and you choose to live in a city, which it does have a lot of advantages you have everything closed, you live in a vibrant environment, but the access to greenery, the surfaces, are just way smaller.

01:06:57.237 --> 01:07:09.786
So if you now live in an apartment and you have that urge to work on a garden or on the land or grow your own food, you can go out to these community gardens, even have.

01:07:09.786 --> 01:07:14.606
I've heard there's even ways you can just get a square meter which is like what is that?

01:07:14.606 --> 01:07:16.271
Nine square foot or something.

01:07:16.271 --> 01:07:23.706
So you can start with that and you'll be amazed how much food you can grow on such a small surface.

01:07:23.706 --> 01:07:28.817
Or if you just say, I just like looking at something beautiful, you can grow flowers.

01:07:28.817 --> 01:07:32.574
So I see a lot of potential in that.

01:07:32.744 --> 01:07:55.670
In fact, I wrote my master thesis about that, specifically in the area of South Africa and Cape Town, because the way I looked at it is that what we try to investigate is that, with the racial segregation that happened there and obviously apartheid is done, but it's still deeply, it's still how to say it in the correct way.

01:07:55.670 --> 01:08:29.337
There's still a lot of issues around, well, a lot of racial issues in South Africa and other bigger issues, obviously, and the way we looked at it is that community gardens could actually be a way to empower the local communities to learn a skill of growing their own food, to grow healthy food, to connect with other people, that it can become like a meeting point to share ideas, to that it's something that has incredible power of changing environments.

01:08:29.337 --> 01:08:34.115
It's like working together with a local group on a mutual goal.

01:08:34.636 --> 01:08:37.725
Yeah, good, I'm glad to hear that.

01:08:37.725 --> 01:08:39.953
Do you ever do consulting for local governments?

01:08:41.427 --> 01:08:42.332
Yes, we do that.

01:08:42.332 --> 01:08:47.756
At this stage we don't have any local government projects.

01:08:47.756 --> 01:08:56.148
I'm happy to work with local governments, but I see that it can be a kind of a slower process.

01:08:56.148 --> 01:09:00.336
So I love to work with private clients because it's just faster.

01:09:01.708 --> 01:09:03.212
Yeah, they make a decision, then you just do it.

01:09:03.512 --> 01:09:07.753
Yeah, exactly, we do work with developers as well.

01:09:07.753 --> 01:09:11.851
It's not public but it's semi-public.

01:09:11.851 --> 01:09:14.917
So I'm working now on a huge rooftop garden.

01:09:14.917 --> 01:09:20.197
We've filed the building permission.

01:09:20.197 --> 01:09:24.135
It's just been accepted, so we're going to work more on the execution planning.

01:09:24.135 --> 01:09:47.333
This is like still half of my work is still related to one-on-one clients that we do the whole design process for them, because obviously there's a group of people that want to do it themselves, but then there's another group of people that they don't have the time, they have busy jobs and they just want to have it look like they want to have it done for them.

01:09:47.333 --> 01:09:52.176
So it's kind of the well, it started to be four pillars in the business.

01:09:52.176 --> 01:09:52.337
Now.

01:09:52.337 --> 01:09:56.735
The masterclass I have also masterclass for farmers.

01:09:56.735 --> 01:10:03.288
They have one-on-one gardening clients and yeah, that's about it.

01:10:03.288 --> 01:10:05.475
I think it's busy these days.

01:10:07.020 --> 01:10:13.934
Okay, yeah, now I can imagine that was the other thing I wanted to ask Do you do consulting for farmers?

01:10:13.934 --> 01:10:22.993
Because I'm sure a lot of this is it's passed down sort of generationally of so my dad did it, you get handed the farm, so I do it.

01:10:22.993 --> 01:10:23.927
So it can be a lot.

01:10:23.927 --> 01:10:29.528
It sounds like to sort of shift the farming operations from traditional farming to regenerative.

01:10:29.528 --> 01:10:32.756
Do you do consulting for, like, independent farms as well?

01:10:33.064 --> 01:10:40.860
Yes, definitely so, same as with my garden clients, I have developed a masterclass.

01:10:40.860 --> 01:11:11.252
This masterclass is called Farms of Eden, because my goal is to create a huge community all across the world of farmers that decide to make a change in the world and decide to take action to change the way their farm is structured, that they can build something that is profitable, that they can be proud of, that they don't have to shy away of using bad chemicals, that they can build something for the next generations to come.

01:11:11.252 --> 01:11:16.854
So that's something that we've been getting a lot of success with as well.

01:11:16.854 --> 01:11:31.454
And, yeah, it's a lot of fun to be in these different fields because, in the end of the day, they are all linked to these universal laws that I discuss in my book.

01:11:31.454 --> 01:11:32.805
What?

01:11:32.824 --> 01:11:35.974
applies in the garden is sorry say again.

01:11:35.974 --> 01:11:36.976
When's your book going to come out?

01:11:37.164 --> 01:11:38.250
It's going to be out very soon.

01:11:38.250 --> 01:11:42.837
I just was talking to my publisher a couple weeks ago.

01:11:42.837 --> 01:11:53.176
In Canada we're finishing up all the drafts and everything, so it's going to be out, I want to say, in the next two months let's see if that works.

01:11:53.505 --> 01:11:57.596
Okay, we could probably coordinate this to come out right around the book launch, if you want.

01:11:57.997 --> 01:11:58.940
Oh yeah, that'd be amazing.

01:11:58.961 --> 01:12:00.385
Okay, cool.

01:12:00.385 --> 01:12:03.152
Yeah, I'd like to hear a little bit more about it as well.

01:12:03.152 --> 01:12:06.168
We've covered a lot today.

01:12:06.168 --> 01:12:11.095
Is there anything else that you want to share before, kind of wrapping this up?

01:12:12.006 --> 01:12:14.911
Well, what I do want to offer to your audience.

01:12:14.911 --> 01:12:24.418
If somebody feels connected to what I've explained and also is like this is something that I talk about.

01:12:24.418 --> 01:12:26.905
But all of my clients are action takers.

01:12:26.905 --> 01:12:29.051
They're committed, they want to make change.

01:12:29.051 --> 01:12:45.609
So if this relates to anybody who is listening here, I want to offer them to jump on a free 30 minute consulting call with me so in those 30 minutes we can look at their project and look what the bigger problems are and how we can actually solve them.

01:12:45.609 --> 01:12:50.413
So this is something that I want to offer to your audience here, that's great.

01:12:50.534 --> 01:12:51.395
I really appreciate that.

01:12:51.395 --> 01:12:52.506
Anyone listening.

01:12:52.506 --> 01:12:53.671
Please do take advantage of that.

01:12:53.671 --> 01:12:56.975
I think this would be, matthew, be a great resource for you.

01:12:58.708 --> 01:13:02.359
Yeah, we can share a Calendly link and then you can find all the details there.

01:13:02.380 --> 01:13:04.104
Awesome.

01:13:04.104 --> 01:13:05.951
Yeah, we'll definitely link that in the description.

01:13:05.951 --> 01:13:10.512
So do you have a closing message you'd like to leave with everyone before I let you go?

01:13:10.512 --> 01:13:12.847
That's a good question.

01:13:16.569 --> 01:13:33.591
Well, I think it's just that if people feel the urge or a tendency to take action in doing something that is good for their local environment and for our planet, then they should do that in whatever ways possible.

01:13:33.591 --> 01:13:44.791
So I really encourage people to go into this field of what we can call let's call it green architecture, infrastructure farming.

01:13:44.791 --> 01:13:53.037
There's a lot of ways of putting a name on it, but if you feel the urge to go into that field, definitely do it, because it's the future.

01:13:53.037 --> 01:13:59.097
I think that it's the only thing that will be profitable in the future.

01:13:59.097 --> 01:14:06.458
Like, I'm 100% behind the idea that if you don't consider these aspects, you will be out of business.

01:14:06.458 --> 01:14:17.158
So I heavily encourage people to do something good for our planet and do well in business, and in fact, that's my podcast that's going to well.

01:14:17.198 --> 01:14:19.710
By the time this comes out, the podcast will be out as well.

01:14:19.710 --> 01:14:30.551
So it's called the regenerative design podcast and I interview world leading authorities that are doing something great for our planet and are doing good in business.

01:14:30.551 --> 01:14:48.536
Because what I hear far too often is that people think, oh, if we do something good for our planet, it's not going to be profitable, but I'm a strong believer that it's the exact opposite, because if it's not going to be good for our planet and good for business, so being profitable, then it's not sustainable.

01:14:48.536 --> 01:14:53.530
That's my vision on that, and I think I want to end with that note.

01:14:54.167 --> 01:14:55.190
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.

01:14:55.190 --> 01:14:58.033
We're definitely going to link to your podcast and the show notes as well.

01:14:58.033 --> 01:15:00.167
And, yeah, that's again.

01:15:00.167 --> 01:15:01.934
A lot of this has been really encouraging.

01:15:01.934 --> 01:15:07.136
I think the common theme throughout this conversation was working in harmony with nature.

01:15:07.136 --> 01:15:21.894
So I think even in business that's possible and I'm glad you're sort of highlighting the path forward with that and speaking with people who are being innovators in that space and running profitable businesses and doing it sustainably and doing it in harmony with nature.

01:15:21.894 --> 01:15:25.555
So I think that's probably a good way to conclude this episode.

01:15:25.555 --> 01:15:29.872
Matthieu, this is a lot of fun and I really appreciate you kind of sharing everything you did.

01:15:29.872 --> 01:15:45.896
This is probably very different from a lot of the episodes I've done, so anyone who's still listening at this point hopefully you've enjoyed sort of this deep dive into soil, regenerative farming and, I think, what is going to be the future of business and agriculture as we go forward.

01:15:46.686 --> 01:15:47.430
Awesome Parker.

01:15:47.430 --> 01:15:50.234
Thank you very much for bringing me on the show.

01:15:50.234 --> 01:15:54.076
You're a great host and hope to be here back someday.

01:15:54.666 --> 01:15:57.914
Yeah, I'd love to have you on for a round two once we get this out.

01:15:57.914 --> 01:16:01.474
Let everyone digest it, collect some questions and do another episode.

01:16:01.474 --> 01:16:02.810
I think that'd be really great.

01:16:03.211 --> 01:16:05.828
Awesome, I'll have more exciting news to share.

01:16:05.828 --> 01:16:06.911
Great.

01:16:07.231 --> 01:16:08.854
Thanks so much, hey everyone.

01:16:08.854 --> 01:16:09.938
That's all for today's show.

01:16:09.938 --> 01:16:14.570
I want to thank you so much for stopping by and watching, especially if you've made it all the way to this point.

01:16:14.570 --> 01:16:20.971
If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are going to be released, feel free to subscribe and make sure you hit the bell button as well.

01:16:20.971 --> 01:16:24.555
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01:16:24.555 --> 01:16:28.916
You can also visit the podcast website, which is exploringhealthpodcastcom.

01:16:28.916 --> 01:16:31.912
That website will also be linked in the description.

01:16:31.912 --> 01:16:37.296
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01:16:37.296 --> 01:16:39.551
So any of that you can do I would really appreciate.

01:16:39.551 --> 01:16:42.730
And again, thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.