

Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Koen van Seijen
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast features the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 1, 2024 • 1h 45min
327 Franco Fubini - Delivering unmatched flavour to 2000 of the world's top restaurant and unlocking consumer demand
A conversation with Franco Fubini, co-founder of Natoora and author of In Search of the Perfect Peach, about flavour as the key to unlocking consumer demand. We talked about what leads to great flavour, which is of course soil health, but first, we need amazing seeds. How do we make sure farmers get paid accordingly when they grow the most amazing pumpkin or peaches? We tackled creating demand for flavour and lots of it starting with the world's leading restaurants, and chefs who are relentlessly looking for the best flavours on their plates.Most of the food today in the global north flows through supply chains and ends up in supermarkets. So how do we build enough demand and strong supply connections between the farmers who are purely focused on flavour and the ones that supply supermarkets, maybe first online but then also retail? It took Franco 20 years, but now Natoora is starting to crack that code, supplying over 2000 of the world's leading restaurants and some leading supermarkets all with radical seasonality, because we don’t have 4 seasons but 365. Finally, food miles are overrated and won’t change the food system, plus super diverse farms won’t lead to the best flavour; we need specialisation and scale.---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/franco-fubini.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Send us a message!LinkedInContact page website Find out more about our Generation-Re investment syndicate:https://gen-re.land/ Discount code for €200 of: InvestinginregenerativeagricultureFresh Ventures Studio online course Nov 2025 Thank you to our Field Builders Circle for supporting us. Learn more hereSupport the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!

Sep 27, 2024 • 1h 12min
326 Chris Smaje - High tech manufactured food won’t save us. Spread money, people and energy more thinly instead
A conversation with Chris Smaje, farmer and author of Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future, about manufactured food not being the solution to the food, agriculture, and climate crises, despite what George Monbiot portraits in Regenesis. Why don’t we just grow food from thin air and all move to cities and have nature rewild the countryside? If this sounds dystopian to you, this conversation is perfect for you. We unpack the many issues with that worldview and how it most likely creates more problems than it solves. There are huge technical challenges with this kind of manufactured food, like energy costs and health. But this is about much more; this is also about the concentration of people, capital, and power in cities and the rural-urban divide.---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/chris-smaje.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Send us a message!LinkedInContact page website Find out more about our Generation-Re investment syndicate:https://gen-re.land/ Discount code for €200 of: InvestinginregenerativeagricultureFresh Ventures Studio online course Nov 2025 Thank you to our Field Builders Circle for supporting us. Learn more hereSupport the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!

Sep 24, 2024 • 1h 7min
325 Stefania Avanzini - Why and how 26 food giants with a turn over of $900 billion are getting serious about regeneration and biodiversity
A conversation with Stefania Avanzini, director of One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B), about working hard to create alternative vertically integrated, farmed-owned food companies and transforming the current giants. Because, whether we like it or not, most of the food we buy in supermarkets comes from these companies. These companies are finally feeling the pain from climate weirding in their supply chains. So, what are they doing about it, and why did 26 of them join the coalition of businesses for biodiversity?How does a coalition with companies with a total turnover of over 900 billion dollars work on changing the food system? These are the whales of the food system, not the small fishes, and with all their issues and challenges, they are fundamental to the future of our food system.---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/stefania-avanzini.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Send us a message!LinkedInContact page website Find out more about our Generation-Re investment syndicate:https://gen-re.land/ Discount code for €200 of: InvestinginregenerativeagricultureFresh Ventures Studio online course Nov 2025 Thank you to our Field Builders Circle for supporting us. Learn more hereSupport the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!

Sep 17, 2024 • 1h 27min
324 Frederik Lean Hansen - Small individual farms are probably not the future of farming in Europe
A wide-ranging conversation with Frederik Lean Hansen, a regenerative farm business consultant who spent a year traveling and working on 12 farms alongside regenerative farmers across Europe. He is currently active as a Farm Finance genitor and is now starting his own silvopastured poultry enterprise on his parents' farm in Denmark. We discuss topics such as finance, CapEx, OpEx, income statements, and cash flow, as well as the myth of small-scale farming and whether economies of scale truly matter. Fred shares insights on how farmers can organize together to access better markets, run more financially successful businesses, and improve their quality of life. We also delve into the importance of inner work, which is often neglected in our sector—or any sector, for that matter.---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/frederik-lean-hansen.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Send us a message!LinkedInContact page website Find out more about our Generation-Re investment syndicate:https://gen-re.land/ Discount code for €200 of: InvestinginregenerativeagricultureFresh Ventures Studio online course Nov 2025 Thank you to our Field Builders Circle for supporting us. Learn more hereSupport the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!

Sep 10, 2024 • 1h 31min
323 Chuck de Liedekerke - Paying 1600 farmers to change their practices and just raised €15M
A check-in with Chuck de Liedekerke, CEO and co-founder of Soil Capital and one of the veterans of the regen space, whom we interviewed almost 6 years ago! We talk about paying farmers for ecosystem services and why they seem to have hit an inflection point in the last two years. Working with over 1600 farmers to get them paid for carbon and more through corporations that buy from them. Corporates in the food space finally start to wake up to the opportunity and necessity of investing in their supply shed. And to top it off, we talk about water cycles and landscape-scale regeneration!Last week Soil Capital has completed its €15M Series B funding round. ---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/chuck-de-liedekerke-2.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Send us a message!LinkedInContact page website Find out more about our Generation-Re investment syndicate:https://gen-re.land/ Discount code for €200 of: InvestinginregenerativeagricultureFresh Ventures Studio online course Nov 2025 Thank you to our Field Builders Circle for supporting us. Learn more hereSupport the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!

Sep 6, 2024 • 52min
322 Nettie Wiebe - We have become monocultural in our fields and minds
A conversation with Nettie Wiebe, organic farmer and long-time small farm activist in Canada and globally, one of the founders of La Via Campesina, part of the IPES food panel, and coauthor of the recent Land Squeeze report. We talk about land purchases and prices. In many places, over 70% of the farmland is controlled by 1% of the farms. This is just one of the many challenges the latest Land Squeeze report of the IPES food panel addresses. We talk about the results of the report and what to do about it, how go get speculative money out of farming and why green grabbing needs to stop.Land squeeze: one of the biggest issues in regenerative farming is access to land. Why is that? Farmers in the global industrialised north are ageing, and many of them don’t have a next generation taking over the farm; many other people would love to farm and are, in many cases, able, but can never finance the land purchase because land prices and value are completely disconnected. They face competition from ever larger industrial extractive, well financed farms.---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/nettie-wiebe.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Send us a message!LinkedInContact page website Find out more about our Generation-Re investment syndicate:https://gen-re.land/ Thank you to our Field Builders Circle for supporting us. Learn more hereSupport the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!

Sep 3, 2024 • 1h 29min
321 Eduard Müller - Regenerative education is the answer, whatever the question was
A conversation with Eduard Müller, founder of University for International Cooperation (UCI) and leading Costa Rica Regenerativa, about regenerative education: what does it mean, and why is it so powerful to focus on educating people who want to learn more about regeneration? Eduard makes a very strong case against trying to convince the people in power, in industry, in chemical companies, in fertile companies, in large ultra-processed food companies, at the UN, etc. He has tried and failed, and he truly believes in on education and unlearning. That is why he started his own university 15 years ago. He started with online education in 1998, focusing on scaling regeneration in Costa Rica and showing the numbers and data behind it to reach the tipping point.---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/eduard-muller.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Send us a message!LinkedInContact page website Find out more about our Generation-Re investment syndicate:https://gen-re.land/ Discount code for €200 of: InvestinginregenerativeagricultureFresh Ventures Studio online course Nov 2025 Thank you to our Field Builders Circle for supporting us. Learn more hereSupport the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!

Aug 27, 2024 • 1h 44min
320 Matthijs Westerwoudt - Paying farmers for cultivating weeds and making biodiversity super tasty by selling drinks and teas made from native plants
Matthijs Westerwoudt is the co-founder of Wilder Land, a company transforming native plants, often considered weeds, into highly desirable products. These plants, once dismissed as unwanted, are now being used to create delicious drinks, herbal teas, kombuchas, fermented teas, and even pasta. The company pays farmers more per square meter than they would earn from any other crop. How do they achieve this? First, by ensuring that these products taste as good as, or even better than, those made from monoculture crops. Second, through exceptional branding—highlighting the appeal of "nature-restoring" drinks over the concept of "biodiversity-restoring" beverages. The secret to success lies in continuous testing and refinement. In short, they are making biodiversity not just important, but incredibly tasty.In the Netherlands, many things are well-organized, but the country also holds the unfortunate title of being a world leader in biodiversity loss. This raises the question: how can farmers be compensated for the extra biodiversity they create or support? While the idea of biodiversity credits might come to mind, these are difficult to measure and not yet fully developed. Wilder Land found a different solution for it.---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/matthijs-westerwoudt.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Send us a message!LinkedInContact page website Find out more about our Generation-Re investment syndicate:https://gen-re.land/ Discount code for €200 of: InvestinginregenerativeagricultureFresh Ventures Studio online course Nov 2025 Thank you to our Field Builders Circle for supporting us. Learn more hereSupport the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!

Aug 23, 2024 • 1h 10min
319 Mark Lewis – After putting half of their $50M fund to work in regen, what has one of the leading VCs in the world learned?
A check-in interview with Mark Lewis, managing partner at Trailhead Capital, about the inevitability of the "regenerative revolution" and the potential for significant financial and non-financial returns in this space. What does putting almost half of your $50 million VC fund to work in businesses active in the regen space in North America, taught Mark about the space and what has changed since 2021, and what big opportunities haven’t we collectively invested in? What is missing and what is needed? And we discuss why Mark is no longer hunting for unicorns but is still very positive about the potential for financial returns in the regenerative food and agriculture space.---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/mark-lewis-2.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Send us a message!LinkedInContact page website Find out more about our Generation-Re investment syndicate:https://gen-re.land/ Discount code for €200 of: InvestinginregenerativeagricultureFresh Ventures Studio online course Nov 2025 Thank you to our Field Builders Circle for supporting us. Learn more hereSupport the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!

Aug 20, 2024 • 1h 4min
318 Clare Hill and Annie Rayner - The counter-narrative to industrialised chicken: what does it mean to produce deeply regenerative chicken and eggs?
A conversation with Annie Rayner and Clare Hill, founders of Planton Farm, Roots to Regeneration and Impeckable Poultry, experts in poultry welfare and regenerative agriculture transition pioneers in the UK. We discuss where to start when you want to integrate livestock as a farmer. Many would say poultry, but there are a lot of issues, from lockdowns because of bird flu to feeding because these aren’t ruminants, so they can’t just graze, while another big one is genetics. We have bred birds to be either egg or meat birds, and that is incredibly inefficient and horrible for animal welfare. Annie and Clare are embarking on a mission to answer the question: What does it mean to produce deeply regenerative chicken and eggs?---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/clare-hill-annie-rayner.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Send us a message!LinkedInContact page website Find out more about our Generation-Re investment syndicate:https://gen-re.land/ Discount code for €200 of: InvestinginregenerativeagricultureFresh Ventures Studio online course Nov 2025 Thank you to our Field Builders Circle for supporting us. Learn more hereSupport the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!