Regenerative farmer and physicist, turned AgTech founder
Welcome to Investing in Regenerative Agriculture. Where I interview key players in the field of regenerative agriculture, people who are scaling up the sector by bringing in new money or scaling up the practises on the ground.
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This time I had a the pleasure to interview Abby Rose, AgTech founder, farmer, and co-host of Farmerama!
AgTech company:
https://tech.vidacycle.com
Natural wine company:
https://vidacycle.com/home/
Great monthly podcast sharing the voices of smaller-scale farmers in the UK and beyond:
https://farmerama.co/
Key takeaways of the interview:
- we need to build a fire friendly landscape
- fires have always been there but not the intensity and degree burning over 1m acres
- Abby is mostly surrounded by mono culture pine forests which burn like nothing else
- moisture in the soil to have all year round plants which don’t burn so easily
- if you have a very diverse microbial life in the soil, it is potentially reflected in the nutritive value in the produce
- Abby worries any single measure, if she had to pick a measure the measure would diversity!
- the reason for starting Vidacycle was the lack of data from the olive farm. They planted 8000 trees but had no idea which trees were performing or not
- the more we can support small to medium scale farmers to flourish more the better
- the tech solutions weren’t there or were way too expensive
- fundamental about all of our technology is empowering farmers
- farmers are perfectly capable in understanding how their soil system works
- first they developed sector mentor to help manage olive farms, vineyards etc.
https://tech.vidacycle.com/sectormentor/
- soil mentor for soils, very simple DIY soil testing for farmers, using only equipment already present on the farm
https://soils.sectormentor.com/
- very excited about the opportunities to work with a number of small to medium size vineyards in Oregon
- biggest issue in food and ag: food prices, food is so cheap, but the truth is food isn’t cheap.
- technology is not going to save us, what will save us is changing mind sets
- technolog is a tool which will aid people
- please don’t invest in a random technology which is going to save us all
If Magic wand, true cost accounting system for food
We have discussed that before! With Volkert of Eosta/Nature and More:
Organic isn’t too expensive, conventional (chemical) farming is too cheap!
https://soundcloud.com/investinginregenerativeagriculture/interview-with-volkert-engelsman
https://www.natureandmore.com/en/true-cost-of-food/what-is-true-cost-accounting
Advice for investors:
Go and work on some farms, and understand the reality of farming
Books Abby suggests:
Farming While Black
https://www.farmingwhileblack.org/
One straw revolution
https://onestrawrevolution.net/
Dirt to Soil, Gabe Brown
https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/dirt-to-soil/
Soil of Woody Tasch
https://slowmoney.org/publications/soil-notes-towards-the-theory-and-practice-of-nurture-capital
Other podcasts on Land Trusts:
Thomas Rippel about Farmland Stewardship Organisations
https://soundcloud.com/investinginregenerativeagriculture/interview-thomas-rippel
Ian McSweeney on land trusts in the US
https://soundcloud.com/investinginregenerativeagriculture/interview-ian-mcsweeney
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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.
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