Untitled - May 22, 2026

00:00:00 Speaker: Welcome to a Special Future Chain twenty twenty six edition of the Sustainable Commodities Podcast. I'm Barnaby Patchett from one ninety nine. It comes in marketing agency working in sustainable commodities. This is a bit of a departure from our usual format. It's a different episode. It features a series of six short interviews recorded live at Future Chain twenty twenty six, where I spoke to some of the exhibitors, panelists and attendees a little bit about the conference. First Future Chain was held in London at the end of April twenty twenty six, and the focus was strengthening ingredients supply chain resilience. A timely topic, uh, there were two tracks at the conference, the Regenerative Agriculture Summit and a Raw Materials Risk and Resilience Summit. Risk and resilience were the topics that mattered at this conference. Uh, but if you want to know more about it, I also recorded a shorter episode, given my fairly unfiltered thoughts and opinions on the conference, which will be going live very shortly if it hasn't already. So look out for that episode if you want to know more. But on to the interviews. Who did I speak to at the event? Uh, first up, we had Sebastian Rumegus from biospheres. Sebastian's, uh, is a bit of a celebrity in the world of regenerative agriculture, especially in France. So I was really pleased to have him on and to hear more about biospheres work in designing and implementing regenerative agriculture systems. He also has a book out, which I must admit I have not read yet, but that's only because it's only available in French. Uh. I will be ordering it as soon as the English language version drops later in the year, and I suggest you do too. Uh, next up, we have Lindsay Crompton from Regen Agri, a global regenerative agriculture and certification program based in the UK. We talked about some of the work and its impact, and also quite a lot about the opportunities and challenges in regenerative agriculture today? You'll hear from Richard Anscombe from Oxfam Technologies talking about some of the current challenges facing farmers. Farmer finances, uh, and also some of the challenges when it comes to data. And you'll hear about their all in one agricultural software system, which is used by six hundred thousand farmers worldwide. I was delighted to speak with Pedro de Leon from earthworm, the global nonprofit working to create scalable solutions for nature and people to thrive. This was a great chat. Pedro was super honest and open about some of the challenges and themes in sustainable agriculture, and had some really good tips on the practical ways to scale things. I really enjoyed that one. Uh, Annie Leeson from Agri Carbon joined me to talk about the importance and value of measuring organic carbon in agricultural soils and the insights that we could all benefit from it. I really, really like their approach to on the ground measurement. There's some extremely exciting potential there, I think. So listen to that to find out more. Finally, I spoke to Doctor Paul O'Hara from Soil Works discussing organic fertilizer, circular economics, Iran, and how we can transition from fossil fuel based fertilizers, something that's been very topical these last few months. I really enjoyed all these conversations, and I hope you do too. Please, if you do like the episode, subscribe, review, share it on LinkedIn. It all really does help with the development of the show. Now on to the conversations. I, uh, welcome back to the Sustainable Commodities podcast live from Future Chain twenty twenty six. I'm here with Sebastian Rumegus from biospheres. Sebastian, welcome to the podcast. Welcome. Great. Well, first, please tell me, tell me a bit about yourself and biospheres. Yeah, thank you for having me on this podcast. So, um, actually, uh, so I'm an agronomist, uh, from, uh, a farmers family. And, uh, fifteen years ago, I was expecting to be an agricultural advisor. Um, and I was looking for farmers that wanted to go into more soil fertility into more resilience. So at this time, we were talking about agroecology. Yeah. And I was expecting to do that all my life, but actually, uh, I specialized on soil science and it was I worked with so many farmers that I started to be a kind of noun in France. And, uh, many of big corporates wanted to work with me. Yeah. So I had to hire people. And now, uh, I'm very glad to run biospheres, which is a company that is working, uh, in something like thirty countries developing agroecology or what we call now regenerative agriculture in thirty countries with thousands of farmers, uh, in, in any kind of soil and climate conditions. So that's so interesting to deep dive into regenerative agriculture in so many situations, because that means it's possible to develop, uh, a resilient agriculture almost everywhere. Um, so now we are working on, uh, research, uh, we are doing agricultural advisory. Uh, we are, we are also a training center for agronomists and farmers. And we try to develop like programs for big corporates to like transform the practices among large group of farmers. Mhm. And, uh, yeah, that's, that's a big journey for those farmers. Yeah. But, uh, I think most of the farmers don't want to go back because they can see that they have more interest to go in this kind of agriculture than to remain in a conventional intensive agriculture using like, uh, inputs and machinery. Uh, they were used to do. Mhm. Um, so it's a kind of, uh, it's even a psychological transformation. I mean, I was speaking to Mark in your team because he's a farmer who has, who has embraced these practices. Um, so you've really got, you know, your team is, is, is the people who know what know why and know how it works. Yeah. So it depends because we have like a scientific department. Yeah. So I expect from those guys to really deep dive into any topic we put, uh, in their hands, uh, and we have, uh, of course a technical department and the training center where we need people that, uh, knows. Yeah. What happens in the field. Um, we try to hire like, daughters or sons of farmer. Yeah. Because they know, uh, it's not a matter of knowing. It's a matter of feeling, you know, like, because they were raised as a farmer and they understand what does it mean to stick to the land? What does it mean to work hard? What does it mean to work hard and sometimes not having the revenue we're expecting? Yeah. So I mean, it's, uh, it's very interesting. And it's a matter also of respect. Um, I always tell my team that, uh, the transition starts with the farmer trust. Mhm. If you don't get the trust of the farmer, it's impossible to work with him to build a new farming system. Yeah. Uh, and this trust is not, uh, made by chance. It's made because the guy in front of you understand that. You understand him and his life. His life, uh, and, uh, how sometimes it's hard. I mean, in our society, I think we undervalue, uh, or underestimate the difficulty to be a farmer. We are working hard. Um, Sometimes everyone can be nice. If you have like a large farm, well organized and so on. It can be good money, but most of the time it's not good money. You are working hard and you are doing the margin of an industry. But with the climate that is doing what he wants. So it's like you have this uncertainty which is there, but you have the margin of an industry that is usually mastering everything in the factory. Yeah. And, uh, that's a weird situation, especially when you have like all the, what we call the emerging market, maybe regarding AI, it's an emerging market or it's a developing country. But regarding agriculture, those countries are very developed. If you go like in Brazil, if you go all over South America, if you go in some parts of Asia, like those guys are doing great. Yeah, they have big farms, uh, good profitability. And it's very difficult for a European farmer with the average farm to fight against that. So that means we have an inflation of our costs. But actually the revenue is kind of flat. And, uh, so that means we have to work on farming systems that are kind of sober and sobriety is not there by chance. You have to build that. So I mean, that's why when we are developing regenerative agriculture now, we are not just looking to earthworms or biology or whatever. Of course, that's one of the core topics, but we embed that in, um, the profitability aspect, uh, which is important. And it's about cost cutting. Yeah. Uh, reducing those input costs. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've, I've heard that from the few farmers that are here at this conference, um, that have, uh, transitioned to regenerative. Yeah. They talk about the benefit, not necessarily in terms of increased yields, but sometimes even in reduced yields, but in terms of significantly reduced input costs. Yeah. So is that the that the real kind of financial sort of business case if you're going to a farmer. Mhm. That's how you're you're is that how you get it over the line. It depends what is growing for grain. Yes. Yeah. Uh, because we, I think all the modeling is quite clear now in terms of finance. Yeah. So for grain producers we can cut costs, especially in terms of mechanization, which accounts for about thirty to fifty percent of the overall costs. Yeah. So that means if you are cutting the mechanization, you are cutting like sometimes fifteen or twenty percent of the overall costs of your production. So that means, uh, we can impact, uh, nicely the margin. Yeah. Uh, we can cut also fertilizers, but sometimes not the first year. It depends. If your soil is, is is doing well or not, and your ability to. Yeah, take profit from your soil fertility. Sometimes it it happens and sometimes it's kind of long. So when I say long, it's between two, three years to take back, uh, the profit to get back to get back up to that level. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, so that's why everything starts with the diagnosis. Um, you know, a good diagnosis is for me critical. And the key, if you really want to know what you should do in the farm, and this diagnosis must be, of course, uh, about soil fertility, uh, cropping systems, but also profitability of those and then trying to find the best way in the short and medium term to improve the whole system. And that's not going to be the same for every farm. No, because of course, if you are growing trees or if you are doing like small fruits vineyards, it can be completely different. Yeah. Um, so yeah, the problem is now for a farmer to be very concrete and pragmatic before you can make mistakes, like you buy this new tractor, you don't really need or, um, you are putting too much input on your field. So then it's over cost of, uh, one hundred pounds per hectare or something like that. But now every bad decision, uh, wait a lot, uh, on finance because the margins are so. Yeah. Because the margins are so small and Goodyear are a kind of, uh, I don't know, it's like, I think before within ten years you will have maybe three, four years of like in good situation, good yield, blah, blah. But now, uh, you are very bad here. Or just you have average here and maybe you will have one or two years that are like really popping up. And the problem is you cannot like recover rapidly. So that's why what we advise is to cut the cost as much as you can. When I say as much as you can, it's not too much. Because sometimes, like if you cut too much the cost, uh, you can pay the yield. Yeah, you can deplete your yield. So it's like finding the right balance. And, uh, it's about accounting actually, and agronomy is important, but accounting is very important to the farmer. Finances is something that comes comes up at this conference. It came up in Amsterdam. It was one of the key themes. I think the theme of this has been more resilience. Yeah. As a as a system in terms of, um, you do already, how this, how regenerative agriculture impacts on resistance. Yeah. And resilience in terms of the, uh. Um, yeah. Food system. So to understand that, uh, we should go back to the concept of, uh, bio regulations. Mhm. And how life is working in, uh, on earth. So, I mean, regenerative agriculture is the art of converting sun energy into living beings. That works for you. And people usually don't really, like connect those dots. So actually, we are we are all using sun energy to live. Yeah. And you have an intermediate which, which are plants, you know, that can convert this energy into like biomass and chemical components. We can consume like sugar and so on. Yeah. And I think thanks to this sugar, you can run biological machines that have some functions. I still don't know the function of humans, but I mean, for all the others they are. They can find a balance, you know, in the ecosystem. Yeah. But I think that's because human being has just they I think we went like far beyond our initial place in the ecosystems. But anyway, so what what is interesting is, okay, uh, you have like what we call functional biodiversity, which are, for instance, earthworm, which is producing like natural soil macroporosity. You have like microbial, uh, yeah, friendly bacteria in your soil that are helping you to have a better turnover for nutrients and so on and so forth. But also above ground, you have some, uh, secondary pollinators that can help to mitigate some pest pressure, these kind of things. Yeah. So those are, uh, components that are very important to increase the resilience, the overall resilience of a farm. So that means most of the resilience rely on living beings that you have to understand in terms of biology, physiology and needs to make them thrive on your farm. In order to get profit from them. So it's like a collaboration between between life, uh, different kind of life. And, um, I mean, when you get that, you have much more, I would say, uh, bumpers on the farm. For instance, if you have a good soil life that is helping you to get like a good soil porosity, that means you will infiltrate water much more. So you won't have like problems, uh, in terms of water flows on your plots. Mhm. Which is, which seems to be theoretical, but like in real life, it happens. Like if you see a field with, uh, open files, more organic matter, and one ton of, uh, earthworms more than like the neighbor fields, you will drastically see that the water flows will change. And these water flows in the field which is working well, are managed in such a way that you can get in the, in the plot, uh, earlier, you don't have like water everywhere. You won't have, uh, a root, uh, asphyxia and so on and so on and so forth. Uh, so that means, uh, it's so important to really, um, like monitor that to prove, but at the end, uh, because farmers need a proof, you know, they do. But yeah, but I mean, taking the risk. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. But I mean, there's no risk to have a better soil porosity. No, no, no. And for bioregulation above ground, it can be slightly different because people like it's a kind of difficult to understand that some insects will help you on a regular basis. But, uh, we can definitely see that on for our cards. Uh, but even for grain, uh, for aphids, for instance, the main problem in terms of resilience you may have because you may have a better climatic resilience, you may have a better pest pressure resilience. But for diseases, it's a kind of difficult without dealing with a better genetics or changing the genetics or mixing varieties within your field. So I mean, resilience as such should not be like a global concept, but it's a very broad. Yeah. But we need to deep dive into it because otherwise it will be a buzzword, you know what I mean? So yeah, making resilience is a process. So that's why, for instance, at biosphere, we made a framework, an internal framework. We don't sell this framework, but we use that in our project. It's all plant landscape or soil plant animal landscape. So that means you have to increase the functionality. So it's not just resilience. It's increasing the functionality of soils and landscape. Yeah. To profit your crops and the way you drive, the changes in your soul and your landscape is not the same everywhere. Because what you have to the functions, you have to increase among your soul and landscape. It should be a chord is according to your crop or your animals. So like how to deal with hedgerows, planting, uh, how to deal with flowering bank, how to deal with organic matter. Salt tillage management is about what is cropping system. What are your expectations in terms of yield and quality? And, uh, if you do it properly, you can end up with something very, very robust. That's great. Thank you. And also, I know you have a book I saw it at, uh, I saw it in Amsterdam, but it was in French. And my French is not good enough to read your book. And, uh, you also had it. Uh, I understand there is an English version. Yeah, the English version is coming by, I think, um, mid May twenty six or end of May twenty six. Okay. Well I will look out for it. Yeah. And it's, it's called, uh, the agriculture that regenerates nature, right? Because, uh, I think with regenerative agriculture, what we're trying to do is to align farming practices with the functioning of nature. So it's all about collaborating with nature. If nature is is doing well, agriculture is doing well. And by respecting nature, maybe in a way we can respect our nature. So everything is intermingled and connected at the end. That's great. Well, I'll definitely be picking up a copy. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, if you want to hear more about more of Sebastian's knowledge, then I suggest you do that too. Um, thank you very much. Thank you for coming to speak to me. Um, where can people find out more about biospheres? Uh, so they can go to biospheres dot com. I have also a personal website, uh, Sebastian, uh, dot com, something like that. And I'm very active on LinkedIn. So yeah, let's connect on LinkedIn and, uh, let's see what happens. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We're here live at, uh, Future Change twenty twenty six. And I'm here speaking to Lindsay Crumpton from region. Agree. Lindsay, welcome. Thank you very much. Nice to meet you. Yeah. So so if you could start by just tell me a bit more about region agree. So region agree is a global regenerative agriculture program and a certification program. Uh, we are a community interest company, um, registered here in the UK and we've been going about six years, um, always with a focus on regenerative agriculture. Um, so from the very beginning, we've had that focus on region, which has been great. Um, we work across two point two million hectares, um, about three hundred and fifty zero zero zero farms across thirty countries, and globally, and sort of quite a good reach across across the different continents. So yeah, a really good global reach. And we certify farms and, and supply chain organizations as well, and then work all the way up through to brands and retailers. Um, which means that we have a really good view of the full supply chain working with them from the farm all the way up through to the eventual end, uh, the brand and the reseller. Um, and we have data at each step of that supply chain. So that's what we're really well known for is that data piece with third party auditors and have that full traceability of the supply chain coming into a lovely data platform, which means we can give lovely stats around the impact, um, of regenerative agriculture. Oh, well, that sounds great. I guess. Um, regenerative agriculture at the moment it, it's become a very popular buzzword. So you see a lot of organisations claiming we have regenerative. Mhm. So you're keeping them honest? Is that right? You're providing. We're trying to. And, you know, that's an important bit all the way from the farms all the way up through up until the brands and retailers and having that data and that sits behind it is really helpful to sort of avoid, uh, risks of greenwashing, I suppose. Yeah. Well, one of the big themes, I guess, of this conference is being resilience. Yes. Um, how does your platform support kind of building resilience, I suppose? Yeah, it's a great question for us because I think resilience really sits behind everything that we do. And that's all the way from the farms. So thinking about, uh, resilience in terms of sort of crops and soil, um, through to climate resilience, um, through to nature resilience. So we think about biodiversity and animal welfare too. And then also a really important part for us is the human side of things. So thinking about Physical and emotional resilience of the farmers all the way through to financial resilience too. Because of course, without that, you don't have your supply chain standing up at all. And so yeah, it starts with the farm resilience. Um, and then through to kind of, uh, having that full supply chain, um, engagement with regenerative agriculture. So making sure that we encourage and encourage understanding of the benefits of regenerative from the farms all the way through to the brands and the retailers so that there's that match between supply and demand. Yeah. Um, is a really important bit for us. Um, and then I think there's probably a bit around, um, our platform and program is all based around third party auditing and we've got that, um, chain of custody standard, which means that we have data and traceability. Um, and again, that means, uh, we're avoiding risks of, uh, overclaiming, um, the greenwashing stops as well. Fraud and greenwashing. Yeah, absolutely. So yes, resilience is very risky for us. You mentioned um pharma finances. They're obviously a huge theme and a real challenge at the moment globally, not just in, in the UK. Absolutely. Um, tell me more about, about how your, your platform or how the work that you're doing kind of can protect or improve pharma finances. So, you know, I think we do have a role to play in, in that. Um, and that comes from some conversations we're having with finance institutions at the moment. So to be able to, uh, where, uh, organizations are, uh, certified with region agree that mean that they get, um, you know, they're facilitated into, uh, lending agreements. Uh, so that's something we're exploring and a role that we have to play. Then of course, that match between, um, farms, you know, producing, um, regen goods all the way through to is there a market for those goods? So us having that role between farms and also brands and retailers ensuring that that market exists. But also in some cases, there is, of course, a premium that goes to, um, certified regeneratively grown orchids. Yeah. Um, we launched a carbon insetting program last year, which for us is another mechanism for funds to flow back to farmers, which is really, really important for us. And then also there are benefits, uh, well, opportunities for brands and retailers to reduce their scope three emissions. Um, so yes, there's a few bits that we, you know, a few parts that, um, that we can play. Well, talking about brands and retailers, I, I saw when I was, uh, doing my research for this, uh, that you've just signed a partnership with Walmart. We have, I mean, that's pretty big. Very excited about that. Yes. So what does that involve? Uh, so yeah, Walmart are going to be working with us in, um, cotton, first of all. Um, so they're going to be encouraging their suppliers to be, um, to consider a regional certification, um, amongst their them cotton and. And we do hope, of course, that that will extend into the food supply chain too, because yeah, Walmart is obviously a massive, uh, well, the scale and the, the role that Walmart can play is, you know, is very, very, um, well, there's huge potential there. Yeah. So I mean, we need to bring the big, the bigger businesses have the bigger. I was chatting with a farmer a couple of weeks ago and they were sort of, you know, questioning whether they, you know, there were some brands that, you know, liquor farms, they, oh, big bad, such and such. Actually, Walmart wasn't the one they were mentioning. Um, but then we got to a place of actually, it's better to have these, you know, um, these giant corporations on board and then, you know, sort of, you know, if they're making change for good, then that's, that's brilliant. They're the ones that need to change. We the most, they're the ones where their biggest impact is. So yeah, of course. That's right. And there's some great people within the organization. So um, yeah, we're happy to be working with them. That's great. So, um, the final challenge, I guess that that has been, uh, at many of the conferences I go to, especially the regenerative agriculture ones. Yes. So how do we get you're currently doing two million hectares. Um, how do we get to twenty million? I think it comes down to um that bit around understanding the challenges. And you know, I suppose that's what today is all about, um, is understanding the challenges from, I think there's quite a lot of corporates here today. Um, but it's also about understanding the challenges from the farmers perspective. And I think the role that region agri can play is that role of facilitating between those different parties within the supply chain and ensuring that there is a match between what is being produced, regeneratively and the demand to be able to sell those goods. A big part of it, and actually my my background is in in retail before I joined Region Agri. I know there's a huge challenge around consumer understanding of regenerative. So that's actually something that we're going to look into this year. Um, a little bit more, um, uh, because actually, you know, can we help the brands and the retailers to be able to communicate that to their consumers? And if we can, um, then that, you know, that market will just sort of continue to grow, but it does rely a little bit on that consumer understanding of it and, and passion for it. Is that, is that an industry issue as well? Is that, is that kind of our fault in terms of having a agreed definition for it? Oh, gosh. Um, I, you know, I've worked in sustainability my whole career. I think, you know, there's so many different elements to it. And, you know, the consumer consumers are fickle. Uh, and also they often don't, uh, do what they say they're going to do. Um, so I think the consumer understanding piece is, is complex, not just because of the, the lack of a definition. I think it's about them understanding the breadth of the impacts of degenerative agriculture. Um, but then also sort of, yeah, engaging in it and then being able to actually put their money where their mouths are. I think there's a huge opportunity with regenerative Of agriculture simply because it hasn't become politically polarized in the same way as sustainability. Carbon. Yeah. You know, you look even at the current administration in the US and you've got support for regenerative agriculture. I spoke to an organisation in the US the other day, and they said exactly that. The way they said on both sides in the US they've got they've got support. So they're they're laughing. Yeah. So so maybe that's the hopeful bit to end on. Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. So if we come back in, uh, let's say we have this conversation again in, in twenty thirty, what's going to have changed? What's it going to look like? I think there will be a full supply chain understanding of the impacts of regenerative agriculture. And those are so far reaching and so full supply chain engagement. But then also the, uh, the consumer piece as well. So consumers will have got there too. That's fantastic. Thank you very much, Lindsay. Um, where can people go to find out more about Region agri? Uh, our website's, uh, reading agri dot org. Great. Thank you very much. Cheers. I'm here with Richard Amezcua from X Farm Technologies. Yeah. Richard, welcome to the podcast, Barnaby. Thank you for seeking me out. And I'm looking forward to, uh, talking to you. Great. Well, uh, before we start, tell me a bit about X Farm Technologies. Okay. X Farm Technologies formed in twenty seventeen by farmers in in Italy who looked at the, uh, the fact that all of their important data was held in lots of different systems and different silos. And as a farmer said, what we want is one system where all of our data comes together and then we can do something with it. We can understand what's really going on, where we can save money, where we can make more money. Um, and so they said about creating X farm and here we are now six hundred zero zero zero farmers across Europe and South America using the product. Um, and I've been taken on as the UK business manager, and I'm looking to add to that six hundred zero zero zero um, by encouraging UK farmers to use the product. Yeah. Because it's used across a huge amount of, of land isn't it. Yeah. You're talking sort of nine million hectares, something like that. Yeah. It's probably more than that actually now Barnaby, but a lot, a lot of land. I mean to put that in perspective, that's uh the size of Portugal. So we're talking a serious amount of land. Gosh, that's a fantastic way of thinking about it. Yes. Um, so, uh, the big theme of this conference today, I've seen a lot of the, this is day one and there's been a few workshops, but the overall theme seems to be on supply chain resilience. Yes. Things beyond farmer finances. Yeah. And, um, yeah, how does your solution kind of fit in, fit in with somebody? Well, if you, if you've got a system that's modern and really easy for farmers to use. Mhm. Then they'll use it. But they've got to see a benefit to them on the farm. Yeah. And if you've got a system that connects all of their activities, what they're doing, what they have to do, what they plan, what do they actually do compared with what they planned? And then if you layer information coming from satellites, sensors, um, pest monitors, uh, weather, all of that can go in and say, look, here's what's going on. Here's what you've done. Um, and here's what it's cost you. And here's some areas where you can save money. Always appealing to farmers. I think it's, well, you know, farmers are, are nothing if not practical people that work really hard. And in today's market in the UK, if you're an arable farmer, you know, you're struggling to break even. Yeah. So if we're saying come and come and look at X farm, it's real easy to use connects over fifty different machinery types. If you send me as your tractor driver into a field to drill some, drill a crop or a combine driver combining a crop, then the instruction to go and do that. The fact that I've done it, the field I've done, how long I've taken you can put, how much I cost you, what the machinery costs, what the siege or drilling costs, and all of that with a connected machinery can automatically come back in. So you don't have to fight with a manual system and bureaucracy, because let's face it, one of the you and I, faced with a really old system where you have to manually go in, you're probably not going to do it. And I think no farmers, especially being, uh, being potentially less tech savvy on these things or certainly un less willing to use these tools. Yeah. Unless they're easy. I mean, it's the same with any, any tool. Yes. Really important. I mean, if, if a farmers have got a variety of things they have to do in their business. Um, it's high risk. You know, they've got the, the vagaries of the weather, they've got the vagaries of commodity markets or the, you know, even milk's a commodity. So they've got a lot of, a lot of um things to worry about. And the last thing they want to do is to learn a complicated system. So the real trick with farm is to make it really comprehensive end to end, um, but easy to use. And we've automated a huge amount of it. So, uh, this is the sustainable commodities podcast. Uh, in terms of sustainability, what are the elements that kind of fit into the platform? Yeah. So if you look at sustainability, then what does sustainability really mean? And if you look at a sustainable farming business, then what you're trying to do is, is grow more with less. Mhm. Um, and that means using less energy, uh, sourced products like fertilizer, like kem, like diesel. Um, so if the product can say to you, right, okay, here's the things that you're planning to do. Um, we've looked wide across the enterprise and if we can inform you by layering AI on top as well of opportunities to achieve more with less and, and give you prediction, uh, predictive farming techniques and farming operations that will actually help you, uh, help your bottom line. Then that's what the product can do. Um, and then also sustainability is about the whole supply chain. So if I want to go into a shop and buy a product to take home and eat, um, then the person that is providing that product, that, that consumer products on the shelf will be really interested in knowing from their process back down onto the farm and the many processes in between. What has that actual product cost in terms of the environmental footprint. Scope three. Scope three. Scope three. You've nailed it much more eloquently just then than I have. But and actually, scope three is the holy grail for the actors in the supply chain, a big priority right now. It's a big priority if you're, um, you're a miller or you're a food producer, then ninety odd percent of your emissions are scope three. Yeah. So we can go from farm right through the supply chain. We've got an A product called X from analytics. So I've been talking about X from Farm Management Information System. All the stuff a farmer will do, making that the day to day stuff, all of their day to day data, their compliance, everything else, compliance, and taking the manual intervention out of it as much as possible. Um, and then you can flow that up into who's where does, let's say crop of wheat, where does that go? It leaves the farm. It goes into a merchant. Um, it's traded. It goes into a mill. The mill, if it's milling wheat, the mill alternatives, a flower that flowers purchased. And eventually it might be a biscuit on a shelf that I buy and take home and have with a cup of tea. Now, all of those points, we can give access to those, all of those acts in the supply chain. And if I'm the manufacturer making a biscuit that goes on a shelf that Barney buys from Hazardous Cup of tea, I can look at all the different mills and all the different parts of my supply chain, because it won't just be one bunch of farmers, one mill. It's going to be lots of flour coming, lots of different places. And I can say, okay, how, who's who's doing it more effectively, who's doing it more sustainably? And what lessons can I then communicate throughout my supply chain to help them move their dial more sustainably? So it could inform your own procurement, or it could open a conversation with your existing suppliers and tell them where they need to be. Yes, yes. Yeah. Because, you know, if you're working effectively with your supply chain, then part of your if you've got the knowledge, then why not share that? And if it helps your suppliers improve their effectiveness and efficiency and use less and do the same, or do more with less, then everybody's winning. And actually, ultimately, you know, the planet's winning. You know, at the end of the day, I think sustainability is about what's good for the planet and the people, um, as well as profitability of the actors in the supply chain. Well, profitability, um, yeah, challenge for farmers right now. Um, you know, when you look at the state of the agricultural sector right now, yeah. What is it that kind of keeps you up at night and what to put a more hopeful one? And what is it that gives you hope, I guess. So what would keep me awake at night? I think if you look at farming, um, it's it's, it can be long hours. Mhm. It can be hard work. Um, a lot of farms are actively taking a lot of risk in a business. The returns are really low, and at the moment you'd argue across arable farming in the UK the returns are negative. Um, so I, I would worry about the farmers that I know and work with and, and their health and wellbeing and their, and their happiness. Uh, we'll catch up shortly. Um yeah, their health and happiness. Um, and, and I would be concerned about, um, how are they going to turn what they do in into a sustainable, profitable business going forward? How and some of the big factors they can't control. They can't control the weather. No, none of us can. And yet if it's too wet at a certain time or too dry at a certain time, that will affect yields. And, and what plays into that is obviously climate change and sustainability and reversing the negative effects on the climate, which is a key topic, I think, of this conference is really important. But the other thing that will be keeping farmers awake here and now, yesterday, today and tomorrow. So the immediate the immediate term is, is just what's going on in the world with with the walls being being raised, the Strait of Hormuz, fertilizer, fertilizer costs. Yeah. Diesel fuels, diesel costs. Um, and that knocks on the costs across the whole cost of a business. And if you're running a business where you can't control the commodity price. Yeah. Um, and you can't control the weather and you can't control the import price, then, you know, you're in quite a vulnerable position as a person working hard, perhaps with a lot of borrowing. And, and when you can't control things, that's actually quite hard to manage. But boy, do we need those farmers to be doing what they're doing. And do we need them to be managing it? And do we need them here tomorrow? And and we'll be paying for it. It will all pay for it. Where? If farmers don't thrive. Yes. Yeah. So, gosh, if I could wave a magic wand, it's how can we get more of the, the price of the of the product on the shelf into the hands of the farmer to give them more resilience. Uh, because we need them here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I guess looking forward. So if we were to chat here at Future Chain twenty thirty. Yes. How do you think things will have moved on? Where do you see things moving on for you? Uh, in terms of farm technologies and for the agricultural system as a whole? I think farm technology is probably the easy one to answer. We've got a fantastic suite of products. Um, we've focused really hard on making them UK ready for the UK farmer and the supply chain. And I would send five years time would be a um a major player. Would I like us to have the most of them. The biggest market share. I think in five years time we could because the product is if you look at the share, we've got six hundred thousand farmers across Europe and South America. That's big. So so the, the, the foundation of the business is there. We've now got to bring it into UK agriculture, which I think is crying out for a good independent and, and really comprehensive end to end suite like we've got. So I think we can do that. Right. Um, in, in terms of farming, I would like to say in terms of the farmer would like to see a bigger slice of the cake in their pocket, and I'd like to see them have earned it because there's more joined up thinking and realization from the food producers on the shelf, the retailers running the stores stalls that most of us shop in right through to the farm. Understanding that actually there's a lot of value being created. And without that value created on farm, where do you get the raw materials from? The population wants to buy locally and healthily, and it's more and more influence. I think we'll get more and more demand pull from you and me as members of society, living, living and running our lives in this country to say, I want to understand the fairness and the provenance of the food I'm eating. Um, I think there'll be less there'll be more pressure on not importing food from around the world, where it creates problems in terms of water shortage and the lives of the people producing it. I think you'll see a fairness. I'd like to see a fairness and balance in that. And I'd like to see more joined up thinking to to bring sustainability and climate friendly farming On to fun. Well, I think hopefully you're at the right conference then. Yeah, I think it's a good place to be. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much for your time, Richard. Where can people go to find out more about Xpharm? Yes. So if they go online and look, look at xpharm dot org. Um, or if they want to phone me up, right. Oh seven eight three three four double five eight seven two. Great, give me a call. Thank you very much, Richard Barnaby, thank you for coming and finding me. I'm here with Pedro from Earthworm Foundation. Exactly. Pedro, welcome. Thank you very much for inviting me. That's great. So first, before we start chatting about the conference and some of the themes, tell me about Earthworm Foundation. What is it that you do? Well, what we are is a foundation, first of all. And and we work with two different axes of impact. One is a regenerating forests and protecting forests from deforestation, and second is regenerating soils. How do we do that? Working with the supply chain and working with the companies buying those products, we in those supply chains, there's the farmer that should be at the center. At the center. The farmer is connected also with the end company that is selling that chocolate and with a cooperative in the middle, so everyone is connected. If the farmer is failing, everyone failing if the company is failing to sell the product, the farmer also is losing. Therefore, we and we work with the whole supply chain in order to deliver impact, protecting soils and protecting the forests. And what does that look like in practice in terms of of the projects that you're doing? That's, that's an interesting thing. Normally we are contacted by mostly companies. Mhm. So you're talking the big food companies, big food companies. Yeah. You can imagine Nestlé, PepsiCo, Ferrero, which are our members, but other companies too. Yeah, they have strategies that they want to implement in certain regions about regenerative agriculture or protecting forests from deforestation in certain regions. And they ask us, how can we do that? First of all, we start doing a diagnostic with the suppliers, with the farmers, go to the ground, evaluate how they are working, what are the dynamics? Sometimes it's important to understand what the supply, what the supplier does in the middles, because you can start with a strategy about reducing CO2 emissions and reducing fertilizer. One hundred percent on that farmer would be happy. Nestlé would be happy. What about the supplier that is selling, making revenue of thirty percent of their revenue with selling fertilizers? He's not engaged, and if he's not engaged, the program fails. Therefore, you need to understand that what are the needs, what are the interests? And to create a strategy that is aligned with the interests of everyone and maybe do a swift, a shift between what we are doing now, what we could do in the future. So it's important to do that. And then we when we design a strategy, we help the all of them or with the support from the company or public subsidies or the support, the economic support from the supply chain at the end of the day to implement that. So we go in the field, our eighty percent of our A team is in the field. Yeah. And we go to the field, we do trainings, we do measurement collections, field days with farmers in order to move the the wheel to go ahead with the project and create impact. So you're, you're getting, getting those projects started. You've got a high involvement at the start, I assume. Then there's a point where ideally you want to move away from that one. They've got that set up. Is that how it works? Exactly. We are we are not a consulting company. We are not a NGO. We are an NGO. Yeah, all of us. We are. Most of us. We are technicians, forestry engineers, agronomists. But our goal as an organization, we are not a business that is providing advisory for a cooperative or a farmer forever. But we want to provide the tools and the skills for them to be autonomous. Yeah. Therefore, our engagement is reduced year per year, and sometime in the future we would disappear and we would move to another project. That's how we work. Great. So today we're we're here at the conference. We've heard a lot about supply chain resilience, farmer finances, what are the big challenges and at the moment and how we kind of addressing them. What do you see as the biggest qualm? Okay, that's a really interesting question. First of all, it's a trust. Trust success in the field and success in implementing programs. A needs trust that's built with a time and dedication. I mean, farmers need to, to trust the technicians that come to the ground, the technicians to do a transition. Because we are talking today, a lot of the risking. Yeah, de-risking for taking a risk. I need to trust you. Yeah. Therefore, I need to know that this this strategy, this program that you are proposing me is going to last if I'm going to invest not only my my money, but my time, I need to trust that you are going to be there and continue to be there in the coming years. And we know that many things in agriculture are really volatile, and suppliers change because of the prices you sell here. You see there in the markets are changing. Therefore, building trust for creating partnerships, long term strategic partnerships. It's one point which sometimes we forget. That's why I want to say the first one, the relationships. Relationships. Exactly. I mean I'm a comms man critical definitely understand that. Yeah. Secondly, um, we, the, there's a, a whole, uh, elephant in the room about how we are going to measure the impact because measuring impact in agriculture, there's many parameters, lots of different metrics, how to collect the data. Yeah, how to present the data. It seems like only two words. It's easy, but there's many startups coming, going, starting, disappearing. And there's not a clear solution because data, the data available in every region, in every crop, in every situation, country, it's not the same. No. Well, I mean, you look around this room, you look in the exit where we are talking in the exhibition space. In the networking space. Yeah. Everyone looks at us, and every single one of the exhibitors is some kind of MRV or software platform or measurement platform. Exactly, exactly. They are needed, but it's not clear with whom to work. No, it's really difficult for us and also for creating a partnership, a trust and long term partnership. You cannot be sure if this company is the one for you. And how can they adapt to the needs that you have with certain product in a certain region? You need to be flexible. Yeah. And there's data, but it's not all the data needed. And you need to create more. That's that's a point. And also there's no one solution fits all. No. And the speed of adopting those solutions and the, the need of the companies to have the results next year in two years time, maximum. It's a challenge. And that challenge feeds into the finance. I mean, we were both in in one of the panels on insurance and finance and it seemed like a chicken and egg situation in terms of, well, they need the data to finance it. Yeah. But the farmers need the finance to, to start the transition, the transition. So do we end up getting stuck at the kind of project rather than the systemic scale unless something changes on that front? Um, yes, there's, there's a good at the moment a lot of investment and good intentions from the, from the sector. But after a couple of years, they need to redefine what's their strategy to finance all that. Because maybe you start regenerative agriculture projects for a couple of years, two, three, four years, and then you say, okay, this is really expensive for me as a loan. How do I how do I mutualize the costs? How can I make it long term? I need investors, I need the regional organizations from a region a, the ones that are connected to the region and have an interest in the region. I need the farmers, I need everyone. And that's why we are trying to switch the projects to collective projects where you can neutralize the efforts in not doing three data collection for three different projects with the same farmer, but only one with three times less cost, because it's done only once with more farmers, with more farmers, with more, and with more off takers for the same farmers. And that that, do you think is the secret to to scalability on this? Yeah, I would I would never say it's the secret, but but I think it's it's a part of the recipe. Yeah. Um, what else do we need. What else goes into that recipe. More agronomists as we were saying today. Right. Um Regenerative agriculture today was set by the regenerative agriculture manager of Nestlé. He mentioned that we. Regenerative agriculture is based in knowledge. We need a lot of knowledge and local knowledge to to implement that. That seems to me to be the biggest challenge in terms of what's going to work in one commodity, in one region just isn't going to work in another commodity, in another part. Yeah. And even if and we spoke about this briefly before we started recording, you've got a farmer growing multiple crops on rotation, even the same principles there. Yeah. I'm necessarily going to work for all of those. Exactly. Imagine doing no till I'm a farmer in northern Spain. Basque country really rich region. I have wheat, barley, potato legumes. I do no till in wheat and barley. What happens with the potatoes? Well you can't, you can't. Exactly. So not everything applies to everyone, and there's not enough role models in every region about what can be implemented. For example, I work a lot with the corn in western Spain and we are looking for a farms applying no till agriculture. Yeah, it's really difficult to find one. Okay. Because of the because of the lack of knowledge to support farmers to do that transition. Okay. Soils are depleted. Yeah. Everyone in the technical level and universities know that, but there's no one who is taking the risk to do it with the support because and this is really interesting. Maybe not. Maybe that's real twenty years ago. For example, in the case of Spain, as I'm talking, um, no till agriculture started really strong with John Deere a It Neverland. Two or three companies promoting that machinery. There was no agronomic support, only salespeople selling machines. People didn't know that you need to have a certain amount of carbon in your soil, a good rotation, cover crops, different types of roots in your soil, different types of families in your rotation in order to start. So no agriculture. It failed from a reputational perspective, disappeared. It's done. It's done. The first time I went there, they say if you talk about no till we closed the door. Okay. I won't talk about no till. So it takes a couple of years. Yeah. To engage with that people to say, okay, let's not go for no till. Let's start restoring our soils, promote the building of carbon soil, organic matter, cover crops. And then after two or three years, let's go further. Could we do strip till conservation tillage. Just just a little bit. Yeah. And but with the direction that we have, we have to build that trust. Once you once you build the trust. Exactly. Once you build the trust. Exactly. And that takes a couple of years, maybe three years. In terms of starting projects, farmers are tend to be quite conservative bunch when it comes to change. Of course, they are risking everything and they are risking everything. And with some regenerative practices, you may get a yield dip. Yeah. It's a it's a reality. Or you have, especially in the short term, especially in the short term, or you have higher costs or you have higher costs, even though the long term benefits may be lower input costs and the yield may recover to a reasonable level. Those are theories at the end of the day for a farmer. Well, their theories until it's proven, isn't it. How what's the the kind of barrier there. How do we overcome that barrier in terms of that reticence to to jump in and get started? Is it a finance issue? It's a finance issue, I think. But it's it's important that it's not only about finance, it's about support. Okay. And technical support, uh, because and also technical support to the technicians because, for example, working with cooperatives, they have technicians, they know what kind of weeds do they have and how to treat them. But if you start no, till there will be different, maybe different widths, maybe different widths to treat them. And then the technician doesn't know how to recommend the steps for the farmers. Or sometimes in many places in the world, there's no technicians supporting them. And then you have to work it out and you end up all of the twenty years you've been working out exactly how to do it the way that you've done it, those same principles might not apply in the same way. Exactly. So you make mistakes. So the project doesn't work as well as it could. So agronomist is the, uh, I think it's agronomist. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Because it's not only about money and. But money is important because. Because of the risking or insurance or supporting the implementation of those practices. So one, I was one day in a call presenting our strategy for working with, with, uh, with PepsiCo in Spain and one of the, the persons said, said on person said, well, couldn't we make something easier said if it was easier, farmers would have done it already by themselves. That's, I think the the big one in, isn't it? With all of these challenges, why can't we solve it? If it was easy, we would have solved it. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah. So okay, looking to the future, uh, if we ended up chatting at future changing twenty thirty. Yeah. What's going to have changed and what hasn't? Maybe that's a difficult question. Yeah it is. That's a tricky question. We know. I hope that the world regenerative stays okay. That it's not a bad word that disappears. Mhm. And. I hope we are clearer in in this four years time in what is regenerative agriculture. So clear definition, but not a super clear definition. I don't want it to become organic. Organic is yes or no. And I think that the magic of regenerative agriculture is that you have many tools. Use all of them when when you need it. Insecticides maybe are good if you have a huge pest because it was a really humid year, but don't use it every year if you don't need it. So to be able to use all the tools, it's for me important to keep in the definition of maintaining some of the flexibility and not having that rigidity because you need so many different aspects. Because I see people like it, the side platform really trying to get their kind of definition of regenerative or you've got, you know, we could go back to, I thought two thousand and eight, Unilever had a pretty good definition where you go back to that one. But at the same time, you think there's got to be some flexibility. Yeah. Yeah. And I hope that in four years we won't have a big improvement in farms in the ecosystems. But I hope that in four years, we are already into a clear direction of how companies, suppliers and farmers can work together in order to reduce the pollution, reduce the use of of a, a inputs, right inputs and restore soils. I hope that that's we have the direction clear in four years for that. All right. Well, it's a nice realistic, a realistic not to be super optimistic. Yeah. No. Well that's important getting the balance right. Pedro, thank you very much for joining us on the Sustainable Commodities podcast. Where can people go to find out more about earthworm? Yes, in our website, mostly we have it's not the most updated website because our work is so focused on the ground that we forget about communications, but we are getting better and better. Well, maybe you need to talk to me. Just just checking in the app there at the end. All right. Perfect. Well, cheers. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dude. I'm here with Annie Leeson from Agri Carbon CEO and co-founder. Yep. Annie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. Yeah. Well, start by telling us a bit more about agri carbon. What is it that you do? Very simply, agri carbon measures the carbon in soil, typically in agricultural soils. Right. Specifically, we use direct measurement. Okay. That means we take real soil samples and we take them back to a processing facility where we test every single sample for organic carbon and the density of the soil, which gives us a measure of how many tons of carbon are there in that field. So no satellites going on. This is pure them fully in the ground, getting your hands dirty, getting the stuff out. That's absolutely right. And when we started the business, we looked at some of those technologies. We recognize the value that they bring. So scale in terms of scale. Um, but they all need to be calibrated using primary direct data. And one of the big issues is obtaining that data in a way that is, um, professionally controlled, cost effective and harmonized across large data sets. Okay. Was pretty much impossible until we started doing what we're doing. Okay. And how long have you been going? How long have you been as a business? We started in twenty twenty. Yeah. A lot of research into different methodologies, different challenges and how to overcome them using predominantly very clever mechanical and robotic engineering. So our primary team at the outset was, uh, a team who are used to designing large, complex mechanical processing facilities like pharmaceutical factories. Wow. Um, and putting their minds to the challenge of how can you handle something as, as naturally variable as soil in a very consistent and cost effective way? And I guess the cost is a, is a big factor in terms of the customers. They want this data. But there's a price that has to be paid for it. And keeping that into a more kind of cost effective as possible is going to be a key priority. Yeah, it's really interesting. So what drove us at the outset was very much around cost reduction and the ability to operate at scale. Yeah. What we've since learned through carrying out hundreds of projects and collecting hundreds of thousands of samples. And we're close to a million samples now, is that yes, there is a cost element, and in particular, in the lab part of it, we've introduced, um, a mechanical approach that brings the cost down substantially. Um, but what we didn't know when we set out was just how important the consistency was going to be. Okay. When you look at data on soil carbon, what you realize is the number of things that can add variability and uncertainty into that data, right? And what you get when you take a mechanized, industrialized approach to the control of that process is that you can reduce that uncertainty substantially. So the quality of data is exactly. So higher quality cleaner data gives you clearer answers with far fewer samples. So just taking it back, back a step, um, you know, there's loads of things you could be measuring in soil. Yeah. Why carbon? Why just carbon? So carbon is organic. Carbon is what I maybe describe as the lowest common denominator. It's the most unifying indicator of the key things that a healthy soil needs to have. So healthy soil is to have good biology, good physical structure and good chemistry. Yeah. Chemistry includes carbon and other nutrients and a high carbon soil and excluding things like peats. But a normal high carb soil tends to hold nutrients better. Okay. Um, a high carbon soil is an indicator of a soil that has a lot of biology because all of our biology is carbon based. So measuring carbon means you're effectively measuring the life. Organic carbon means you're measuring the, the things that were alive or are alive today. And then really importantly, structure. So a higher carbon soil, organic carbon. Again, I'll keep keep making that distinction. A higher organic carbon soil will have a lighter texture. A lighter density. I shouldn't use the word texture and in different soil contexts, but it has less dense um, characteristics. Less dense soil absorbs water like a sponge and allows roots to penetrate. It's more resilient. It holds water better, holds nutrients better. It allows plants to grow more easily. And really importantly, it also recovers very quickly from shock. So all of those things are related to the carbon, the carbon, the organic carbon, the organic carbon. That's right. So so it's a good multi-metric indicator. It is. And then then really, really importantly, and I would be remiss if I didn't say this, it's also the one. It's also the one thing that we can quantify with a, a, um, a metric for how much of it there is. So there is a ton of carbon. And everybody can agree that one ton of carbon is a under the barley in Scotland is the same, with a tonne of carbon under an orchard in California, and there is a new financial value that can be placed on that. If the company is looking at investing in a program where carbon gains are going to be part of the outcome. Is that what's in terms of the the kind of how you get paid, I guess, is that the, uh, that's the mechanism. It's the carbon market. So actually we've chosen a, um, a way of operating that's agnostic. So yes, some of our customers sell carbon credits into the carbon market. We don't know. We're an independent assessor. We're effectively the people who define the currency is a pound, a pound. And then that person, how many they've got. Yes, exactly. So carbon market. Yes. Um carbon removals in the supply chains make three. Um a lot of our customers are looking at soil health, but they recognise that carbon is a key part of that. Um and also maybe your value in the longer term depending on how carbon markets. So the the genius thing about if you're measuring organic carbon is you say, is it's applicable across whatever they're growing, wherever they are. Yes, absolutely. So you've got that universality that yeah, you know, talking, if it's measured consistently, if it's measured consistently. But you know, we're here on the regenerative agriculture side. Yeah, a lot of the messages, oh, we need a different approach for every single area. You're kind of, you're managing to have a, a similar approach that you can apply. That's one of the beauties of it. So they're absolutely right to apply regenerative effectively. It needs to be context specific, different inputs, different mechanisms. So you want full flexibility in what you do in the field, but you also want single consistency in what you measure as an outcome. Nice. And that's what you're doing. Yeah, absolutely. So who are you? Who are you working with? What are some recent projects that you're working on? So typically across the board, I would say we're about ten, twenty percent direct to farmer and researchers. And the reason I put them in the same bucket as it tends to be higher intensity sampling over a smaller land area. Um, the rest of our business is split probably fifty over fifty, um, direct to food companies who understand, understand carbon footprint and carbon removals in their supply chain. And then to the other fifty percent of that remaining section is to carbon project developers who are either working for the food companies or are producing carbon offsets for voluntary carbon market. Great. Any particular wins here in the UK at the moment? Anything that's the any sort of case studies. Yeah. So there's a great example. Um a company called Regenerate Outcomes who have a brilliant programme of working with farmers. Um they have gay brown if you know, Gay Brown as a sort of godfather of regenerative, Gabe's company supports them to, to educate and support and coach farmers. So they have really high engagement, really high implementation. They have just had their first tranche of credits approved by Vera. I don't think they've publicised it yet. Um, but I did ask can I tell people and they said, yes, that's So a huge breaking news, breaking news, breaking news. And the methods, they have incredible rigor. Um, so as an offset buyer, they have very, very high integrity, very high quality. And also the farmers are really getting good value out of it. So it's a great system. Um, other projects we're recently, um, moving into North America. So we work with some of the bigger project developers there like Indigo AG. Um, we're doing a project with cancer in Canada, um, and some other big projects, which I'm not sure if we're allowed to publicize yet, but fair enough. One, if your UK, your listeners are UK, one of the projects that you might have heard about is the A D B agriculture and Horticulture Board of Development, um, who have done a UK wide sampling campaign or we've done that for them in the last year, which was one hundred and seventy farms intensively sampled, uh, both for carbon and for soil health, which was a real landmark project for the, for the UK regional based learning. What was the just out of interest? Do you know what the kind of average sort of organic soil carbon is in the UK and is there an average. Do you know what. I'm sure that's a very easy answer to ask Google. Um, and I don't know it. No that's fine. I just wondered if from your from your work that you'd had that that's no no worries. So yeah, we have an enormous number of data sets and we don't analyze the data at the moment for that kind of answer. But we will partner with academics to do that sort of work, because actually they are much better placed to derive the learnings that the industry can learn from. They have the awesome that the credibility and the independence of being an academic source. So, for example, we've done a lot of work in dairy in UK, and some of the UK universities have been involved with looking at the dairy results. And we're talking to a big organisation in the US, but across the whole database, because the insights we could gain from that data across the across the across the board, across those nearly a million samples of all with very high consistency. Geotagged samples could really help the industry to learn what's working in terms of the carbon outcomes of regenerative farming, what's working where in different circumstances. Okay, so looking to the future, if we have this conversation, a future change, twenty thirty. Yeah. What's going to have changed? What's what's your organization going to look like? And how's the, how's the soil carbon going to look? What's it going to what's going to have changed? So by twenty thirty, um, one thing that I can say is we will have a lot more remeasuring data. That's going to be gold dust. You'll see the difference, you'll see the impact. We'll be able to share far more insight and intelligence into the wider community. What's what's, what's giving you what increase in soil carbon that's going to really help with modeling. So we measure once every five seventy five years. Typically, organizations use a model to then estimate what's happening in between. Those models can become substantially more accurate when they're fed with large quantities of measurement data. So that will be absolutely transformative. And the second thing I would expect to happen is more work being done at the regional and national scale. So I think it will be there's a huge opportunity for state actors, regional and national, um, to play a bigger role in standardizing, harmonizing and creating the scale of data that's accessible to the wider industry. So if I could say what I would like to see, I'd like to see those, um, those common ways of doing things that we know are going to be the foundation of everything else start to become more widespread, start to become more available so that the innovation can happen on a firm foundation of data. So you can use those insights. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And the difference today is that the insights are derived on a project by project basis. So one company here, one company there. I would love to see that beginning, that patchwork begin to be put together because the power of that information, um, could really accelerate. What gives you so when you've gone from a million to five million measurements, then you're going to have such a bigger insight. It's not even about more measurements. It's about more collaboration in the way that we can use those measurements. Great. Okay. Well, where can people go to find out more? Um, agriculture dot earth or abacavir dot co dot UK. Great. Full disclosure, our website is not the most, um, fancy. We're not a tech company in the, in the sort of traditional digital sense of the word. Um, but yes, you can find our contact details, um, or reach out to me on LinkedIn and I'm the CEO and I'd love to hear from you. Great. Thank you very much for joining us on the Sustainable Commodities podcast. Enjoy the rest of the conference. I'm here with Paul O'Hara from Soilwork. Paul, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having us. So can you just start by introducing Soilwork? So what is it that you're doing? Yep. So Soilwork, we're a organic fertilizer producer here based in the UK. Uh, it's in Northern Ireland. And basically in its simplicity, we're producing fertilizer from the byproducts of food chain production. Specifically, we use horse manure. And again, it's providing a holistic portfolio of fertilizers that aren't beholden on synthetic inputs. And obviously now quite pertinent. The issues we're seeing with Iran and supply here on the doorstep in the UK. Yeah. I mean, I guess we were just talking before we started recording. You know, I'm seeing more journalist requests and more interest in supply chain resilience, which is one of the big themes of this conference, but also in fertilizer alternatives and what we're going to do about the fact that a lot of the world's supply is currently, uh, shall we say, constrained, uh, and to some degree. So, um, I mean, that must be good news for you, I guess. Are you seeing some, some kind of uptick in terms of inquiries? And yeah, we're certainly starting to see a lot more inquiries coming through on the product. And really what I think people are starting to understand now is fertilizer or organic fertilizers aren't just luxury of an organic farmer. We're starting to see conventional or the, the farmers that are in, uh, maybe a hybrid system that don't have access to these sorts of products, but can actually start to utilize them in their systems, reduce their reliance on synthetic inputs, and increase that soil health, which over time will then again, further reduce your reliance on some of the other inputs. Organic fertilizers as a whole. There are so many. There's a plethora that we provide that isn't just, say, a one size fits all. We do different blends of organics and organic mineral fertilizers that give you that hybrid approach in crop nutrition and fertilization regimes that allow you then to substitute out of your regimes other synthetic inputs. So in terms of your market, you're not just selling in the UK, are you? You've got some overseas and some export. Is that right? Yeah. So we're a global business and we're seeing a lot of traction, dare I say, actually in more advanced agronomic systems in Asia, where actually they're putting a lot more emphasis in the soil health and the organic nature, reducing that reliance. And again, that comes with support from not only the governments, but also from the, the companies, uh, that are like global companies looking to, you know, increase their, um, yeah, increase the, the, the adoption of, of these practices and regenerative agriculture plays its part in this as well. Yeah. In terms of the the tie in, what is there a barrier in the UK? Are we kind of just falling behind on this kind of stuff or is it why why isn't that the kind of the key market you're in the UK? What are the kind of barriers there? I think the one of the key barriers we see is unlike our neighbours in Europe, where there are specific e um, organic targets to be held over here in the UK, there is obviously the SFI, but there isn't really that push and drive for organic farming in the same sense. Um, also up until recently that supply of synthetic fertiliser is widely available and cost effective. Whereas actually now we're starting to see the reverse and that, um, you know, farmers are looking at that economic impact of or fertiliser prices are going up. What can we do with what's actually on our doorstep? And this is where these, um, you know, sourced products can really fit in. It's focusing some minds definitely across that. And I guess the farmers, um, there, I'm up in Yorkshire. I have lots of family friends. They're a conservative bunch in terms of changing. How do you make the, the kind of case for them to, to make that change? Yeah, it's an interesting one because as we see a demographic change here as well. So currently you might think that you see a lot of the farming community is the fifty plus. We've been forever and a day have done things in a certain way. But we're starting to see now actually the, the new generations taking over the farms. And they have had a bit more education in the, uh, you know, what's coming new on the scene. And they're also looking at new techniques and how to improve the farm. Uh, and we're starting to see that come through. So a lot more inquiries there on alternative use. Um, and certainly different systems and regenerative agricultural practices. Yeah. And the business case for organic is, is obviously is fairly well established. Um, but I think. Um, yeah, the adoption still hasn't been quite as, uh, yeah, as high as maybe it could have been and is elsewhere. Yeah. It's a mindset change in certain regards. If you didn't have access to, uh, you know, organics, then it makes a bit harder to implement that. Whereas now actually there's a lot more, you know, we, amongst other companies in the market are able to provide, um, a, in a way that it can be transported to the farm. Whereas before you had slurry, for instance, that would only be economical to travel within a certain distance from that farm. Yeah. And there's typical east west divide in the UK, um nowadays with a solid fertiliser and certainly products that are available on the market, you're able to transport that wherever. So you can implement that on your farm regardless of whether you have or haven't used it in the past. So you're because you're doing, uh, you're doing work, sending out your, your fertiliser to Asia, a lot of that's going to be used growing sustainable and probably non-sustainable commodities in terms of. But that will be a lot of those will be ending up back in Europe. Are you looking at ways that you could kind of you could sort of build that circular model? Yeah. So it's a really interesting one. So specifically, like in Asia, we have a lot of coffee and sugar, uh, end users. So the farmers there and they're providing to the multinational, uh, and commodity traders that product is coming back over. And as part of the processing, there is obviously a waste stream. And we are looking at, uh, partners where we can utilize that waste stream to bring it really that circular piece right back around. So that nutrient source going back from waste back onto farm into the products, um, globally, regardless of, you know, it's not even just here in the UK, as I said, this is globally, across the world. Mhm. Um, one of the, the big themes of this conference has been the supply chain resilience piece. Obviously, there's there's also the farmer finances piece, which, which continues, which is the farmer finances, the ultimate kind of barrier to, to adoption of new solutions. I don't think it's as simple as, as finance. I think there's multifaceted reasons why. And, you know, maybe more unique to on farm, uh, financing. We know that there are providers that will at the moment do, um, financing incentives for whether it's regenerative agriculture or other practices. Um, I don't necessarily think that's the barrier. I think more is the, um, wide scale adoption through the food chain and the retailers giving that incentive back to the farmers to do so, whether that's long term contracts or whether that is through, um, obviously, uh, more premium for the crop in doing these systems. As we know in this conference, you've heard, and research shows is that typically when you change a really highly optimized system, that it's going to take a couple of years as they transition and change to more regenerative practices, you might have a yield penalty. You might end up having crops that aren't as strong through the year until they get that system right. Um, and retailers have to back that. Yeah. It's a big risk. There are currently, I think from the discussions we've had, they currently that risk is put entirely on the farmers who. They haven't. You know, they say make make hay while the sun shines. They haven't had particularly sunny times recently, especially in the UK, if we're going to put it that way. So it is a big ask and it's going to require require that input from, from retailers, from, from other parts of the supply chain in terms of a shared. Exactly. And actually, there's also a piece here about you're quite right. The last two years have seen absolute bookends. We've had one year which has been abysmal for wet and, you know, flooding. And then we've had last year, which was in essence a drought conditions. So what we've seen here is really important is the data in the products and also the services to show what is resilience. Yeah. And you know, we've been working with Rothamsted Research, which is um, trialling our products and we've seen some stellar results here with again, the two bookends, if you must have, uh, of the years. And it's really important to show that as a baseline to farmers and it's progressive. It takes years to build up soil organic carbon. Yeah. It's not an overnight solution. And again, it's, it's giving the farmers the confidence and the, um, the ability to do this progressively over years rather than expecting it to be an overnight. Here today, gone tomorrow type solution. Yeah. Thinking long thinking longer term. Um, but it's hard to do that when you've got bills to bed, I guess is the, uh, is the ultimate wonders. Yeah. Um, no, it's that's really interesting. So I've been to several of these events and the themes remain fairly constant. Farmer finances, scaling, regenerative agriculture, financing the transition. If I'm here with you in, let's say, future chain twenty thirty, what do you think's going to have changed? What do you think's going to stay the same? I think the the key thing here, which I would hope would change, but also the pessimist in me would say could be the same thing is really having that, um, whole supply chain coming together right the way through. So not just from the commodity traders and obviously the end retailers is right through farm to the farm inputs that again, support the whole supply chain, uh, and not just talk about it's someone else's problem to finance or, you know, plug that gap because at the end of the day, at the moment, I feel that we are, um, a lot of times putting a lot of pressure on the farmers to make the transitions for us rather than it being a supportive partnership approach right the way through. Uh, and it's something that soil works where we're promoting and working with suppliers and partners to again, make it a more partnership approach. Great. Well, thank you very much, Paul. Uh, thanks for joining us on the Sustainable Commodities podcast. Where can people go if they want to know more about soil works? So soil works. Um, you can go on to our website and w w w dot soil dot co dot UK. And that's works with an X just to make things complicated. Um, or indeed follow us on any of our social media channels, uh, and we'll happily take any enquiries. Great. Thank you very much. Cheers.