Regenerative Skills Regenerative Skills

Continuing with my series highlighting badass local people around my community here in Spain, I was really pleased to be able to share this conversation that I had with a new close friend of mine and soil health advocate extraordinaire, Isadora Shmidt. I was first passed Isa’s contact by another good friend, Noemi, who is also part of the Soil Food Web graduate network. Isa created Terra Viva, her consulting and soil analytics company operating from her home base of Manresa, a small city about an hour west of me. She has a very diverse background which you’ll hear in a minute but principally she describes herself as a microbe farmer, driven by a deep concern for food security and a love for the natural world. She dedicates her work to regenerate soil health through the power of microbes and ecosystems. With a focus on tailor-made compost and liquid amendments, she partners with farmers and growers to restore soil microbiota and promote sustainable agriculture. Isa is also passionate about fostering connections within the agricultural community and continuously learning about the latest advancements in soil science. I’ve gotten to know her as an incredible connector who has partnered with many of the institutions and leading practitioners in our region while helping to make connections between all of them in order to advance the broader movement of regeneration in our region. 
This is another special opportunity for me since she came to my farm to take soil samples for me in this year’s round of measurement and monitoring of the health and ecological function of the farm. I already have a lot of data points from ecological monitoring, and so soil microscopy adds an incredible depth and dimension to the larger story of soil health that I’m working to build.
In this episode we start with a quick review of the activities of the day and what we learned together from the initial analysis of the soil samples we took and looked at under the microscope. Isa does a wonderful job of explaining in simple terms the incredible range of life and activity that can be seen in this form of analysis as well as what it means in practical terms. She also shares her learnings and impressions from looking at soil samples from farms all over the region and what it means for the work ahead for the farmers who manage the soil.

I have to admit, there is an unsung hero behind many of my favorite interviews of the past couple years. Connections and recommendations to some of the people who I’ve learned the most from in some recent discussions with people like Phyllis Van Ambraugh, Ben Taylor Davies, Ian Robertson, Ed Brown, and others have all come from a good friend of mine Andre Antunes who you’ll finally get to know on this episode. I met Andre first in a car ride with our mutual friend and the co-founder of Climate Farmers, Philippe Birker, on our way to the first ever company team retreat at a little farm near Dijon in France. Andre and I immediately hit it off for our mutual love of learning from cutting edge innovators in the regenerative space, and his personal experience working as a veterinarian and professional market gardener gave him a grounded perspective on farming that a lot of advocates in this movement are lacking.
Since that first meeting we’ve been in close contact as we both work closely with farmers in the company network to assist them in their transition to regenerative management of their farms, and Andre has gone on to manage large transition projects with multinational companies which you’ll hear about very soon. He has also traveled all over Europe making connections in the industry, attending events, and visiting renowned farmers around the continent, always facilitating connections and collaborations, many of which have led to partnerships and events with Climate Farmers. At this point he is becoming one of the best known consultants for regenerative farming in Portugal and I finally made the time to catch up with him for today’s episode. In this discussion we cover a lot of ground from the unique journey he’s taken to get to where he is now, all of the influences and mentors that he has learned from and worked alongside to build up his knowledge and skills, stories from the farmers he works with and the projects he’s helping to advance in places like the Azores islands, and much more. Together we look into trends and hurdles in the regen ag movement in Europe as a way of checking in with how far the movement has come in recent years as well as identifying where we still need to focus efforts to continue to make progress. All in all I’m just thrilled to be able to highlight Andre and his work here because he has also been an invaluable mentor and friend to me and is one of those people who I’m never surprised to find working behind the scenes of some of the most inspiring and innovative projects of recent years.

As I continue to make connections and find people in my local area who are working on regenerative projects and supporting progress in Spain and the Iberian Peninsula, I’ve been amazed at the talented, courageous, and inspiring people that I’ve come into contact with. I’ve already interviewed a few in recent episodes such as Sara Garcia, and Aline Moerbeke, and I’m pleased to add another local badass to that list in today’s conversation. For frequent listeners of this show, you’ll remember that I’ve been through the trainings from the Savory Institute and have integrated Holistic Management as a core practice both in the development of my own farm, and the support and services that I offer to clients. I’ve also been working to connect with the larger holistic management network in Spain. There are now two Savory Hubs on the Peninsula. There’s AleJab who operate mostly in the southwest and Portugal, and two years ago, Hub del Norte opened up based at Curly Creek Ranch in Navarra, the home base and farm of its founder Meghan Sapp. Meghan is the co-Hub leader for the Savory Network and an accredited Field Professional serving the northern Iberian Peninsula. She has practiced holistic management, together with her husband Iñigo, for more than six years on their farm, which recently became EOV verified. Meghan is also a founding farmer of the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture, a former negotiator for the UN Committee on Food Security and is part of many local farming and food sovereignty organizations. Meghan has spent more than 2 decades dedicated to the energy and food systems transition as a journalist, policy advocate, entrepreneur, community organizer and project developer as well.
For this episode, I had the rare pleasure of hosting Meghan at my own farm, even though we’re in the middle of construction and the place is a disaster. She was passing through in between training events in my area of Catalunya, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to show her what my partner Alba and I are working on. In this fun and literal fireside chat, Meghan tells her unique story about her journey from running multiple newspapers in California, all the way to farming in the Basque region of northern Spain and teaching holistic land management. We talk about the broad uses and case studies of holistic planning and decision making beyond livestock and farming, the journey of starting Hub del Norte and the work they’ve been doing in the region, the challenges of lobbying for regenerative farm policy at the European Union level, and generally getting an insight into the life and work of someone dedicated to creating a transformation of the agrifood system.

Today we’ll be continuing with the second part of my discussion with Anne Van Leeuwen from Bodemzicht in the Netherlands. In case you missed the first part, I recommend going back for some context where Anne spoke about how she and her partner Ricardo got started in Farming and the evolution of their farm at the original location. In this second half we’ll pick up where Anne begins to talk about their new farm, how they found it, and the vision they have for it’s development. We also talk about the things that they are planning to do differently from the startup of the first farm given the unusual opportunity to start, relatively, from scratch. 
We explore complementary farm enterprises to ensure regular cash flow, navigating the complexities of human relationships within a multistakeholder business, and by the end we also go over her membership and participation with the European Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture, or EARA, a new lobbying organization working to shape regenerative ag policy at the European Union level. 

Today’s conversation is the first of a two part conversation with Anne Va Leeuwen from Bodemzicht in the Netherlands that I’ve been looking forward to for quite a few years. Anne and her husband Ricardo and I met for the first time at the first Climate Farmers conference in Germany 3 years ago. By then they were already building a reputation in the Dutch regen ag scene as leaders and innovators. Since then they’ve continued to take a leading role in bringing visibility to regenerative farming, the challenges that farmers face, and advocate for the creation of a regenerative agrifood system in the Netherlands and beyond. At the core of their advocacy has been the inspiring example of their own farm which not only produces high quality produce and animal products for locals, but has served as a hub for training, presentations and community gatherings since it began. I organized this interview with Anne as she and their organization have just completed a move to a new farm location. Their tenure at their original site was up and we had been in communication throughout their process of looking for new land and all of the planning, preparation, and logistics involved with moving their operation to a new place. Now that they’re getting settled, I was excited to have Anne share her learnings and experience from the process on this show. Beyond the moving experience, Anne and I also cover a lot of other topics which range from the learnings they’ve gathered in the previous years both in pioneering their innovative farm model, regenerating their environment through conscious cultivation and care, navigating the challenges in the current farming system in the Netherlands, new cooperative farming models, lobbying for European Agriculture policy reform, and much more.

A couple weeks ago I was invited to speak on a panel discussion about soil health for the release of a new issue of REVOLVE magazine. 
Established in 2010, REVOLVE inspires climate action by keeping you informed about the circular economy, ecosystem restoration, the energy transition, sustainable mobility and water resources. 
Their latest episode focuses on the importance of soil and how to restore the health and function of soil through the perspective of researchers and practitioners. Along with Teresa Gimeno a forestry researcher with the Centro de Investigación de Ecologia y Aplicaciones Forestales or CREAF here in Catalunya, and Carlos Ortiz who works with the department of climate action at the Generalitat de Catalunya where he leads the office of fertilizers and manure treatment, were interviewed by Marta Castillo who is a journalist and communications officer with REVOLVE media. I’ll leave it there since Marta gives a great introduction to the panel and each of us as speakers right at the beginning.