0:05 Sara Pawlikowska

Hello everyone. Welcome to Grin.eco Podcast. My name is Sara Pawlikowska. I'm the Co-founder at Grin.eco. And today my guest is Philippe Birker, who is the co-founder at Climate Farmers. How are you doing today?

0:16 Philippe Birker

Pleasure to be here.

0:18 Sara Pawlikowska

So before we begin, I have a warm-up question for you, which is how does one buy an abandoned villa in Portugal?

0:28 Philippe Birker

Uh, not, not a villa, a village. Right. Um, so it's, it, it's a longer question I guess to start with. Um, I, I grew up on the countryside, um, and I quite enjoy, let's say, living in nature. Um, and then I spent most of my twenties living in Berlin and Amsterdam, and I love the people in the city. and for me, kind of the idea developed. Around my mid twenties, how do I bring the people that are love from the city to the countryside? I think villages as a concept make most sense for living. I think there's a reason why humans have been living in villages for many, many, for hundreds of years, thousands of years. but usually you can't pick your neighbors. Right? And that's very often the situation that, at least for me, the mindset of the people is, is, is very often in, in cities, uh, one that is more related to me. So the idea was how can we start the village from scratch how can we revive some of those villages which have been abandoned many parts of Europe. And for that reason, I've been traveling a lot around. I've also been spending a lot of time in the Balkans, which is a very beautiful region of Europe as well. But Portugal has, uh, law or passed the law that you can rebuild abandoned housing and you don't need any planning commissions. And that's the German, that's quite, uh, that's quite amazing and that's quite attractive. And, um, that's essentially what led us here to, to the area where we are now, which is one of the most remote areas in, in Portugal. um, many of the villages here have been empty for 20, 30, 40 years. And the same as with the village. The precise name would actually be Hamlet that we bought essentially as well, with a total of eight fence where we have a few hectares of land and a total, we have 11 houses, which were all kind of broken down, um, and which we're rebuilding step by step, basically with the idea of re vibing the village and living in a concept where you have your own house so you don't have to worry about cleanliness of kitchen, bathroom, et cetera. But all your neighbors are essentially friends of yours.

2:27 Sara Pawlikowska

Sounds amazing. Yes, of course. I meant village, not a villa. That would be cool too. But so first of all, I would like to ask you about your interest in farming. How did it develop over time?

2:41 Philippe Birker

Yeah, I mean, I, I grew up in an agricultural context, so I kind of saw the, the, the struggles of farmers very early on in my life. Um. then I haven't really been focused or been, been looking at it for, yeah, for most of my twenties I was very much in the impact tech sector. I was also very active in the electronic music scene, which is still something that's also still very close to my heart. And then in the process of the or after we bought the village, essentially in 2017, I started looking more into permaculture. And then through that I got bitten by the, uh, regenerative agriculture bug. um, back then this wasn't really a topic that speaking people were speaking about. It has been gotten a lot more attention over the last few years, but back then reg ag was not really a thing that was, uh, well discussed. But I, I found some papers and some academic research from the eighties and nineties already speaking about the many positive side effects of regenerative agriculture, such as, for example, carbon sequestration uh, the amazing pot possibility to take huge amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere, carbon being one of the main costs of climate change. And that's what got me to go on a one year pilgrimage in 2019 to visit pretty much all the regenerative farmers that I could find in Western Europe, which wasn't many. I found 60 in total with a lot of research and, uh, visiting these farmers and speaking to them and, uh, seeing the amazing work that they're doing is what made me believe that this is what I wanna dedicate my life to.

4:08 Sara Pawlikowska

Yeah. I wanted to ask you about the study itself a little bit as well. Could you elaborate on that?

4:13 Philippe Birker

Um, you mean the papers that I read? Um, I mean some of the core ones were from Wageningen university which is an agricultural university in the Netherlands, and they have been, um, researching essentially the possibility of carbon sequestration through practices such as holistic grazing or agroforestry. And they have been showing back then already that we have the possibility of sequestering one to two tons of carbon per year per hectare. Um, and we'll be scaling that on a global level with all the agriculture area that we have. We'll be actually able to take more carbon out of the atmosphere than we are emitting on an annual basis. And this is just one of the many benefits. Apart from that, it also increases through regenerative agriculture, you're essentially focusing on building up soil health. And another side effect is of that is for example, also soil water storage capacity, which means the capacity of soil to hold water in times of rain. and this would majorly improve the situation of farms in times of drought. it would also really help with the flooding issues that we have been having, especially in Europe lately because our sources are depleted and because of the changing climate, weather's getting more extreme and we are not able to hold the, the water that's coming down from the sky and that, for example, led of floods in my hometown in rural western Germany, Geilenkirchen in 2019, which costs 32 billion euros of damages. All of these solutions and possibilities of, of agriculture are known for at least 20, 30 years already, but it still has not been adapted or it has not been implemented at a large scale.

5:45 Sara Pawlikowska

You've already touched upon this, but just to clarify, so how is regenerative agriculture different from the standard one?

5:53 Philippe Birker

I mean, essentially in, in conventional industrial agriculture, what you would call the standard one. Um, farming is very much focused on yield. So farmers are stuck in an, uh, agricultural system where the only way that they're getting paid is for the yield that they're having. So we're not looking at any form of what's called externalities. So negative side effects of the farming practices. And this has cost farmers to use, for example, a lot of chemical, uh, input products from companies such as Bayer. Maybe you've heard about glyphosate being one of the very famous ones. Which are essentially destroying the local ecosystem and the soil health, but they're increasing the yield of the plants in the long one. This leads to a dependency of these product though, and it also leads to a yield, which is not very nutritious, um, and to a less and less yield over the cost of time due to the destroyed health and regenerative agriculture. doing exactly the opposite. You are not focusing just on yield, but you're essentially focusing on working in line with nature. And using natural systems in order to build this, um, soil health. And then through that you also create more resilient ecosystems. Um, and you also result in these, uh, positive side effects that are touched upon, such as soil storage capacity or soil carbon sequestration and in practices. What that for example, means is that you have, nature works in diversity. So in nature, you would never see just one plant. And what we're doing in convention agriculture is we're just planting one plant of just wheat or just corn. You've probably seen this when you're driving through any landscape in Europe, and this is easier for the harvest, but it's not good for the natural ecosystem. So in regenerative agriculture, you would plant a diversity of plants together. You would, for example, do a practice called alley cropping where you plant trees. between the crops so that the tractor can be going through, but that you have through the trees also an area of biodiversity and of diversity, which then enhances the life below the soil level.

7:49 Sara Pawlikowska

You're the co-founder at Climate Farmers, so could you tell us a bit more about climate Farmers?

7:55 Philippe Birker

Yeah. I mean, uh, essentially climate farmers is serving to, to assist farmers in the transition to regenerative agricul. So when I did my, when I did my journey back then um, quite quickly realized that many of these amazing farmers that I met did not know each other, and that many of them also felt lonely because they thought they were the only farmer basically doing this. Um, and so me and my co-founder Ivo, we, we focused back on, on building a community and connecting with these farmers with each other initially online because the pandemic also started shortly afterwards. And then, uh, in the last year is also more and more offline by organizing events on farmers. Connecting farmers with each other and facilitating basically peer to peer learning, um, through our non-profit arm, which is the Climate Farmers Academy. And then we have a for-profit arm, which is measuring the ecosystem services, um, and then paying farmers for them through the usage of tools such as carbon plus credits, but also through, uh, practice, which is called monitoring, reporting, and verification, where we're essentially generating reports for the farms on the positive effect that they had on the environment. And then enabling them to get paid for that by different players in the world.

9:00 Sara Pawlikowska

So it's, it's also very interdisciplinary. So it's not just focusing about the agriculture bit, but also on the, uh, psychological bit of that.

9:10 Philippe Birker

Yes. I mean, I think a lot of it is essentially around the mindset, right? So farmers have been taught in a certain way, and that leads to having a certain mindset of being focused on yield. And so a lot of this is also to help farmers in the. a very challenging situation that they're end up being stuck in the current agricultural system and of uh, yeah, trying to assist them in the mindset switch towards focusing on soil health and not just in yield, in order to guarantee essentially a long-term survival of their farms.

9:38 Sara Pawlikowska

The university degrees, 'cause I had, I saw that you have one in business psychology, entrepreneurship. I was curious how, uh, helpful they actually turned out to be.

9:49 Philippe Birker

To be very honest. Um, I, I, I never really thought, uh, like, oh, what was standing in page 346 of the Consumer Behavior Handbook or so. Um, and I mean, I did study in Masters because I have a problem. We have a system, which is called problem based learning. So essentially you are, um, you are not sitting in lectures as you do in many academic institutions in the western world. But you are, um, sitting in small groups of 12 students and then you're getting a problem, a real life problem given. And then you get literature suggestion and you can also find your own literature. And then you research and you try to answer these, these questions and find a solution for the problem yourself. And then you meet again three days later and you discuss the different approach that students have taken. think in general, that way of thinking and finding solutions of problems has definitely been very helpful. But the actual content and the way how it's asked, like multiple choice exams and so on. I don't think that's very useful. What was also very nice in MA is that we had to give presentations, um, and very often I was in front of the entire, um, course, which was sometimes a 100 or 120 people. And that leads to me being very comfortable, for example, was presenting in front of people. And that's something that I'm thankful to ma for. But um, especially on the business side of things, I, yeah, I don't think, uh, I think you learn a lot more from practical life than from academic degrees generally. And the psychology. Very interesting for me in my, in my deeper thinking because I focused on an organizational psychology and also a lot about happiness. So realizing that usually if you do things for external reasons, that doesn't make you happy, but if you do things for internal reasons, so internal motivations, that does make you happy. So that leads, for example, to me, in hiring, also looking very much if, if people are really having a strong passion for what we're doing, also if they really have a strong passion for the role, um, much more than, for example, doing it for the salary. Which I think leads to a much more fulfilled employees, which is one of the very nice things I think at Climate Farmers

11:50 Sara Pawlikowska

I really like that mindset, not just the degree itself, but also the ability to actually use that knowledge in real that life and case studies as well.

12:00 Philippe Birker

Exactly.

12:00 Sara Pawlikowska

So another thing that, uh, I was curious about, so in your ChangeNow keynote talk, you mentioned that women in agriculture are still underrepresented. Why? Why do you think that's the case?

12:13 Philippe Birker

I mean, agriculture traditionally, um, has just not had a, a lot of women there, right? There's a lot going on in terms of inheritance and in terms of farms usually being taken over by the, by the first son or by the elder son. Um, and it's just a, a very male dominated, uh, landscape. Um, but I think we are actually seeing more and more that women are usually much better than men and understanding complexity. Um, and especially in regenerative farming, one of the key things is that you have to be able to deal with the complexity of nature. Um, and so we are seeing a more and more rising trend, I would say right now in women getting into agriculture and especially into regenerative agriculture, which is a very nice development, I think.

12:57 Sara Pawlikowska

But, so it's not just, um, women being underrepresented, but also young people maybe not finding farming as attractive of a career as, as maybe other ones. How do you think we could make farming more attractive?

13:15 Philippe Birker

Yeah. I mean, I think that that's, that's a key issue that we're having. I mean, I don't know in what context you were growing up, but for me, for example, I grew up on the countryside in a tiny village in my high school year. one wants to become a farmer, right? It's just not something that you would mention on your Tinder profile. So it's not something which, which is generally seen as a sexy profession. You know, like people want to be DJs, they want to be doctors, uh, they want to be life coaches or so podcasters potentially, but, uh, being a farmer, it's in our society, not seen as well regarded, and I think that's crazy, right? Because farmers are essentially the most important profession that we have. We could definitely do without less life coaches, but we can't do without farmers. And so that is a crucial issue. And also many children of farmers are not taking over the farm anymore because they see their own parents struggle. They see that they are not having a good world life balance, um, and that they are consecutively getting less and less money out of the produce of the generation because farmers getting squeezed and pushed into a corner. And so it's just, it's just not an attractive environment and I think we need to rewrite that narrative, which means we need to pay farmers more. Um, monetarily, but we also need to just pay them more respect in society and we need to enable them to actually have farms, which can be thriving ecosystems by paying them for ecosystem services. And through that also making the profession more fun because they can assure you that every farmer loves to see their farms thrive, but very often they have to take economical decisions which are contradicting that striving of their farm. And that is generally not good for your mental wellbeing, which is also why farmers are among the highest profession of depression and suicide. that's a problem because if we don't take care of our farmers and they can't take care of us, and then we all gonna be landing in a food crisis, uh, much quicker than we would think.

15:00 Sara Pawlikowska

Well, not everyone can be a farmer, but everyone needs food. As non-farmers what can we do to be more aware of where our food is coming from?

15:12 Philippe Birker

I mean, it, it, everything is always related to the question of how much effort do you wanna put into it, or how much do you prioritize it in your life? Right. And I think the interesting development that has happened over the last. Last 30-40 years is that food has played a consecutively less important role. So people are spending less and less money on food. I believe in Germany is right now less than 20% of the entire income of farmers. And also it's mostly about having the need to feed yourself rather than seeing food as a core and crucial thing. So people are very often lazy. I think we're all very lazy and I mean, I also still go to the supermarket. And while I'm in Lisbon, for example, I also still enjoy ordering food on Uber Eats or so, because sometimes it's just really nice to do that and it's okay to do that sometimes. due to climate farmers, I also have the pleasure of being in contact with farmers and of getting a lot of my food directly delivered. For example, our vegetables, that come Terramay, which is a beautiful regenerative farming in Portugal. Meat which I started to eat again after seven years of being a vegetarian. After I've been on farms and seen how animals are enjoying their life in regenerative farming operations. I'm getting through a service which is called, which is Four Sisters, which are operating directly with Regener farmers together. And then I pay 30, 35 euros for a kilo of meat, which is the fair price to pay. But at the same time, you can also go to the supermarket and you can get a dumping discount, uh, kilo of meat for 5, 6, 7, 10 euros. And um, and I think that is something that people are not thinking in the depths about of what that is doing to their bodies because the food that we're putting into our bodies is like. It's like putting the one kind of pet into your car. You know, if you feed food that comes from industrial farming systems, then there's no, no, surprise that you're also getting sick from that. And I think that is why we're also having such a epidemic of cancer, for example, rising right now. 'cause we are eating a lot of food which is produced with chemical input costs and which is produced in a way that is not in line with the natural system and it's not nourishing us anymore. So I think we need to move from food, which is just feeding us in terms of calories. To food, which is actually nourishing our bodies and souls.

17:26 Sara Pawlikowska

This is very beautiful. 'cause it seems like a straightforward thing. You are what you eat, but we often forget about it. Um, but so what are some of the red flags to just avoid, uh, while going growing grocery shopping?

17:42 Philippe Birker

I think as much as you can, I would say try to avoid, uh, ultra processed food. It's an amazing book called Ultra Processed People, which is also looking at that. So avoid all those things, which, seem very appealing and tasty and quick, right? So if you go there and you, I, I started building the habit of just looking at the back of the packaging.Very often if you look at the packaging and you don't even know what half of those ingredients are, it's probably not a good reason to buy this. If there's a e in it, that means they're, they're hiding something from you, which you would never understand. And I think I really try to buy. Packages and food in such a way if I buy packaged food, I only buy the ones where I know all of the things which are on it. I think one of the things that I, for example, laugh is pink albatross ice cream, and the slogan is, "Made with ingredients that you can draw". I think that's a beautiful one, you know? Um, and I think that's a very good habit that anyone can pick up. It's just to look at the back of the packaging of food and actually read what's in your ingredients. And you will be shocked many cases, um, of what is actually in there. And then in terms of vegetables, obviously there's different economic realities, but as much as you can try to buy the organic vegetables. Or even better join a market garden, for example. There's a really nice movement which is coming up, which is called CSA or Community supported Agriculture, where you essentially buy a share of the harvest of a farm. And there's many young farmers which are doing this because they don't have access to large scale of land. They buy less than a hectare of land. Um, and then they start growing food and selling all the produce upfront through the CSA, so that you essentially buy a percentage of the harvest. And that way you also take the risk away from the farmer. You can participate in the farming, you can usually visit the farm, and you know that you are buying food, which is actually nourishing you and supporting farmers, starting farmers also in embarking on this very difficult career path.

19:34 Sara Pawlikowska

That's a really nice initiative. It also leads me to my next question, which is what are some of the resources that you would recommend to learn more about regenerative farming?

19:46 Philippe Birker

I mean, I think the very basic and easiest one is, uh, the Kiss the Ground documentary on Netflix, which is very beautifully done, and which, which has pushed the whole movement forward a lot when it came out in 2020. and then you, if you're inspired by that one, then I guess the next level could be to, to listen to some podcasts. For example, the Regenerative Skills podcast from Oliver Goshey, is amazing. Which is really for people that want to learn more about how they can live the life, which is more in line with nature, I would say. And then if you want to dive a level deeper, you can recommend, uh, Koen van Seijen, Investing in Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, which is more looking on the systemic level. And then if you want to go even a level deeper, then you can listen to John Kemp's Advancing Ecological Agriculture podcast, which is going really into the depths of soil science and how regenerative agriculture works in the level. And those podcasts are amazing, but even I have to listen twice sometimes before I really understand what's going on there. Um, and then there's also amazing books, uh, for the Love of Soil by Coal Masters. It's a great book, um, from Dirt to Soil. It's an amazing one as well. And also What Your Food Ate, for example, from, uh, Dan Barber, who's an amazing chef who's looking at how what your food ate determines also how good your food is. so this is all, uh, recommendations which I could give.

21:07 Sara Pawlikowska

I definitely need to check those out. Uh, but what do you think is next for regenerative farming, uh, to become the standard?

21:16 Philippe Birker

Um, I think there's two key things which are going on right now. One is that we have the European elections in June coming up, and I think that's a very important moment, um, where I hope that everybody's listening to this and living in Europe is gonna go on vote because at the moment we have a very strong risk of, uh. Having a right wing movement coming in there and a populist government coming in. And these next elections are crucial because every seven years the common agricultural policy gets changed. So the common agricultural policy is the cap, which is how the European Union is giving subsidies to farmers. And this is for many farmers. The majority of their income is coming through this cap. Right now, it's mostly given out based onsize of farm and a few different indicators. But not really in a way how farmers are impacting their local ecosystem. what we hope as climate farmers to, to do with the coalition together with other organizations, such as The Club of Rock, for example, is to put outcome based payment for ecosystem services into that cap, which would be huge because at that point farmers would finally be paid by the government for the positive side effects that they can be achieving through regenerative agriculture, such as biodiversity increase, carbon sequestration, soil storage capacity. Um, the cap is getting published in 2027, but the main work on this will be happening in 2025 and some of it in 2026. So the elections now will be crucial to decide, uh, how the European Union will be approaching this topic in the future. And I think if we don't manage to get it in now, then the next one is gonna be seven years later. And that might be too late already. So I think this is a very crucial one. And then the other one for me is, um, is the verification of regenerative agriculture. So there's no definition of it yet, and there's a lot of interest in the topic. So a lot of organizations have made claims around regenerative agriculture, but I see a very big discrepancy between the amount of farmers which are there and which are generating. Regenerative produce and the claims for regenerative sourcing from big food corporates such as Nestle, Danon, et cetera. and I think we need to start safeguarding the term, and we need to make sure that if corporates claim that something is from regenerative produce or from regenerative agriculture, that they also have data to show for that. And that we say, Hey, if you want to claim regeneration, you need to show that regeneration happened on that farm. And so this outcome based verification, um, is also something where Climate Farmers is very involved in and we're running some pilot projects withpartners such as Crowd farming or the Portuguese Bank Crédito Agrícola.

23:57 Sara Pawlikowska

Basically putting money where your mouth is, but hopefully some big changes coming up then.

24:03 Philippe Birker

Yes, working on it. Let's see.

24:05 Sara Pawlikowska

So now just to finish off, 'cause um, I saw that you're not only the co-founder of the Climate Farmers, but quite a few other initiatives. So just as, as a takeaway, uh, what kind of advice would you give to someone who, uh, is hoping to embark on an entrepreneurial adventure like you did?

24:27 Philippe Birker

I mean, generally, I, I would probably not recommend becoming an entrepreneur. I think, um, I think it's not talked enough about how hard it also is, right? Like, uh, think if you wanna start an enterprise in anything, then you should do it in something that you're so passionate about that you're willing to let it consume you. Because especially in the beginning, my weeks were not consisting of much else than Climate Farmers. I also ended a seven year relationship that I was having at that time just because in order to get this off the ground, I really had to de dedicate every single wake hour and sometimes even it felt like, while sleeping, thinking about it. And I haven't done anything else from waking up to going to bed. So this has been easily 80, 90, 100-hour work weeks. Um. And it was okay because I could not think of doing anything better with my time. But I think unless that is the case, you will find it very challenging. And it's also just the reality that most startups fail. So you will be investing a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of your passion, and most likely, statistically it's not gonna work out. And I think that's a, that's a very important thing to be aware of before you are embarking on, on that path. And for me, I also had the luxury of, for example, being able to be in my little Portuguese mountain village. Where I've been spending less than 300 euros a month. Um, because in the first year we got a founder scholarship, and in Germany for example, you would get a thousand or 1,500 Euros a month, um, which is, it's not so easy to live in Berlin, for example, of a thousand euros a month. So there are a lot of challenges, um, with this until you, until you get your first proof and your first revenue, et cetera. So it can be incredibly rewarding and it can be very exciting to design your own life. But it's definitely also something that, uh, needs to be, uh, needs to be recommended with a word of warning connected to it. I would say

26:20 Sara Pawlikowska

So the, the advice for future entrepreneurs don't, don't do it.

26:25 Philippe Birker

I mean, I think don't do it unless you are, really passionate about it. I think that would be my advice. Like really think hard if whatever organization you wanna start. If this is one you want to dedicate your life to, right? And if this is really like, I could not think of anything better to do, and I'm incredibly thankful and happy that I started Climate Farmers, but I've also found the thing which I love more than anything else in the world. And if you think you found that thing, then I would say go for it. But really make sure that that is the case and that it fits your context. For example, if you're in a partnership, talk to your partner and make sure that you're checking in with your partner and saying, Hey, I'm thinking of embarking on that journey. That probably means that I will be working from 8:00 AM until 8:00 PM six to seven days a week for the next year or two. Are you okay with that? And be okay if that answer is no or yes, and make sure that that's the case. I think that's the thing that I would love to point out more, that there's sometimes too much glorification about entrepreneurship path, and too little talk about the fact that how much mental issues are coming with this. Social entrepreneurs are, especially social entrepreneurs, because they're so mission driven, are. among the highest professions of depression, of anxiety. And um, there's a lot of issues around this and there's some organizations like the BMW Foundation and Respond, which are dealing with this, but it's still not enough of a topic because those few glorified ones that you see out there, are the exception. And most of the entrepreneurs, unfortunately, um, are failing. I think that's just a reality which people need to be aware of.

27:57 Sara Pawlikowska

I feel like that's a very important takeaway message from this. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.

28:06 Philippe Birker

My pleasure. Thanks for spreading the word and thanks for doing this.