{"id":113926,"date":"2025-02-27T19:48:56","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T19:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/agriculture\/land-and-money-bar-the-way-for-many-regenerative-farmers-rfsi\/"},"modified":"2025-02-27T19:48:56","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T19:48:56","slug":"land-and-money-bar-the-way-for-many-regenerative-farmers-rfsi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=113926","title":{"rendered":"Land and money bar the way for many regenerative farmers: RFSI"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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Farmers are the foundation of a regenerative food system, yet they still face massive barriers when it comes to implementing regenerative practices in the field.<\/p>\n

A panel of farmers discussed some of these challenges at this week\u2019s Regenerative Food Systems Investment (RFSI) Europe<\/a> event in Brussels, and while the issues on the table were legion, a few stood out.<\/p>\n

Access to land is a major challenge<\/a> for farmers throughout Europe \u2014 particularly those just starting out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the beginning we were kind of afraid to dream big because to buy a farm in the Netherlands was almost impossible,\u201d explained panelist Iris Claessens, who has run 15-hectare Sierveld Farm<\/a> for just a little over one year.<\/p>\n

For Claessens, renting land quickly became a non-option as well. \u201cAs a farmer, you want to do a long-term investment, so if someone only promised you one year, it\u2019s not enough,\u201d she said. This is especially true for regenerative farming, where it takes years to restore soils and ecosystems. At one point, Claessens and her partners even considered relocating to France.<\/p>\n

Despite these initial setbacks the team was eventually able to secure the farm thanks to Lenteland<\/a>, a foundation that sets up small 10-25 hectares regenerative farms throughout the Netherlands. Its farms all sell their produce to local consumers on a community-supported agriculture (CSA) model and function as cooperatives, where ownership is shared among multiple farmers who also live on the land.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this way, we share the ownership, but we also kind of carry together the responsibility of this piece of land, and we take care of it together,\u201d said Claessens. \u201cThis connection between the farm, the land, and the consumers is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luke Hassell, CEO of The Story Farms<\/a> in the UK, echoed this concern and suggested it ties directly to another major issue in agriculture in many countries: an aging farmer population.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest obstacle in the UK is probably the average age of the farmer [around 59],\u201d he said during the panel. \u201cWhere are the youth? I feel really passionate about trying to enable that to happen, but we need these small farms [to do that].\u201d<\/p>\n

The Story Farms offers opportunities for such people to \u201callow people to become farmers that can\u2019t afford to buy land,\u201d he said. Younger farmers, \u201cprobably feel like they can\u2019t achieve [the dream of farming] because they don\u2019t own the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investors \u2018don\u2019t understand the language of nature\u2019<\/h4>\n

Given the backdrop of the discussion was an investment conference, the topic soon came up.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you understand where you can get access to capital?\u201d an audience member asked of the panelists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Panelist Jo\u00e3o Valente, a second-generation owner of Monte Silveira Farm<\/a> in Portugal, explained to the audience how he had to \u201cleave his comfort zone\u201d to learn more about \u201ccomplicated, corporate language\u201d in order to attract more \u2014 and different \u2014 capital to his operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve talked with so many investors and impact investors, family offices, etc, etc. And unfortunately, no one seeks to understand the path of the farm. People want results fast . . . and they don\u2019t understand that nature takes time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hassell said Story Farms has so far only dabbled in crowdfunding, which it would do again if needed. \u201cIt does definitely help with the community you rely on to buy your produce and do the jobs you love. Borrowing money from the banks is something I\u2019m trying to steer away from.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want any more debt,\u201d added Valente.<\/p>\n

As to non-traditional forms of capital for farmers, one audience participant asked, \u201cWhat are investors waiting for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the biggest obstacle is that they don\u2019t understand the language of nature,\u201d said Valente (a point immediately followed by a round of applause from the audience).<\/p>\n

\u201cThey look at a farm from the financial perspective as an asset that\u2019s going to have some revenue. That\u2019s the mindset of investors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fix? \u201cSpend some time on the farms,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

From romanticism to a viable form of farming<\/h4>\n

Most panels during the event have featured discussions on data and measurement as an important tool for scaling regenerative food systems and on the farmer panel, all the farmers highlighted the importance of collecting data and working with universities and research institutes to demonstrate the viability of regenerative agriculture to industry and investors.<\/p>\n

Hasell said that data was crucial to move beyond the \u201cromanticism\u201d of regenerative agriculture and show other farmers that it can be profitable as an alternative to conventional farming.<\/p>\n

Claessens talked about their need for more data before making decisions on the farm such as expansion.<\/p>\n

Valente is taking matters into his own hands and has created what he calls Impact Hub<\/a> to undertake research focused on soil health and ecosystem resilience, in collaboration with national and international researchers and scientific institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I decided to create an Impact Hub with the tools that I have. I didn\u2019t have a lot of money, but I had land, I had some houses, I had a lot of knowledge\u2026 We\u2019ve been farming organic, no-till, for 20 years. We are, I think probably now, the ninth organic-certified farm in Europe and the only large-scale farm as regenerative, organic certified. So we\u2019ve been on growth for a long time, and we can provide that knowledge [to show to others.]\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farmers are the foundation of a regenerative food system, yet they still face massive barriers when it comes to implementing regenerative practices in the field. A panel of farmers discussed some of these challenges at this week\u2019s Regenerative Food Systems Investment (RFSI) Europe event in Brussels, and while the issues on the table were legion, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12026],"tags":[1449,50800,15919,19155,4132,832,22302,29927,50801],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-113926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","tag-bar","tag-farmer-finance","tag-farmers","tag-farmland","tag-land","tag-money","tag-regenerative","tag-regenerative-agriculture","tag-rfsi"],"yoast_head":"\nLand and money bar the way for many regenerative farmers: RFSI - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=113926\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Land and money bar the way for many regenerative farmers: RFSI - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Farmers are the foundation of a regenerative food system, yet they still face massive barriers when it comes to implementing regenerative practices in the field. 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