1. What are your earliest memories of farming? Did you ever imagine yourself working in agriculture when you were growing up?

I don’t really have “actual experience” childhood memories of farming. My only recurring dream was to become a sheep farmer in New Zealand and I have never been able to trace that recurring dream to any particular source. My most vivid memories of farming came much later, a calving event, calf in breach, in Luxembourg at the farm of Alois, my parents' neighbour, and he called in for someone to come help. The other one was in Indonesia where the firm I worked at, a consultancy firm, advised a very senior manager at a bank how to farm a greenhouse producing flower.  I found it incredibly interesting that this very senior executive could be more passionate about the agricultural project than his banking business.   

And no, I didn’t think for a moment I would end up in farming, I was more interested in being part of the matrix and making money, money “meant” freedom.

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2. How would you describe regenerative farming, and how does it differ from more traditional farming methods?

I sort of intuit it as a farming method whereby it is integrated into nature’s way of working where everything, every participating member, is interconnected into a system of mutual interdependence. I think about it as hunting and gathering nature’s bounty without depleting it. It is ironically close to “traditional” farming if we go back hundreds of years, before WW2 with the introduction of industrial farming and the wholesale use of chemicals for fertilisation and pest management did we lose our way in a big “way”. I believe this was all part of the slow process of humanity separating itself from nature and creating a world, which I like to call ‘The Matrix,’ that would operate independent from and with complete disregard of nature.   

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3. Why is regenerative farming important to you personally–and why do you believe it matters for the world?

Without food production that takes into account from start to finish its impact on mother nature, we will not leave a world behind that is fit to live in for nature and our children.

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4. What inspired you to get involved in regenerative farming through La Cura?

It was a slow process of waking up really and culminating with the birth of my granddaughter. I felt the meaning of the Lion King's circle of life!

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5. Beyond talking with you, where can people learn more about this practice? Are there any books, films, or other resources you’d recommend?

• ‘Kiss the ground,’ with Woody Harrelson 
• ‘My Stoke of Insight,’ The Ted talk by Jill Boyte Taylor 
• The market gardener by Fortier
• Regenesis by George Monbiot
• A small farm future by Chris Smaje
• Sapiens by Yuval Harari
• How to change your mind by Michael Pollan
• The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall

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There are many ways in but it helps to do two things, one top down and the other bottom up, understand a bit of the bigger picture – how did we get here and why and then connect yourself to nature – there are many ways to go about this but an occasional tree hug metaphorically helps.

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