Description

What if farms were owned by communities... and managed for generations to come? 🌱

In this #REWIND episode, we revisit a powerful moment with Eline Veninga, co-founder of Lenteland, a groundbreaking initiative in the Netherlands that’s rethinking land ownership, farmer succession, and regenerative agriculture from the ground up.

Eline breaks down the structural barriers young farmers face — from sky-high land prices to outdated financial systems — and how Lenteland’s community-owned, farmer-led model offers a radically hopeful alternative.

She also shares how Lenteland supports farmers with training, team-building, and long-term security — creating a new path for regenerative farmers to thrive, not just survive.

🎧 Topics covered:

• Land access and generational transition

• Regenerative farming and soil health

• Community-owned agriculture models

• Alternative farm financing

• Farmer support and education

🔁 Originally aired: Feb 11, 2025

🎧 Listen to the full episode here - https://open.spotify.com/episode/5vZjGJQF91FWAzHXcxxTuz?si=450a2d13492f4046

⎯

This episode was made in partnership with Soil Capital, a company accelerating the transition to regenerative agriculture by financially rewarding farmers who improve soil health and biodiversity 💚 www.soilcapital.com

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

• Speaker #0

  I think the declining number of farmers can be attributed actually to the economic challenges the farming faces. Current farming is really industrialized and very capital intensive. And that creates a lot of barriers for small scale traditional farmers. And I think it's also a culture or image problem. I think many young people perceive farming as like low income, high risk profession with a lot of uncertainty because policy is so moving around all the time and has done a lot of damage, I think, too. And at the same time, you have to work really, really hard. And that's, I think, therefore it makes for people, it's an unattractive career. path. And a very big other problem, and that's also a reason why Lentiland was founded, is that the access to land is very difficult because farming land, especially in the Netherlands, I think the farming land in the Netherlands is the most expensive of Europe. Therefore, it's impossible to buy land to start your own farm. And there is not a lot of support for new entrants. It's very capital intensive business. Yeah, and I think all these factors create a pretty big decline in the amount of farmers.

• Speaker #1

  You mentioned a lot of barriers for succession and for young farmers getting into farming. Could you maybe give us a bit more detail about what kind of barriers we're talking about?

• Speaker #0

  Well, what I was talking about is the price of land, which is really high, so you need big loans. even to take over the company or the farm of your own parents. And these big loans have a lot of interest. Their interest rate is also high. So you start out with already a very big amount of money you have to create as revenue every month. So then the only solution is mostly that you put a very intensive way of farming on the field, which is also very costly because the only way to create this intensive farming is with pesticides and with fertilizers and then the farm is not creating the income but actually all the other parties surrounding him are creating the income but sorry

• Speaker #1

  i'm trying to understand why the fact that land is so expensive and that you have to take such a big loan with high interest to buy it means that you necessarily have to go into intensive farming what's the Is it because the bank kind of only agrees to give you that loan if you propose a business plan that include that kind of farming?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, that's also a problem. Regenerative farming is in some way, it's old, but it's also pretty new. Banks are very risk averse. And I think they are also not that progressive in looking at these kind of business models. So they think it's high risk. but the the The funny part is that it's actually low risk because you are investing a lot of value in creating healthy soil that on the long term will actually help you out. It makes you re-silent against all kinds of climate.

• Speaker #1

  It's kind of crazy when you think about it, because degrading your productive capital, which is your soil, is viewed as a safe investment, which is in... economics should be, I mean, just a no-no, right? Yeah. Destroying your productive capital. Yeah. And the opposite, which is regenerating it, making it more resilient for the future, is seen as a risky investment. It's kind of a...

• Speaker #0

  It's crazy.

• Speaker #1

  Upside down, right? Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  And I cannot understand that we are still talking about this. And I really cannot understand that still a lot of banks don't get this because they have all the knowledge. So. Why don't they invite us to talk it over? Why don't they look at our business models? Although we have not maybe factually proven it because we don't exist long enough. But then, okay, maybe they come back in a couple of years and we will prove that these business models can be very successful eventually. And then it really matters because that's one of the biggest problems. That's also one of the problems why I list. left the supermarket business because the focus is solely on financial value creation. And that's a very riskful way of thinking. with everything that is going on in this world.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, not looking at the long-term resilience of a system in the face of climate change is actually very risky.

• Speaker #0

  Because if we proceed on this path, then eventually we won't even have soil to produce any food anymore. And what we did is we created a foundation that actually gives out the loans for every farm, and every farm is a cooperative. They give out the loans for the farm, for the cooperative to buy the farm. And then the farm is then from that moment, a cooperative that gives, can give out certificates for the community to buy. So the farm eventually becomes community owned and these certificate holders. So the community is then the economic owner of the farm. The farmers are the... creative owners of the farm so they are the ones that can develop their own business plans and then they are in the board of the farm and they you know do the daily management of everything they initiate and then Lenteland is there as the legal owner to not actually Lenteland itself but the mission of Lenteland In order to ensure that for at least 200 years ahead, so seven generations, it's a more of indigenous way of taking care, we ensure that this way of farming practice that actually benefits ecosystems will be practiced on this farm. So you have the three-party way of ownership. And I think that is a very... solid way of running the farm. And we ensure that the farmers have their base income and get also the loans for the exploitation of the farm. So they don't have to worry in the first years that they're making losses because everything is an investment for the future. And we now see that around in five years or so, the farm is break even and begins to make the first profit and then the farmers and the certificate holders profit can be beneficial to them.

• Speaker #1

  Just a quick post to tell you that this podcast was made in partnership with a company called Soil Capital. They're a company that promotes the transition to regenerative agriculture by financially rewarding farmers who improve the health of their soils. If you're interested in learning more about them, I will leave a link in the description of this episode. Thank you.

• Speaker #0

  Now for the farmers,

• Speaker #1

  you said that you were in the process now of selecting a farmer. So how does that work?

• Speaker #0

  Well, what we usually do is we set out the role description. So there are certain standards which we ask for. I think it's a very complex job to be a farmer and especially a farmer of a multifunctional farm. So you need a lot of skills. And therefore, we actually are looking for teams of farmers. It's absolutely not possible to do this on your own. You don't want to do this on your own. So we're looking for different skills, like a very practical and theoretical knowledge about regenerative farming. So it's about embodied knowledge too. You have to have the experience of working on the land. In order for yourself to know if you're able, capable of doing this, if your physical health makes it doable, if you really like it. If you also like it, not only when the sun shines, but also it's really like the more normal Dutch weather, which can be rather wet and a little bit gray. and at the same time you also need knowledge about financial modeling and more especially you have to have entrepreneurship in you. I think what we found out these past years is that that is one of the factors that really makes or breaks the success. So if you are willing and capable of taking risk of doing pilots trying new things and then adjusting it to the situation you are facing. But that you are also good in communication skills because you are the one as a head farmer that is also responsible for the crowdfunding, you know, to attract the co-owners of the farm. And therefore, you must like it to share your story and to give presentations and tours and tell people about your vision. We also found out that that takes a lot of out of people. Therefore, you need a team. You need to do this together. You need each other's support and each other's skills. We also want to help farmers on their path to this because it's a life changing decision. to choose to become a regenerative farmer. And we want to help people on this path by now starting a year program. So starting from January, we're offering this to people who have interest in to become a farmer. So we're going to help them in theoretical knowledge. We want to create places on farms where they can do internships, gain the practical knowledge, but also in creating strong teams. So in the networking, finding people who you want to do this together with and helping them with their statement purpose, with their holistic life view. I think it's important to have a good, how do you call that, view on that for yourself before you start, because it helps in, I think, finding people that align with that. Ah