- Speaker #0
Welcome back to the Deep Seed podcast where we talk about the future of food and farming and in particular regenerative agriculture. This week I am in the northwest of Italy to meet with Tommaso Gaifami. He's an agronomist and agroecologist and we're going to talk about the difference between agronomists and agroecologists and the role that they both play in the regenerative transition. In our discussion today we spent a good 30 minutes describing in detail what a four-year rotation might look like for a farmer here in the region. And that exercise was so interesting because it allowed me to understand a lot better all of the complexities and the nuances of every decision that farmers have to make on their farm on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. This episode was made in partnership with Soil Capital. I am your host, Raphael, and this is the Deep Seed Podcast. Hi Tommaso, how are you doing today?
- Speaker #1
I'm alright, thank you Raphael. Thank you for including me in this podcast and for having the opportunity to share my experience with you today.
- Speaker #0
My pleasure, my pleasure. We are today in northwest of Italy, sort of between Milan, Torino, Genova, kind of around that. area. Maybe you could start by introducing yourself a little bit. You could tell us about your personal story and about how you became so passionate about agronomy, soil science, agroecology and things like that.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, sure. I think that my passion for agroecology and agriculture starts from my family because my father and my mother, they love nature. And this passion of nature was something that was transmitted and transferred to myself as well. So, starting from this, I think that in my childhood, I was very highly in contact with nature and open space in general. And I think that this influenced a lot also the decision of following the courses of agriculture and becoming an agronomist. And it's interesting because after my high school, I was in between architecture, philosophy and agriculture. I didn't know what to choose. But then I think that now I'm kind of practicing all of these subjects in my job, in the sense that working as an agroecologist, and then maybe I will tell you more about what an agroecology does and what an agroecology means. But at the end, I decided for agriculture. And in particular, during my bachelor, I was very much interested in the, let's say, natural part of agriculture, in the sense that all my colleagues were used to talk about tractors and the high input they were used to put in their own farm, because most of them were the sons of farmers, while I was much more interested in the, let's say, services, ecology that agriculture can provide. And I decided to move to Wageningen, which is in the Netherlands, because I didn't find a course in Italy that could have like a broad and integrated, let's say, type of subjects and approach. While my master in Wageningen was much more characterized by the... combination of different types of subjects, not only technical subjects like the study of soil, weeds, animal production, plants in particular, but it included also like, for instance, social subjects. So the study of the society, how the society can influence, let's say, agriculture and how agriculture can influence the society. It was very much broader than the specific
- Speaker #0
subject of agriculture was like how agriculture is integrated in the context of each specific territory and societies okay yeah yeah that's interesting actually i wanted to ask you that because so you're an agronomist and i hear a lot that a lot of the agronomy studies available today are still really based around the conventional mindsets and thinking and processes and a lot of agronomists come out of university with that skill set, right? And so I was wondering how you become an agroecological agronomist, you know, someone who comes out of studies with a real scientific knowledge about agronomy, but from the agroecology side of things. So first of all, is that the case? Is that true that most agronomy studies today are still very much... centered around the old school conventional mentality of farming?
- Speaker #1
I would say yes, definitely. I cannot say that studying agronomy is not useful. I completely disagree on this sentence in the sense that I think that studying agronomy, like in my case, it's fundamental to understand the biological processes and the chemicals. and the reason why we do what we do in agriculture, so what's behind, so all the chemistry, the biology, and the functioning of plants. And this is a basis, a theoretical basis, which is fundamental, it's very important. And I'm glad that I had the opportunity to study all that stuff. But I think that there are still few courses, let's say, that can provide a, let's say, broader idea of agriculture. in the sense that it's also, let's say, how agriculture is integrated within a much more complex and integrated food system. And the capacity of understanding that each farm has to be integrated, let's say, in a different context, with a different society around the farm, with different goals, let's say, I think this is fundamental for working. as an agroecologist and to foster the transition of the farmers toward more agroecological systems, let's say.
- Speaker #0
So the way you explain things, it seems like there's a clear difference between an agronomist and an agroecologist. Is that right?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think that the main difference is that the agronomist has the basis to, let's say, understand the scientific reason behind certain agronomical processes. But what is missing in most of the agronomists, let's say, so the person that has been studying agronomy, it's the capacity of looking at the farm as a system which is included in a certain context. And the capacity of the agroecologists and what makes the difference between an agronomist and agroecologist, I think it's the fact that An agroecologist is also able to understand the dynamics of the society and how the farm is included and is influenced by the society around the farm. And moreover, I think that it's very important to being able to connect and to interact with different types of stakeholders, which are somehow connected to the agri-food system. but are not necessarily specifically on the field of agronomy or farmers, but also like consumers, food chain actors, retailers, the society, because an agroecologist is also the person that bridged the gap between the countryside, which is represented by the farmer, and the city, which is represented by the society. So this gap between the two parties, let's say, I think it's fundamental to kind of uh get the two parts closer and the role of agroecologist I think is also to bridge this gap.
- Speaker #0
Okay, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. Okay, make sense. And well, you know what? I think it would be a great idea to use this case study, this place here, this farm, which you've been working on for a number of years, right?
- Speaker #1
Yes, yes.
- Speaker #0
To demonstrate what you're saying here, to explain the role, your role as an agroecology agronomist. Yes.
- Speaker #1
Right? Yeah, that's why... It's not by chance that I came up here because I think that this project, which is the project of Cascina Romanengo, which is the place where we are now, it's a place where we are fitting all the principles of agroecology in one project. It's not just a farm. I think it's something broader because here it's included not only the soil regeneration, the increasing of biodiversity, the use of water in an efficient way, But it's also a place that wants to influence somehow the farmers around this farm. So it's also creating a network of farms which are somehow influenced and contaminated, let's say, by what we are doing here. So the scope of this project is to show practically and demonstrating that it's also possible to do another type of agriculture, which is not the ones that it was used to do before, before 2021, even if we are not in a particularly rich context in the sense that the neighborhoods are not like... rich farmers or whatever it's the the soil is also very poor so we are trying to demonstrate that starting from a very simplified context by including and adding complexity to the system we can also let's say take
- Speaker #0
an advantage from the complexity let's say and being more resilient as well okay i want to unpack all of this and make it super easy to understand for people listening and for myself as well, you know? Yes. Um... So could you first start by telling us more about the place we are here? So what kind of farm is it? How big is it? Some of the crops it grows. And more specifically, describe how the farm was like when you first came here and you first got hired here as an agroecologist.
- Speaker #1
Yes, sure. So, as I said, this farm was looking completely different before 2021 because there was just... Basically one or maximum two crops that were grown in this farm, which was like basically wheat and sunflower with intensive practices and conventional agriculture, like most of the farms around. And me and together with my team, which is called Marsilea, we started to redesign, completely redesign this farm. And first of all, what we did was to map what was the current situation, starting from the soil analysis, the assessment of the biodiversity, both in terms of fauna and in terms of the biology of the soil, with some measurements and analysis, in order to have like a starting point, like a T0 assessment. Based on the results of this analysis, we started to regenerate the soil throughout the inclusion of cover crops, the use of manure, which was coming from another animal farm which is close to this farm. And we also started to map the stakeholders and the people that could be somehow included in our process, like the seed seller. the animal farm that was able to provide the manure, also some people that could process our products. So all the stakeholders, and we made a list of potential stakeholders to include in our process of transformation. And so after this phase of assessment, we started to implement farming practices, like, as I said, the cover crops. So the idea was to plan the crops. in such a way that we're able to cover the soil as much as possible, basically. We also changed the way of tillage, in the sense that before it was used to do only, basically only plowing, so just plowing the soil. While in the next four years, we try to reduce or to eliminate, where possible, the plowing in order to increase minimum tillage or sod seeding. We also started to make a lot of research about the... best crop to include in this system. We tried, I think, 25 different crops, maybe even more, in the last four years in this farm in order to, let's say, make a sort of brainstorming of all the crops that were possible to be grown here. And after a couple of years, we also started to implement some agroforestry systems in order to increase the complexity of the farm. we included some fruit trees like apricot, cherries, plums, hazelnuts, chestnuts, in order to test again which variety and which crops, which trees were more, let's say, adapted to this soil and the pedoclimatic conditions.
- Speaker #0
Okay. Could you give us some examples of things you tried and why you decided to do things in a certain way?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, sure. So, as I said, we tried many different crops and many different types of tillages and soil management. We tried both like spring crops, most of the time after cover crops. And we also tried winter crops. In general, now I can say that winter crops like wheat, spelt, barley, raygrass. oat, they are performing very well in these type of soils, especially like every year is different. So we cannot say that the winter cereals have to be sown in a certain date because then you don't know the type of weather that it's going to be. But in general, in this type of soil, it's better to seed the winters here at the beginning of the autumn. So let's say beginning of October, because afterwards it's starting to rain. And here in this soil, there is a lot of lime and this creates compaction and the air, it's... very difficult to penetrate into the soil. And since the roots of the plants need also air, not only water and nutrients, but also air, air is fundamental for the growth of the plant. If we create this compaction and these conditions, they would not grow properly. So we experience that it's better to seed the crops before the beginning of the autumn, let's say. So at the very beginning of the autumn. And this is a learning lesson, while there are other learning lessons, like for instance millet. It's a crop that here is performing very, very well. Like now it's the 24th of July. We never irrigate. We are relying only on the water from the sky, on the rain, the rainfall. And if you look at the fields, they are very green. They are doing very well. and they are very clean from weeds, which are... kind of the biggest challenge for us. And yeah, millet, it's incredible. It's very rustic. It's very resilient. It's very low water demanding. So in this context, even if here we have very poor soils, it's performing very well. So this is another crop that we are selecting now and we are, let's say, creating a food chain of millet.
- Speaker #0
Okay, so you're creating a new kind of supply chain with Millet because you realize this crop works really well here. So we need to make it work. We need to find buyers.
- Speaker #1
Yes.
- Speaker #0
Just a quick pause from this awesome conversation to tell you about the official partner of the Deep Seed podcast, Soil Capital. So Soil Capital, they're a company that accelerates the transition to regenerative agriculture. And they do that by... financially rewarding farmers who improve things like soil health or biodiversity. They are an amazing company. I love what they're doing and I'm super proud to be partnering with them for the podcast. You mentioned all of these winter crops that work really well here in your system. How does a rotation look like with these winter crops? Do you plant another cash crop in the the summer or do you how does it work okay so um
- Speaker #1
Let's assume that we make a four year rotations more or less. The first year we put a winter wheat, a winter crop that can be wheat, for instance. So we seed in October and we harvest more or less now. So in, let's say, half of July. And then after, or we prepare the field to the winter cover crop that we saw at the beginning of September. or maybe we put a...
- Speaker #0
a summer cover crop of sudan grass so it's a sorghum together with bean okay which is used as a cover crop to integrate soil organic matter into the soil so you don't harvest you would plan that after you harvest since in july and so do you have that cover crops during the summer months exactly in september you terminate
- Speaker #1
and then you terminate yes and we put a winter cover crop that It's a complete... composed by maybe veg together with fava bean, mustard, tillage radish, and maybe it can be also cereal included in this mix. It can be barley or raygrass or depends on what we find in the territory, let's say.
- Speaker #0
Trying to have as much diversity as possible to improve the soil conditions. A couple of questions. First of all, you said sometimes you will plant the... summer cover crop yes sometimes you will just prepare the soil and wait for some september what makes the difference between the two options in your decision mostly if there is the soil condition if there are the soil conditions we plant a summer cover crop like if there is enough humidity into the soil then we we seed also a summer cover crop otherwise
- Speaker #1
we just wait to the to the next crop in in autumn or early or late summer okay Okay.
- Speaker #0
Okay, but I guess that's not ideal because then you have your bare soil from mid-July to September. Exactly,
- Speaker #1
we try to avoid that. Or what we are doing now is to broadcast clover into the winter cereal. Like for instance, let's assume that we seed wheat in autumn, then in the next early spring, like in March of the next year, we trans-seed.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, so you go over the fields with the machine and you kind of broadcast, so you just spread seeds without having to go into the soil. So you just spread them, so you have a clover that starts growing underneath your wheat.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, you understood correctly. And then in this way, we avoid the soil to be bare during the summer, while we provide nitrogen throughout the use of clover. And in this way, we also have different profits and different sources of income because we have the wheat, so we get profit from the wheat. We can decide harvesting the seeds of clover, or we use as a manure, green manure, to mulch. the the clover into the soil to use as a cover crop and we also have the the honey from the bees coming from the flowers of the clover so at the end we have three different products that are different sources of income and maybe the lowest income is coming from the wheat which is probably considered the main crop let's say because the seed of it's very highly profit okay so why not do that every time
- Speaker #0
Like you said, sometimes we will do that. Why not do it every time if it's so interesting?
- Speaker #1
Actually, now we are introducing this practice in all the fields of winter cereal. Before, we were used to do that just in a small part of the farm, just to test which was the best variety of clover, which was the best period of sowing for the clover, because sometimes we try to seed it in autumn together with the winter cereal, while others we made intercropping like seeding the clover in early spring, like in March or February. And so we started to make some tests, but now I think we came out with our solution, let's say. All right.
- Speaker #0
So what happens once you harvest the wheat in July? What happens then? Your clover is still growing for the rest of the summer? Then in that case, you're not planting a summer cover crop. That's your summer cover crop,
- Speaker #1
right? That's our summer cover crop, exactly. And if you look at the fields now, when you go out, you can You can see the clover on the soil, which is now dry. And I think that maybe next week we will harvest the seed of clover because since it was a rainy spring, the clover was performing very well. So it grows very a lot. And we are now able to harvest the clover after harvesting the winters here, like a couple of weeks ago.
- Speaker #0
Okay. So it was. How do you harvest clovers? It's quite a small plant, right? So you have some kind of special machine to harvest, to cut it without killing the plants? How does that work?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, basically, it's better to have relatively high winter cereals crops because when you harvest the winter cereals, you have to stay above the ground not to disturb the clover. So you harvest the winter cereals relatively high from the soil. And then you go a second time with the same machinery, harvesting machinery of the wheat. You can harvest also the clover. Just regulating the machinery, let's say, but it's the same machinery with a different regulation. Okay. So you don't have to buy another machine.
- Speaker #0
And once you've harvested the clover, it grows back? You can keep it as a cover crop for your summer?
- Speaker #1
Actually, it depends on the type of clover you seed. In our case, we tested also the pluriannual clover, and in that case you could do that, so you could, let's say, keep the clover over time. But since summers are very hot and dry in the last period, usually it doesn't grow very well in summer, so after harvesting it doesn't grow a lot of biomass. So we prefer to use annual crops. So after harvesting, we prefer to reseed the next year instead of keeping the same plants.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, okay. But what I mean is that you said that you're going to harvest it next week already. We're only at the end of July. So what happens then until September when you plant your winter cover crop?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, in that case, we keep the residues, let's say, into the soil. So it prevents soil erosion. and then in September we till the soil, trying not to do deep ploughing, but we do minimum tillage. So the nitrogen that was provided by the leguminous, in this case clover, it's kept in the first layer of the soil and it's useful for the next crop.
- Speaker #0
How do you do that kind of tillage? So that it doesn't go too deep and it doesn't damage too much the soil and the microbiology. Do you have a special machine for that or you regulate it in a way that it really does the minimum? How does it work? Right.
- Speaker #1
So if we can, it's not a rule, but if we can, we try not to reverse the soil layers. Even if we are doing the tillage in the first, let's say, 10 centimeters. What we do is to try to work vertically. So not reversing the layers of the soil. But if you till the soil, let's say vertically with a disc, for instance, we use discs. In that way, you avoid the reversing of the soil layers. And then that helps to keep all the nutrients and the nitrogen in particular in the first layer, let's say. Yeah, it's complex because, of course, you need to have the perfect conditions for the next crop. but at the same time you don't want to disturb too much the soil so it's a compromise between those and every time we make decisions we don't think only about the profit of the crop itself but also the indirect causes that that operation or that action has on the environment yeah so we kind of make a sort of integrated analysis with plus and minus considering all the factors and we do okay if you do plowing We probably have cleaner fields in terms of weeds, but at the same time we are losing nitrogen. While if we don't reverse the layers, we have more nitrogen, we can prevent the weeds a bit less than the deep ploughing. So we make this kind of analysis and then we take the decisions. But considering all the factors, also environmental, economical, and let's say also in terms of... It's a message that we want to provide to the external stakeholders.
- Speaker #0
You need a lot of flexibility. You need to be able to constantly analyze the conditions, the situation, and adapt your planning based on that. You can't say, here's my plan for the whole year. This is what we're going to do. You have to constantly change things.
- Speaker #1
Yes, and another thing that comes to my mind is that when we plan the crop rotation of every year, basically, what we have to consider... It's also the regulation for organic certification. So I will tell you more about that. But in general, what we consider is to have, as I say, the three, let's say, parties of the crop. So the high risk, medium risk, low risk. Plus, we have to combine the market needs. So if we grow, for instance, raygrass and we do, I don't know, like 30 tons of raygrass. It's probably not something that we can sell easily because there is not a lot of market of raygrass nowadays, even if it's organic. So we have to combine the market request, the pedoclimatic conditions of our farm, plus the organic certification. So there are many factors that influence our choice, and it's not easy. So what we do is to make a four-year plan because we know where we want to go in four years, more or less. But then we keep a bit open in the sense that we choose the family of crop, but maybe not the specific crop, because the specific crop within that family depends on the market, depends on the soil conditions, depends on other factors. So we make a first broad plan and then we go deeper once it's, let's say, the seeding time is closer. Okay,
- Speaker #0
yeah, yeah. Very interesting. Complex, but very interesting. Let's get back to our rotation, because we're barely one year into it. You said it's a four-year rotation. But I love that we can really get deep into it, you know, and ask the small questions to really understand how these things work, right? Yeah. For me, this is fairly new. I got into this topic a couple of years ago, and I've been learning first on the surface, and then more and more into the detail. And that's where it's getting interesting now, is to really understand it. technical detail of all of this. So I love that we can have this conversation today.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah,
- Speaker #0
yeah.
- Speaker #1
It's a...
- Speaker #0
So let's get back here into the crop rotation. In this case that we're describing here, so you planted your winter wheat. And around March, you broadcasted clover into the soil. Then come July, when is the right time you harvest, right? First, you harvest the wheat. yeah then you harvest the clover yes then you leave the residue on the floor so at least it covers your soil during the rest of the summer that your soil is not too exposed to the sun exactly and you have some organic matter to feed the soil microbiology and all of that yes in september you do a tillage but like as light as possible yes right and then you plant your winter
- Speaker #1
Yes, exactly. And as I said, we never use a singular crop within the mixture of cover crops because every field is different. And even within the field, we have a lot of heterogeneity in the sense that there are parts of the field which is more sandy, other parts which is more clay soil. So we have more humid soils. So with a mixture of different species and different crops within the same mix, the same number crop let's say we have a natural adaptation of the different conditions within the same field all right what do you mean by that is that you will plant the same really diverse mix everywhere yes at that period but it will react differently depending on the natural condition so you let exactly nature decide exactly yeah that's what we mean with working with nature in the sense that nature it's it's perfect i think and they have some mechanisms of compensation of lack of nutrients, which is incredible. So if we have a part of the field which is lacking of nitrogen, for instance, in that part, we will have more leguminous crop growing better than others because they naturally want to compensate this disequilibrium and providing nitrogen naturally. And if we wouldn't include... leguminous in our field, we wouldn't have this kind of adaptation to that specific soil condition. Yeah. So depending on the differences and the lackness, let's say, within our field, we work with nature to restore and replace the nutrients and to take the equilibrium within the field. Yeah. Okay? So that's why we decided to do a mixture of different species within the cover crop. Yeah. Then... Let's imagine that we are in April, then it's time to destroy and to terminate our cover crop. And we have different ways of terminating this cover crop. We have a roller crimper, which is like a roll with some bended parts, let's say, that it's able to terminate the cover crop without disturbing the soil. Basically we eat don't even touch the soil we just you kind of roll it down it's a massive roll and it goes over that your cover crop it kind of crash bends it down in a way that and crash and crush different uh yeah so bending and crashing the the core crop yeah killing the plants killing the plant yeah but in this way all the nutrients are not lost but they are kept into the soil and at the same time they don't regrow okay because it's uh the the plant are crashed in maybe two or three different parts.
- Speaker #0
okay so the stem for instance of the crop of the the veg or the ray grass or whatever we use are crashed in different pieces let's say okay so sufficiently so that it doesn't regrow the plant is killed exactly but the roots stay in the soil the nutrition that it gave all of the the soil around the roots is still there and the rest of the biomass is on the floor and it just decomposes it slowly.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. Exactly. Or... If the biomass maybe it's too much or if the crop afterwards, the cash crop that we want to plant after the cover crop, it's too much negatively influenced, let's say, by the biomass of the core crop. In that case, maybe we destroy the core crop with a different way in the sense that we crash, we destroy with a kind of crunch, maybe the core crop. And we integrate, again with a minimum tillage, the cover crop into the soil. And we have to wait about two weeks before growing and seeding, let's say, the cash crop afterwards.
- Speaker #0
Okay. I guess when you do that, your soil is a little bit cleaner. Yes. Right? It's easier to come and seed into it. For certain crops, it's better.
- Speaker #1
Especially if we have a small seed, we need to have a cleaner and thinner soil. because otherwise it's not going to... grow properly. Okay. So, yeah, depending on the season, depending on the soil conditions, also the humidity of the soil, it really much influences the decision of how we want to terminate the cover crop. Okay. Okay.
- Speaker #0
Let's pick one as an example so we can continue our, you know, our rotation. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
okay. Let's imagine that we want to seed the cowpea, for instance, which is also subsidized by the cap, especially here in Piedmont. in this region because it's considered like a vegetable, like an orchard crop basically, so it's more subsidized than others. And there is a market in organic sector for this crop so it's it's something that we are testing and growing the last two years so let's imagine that we want to grow cowpea so we terminate in this case it's a relatively big seed so we can use the roller crimper so we destroy we terminate the cover crop with roller crimper and then we we can also sod seed the cowpea within the cover crop because we don't need to touch the soil or to prepare the soil more in depth than that. So yeah, let's imagine that we do the cowpea. In this way, the core crop is also able to keep the humidity of the soil in our field so we don't even need to irrigate the soil because of this humidity. It also helps a lot to prevent the weed growing, basically. So that helps a lot. And it's nice because we are collaborating with our neighbor. We don't have the sod seeding machine, but we collaborate with this farm that gives us the sod seeding machine and we share this machinery.
- Speaker #0
What seeding machine? Sorry.
- Speaker #1
The sod seeding, it's a machinery that it's able to sow the seed without touching the soil. So it's basically a machinery that puts the seed into the ground without touching the soil too much. so the reason like a disc that opens the field and it's able to...
- Speaker #0
It just makes a small cut into the cover crop and the soil.
- Speaker #1
Exactly.
- Speaker #0
It just deposits the seeds and then comes and closes it back out.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. So it's a special machinery that, again, it's able to have the minimum disturbance of the soil while allowing the seed to grow properly because it's put exactly into the soil. and what the allows the seeds to grow is the contact between the soil and the seed. So if there is not enough contact between the soil and the seed, the seed doesn't grow. And this way creates the perfect condition for the seed to grow.
- Speaker #0
Let's keep going.
- Speaker #1
So we are just at the second year. So once we grow the cowpea, then let's say we seed in the beginning of May. And that's also perfect because it allows the cover crop before to grow enough biomass. But at the same time, it's the perfect time for terminating the cover crop because it's flowering. And there is a perfect combination between carbon and nitrogen. And that helps because otherwise the energy, let's say, that we would need to to degradate, let's say the cover crop would be too much if there was too much carbon. while at the same time there is enough nitrogen so there is a good balance between carbon nitrogen then after let's say in september we harvest the cowpea and then after the cowpea we might see another winter wheat which is different from the previous one or we can also do linen for instance which is a particular crop because it's very robust and very low water demanding. And this is something that we see, let's say, at the middle of October, more or less, so in autumn. And we harvest in August. Let's say it's a very long cycle crop, actually. And it's very nice. It has these very, very nice blue flowers. and um Also, in terms of, let's say, landscape creation, it's a very nice crop. And again, it doesn't need a lot of nutrients, so a very low-input crop. And that's a very nice choice, I would say. And then in the last year, maybe we can put some faba bean, which is used for producing seed for a seed company. Or we give it as a forage to our neighbor. there is an animal farm which is buying food
- Speaker #0
the fava bean and we also create this sort of circular economy also in the in the territory okay plus fava beans are a legume it's a legume yeah so it also helps yeah your soil nitrogen yeah yeah exactly and so you mentioned that there's also some animals and some some pastures in your different fields do you Is it just a separate thing where you have certain parts of the farm that are used for pastures or do you integrate animals into your rotation?
- Speaker #1
Actually, we don't have animals, but we take manure from some neighbor, some farm. like close to our farm. And in return, we provide the forage. So the hay is sold to the farm in the same territory. And we keep one third of the farm to pastures in general. And it's also included in the rotation in the sense that we keep the pasture for about four years, for instance, alfa-alpha. And after four years of Alpha-Alpha, we start with the crop rotation I was mentioning before.
- Speaker #0
Okay, so one third of your total amount of hectares is just pastures. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
it's about 20 hectares.
- Speaker #0
Some perennial crops staying there for four years so that you can really... repair the soil, the microbiology can have plenty of time to develop before you start using into your rotation, right? Yes,
- Speaker #1
exactly.
- Speaker #0
Okay, okay. I thought when you meant pastures that it necessarily means that there's animals.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it's grassland basically. Okay, yeah. It is composed by alpha-alpha or lolium multiflorum, which is a ray and ray grass or clover as well. So, yeah.
- Speaker #0
But it means that one third of your total hectares on the farm are... busy being a pasture, right? And they're not growing a cash crop. How does that work for the economy of the farm?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, actually, I think at the end, it's true that it's not like a very cash crop, in the sense that it doesn't provide a lot of money. But at the same time, it's not affected too much by the climate conditions. So you know that more or less, even if there is a... not good weather or there is a very bad climate conditions, you will harvest something at least. So especially in the last years that was raining a lot, we had some problems of quality and also yield even for the winter cereals, while also thanks to the highly intensive rains we had, we could harvest a lot of forage. that we are able to storage and to sell when the price is good.
- Speaker #0
Okay, so your pastures, you're growing that forage on the pasture. Okay, so it's still producing something that you can sell for a profit. Exactly.
- Speaker #1
We cut the hay a couple of times per year, maybe even three, sometimes three times per year more or less. We make the hay and we sell the hay.
- Speaker #0
Okay, thank you so much for all that detail. I see you so much clearer, all of that comes together. It's very complex, it's very interesting.
- Speaker #1
Yeah,
- Speaker #0
thank you. You might remember that a couple of months ago, I published an episode about the farming chefs. They're a couple who started this awesome five hectare regenerative farm in Portugal. They're amazing people. They're very passionate about what they're doing. And they hosted us for a few days on the farm. And we did this whole documentary video that's available on YouTube. Sadly. They were caught by really bad, really big fires in their area. And almost all of the farm just heavily damaged and burned. And they really need help and support. So if you would like to, and if you can, please make a donation. I will leave the link in the description of this episode. Thank you so much. I'd love to understand a little bit better the role of agronomists, generally speaking, in a farm ecosystem. Is it a case that every single farmer has one agronomist advising them and being the kind of the link between the farmer and the rest of the ecosystem? Or does that work in a different way?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, okay. I'm glad you asked me this question because I think it's a very crucial topic. And from my experience, most of the farms, at least in Italy, arable farms, which are most of the time run... by family components, so it's family farming. And the average farm of those type of farms, it's about like 50 to 100 hectares, more or less. In those cases, I think it's very rare that they have an independent agronomist that influence the choices. And let me go a bit deeper in this. So most of the time, farms are highly influenced by external factors. For instance, the fact that that they are influenced by the climate conditions, which are not dependent on them, of course, but they don't allow farmers to make, let's say, choices with a high probability of success. The second factor is the price. So in the last years, the price of the crop is very... very fluctuating a lot. It's variating a lot. After COVID, the year after, like in 2022, the price of sunflower was doubled than now. So now it's half of the price. So you, again, you are planting something with no clue about the price that is going to be decided by someone else on the other side of the world, maybe. So those two factors, so climate change and the price of the very high variability of the prices of crops.
- Speaker #0
And the price of inputs as well.
- Speaker #1
And the price of inputs, exactly. So you have no idea about it. It's very fluctuating a lot. That makes the farmer in a condition which is very dependent on factors which is not depending on you and very uncertain conditions, right? And most of the time, farmers are very isolated. They are, maybe they live in the countryside without frequent contact with other people with the society after these let's say preamble i have to admit that unfortunately most of the farmers are highly influenced by technicians and representatives of chemical companies or seed companies that has to sell their products and most of the farms are highly influenced by those type of stakeholders, right? So all the decisions are influenced by someone that has the aim to sell their own products and they look at singular crop without looking at the farm as an integrated, holistic and more complex ecosystem or agro-ecosystem.
- Speaker #0
So they will have someone, for example, a representative from one of these agrochemical companies, coming in and saying, they're probably agronomists, they're probably also quite knowledgeable in agronomy, but they will come and look at one thing and be like, oh, you've struggled to grow enough of that crop this year, but well, you need more of that product. Exactly. Yeah. Instead of looking at the entire farm ecosystem, they will look at one thing and give one piece of advice that is, first of all, in the interest of their own company. And second, that is very narrow-minded.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. And the type of approach is very compartmentalized, in the sense that they look at a singular crop, a singular problem, a singular disease, maximum at the field scale. The difference is that if you are an agroecologist, you look at the farm at the landscape level. So you see the farm as part of a much more complex system integrated in a certain landscape with the... society around, with the people within the farm and next to the farm. So you take into consideration much more factors.
- Speaker #0
It makes a lot of sense that one person that is trained in agroecology, who is working independently from private interests, whose priorities are the farmer's well-being and the well-being of their farming ecosystem. would be in the best position to really help farmers through these transitions and in their operation in general, right? It makes a lot of sense. Now, I guess the question is like, how do we get to that point where each farmer has this independent agroecologist helping them? Yeah.
- Speaker #1
I think that it's not necessarily something that has to be paid only by the farmer. I think it's possible to pay the service by many different actors. For instance, nowadays we know that there are some companies that have to pay because they pollute the environment and they are obliged to compensate this pollution, this contamination with some credits, green credits, let's say. And those companies might integrate or pay for these type of figures that can support the farmer, for instance.
- Speaker #0
They would do that because if they don't, they will have more to pay later down the road.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. So it's a way of approaching the problem from a different perspective, with a different way. But at the same time, you create, let's say, advantages, which are not only, let's say, specifically to compensate a specific problem, a specific environmental problem, but you create some synergies which are positive for the society in general.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, yeah.
- Speaker #1
Another example I can provide. So now the region of Lombardy, which is the region next to Piedmont in the north of Italy, the region is paying the agronomist with 80% of support to provide consultancies to the farm. So in this case, the farmer can pay just 20% of the price of the consultancy and the other 80% is provided by the... the region, let's say. So I think this is already a very good example of how this type of transition can be supported throughout the consultancy of the farmer.
- Speaker #0
That's amazing that they're doing that, that they're supporting agroecologists like yourself so much. For me, it makes a lot of sense, right? Because this is helping the local farmers take care of the ecosystem, improve biodiversity. have less chemicals leaching into the soils, deal with the water problem. It has all of these ecosystemic benefits that benefit the whole region. That also help with food security. It has so many advantages that it makes a lot of sense for the state to intervene and to do that. But you don't see that very often. So I'm really happy that that's the case here. And I hope that we're going to hear a lot more stories like that in the future.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, and I think in general, if you put together all the... the components, all the parts and the parties, I think that the economic barrier can be overcome. So there are the ways of providing consultancies and to support farmers even without relying on the pockets of the farmer. And there are also European projects that can support the education, the formation. throughout courses and participatory consultancies, for instance, that can be an important tool to influence and to support farmers in this transition. So there are good examples. I think we need more, but I think there is already something. And thanks to the regional support, for instance, we could be able, as Marsilea has a group of agronomists, to get in touch with about 50 new farms that that are joining this training program, this consultancy program, with the support of the region. And this is a way of starting, let's say, a collaboration that can be interesting for starting this process. So it's a good example.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I see. I see. It's amazing. And I guess there's also the public sector. I mean, the food companies, they need also to secure their supply. So them investing and paying agronomists could also be... a possibility. I was thinking about insurance companies as well. I don't know if that's the case yet, but an insurance company obviously has a big advantage at making sure that the farming system is resilient and is not going to experience massive crop failure in the decades to come with climate change. So maybe they could also have an incentive of investing in the system. Exactly.
- Speaker #1
So you put together all the parts and all the different types of supports, even like public, private consumers cannot support parts throughout, for instance, CSAs, the models. So different types of sources that can, again, support the transition. But I think that it's crucial to consider this transition, not just at the farm level, but at the food level. So we have to consider, let's say, the whole food system. So consumers, retailers, processors, transportation. So consider that. The company that makes the transport of the products, most of the cases, the party that takes the highest part of the cost, the final cost of the product.
- Speaker #0
That's crazy, I didn't know that.
- Speaker #1
So if I had to make the bigger amount of money, I would probably make a startup of transportation. If I wanted to become rich.
- Speaker #0
And on top of that, I'm sure they add also a premium for transporting organic crop, right? Because the farmer sells their organic crop. with a small premium, but that premium gets inflated by different stakeholders in the value chain, including the transportation. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
that's crazy.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, anyway, go on.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, like this is an important, so the logistic, it's fundamental to consider the logistic when you plan how much hectares, how many hectares you want to grow in your field. Because if I grow five hectares of wheat, then let's assume that I make three tons per hectare. of wheat in 5 hectares, I get 15 tons of wheat. Then if I have to transport 15 tons, I pay as they were 30 tons because the cost is the same. So per tons of wheat, I would pay a lot for transportation. So it's better to grow 10 hectares instead of 5 because I have to consider the transportation costs. Okay. All right. So. That's why it's important to consider also the surface dedicated to each crop, because otherwise the cost of transportation would influence a lot the final cost. That's why I think it's necessary to think as the whole food system and how it works. because otherwise the farmer would pay too much.
- Speaker #0
Do you see that happening here? Do you see different stakeholders in the food system coming together? Or do you see the state leading initiatives where they bring together the different stakeholders to say, come on, let's talk, we need to find solutions together?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think it's crucial to create networks of farms. And this is also what we are creating here in Cascina-Romanengo. So we are planning the crops at the beginning of the year. with a couple of farms next to our farm in order to get a sufficient amount of product which is efficient for the transportation cost. So we plan the field sites and the crops dedicated to each field, gathering the products all together and transporting the products together to the retailer or the processor in order to to reduce and to be more efficient for the transportation. So the network of farms, it's not just for sharing the machinery or the equipment, but it's also to plan the crops, which can be a certain amount, which is not too costly for the farmers. Okay. All right. Is that clear?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, very.
- Speaker #1
Okay.
- Speaker #0
We need a lot more young farmers to get into farming. We have a big problem. everywhere in Europe, but elsewhere as well, with a lot of farmers being quite old, going towards retirement, and too few young farmers getting into farming. But I'm sure there's a lot of people listening to this podcast right now who are young people who are thinking of getting into farming. So if you have any advice or recommendation for these people, what would it be?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think that... I would definitely go into this journey. I would join this world of originality slash agroecology world because there are so many opportunities, not only for, let's say, technical people like agronomists, but it's such a huge and multidisciplinary world that it can provide opportunities for people with many different... backgrounds like communication marketing animal expert biodiversity expert teaching social pedagogic so so many different fields that they even if you don't have technical expertise you can find the way of applying your skills and your expertise your background your interest your passion in this system like working to regenerate the whole food system yeah right so you will feel part of a movement which is big made of incredible and nice inspiring people and this is something that gives you the energy and the positiveness every day and at least this is something that affects me every day and i feel like i'm not working since the last eight year nine nine days, years, sorry.
- Speaker #0
You love what you do, you're passionate about it, you seem very passionate about it, you seem very happy also, so you're a great example of why young people should get into farming. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
there is room for everyone and despite the background and the experience you have, you can feel your place, so let's join this movement and sure.
- Speaker #0
Awesome, thank you so much for this conversation, I loved it.
- Speaker #1
Thank you Rafael, it was very nice, thank you very much.
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