Learnings and reflections from starting our own regenerative projects with Oliver, Nick, and Jacob

Oliver

2 years ago

This week I wanted to get back to one of my favorite formats from the early days of this show in which I just take the time to speak with some of my close friends and collaborators about what we’re working on. Today I grabbed my good friends Nick Steiner and Jacob Evans.

Nick is one of my closest colleagues in my work with Climate Farmers. He leads the Academy at the company and has spearheaded the coach matching service where we put farmers in touch with other farmers and experts who can help them in their transition to regenerative agriculture. He also recently invested in a property in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands and has been renovating an off-grid homestead for the last several months.

Jacob is another close friend of mine and earlier this year we taught an introductory course on syntropic agroforestry at the Green Rebel farm in Miravet, Spain. Jacob has been teaching syntropic agroforestry for arid climates and managing the farm at Suryalila Yoga retreat center for the last few years. He is also in the early stages of a big transition as he moves his young family back to Argentina where his wife is from, and will be starting a small farm there later this year. He also has a lot of experience setting up and running food production systems in the challenging climate of southern Spain.

The reason why I called on these guys is because most of the clients that come to me and the students that join in my courses are working towards a big transition onto the land. Some are in the early stages of considering buying land and starting a farm. Others are actively looking for property, and some have already bought a place and are beginning the development process. As a result I get tons of questions about how to choose a property, what important things they should be looking for, what to prepare for and be aware of, how to avoid mistakes, etc.

I myself am in the process of working to move onto a property in the mountains of central Catalunya in Spain and am drawing from my own learning journey from the past when I began my first homestead with my colleagues in Guatemala almost 5 years ago. I know now that there are so many things I would do differently with more knowledge and hindsight.

Because of all this shared experience me and the other two guys have in common with making and preparing for this type of lifestyle transition I wanted to have an in depth chat about the most important learnings we gained from these experiences. We also talk a lot about what we’ll be drawing from in our new endeavors and the advice or guidance we would give our former selves based on what we’ve learned from so many mistakes and blunders.

It’s really interesting to me to understand the patterns and commonalities that come out even from the different circumstances and motivations that we’ve had and that I’ve heard from all my students and clients over the years.

If you like exploring this topic and want to hear more about it after this episode, I’ve posted the details of the upcoming instagram live session that I’ll be doing with Nick this weekend on Saturday evening. We’ll be answering listener questions about learnings and important considerations when looking for land in the country and the reality of making that kind of a lifestyle transition so be sure to check it out. We’d love to see you there.

With that out of the way, let’s get started with the first of what I hope will be a lot more regenerative roundtable sessions.