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433 Dimitri Tsitos - Three years of R&D in intensive almonds: can you really do regen?
Description
Dimitri Tsitos, co-founder of Agrosystemic, left Greece a decade ago, spent years working across European farming systems, and eventually landed in Portugal to run what has become one of the most rigorously monitored regenerative trials in Mediterranean intensive tree crop agriculture. He is the lead on the field research side of the Arbo-Innova project, a multi-farm, multi-consortium research platform focused specifically on the question of whether regenerative practices can be meaningfully integrated into the intensive orchard systems that now cover hundreds of thousands of hectares across the Iberian Peninsula.
A five-hectare plot of intensive almonds at Monta Silveira Farm, in Portugal, fenced against deer, planted at the same density as the conventional neighbours surrounding it on all sides, and now in its third growing season: that is where this conversation takes place. The trees are about two metres tall. The interlines are green with different cover crop mixes. One area is under plastic mulch; another has clovers growing in the tree lines themselves. The data is beginning to come in, and what it is showing — on nitrogen levels inside the tree, on herbicide use, on fungal disease pressure, on water infiltration — is quietly shifting the conversations Dimitri is having with an industry that, until recently, was mostly watching from a distance.
In this walk-and-talk episode, recorded at 8am on a May morning in Portugal, birds audible throughout, with the 8,000 hectares of conventional intensive almonds next door visible at every turn, we get into why cover cropping can fail spectacularly at 70 euros a hectare and why that matters enormously for adoption, what clovers on the tree berm are doing to nitrogen inside the almond tree (and what they’re competing for in return), why the most intellectually honest conventional growers are the ones leaning in first, how the J-curve of regenerative transition can be quantified and eventually financed, and why the real metric of progress might be the moment a farmer asks you to slow down.
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In Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast show we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.
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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed financial advi