“Farmers are the custodians of our world and future generations,” said the star of popular Disney+ documentary Farm Rebellion, Benedikt Bösel, on Season 5 of Inside Ideas. As the stewards of our food systems, the choices they make today will shape the future of our planet.
“We have developed an agricultural system that is very, very good at producing masses at the cheapest possible price. But that came at the cost of soil health, biodiversity loss, and water depletion,” explained Bösel.
This is systemic, this is ecological, this is social innovation.
On his Gut&Bösel farm near Berlin, the one time investment banker is now involved with a different type of till. Thanks to the support of his fellow rebels, Bösel’s team – who founded the Finck Foundation in 2021, have turned alchemist transforming 3000 hectares of sandy, dry German soils into a thriving ecosystem, showing how regenerative farming practices can transform degraded soils to create resilient ecosystems.
Teamwork
Passionate about bringing farmers, scientists, and policymakers together to drive systemic change in the agricultural sector, Bösel also wants humanity to experience a more visceral relationship with our soils. His regenerative farming journey is all about the importance of this connection and he regularly invites people to come to the farm and see for themselves what it looks and feels like.
“We need to touch people’s hearts,” he tells me. “The DNA of our farm has always been to invite people here and to hopefully touch their hearts, make them understand why we are doing what we’re doing. If people actually experience something emotionally and they touch it, they feel it, they smell it, that changes you, that sticks with you.”
This is how Bösel, author of the bestseller Rebels of the Earth, promotes the value of agriculture beyond food production, as he works to promote systemic, ecological, and social innovation in agriculture.
For Bösel it’s very simple: “agriculture and farming have to be at the epicenter of coolness”. And you can collect some cool points by watching the show, where you’ll learn more about regenerative farming – find out why it’s not all bad news for cows – and discover the true value of agriculture.
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Marc is Editor-at-Large for Innovators Magazine and host of INSIDE IDEAS, his OnePoint5Media video podcast show. Marc is a member of the World Economic Forum Expert Network, Resilient Futurist, and award-winning Global Food Reformist.
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