speaker-0: There are some people who spend their careers chasing money. My guest today has spent his career chasing something much harder: finding ways for money to serve people and the planet. Satya Tripati has spent decades at the highest levels of the United Nations, designed billion-dollar sustainable finance platforms, helped pioneer the tropical landscapes finance facility in Indonesia, established the Sustainable India Finance Facility, and influenced the thinking behind India's. Transition towards natural farming. But if you ask him where it all began, he won't point to New York, Geneva, or Davos. He'll point to two things: a village where he grew up, seeing women work in paddy fields carrying over hundred saplings on their back, transplanting these saplings one by one into the ground long after everyone else had gone home, and second to his grandmother, a grandmother who taught him that not everything in life can be measured by money. Satya, welcome.

speaker-1: Thank you for having me.

speaker-0: Thank you for being here. So Satya, you don't call yourself an economist or a diplomat or even a climate leader. You call yourself a prospector. Now prospectors usually search for gold. So what are you searching for?

speaker-1: Impact in one word.

speaker-0: What kind of impact? Financial impact, environmental impact, social impact.

speaker-1: I believe that we worship an invisible god that no one has ever seen, but but we destroy the visible god that has given us life, that nurtures us every day, provides us nourishment, all the nutrients that our bodies need, not just our species, but each one of the eight million species on the planet, right, from the microbes to the giant creatures of that that inhabit the planet. And all of us need Mother Nature to survive, to thrive. And that is the kind of impact we need.

speaker-0: Often we tend to have this hubris around living like we're the only species. But you're right, Mother Nature has a way of providing for all. But when people hear that, you know, you're an ex UN diplomat or a sustainable finance expert, they probably imagine someone who grew up surrounded by economic textbooks and all, but your story begins somewhere very different. So can you take us back please to the time, perhaps when you were eight, when you began seeing things that others didn't quite seem to notice?

speaker-1: I think a few people have had very significant influence on how I feel and what I do right now and and and of course on top of the list are my parents. and and and of course my grandmother, who was a widow at a very, very young age, so she had to manage the entire family farm all by herself. I grew up in a city and every summer and winter I would go to the village to spend time with her. And it was an extraordinary experience that, you know, y you live in this I you know urban life where everything is provided for. Mm-hmm. And there was food on the table when you were hungry, you want to you wanted to wear something, you just needed to place your demands to your parents and things would appear magically and then you go to your village and suddenly you are in the middle of what would some would call reality. And And then there, you know, you you walk into a paddy field. We grew a lot of rice paddy in that part of the world. And then you would watch discipline and synchronized action from thousands of women mostly in the paddy fields, you know, all bent over, knee deep in the slushy water and transplanting rice. because if you sowed it, the productivity was less as compared to transplanted rice. And and i it was kind of symphony in action. They would all be moving together in discipline, you know, row by row, and you stand there and watch and then then you ask your grandmother who's standing right next to you, why are they doing this? And then you start getting your basic understanding of how agriculture works, how you grow and and how what you get on your plate is grown by people that put in perhaps thousand times more effort than you. that that you spend in consuming and digesting it and nourishing your body than to grow it. And then of course that learning would then further translate into harvesting, stowing, transporting, and then, you know, getting to the market and selling them. it's an extraordinary learning process for a ten, twelve year old.

speaker-0: And your grandmother sounds like an extraordinary woman, so sorry to hear that she was widowed at a very young age. that must have been really hard for her. Did she have any prior knowledge of farming or did she have any help?

speaker-1: Well, I mean, she had help of hundreds of farmers that used

speaker-0: But she was the landowner.

speaker-1: she was the landowner and she was the manager, the orchestrator, the administrator, and the loving grandmother all rolled into one. And and and and and she had a very isolated life in in a sense that she was in the village, you know, and and sh whatever she did contributed to what we the life we lived in a city and and and and and I think that's there's a very important lesson there. A lot of us that have just grown up in urban areas never make seem to make that connect, you know, between what is and where it all comes from. Because if we did that, we'll have a lot more gratitude for the poor farmers that grow our food or the poor workers that, you know, that do the harvesting or do the threshing or winnowing or cleaning or storing or milling. or transporting to the markets, you know, ev every bit needs extraordinary effort from ordinary people. And we somehow seem to believe that our food appears from Deliveru or Uber Eats or Zumato or Swiggy, you know, these apps in different parts of the world, or Doordash or what have you. food doesn't that's just a mechanism to connect us to people that are making our food that are And and we don't even feel the gratitude for those that are even carrying our food. We don't give them good tips because they think, well, you know what? It's not my problem if they are underpaid. but you know, but if you extend that rainbow of gratitude, then you'll find a lot more people right to the village that are working so hard to produce what we consume. When you watch that in first person, there is simply no way that you wouldn't grow up to respect women or women farmers or smallholders or people at the bottom of the pyramid for that matter.

speaker-0: Absolutely. I hear you 100%. That lived experience stays with you. But you also saw another side of these women, isn't it?

speaker-1: course they got a their remuneration they would get paid weekly if I remember correctly. and and so that would be all accounted for and so they come back and, you know, they'll they'll cite a problem, you know, my child is sick or or or or, you know, I have to do this or a festival is coming, you know, and and I need new clothes for my family or whatever it is. And then my grandmother would be very generous, you know, so she would hand them out money. she never kept any accounts of anything. She would just hand out the money and and I was wondering that If you're paying out the weekly salary and you're calculating everything, why are you just handing over money and not and so initially when I went to Nashville, she said, No, no, no, I I it's not a lot and and you don't have to worry, you know. I was still not convinced, but but again, you know, I believed her. And then I go back the next holiday and the same thing is happening and I'm watching it in real time. So I said, Well, let me help her, you know. So I took a little notebook and I started writing down their names. You know, I did that nice accounting and and and a well scripted notebook and two days before I had to leave back to the city, I handed her the notebook, saying that this has all the accounts of everybody so you don't have to worry about forgetting and and so she took that notebook from my hand, looked at me with disappointment and threw it into the burning fire in the kitchen and then of course I cried, as any ten year old would. And then I sulked. And then she asked me, She is it, what is your problem? And I said, My problem is you're giving them all this money and and I'm sure you're forgetting it. And then she said, Well, these people have needs and who else will look after them if not us? We they work for us. I said, But do they return the money? she said, Well, not really. And then why are you giving them the money? And then of course she went on a literally a a sermon on who grows your food, you know? How do you think the food appears basically on your plate? How do you live in the city? How do you make profits? It's it's what we save. And then if it's all their work and we still get to save so much money that we can give them and forget it. don't you think that's there's something to learn for you there? and and you know, and then I said, Well, you know, if they have so much needs, why don't you give them more money? Why don't you pay them more? She said, Well, then I'll make the whole village my enemy. Because then I'll distort. the labor market. And she wasn't using those words, but but they meant exactly that. And then the whole village will be my enemy. And I'm a widow living here, running all your assets and your and what keep them productive. How do you think I'll manage if the whole village is my enemy? So I give them what everybody else gives, and I give them more when they come to me, and I creep about it to the rest of the village that these people can never have enough. So and then the village thinks I'm stupid that I keep giving them money. And they're the smarter ones that give them less. But anytime I need anybody to help me, there are a hundred people standing outside my doors ready to help. That's how you build a community. So my learning from that was, you know, working within a community, not finger pointing, not blaming others, building virtuous partnerships, and and while being fair. so she was a great economist without having ever been to school.

speaker-0: She learned on the job. Thank you for sharing that. And Satya, one of your core beliefs is that ordinary people can be empowered to drive extraordinary change at scale if there are the right people in power. So can you expand on that a little bit for her?

speaker-1: What I think is that true leadership is about living a life that is motivation in itself for the people that follow you. And I met President Djokovy and and and we all agreed that we'll put in this effort from for the Tropical Landscape Finance Facility. And you know, seven, eight months later, when a government really stands with you, they didn't have to put a single penny, but they stood besides us absolutely like an unshakable rock. every minister, the entire cabinet, and the forest minister I must mention, Ibusiti Nurbaya. And seven, eight months later, we had a partnership that involved the UN The World Agroforestry Center, BNP Paribha, Mishla, and ADM Capital was the asset manager. It was an asset management company out of Hong Kong and they kindly joined hands with us. And and all of it to

speaker-0: That's a very diverse group of stakeholders you've got together. But c for the listeners who don't know about the Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility, can you just roll back a little bit and talk about what it is and what your vision for it was?

speaker-1: Well, it is it is the first such facility that was put in place anywhere on the planet to leverage private finance for public good, as in nature. no one wants to cut down a forest because these are people that have a a whole family history in and around forests. they love their landscape, they love their ecosystem, and they have grown up in within that ecological arrangement and so nobody wants to cut it down. But they need to look after their families, they need to find sustenance and so to the extent you can do that, you can turn the tide. And that's where it all started. And and Mishla, the tire company from France was already doing something in that area, not at the scale or they didn't they were not able to find the money at that stage because they didn't want to be visible because it was a joint venture and there was a lot of reputational risk of starting something that doesn't work out. And that's not a reflection on Michelin. That's a that's a fact of life. big companies that have very high credit rating and big names would not want to be visible in some you know novel idea that's kind of a startup in its own way. and you know if it works out, it works out. But if it doesn't, at least there's no downside to them. So they didn't want anything on their books. they were part of a joint venture. They were happy to do that.

speaker-0: So what were they happy to do actually? So what was their angle of interest?

speaker-1: Well, I mean they need natural rubber. They're a tire company. And so and Indonesia has the perfect climate for rubber. And and and of course if you could produce rubber, taking that degraded land because this four hundred thousand hectare forest, Bukitigapulu, already had lost eighty-eight thousand hectares. And if you could take that as a conserv conservation concession to produce and protect, then then Worldwide Fund for Nature was the other partner with fifty thousand hectares conservation area. So the first buffer was a rubber plantation that as I understand has nearly forty million standing trees now. rubber trees and it's 10 years old now. So it's an established rubber plantation, perhaps the world's largest sustainable rubber plantation. And their production efficiency is more than 100% extra as compared to the average productivity of rubber in Indonesia. So and and and the first tranche of money in a 400 million dollar project was $95 million corporate sustainability bond from the Singapore capital markets. And it came together with a lot of partners coming together, but most importantly BNP Paribas for standing up and being counted and rising to the occasion and putting in all that time and effort to make it happen, underwriting the whole bond. And and of course there were quite a few investors from portfolio investors to the then US agency for international development, USAID They used to have something called the Development Credit Authority. They provided a first loss guarantee for almost $35 million out of that $95 million bond. And it was rated AAA by Moody's. So, you know, so all of it coming together, it was an incredible partnership. And once TLFF started functioning and we had this amazing project up and running, then I went away to India to help set up the sustainable India Finance Facility.

speaker-0: So can you tell us a little bit more about the sustainable India Finance Facility?

speaker-1: And so we looked at a lot of different ideas to support in India. one of the ideas was to support the wetlands of Aghanashani River. It is one of the very few rivers in India that has not been dammed. And and the Indian Institute of Science has done cutting edge research of the estuary and they found that the biodeposits there are forty times better, forty times better than other estuaries in India, where There have been one or multiple dams along the river. and and and so there the idea was to how do we get it to become a world heritage headla wetland. And and and and that's something that happened a few years later. then there were ideas on natural farming, which is championed by the government of Andhra Pradesh. My my friend Vijay Kumar leads it and is an incredible champion. When I first met him in twenty seventeen, It was about ten thousand farmers that were practicing natural farming, and now it's two million farmers practicing natural farming. and and what it has done is extraordinary. And so the Sustainable India Finance Facility has a twenty-five person team embedded within that program. we we have a a solid group of researchers, PhDs, postdocs, at least masters in in different agricultural sciences or markets or social engagement, what have you.

speaker-0: So what do these twenty five people do?

speaker-1: research, coordination and help and support the program. That is the only thing they do. And of course they publish they and they identify big leverages that you could be used to advance the program. But it is a government program and and our role there is that is a small role, and the small support that we do, but we are their biggest supporter on the global stage.

speaker-0: Place a small role, but you create the evidence base which is so important to gain that global credibility.

speaker-1: Is it is, but that was in the early stages. But now, you know, you'll be surprised the kind of support we have received from across the world. Because when two million people are practicing something, it's not what. it's not how. it's the why. and the is why meaning the fact that it works is not in doubt. And and we've done a lot of research ourselves and we know it for a fact. So whatever the chemical fertilizer lobby might peddle as, you know, nature science doesn't stand on its feet anymore because when two million people are doing something and their yields have gone up by eleven percent and their earnings have gone up by fifty percent.

speaker-0: Curious now, what are these two million farmers doing differently?

speaker-1: they're doing what we were doing before we you know pivoted towards using nitrates, phosphates, and phosphorus. they are mulching the ground three hundred sixty-five days a year. So a mulch cover that retains soil moisture, soil moisture retains soil nutrients, soil nutrients allow microbes to flourish, microbes make nutrients bioavailable to the plants and they use other microbes as well outside the soil, which is cow dung and cow urine as base material and they add accelerants in terms of fermenting agents, whether it could be brown sugar, could be buttermilk, could be lentil flour. And then that increases the microbial count significantly within 72 hours. And then you use that as a seed coating or a plant tonic or a soil mixture, you know, so all the same things in different concoctions, of course. and and and zero synthetic chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

speaker-0: Was the transition painful for these farmers to move from, you know, being sort of dependent on synthetic fertilizers to moving towards bioinoculation and the more natural processes that you described?

speaker-1: Not really, because the ch the change is not painful because the farmers these are all smallholder farmers. This is not industrial scale farming. And so on an average they have three to five acres of land. And so we encourage them not to to convert on day one. so the the program tells them to encourages them to only use a tiny part of their land and change it to natural farming. And if it works, you can do more. And it works because there is no coercion, there is no compulsion to do this. do what you want, do how much you want, and we are here to help you.

speaker-0: Incredible. So they see the proof of the pudding for themselves and then they get incentivized on their own to expand.

speaker-1: Exactly. And help comes in the way of a lot of tech support. Because once you sign up, let's say I want to do rice paddy and you say I'm starting this season, then ahead of the season you start getting these SMS messages or WhatsApp messages basically saying today is day one. And this is how you should be preparing your seed. And and depending on where you signed up from, you don't even need to prepare the concoctions. There are NPM shops. These shops basically prepare the concoctions. and k sell them at cost. And these are subsidized by the state government. Not subsidized as in to sell for less, but subsidized as in the Capex to set it up, you get a grant. Right. You know, so so it's it makes it much easier for farmers that may not have a cattle at home to still do natural farming.

speaker-0: And is it affordable for these farmers to spend from their own pockets to go to those shops and buy those bottles?

speaker-1: Ten times more affordable than chemical fertilizers. And of course, it in in some cases it might be 10 times, sometimes it may be only five times more affordable because depending on the crop, you might have to put more inoculants or less inoculants. But answer to this is also the place where the so-called green revolution started in India.

speaker-0: So full circuit.

speaker-1: It's come full circle. And in and I'm so delighted that that state would take the leadership in natural farming. And then they are fixing the biosphere. The hydrosphere, the geosphere and the ecosphere, all of it.

speaker-0: So what other co benefits has Andhra Pradesh experienced?

speaker-1: Well, you know, the the government of India has now approved a program two years ago. we we did some research and published it back in twenty twenty in partnership with the National Planning Ministry. that through biometric evidence and others we gathered information that fertilizers are indeed being avoided by these farmers. They're not buying any. and and because they're not buying any synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, because they're not buying any and because the government of India roughly spends in a bad year they They spend anywhere around 30 to 40 billion dollars for fertilizer subsidies that are then calculated by state and then handed out to companies that are selling these fertilizers. And so now they have a program called PM Pranam. so PM stands for Prime Minister, and so Prime Minister's Pranam scheme. The evidence is compelling now. they take the last three years trailing average of fertilizer outgo per state because the numbers are different for every street. And so your current year's outgo in fertilizer subsidies, if it is less than the last three years trailing average, you will get fifty percent of that amount that you have saved the national government as an incentive to do more of natural farming. And this year, Andhra Pradesh would become the first state in the country to receive and start receiving those payments.

speaker-0: So the central government saves money in terms of its overall annual fertilizer subsidy bill. The state governments also end up, perhaps even if they don't save as much initially, they end up with, you know, all the co benefits of hydrological, ecological, you know, benefits, better farmer mental health.

speaker-1: my extraordinary mental health. Because farming is bad business in India because you spend so much money to grow things. If you have a bumper crop, you're dead because market crashes. And if you have a bad crop, then you have little to sell. There are exponential public health gains because people can eat clean food and organic food costs so much more because not even one percent of the cropland in the world is organic.

speaker-0: So how is natural farming different to organic farming? For someone who's not an expert, how would you explain it to them?

speaker-1: So basically what happens is that organic farming is still fertilizer based farming. Okay. But not synthetic chemical fertilizers. So you're still doing fertilizer based farming, but a different kind of fertilizer which is a biofertilizer.

speaker-0: So you're saying in natural farming it doesn't even need a biofertilizer. You don't have any fertilizer.

speaker-1: Only inoculant.

speaker-0: So what's the difference between a fertilizer and an inoculant?

speaker-1: A fertilizer and inoculant is simple. Let's take humans. So when we are born, given what the disease profile of our community or our country is, we're given a bunch of vaccines. Those are inoculants. And that keeps us from becoming sick. You know, not being sick and finding out how good my body is to deal with it, the problem. But it prevents us from getting polio or tetanus or you know, smallpox or chicken pox. measles and all of the mumps a rubella and what have you, you know. So that's the job of an inoculant.

speaker-0: Got.

speaker-1: A co a fertilizer is you want to be stronger, but you're weak, so you are on steroids, or or you are having protein supplements. And so those are fertilizers. If you don't have inoculation, you have polio, no matter how much nutrients you get subsequently, it doesn't help you. You're not walking.

speaker-0: True. So that's incredible. So the marginal cost economics of natural farming are even better than that of organic farming. Is that correct?

speaker-1: any day and and and as it scales, you're competing with conventional regrown food at its own price point.

speaker-0: So you're not paying premium for natural farming food.

speaker-1: You don't have to, because it costs less to grow the same food.

speaker-0: I see so your cost base is lower.

speaker-1: So the farmer still gains fifty percent without selling it for more.

speaker-0: Such a warrant other countries doing this.

speaker-1: Everybody should do it. we've had delegations from forty eight countries visiting this program. The government of India has designated Anthropradish Natural Farming as the national resource organization for rolling out natural farming in the rest of the country. There are pilots going on in twenty eight different states of India. Wow. No, that's that that's moving.

speaker-0: It is moving, it's being rolled out at scale.

speaker-1: And that is the reason they won the world's biggest environmental prize two weeks ago.

speaker-0: Congratulations for your role in that. I know you're not taking any credit for it.

speaker-1: I know, I mean, honestly, our role is tiny. And you know, the pioneer who started it all, Vijay Kumar, even I tell him your role is tiny. The true role is that of the women farmers that are really, you know, breaking their back every day to make the impossible possible. So the real credit, and and and if you talk to the chief minister of the special chief secretary for agriculture in the state, who's a great champion himself, they'll all tell you the same thing that it is the women farmers. and and and and I mean they are the majority in this because the it's happening all through the women's self help groups. But then there are men as well, you know, so in in different parts of that ecosystem, including the farming ecosystem. the true crate belongs to them, no one else.

speaker-0: Everything seems to sort of come back to the gratitude for these women farmers.

speaker-1: No, but we should be grateful to them because now that I'm talking to you, I feel completely elevated, talking about them. You know, they this is this is the kind of dose we should get every day.

speaker-0: What you mean by does?

speaker-1: Valid doses, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins that humans need for different kind of happiness, excitement, relaxation, you know, mental peace and all of it. And so this is the daily dose we should be looking for.

speaker-0: And you're seeing it comes effortlessly.

speaker-1: It comes effortlessly when you think of others. You think of how best to help others lead a more meaningful life. And and people that have been part of a very unjust arrangement where some of us, and you know, and I'm not talking about the top hundred people that's obscene, but I'm talking about the top maybe two, three percent people that have a lot more opportunities in life, people like you and me, that than the rest of the world. And so, you know. having enjoyed the best of life, would it hurt us too much if we put aside even ten or twenty percent of our life, you know, and and I count it in terms of time, not so much in terms of money, because time is the most valuable commodity that you can donate to anybody. And so if you put aside I I'm beyond sixty now, and so if I have lived a great life for sixty years, would it hurt me too much to give my next ten, fifteen years to making the lives of other people better? I mean in my case I've been trying to do it for much longer, but then I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about people and you know. So just set aside a bit of your time to do good and you'll be surprised what it does for you.

speaker-0: So I know you said that there are over forty eight countries delegates who are visiting Andhra Pradesh and it's being rolled out across twenty eight states. But I want to look at UK, because that's where I work. Can this model be replicated across any soil topography, any climate conditions, or is it specific to hot countries?

speaker-1: No, it can be done in every country. You know, it's it's I mean, you know, you just have to test out the inputs and see what works. it's the context, it's the agroclimatic zone, it's and you know, it's working with nature is possible everywhere. You just have to find what works and and and how. So and so here also what is happening right now is not what we knew in on day one. Now they do something called pre-monsoon dry sowing, where hundreds of thousands of farmers are already practicing it, and now it's almost close to a million farmers. And what do they do? They don't wait for the monsoon anymore. you have this is an El Nino year, everything is dry around the world and the temperatures are rising, but they will have a full harvest in a few weeks, because they started much before the expected monsoons.

speaker-0: So they will be completely untouched by El Nino.

speaker-1: Mo those that are practicing PMDS, the pre monsoon dry sewing will be completely unaffected.

speaker-0: That's incredible. So it not just protects farmer welfare, but from a finance perspective, it also ensures that they repay their loans. So you know.

speaker-1: If there are any, because this funding doesn't require much loans. It's good for the country. Because with in an El Nino year, everything falls apart for countries that are in the El Nino impact zone. Because you know, less food means you will have to import food to feed your population, which means your balance of payments problem, your current account deficit grows.

speaker-0: Absolutely. Imported inflation.

speaker-1: Exactly, you know, inflation food food price inflation is a big part of the wholesale price index in developing countries. And so it it it It puts guardrails around a lot of the challenges politicians and policy planners have to deal with on a daily basis in an El Nino year.

speaker-0: I love that. So you're talking about micro level change that that gets aggregated up and has macro level systemic benefits.

speaker-1: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, talking about the Middle East conflict, fertilizer prices going up. I was talking to the honourable chief minister a few weeks ago and and and he was so pleased. He said, My people don't have to buy fertilizers. So I'm not worried about fertilizer prices going up or not being available.

speaker-0: I love that. I absolutely love that. And you put a number on the the price tag of transitioning a smallholder farmer to natural farming. You said it was two hundred dollars. Literally two hundred dollars.

speaker-1: It started with roughly four hundred, a little less than four hundred, but now it's d now that it's gotten to that volume, so it's about two hundred. It's they have kicked in in a big way. So it's about two hundred dollars. So the world roughly has, you know, depending on who you believe, anywhere between five hundred to six hundred million smallholders. So even if you take the bigger number, six hundred million smallholders, you would need only hundred twenty billion dollars.

speaker-0: That's probably less than some of the fertilizer subsidy bills for some countries.

speaker-1: absolutely. If you take the entire fertilizer subsidy bill of the world, this will be covered in less than a year's fertilizer subsidy bill.

speaker-0: That's incredible. Honestly, Satya, and talking to people like you and hearing about the absolutely path disrupting work you're doing in a positive way, it gives one cause for hope because the solutions are there at scale. So, you know, we can actually turn farming land into a carbon sink again instead of a carbon source.

speaker-1: Absolutely, absolutely.

speaker-0: And secure farmer welfare, et cetera. And I know you've mentioned Martin Luther King and how he was a stubborn optimist. He could have said, you know, I have a nightmare, but he said, I have a dream. Could you tell us a little bit more about why that stayed with you?

speaker-1: No, it stayed with me because, you know, the he lived in a very difficult time for African Americans, you know, who had no agency, were living their worst nightmare. and and at that time when he became their leader, both spiritual and political leader, he did not start by saying, I have a nightmare, which is what he had in abundance. He could have talked about every nightmare he's had since he was born. But he started talking about, I have a dream. A dream of a promised land, a dream of equality, a dream where people respect each other, where dignity is taken for granted. And so you cannot scare people into action, whether it is climate action or global warming or changing agriculture. You can inspire people into action, you know? You have to give people hope. And then present these solutions that have scaled to a system scale, and then bring it to their consciousness and then work with them. You know, Mahatma Gandhi famously said, Find a purpose, the means will follow. So it's all about purpose, you know. You you find a purpose and and you know to to give credit where it is due, the German development bank has lent two hundred ten million euros to this program in Andhra Pradesh and the first ranch they already disbursed, ninety million euros, was at point four five percent coupon. Who lends you money at those rates? And

speaker-0: The means follow.

speaker-1: but here the interesting part is that It's simple interest. So they will get back roughly two hundred twenty million euros at the end of it, when they get paid back in ten years. or if we just take the ninety million, maybe ninety-five million in in ten years. but all of that money is being saved from the fertilizer subsidy avoidance already. So the entire transition is cost neutral to the government.

speaker-0: Absolutely incredible. But what was the German Development Bank's angle in this? Why did they want to

speaker-1: They they want to help, you know. They the Germans have been big climate champions. They don't produce oil and and so they you know, you can't the activists accuse Norway of making money from oil and handing out small amounts here and there, but you can't say that about Germany. They they are not in that space at all. and they still care enough to put billions of Euros to drive change across the planet, you know?

speaker-0: True. So the again it's the transition towards more natural farming. I have to ask one slightly awkward question though. If I were a chemical, say a synthetic fertilizer manufacturer and I heard this podcast, I would be wondering about my market, the future of my market. What would you say to me?

speaker-1: You would not be the first one that has pivoted to something else. And so find other business processes, find the right ways of reviving the planet so that you can also thrive. And a a particular business idea does not have to live forever. We had computers 30 years ago that were moving at 1000th the speed they are moving now. Is anybody still selling those computers? No.

speaker-0: Very good point. You've got a transition, that's the name of the game.

speaker-1: You've got to transition, you know, it's not not start fighting with people that are breaking their back, trying to change the world, trying to heal the planet, and then bad mouth them and put out big full page ads saying that, this is not agricultural science and all nonsense. But rather look at the landscape of opportunities, no pun intended, and just take your pick and do the right thing.

speaker-0: Is there an Achilles heel to natural farming?

speaker-1: there is none. but you know, but you cannot underestimate the power of those that can undermine it, you know, pay researchers to write, you know, pick up little bits of evidence and then, you know, enhance, extrapolate and enhance and say, this is not going to work. You know.

speaker-0: But you are prepared.

speaker-1: They are prepared. That's why. Why do you think we are building an an army of incredible institutions to partner from Fletcher to Oxford to Rodel Waganingen to I could go on and on and on with the list. And then so we have our army of scientists who still believe in science on our side.

speaker-0: So I'm going to conclude. I love how there's been a consistent theme of gratitude in everything you've done. And you don't take any credit for it yourself. You've always extended that gratitude back to the farmers, back to the women farmers. I just want to say that, you know, in listening to you today, what you've shared really brings to for that the more we focus on how to create more wealth, the less we are likely to create a wealth that fulfills us. And I want to just sum up for the listeners that. What your grandmother instilled in you was that not everything that matters can be captured in a ledger. Not everything that is valued should be counted. And that's perhaps what makes your story so remarkable, Satya, because you didn't re-reject economics, you didn't reject markets, you didn't reject finance. You spent your life redesigning them. And you helped prove that private finance can restore rainforests, hundreds of thousands of hectares of it. You proved that you can bring A hard-nosed profit-seeking tire manufacturer into the equation to be part of the conversation on conservation. One thing that stayed with me is what you mentioned around you can't shock people into change. You have to inspire them. And so I really wish you all the positive energies in translating your goal from two million farmers to 600 million smallholder farmers. And in a world where we often seem to be addicted to fear and outrage and catastrophe and clickbaiting, you know, you've infused. Seeds of genuine hope. You call yourself a prospector, but I think after this conversation, you know, you are prospecting across all your projects for human potential to come together. And so, Satya, this is perhaps one of the richest sources, you know, of richest resources on this planet, that collective human potential. So thank you so much for joining us.

speaker-1: Thank you for having me.

speaker-0: If something you've heard on the podcast has made you pause and rethink how you would partner with nature, follow ReWiggle on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, and YouTube. And if you know someone who is actively rewiggling how they work with nature, building solutions, shifting systems, or turning ideas into action, we'd love to hear from you. Write to us at rewiggle at gmail.com. Because the best conversations don't really end when the episode does. They stay with us and sometimes they change what we do next.