Philippe Birker

I know that most of my bubble here is climate conscious, but after reading the IPCC report this morning, this picture is too good not to share. It's not enough for all of us to stop flying and start acting a bit more sustainable, we need systemic change on all levels in the next few years or we are fucked.

I know that I believe that a systemic change in our agricultural systems towards regenerative agriculture can be a big part of the solution and that I am thankful for the fact that many of you are working with me on that.

But it does not matter, which change you are pushing forward, it only matters that you do realize that the time to push for systemic change on all levels is now. Ask yourself what you are working on and if you really want to look back at those years and say you did not give it your best to save our home.

Thanks to Asmara Kazmi for highlighting the great image to me.
#climatechange #regenerativeagriculture #climatefarmers

One thing I learned to love while living in the Netherlands was the dark humour. (Zondag met Lubach was my main Dutch coach)

Below a great sketch based on the Trump, Vance, Zelensky situation by the Dutch tv-show Klikbeet.

Trump is definitely shaking up the world right now, but he also provides us with some great comedy material.

Since starting Climate Farmers I have continuously worked on implementing regenerative principles not only on farms but also in my organisations and in my own life.

One of those is to embrace natural cycles.

So for the last two weeks, I was wintering, embracing the cold in Germany, disconnecting from my laptop and phone, and being present with my family, friends, and the thoughts in my head.

It was interesting because when I returned yesterday to the online world, I was probably one of the last people in Europe who learned that America attacked Venezuela.

Contrary to most people, I am excited about this year, though.

Yes, it feels like a lot of the structures that we took as given when growing up in Europe are changing, and that can be scary, but change is a constant in life anyway, and the deeper I am looking into the agrifoodsystem that capitalism has created, the more I am convinced that radical change is needed.

And I am not the only one; the regenerative movement is growing, and it's growing far beyond the boundaries of agriculture.

I have no doubt that we are on the right path to a more regenerative future, and that this is exactly why phenomena like Trump are appearing right now.

People are scared of change.

So if you feel scared of the future today, then I can highly recommend finding some comfort in the graphic below, the "Gramsci Gap".

Where the old world collapses, and the new struggles to emerge, we find a space for "monsters".

Gramsci distinguishes between two types of monsters: human monsters who exploit their power for exceptional rule-breaking and systemic monsters represented by decayed legal or governance systems.

Both are very present in 2026, and it is up to us all to help the new world to be born.

Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing some of the stories of hope that I see happening around me.

Image credits go to Venkatesh Rao, who also wrote a great article about it, which I linked in the comments.

When Ivo Degn and I started Climate Farmers back in 2019, we did so because we both believed that there is nothing more important that we could do with our time than supporting farmers in their transition to regenerative agriculture.

I still hold that belief, but I never expected that we would find so many amazing people who are willing to work with us on that cause, and that the regenerative agriculture scene would explode around us as it did in the last 6 years.

What I also did not know is that the reward for success as a founder is more responsibility, more stress, and more sleepless nights.

I appreciated every single one of our team members, but being responsible for 35 salaries and the connected lives and families is something that I was not enjoying.

We closed the carbon credit arm of Climate Farmers earlier this year and we shared a lot of our thoughts on carbon markets in our position paper in June.

Since then, Ivo me and a number of other team members had a lot of conversations, and it became clear that instead of one big company that tries to do it all, it makes a lot more sense to build an ecosystem of value-aligned organizations who support each other and work together on the mission of a regenerative agrifood system.

As a result we are welcoming today two new organizations into our ecosystem.

Re:Source, which will continue the work of the Climate Farmers systems-change-consortium and align actors from across the agrifood system for systemic impact and Terra Madre, which will continue the carbon credit work of Climate Farmers.

Re:Source will be led by Ivo and Franzi Pross and Terra Madre by Nils Arne Herrmann, Joao Martins 🌱🌳, Fernando Moyano & Philip Fernandez.

They just got the latest batch of carbon credits verified by Tüv. So, for anyone in the carbon space, please do get in touch with them if you want some high-quality carbon credits from European farmers.

With Climate Farmers we will focus on a topic that became very dear to my heart, farmer-led education & verification of ecosystem services beyond carbon.

I want to make sure that the next generation of farmers and agronomists is focusing not just on yield, but on stewarding thriving ecosystems and I believe the core pathway to get there is through institutional education.

There are some amazing developments happening in the background, but more on that in another post very soon.

The picture is from our very first Climate Farming Conference back in 2021, for me one of the highlights of the last 6 years.

I will always be grateful for the privilege of contributing to this thriving regenerative movement for so many years and to Ivo for being the best co-founder that I could ever have asked for.