Covid-19 started in Asia, and the region was the first to feel the social and economic impacts of the disease as it spread worldwide. It's also where businesses, entrepreneurs, investors, and governments have spent the most time dealing with Covid-19 and its effects. Their insights and experience – and the strategies they've adopted to ride out the pandemic – could prove invaluable to agrifood players not just in Asia, but elsewhere in the world, too. That's why we focused the second episode of our new What The Fork? Digitalks by AgFunder series on Asia, and how agrifood businesses and investors here are tackling Covid-19. AgFunder's hand-picked lineup of thought leaders also shared their thoughts on where the region's investment landscape is headed as the pandemic eases. Joining AgFunder founding partner Michael Dean were: Anuj Maheshwari, managing director, agribusiness, at Temasek – a Singaporean sovereign fund and top tech investor with close to $222 billion assets under management; Suresh Sundararjan, managing director and group head, global corporate services, at Olam – a Singapore-based agribusiness corporation which is a major player in the global food commodity trade; Matt Kovac, executive director at Food Industry Asia (FIA) – an advocacy group representing the interests of food manufacturers, producers, and retailers across the region.

In this episode of Future Food, which I co-hosted with my wonderful colleague Lauren Stine, our reporter and resident rancher, we talk to Lew Moorman and Nick Honegger of Soilworks, a newly-created investment group focused on regenerative agriculture. Nick and Lew founded SoilWorks after working together at Scaleworks, the B2B SaaS focused investment organization founded by Lew. We talk about how they moved into the very different world of regenerative agriculture, what regen ag means to them, their first investment – the acquisition of livestock management app PastureMap -- and more generally about where they see the future of our food systems. Lew and Nick are driving for a more mainstream adaption of regenerative agriculture. They believe it could be the key to remodeling our existing food systems in a healthier and more sustainable way. There are a lot of aspects that need to come together to make the shift to a more regenerative system, so stay tuned to hear about how Lew and Nick believe we can facilitate the change.

The importance of protein in our diets is hardly breaking news; demand for high-protein diets is increasing globally. When you combine the developing world's desire to replace staple grains — that have dominated their diets for centuries — with increasing amounts of animal-based protein, with the over-consumption of meat and protein in the developed world, alongside a growing desire in multiple corners of the world to eat fewer animal-based products, there's clear pressure on the globe's protein supply. In this episode, I speak to Sara Eckhouse and Victor Friedberg from FoodShot Global, an investment platform focused on Moonshots for Food. Precision Protein is their new focus area. They always have a unique take on issues and their view on the protein debate is certainly refreshing and a break from the simplistic meat vs plants take that many have entered into in recent years. So I hope you enjoy!

How does an environmentalist become an aerial imagery data analytics and AI entrepreneur? Find out in this episode with Al Eisaian, a serial entrepreneur from the mobile apps and software space. Al's company IntelinAir uses images captured from airplanes to help farmers identify problem areas in their fields and make decisions that can reduce the burden of their activities on the environment, such as water usage, pesticide usage and so on. It can also importantly help increase the efficiency and therefore the bottom line of those farming businesses that typically operate on very tight margins. So I hope you enjoy this farmtech episode and thanks for listening!

Covid-19 is the first big crisis for agrifood investing, an investment area that largely emerged in the wake of the global financial crisis. How will investors respond and what does it mean for the future of investment across the sector? This is part of a new series of webinars AgFunder is hosting to navigate the crisis. This first episode features Dave Friedberg, founder of The Climate Corporation, agtech's first unicorn which sold to Monsanto for $1bn, and Blake Stevens, principal at Alexandria Ventures, part of real estate investment juggernaut Alexandria Real Estate (NYSE: ARE) and lead on its agtech efforts. They were joined by myself and my colleague Rob Leclerc, founding partner at AgFunder, one of the most active investors in foodtech and agtech. These special hour-long sessions are longer than you're used to, but I hope you still find them interesting!

In this episode, I speak to Bjorn Oste, who cofounded Oatly, the dairy alternative company that recently saw its flagship oat milk product fly off the shelves during the first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic due to its shelf-stable nature. Bjorn is such fun and candid and tells a great story of the founding of Oatly with his brother and the fantastic, ESG-oriented company it is today complete, with quirky and bold branding often seen adorned on the side of buses. We actually recorded this just as the pandemic was kicking off and before that oat milk rush, so you'll hear limited conversations about that but what's really cool is how he answers my typical question on how you view the future food system in 2050; a lot of what he says now feels extra relevant given the challenges Covid-19 has presented and ways in which the food system has had to adapt. We also talk about his new food ventures which includes a focus on combatting diabetes and how he transitioned from IT to food in the 1990s.  This is an extra special and slightly longer edition of Future Food but please hang in there as there are a lot of great insights! As always, thanks so much for listening.

Amanda Weeks is converting food waste into a natural house cleaner. With her startup Ambrosia, that recently re-branded from Industrial/Organic, Amanda has been recycling food waste for many years and after an initial focus on making fertilizer, almost accidentally came across the byproduct's cleaning properties. I catch up with Amanda nearly 5 years after we first met to find out more about the re-brand, the new product line Veles, and the challenges she's faced in building this business.

You're forgiven if you missed Earth Day last week. I'm sure sustainability and climate change are far from many people's minds right now as you grapple with a new normal that might involve sick loved ones, loss of a job, or serious challenges in your day-to-day life.  Of course, our planet continues to face the same environmental challenges it did before the pandemic. Danone, the French multinational yogurt and dairy products company, certainly agrees; the company, a classified B-Corp, is a frontrunner in the food industry for tackling sustainability issues — recently recognized for its work reducing deforestation — and last year launched a coalition to look into the widespread adoption of regenerative agriculture practices in the dairy sector.  Working with Danone in that coalition is Connecterra, a Dutch AI startup using data and analytics to help dairy farmers become more efficient. Connecterra is charged with measuring the impact of different farming practices as the coalition looks to create a set of guidelines for farmers at the end of the initiative in two years' time. (Full disclosure: Connecterra is an AgFunder portfolio company.) So I sat down today — virtually of course — with Cees Jan Hollander, global director of farm relations at Danone and Yasir Khokhar, CEO of Connecterra, to find out how the coalition "Farming for Generations" is going and check in how Covid-19 is impacting their businesses. If you're reading this, you're no doubt aware of the devastating impact Covid-19 is having on the dairy industry after food service demand dried up and you've no doubt seen the upsetting videos of large amounts of milk being dumped in the countryside. Hollander and Khokhar offer some fascinating insights there — hint: consumer demand for milk products has increased dramatically; as Khokhar referenced "breakfast is having a come back with everyone being at home." We also discuss how the pandemic is accelerating other trends such as a move towards more localized production, which happens to fit neatly into Danone's existing local production strategy.

Climate scientist, inventor and founder of two sustainable businesses, Adam Lowry is currently CEO of Ripple Foods, a dairy-free milk products company. His first company was Method, the sustainable cleaning products brand that's now a household name. We talk about the contrast between launching a cleaning products business and a food business, why food was the next step for him, the key mistakes and lessons learned from Method, how he and his colleagues chose the pea as the key ingredient for their products and his moonshot hope for the food system. Adam is set to speak in-person at the Future Food-Tech Summit next month in San Francisco - don't miss it! Find out more: https://futurefoodtechsf.com/

 In a world of African Swine Fever, increasing scrutiny of the meat industry and consumer demand for transparency, the pork industry needs to modernize. But according to Chris Bomgaars, founder of EveryPig, a software platform for pork producers to track pig health, moving away from the pen + paper records that still dominate, many in the industry are reticent to do so. Find out why -- and what they think of the growing number of meat alternatives on the market -- in this episode.