Untitled - May 18, 2026

00:00:00 Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Commodities Podcast. I'm Barnaby Patchett, MD of one ninety nine, a communications agency working in sustainability. And with me is my co-host, Judith Murdoch from Murdoch Associates. And today on the podcast, we're joined by Reza Azmi, executive director at Wild Asia. Wild Asia is a Malaysian social enterprise dedicated to transforming the palm oil industry by empowering independent, smallholder farmers to adopt sustainable, regenerative, and more profitable agricultural practices. And today, unsurprisingly, we're going to be talking to Reza about Wild Asia and all things palm oil. So before we dive in, welcome. Really excited to have you today. But I think some of our audience might not know anything about wild Asia and you. So could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey through palm oil and how you got involved with the Wild Asia. Yeah. Right. Very good. Thanks. Uh, so Reza from Wild Asia. Yeah. I think if you ever, uh. Well, if you Google Wild Asia, just make sure to add the dot org because there's another dodgy side of Wild Asia, which I've got nothing to do with. Um, but wild Asia, if you see the logo has a generic cat on it with a little paw that sticks out. And I think it's always confused people. It's like, are you a animal welfare organization or are you a conservation organization? And, uh, I think if I mean, so in some ways, like Wild Asia was born because of Reza, like, you know, I was a, I'm an ecologist by training. Um, I spent a lot of time in the field in different forest areas, different communities and along the way. You know, I, I've always had this deep passion for trying to think about like, how do we keep natural areas alive? So this idea of, um, you know, doing something for conservation was very much my core. So all these nature themes are definitely important to me. Uh, number two was I started at this point where to protect forests, the only actors you had to engage with were governments. And, uh, and it was like hitting your head against a brick wall because no matter how excited you get some, there's always going to be somebody who says, no, we can't do it or, or, you know, we can't do it because of whatever reason. Um, so then there was this little space where I started looking at, you know, how does tourism influence conservation? So a lot of our early work was actually around that concept of responsible tourism. Because if you you know, if you think of most of Asian tourism products is always in a rural area, a natural area. So if you don't protect nature, if you don't work with communities, then you really don't have a product. And then being Malaysian, we've grown up with palm oil, and most of my field work was in a region where it was essentially the second or third phase of expansion. So although I was in a little tourism lodge on the banks of the Kinabatangan, every evening, we saw these like loads of tugboats coming down the river with all of the logs that they were pulling out to Sandakan. And this was really like, you know, I guess that was my exposure to. Okay, well, things are changing. I mean, I'm trying to influence government, but at the same time, you've got private sector which is opening land. And we found ourselves in this situation where we needed to address this side of the equation. Um, and it confused a lot of my friends because we were all like the conservationist types and they were like, why are you working with the palm oil sector? Um, and then I'll come back to the local because that generic cat with the paw outside. I think I've come to realize that that means that we can think out of the box. Uh, and then this whole idea of nature. I think nature is this theme that's kind of locking, you know, our journey, my journey, and probably where we've ended up today in the sort of ideas that we've, that we've got, that we've sort of got some movement around. So that's probably the most long winded introduction, but that's. Well, there's. Oh, well, that's, that's really, it's really interesting. And we're definitely going to talk a little bit about tours, but we're going to talk about that later in the podcast. But I guess, um, I think Barnaby is going to kick off with his, his leading question on, on, on supply chain, because that is definitely this whole idea of what's happening. I mean, Barnaby, over to you with your, your well, I think let's get into it. Uh, you know, you mentioned you're working with the palm oil industry. What, what are the biggest problems with the current palm oil supply chain? Uh, yeah. Supply chains. Uh, so if I think about this, um, I mean, I guess where I come from, and I wouldn't say where I sit, but, you know, I'm always on the producer end. So when you think about that supply chain, it's flowing through many intermediaries before it ends up. in a caterpillar cake in the UK. Mhm. And, uh, and there's many layers to it. So I guess my, my entry point into, into this palm oil was really through the lens of standards. And I was lucky enough to be invited on the, probably the very first certification and she was pre rspo. So this was during the days of the Migros criteria where the Swiss giant, I think they were called Negro. Yes, yes. They decided, you know, they wanted they wanted sustainable palm oil. They knew that was coming. But they said, you know, let's figure out what that could be. I think Pro Forest was in the leading seat in terms of helping develop that. But then I was there. I was literally in the that first audit, I was the Malaysian expert on the environment side, but I think I really got a lot of insights by being with a multi-stakeholder team, looking at standards on the other side, but really trying to understand operationally, how does how do these organizations deliver on those standards? And, uh, because my, my journey was never going to be just as a, as a certifier. Um, I think I got a really interesting insight to just like the operational challenges. Um, number two, I saw how much value there was by being certified because essentially the trader was paying for the certification, not the estate or mill and not the supermarket fellow, because that trader was out to make a lot of money by that transaction, or bringing that oil across from one part of the world to the next. So I think that was my glimpse of palm. So what I did was I started thinking more around like. Like professional education. So, you know, just trying to think about how do we localize this knowledge so that it can be a planter in the middle of nowhere, but yet understand what is it that you need to do in order to meet this complicated standard? And I'll give you an example. Like, you know, we're so used to throwing around greenhouse gases and we can talk about climate change and those things. And I remember presenting this to, I can't remember who it was, but it was like, you know, someplace in Sabah with a group of local planters. And then one guy put his hand up and he said, uh, what is greenhouse gases? What is a greenhouse? And then it just made me just realize like, holy shit, you know, it's like, I just, just forget that, you know, somebody on the other side of the world has never grown up with a greenhouse because we live in an equatorial environment. Mhm. Um, so it's something that needed to have been learned. And then is it, is it, are you ignorant because you haven't learnt it or you haven't learned the technical language behind it. So I kind of feel that a lot of sustainability is locked up in techno jargon. Mhm. You need an expert who went to Oxford to be able to to decipher what's going on. Uh, I remember I was with one of the, you know, one big company in, in London and he needed, I don't know, like an Oxford AI department to, to kind of make sense of sustainability around the world. And then I was just looking at the results and I was just thinking, okay, but you've you haven't realised, I don't know, it was like something I realised from just looking at the final report. But it's like the, the, all the data pointed in one direction and they missed the very big thing because there was no feel of what was actually happening on the ground. So you may have a big risk somewhere, but there's absolutely no opportunity. You can make change there. And there's some areas where it's maybe not a high risk, but actually there's a bigger gain to be developed because you just haven't paid attention to it. So, so things like that kind of just drives me crazy. It's like, you know, you've got too much of this top down policies which have been pushed down and very little bottom up education. And I'm talking about companies. So when we straddle from companies to smallholders, that's when you really start to kind of wake up because you start seeing standards from, I mean, dare I say, it's just irrelevant to a small holder because you know what? This policy A and B and best management systems and stuff, it just doesn't make any sense. But what's important to the farmer is, is this product going to kill your child if he's using chemicals, you know, is this, you know, so it's, it's really thinking that through from two ends of the spectrum. So what is compliance top down and what is important for the fellow at the end of that spectrum? That's a really, really profound point in terms of a lot of the legislation and standards are just created at at this end of the supply chain, let's say at the or even at a governmental level by people who have, you know, in Europe, I will mention a UDL later, but I'm alluding to it now, but by people who have no idea about the realities and practicalities on the ground for the smallholders. Um, so I visited. Have they. They've never visited. They've never been. And that's. Yeah. And they. Yeah. Don't know how it's how it's done. And, but going back to that, you've mentioned smallholders and obviously that's a big part of your work. How are smallholders impacted by this. By, by, by the fact that well, well, not just by compliance, by this whole mechanism of, of the rules being made at one end, but not, not really, uh, thinking about their needs. I'll give you one fact, um, because markets have been so hyper focused on certified sustainable palm oil, and especially with particular standards being the way that that's delivered, then you look at how much of the global oil palm is actually Rspo certified, and you'll see a value of somewhere between twenty twenty one percent. Yeah. Yeah. So you can have one hundred percent certified palm oil in your region, but no one's addressing that eighty percent. And anyone who says that they address the eighty percent is then challenged, is then shamed. And that means working with that. Those fellows who haven't quite made the grade doesn't really happen. So I kind of I mean, my sense now is that I think there's too much emphasis on exclusion and not enough opportunities to look at transformation. And who do we need to transform are essentially that eighty percent. And maybe in that eighty percent there's some dodgy fellows. so let's exclude whoever they are. But I am sure you can find family owned companies in that eighty percent who you can trust and who have long vision of where things could be. And I think an important point, which was something that came up in a recent conversation that none of the work on the ground can happen unless you can build trust. And this applies at different levels, but at at the base of things at the mill and the relationship with the communities. Um, you need to have trust. And the second piece of this is that people also forget that the mill is there forever. It's not a five year old business and you're going to rack up and the rent's going to go up and you're gonna disappear. Uh, no. These guys are invested for hundreds of years. So it is a long, you know, to to be sustainable. You've got to get all these pieces right. So how do we focus on the most important things? And how do we take away like the bureaucratic side of things? Uh, I think that's really been the core bit of our work for the last couple of years. And I, and I, I sort of maybe just re rewind a little bit and say that, you know, our work is with smallholders. Yes. Uh, but our work is equally with larger independent producers. Our work is also with dealers, with millers. And our work is also with the end brands and the people who are bringing some of these oils into the various products. So I my view is more like a, you know, I see the ecosystem as a whole. And I see a lot of people plugging like, you know, solving this problem of solving that problem, but everything is very piecemeal, but you're not looking at how do we change the whole ecosystem, which seems impossible. But I think I've realized that when you understand that the producer, the dealer, the mill, the refiner, the the guy who buys it, the fellow who ships it, they all have very different perspectives of what buttons will will trigger their interests. And if you can find that, and I think we have. You have something quite exciting because you realize it's not money. Yes, money helps, but it's not like you're not the gazillions of dollars. Uh, number two is you need relationships. That's, that's the thing that everyone misses when you think like a corporation, Maybe that's the wrong word, but, you know, just if everything is this transactional thing, if everything is transactional, you forget the relationships. And when you forget the relationships, trust erodes and then you get bloody missiles being, you know, thrown at you and then little drones being dropped on your head. And it was like, all chaos will happen when that element breaks down. And I think that, you know, that also brings me back to this by design was the colonial industrial model, which is take something that you think is the right thing and, and try and apply it in all geographies by hook or by crook or sometimes slavery and what have you else, uh, just to make it work so that you have a product that you can earn some extra money on that trade, including governments for making this money. But behind all of this was the guy who invested because, you know, all of the expansion, the colonial expansions was, you know, some some guy made some money out of it. Mhm. Um, so, you know, so, so this thing right now in my head is just, I think we have to, we have to see that a lot of problems in the world is partly to do with this trade model. Uh, it's partly to do with maybe an outdated model of how agriculture should be. And partly it's to do with the fact that a lot of the stuff that we're seeing in Southeast Asia isn't the result of some bad Asian fella. It's the it's this global thing that's influenced so much of land that we have to wake up and figure out, okay, well, what's what's not working. That's a great point. I think when I, I've been thinking about this recently, when I hear about palm oil and everyone saying, well, palm oil was so bad. It's the it's the problem, you know, the. They've cut down so much rain forest for it. And you think, well, there's two sides to that equation. There's a demand equation that never, ever gets brought into that at all. We never talk about, well, yeah, but if it wasn't palm, what else would it be? Why? Why were they growing so much palm in the first place? Are you is Yorkshire next to Liverpool? I see my geography is kind of a bit. It's not far. I'm in Leeds, so, uh, I'm about an hour and a half. It's in the north. We all get grouped together. Yeah. So? So do you know who, who, who was the first industrial user of palm oil? Oh, it was, uh, Unilever. And the before I became, before Unilever, it was a Mr. Lee from Liverpool. And it wasn't this Asian fella. Yeah, something like that. So, so the Unilever. Oh the Mr. Lever sorry. Yeah. Yes. Yes yes. Yeah yeah. So is the is the lever. So it was the Lever Brothers in Liverpool. And and so that was the first industrial use of palm oil. And if you look at the timing of when this happened, this was just after the period when slave trading wasn't acceptable anymore. Yeah. And the reason is that palm oil was was loaded up onto the ships because this was food for slaves as they were traveling the various oceans. And when it was unacceptable, people were then thinking, well, then how else can I make some money? Uh oh, what's this oil doing in my thing? And what can I do with this? And I think that's how I mean, maybe there's a simplified version of the history, but that's how the guy said, well, I can make soap out of this. Uh, and so then Lever Brothers became the first commercial operation. They also had the first industrial estate in Africa, which was a complete disaster and slave trading and, you know, and yields and whatever were horrible. And and this was so that's the birth of palm oil on an industrial scale. Um, and then what you found was then this palm became, it was, it was a great industrial oil. Because if you think about what was lubricating the industrial revolution, uh, it was palm oil. So think again, when you think about like this early demand for palm. Mhm. Uh, and it actually has its roots back in the UK. Um, and, and I think the other side of this is access to land. So I remember reading like some, uh, some imperial scientist somewhere in the nineteen early nineteen hundreds. And and he was lamenting that there was all this expansion of oil palm or agriculture in Malaya. Um, because he recognized that you are opening up very fragile soils, uh, and soils, which should not have been opened up in the first place. And that was the first kind of record that I found where somebody thought it was actually a bad thing before it got to the point where I was born. And then, you know, I'm looking at it at the end of the spectrum, you know, the nineteen eighties and stuff. Um, but that's, that's the history that I guess we've, we've sort of grown up with. Yeah. But I think it can change. And I think that's the, yeah, I guess that's been the big that's been setting up, um, setting up the next question quite nicely. Come on. Uh, Reza, give us the solution. Outline your approach. What are you actually doing? Well, I think one of the things you know, the okay, this aside. Um, my name is Raza and there's this war going on by some, some folks, um, and if it wasn't for this war, I would not have understood how important, you know, just these folk points were. Um, and that got me reading some more. And then I realized that the base of agriculture, so the source of nitrogen is from a process that was, you know, invented in the early nineteen hundreds. The haber-bosch process. And this synthetic or synthetic form of nitrogen is, is now the base of all agriculture in the world. All maybe there's like nine thousand or ninety percent. So then you drill back some more. What is the feedstock for all of this? And you find it's natural gas. So it's a single source of raw material. And everyone's entire food security, um, you know, cost of production. Everything is dependent on your access to cheap gas. But what happens if somebody shuts that down? Mhm. You're screwed. So I, you know, in some ways, like I would not have realized how important our work was. I mean, it usually happens like, you know, until there's a major disaster, but quietly in the backwaters of our smallholder plots. And sometimes my back garden. Um, we had some time to look back at what did people do beyond that last one hundred years? Mhm. Okay. It's now like one hundred plus years. I used to remember it as one hundred years, but as you age, it's like, oh, now it's like one hundred and ten or one hundred and twenty. So anyway, so one hundred plus years. Um, so if you can forget that, go back beyond nineteen hundreds. Uh, then you find that actually agriculture was very different. You had animals and different plants. You had rotation, you had. So actually you, you, that was resilience because you weren't dependent on some synthetic product that you had to buy in. Everything that you need was, was locally available. And what industrialization has done is that they've put everything apart in its own little box. So if you need your nutrition for your for your soil, you have to buy it. If you want to have crops, you have crops. Can I have crops and livestock? No, you have to have livestock. You have crops. So when you're on my side of the world. Um, the smallholders have been pushed down this, this pathway, which was almost saying you've got to emulate the industrial agriculture monoculture of this monarch. I can't remember which way around this, that in the monoculture E, which is industrial agriculture. Yeah. Um, because they're saying this yields are such an important thing and you need to get more yields per hectare, but you don't see how much inputs you have to put in. So for smallholders you don't have to follow the same rule book. In fact, go back to your past and you find that you could put many things on your land. Um, and then the bit that we started finding in the literature was sort of actually there were some smart British fellows. Uh, again, um. Oh yeah, there's one guy, there's another imperial scientist, actually, the same imperial scientists I was reading. So Sir Albert Howard, um, and he was sitting in India and his job was as a plant pathogen. No, he wasn't the plant pathogen. He was the he was the guy who was meant to save the plant. Right. So from the pathogen that was his. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. So so he he that was his job. Uh, and then he realized by watching these peasant farmers, um, they don't have problems. So why is it that we have problems and you need to, you need to employ an expert sitting in India when he could have just gone to the farmers and asked them, well, how do you do it? And we should follow your methods, because he started realizing that compost grown plants were healthier and had no pathogens. And when you start looking at that under a microscope even more, then you start finding about mycorrhizal fungi. So fungi, who makes associations with the root hair and all of those other things. So you find this in early nineteen hundreds and this was in the literature. Then if you go back some more, you find people looking at ferments or, you know, a lot of Asian cultures, fermented products. So usually fermentation is anaerobic fermentation. So we started realizing that using these artisanal ferments not compost and modifying the land management. So a lot more ground cover were the two simplest things that you can do. Very little cost. And the results were phenomenal because literally farmers were saying like, you know, my fruits are now really heavy and my leaves are greener. You walk into these farms and it sort of is a little bit springy. Um, you also notice there's more wildlife. So you start realizing that why didn't anybody think of this? It's just so simple and easy, and it comes back to schooling and what you know, and being afraid to do something that your authorities have said, uh, it should be like this. And I'm looking at, you know, these farmers and luckily I have a doctorate. So, you know, they give this, this, this, this air that I come with authority. But actually I don't, you know, it's this, this idea that it's not me guys, you know, it's like, uh, the methods, like I say, it's open source, it's available. You just have to try it. And if it's green, surely that's that's working. Just keep going. Um, you don't need an expert to tell you this. And I think that that was the block. So what we've realized from all this is that, you know, the methods are easy, the results are good. But changing people's mindsets is, is part of this. I guess another door that we have to open, but I hope that kind of makes sense. So the, the shot is, um, I think how we treat soils and the approaches of how we look after or regenerate these soils is something that is important for everybody to learn, no matter if it's, you're in a third world or whether you're sitting in Yorkshire, for example. Yeah. So just, just how do you finance that? And I think the question I'd like to ask is a little bit more about the spiral project. Uh, yeah. I mean, um. So there's the other thing I have to kind of say is that maths has never been my strongest point. And I would, I think, especially my family, my family heard me talk about finance. They would laugh because I'm that's really not my thing. But I realized that it's actually is much simpler than I thought. Um, because, you know, a lot of people either have, uh, you know, you either have a pot of cash that somebody has given you or, you know, inherited or whatever, or you take debt and that finances your stuff. So in our case, like we, we never had, we never did that from day one. So we have no debt. Uh, number two was we discovered that there's a mechanism called Revenue share agreement. And I realize that that's what we've been doing for ten years. But I just realized this. So so this idea that we can go out and certify smallholders, smallholders do not pay anything. Um, and the only little bit of money that we get back is there's a little bit of a share of this money that comes back to, to keep the program running. But after five or six years of this, I realized that that income wasn't enough to keep this program alive. So I had to find how else can we subsidize this? So we started thinking about, well, could we help the slightly bigger guys who are willing to pay for our services? And so we started to cross-subsidize. Um, we also then develop an advisory work. So at some point, you know, we were doing advising banks and advising investors about where they should be putting their money and stuff, you know? But there was just a way of getting extra money into the system. Um, and then the third one was then in essence, there are grants or grants, uh, which were given to us from, say, one of the big companies. Um, and that's how we balance the book. But after ten years, no smallholder has been left behind. But every smallholder who join the programme is still in the programme today. Number two is no smaller, is paid for anything, which means that any premium that comes to them more or less, all of it goes back to them. And we've sustained this for ten years. We have a programme now with three thirty five thousand hectares, which in the scheme of things is is pretty big. But we can do this with, you know, a handful of staff, mostly people from the village and, you know, or locally to that area, because we're operating now in Sabah and Johor and Perak and Selangor and southern Thailand. Um, and do this. And I think I, I guess the other part of me is also realizing that we want to have families live in their village or their land and be with, with their community. And I think that's kind of what we're doing. It's, it's almost like as, as we're increasing the value of the program, we are being able to give people good income. They can stay with their families. Uh, I think the kids can, can grow up in the village and stuff. And I think that that's the part that I'm excited about, you know, just, you know, to so we have a good footprint. We have, uh, we've built good relationships. We've built trust. We've got teams on the ground that want to be there. Um, but now actually comes that opportunistic side. The what do you do when you've got thirty five thousand hectares? Could this be the tipping point? What happens if all of Wag's farmers adopt these crazy ideas that Reza and his team have figured out? And would that stimulate the market to shift in a whole other dimension? But that's, I guess, where I am right now. So coming back to financing, explain why just you mentioned it for the first time. Tell us what wags is. Yeah. So I guess the to explain wags would be. What does it stand for? Yeah. It's the Wild Asia group. Um, I mean, I was just kind of like, and it's just because it's a group, but people don't really have even an understanding of this. So it's, it's a, it's a system that we developed. Um, and we developed it to enable any producer to be grouped, supported and certified to any standard really. Um, except that we started with the Rspo standard. Uh, we've now expanded it to the Malaysian sustainable palm oil standard, but there's no reason why we couldn't do any other sustainability standard because the, the key components are more or less the same. Um, you need to know who your farmer is, the boundaries, etc., etc.. So all of those things are what we encapsulate within WAG. So think of wags as a farming network. And this farming network is what we, we run and operate. Um, and that's where we, that's, I mean, that was the last ten years. Um, what we're doing now with wags is we are starting to think about this as a, call it my Intel chip. So this idea that mills need to be our best friends and what happens if they are operating our Intel chip in their supply base. And what we're finding is that this opens up the external suppliers, which they've never really understood in the first place. Uh, because most businesses will only deal with their own companies, they can't influence anybody else. And they assume that government's going to do that. And everybody assumes that government's going to do that. But how can governments be everywhere? You know, so so that's that's the kind of conundrum that everybody has. So the idea of wags is then, you know, actually it could be that informal network of your suppliers, um, which increases the relationship with the mill. And what we've done with this is that we see ways in which the mills can intervene to make that relationship even more interesting or stronger. So the first thing was, um, you know, I mentioned before, like, you know, we're all into artisanal ferment and, and, and, and, you know, just changing the oil palm block, etc., etc.. But obviously the mill has a lot of waste. I mean, they have a lot of waste. So one of the things that we saw to act as a bridge between communities and the mills is why not you have a little bio hub in the middle of these two things, which transforms those mill wastes into essentially low cost farm products, which the smallholders can receive. Uh, and then obviously your oils go up your your crop will improve and then this crop goes back to the mill. So it's just showing the mills that these little actions has a direct business case for them. And with smallholders, the other thing people don't realize is that the yields per hectare is actually very low, not because of fertilizers or farm management, but it's because the planting material in the first place was not very good. So there's kind of like stuck at the ten twelve metric ton level. The trees are getting older. So then I said to the mill, okay, look, why not? We create a fund and we as in you, us that fund to regenerate these oil palm blocks, these smallholder blocks. Now, it's taken me two and a half years to get to this point, but it I think the first kickback from the mill Was that. Yeah. Okay, we have the money. But if we help those smallholders, how do we know this crop is going to come back to me? You know? So. So where's my business gate? Uh, prove that business gate, and then we'll do it. So it took me a while to get to this point of just trying to convince them, like, look, no one has done this, so why don't we just try? It's a small amount of money. Um, but just last week, we got the green light. But this means that we can now regenerate a smallholder block. Um, where traceability comes in. So when you have the tech that says this crop has ended up in this dealership and now it's in your mill, uh, and we've got this drone tech that we're going to deploy and we can, because we've got it partners with, do with it. Um, this means that we can actually show those improvements from day one. So they, they ten or something or year ten. Um, once we get this going. But what I'm trying to get at with all of this is that sometimes people think it's just paying more for something, but I realize it wasn't about paying more. It's about utilizing your capital in a way that can really drive these changes. But now what I'm seeing now is that with these few little interventions, it may seem small to get to two hundred hectares, but it's giving the business more confidence that, you know, with one million, I get two hundred hectares. Now, in four years, I get all my money back. Okay, I'm now ready to reinvest this or I'm ready to put more money into the pot. And I think this is kind of like where we're at now, like, you know, this early phase. Uh, so some of the partners that we've gone to are, you know, we're basically saying, look, just there's two messages. One is buy from this palm oil mill. Uh, And why would you buy from this palm oil mill? Because they are a low carbon mill. There's a LCA that's benchmark. Uh, it's there's a traceability program. So no one is perfect, but they're working towards it. There's data to show this, uh, all the suppliers are verified. So every time you get a shape file, you know, actually it's also interesting. It's like you, we've been finding lots of false positives. So actually there's a lot of people who think that they've got all this deforestation in their supply base, when in fact it's just, it's false. Um, and it's false because we can go to the farm and the guy is saying, well, actually this was all rubber for like the last fifteen or twenty years or something. Um, but that's the kind of reporting that we need to bring to the table, which doesn't exist. Um, so, so those are the pieces which I say by spiral palm oil because I want to buy and incentivise the mill. Then number two is putting some money into this, which is now we've designed it as a matching fund. So for every dollar that is raised, the mail will match that by another two. So you end up with three dollars in the pot, uh, for that small holder regeneration. But I'm excited about this dimension. So it is another version of that revenue share agreement. So what we were doing with wags because in some ways, you do need to have, uh, an agreement that you will be okay to have some of this deducted. You don't get your full FFP price, but you don't get your full FFP because somebody is, you know, paid a twenty thousand or five thousand US dollars, uh, to have your plot regenerated. No, no single dollar from your side. So I think things like that are what excite me. And where does this go is basically this ability now to scale this within a particular mill. And if this works, there's no reason why we can't transplant it into any other mills. Um, we have three now in the stable. Um, but we're starting with the first one to kind of work through, uh, basically work through so that it's all operationalized. So sitting, listening to you, if I imagine that I'm a buyer in Europe and I'm hearing support of small holders, I'm hearing regeneration, uh, regenerative agriculture, uh, thinking about the yields, which yeah, I mean, the yields is, is a massive thing because if you plant the wrong seed, you're not going to get a high yielding tree. Obviously the in Iran, um, situation and the fertilizer is such a hot topic. So how would I, as a major company, say, in Europe, actually get involved and try and support this? Because all of what you're telling me is all of what I would like to, to highlight to my consumers and, and, you know, want to do the right thing as a company. So how can I get involved if I'm a European business? I mean, the easiest is, um, just park some cash with us. Um, because, because, because what we're investing in is basically in two dimensions, right? So one is we will put more investments in these bio hubs. So community running, um, kind of things. Then number two is we'll put some money in the regeneration fund, which then gets multiplied. I would do this all within our mills that we're very closely working with who we call the spiral mills. So obviously that's the first thing I would do. The second thing I would do now that you've got a skin in the game, is to work through your supply base and find how can I get this mill in my supply, in my product? Because the other big gain out of this whole exercise is scope three liability reduction. And I call it liability because it's not just focused on carbon, it's hard. It's, uh, you know, all kinds of disasters. So you don't want to be associated with the industry generically want to be able to say that actually I'm sourcing from these ten low risk mills. And that requires an effort in not just the traceability program, but in, I mean, not just I know where my stuff comes from, but it's about sourcing in a traceable chain in a connected value chain. And that has not really been done unless you're in a fully segregated RSP chain. Which is incredibly expensive. So I think what I'm offering is this idea of. Let's figure it out, because there is a reward at the end, which is you've invested in it already. So that's how I would do it. And so don't ever put me in front of donors because you could see how complicated it sounds from my side of things, from the from those brands perspectives, though, in terms of the money that they're investing and they are getting the, you know, the scope three benefits. Um, but they're also getting the stories, aren't they? They're getting the, your story tied to their product. That's the, that's one of the big benefits. Yeah. But I think, but don't underestimate how difficult it is to have that traceability connection. No, I think that's the, that's the main thing. So a lot of people are willing to put money in. But you don't want it to sound like a like a CSR project. So so part of this is also putting on that, okay, well, if I was to connect the supply chain, then how would this be possible? And I realize that it's complex. Um, I mean, we're, we're working with several chemical based companies. I mean, you know, like cosmetics and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And when they're explaining their supply base to me, I'm like, Holy shit, you know, I don't know how we're going to get physical connection, but I know you could give us money. So give us money first and then we'll figure out the next one later. But, but that's basically the, the, the, the crux of the problem. So, so part of it is I think we need to work hand in hand with people who are working through the scope three problem. Uh, but let's create enough momentum on the ground. So keep those investments in the field And in my narrative, we're not saying we're perfect. And so it's this idea of having a living lab of trial and error and see if this works and see if that works. But it's in real value chains and with real farmers. Um, and they are very much kind of connectable because you've got an identifiable mill in that equation. Yeah. And one thing to add, I mean, you've talked a lot about the history. And I think that's just so important because I just remember starting my journey in Pall Mall in two thousand and six and being present when people were talking about, well, maybe, maybe we could get traceability to mill. And I think, you know, most people were kind of like falling off chairs, laughing, going like, that is never going to be a reality. And then, and then mill, you know, traceability to mill, uh, at a large scale. So I know there are two hundred and something mills in my supply chain or in earlier chemicals for sure. I know that people say there's one thousand two hundred mills in my supply chain. Um, but we are now seeing people getting that information and getting information to plantations. So I definitely to everyone listening to say the industry is moving and this is becoming a reality and you have to start somewhere. So I think that would be my strongest support message to you is that it's definitely if you don't start it, you're never going to realize it. And I think that's what's exciting about your journey is that yeah, yeah, it's it's becoming, it's becoming a reality, a reality. But let's, let's go back. I mean, just a few of the stats that you mentioned globally, there's a finite number of mills. There's only two thousand something. I mean, for some reason, like there's like plus or minus, but you know, we should be definitive. But anyway, let's just say it's two thousand mills. Mhm. It's easy to find them. Yes, but it's just that we've we've been so focused on that twenty percent. And to get fully segregated, whatever. Da da da da da. But we're not thinking about how do we reach out to those two hundred million. Maybe they all need a Christmas card every year with, you know, a little QR code. You know, if you want to redeem your little chocolate bar, just, you know, QR code it, you can find out who those two thousand fellows are. Yeah. You can. Yeah. And and the problem is you're relying on intermediaries. There's a whole bunch of expertise with their whatevers. And that's who everybody is listening to, you know. So so this is what I'm saying is like, there's too much, uh, you know, they're making it so complicated, um, that you can't move unless got an Oxford degree. I mean, you've talked about complexity, talked about traceability and we've talked about smallholders. I think that brings us on to to one of our favourite or our favourite topics on the podcast, which is, uh, what do you think of a UDR? What do you think of UDR? Give us your thoughts, especially when you're talking about smallholders. Well, the, the non-political side of me, I mean, because I know there's some geopolitics thing going on around that, right? But, um, looking at where we are and the data that we have, uh, I was never afraid that our smallholders will never, never make the grade because we already had shapefiles. Yeah. We can verify land cover history. Uh, we can go the extra mile of actually going to the ground and saying, is that really deforestation or not? So we had no problems with this and we will never see our smallholders being segregated from order, then the other part of order is you forget that who is actually responsible for the declaration, which is the traders who are bringing those oils from A and into the EU. So there are several layers away. So the challenge is how do the traders access three or four levels down to people like us, because they probably don't even know that we exist. Mhm. So that's the conundrum. It's a technical conundrum. But what's happened is that what you've got is the concentration of corporate producers who can easily satisfy the EU market, at least for palm oil. Yeah. And they can for their oleochemicals, but at a price. Because basically they're saying we can give you full traceability, but you're going to have to pay for this. Now this is making your raw materials more expensive. It's, it's basically, you know, so you've met the requirement. You haven't excluded the smallholder. This is, I think, what I'm trying to get at, because it's just meant that the corporate fellows can still supply. They've been supplying anyway. Um, they can still supply. But now maybe they're going to supply at a slightly higher cost and they can demand this because where else do you go in Indonesia. Can you get all your oils from there. Um so I think it's a, what's the word. It's not a red herring, but I think people like to, to use that, you know, it's a smallholder problem. Um, but I, I think it it is in some regions, not if you're in Thailand. No, but they're not supplying global palm oil from Thailand. So that's a you know, so and then okay, where else are you getting it from? Okay. I'm getting it from Papua New Guinea now. I don't know if you've ever visited Papua New Guinea. Um, I was scared. I was scared even at the airport. Um, and then if you go and visit these estates, you see that all the managers are in compounds barricaded from the rest of the population. Why? Because every time they're paid, all hell breaks loose. So if that's the basis of what sustainable palm oil is. Oh, you know, that's like shaky business. I mean, from my from my side of things. So I would rather find low risk palm oil mills, uh, in regions which are which you can transform, And leave the industry to kind of figure out its itself. But whether you will be that transformative force. I don't think so. No, I think we we agree on that broadly. Um, so you're you're actually coming to the UK aren't you? Um when are you coming. Yes yes yes. Fraser you're early June. I'll be, I'll be visiting. Um you know, the primary reason was to visit, uh, you know, there's an annual rspo, uh, ID meeting called spot, so I can't remember that. Sustainable palm oil. Yeah, yeah. So that's happening. Uh, I'm extra excited because I've always heard about the Chester Zoo and what they've been doing. Uh, and then this year they're holding it there. So, so I'll be going for that. Um, but there's also a chance for me to kind of reconnect with, uh, you know, like a network of different partners that we've had and some new. So actually I've got a visit to Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial Chester. Uh, so yeah, London. So there's a few places and a few different people. But the one thing which I am interested and excited to go and explore, uh, I'll be visiting net estate, um, which is, you know, one of those pioneering rewilding projects in the Sussex. And, uh, I'm excited to just see what they're doing and how they're doing it. But the, I think the idea of livestock being part of the equation, um, is something I also believe, and I think livestock and plants need to kind of coexist. Um, so yeah, I'm excited to go and visit that. Um, and I'm also hearing that there's been at least over the last ten years, there's been different groups who have realized that, you know, maybe industrial agriculture isn't the only way to do things. Um, so I'll be interested to kind of meet some people at the kind of front end of this. So in fact, if there's anybody who, who is, uh, in any of those regions, especially London. Yeah, I'd like to meet up. I'll be happy to hear more about some of these rewilding projects than I think. Isn't there a BBC two? No. Who is it called that? There's a he does this, uh, the the the car show. Um, and now he's famous. Jeremy Clarkson. Yeah. Yeah. If you if you know, if if anybody knows him and, and like he wants to host me. Yeah. I would love to go and visit his farm because I hear that he's doing things differently. And it's this idea of stacking economies, which is what we're saying to smallholders don't just depend on palm. Um, yeah, I think you kind of need these mavericks to kind of just think outside of the box. Remember the box with the generic cat? Yes. So. Well, I mean, he's, he's certainly been thinking outside the box. I think actually that Jeremy Clarkson in the sustainability space would be considered a controversial figure. But I don't think there's great anyone who's done more for the sort of PR. From a PR perspective, I don't think there's anyone who's done more for the reputation of British farming and to spread the word about the realities and the financial challenges than that program. I think it's been yeah, it's been incredible. So yeah, I mean, well, we'll see if we know anyone, but I think that might be a tall order. And if anyone listening just happens to, to know to know Jeremy, then yeah. Get in touch, please. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it'd be great if you're at Spod. Certainly. Barnaby and I are both going to be at Spod And, um, yeah, it'd be a great chance to come along and and, and see you. And I know that I think you've also potentially got a slot, a speaking slot at the UK, um, sustainable Commodities initiative as well, which is the week later, um which again, um will be, will be great. Uh, if anybody is there and listening, there'll be also be able to connect with you there. So yeah, exciting. Looking forward to serving in the UK. Yeah, no, thanks very much for that. Yeah, I think it is exciting. I think I've spent too much time in Japan, you know, just thinking of, of this work on this side of the world. I think that UK could be a really nice base for doing something different because you're not bound by EU rules or, you know, that kind of stuff. So I think there's also some payback time involved. If you think about the industrial ag footprint. Um, and maybe this is a way to like learn how to do things from the bottom up. And maybe those lessons will become lessons that British farmers can also appreciate, because I think there's a thing to learn about artisanal ferment and why they work. Yeah. No. For sure. Mhm. Well, talking about so talking about trips, uh, you know, you're coming over here, but Wild Asia also runs, uh, study visits for smallholder plantations. Who are they for? Why should people, people come and come and visit? Yeah. I think our study tours has been it's like five or six years now. And, uh, I mean, we started not just for, you know, it's not a smallholder visit, but I think it's for many people. They've only seen the big estates and it's always a few of the big estates that most people have visited, if, if any, if they've done a visit. And I think what's been really nice is being able to choreograph. What does the eighty percent of palm oil look like? Uh, in a non choreographed way, if you think, you know, because it's very raw, like there's no preparation or anything, but there's, there's always an element of the small holder in it. Uh, there's always an element of these biopharms, which are our no chemical, no fertilizer, uh, trials. Um, and it's, I think the most important thing is, is always to look at it from multiple perspectives because you're not just coming from one company, it's always like different companies are there. Um, and not just companies. Sometimes we've got journalists and NGOs, sometimes, uh, we have some government folks. Um, but the important thing is to journey together. So those one or two days gives you a chance to, to, to see, To reflect. To digest. Um, and I think that's probably the most powerful way to learn. And it is important that you learn a little bit about one part of your, this production space. Um, but it's in no way representative of the whole. And I think that's the main message is that every little nook and cranny is going to be different. So we have learned a lot from our teams in Thailand. And we realize that the small holder space or the palm oil space there is so different from, you know, something that we would bring folks to in Sabah. Um, but there's things that we can learn. And then it's exciting to think that some of the things that we do, the small holders are really excited to learn. And I remember one, one trip where I, you know, like I do, I always divert into soils and compost and stuff. And I realized, you know, there was some things he could improve. Uh, and then as I was leaving the, the head man was sort of like holding my hand and it was like trying to hold me back. And then and then later on, like the, our, our guys were saying, he's actually trying to say like, you know, he's got a house down the road and maybe he could stay because they're just wanting to absorb this knowledge. And, and I think that's very tight. Like, you know, there's just always looking out to pick up some ideas, look at how to, to put this into practice. And if it works, they will definitely scale them up. So I think working across geographies is always very interesting. And from the perspective of people who join these study tours. Yeah for sure. I mean, there's always something, but we don't do very many because otherwise it will be like a tour company. So we do at least one major one at the end of the year, which coincides with the round table. Um Um, and I think this year it will be in Indonesia. So I think we're, we're thinking of maybe visiting some communities which have learnt our methods and have brought this back to their village and is now expanding in the village. So for us is also interesting because we want to see how these ideas have translated and what's their experience. Um, so that could be part of what is the Indonesian. Um, but we're actually running trips almost all the time. So we should be called a tour company. Well, it brings it back to, to where you started, brings it right back nicely to where you this is responsible tourism. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But it's exciting. I mean, you know, like I, I, we've, we've got a team in the south of Johor, which is right next to Singapore. And, and like we were just seeing like just the little things have now started to kind of take root and we see some mangroves which have been rehabilitated. Uh, then we've got the biofilms. We're starting to show some results. And then we've got the landowner's family who are now seeing those results, and then they're getting excited. And then we're hearing about the workers who who've been making it with our teams, and now they're taking the ferments and kind of using it in their farms and saying, oh, my fruits taste better. My this one, you know, so like little things like this, you won't get in a report. So I get excited to be able to get out to the field as much as I am trying to preach about the unseen. Yeah. And I must admit I've been on I've been on two tours, uh, in Thailand and one in Malaysia. And they were fantastic because you are really seeing the country and talking to people. And I think even though you can go on tours to Mills, etc. you often don't get a chance to get in a mill or you don't meet the dealers. I mean, I certainly did a dealership with you and that was it was just interesting going and standing in a yard and realizing, you know, what was going on. So it's those little things, as you said. And then I think I would just like to finish on saying the last farm that I visited was actually last year, which was part of a tour that was tagged on to the Malaysian Palm Oil Council and the soil and the insects and the birds. It was noticeable going from a large plantation in the morning to going to the small plantation. How I just started looking around and said, wow, there's lots of insects and I can hear birds singing. And he definitely couldn't, uh, have that in the at that scale in a larger plantation. So definitely, definitely worth going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it gives you hope. Like, you know, it's not, it's still pub, but people would label that as being bad. But when you look at it from the ground up and you look at the families who are producing it, and that can be produced differently, and I think that that's where it becomes a bit more hopeful. Um, so I think if you want to, and I, yeah, I guess the other thing with this is that it's connecting with people who are working on the ground as well as people who are living there. And I think that gives you a slightly different perspective. But anyway, I think that don't overwhelm us. But, you know, yeah, once a year at least we got something. Well, I think that's a lovely way to end on, on the hope. So perhaps we can we can wrap it up there. Um, where can people go to find out more about wild Asia, the wags spiral and everything else that you do? Well, the easiest is, um, online, but just remember the dot org, uh, all spiral dot azure dot org. Um, because I think that's the umbrella brand. And then you've got all the other things like wax, wax, bio, etc.. But, uh, if you just find us online, we're there. Um, I'm quite active on LinkedIn and I don't know whether it's like, it's like this age thing that I'm like, I seem to be there all the time now. Uh, but yeah, I, you know, connect, connect with me and, and yeah, and come and visit the sites or better still, buy spiral palm oil or put some money in this smallholder regenerative fund. I think that's going to be a exciting kind of new frontier for us. Thanks very much. Great. Thanks, everybody. Thank you very much for, for everyone for listening to the Sustainable Commodities podcast. We'll catch you next time. Thanks a lot. Bye bye.