Episode 163: How Your Dinner Bill Could Help Fund Regenerative Agriculture with Anthony Myint

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

AEA Marketing

Science, Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences

4.7 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Anthony Myint is the founder of Zero Foodprint, a nonprofit focused on transforming agriculture through innovative economic models. A former chef and restaurateur, Myint transitioned from the restaurant industry to champion regenerative agriculture and address the climate impact of food systems. His organization helps farmers transition to regenerative practices by funding farm projects that enhance soil health, conserve water, and sequester carbon. Zero Foodprint is funded by businesses that contribute small percentages of their revenue, often through opt-out fees.

Zero Foodprint's approach decouples food consumption from land management, enabling systemic change without relying solely on consumer behavior. Myint's work emphasizes collective action—drawing parallels with renewable energy funding models—and collaborates with businesses, farmers, and governments to scale regenerative practices. Zero Foodprint now deployed over $8 million total to over 600 farm projects (including government funds, often in concert with funds from businesses).

In this episode, John and Anthony discuss:

The restaurant industry's potential to fund regenerative agriculture
Decoupling food consumption from land management for direct impact
Small opt-out fees funding farm projects with minimal consumer cost
Limited impact of consumer-driven demand on systemic change
Policy and public-private partnerships to scale regenerative practices
Engaging farmers and businesses to adopt and promote the model

Additional Resources
To learn more about Anthony and Zero Foodprint, please visit: https://www.zerofoodprint.org/

To learn more about Zero Foodprint's plan on Collective Regeneration, please read this paper.

About John Kempf
John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). A top expert in biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools, and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who grow it.

Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition – a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology.

Support For This Show & Helping You Grow
Since 2006, AEA has been on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable with regenerative agriculture.

AEA works directly with growers to apply its unique line of liquid mineral crop nutrition products and biological inoculants. Informed by cutting-edge plant and soil data-gathering techniques, AEA's science-based programs empower farm operations to meet the crop quality markers that matter the most.

AEA has created real and lasting change on millions of acres with its products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers to produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and higher profits.

Beyond working on the ground with growers, AEA leads in regenerative agriculture media and education, producing and distributing the popular and highly-regarded Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, inspiring webinars, and other educational content that serve as go-to resources for growers worldwide.

Learn more about AEA's regenerative programs and products: https://www.advancingecoag.com

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, friends. This is John. Welcome back to the Region of Agriculture podcast. You know, one of the things that is so fundamental to regeneration, if we truly want to have a regenerative agriculture on scale, then at its most fundamental level, we need to regenerate the capacity for stewardship. We need to have more people in the landscape with loving hearts and
0:22.4	caring hands who are engaged in the process of being good stewards. But of course, our, at least
0:29.7	here in the United States, and to some degree in many developing countries around the world,
0:34.6	there has been a cheap food policy that has, there's been this active process
0:41.2	of extraction, this extraction of resources from the countryside and food from the landscape
0:47.0	and this extraction of talent, an extraction of people. And all of these are a result of,
0:53.8	at its most fundamental level, if we want to
0:56.5	regenerate the capacity for stewardship and get more people into the landscape, then we need
1:01.1	to compensate them. We need to pay them well. We need to pay them for the amount of dedication,
1:05.2	effort that they're putting in equally to what we would in other professions.
1:12.0	And so it's with this concept in mind, I've been looking forward to this conversation with
1:19.0	Anthony from Zero Foodprint, who has been doing some interesting work in developing their own
1:24.7	approach to how we can compensate and reward farmers well,
1:29.2	given some of the imbalances and challenges with the existing system.
1:33.3	So, Anthony, thank you for being here.
1:35.0	Thank you for the work that you're doing.
1:37.7	I'd love for you to just start from the beginning.
1:40.5	Tell us, tell our audience about your journey, the work that you've been doing,
1:45.8	and what it is that you're working on today. Cool. Thanks, John. I'm really excited to be here
1:51.1	because you're such a thought leader, and this is the first time I've ever been introduced on a
1:57.7	podcast or anything where people are not focused on the fact that I used to be a chef and restaurateur.
2:03.5	And so I'm actually going to start there anyway, though, because the restaurant industry is the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from AEA Marketing, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of AEA Marketing and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.