60+ years of industrial farming has left us with degraded soil, farmers on the brink of economic ruin, food that looks healthy but starves our bodies, and a disconnection from what nourishes us.
The symptoms show up everywhere: chronic illness, climate change, local food production collapse. But the root cause? It’s in the soil beneath our feet.
Avika and Abhi are co-founders of Living Roots, working with farmers across Thailand to regenerate soil profitably. In this conversation, we explore: why soil is addicted to chemicals, why farmers are trapped in debt, why organic isn’t the answer, and how regeneration must make farmers wealthier while healing the land.
Avika Nerula and Abhi Agarwal are co-founders of Living Roots, an agricultural technology company building climate-resilient futures through biological innovation. Based in Thailand, they’re working with farmers across Southeast Asia to revolutionize food production by prioritizing soil health, farmer profitability, and improving crop yields.
Before becoming farmers and entrepreneurs, Avika and Abhi were software engineers working in New York. They left their tech jobs, moved back to Thailand where they grew up, and started a farm, Sunshine Permaculture.
Today they open up on their journey.
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Everything Starts with Soil
After 50+ years of industrial farming and chemical fertilizers farmland across Thailand and globally has become degraded and biologically dead.
“Chemical fertilizers make plants dependent on the fertilizer itself rather than on the biology in the soil. The soil becomes addicted. When farmers don’t put them in, they see nothing grow.”
What this means is nature’s virtuous patterns are no longer taking place and we’re stuck in a vicious cycle with huge implications for our planet.
A Soil Crises is a Human Health Crises
The food we eat looks good but lacks nutrient density that only comes about from healthy soil biology. Our bodies aren’t being nourished, leading to chronic illness, cancer, and disease appearing earlier in life. Food is failing our bodies and and it is all connected to the soil.
Living Roots’ Regeneration
Living Roots has developed biological products that help bring back life into the soil. They are working with farmers in Thailand to reduce or eliminate synthetic fertilizers within 6 months to 1 year while maintaining or improving yields.
“When farmers in our area hear organic, they’re like, ‘We’ll never ever grow organic. Ever.’ Your yields are too low. The premium market is too hard to find. There’s all these barriers.”
Their vision of regeneration sees soil life returning in a self-sustaining way requiring less external inputs, and farmer profitably and health re-prioritised.
“We now have science to actually improve yields even with organic systems. So farmers actually can make more money and not use chemicals. Maybe the first season you could cut synthetic fertilizers by 30 to 50%.”
Regeneration starts with us
Our brains have been hijacked in ways that perpetuate a system that destroys soil health and ignores the health of farmers:
We mistake large and shiny produce for healthy food.
We optimise for price
This is not about saying food should be expensive but reflecting how we assess value. We opt for the cheaper food not realising the extent that it comprimises our health inevitably end up spending more money a lot more money on supplements, medical bills, or other health gimmicks.
These values are also eventually reflected in our our food systems which focusses on quantity over quality in food production.
Disconnection from Food
This goes beyond just the nutrients in the food but having intimate knowledge about how our food is grown, and the people growing it. In many Asian and indigenous cultures, food and medicine are the same thing.
Most of us would have had this very intimate connection with food even like 100 years ago. Our own families would grow our own food and not as a commodity, We understand that it’s sort of like a gift that we’re receiving from the earth, it’s the food that we eat. But all that is gone.
Avika & Abhi’s journey: from software to soil
Avika and Abhi grew up in Bangkok and moved to New York where they graduated from NYU and then started working as software developers earning well with stable jobs.
But they both realised they were not feeling fulfilled and feeling physically sick despite being still young in their 20s. A nagging sense that despite doing everything “right,” something fundamental was missing. For Avika and Abhi, those questions led them to food.
They decided to move back to Thailand to invest their savings in starting an organic farm. They learnt a lot including how the transition to regenerative farming is economically impossible for most farmers.
So they combined their tech & science and started Living Roots to help farmers across the board make the transition to organic and regenerative farming.
Chapters
04:54 The State of Soil in Thailand and Globally
09:41 The Impact of Chemical Fertilizers
14:56 The Nutritional Deficiency Crisis
19:40 The Disconnect Between Farmers and Consumers
24:51 The Role of Living Roots in Regenerative Agriculture
29:30 Innovations in Soil Health and Farmer Profitability
34:27 The Future of Food Systems and Consumer Choices
01:03:09 Building Trust in Agriculture
01:06:07 Navigating Business Challenges in Regenerative Farming
01:09:12 The Shift Towards Regenerative Practices
01:16:40 Personal Journeys and Life Perspectives
01:21:02 The Reality of Farming and Its Challenges
01:27:57 Community and Connection in Agriculture
01:36:14 Envisioning a Regenerative Future
01:40:09 Practical Steps for Consumers
01:43:40 Resources for Understanding Regenerative Agriculture
01:48:03 Understanding Crop Burning in Thailand and Its Implications
Resources:
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David Montgomery
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
For the Love of Soil by Nicole Masters
Will Harris - White Oak Pastures Farm
Connect with Avika & Abhi
Panya Seeds - buy heirloom Seeds & organic compost for your garden
Abhi LinkedIn
