The SFR Show

Peter Badger, a successful real estate and agriculture investor, joined Farmfolio after spending 18 years on Wall Street and a decade in Silicon Valley helping lead some of the world’s premier companies including Barclays, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Credit Suisse.

In this episode, Peter will share how he began his investment journey, worked through real estate and discovered agricultural land as an asset class that was decoupled from the US Dollar. Peter explains why a diverse investment portfolio is so important and how you can mitigate market downturns by thinking outside the box.

Episode Links: https://farmfolio.net/roofstock/

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Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

Michael:

What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor.

I'm Michael Albaum and today with me, I have Peter Badger, who works for Farmfolio. And Peter and I are going to be talking about how to invest in ag-land as part of your real estate investing portfolio. So let's get into it.

Peter Badger, thank you so much for coming on and hanging out with me. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Peter:

Michael, pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Michael:

Oh, absolutely. I think we're gonna have a lot of fun today, you and I were chatting just before we hit record, and you've got quite an interesting background.

And so for anyone who isn't familiar with your story, I'd love if you could give us just a quick walkthrough of kind of who you are, where you came from, and what it is you're doing now in real estate.

Peter:

Yeah, no. So my stories are pretty straightforward. I'm in my early 50s now, but the past 30 years has been a crazy journey. I spent 18 years on Wall Street, really understood the stock markets, you know, in detail. Joined… went to Silicon Valley start a tech company went through a crazy VC funding series A Series B and final acquisition through Citrix Systems who purchases in Santa Clara. And so so for me, I kind of like sat there really happy, you know, in 2014, this was with a nice nest egg…

Michael:

Awesome!

Peter:

And really the question was, you know, where do you put that money to not only keep it but also grow it and avoid the you know, let's call it cyclical stock market crash every seven to 12 years, depending on where you are in the cycle. That's really what started me in real estate.

Michael:

Interesting, and just a curiosity, what did your tech company do?

Peter:

We were a virtualization platform. We were allowed people you know, in the heyday to basically access their apps securely on you know, tablets and mobile phones live in the app and data center very, you know, boring and but no worthy.

Michael:

Love it. Love it. Okay, very cool. So so then you took your earnings, and you decided okay, real estate is the place that I want to park them because it's not only going to keep it safe, but it's also going to help grow it so where did you end up in real estate? Was it single family/ multifamily, talk to us a little bit about that.

Peter:

So the thing is, you start your journey with somebody you know, and I met a guy in California who was investing in out of state single family rentals.

Michael:

Hmmm…

Peter:

You know, I spent a month or two chanter missed, showed me his portfolio. And because I'm a bit of a A-type freak personality, I applied myself too hard. And I purchased 21 of them in 18 months. And you know, 13 mortgaged A for cash. And they were, you know, in disparate markets in California, you can't buy a single family rental, because…

Michael:

Because it’s quite challenging.

Peter:

Your yield doesn't beat inflation.

Michael:

Right.

Peter:

And so I was in, you know, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was in Gainesville, and Jacksonville, Florida, Houston, Texas. And, you know, apologies to our kind of New York, California friends you can buy in those days is like 2014, three bed, two bath, two car garage house for like 100 grand. And so you're able to basically go down that path of putting $25,000 down 75 mortgage, Fannie Mae, and then yeah, and it's it was it was an amazing model. And I went from, you know, essentially, having a million and a half in cash, to having a property portfolio of 21 homes, producing between 10 and $12,000 a month passively.

Michael:

Is that and that's after all of your expenses and mortgages were paid?

Peter:

That's right, because as you know, depreciation is a wonderful thing.

Michael:

Yes, yes. Big, big fan of depreciation.

Peter:

Yeah.

Michael:

And so you kind of took the shotgun approach. It sounds like in terms of your markets, I mean, how did you pick the Pittsburgh and the Florida's? Did you know, people there did the numbers just makes sense.

Peter:

So I met a network I was working with who had turnkey rental providers, and I…

Michael:

Hmmm…

Peter:

….you know, the key to us real estate before I explained the second half of the story and farmland is that: I like many others started out by taking recommendations from people I trusted. But in reality, you need to go far deeper nowadays. And now I invest in us real estate using data. So you got to look up down, look for the market. So as people probably aware, there's around 400 MSA as they're called, which are unique real estate markets, metropolitan statistical, you know areas. And so when you go down you look for those areas that are you know, population is increasing, high job growth, you know, low crime rates…

I mean you look at the fundamentals house price condo values going up over 20 years, you know, you look for the fundamentals in the top down market, and then you go down to where the assets are a house, or whatever physical real estate you do, then you do the same application, that zip code is that zip code, you know, have those strong demographics people coming in, you know, people can get to, you know, good job, you know, areas within 20 minutes’ drive and, and just, you know, reducing crime, all that stuff. And that was the key to now, how I approach us real estate is going to be very data driven, process driven, avoid emotion. If you go on a glossy brochure with a friend or an uncle or brokers recommendation, you're going to probably get in trouble. So stop doing that.

Michael:

Yeah…

Peter:

Follow the data.

Michael:

That's such a good point. We inside the Roofstock academy, which is kind of our education program, we developed a pro forma to help evaluate properties. And at the top right, we put a decision tree, and it checks a bunch of different boxes and either is green for: Yes or red for: No, and it helps us…You just say, it's not emotional. It either is or it isn't.

Peter:

That's right. Yeah.

Michael:

I love that.

Peter:

Amazing…

No, so then, you know, I was getting the money coming in. I've been in a few other asset classes, since I've been full time investing since 2014. But one of the things I wanted to find, Michael, was an asset class that wasn't correlated with housing markets, or the stock markets…

Michael:

Okay…

Peter:

So I was slightly pointed this direction by some of my Silicon Valley friends, because I met with a bunch of people and said, you know, where do you invest your money at a couple of, you know, mentors who are multi exit CEOs in the valley. And they said, listen, you know, we all make our money in private companies stock, and then we put it in hard assets, like real estate and agriculture.

And I was like, agriculture, you know, I'm a city boy, you know, from nothing in England. And so went on this crazy journey, I was traveling around South America looking for international agriculture for from 2017 through 2020, just for the pandemic, really.

Michael:

Okay.

Peter:

And the reason I've ended up here is because you need to think about agriculture in two ways:

Number one, it is not correlated with anything else. You know, people can say, the housing markets aren't correlate… are uncorrelated with the stock market, you know, they're not going to match and hopefully you miss the cycles. But in reality, with agriculture, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter whether stock markets up or down, doesn't matter whether housing cycles are in and out of that market. Because at the end of the day, we've got a growing population. If you get the right crop, for the right price, and the right climate and grow it well, you can always find a customer. And so I'm heavily into limes and coconuts, and avocados and mangoes, because they're perennial, everybody's looking for a line 12 months a year, you're hoping it is incredibly versatile. So I went down this deep, deep journey of international farmland ownership, because I wanted to actually have a portion of my portfolio, which wasn't in the US dollar, and was completely uncorrelated with everything else I owned.

Michael:

Oh, my gosh, I have so many questions for you Peter!

Peter:

Fire away!

Michael:

So, so something I'm wondering you talking about the decorrelation between farmland and so many of the other market cycles…

What about… because I come from the insurance world, so I'm always wondering about worst case scenario. I mean, what about natural catastrophy, weather events in, you know, hordes of locusts, decimating crops? And you hear about these kinds of horrible events causing famine in these countries? Is that an exposure that you are comfortable taking, or it's really less of an issue than then maybe it's made out to be on the news?

Peter:

So let me kind of bring it back to real estate, because I get tired of the big headlines, you know, the news, they'll say, oh, you know, US housing is up 3.7% across the country…

I mean, it's that is like the most asinine statement made by man.

Michael:

Right.

Peter:

400 different markets and real estate is local and farming is local. So yeah, you may hear some, like, you know, I don't know, message from some country somewhere, you know, I mean, that's like classic.

Let's take an example all right: Puerto Rico. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico 2018, wiped out 97% of food crops.

Michael:

Yeah.

Peter:

Disaster, don't invest in Puerto Rico!

It's like you wouldn't invest in you know, in I won't like paying some US real estate markets, in case somebody but you wouldn't invest in certain high crime markets in the US and issuer specialist in section eight and or class C properties, you know…

Michael:

Totally…

You let the data help decide where to invest.

Peter:

Yep, so in the same way, there is risks in everything. The key is working out what the risks are in the asset class you're in and finding the data, no emotion to support where and how you invest in that asset.

Michael:

Okay. Okay. And that makes so much sense.

And so talk to us about what Farmfolio is.

Peter:

So I started investing in 2015 in…

I went to multiple providers kind of on a syndication basis, mostly because I couldn't do it in a remotely obviously, I was looking for groups who were specialists in overseas agriculture. And I've just mentioned I was overseas because US farmland is kind of very hard to make money. In the same way, you wouldn't buy a single family rental in Manhattan, or, you know, San Francisco.

In the US, farmland, the land is so expensive, labor is expensive. You know, it's all mostly controlled by large, wealthy people, or large corporations, and you just can't make money in it. Row crops, mostly, you know, I can go on for hours about US real estate. So I had to go overseas to find the yield in the same way you'd leave some of the coastal markets to come in land for US real estate to find the farmland yield.

Michael:

Interesting. Okay. And so are you then owning the actual land and leasing it to growers?

Peter:

Yeah, so I got started in like projects with multiple vendors, Panama, you know, Colombia, Peru, I went east, you know, to Eastern Europe, I was in like, you know, Georgia, the country, not Georgia, the state.

Michael:

Yeah.

Peter:

And I just started investing in these groups who were offering real, you know, let's call it farmland, investment models, and I lost my shirt, in half of them as capital all gone. And it was basically glossy brochures, again, you know, it was people who were telling a good story. But without any track record, or, or proof point, really.

And a lot of them by the way, early on, where you would plant bare land with trees, you'd wait five years. At the end of five years, you see the fruit appear and the work out to sell it, it was like a call that hope ag investing…

… in a bunch of those, because you're hoping that with this stuff out by the time the five years is up, right?... In capital.

Michael:

Right.

Peter:

And most of them didn't. And then I met Farmfolios, my journey and for five years 2015 through 2020, I was investing in all of their products. And they were the only vendor in the agricultural space that kept delivering what they said they're going to deliver. And so I actually jumped into the company during the pandemic full time. Because I'm a believer in ag. I wanted to help them, make other people who believe in ag because they've got it right, you know…

Michael:

Yeah. Interesting. And so our… I mean, how does their thesis align with your personal thesis as far as US base versus international?

Peter:

So they're all international…

You know, we keep looking at US deals, we just can't find any that make money or make sense. And so where are they where we are in Latin America. And their model is slightly different, because in terms of the let's take bear land plant, work it out later, but they reverse engineered farmland ownership. And so what we did I can say we now versus…

…is, we built a pack house for limes, for instance.

Michael:

Okay.

Peter:

…and then we set all the local Columbian farmers. Colombia and South America, we said, listen, deliver your limes from your farms to our pack house door, we’ll give you double the price that you sell for in the Colombian market, with wash sort pack and export them to the US and Europe. And that's where the premium price is. So this arbitrage opportunity whereby we can take local produce that was sold for half the price, still wash it, export it, and sell it from the still margin in that supply chain all the way along.

Michael:

Oh my gosh…

Peter:

…and the beauty of this thing is that the packhouse started DAX, the founder was in the States and it was fun to make all these like you know, Walmart, Trader Joe's, Publix, wholesale retail fruit relationships, and you started selling people containers, you know, take a test container of our limes, let us know if they are the highest quality for you. And you started doing this a couple years back and we eventually opened up this entire sales and distribution pipeline across the North America and Europe.

So imagine in the past couple of years, we went from like a container of limes a month, to doing seven to ten containers of limes per week across the US market.

Michael:

Holy smokes. And when you say container, you mean like shipping container, not like a crate container.

Peter:

Shipping container.

Michael:

Oh my gosh.

Peter:

So we're now the biggest exporter of limes from Colombia…

So then imagine it, that we've now got all these limes being shipped overseas being sold at a premium so you can find them you know, mostly on the East Coast in Walmart, Trader Joe's, Publix, Albertsons, Costco, you'll find our Colombian product.

So the question then became, okay, we need now to secure the source of those limes. Because one day the Columbian farm may wake up and say: Hey, Peter, I'm not going to give them my limes today because Walmart's are saying to us, you know, how do I guarantee you're going to keep selling these limes come through, 12 months a year.

And that's where the farmland ownership product came in, which is that we then went back the farms with the best limes, we bought them for cash, we broke them up into individual parcels. So the big farm or a sudden became like, you know, 47, parcel farm or column lots or land ownership titles. And then we let people like you and me buy a parcel of land in that farm, which is farmed collectively together at scale, limes being sold at Walmart, we basically went back and so you now can own a parcel, or lot in that farm, instead of a single family rental producing rental income. It's actually 220, mature Tahiti, lime trees, producing limes that are being washed, packed, exported to the US and being sold on Walmart shelves. So you're getting…

Michael:

This is crazy!

Peter:

I know…

Michael:

That is the coolest thing I maybe have ever heard on this show. So again, 1000 questions. So if I own one parcel of the 220, and it's split up into however many 47 different discrete lots, and again, the insurance guy is run speaking to my head and lightning strikes my lot. And now my trees are no longer producing, do I get to share in the…

…Is it a profit sharing model for the entire farmers or my lot specifically?

Peter:

No, its profit sharing, so that so the key to agriculture, and the reason I learned this, and we… I kind of helped design it at Farmfolio, before I joined full time, was, I was buying these products in like, you know, Eastern Europe, and you had like the project from your little lot, your 200 trees. And it's, it's asinine, because it's too much administration overhead, and it doesn't work to your point, the risk is too high.

Therefore, we collectively farm, you know, at scale. The farm was like it was before, you know, like 40, 50, 60 acres, whatever the farm size is, let's just keep doing what we're doing with the farm manager, you know, like, draw a line around 200 trees and treated differently…

Michael:

That's yours, that's mine…

Peter:

We actually…

… to your point, so we have every lot owner is part of a farm owners association FOA, like an HOA, or cooperative. And you get, you know, 47 of the income minus 47 for the expenses, and therefore you are together with a group of people, but you own title to your lot, so you physically own the real estate and this is how this model works. Because think about it, one of the biggest problems with private equity is it to find a creditor people…

Michael:

Yeah.

Peter:

…and we wanted it to be available to anybody, the government, US government shouldn't tell you whether you can own a farm lot and receive harvest income. So this basically is available to anybody you're buying a piece of real estate just happens to have 200 trees and not a single family home.

Michael:

Right.

Peter:

And you can own it for as long as you want. 10, 20, 30, 40 years. It's up to you.

Michael:

Oh my gosh.

Alright, so I'm starting to wrap my head around this. But now I'm curious to know, because I like you have invested internationally, I invested in Portugal and a couple rental properties and the legal aspect of it, the bank account that I mean, the accounting, it's just like it's a real headache. So how does that work being that this is a purely international investment, do I need to go learn and have an accountant in Colombia in order to invest in this?

Peter:

Nothing.

So we take care of it. I mean, we kind of like, this is farmland ownership made easy as our tagline.

Michael:

Okay…

Peter:

We're trying to democratize this. So you're able to pay for the lot in US dollars, we then transfer the money over and manage the farm. And then every year, twice a year, for limes once a year, for coconuts, for instance. We'll do the accounts, will show the full financials, will work out the net income or net harvest income for every lot owner to transfer the cash back to US dollars and send to your US bank account via ACH.

Michael:

What a trip, this is incredible Peter.

And let's talk kind of maybe meat and potatoes to use a good pun here and I'm sure what everyone is on everyone's mind. What kind of returns are you seeing with farmland and maybe with a certain crop or certain countries specifically because I think most of our listeners are fairly familiar with the US housing market and what they could make with regard to a single family rental.

Peter:

Yeah. So it's kind of answered in a couple ways. So firstly, the initial farms, there's no leverage. So in reality, you know, instead of paying, this is what I tell a lot of people, instead of paying 30 grand cash down for $120,000, home 75% LTV, you're actually spending 32,000 to 45,000 for your lime lord, that your cash price in average right now. And our goal is that, you know, once you've sweet, we've got very detailed models with data driven, not emotion driven.

Michael:

Hopefully not fancy pamphlets, though.

Peter:

Exactly…

We do have some fancy marketing campaigns, but they're full of data.

Michael:

Perfect, not hopes and dreams.

Peter:

Exactly…

So our goal basically is depending on the age of the tree, you know how young they are, and the kind of progressing, it's like, some farms are a value add. So you're buying a young farm average creative three years, and they don't have the full line projects until seven years in. So it's kind of like, you know, you're seeing the appreciation, or the production of limes increase and triple and quadruple about three or four years to increase the NOI. So you can start on the other years with, you know, no cash for the first year, but then second year, when it kicks into year for your policy, you know, 4 to 6%. And then cash yield, this is…

Michael:

Yeah.

Peter:

…and up to that eight years, our goal is to get you to a steady 12 to 15% annual cash yield.

Michael:

Oh my gosh…

Peter:

…and so we were aiming to give people the opportunity to think about this from a you know, because in all years real estate, you know, the old rule was you go for an 8% cap rate, or return. And that's now become five and a half percent in most markets. But then you could leverage it up 13 to 15, by putting you know, 75% loans on it, basis to give you that, you know, let's call it leverage return, but without a pure cash basis. And, and you know, it's it's playing out perfectly right now. We see no reason why they shouldn't keep doing what it's doing. And we're now looking at trying to find overseas loans to then offer leverage on the next phase of this product. So that's our that's our 2022 Gold.

Michael:

Oh, my gosh, that's so exciting. Well, we'll definitely have to have you back on to keep us posted on how that comes along.

So at the beginning of the show, and maybe even before we started recording, we were talking about depreciation. So is there, I know, there's no depreciation on land in the States. But does that change with going overseas and having putting trees on the land?

Peter:

Yeah, depreciation very much as an American thing. I mean, it's, it's, it's one of the wonders of the world.

Michael:

The Eighth Wonder…

Peter:

It is? No, so I mean, anything overseas, so I get all these ask questions, you know, kind of 1031, you know, getting yet so the answer's no…

Michael:

Okay.

Peter:

But notes, but I think, you know, the goal here is, I don't want people to think about this is the strategy, you know, look at, look at your asset allocation, what are your goals in life. And so I basically have four buckets, you know, I have some money in the stock market, which is for liquidity reasons only, I don't trust the stock market, you know, you can't time it, it's going to do what it's going to do. But I keep a good between 10 and 20% of my wealth in the stock market, because I can sell my ETFs mutual funds, Tesla shares, you know, what I can play in that market, between US real estate and have around 60% of US real estate, because it's the right thing to do. It's data driven to get in the right markets, or the fundamental we talked about.

Michael:

Okay.

Peter:

Third bucket is farmland, and I take between 10 to 30%, depending on where I'm at, with my portfolio in overseas file now, which is not, you know, in US dollar terms, because $30 trillion will become due at some point, the empire may end at some point in our lifetime on my kids lifetime, you know, they all end at some point. So let's like, you know, have an asset class like farmland, which is going to give consistent cash yield for decades overseas, not correlated with the US dollar and then the final fourth bucket is play money, you know, crypto know something's, you know, the fourth bucket is I can wake up tomorrow and I've lost everything and I'm okay with that.

Michael:

Right.

Peter:

Just to keep my intellectual curiosity so that's it you know, stock market, US real estate fundamental, get some diversity with overseas farmland and then play money.

Michael:

I love that Peter. And so just from like an operational standpoint, because I think so many folks are capable of wrapping their heads around a house. It's made up of wood, maybe concrete bricks, has a roof and needs things to be maintained over time, it's got pipes, electrical components, with a farm I mean, you were talking about that maturity, intuitive of trees for limes kind of hitting for seven, eight years? Do the trees die? Do they get too old to produce? I mean, what is kind of the CapEx look like for a traditional farm?

Peter:

Yeah, so so great question. I love that question because I like to talk about my real estate journey because I went from like single family to multifamily to mobile home parks to…

…and so as I went up the chain, you know, people kept educate me and say, listen, you know, with a single family home, you've got an air conditioner, roof, you know, all the stuff that needs to be maintained over a certain period of time, multifamily, get more spit more scale, mobile home park, it's not a concrete pad.

Michael:

Right.

Peter:

But some utility connections, you get to a farm, or hold on a minute…

Michael:

Forget the path.

Peter:

Exactly. There's no concrete.

You know, there's some inner roads and like, you know, the farmhouse for the farm manager, but you know, from, and the key to that thing, really, from my perspective, to the point of longevity of this is that, you have to choose the right crop.

So in the case of a lime tree, you plant it, takes seven years to get to full production, in the case of this genetic originated is slightly different, but citrus fruit is around seven to eight years.

Michael:

Okay.

Peter:

And then it lasts for 20 to 24 years in total, before the production starts to decline.

Michael:

Okay

Peter:

So at the end of that 20 year cycle, you start to take out trees that are starting to reduce net production of limes, replant them and go to the next cycle. Coconuts, we have a Malayan hybrid dwarf genetic, which is an incredible…

…. is that so you think about coconut trees, like they are like 30 feet tall. Harvesting coconuts from a very tall tree is quite onerous. So you need a hybrid dwarf variety, which means they're lower, easier to harvest.

Michael:

Okay.

Peter:

There is a lot of stuff into the truck you're choosing and more importantly, the genetic of tree you're choosing, but they last for between 60 and 80 years. So think about that…

That's like, so this is intergenerational…

Michael:

So when you ever start producing?

Peter:

A year four, maximum year eight.

So we have coconut lots today that are at year five, producing coconuts. And here's my goal, my goal is to basically have the casio for me and my wife for the next, you know, hopefully 30 years, knock on wood. But then it passes to my kids, they're going another 50 years of this casio after that fact, in a very hardy crop. You know, there's, there's all kinds of things happening globally with coconuts where a lot of the original trees planted in Philippines and you know, India and various other places, they're starting to get what's called senile, there's like there's a term in agriculture, like when trees get really old and they die off, they become senile, is the term.

Michael:

Interesting!

Peter:

A lot of the traditional coconut, you know, producing countries have too much …, senility. And so we're now stepping in with Colombia, planting fresh for that for 50 to 80 year cycle. So that's the point of doing it. And I'm not replacing air conditioners and a ruse after 20 years.

Michael:

Oh, my gosh, that is wild. And so is Colombia, the main focus for farmland currently. And are there plans to expand?

Peter:

Yes, yes and yes.

Why do we choose Colombia? Because it has the best agricultural climate on planet earth.

Michael:

Isn't Colombia the most biodiverse country in the world?

Peter:

Yep.

Michael:

Yeah.

Peter:

Outside of Puerto Rico, maybe.

Michael:

Okay. Okay, I remember.

Peter:

So look at the world map, Michael and you'll see…

Just just type in your browser, precipitation world map. Go and look for where all the water is. Ain't in California.

You know, so, so you're looking for longevity looking, I mean, the same data I have, for my US real estate, around job growth and population with all this stuff. It's actually soil climate, which means sunshine and rain, because in Colombia, our farms are at high altitude. So we have this region, it's called Candeer, it's where the coffee triangle is.

And traditionally, you know, Colombian coffee is the best in the world.

Michael:

Yeah.

Peter:

This is where the best coffee in the world was, is still growing, you know, for hundreds of years by small farmers. And we've just our farms are there on the line farms are there. And so in the morning, you get like perfect sunshine, allows, you know, nutrition under the trees, sunshine, photosynthesis, it allows the lamps to grow and the sunshine makes them emerald green. In the afternoon, a storm comes in rains gives us the actual rain to keep the product, you know, growing. And that's the perfect climate. And that's why Colombia really is the foothold. It's the best agricultural world, you know, part of the world and also there's multi-generational farming skills, because in the same way you need a property manager and use real estate. You'd have far management team in agriculture. So we have the lineage you know, there's a company we use who actually third party manage all of our farms right now in this region.

And the guy that Jorge Campusano, his family has been doing citrus and avocados for, you know, three generations. So we're just leveraging the skills and the talent and the climate and more importantly, to finish the point on why Columbia the land is a lot cheaper than California or US farmland.

Michael:

Yeah.

Peter:

And the labor is much cheaper. So give the Colorado's rich people don't really fully get the minimum wage in California is $14, you know an hour.

Michael:

Yeah.

Peter:

In Colombia, a livable wage is a buck 40. And so people say to us, oh, well, you're under paying. If we're not under paying our farm workers, you can live nicely in Colombia, with their cost of living. So imagine those two variables alone land cost and labor cost. That's why we're overseas and that's why there's profit in the supply chain from farm to table, as we call them.

Michael:

Yeah. I remember being down there, it was some of the best produce I've maybe ever had in the world, you can go get a meal a good meal for 4 or 5, $6 US like.

Peter:

Incredible.

I go to a restaurant where in Florida where I live, you know, I just pay $120 for me and my wife to have a couple of beers and you know, nice Maine, you know, over there, like $14.

Michael:

That's pretty amazing. Yeah…

Peter:

I mean, Columbia, medi get down there people. It's incredible.

Michael:

Yes, yes, it is. Oh, Peter, this is amazing. How can people if they want to invest, they want to learn more about Farmfolio, they have additional questions for you, how can people get a hold in touch to get those questions answered?

Peter:

Yeah. So I'm going to publish my personally mail address right so you can get to me directly.

Michael:

Wuuh, very nice!

Peter:

On farmfolio.net/roofstock. Okay…

Farmfolio, our goal is that you have a portfolio and a segment of that portfolio is a Farmfolio. You know, choose different farms, coconuts, limes, you know, avocado, whatever you want. And then yeah, so farmfolio.net/roofstock is where you can find me and [email protected], if you want to come to me direct.

Michael:

Amazing. Well, Peter, this was so much fun, really informative, really exciting stuff. Definitely look forward to seeing where Farmfolio goes from here. Thanks again for coming on.

Peter:

It's a pleasure. Thanks, Michael.

Michael:

Hey, you got it, take care…

Okay, well, now that was our episode with Peter, a huge thank you to Peter coming on. I felt like I got really giddy on the episode. It is a really exciting, interesting topic, one that I had never heard much about. So I'm definitely going to do some more research. As always, if you like the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is those in your podcasts. We look forward to seeing the next one and happy investing!