Helping Land Owners Build Equity by Implementing Sovereign Food Systems

Hey, it's Mark Podolski at the Land Geek with your favorite niche real estate website, the landgeek.com and on this week's Art of Passive Income podcast, I am so excited to introduce you to my guest, Sonia Gomez. She is the co founder of Abundant Acres, which was created to help landowners, investors and families design and build sovereign food systems. We're going to learn all about what is a sovereign food system, family compounds and regenerative farms on their land. She is on a mission to help set families and land, build abundance on their land and for their legacy. Sonia, welcome.

So excited to be here with you, Mark, thanks for having me.

I'm, I'm so excited to get into the weeds with you on, on Abundant Acres and your mission. But before we do that, let's just rewind the tape. And how did you even get into, I mean, sustainable land?

So it's a pretty interesting story. Before politics and pandemics made living on the land cool, this has kind of always been a chosen lifestyle for us. You know, dating. My husband and I have been in each other's lives and partners for, you know, over 12 years and we chose to live, you know, way out, pretty rurally on and with the land, had all of our kids at home, you know, raise them again, gardening and homesteading and all of this stuff. But when as they got older, they wanted to move into town, they wanted to participate in sports, be closer to community, and so we obliged them and this coincided with me entering into what is now, you know, a global movement with cannabis. I helped write in the legislation that legalized Cannabis back in 2009, which took me to Colorado and, and it was right, you know, at the same time that our kids were wanting to be deeper into community. And so as a part of my work and as a part of, you know, the kind of mom that I am, I really started to dive deep into people's health journey. I had my own life altering experience with, with having to recover my health after a life threatening surfing accident, which kind of put me on this track of discovering what was going to allow me to heal from this injury without the use of harmful medications and really becoming a statistic of the medical industry. And so what I discovered was my food was my first medicine and, and I was being guided by a holistic neurologist who taught me about, you know, phytonutrients and taught me about farming and where to source my food and how my body would best absorb these nutrients. And when you get down that rabbit hole and you Think about the biohackers who are sitting in bathtubs full of ice and drinking smoothies and green juices and all of this stuff. It really comes down to we are what we eat. So after three months following his regimen, I was off all my pharmaceutical medications. Within six months, I was off all ant anti inflammatories. And within nine months, I'd lost over a hundred pounds. And so my life was truly transformed when I came into this awareness around, you know, what I was eating, where I was sourcing it from. And that really started my path down this trail. Now when 2020 hit and my kids were at the end of their educational years, we completely pulled out of Denver. We were in the middle of downtown Denver. My kid was the star football player, I had another one who was the star of our theater. And everything shut down around us. And we chose at that time to pack up and move out into the mountains onto a 10,000 acre ranch. And there is where one of our followers from online came out to visit us, expressing that, you know, he was concerned about our supply chains, he was concerned about food quality, he was concerned about the, you know, political era that we were in, but also shared that his family was suffering from some pretty incredible health conditions, autoimmune stuff, severe allergies his kid had had. His kid was experiencing some, you know, severe challenges with his immune system and asked us to come out to Florida to help him design his own food system and, and to build a food forest for him. And I'll, I'll dive into what a food forest is here in just a moment. So we came out here to Florida, we tested his water, we tested his soil, and we, even though he's in an affluent neighborhood, we found that there was high levels of glyphate, high levels of, of levels of contamination in his soil and in his water, which made it near impossible for him to be able to grow anything sustainably. And number two, his, you know, the family was having adverse health reactions to the things that are used every day in this land, in, you know, in the landscaping. It was from there that we built a soil system plan for him. And to help him remediate the health of his soil, we designed a food forest for him. And today he, you know, that was kind of the entry point into all of this is, you know, the inspiration and the motivation is to help land owners build equity in their property by implementing sovereign food systems that can care for them, their families and the next generations coming. And, you know, removing these harmful chemicals, but really tapping into that freedom that allows us to be healthy and vibrant as we are.

Wow, that's a lot to unpack there, Sonia. And your. Your health story is incredible. And it's so funny because when you're talking about those biohackers, I'm one of those people. Yeah. Yesterday I did a. I did the bake and shake, the infrared sauna, and the cold plunge, but I what I have for lunch, like a burger. Right. So it's not like if I had just had a salad, I probably wouldn't. I probably would have felt just as good. But it's so. It's really interesting. It all starts with our food. And I think most people listening to this would agree food is medicine. What's more interesting, though, is remediating land and raw land. And I would say most people who are listening to this podcast are land investors or they're thinking about becoming a land investor. And so this is really, you know, a topic that, that's going to hit home for all the listeners. And so let's talk a little bit about what a food forest is. What is a sovereign food system, the differences, and kind of go from there and see where it takes us.

Yeah, sure. So, first of all, a food forest kind of mimics nature. It's a way of planting multiple layers of plants, canopy trees, all the way down to ground covers. That allows nature to do the heavy lifting for you. It's much different than what the industrial food system has turned into. And it's a great way for families, families, individual landowners, to increase equity on their property by building food systems that can take that can, you know, nourish themselves, but also their families, communities, and the ripple effect from there. It all depends on the size of your land location. All of these things become nuances in what you can do and how you can do it, what your grow seasons are, all those things. However, a sovereign food system is a food system that is built to help you and your family be free of and, and sustainably free from the otherwise commercialized industrial food in, you know, industry.

So what if my land is in the middle of the desert? Can I, can I grow something out there?

Yes, you can. As a matter of fact, part of our work is dry land restoration. So one of the first things that we look at is, you know, is your grow zone. Where are you located? Where is your property located? You know, what is the water flow? What is your water story? Where does it flow and go? How much water do you have is there? Well, what are the utilities? What are the allowances on your property when you work with abundant acres. And our team, we've pulled together some of the world's experts in, you know, in water management, in building, soil health, in topography, you know, micro looking under the microscope to see what's beneath the surface on your property. So it doesn't matter where your land is, how big or small it is, we can pull in the right people to focus in who have, you know, specialized expertise on that grow zone to help guide you on what to do, when to do it and how to do it so that you see the most success and build the most abundance on your property.

So I mean, I know it's going to be hard to, to answer because it's going to be variable in the size of the property, where it's located. Can you give us an idea of what the total investment could be on the low end and the high end?

Well, every. Everything is tailored specifically to you and your land and your budget. So somebody who has property in the middle of the desert perhaps want to increase equity just enough to flip it. And so they'll come to us and work with us on putting together the overall design so, so that your buyer can see what's possible on that property. And I remember listening to one of your other guests who was talking about this opportunity that he had to flip a piece of land. And that particular buyer wanted to build a, build a house there and they wanted to build specific infrastructure there. But the challenges seemed too great that they just let the deal go. Well, that's money left on the table as far as I'm concerned. What we do is really look at what the possibilities are so that when we go to market with this land to flip it, people that your buyers, your prospective buyers can recognize that a lot of the heavy lifting and time and money investment is done for them. You can actually, you know, with a minimal investment. When you come to our workshop, we'll put together the entire design. You can now take that as a part of your parcel of out that value add and showcase that to your prospective buyers, which automatically increases the value of your land. So, so, you know, on. If you, if all you did was work with us to put together that design and understand your water and soil story and, and what's possible on that property. I mean, you're in $10,000 and that's an incredible increase on the value of your property.

That's insane. Who, who wouldn't this be for?

You know, this is. I've had a really hard time, despite my best efforts. Cause I Always want to help everybody. But I've recognized that, that if you are kicking around the idea, if you're wanting to just, if you don't want to put in the work, if you just want to flip an asset, you know, if you're not concerned about the quality of what you're doing, that's not really for you. We love to work with land holders, land owners, land investors who recognize the value of their asset and want to increase the value of that asset and, but also the experience that, that they're providing for their buyer, you know, and really getting that win win situation from, you know, owner, investor to their buyer and deepening that relationship. That's who we love to work with. People who have the, the foresight, the vision, who can recognize the trends of what's happening right now. I mean, There is over 70% of buyers in subdivisions and are looking for land. They're looking for some sort of sustainable value add in their communities. They're looking, you know, they're actively looking for the quote, unquote sustainability when they're purchasing stuff and possibility because they want to break free of suburban hell and into their freedom lifestyle, which starts with land.

Absolutely. And you know, for someone like me, I could finance it for my, my buyer as well, that, that plan. So if they wanted to implement it and they didn't have the money, I could help them as well.

That's incredible. See that and, and that is a huge, a huge value add for your community because sometimes people have the vision and the passion and they want to see it happen, but they don't necessarily have access to capital right then. So creating those win win situations inside of the community is so super powerful and it really lends to our mission to really, you know, empower families, investors, developers to bring in these systems because one food forest at a time, not only are we replenishing the planet, but we're helping families secure legacy for the future generations. We now more than ever, we have to look at what we're doing and how we're doing it and making sure that the footprints we're leaving behind us as we're taking steps forward to build freedom and sustainability for the next generation, you know, is, it's more important than it ever has been. I can say that as a mother of four, you know, I'm like really paying attention to how things are being done. So to have a partner like you who is not only willing but able to finance projects like this is so super powerful. And I encourage all who are listening to, you know, really Take a look at what you're doing with your land and what kind of market's going to leave in the world.

I love it. I love it. So do you have a recent case study you can walk us through?

Oh, my gosh.

I'm next.

Deep in a case study right now. Mark. I can't wait to share with you. So when our client originally brought us over here In November of 2022, we had no intention of living in Florida. However, there's acts of God that interrupt your life, sometimes your life plan, sometimes God dives right in and interferes. And that's exactly what happened to us. I have no other way of explaining it. All my family, the, you know, past 12 years of my life were in Colorado. But when I got here to Florida and I, we were in service to this family and we were, you know, my husband and I were looking at each other saying, you know, what's going to be next for us? What are. We had just exited out of a. Out of our previous business. What's going to be next for us? And literally on my birthday, I met our incredible client, Karen, who has 124 acres. She's a. She's a conventional farmer and wants to flip her land to regenerative practices, meaning removing all harmful chemicals, removing all of that, typical ways of tilling and farming, monocropping their land, so on and so forth. She built an incredible dairy company, but left it behind because she didn't want to use conventional practices anymore. And she wanted to make a safe and sustainable transition into this regenerative farm while increasing the equity on her property, while developing a family compound and adding multiple income streams to her property. So we are currently living on 124 acres, and we are currently helping this incredible woman design her family compound. Research. We're bringing in some of the world's experts in water management, plant selection. We're building her a plant library. We've put together an incredible design that. That allows her to have a roadmap that will show her step by step, what to do and when to do it so that she doesn't overspend, she doesn't waste any time. And all of her equity and investments are built in a way that is sustainable and tangible. There's nothing worse. You know, there's a lot of landowners out there who will say, amazing, I want to have a homestead, or I want to move out of the suburban lifestyle and onto my own piece of raw land and, you know, build a family farm and all that. What we see is that they get way too overwhelmed, they overspend and try and do way too much at once. Right. Have you ever had a student like that who's like, I'm going to buy the entire state of Wyoming, but they can't figure out how to do their first deal?

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I mean, for sure, I've been guilty of that as well. Where my eyes are so much bigger than my stomach, and then you start getting into the weeds. You're like, oh, my gosh, this is a serious project. It's going to cost way more than I thought it would.

Absolutely. And so that's a lot of what we do is eliminating the guesswork because we've, you know, we've worked on enough lands and enough places to know what the pitfalls are and what we have to do first before we do the first thing first. Right. So, yeah, get the plan organized. And that's what we've done for Karen. You know, when we met her, she had already invested in becoming permaculture certified. She'd already invested over $30,000 in, in, you know, courses, in in person workshops, guru after guru, and no one ever gave her a complete plan or toolkit or set of resources that she could use to get the results she was looking for right now. And the thing is, is that she is financially capable of bringing her vision to life. She just didn't have the roadmap to get her there. Right. So we're currently and actively working with on her property here in Sarasota, Florida. It's a beautiful piece. And when we're done, she's going to have housing for the next generation. She has a daughter and, you know, six grandkids and just a beautiful family. So we're building. We're designing out her family compound. We're building in an entire food system, which I'll take this opportunity to define what a sovereign food system is. A sovereign food system is something that allows you to break free of the industrial food scam and take full control over the food that you are producing and more importantly, how it is being produced. So you can eliminate chemicals, you can eliminate any concern around quality, you can eliminate any fear around supply chains and really have control over your food for your family. This is the best way to kind of set yourself free. And so we're building in those systems. So the. The good thing is, is that no amount, the amount of food that's going to be pouring, we call it abundance. This is why we say abundant acres, because when you plant these things, it becomes ultra abundant. And so the surplus of that food, pasture raised pork, poultry, beef, avocados, bananas, plantains, all these different things. The abundance from your land can now feed other families and your community. It can be donated for a tax write off if you have the wherewithal. You can have a farm stand or send it to farmers market. The ripple effect of this one action gives brings so many positive blessings back to you. It's just a beautiful way to see that law of reciprocity in action.

I love it. I remember reading the book Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Poland and he was talking about a guy named Joel Salatin. Yeah, yeah. And, and he was, and he's talking about his farm. He's like, yeah, because it seems like a lot of work. And he's like, actually it's not that. It's like it's harder to do a monochrome type of farm. And a monochrome farm would just be one type of, you know, food, right? Like corn or soybeans. And, and it's really terrible for the farm and, and the environment and all these things. And so, and so he was, you know, had like everything organic and it was amazing. And. But he said, yeah, the, the, the animals do all the work. It wasn't.

Absolutely.

And so it was really interesting. So I was just curious for your client, how much work is this going to be?

Well, we have two different, you know, one of our first questions that we ask is how much work do you want to do? What does your time look like? What does your team look like? What is your lifestyle? Because we can tailor this to be as labor intensive or labor free as you'd like it to be. You, just because you have this land doesn't mean that you're out there with your pick and your shovel doing the whole thing. As a matter of fact, you could very well be like Karen, who's on her Polaris, you know, chasing us and her team around the property gets to be a part, a part of, you know, crafting her dream and, and thinking about her legacy and you know, and we just get to be in such a beautiful, creative space. But unless she wants to, she's not out there doing the work. We have an incredible team that we've brought in and trained on these systems. And we start with thinking about what nature does naturally because we want to build systems that, that will be supported by nature. That makes them disaster proof and sustainable for the future. It doesn't help us or you create a system that's going to be labor intensive, cost prohibitive and not that that doesn't cultivate abundance, joy, freedom. And that's really our goal. We're on the. The art of passive income because we want the investments that you make and the opportunities that you take to be passive. So you can, by hiring the right team, by having the right systems in place, nature will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. And then you can bring on the right team members or have the right maintenance plan, which is a part of our program. We really look at, you know, what is your maintenance plan and how are you going to preserve. Preserve your investment. So as a part, when you work with us, we really look at what your vision is all the way from the dream all the way down to what does preserving and maintenance look like, and making sure that we put that plan together so that it feels manageable for you in the long term. And again, if you're just putting the plan together so that you can flip this and pass this on to your, to your buyer, having that plan and being able to answer that question is so powerful. It just solidifies the investment of time and money that you've made in putting that plan together.

Yeah, I think it's so interesting just from a historical viewpoint, when we look at the history of our society where it used to be, everyone had their own farm and that was it. And then, so it was very decentralized and then we became the central corporate food system. And now we're seeing the trend back to decentralization, and I think that's going to continue and be the future. So we see the future and it's just a matter of are you going to be adding value to your clients and adding equity to that land or not ultimately. And so I think it's an incredible value added resource and one that's being, is going to be much needed in the future. So I think it's tremendous what you're doing, Sonia.

Thank you. Yeah, it's really exciting. I'm recognizing, you know, for, for those of you who are Internet marketers or have seen marketing done on the Internet, you know, three years, five years, when, when that whole movement around Internet marketing started, the big flex for entrepreneurs and investors was their fancy cars and houses on the beach. Right. Do you remember that as like the. Everybody had the Lamborghini or, you know, some sort of fancy beach house or taking pictures in private jets. The new flex is land. And so you guys who are listening to this right now are already ahead of the curve because you've made the wise decision to invest into land. Now that you're a land owner, the big question comes, or if you haven't invested yet, you're, you're in the right mindset that you're thinking about right now. How do I take action to secure my own piece of land? I want to, I want to remind you that the top 1% of entrepreneurs and earners in the world right now, including Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, IBM, got Bill Gates, all of these guys, all of these guys are securing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of acres of raw farmland right now. So just the fact that you are considering investing, you're ahead of the curve. If you've already invested, you are way ahead of the curve. If you are flipping land actively, you are far ahead of where you need to be or should be with today's market in mind. Because land ownership and developing sovereign food systems is the new legacy play. It's the new Lamborghini, it's the new beach house. If you don't own land that has the potential for designing a family compound multiple streams of income, regenerative food systems, you know, if you don't have those things, you're going to be left in the dust. Just the fact that you're here right now making these choices to invest in this type of asset shows that you are, have the right mentality and are making the right moves. And we'd love to be a part of helping you increase that value, increase the equity in your, in your property, and really making sure that you're making legacy plays every time that you are investing.

Yeah, I mean, there's not much more to add to that. Sonia, I love the way you said that. And you're now at that point in the podcast and your, your mentorship has been invaluable. But I want to ask you for your tip of the week, a website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

So I think the number one tip of the week is, is to, you know, we've talked about a lot. There's a lot of new language that was introduced inside of this, inside of this podcast, Sovereign Food Systems. The idea of freedom, I don't think I have to quote, unquote, I don't think these are new concepts to you. You're here because you're already in that mentality of freedom. But sometimes when we're in the minutia of creating, buying, selling, you know, doing the stuff and things that makes it possible for us to be or feel free. We forget to plug in and tap in with our family, and. And sometimes we forget to tap in with what our kids see and feel. And so I want to challenge you guys today. A lot of what we talked about starts with the vision. What is your vision for your future? What, you know, what could improving your land and building equity on your land look like for you? If you could just for a moment, create a vision of having your closest friends and family living within, you know, a mile or two of you on a big piece of property, if you could walk out your front door and, and pick your favorite fruits or vegetables. If you could have your very own kitchen herb garden. If you could see your daughter running her own flower garden and selling her bouquets to wedding planners, or your son running out to his honey hive. If you could see these things come to fruition, what would they be? And so my tip of the week is to tap in with your family. And it doesn't have to be for your land, but tap in with your family and check in on your vision board. See, see how your motivations, your inspirations light up and, and I invite you to put those things down together and just take that time to tap in, because you never know what will come to fruition. I remember sitting down and doing this exercise with a family, and it was a really successful dad who worked all same thing with the mom, PTA mom, but always on the go. And when you just take 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes to sit down and tap in and ask the questions, maybe they never considered it before. Just ask the questions. What do you want? What do you see? Could you see yourself chasing chickens in the yard and picking up your own eggs for the day? Yeah, maybe. Could you see yourself buying land and flipping it at a multiple. Yeah, absolutely. I know a lot of young, young kids right now who want to follow in their family's footsteps, so teaching them how to buy and invest and increase equity quickly or building sovereign food systems, or maybe you want to have your very own homestead. It all starts with the vision. So tip of the week, tap in with your family, ask them the big questions, and see what your legacy could look like. Finally, if you want to find out more, you can follow us or you can check me out on social media at Sonia Gomez tv and I'd be super excited to see you guys there.

I love it. SONIA GOMEZ tv. Fantastic. I mean, I think, you know, the quality of our, our lives comes down to the quality of the questions we, we ask ourselves. And that's a, That's a great tip of the week. My tip of the week is learn more about Sonia and her mission at abundant acres. Abundant acres.com we'll have a link to it in the show. Notes Sonia Gomez, are we good?

We are good. I'm so happy to be here with you, Mark and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to speak with you and your students here. I think what you're doing is absolutely incredible and I can't wait for further collaborations and money making life changing opportunities.

Same here. Same here. I want to thank the listeners and remind you the only way, the only way I'm gonna get Sony Gomez to come back is if you do us three little favors. Follow Rate Review the podcast. She's gonna look at the reviews and so it want to see are they growing her time to be valuable. So do it selfishly for yourself and as a thank you, I'm gonna send you a signed copy of Dirt Rich for free. So please do it Anyways. If you want to learn more about passive income and land investing, just go to thelandgeek.com training Sonia Gomez, are you ready to do this?

I'm ready to do this.

One, two, three, let freedom ring.

Let freedom.

She's like, way to put me on the spot, Mark.

Way to put me on the spot. Wait, let's do it again. What's the words? And let's make it a power power play.

All right. Let Freedom ring. 1, 2, 3. Let Freedom Freedom ring Ring. Awesome. Thanks everybody.

Thanks guys.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. Are you ready to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents? Schedule a free consultation@thelandgeek.com forward slash training. Let freedom ring.