Communities That Feed Themselves: Building Sustainable Real Estate With Dail Croome

00:00-00:42 Dail A. Croome
Should we be making a profit from food? Like, if I’m going to build a sophisticated and dynamic financial model.

Can it actually be built around food? And my answer, my conclusion, based on the information I have today, but I think curiosity is a superpower. So I’m always curious to hear new information. My conclusion is that it, it deserves its own economy, the farming and the food, but we take all the pressure off it. And as long as it breaks even.

I don’t need to make a profit from that.

02:14 Scott Bursey
Welcome back to the *Real Estate Pros* podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. And today, pros, we’re delighted to be joined by Dail Croome, a pioneer in sustainable community development since 2008, and is the president and CEO of iCLM Global. Dail is truly redefining the landscape by blending traditional real estate development concepts with decentralized food production and local economic systems. Pros, today you can expect to learn how to break away from standard development models and integrate genuine sustainability into projects that actually perform at scale. Dail, welcome to the show.

02:59 Dail A. Croome
Thanks for having me.

03:00 Scott Bursey
It is awesome having you here, my friend. And to help our pros get up to speed, please give us the front-row seat and how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

03:14 Dail A. Croome
Well, I did everything that, that society told me I should do. I went to university in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Joined the oil business, had a family, worked my way up to president, vice president of several different companies in the oil business in Calgary, Canada. And then, after a couple of life events – a hundred-year flood, a divorce, those things happen – there was an opportunity to play some music with my sons. So we became full-time touring musicians for 10 years, made a bunch of albums, did a couple of big shows, like in Vegas, T-Mobile Arena for Bon Jovi and The Doobie Brothers, and had a, had a blast doing that. And then, so the question – it was a really fun question, actually – it was, what do I do when I’ve checked all these wonderful boxes? Like, I’m fifty-whatever. I just turned fifty-nine today. Actually, it’s my birthday. But when I was fifty-five or whatever, it’s like, I’ve checked so many awesome box, boxes. I’ve lived so many lives. What’s really important? And it was, how do I improve the food model for my grandkids and my grandkids’ grandkids? So, thinking seven generations ahead, what service can I provide? And, and it really came down to, I wanted to change the food model and the relationship that we have with food, because I think that’s the root problem for a lot of people, whether it’s health or mental health or whatever. But it’s not such a simple thing, is it? Like, to, to change the food model, I needed to change economic models, real estate models, business models, all of that kind of stuff. So it took way longer because we live in such a complex world now. Everything is so integrated. Like, most of our products even come from, like, three or four or even five different continents and different suppliers. So it became something that it is now, which is Integrated Cooperative Living Models, where we integrate food as infrastructure and we think about human thriving in a five-dimensional way, and think about how, how are people supposed to live together and cooperate and be tolerant of each other and pull in the same direction so that everybody becomes passionately participating stakeholders in common intentions and goals. And, and, and so it’s been a wonderful exercise, but it, it was a lot more complex than I thought it was going to be when I first started it. But when you’re halfway, whether you turn around or whether you keep going, it’s the same distance to the finish line, right? So, lots of those moments.

07:00 Scott Bursey
That’s incredible, Dail. Thanks for highlighting that. It’s a vision that clearly has legs. And happy birthday. What really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to seamlessly integrate food security and local economic systems directly into your real estate developments, creating truly self-sustaining communities. Continuing on that path. Curious to know, Dail.

07:08 Dail A. Croome
Thank you.

07:27 Scott Bursey
How do you communicate the value of sustainable development to investors who are traditionally focused strictly on quick ROI?

07:36 Dail A. Croome
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s a great question. This is part of the economic engine model that I’ve created, too, is we need fluid and dynamic businesses, multiple revenue streams. All of those things work together so that we can actually compete for capital. That bring to – it bring to light a few parts of this, which is one of them, the most obvious one, is:

08:04 Dail A. Croome
Should we be making a profit from food? Like, if I’m going to build a sophisticated and dynamic financial model.

Can it actually be built around food? And my answer, my conclusion, based on the information I have today, but I think curiosity is a superpower. So I’m always curious to hear new information. My conclusion is that it, it deserves its own economy, the farming and the food, but we take all the pressure off it. And as long as it breaks even.

I don’t need to make a profit from that.

08:46 Dail A. Croome
I need to build a more dynamic financial system, economic system, to have other revenue streams instead of putting all that pressure on food, because that’s really what corrupts the process and the food and everything, because they’re trying to maximize profit from food. And I just don’t think we should be doing that. I think we need to be smarter, expand the economic engine into different, more interdependent revenue streams and products and services. Everything from home building to supplements to, you know, there’s, there’s so many other things. And even seniors housing is a really awesome way to integrate this into. And just the funny thing is, like, I’ve just been studying intentional communities forever, and I’ve even seen comments like, “So we built this community. We got a bunch of people living here. We’re dancing around the fire. We have houses and everything like that. How do you make money with this thing?” And it’s like, well, first of all, it shouldn’t be an afterthought. And second of all, we need imagination and creativity to think far beyond events and food. Like, you’re not going to make a living from these things and create the necessary return on capital so you can actually attract capital unless you have this dynamic and fluid economic engine that thinks far beyond farm stands and spiritual events, like, far beyond that. We need to bring a new level of sophistication to that.

10:15 Scott Bursey
We’d love to hear your thoughts on what is the biggest friction point you face when trying to scale these community models in traditional, rigid zoning environments.

11:00 Dail A. Croome
Huh, that’s a good question. And first of all, go to the states and the, and the districts that allow this. So I’m going to Polk County, Texas, because I can’t do what I want here in Bend, Oregon. And so I’m not going to California. I’m not going to Washington. I’m not going to those states. There’s about eight or nine states that we’ve identified that are very friendly as far as restrictions go. I’m not a fan of any form of government whatsoever. So anytime I can sort of go around and/or work with friendly governments, that makes me, that makes me really happy. So this is why we’re going to Texas, for exactly what you just said. There’s too many districts, too many counties, too many states that are far overreaching, and they’re stopping progress.

11:59 Scott Bursey
It’s fascinating to consider, but in terms of decentralized food production, where do you see the biggest opportunity right now for RE developers to increase their overall asset value?

12:14 Dail A. Croome
It, it takes a little bit of audacity, I suppose, to think, what if we created a new asset class called essential resource-producing land, and we actually developed our own formula for calculating that? And, and we’ve calculated a formula, me and s-some colleagues, on currency that doesn’t have scarcity in the value. So I, I, I believe that we can do this pretty easily, but that’s, that’s how we’re going to do it, is, and as food and water and power become more and more scarce and more and more centralized, it’s going to be more and more value. This is going to create, create a value increase in essential resource-producing land. So that’s how we plan on doing that.

13:11 Scott Bursey
Dail, is there a specific system or crop integration you found to be the most effective plug-and-play solution?

13:21 Dail A. Croome
As far as food and, and vegetation and stuff, it, it’s, it’s very region-specific. And so I believe that, too. This is part of the just wanting people, mm, especially my family, to have a greater connection to their food, because I actually believe that we should only be eating food when it’s in season, which depends on where you are. And, and so I don’t think we should be importing food. Like, we talk about all these green things, you know, CO2 and all this kind of stuff, but the way we’re transporting food all over the world is absolutely unnecessary. We should be eating local food supply when it’s in season, and we should have greater connection to the soil in which it’s grown and the food that we’re actually eating. So there’s a lot in that question. But really, I think a lot of the problems that we have in society right now stem from us not being near as healthy, overall healthy, than we could be, and that starts with our food.

14:35 Scott Bursey
Wondering about the external, the macro environment, if you will, what do you see as the biggest threat to sustainable development success over, let’s say, the next five years?

14:48 Dail A. Croome
Well, I think you already mentioned it, which is government overreach. And, and so more and more government agencies, including NGOs, are going to start putting pressure on not allowing what we want to do, taxing more in the things that think outside the box. And some of the biggest PE firms and even other countries buying up a lot of the rural land and driving up prices and, and all that kind of stuff. So, but I think it’s all kind of government-related. Those are the biggest things. And then secondary to that would just be people’s imagination. So right now, society’s been taught to reject anything outside of the narrative and the rhetoric that we’re fed all day, every day on the television. I, I really need to challenge people to have greater curiosity, greater creativity, greater imagination.

16:30 Scott Bursey
How are you actively protecting your current projects against those specific shifts?

16:39 Dail A. Croome
What’s fun about this is a couple of conclusions that I’ve made, is there is no better energy than cooperation. Period. When you get a hundred or a thousand or a million people pulling in the same direction, you create an energy – one plus one equals greater than two – that we can’t even imagine, and we’ve never really seen it to scale. And the second part of that, and this is the book, *The Cooperation Movement*, is what happens when we maximize cooperation and we do everything in an open-source and transparent environment. This is a game changer. This is a cheat code. Again, we’re just going to see the effects of this, but everything that we do will be open source and completely transparent. You’ll see every value exchange model. You see what everybody makes. You see where every penny goes. I think it’s the only way to keep people honest going forward. And I also believe, and this is going to be another formula, probably, the most scarce in the world right now is trust. No one trusts anyone these days. Like, the television and the narrative has created enemies out of everybody. But we want to be efficient. We want to move at the speed of trust. The only way to do that is make everything transparent.

18:16 Scott Bursey
Along those lines, what does your professional network look like right now, Dail?

18:22 Dail A. Croome
That’s funny question, actually, because when I was in the oil business, that was my strength. I mean, most of the vice president-president jobs I got were friends who were with another company or people I played hockey with or whatever. Like, but what I underestimated was when I left and was a touring musician and having a great time, I didn’t think about the consequences of me disappearing for 10 years. And that whole network went away. Like, it’s gone. I’m irrelevant in that old network, which is fine because I’m not going back there. So this new network, especially over the three years, I’ve made some great strides within the regenerative agriculture space, the real estate space. The problem is that I’m not really happy with how anyone’s doing it, and, and how we’re doing it is so unique that I’m, we’re still working on that networking thing. And I think the only way is going to be by doing it. And then there’s always this open invitation: Come and be a passionately participating stakeholder. There’s no corporate structure or hierarchy the way the old paradigm does anything. And I think we can have an infinite number of value exchange models because of technology, the way it is today, blockchain technology. We can have smart contracts for every single personal relationship. And nobody needs to show up in this prescribed way. Just bring value. And if everyone creates a little bit more value than they take, then you have perpetual energy.

20:18 Scott Bursey
Dail, let’s dig into your internal operations. How do you align local economic systems within the development to ensure long-term community health?

20:28 Dail A. Croome
That’s a, that’s a really complex question and answer. I mean, because there’s so many things that, that contribute to our health. So I believe it starts with connection to our food, which I don’t think we’re talking about near as much as we should be. Connection to each other, multiple generations living together instead of siloing seniors housing and affordable housing. It’s, when everybody’s connected like that, that adds to, to human thriving and learning and, and just dynamic energy, really. And then everybody sharing in the greater purpose and the greater meaning of the community. So the community is set up so that everybody is a passionate participating stakeholder. And when one wins, everybody wins. When the community wins, everybody wins. And so pulling in the same direction like that. When we’re talking about health, it’s not just physical health. It’s all, all of those things that we need out of community. I mean, there’s so many documents that you can read about the Dunbar number, which is human thriving happens at around 150. I, I think one of the specific reasons for that is that anonymity creates a lack of accountability. And when there’s a lack of accountability, then the less-than-credible people and high-integrity people start to be able to do whatever they want to do. So the, again, this health question is a big question, isn’t it? I mean, we’re not just talking about exercise, and so we’re talking about physical health, community health, mental health, nervous system health, all of that. It, I do believe that it all revolve, revolves around connection, though.

22:34 Scott Bursey
Love that approach. Thank you for breaking that down for the pros. Do you see this as a replica blueprint that any developer can adopt, or is it highly specific to your model?

22:45 Dail A. Croome
So it, it’s an interesting one, right? Because we’ve, we’ve learned over the years with our education and with the rhetoric and the narratives and that, that we have to be careful of competition. But I’ve decided, with maximum cooperation models and radical transparency, the two core values of everything we do in all of the businesses, that we wouldn’t be ever in that scarcity mindset of worrying about someone stealing your idea or anything like that. But first of all, this is a first of market, first to market. Second of all, we are going to give more effort and energy to the storytelling part of this than anybody ever has. And, and I think the world’s a better place if all of a sudden a hundred companies saw that what we were doing and said, “Let’s copy them.” I think that’s a good thing for the world. So I’m not worried about competition at all. In fact, I’d encourage everybody to copy us as much as we can, or to learn from each other as much as we can.

23:56 Scott Bursey
Thanks for that insight. And Dail, you have given us a tremendous amount of insight today, but is there any additional final thoughts you could leave with our pros?

24:06 Dail A. Croome
I, I think that, again, the two core values of maximum cooperation and radical transparency, we take a lot of the opportunity for corruption away. I think accountability is a self-determined thing, which comes from personal growth and taking your life seriously like that, and asking, how are you going to show up for your micro, macro, and global communities? So that’s your family and the world. And I think when we stay connected to be able to serve like that, then I, I think that people are going to find this greater connection to everything that they’re involved with. And I think it is going to make a big difference, from profitability to recruitability. To new ideas always emerging from these kind of conversations, and it keeps us curious. So I, I don’t want to live in the space of being right. And I definitely don’t want to defend my position. What we’re presenting here is a new paradigm opportunity. I think the world’s in a good position to kind of need it. And the invitation is, I, I’m kind of making this up. You know, I’m spend a lot of time writing the book and putting these models in place. But I also want to invite everybody who wants to come along to be part of the process, which is also the learning process. Like, if I do something wrong, wouldn’t it be cool, Scott, if we would, we would go, mm, this is why we made the decision. Everything’s transparent and open source. Here’s all the reasons why we made the decision. What we failed to do was see these two other parameters or metrics that we couldn’t see or that changed. And we now have to make a better decision based on this new information. I, I, to, to challenge business leaders to stop trying to be perfect or to stop never being wrong. We don’t want to present ourselves like that anymore. The truth is the truth. Let’s get back to the truth. And let’s lead by example. Like, we’re human, we’re flawed, it’s going to come out, but we have great intentions, and everything we do is transparent so that, if it’s right or wrong, everyone’s going to see the whys and the context in which we make decisions. I think it takes a little pressure off, too.

26:40 Scott Bursey
That’s powerful. That’s such powerful perspective. And Dail, for those of our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane, or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to, to reach you?

26:54 Dail A. Croome
iCLMGlobal.com has a contact us page. And I encourage this perpetual invitation for anybody who has a minimum level of consciousness. So that means there’s a deeper truth that they’re aware of beyond what’s being presented on the television, let’s say. And, to, everybody’s invited to bring value, and all value will be reciprocated. This is the beautiful thing. I’ll just give you an example. In the corporate world, when we onboard someone new, we get them to sign a non-compete, non-disclosure agreement that says, while I’m an employee, if I come up with any great ideas, they’re not mine, they’re the company’s. And I think, do you think we can be better than that? Like, is it not one of the dumbest things you ever heard in your life? You’re just squashing any energy that someone has to contribute greater than whatever, right? And, and so the opposite would be, it doesn’t matter if you’re the janitor or the cook or the whatever, if you save us a million dollars or you make us a million dollars, that creates a value exchange model that everybody’s going to see how that reciprocation works. It’s just, I just don’t want to play this silly old-fashioned game anymore. There’s so many things that don’t make sense anymore. Like, even I think the suggestion box is still in play. It’s like, really? Is this really how we’re running corporations these days? Why wouldn’t you encourage everybody to be engaged and be passionately participating so much that they’re always thinking about being more efficient or saving money or making money or anything like that that makes the whole thing bigger? But that invitation doesn’t exist. It’s actually the opposite in the old-paradigm corporate world. So this is not just about building a new business. This is about building a new human way of doing business that invites everybody to contribute value.

29:01 Scott Bursey
Dail, thank you for joining us today on the *Real Estate Pros* podcast.

29:05 Dail A. Croome
Thanks for having me.

29:06 Scott Bursey
It’s been a pleasure. And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be filling your tanks with the lineup of elite guest, just like Dail Croome, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.