Paul was raised on his family’s dairy farms, first in the Netherlands, then in Alberta—farms that were at the forefront of the grass-based dairy movement. His love of mathematics and science led him to study engineering at the University of Alberta. After volunteering near the Zambia-Malawi border with Engineers Without Borders for four years, he returned to Canada to work in Canadian food policy and later to start his own farm to develop and showcase the ability of alternative models of agriculture to produce food for people in a way that regenerates soil and rejuvenates ecosystems while being economically viable with the aim of providing a different model on which to base agricultural development.