Kevin Egolf is the Chief Financial Officer of Iroquois Valley Farms, a restorative farmland finance company providing land access to organic family farmers, with a focus on the next generation. They raised 50M dollars and helped regenerative farmers access over 10.000 acres of farmland.
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TOPIC OF THIS EPISODE
We talk about democratization of impact investing in regenerative agriculture. Why land security over a long period of time is key to soil health and sustainability (in all aspects) of farms.
We discuss many things: among them why Iroquois focusses on multi generational farming families and exclusively organic production, although many of the farmers they work with go well beyond organic. They are looking for farmers who want to improve agriculture every single year, to increase soil biodiversity, organic is ‘just’ the first step.
Some other insights:
- why they are starting to measure the carbon levels in the soil of the land they own
- their journey into the retail investor space and why it has been so long and why they are now almost ready to launch this!
Kevin:
Once they (red. the farmers they work with) get their organic certification then the opportunities just continue to blossom, because of the markets that become available because of their knowledge growing because of getting exposure to other organic farmers and learning new systems. We want all of our farmers to work on incremental improvements. That was the basic principal of organic (red. when the organic movement started)
Exponential knowledge curve with regen farmers:
When a farmer makes that commitment to organic it is drinking from the fire hose, there is so much to learn so much to do, the deeper you dive you realise the more you can go into the science and the technical aspects. Some of our farmers diving deep into that stuff. Coming up with systems and rotations that work for their geographies.
There seems to be some plateauing after 5-10 years.
To find out more:
iroquoisvalleyfarms.com
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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.
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