A conversation with Kevin Wolz, CEO of Canopy Farm Management and former founder of the Savanna Institute. Canopy provides tree planting and management services to farmers and landowners in the US Midwest. They establish perennial crops, timber plantings, conservation practices, and integrated agroforestry systems.
We have been talking about agroforestry systems and investing before (see link at the bottom of this page!): trees were the answer to whatever your question was. But how do you start an agroforestry industry right in the middle of the belly of the beast, the American Midwest, where corn and soy are everywhere, leases are 1 to 3 years, and there are no trees as far as the eye can see? And especially here, trees are needed, not as magical carbon sequestration tools but as climate adaptation, against erosion, wind breaks, to protect animals and crops, nutrient leaking into streams, and, of course, to produce a lot of food integrated into the fields. What does it take to build an agroforestry industry here? What about finance, equipment, planting, seedlings, tree nursery, harvesting, markets, and much more?
LISTEN TO THE CONVERSATION ON:
WE NEED WAY MORE PERENNIAL CROPS (TREES)
We need agroforestry solutions to address both climate change mitigation and adaptation:
”I think that climate adaptation drive is really what’s going to fuel farmers and landowners to get perennial crops and trees in the ground, even though, often from a top down, from a funder or institutional level, we’re mostly thinking about climate change mitigation, sequestering carbon, and preventing future climate change, but from the bottom up, everyone’s thinking about adaptation. How do we deal with the climate change that’s already here? And that, I think, is what’s going to really drive things going forward? We have to really be aware of that and make sure that the solutions we’re providing people can do adaptation too, not just mitigation, and that’s where trees, I think, really shine, because they can, yes, sequester carbon, and that’s great. That may be why I’m here. But they can also protect crops. Wind breaks protect crops. They increase yields, especially in extreme weather events. Riparian buffers protect water and keep nutrients on farms. So, all these adaptation- type things are also really well done by trees, and that may be what drives their adoption and then, oh, by the way, the sequester carbon too.” Kevin Wolz
WHY THIS IS ESPECIALLY NEEDED IN THE US MIDWEST, WHICH IS MONOCULTURE SOY AND CORN LAND WITHOUT ANY TREES
Canopy provides tree planting and management services for farmers and landowners in the Midwest, focusing on perennial crops, conservation practices, and integrated agroforestry systems.
”I went to a school where you could look on the horizon and you couldn’t see a tree or a hill as far as the eye can see. So, it’s just corn and soybeans. And when I arrived in that landscape, I was like, oh, there’s nothing to restore here. But what do we do? And so, I really went down this journey trying to figure out how to marry agriculture and restoration, and what are the ways that we can integrate those two things together? How can we achieve both ecological goals and productivity or revenue goals? And yeah, that was kind of a hard question, but then eventually led myself to trees and agroforestry.” Kevin Wolz
WHY KEVIN SET UP A FOR-PROFIT SPIN-OFF OUT OF THE SAVANNA INSTITUTE
For years, they were planting trees on a small scale, experimenting with basic tools and minimal resources. Canopy comes in—to simplify agroforestry for farmers and landowners, making tree planting as easy and accessible as possible.
”I had been kind of planting trees and doing some of this on the side in parallel to the Savanna Institute for a long time, but it was really the kind of mom-and-pop or duct tape and zip ties version of Canopy, very bare bones, trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t. How do we make this happen at scale, but no funding, just kind of driving around, doing the best we could? But eventually, at the Savanna Institute, we learned, and we kind of realized that really, that capacity really was a major bottleneck.’’ Kevin Wolz
WHY ON THE GROUND SUPPORT TO GET TREES PROPERLY IN THE GROUND IS SO IMPORTANT
Education and research are vital, but without the practical ability to plant and maintain trees, progress stalls.
”We have full research and education departments. We’re doing everything from tree breeding on the R&D side all the way to education of farmers, landowners, and investors, and then even doing technical assistance. So, when a farmer does come to us and says, I really want to do this, I need some help. We can actually provide one-on-one support to make them actually get to the finish line and put trees in the ground.” Kevin Wolz
”We can educate people all day long. We can have the best research data. We can even throw money at people and give them all these incentives. But if there’s no capacity or knowledge about how to actually plant trees, or capacity to plant them and maintain them, and you have that equipment and know how, you don’t have anything; if you can’t actually execute, you don’t have anything. […] So that’s what Canopy is really trying to do: be the easy button for agroforestry and tree crops here; make it that easy for farmers and landowners.” Kevin Wolz
”That execution capacity, again, is really what investors want to see if they’re investing in tree crops. It’s what the government wants to see if they’re putting subsidies towards all these different things, and having that execution partner is really critical to letting investment flow into this space. Before we launched Canopy, we knew that there were other bottlenecks about getting investment dollars to flow in, investment vehicles, and all that. But if you don’t have the execution partner, no one’s going to actually put money in, and it’s really important to have a partner like that on the ground that has the expertise and can adapt to the unknowns that constantly come into agriculture. You know, last year was the driest year on record in some of our service areas. This year was the wettest year. This is just the norm. Now we have to be able to adapt to that, and having a really solid execution partner on the ground is critical to making any of these investments actually less risky and feasible.” Kevin Wolz
OTHER POINTS DISCUSSED
Koen and Kevin also talked about:
- What we need to build an agroforestry industry in the US Midwest
- Innovations in tree planting and maintenance
- Harvesting and market challenges in agroforestry
- Financing and investing in agroforestry
LINKS:
LINKED INTERVIEWS:
- Brett Hundley – From Tyson Foods equity analyst to financing millions of trees
- Jonas Steinfeld – The many shades of green of agroforestry systems
- Jan-Gisbert Schultze – How a VC investor got bitten by the regeneration bug and went via Joel Salatin, Gabe Brown and Ernst Gotsch deep into syntropic agroforestry
- Sven Verwiel – How to unlock the potential of syntropic agroforestry in East Africa
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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.