Transition finance – Investing in regenerative agriculture

Laimonas Noreika – From FinTech to Farms: bridging the €60B loan gap for Europe’s small farms

25th March 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Laimonas Noreika, founder of HeavyFinance, about providing loans to farmers, bringing innovation to the traditionally stagnant agri-loan sector. Regen ag is more profitable—Laimonas has the data to prove it and is putting serious money to work to scale regen across Eastern Europe.

Some numbers: over €70M loaned to farmers and over 13,000 individual investors have invested through them. But the gap is much bigger—over €60B a year—which means we need institutional investors. Some, like the European Investment Fund, have invested through Heavy Finance. And why aren’t banks stepping in? Because small farmers don’t fit their criteria well. So, we need new fintech solutions and scale. This could be quite a standard fintech play in agriculture if it weren’t for a super clear focus on regenerative practices. Why? Because it’s more profitable and thus makes farmers better lenders.

And yes, we’re also talking about carbon credits—Laimonas is placing big bets in that space, and we explore why and how.

Matt Schmitt – How to make regenerative food and agriculture bankable

11th February 2025 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Matt Schmitt, founder of Structure Climate, about how to get institutional investors invest in the regenerative food and agriculture transitions. These are big terms we use regularly, but what do they actually mean and, more importantly, how do we get there? How do we get novel climate technologies- like biochar machinery, chestnut agroforestry systems, biofertilizer plants, or weeding robots- bankable? Novel technologies often start as luxury goods with a clear customer demand, even if they don’t yet have many existing transactions, just very clear customer interest.
How do we make these technologies investable, or at least recognisable, by major financial institutions (like the big, “boring” banks, insurance companies, and pension funds). We need billions and trillions to flow to the soil. So, how do we get these asset managers over time to start financing this seriously, in the same way they do solar projects or sustainable real estate?

How does a capital stack for a novel technology look like, and how do we financially engineer it with creativity—the good kind, not the kind that caused financial crises in the past decades? To roll these technologies out across farms and landscapes, we need scalable solutions. While commodification in food and agriculture has a bad reputation, turning enabling technologies into bankable commodities can be a good thing. It helps farmers adopt systems that hold more complexity and resilience on their land.

What we learned in 2024 about ecocide, land access crisis, regenerative education, return of inspiration, chefs, machinery and brands driving change

27th December 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

As we wrap up 2024, we reflect on a year that brought hope but also served as a wake-up call. With skyrocketing temperatures, droughts, fires, and floods, the challenges have been immense. But we were very lucky that we—both online and offline— had the chance to come together with many of the pioneers and builders in regenerative agriculture and food. At the same time, we were reminded that we, as part of nature, are at war with extractive forces.

Our takeaways on ambitious entrepreneurs, the many elephants in the room, role and legacy of farmers, innovation in water cycle restoration, money money money, building new industries. Many deep dives in soil health, starting with chefs, consumer brands driving change and educating consumers, walking the land with regenerative farmers, legends, role of AI and tools. And, finally, some milestones and highlights.

Laura Ortiz Montemayor – Ecology without social justice is just gardening

10th December 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Laura Ortiz Montemayor, Chief Purpose Officer and co-founder of SVX Mexico, and managing partner at Regenera Ventures Fund, covering the global nature of regeneration exploring what has been happening in Mexico and the rest of the Spanish-speaking countries in LATAM. They hold the key to many of our biodiversity challenges, and many tropical or subtropical commodities are farmed there. What has Laura learnt since the last time we spoke three years ago? Why did she decide to start a $20 million fund focused on rural Mexico and the regenerative transition?

Inspired by thinkers like John Fullerton and Carol Sanford, Laura champions soil health and living systems thinking, reframing biodiversity as a critical asset rather than a charity case and critiques profit-driven economic models that overlook natural and social resources, advocating for a shift towards valuing ecosystems’ inherent richness. Highlighting Latin America’s role in climate resilience, we discuss indigenous wisdom, regional nuances, and innovative finance strategies blending social justice with ecology. As plans emerge for a second fund in Mexico and Colombia, Laura calls for bold investment in nature-based solutions to rejuvenate food systems and biodiversity.

Edd Lees – After 23 years in finance, a new career full of life, soil, bread and a famous DJ

22nd October 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

What happens when a seasoned finance professional trades his suit for soil? In a conversation with Edd Lees, co-founder of WildFarmed, we explore what it’s like to help create one of the most renowned brands in regenerative agriculture. Inspired by his friend Andy Cato, Edd, the financial mind behind WildFarmed, embarked on a mission to revolutionize food systems, beginning with a bakery in southern France. Today, they work with over 100 farmers across 10,000 hectares in the UK, supplying regenerative flour to some of London’s best bakeries.

We explore Edd’s transition from 23 years in finance, his pragmatic approach to changing the food system (avoiding dogmatism), and his strategies for scaling the business. This includes expanding beyond their core market of artisanal bakers and finding ways to introduce their products to supermarkets. For WildFarmed, it’s all about scaling up, impacting as many hectares as possible- ultimately at a landscape level- while guiding farms on their regenerative journey, one step at a time, all while maintaining financial sustainability.

Frederik Lean Hansen – Small individual farms are probably not the future of farming in Europe

17th September 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A wide-ranging conversation with Frederik Lean Hansen, a regenerative farm business consultant who spent a year traveling and working on 12 farms alongside regenerative farmers across Europe. He is currently active as a Farm Finance genitor and is now starting his own silvopastured poultry enterprise on his parents’ farm in Denmark. We discuss topics such as finance, CapEx, OpEx, income statements, and cash flow, as well as the myth of small-scale farming and whether economies of scale truly matter. Fred shares insights on how farmers can organize together to access better markets, run more financially successful businesses, and improve their quality of life. We also delve into the importance of inner work, which is often neglected in our sector—or any sector, for that matter.

Mark Lewis – After putting half of their $50M fund to work in regen, what has one of the leading VCs in the world learned?

23rd August 2024 koenvanseijen 2 Comments

A check-in interview with Mark Lewis, managing partner at Trailhead Capital, about the inevitability of the “regenerative revolution” and the potential for significant financial and non-financial returns in this space. What does putting almost half of your $50 million VC fund to work in businesses active in the regen space in North America, taught Mark about the space and what has changed since 2021, and what big opportunities haven’t we collectively invested in? What is missing and what is needed? And we discuss why Mark is no longer hunting for unicorns but is still very positive about the potential for financial returns in the regenerative food and agriculture space.

Willem Ferwerda – Kickstarted the restoration industry with Commonland 11 years ago, now finally big money shows interest, but we need billions

13th August 2024 koenvanseijen 2 Comments

A conversation with Willem Ferwerda, one of the founders of the regeneration space, which barely existed 11 years ago when he started Commonland. How and why is it so fundamental to take a landscape view and get all the stakeholders to look at a map- yes, a physically printed large map- together? Because chances are they never have done that. The farmers, the real estate developers, the nature conversation professionals, the local politicians spent most of their time in their own silos and if they talk to each other often it isn’t very friendly.

How do you get them to develop a shared vision of what they want their landscape to look like in 20 or 30 years? How do you trigger that kind of inspiration? Nobody likes to live in a dying landscape where biodiversity has left, where people have left or are leaving, schools are closing, and shops as well.

We are at the beginning of what was barely a space 11 years ago, of course holistic landscape management existed in indigenous circles and ecology silos, but barely outside of that. And now we see the financial space starting to dip its toe into this and we will need them, as we talk billions of real green infrastructures, not hard infrastructure made of concrete, but soft, healthy spongy soils, thriving ecosystems, beneficial keystone species including people coming back to the countryside and managing landscapes holistically.

Maarten van Dam – How to fund the transition of the first pioneers in regenerative agriculture

16th July 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Maarten van Dam, founder of Schevichoven Regenerative farm, about numbers when transitioning from conventional to regenerative agriculture and keeping records on inputs, prices, and machinery. Maarten is changing that and keeping a lot of records of their pioneering farm transitioning from a mono dairy farm to a diverse agroforestry system.

Remember the Dutch farming protests? What do we miss when we talk about the transition of conventional? We miss numbers numbers numbers. Many of the pioneers- rightfully so- didn’t keep good records, on inputs, prices, machinery and, of course, hours. Nobody tracks hours in agriculture. What does it cost per hectare, and what off-take do you need? With a minimum of 50K euro per hectare in the Netherlands, you can transition in about 7 years to a diverse perennial agroforestry system, only counting wholesale prices, counting all your hours, and paying a fair wage. Of course, at Schevichoven they are only in year 4, so all of that has to be proven. But what does it mean for the rest of the 50.000 farmers in the Netherlands? What are the types of regen systems they can apply? We need about 150 billion to transition them. It sounds like a lot, but is doable.

Henk Mooiweer – If you can get paid now by Nestlé, Shell and Microsoft to change grazing practices, why wait?

1st July 2024 koenvanseijen 0 Comments

A conversation with Henk Mooiweer, co-founder of Grassroots Carbon, about the current state of carbon markets, high quality soil carbon removal credits, how this company manage to sell 5 million dollars’ worth of them, and where the market is going. Why did Nestlé, Microsoft and Shell start buying? Why does Henk argue that now is the time to sign up as a rancher and not wait to sell your carbon later? Where is the science in all this regen grazing? What about methane? And why is this actually not about carbon?

Category: Transition finance