Robin Saluoks and Kristjan Luha on how to start paying 1500 grain farmers across 1M hectares for soil carbon

A check in interview with Robin Saluoks and Kristjan Luha, co- founders of eAgronom, a platform that enables farmers to manage and oversee their entire farm, employees, and fields. We discussed their current fundraising for their series A.

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We discussed how carbon payments can be a transition mechanism, how to ensure permanence of soil carbon and the importance of selling low carbon or carbon negative crops. eAgronom works with 1,500 grain farmers across one million hectares in Central and Eastern Europe and how they are starting to pay farmers for the carbon they capture.
We also catch up on their progress following their October 2020 episode with us about how to partner with farmers and technology.

What is eAgronom?

eAgronom is the number one farm management software in Central and Eastern Europe. They currently have one and a half thousand farms managed across a million hectares of greenland. The main markets of eAgronom are Poland, Estonia, Latvia, as well as some clients in Romania and Czech Republic.

“What makes eAgronom special is that farmers are benefiting from our carbon program and get paid for capturing carbon from the atmosphere into the soil.” – Robin Saluoks

Carbon Payments As A Transition Mechanism

eAgronom’s main goal is to create an extra source of revenue for farmers. Global awareness is raising on climate change issues and on how farming is a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon payments can be a transition mechanism that can enable sustainable practices in the future for farmers.

“Those farmers who do already good can benefit from getting higher price for their grain and other benefits as well. And those farmers who are in the beginning of this journey, of going climate positive, they can choose if they want to get a higher price for their grain or sell their credits.” – Robin Saluoks

Ensure Permanence of Soil Carbon

The permanence of soil carbon will significantly contribute to a greater global focus on agricultural soils. Because of this he believes that farmers need to continue sustainable practices.

“Farmers will be able to benefit from these sustainably farmed options, where companies will have demands to purchase their crops and reward them for the good practices, especially 10 years from now.” – Kristjan Luha

Selling Carbon Negative Crops

eAgronom is working with large companies in Estonia who want to offset their remaining emissions. They want to help farmers through the carbon selling project and help them contribute to slowing down climate change and removing carbon from the circulation, getting it back into the soil and keeping it there.

“We are targeting a couple hundred farms and over a hundred thousand hectares of erratic growing land in this broader group as we go now.” – Kristjan Luha

Other Important Points Discussed

Koen, Robin, and Kristjan discussed these points in this episode:

What is the capture potential of eAgronom, per hectare?
What Robin and Kristjan see is the interest from the investor world in topics of soil carbon and agriculture?
What is eAgronom looking forward to now

To know more about Robin Saluoks, Kristjan Luha and eAgronom, download and listen to this episode.

Bio:

Robin Saluoks and Kristjan Luha are founders of eAgronom. Founded by a son of a farmer and an experienced software developer, eAgronom provides farmers with a set of convenient and intuitive digital tools that significantly simplify their daily and seasonal farm management. In October this year, the company raised a seed investment round of EUR 1M total from Black Pearls VC, TMT Investments, Trind Ventures, United Angels VC and others.

Robin Saluoks is the founder and CEO of eAgronom and the son of a successful farmer. He has public speaking experience at over 100 events as well as experience in fundamental analysis of publicly traded companies. He is the Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 and the AmCham EU Entrepreneur of the Year 2019.

Kristjan Luha is the founder and VP of Strategy & Business Operations of eAgronom. He has two decades of sales and strategic business leadership experience with Nike Inc. He is the Global VP of Football Marketplace, VP FM Nike Russia, and the GM Nike Greece & Cyprus. He has deep experience in developing growth visions and winning strategies for new and existing businesses and markets.