Tag: organic

Justin Bruch – Organic out-earn conventional, how do we transition more farms and farmers?

A conversation with Justin Bruch, Cofounder-President & CEO of Clear Frontier, born and raised 5th generation Iowa farmer.  He has actively farmed on 4 continents and has spent his entire career working in agriculture across North America (USA/Canada), South America, Europe, and Africa.  

Organic makes more money. This is a financial decision first. This doesn’t mean the whole world should go organic tomorrow. It’s refreshing, right, to hear somebody say that out loud. Of course, it’s context-specific: we’re talking about the Midwest in the US, corn, soy, and specialty crops. But a fund that has been operating for the last six years clearly shows it makes more financial sense to farm organically. Not saying it’s easy, you have a lot of things to manage: crop rotation, pest management, weed pressure, manure, and all of that. But it does make more money.

So now the question becomes: how do we get more farms and farmers to transition? What are the financial models? What are the investment models to unlock this transition at scale? Not too fast—organic scale obviously, but still at scale.
That’s what we discuss today with one of the leaders in the space.

Soil Builders, saving harvests with small holders farmers and connecting local farms to city folk in the UK

In this episode we hear from Wolfgang Mittmann, founder and CEO of Savings Grains, how they are helping smallholder farmers save their harvests, fulfil their potential, and make sure that no good food goes to waste. Also Pete Russell shares more about his company, Ooooby, a social enterprise that connects local farmers to city folk through an organic fruit and veg box subscription service.

Paul McMahon on building a 250M climate positive portfolio of tree crops in Europe

A check in interview with Paul McMahon, co-founder of SLM Partners, to discuss their current focus and investment strategies in Australia, USA, and Europe. 

Shameek Chakravarty, how zero budget natural farming is taking off in India

Shameek Chakravarty is the cofounder of Farmizen, a company based in Bangalore, India, on which everyone can rent mini-plots of farmland close to the city.

Phil Graves on how Patagonia is investing its $75 million fund into regenerative agriculture

Why regenerative ORGANIC certification is key for the future of agriculture? The answer in the interview with Phil Graves, head of Patagonia’s venture fund Tin Shed Ventures.

Brandon Welch, Perennial fund, investing and profit sharing to get farmers to organic and beyond

Transition finance is key to help many more farmers and growers start the transition to organic and regenerative. The Perennial Fund is going to experiment with a new concept!

Scaling organic regenerative dairy and organic kiwis in New Zealand with Geoff Burke

An interview with Geoff Burke, co-founder of Agro-Ecological, a New Zealand based impact investment manager and advisory firm focused on farmland, on how to increase the impact investing in regenerative agriculture in New Zealand.

Shameek Chakravarty, left Amazon to start a real life FarmVille in rural India

Shameek Chakravarty is the cofounder of Farmizen based in Bangalore India, on Farmizen everyone can rent mini-plots of farmland close to the city.

Osvaldo de Falco, connecting Italian organic fruit farmers directly to consumers

How do we pay a fair price to our farmers? If not they can’t take care of our land. An interview with Osvaldo de Falco, co-founder of Biorfarm, a platform which connects Italian organic fruit farmers directly to the end customers, while paying the farmers a fair price.

Liz Carlisle, how lentils changed a region and started an organic company 30 years ago

An interview with Liz Carlisle, writer of the Lentil Underground, the amazing story about how five farmers created one of the first organic companies in the US.