Regenerative Agriculture

Regenerative agriculture is a set of practices that restore biodiversity, rebuild soil health, improve crop nutrition, reduce fertilizer dependence, promote responsible animal husbandry, and sequester carbon. Compared to industrial farming, it creates resilient systems that deliver higher yields over time, lower input costs, and healthier food.

The potential for regenerative agriculture to both reduce and avoid greenhouse gas emissions is significant on multiple fronts:

Soil Management

Soil is one of the most effective natural ways to remove CO₂ from the air. The atmosphere holds about 3,300 gigatons of CO₂ (around 900 Gt of carbon), while the top meter of soil stores nearly 2,500 Gt of carbon—about three times more. However, soil degradation has already released large amounts (78 Gt) back into the air.

Regenerative farming methods such as cover crops and crop rotation, protecting and restoring carbon-rich ecosystems such as forests and peatlands, and applied soil treatments such as biochar and rock weathering (adding silicate minerals to soil) significantly increase soil’s capacity to capture and store carbon.

Ground vegetation

Ground vegetation captures carbon by absorbing carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and storing it in leaves, stems, and roots. While soils usually hold more carbon overall, vegetation stores it more quickly in living biomass—often about one-third as much as the soil in the same area. For example, a temperate forest might store around 50–150 tons of carbon per hectare in vegetation compared to 150–300 tons in its soil. Practices like reforestation, agroforestry, and sustainable forestry can boost this storage, making vegetation an important partner to soil in balancing the carbon cycle.

Mycorrhizal networks

Fungal networks, especially mycorrhizal fungi, help lock away carbon by moving sugars from plants into the soil. About 5–20% of the carbon plants capture is passed to these fungi, which store some in their own biomass but send much more into the soil, where it can remain for decades or centuries. In a typical forest, vegetation might hold 50–150 tons of carbon per hectare, soils 150–300 tons, while the fungal network itself holds a smaller share—often just a few tons—but plays an outsized role in moving and stabilizing carbon underground.

Fertilizer emissions

Synthetic fertilizers (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) contribute significantly to agriculture’s emissions and have additional negative health impacts when harmful substances make their way into the soil and groundwater. Regenerative techniques, such as keeping soils continuously covered with living roots and utilizing precision agriculture, reduce fertilizer use, which lowers both costs and associated emissions.

Food waste

Food loss and waste total roughly 1 billion tonnes globally, with economic costs nearing US $1 trillion annually, and account for 8–10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing food waste complements regenerative agriculture by improving system efficiency and helping farmers scale regenerative practices profitably. Waste reduction also amplifies climate benefits, since fewer resources are used to produce food that is never eaten.

Not only do the direct greenhouse gas emissions caused by modern agriculture make a heavy contribution to global warming, but indirect emissions are also created as trees and habitats that absorb emissions are destroyed in favor of grazing land.  

The climate footprint of our current food and agriculture industries is enormous,contributing 34% greenhouse gas emissions, but the negative health impact is also significant.

Large-scale commercial farming methods destroy natural eco systems, deplete soil resilience, practice inhumane treatment of livestock, and make heavy use of fertilizers and other inputs that are detrimental to both the environment and human health.  

The benefits of regenerative agriculture in terms of planetary resilience, animal welfare, and human health are significant:

Planetary resilience:

Nature is mankind’s best friend when it comes to planetary health and has robust built-in mechanisms in soil and vegetation to capture and store greenhouse gases.  If 50% of farms practiced regenerative farming, the .4% boost in soil carbon would be enough to offset annual atmospheric C02 increases.  If regenerative agriculture were extended to include non-agriculture land, that target could be exceeded by as much as 250%.

Animal welfare:

Commercial farming produces food for billions of people, but unlike regenerative agriculture doesn’t prioritize the wellbeing and responsible management of livestock. Each year, tens of billions of animals are raised and slaughtered for meat, eggs, and dairy worldwide, while a significant portion of food - roughly a third - is never eaten. The number of animals farmed continues to rise each year with corresponding emissions, compounded as more trees and ecosystems are destroyed in favor of grazing land.

Human health:

Conventional agriculture has achieved incredible yield rates and per capital caloric supply over the last decades, but the nutritional density of our food has dramatically declined while the harmful or non-nutritious content has increased. As a result, a large part of the modern diet is heavily composed of empty calories and harmful substances such as pesticides, taking a heavy and increasingly expensive toll on human health.

By 2050, 9 billion people will need twice today’s food supply. Regenerative agriculture offers a promising solution, delivering healthier food with broad benefits for people and planet. For investors, regenerative agriculture offers distinct processes, supply chains, and price points but lacks proprietary IP, so returns and risks diverge from traditional VC models. The critical first step is defining what’s fixable and monetizable. With that in mind, we see the following areas as top investment priorities: