Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food

352 Matt Schmitt - How to make regenerative food and agriculture bankable

Feb 11, 2025

01:06:45

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.

More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/matt-schmitt.

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In Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast show we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.

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