July 10, 2019

On July 10, a team of researchers from Delta Institute, Croatan Institute, and the Organic Agriculture Revitalization Strategy (OARS) released a major new report for investors, agriculture practitioners, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists on financing regenerative agriculture. The report highlights 127 investments totaling $321.1 billion that explicitly integrate sustainable food and agriculture in their investment processes, with 70 of those strategies with combined assets of $47.5 billion including regenerative agricultural criteria in their investment strategy as well.

The new report, Soil Wealth: Investing in Regenerative Agriculture across Asset Classes, is the most comprehensive look to date at the US landscape of investment opportunities in regenerative agriculture — one of the leading trends in food and agriculture today. Regenerative agriculture refers to a diverse array of farming systems that enhance the biodiversity of farming landscapes, improve soil health and the water cycle, and strengthen the resilience of rural agricultural economies. 

Soil Wealth stems from a major, three-year project on innovative mechanisms for financing regenerative agriculture funded by a Conservation Innovation Grant from the US Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). 

Dr. Joshua Humphreys, President and Senior Fellow at Croatan Institute, Senior Strategist of OARS, and lead author of the report noted, “Amid what is increasingly looking like a new farm crisis, this important research advances our understanding of how to finance the transition to much more diversified, regenerative farming systems that build soil health, sequester carbon, increase biodiversity, and build greater resilience on farms and across rural communities.”

The report is available here and at www.soilwealth.org.

The full press release is available here.