If Every Company is a Regenerative Ag Company, Then No Company is a Regenerative Ag Company

This week I stumbled on the below image from Top Tier Impact:

There is nothing inherently wrong with the image (though, I’m not certain a “marketplace” can be considered “regenerative”). But if you look at the companies closely, and all of those commenting on the post about their future addition to the image, everyone thinks they should be on the “regenerative ag” list.

In fact, I cannot think of a single agtech start-up that couldn’t fall into one of those categories (though, I’m not certain a “marketplace” should be considered “regenerative”). 

That means that if every company is a regenerative ag company, then no company is a regenerative ag company.

Regenerative Agriculture

“Regenerative agriculture” is one of the buzziest terms in the ag industry today. It’s on slide decks, conference panels, and marketing materials. Companies proudly declare themselves as “regenerative.”

But what does that actually mean? There are guiding principles or philosophies by those that led the early crowd on it, usually some variation of the following:

1. Minimize soil disturbance (eg: no tillage or minimal tillage)

2. Crop diversity (eg: crop rotation, intercropping etc)

3. Covered soil surface all year round (eg: living crops for harvest + cover crops or crop residue covering soil all year)

4. Integrate animals on the land

5. Less additions of synthetic fertilizers and crop protection products

All wrapped into the view that decision making needs to adapt practices to local conditions and contexts rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.

This all has the the aim (an outcome) of regenerating soil vitality: building organic matter, microbial populations and ultimately productivity of the soil with minimal need of synthetic crop input products.

The reality is: there’s no universal, technical, quantifiable definition for regenerative agriculture— let alone what makes a company “regenerative.”

In practice, the label has been applied to nearly anything that improves farm outcomes and minimizes environmental impact: boosting yield, reducing synthetic inputs, mitigating risk (eg: product warranty to improve uptake of new products), improving “soil health”, new crops, increased input efficiency, or enabling new revenue streams like carbon credits.

But here’s the thing: these are the exact things EVERY successful ag company has been focused on for over a century. Helping farmers do more with less isn’t a new ethos— it’s been the foundation of agricultural innovation for more than a century.

Whether it was hybrid seeds in the 1930s, the green revolution in the 1960s, GPS-guided machinery in the 1990s, or digital solutions in the 2010s, the value proposition hasn’t changed. It’s the entire principle behind building a valuable company in a business setting. Do more, with less.

In fact, every synthetic chemistry company could be classified as regenerative the way the industry seemingly classifies regenerative because “technically” each and every crop protection manufacturer has been focused on reducing the total gram/ac of active ingredient necessary for efficacy for decades. Data from Phillips McDougall:

Not to mention, seemingly every single fertilizer manufacturer can identify as regenerative, too. Nutrien has a biological segment and carbon program, CF Industries is focused on the development of blue and green ammonia, and so is Yara. Phosphate producers? Mosaic sells more biological products today than any randomly picked dozen of pure play biological input providers— combined.

If any company that helps a farmer be more efficient, or simply do LESS harm to soil/the environment qualifies as regenerative, then every ag company is a regenerative ag company relative to where they were 5 years ago. And if everyone is regenerative, then no one is.

I wrote that Regenerative Ag Doesn’t Have to be Contentious, and while it doesn’t have to be contentious and I fundamentally agree with the principles of regenerative agriculture, it also needs to have ditches or else the terms becomes meaningless (arguably, it already has).

Maybe regenerative companies need to be classified by what they don’t do as much or more than by what a company does do?

Related: Regen Ag Start-up Vayda Shuts Doors - Linkedin

Vayda was focused on consulting and creating regenerative agriculture programs for farmers. Getting farmers paid for practice changes in a way that all parties involved can benefit monetarily has proven difficult. But consulting businesses have long been successful in primary production agriculture.

In looking more at Vayda, I noticed a lengthy post on Linkedin from one of the co-founders of Vayda, Steven Feldman:

I always empathize with the people involved with companies that have to close their doors. The unfortunate reality is that not every company can be successful.

The other unfortunate reality is that dollars don’t have feelings and don’t care about bettering agriculture. If a dollar cares about anything, it’s risk and returns.

One trend I have noticed since capital became scarce is the blaming of VCs and their allocation, or lack thereof, to various companies.

It’s important to state: VCs do not owe it to founders to fund them because they have an idea, or even because they have a few customers.

My view, particularly for companies with a services bent and inherent scale limitations, is the need for accountability in operating the business like it will never see another dollar invested.

Blaming the macro environment is easy. Yet, I talk with founders every week finding creative ways to manage costs or questioning every action like it’s life or death so that they can live another day and flip their unit economics to positive.

This is not intended to be critical of Vayda or their leadership, but suggesting a failure in any setting is anyones fault but those in charge is a bad habit to fall into. I haven’t met many successful people who feel the world happens to them. The most successful people I have had the fortune of interacting with don’t view external factors as excuses— they tend to believe they can bend markets, shape outcomes, and shift the odds in their favor. I’d call them high on agency and accountability. It doesn’t mean they ignore reality. It means the mindset moves from “if only we had capital” to “how do we win regardless?”