The Business of Soil Health

Soil health drives resilience, input costs, and long-term productivity - yet none of that shows up when farmland is appraised. Lucas Chamberlain and Gillian Chesnut of the Delta Institute are trying to change that. Their team is working directly with farmland appraisers, lenders, and soil scientists to test a radically rooted idea: what if soil health were valued like any other asset? Through pilo...

Reid Hensen, co-founder and managing partner at Celium Group, is a rancher, agricultural economist, and a data systems architect for some of the leading public and philanthropic soil health programs. His view is soil health adoption is a human systems problem, rather than an economic or technology problem. In his view “regenerative ag” is wise resource management with long-time horizons supported...

Can we truly expect farmers to risk everything in order to regenerate the land? Lauren Manning, Executive Director of Food System 6, joins us to explore what it takes to build a financial system that serves farmers, rather than the other way around. Drawing on her background as a rancher, lawyer, and investor, Lauren shares how her own experience being denied a farm loan shaped her mission to rewi...

What is systemic investing, and how does capital orchestration move real dollars to real acres?  Ivana Gazibara, Director of Prototyping at the Transformational Capital Initiative (TransCap), joins Sami and Patrick to unpack their Midwest blueprint for scaling regenerative agriculture.  We cover TransCap’s transition map (and some of the barriers it surfaced), why another fund isn’t enough, and ho...

Early regenerative pioneer Keith Berns, co-founder of Green Cover, recounts how multi-species cover crops transformed from niche experiment to a million-acre business.  Green Cover is a cover-crop innovator and one of the country’s leading cover crop seed suppliers. In this conversation, we talk with Keith about: Science and Practice: He discusses the limits of single-variable academic research in...

What’s happening with Section 45Z—and what does it mean for farmers, ethanol producers, and the broader regenerative agriculture movement? In this update episode, Continuum Ag founder and seventh-generation Iowa farmer Mitchell Hora returns to break down what’s new (and what’s still in limbo) for the 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit, how policy delays and the government shutdown are impacting adop...

Corn and soy net $100–$200 per acre -- or less, given the extraordinarily difficult commodity markets at the moment. Chestnuts? Potentially $3,000–$5,000. But those returns don’t come free, the upfront cost of installing and maintaining tree crops is significant. Jeremy Kaufman, the co-founder & COO of Propagate, digs into the economics and project finance structures they've built to make comm...

How do you turn conservation into a cash crop? From his experience in the 1980s farm crisis to $55M in outcome-based payments, Adam Kiel explains how creating market signals for conservation underpins the Soil & Water Outcomes Fund (SWOF). Adam, the Managing Director of SWOF, shares how they've built outcome-based contracts that shift risk off farmers while delivering measurable results for co...

What does catalytic capital actually look like in practice? In this episode, we sit down with Sara Balawajder, Director of Investments at Builders Vision, to go behind the scenes of one of the most active and respected impact investors in food and ag. Sara leads Builders Bridge, a flexible, early-stage portfolio that sits between philanthropy and market-rate capital, with a mandate to unlock syste...

This is one of the most exciting, detailed, and hopeful conversations we’ve had about the pace and structure of capital flowing to producers investing in soil health. It turns out that one of agriculture’s most opaque arenas—corporate supply chain investments in ecosystem assets—is becoming a major source of funding for soil health improvements. And it’s accelerating. As co-founder and CEO of Mill...

What if everything we’ve been told about maximizing yield is leading us in the wrong direction? And if you’ve ever asked, “Where’s the premium?” or “Does changing on-farm practices mean a certainty of more risk in exchange for uncertain gain?” — this episode of The Business of Soil Health offers a counter-narrative from one of the most experienced regenerative agronomic advisors in the world. Your...

We have a conversation with former FSA Administrator Zach Ducheneaux on courage, capital, and how he’s trying to rewrite the rules of ag finance. A multi-generational producer himself, Zach recently launched The Fifth C—a new lending venture challenging the short-termism baked into agricultural finance and offering a path toward long-term, relational capital. Drawing from his experience both on th...

We’re back with a new season—and a new co-host. In this episode kicking off Season 2, Patrick Smith is joined by new co-host Sami Tellatin, co-founder of FarmRaise and a longtime advocate for financing solutions that support producers during their soil health transition. Sami shares her background, and then Patrick and Sami reflect on: Why the financial side of soil health matters now more than ev...

In this episode I talk with independent agronomist Jerel Kratt who works in the southern Central Valley of California. He unpacks why many have become skeptical of regenerative agriculture in California: 🌪️ Visible failures in early implementations of regen practices 📉 Market realities, from the almond market collapse to the lack of a premium for regenerative crops ⚖️ Political and regulatory pre...

In this conversation, Emma Fuller, co-founder of Fractal.ag, discusses their novel farmland investment model, which makes minority equity investments in farmland while incentivizing soil health practices.    Fractal is the first widely available farmland equity product, unlocking capital for farmers while they maintain ownership and control. Emma talks in detail about: Fractal’s ownership model an...

In this episode, Patrick Smith interviews Matt Nicoletti, Director of Business Development at Penny Newman Grain—a California grain trader founded in 1878 that has grown into a global leader in bulk commodity logistics.  We dive into how Penny Newman is both advancing soil health through innovative inputs, and working to transform their legacy business. Their unconventional approach challenges som...

Mitchell is a 7th-generation Iowa farmer and the Founder/CEO of Continuum Ag, a soil health data intelligence company. He’s one of the leading evangelists for scoring crops according to their Carbon Intensity as a measure of climate impact that’s strongly aligned with how producers operate. Mitchell shares his journey into regenerative agriculture, starting from his seventh-generation family farm...

Matt Rohlik is the Managing Director of Sales and Strategic Partnerships at ARVA Intelligence.    ARVA plays a key role in the “insetting market” – the market for ecosystem assets *inside* companies’ supply chains. This is a crucial tool for ag-dependent companies to decarbonize their supply chains, which make up a significant amount of their total emissions – in most cases, more than 50%.   Matt...

We kick off the podcast with a fantastic overview of the interlocking pieces of the puzzle of financing soil health transition. We delve into how farmers, lenders, insurers, and companies across the ag value chain are adjusting to regenerative practices, and the systemic challenges they face in transitioning to climate-smart practices. Our Guest Maggie Monast is the Senior Director of Climate-Smar...

The official trailer for The Business of Soil Health podcast.