Republished from Your Mark on the World.
Regenerative agriculture is suddenly sexy. Practitioners have been advocating its use for more than a decade but only recently has it begun to catch media attention and with it the public imagination. Why now? Some might say that it is because we are just waking up to the gloomy reality that the planet and every person on it are at risk even if regenerative agriculture is successfully implemented and are almost certainly doomed if we don’t.
Kevin Doyle Jones, co-founder of GatherLab and John Steven Bianucci, director of impact for Earth’s New Ways, are among the activists preaching the gospel of regenerative agriculture and they are finding an increasing number of adherents.
Regenerative agriculture is not just organic but involves other techniques, like no-till planting and rotating grazing animals on the land, to help the soil retain moisture and carbon, improving yields and
Be sure to watch the full interview with Kevin and John Steven in the player at the top of this article.
Interview with Kevin Doyle Jones, the Co-founder GatherLab.
The following is the pre-interview with Kevin Doyle Jones. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above.
For-profit/Nonprofit: For-profit
What is the problem you solve and how do you solve it?
Funding the missing gap to convert to regenerative agriculture within a community.
More about Gatherlab.net.
Twitter: @trans4mseries
Website: Gatherlab.net
Pooling and sharing of risk to enable farmers to cover the three-year cost of migrating from conventional farming to organic and regenerative, which is beyond organic, to significant carbon sequestration through improved and deeper topsoil.
Kevin Doyle Jones
Kevin Doyle Jones’s bio:
Twitter: @kevindoylejones
Instagram: @Kevindoylejones
Website: http://thetransformseries.net/
Interview with John Steven Bianucci, director of impact at Iroquois Valley Farmland REIT & co-founder, Earth’s New Ways.
The following is the pre-interview with John Steven Bianucci. Be sure to watch the recorded interview above.
For-profit/Nonprofit: The country’s first and only organic farmland REIT. For profit; Public Benefit Corporation REIT
Revenue model: Secure farmland tenures in the form farmland leases and/or mortgage financing and mortgage refinancing.
Scale: Iroquois Valley Farmland REIT supports 50 farms spread across 14 states, representing assets of over $50 million. The Company currently has 400 private investors. The Company invests and re-invests in its family farmers organic businesses.
What is the problem you solve and how do you solve it?
Family farmers’ biggest barrier is land access. We provide farmers mortgages and/or purchase/leases with a secure path to ownership. The next generation wants to farm organically and needs the additional financial supports we offer them during the difficult three-year organic transition period. Until now, food buyers have only been able to change the food system with their consumable dollars. Substantial as that is, imagine the change when the public can directly invest in organic foods at the family farm production level through Iroquois Valley’s $50 million Reg A+ Direct Public Offering.
Regenerate Illinois: www.regenerateillinois.org
More about Earth’s New Ways, LLC:
Facebook: Earth’s New Ways, LLC
Website: www.iroquoisvalley.com
Iroquois Valley Farmland REIT is an organic farmland finance company providing farmer-friendly leases and mortgages to the next generation of organic farmers. Since our founding in 2007, we have directed $50 million in investments in organic agriculture. The Company business model has proven to be a scalable solution to industrial agriculture. Our goal is to make organic agriculture the norm, not the exception, in America, dramatically increasing soil health, biodiversity, and public health, today and for the next generations to come.
John Steven Bianucci
John Steven Bianucci’s bio:
Twitter: @jsbxyz
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/johnstevenbianucci/
Mr. Bianucci has long been passionate about food sovereignty, social justice, health, organic farming and agroforestry. He works to maximize the social and environmental impact of Iroquois Valley Farms. He has extensive corporate experience in branding, marketing and sales. As an entrepreneur, Mr. Bianucci has co-founded publications and been a successful financial trader and advisor. Computer User magazine was the country’s first regional computer publication, published monthly for 24 years. Mr. Bianucci graduated from Harvard College.