Startup Series: Regrow
Anastasia Volkova is the CEO and Co-founder of Regrow, which was named Fast Company's number one most innovative company in agriculture in 2023. They empower the world's largest brands such as Kellogg's, Cargill and General Mills to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across their supply chains. Their product began as a data and analytics offering to agronomists and farmers to help build a localized growing roadmap, identifying what crops to plant, what fertilizer and other inputs to use, how much of it to use, and an irrigation plan. By building this roadmap for growers, Regrow realized that it could then help food brands and processors have a much deeper knowledge of how the food they source is grown. Beyond expertise, Regrow's product helps companies proactively lower their supply chain emissions by incentivizing best practices across their grower network.
In this conversation, Anastasia traces her journey from starting Regrow to the company it has become and discusses the agricultural practices that can make the biggest difference in emissions mitigation. The company raised a Series B of financing last year from Galvanized Climate Solutions among others, and is a leader in driving regenerative agriculture practice changes at scale.
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Anastasia Volkova LinkedIn
Cody Simms Twitter / LinkedIn
MCJ Podcast / Collective
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Episode recorded on Jun 15, 2023 (aired Jun 28, 2023)
In this episode, we cover:
[02:30]: Anastasia's personal climate journey
[04:43]: Discovering the potential of satellite imagery for agriculture during her PhD
[07:24]: Agronomists' crucial role as "crop doctors"
[10:05]: Regrow's initial focus on providing agronomists with data
[10:40]: How satellite imagery fits into Regrow's software
[13:10]: Regrow’s product evolution
[15:38]: Lack of visibility as the main challenge in understanding the agri-food supply chain
[17:08]: Deep dive into the nuances of Regrow's product
[19:30] Regrow's business model: Brands paying farmers for emission reductions
[23:48]: The agri-food industry's significant contribution (31%) to global emissions
[26:52]: Key emissions factors on farms, including machinery and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers
[32:08]: Topsoil degradation and the regenerative agriculture movement
[39:04]: Challenges with creating a carbon credit methodology around soil organic carbon
[43:41]: Systemic challenges to scaling regenerative agriculture
[45:09]: The need for financing the transition to regenerative practices
[47:09]: Predictions for upcoming farm bills
[48:04]: What's next for Regrow
[49:34]: Who Anastasia wants to hear from and career opportunities at Regrow
Resources mentioned:
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Cody Simms (00:00):
Today's guest on the My Climate Journey Startup series is Anastasia Volkova, CEO and co-founder of Regrow. Regrow was named Fast Company's number one most innovative company in agriculture in 2023. They empower some of the world's largest brands such as Kellogg's, Cargill and General Mills to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across their supply chains. Their product began as a data and analytics offering to agronomists and farmers to help them build a localized growing roadmap, identifying what crops to plant, what fertilizer and other inputs to use, how much of it to use, and an irrigation plan. By building this roadmap for growers, Regrow realized that they could then help food brands and processors have a much deeper knowledge of how the food they source is grown.
(00:55):
But beyond knowledge, Regrow's product helps them proactively lower the emissions of their supply chain by incentivizing best practices across their grower network. Anastasia and I trace her journey from starting Regrow to the company it has become, and we spend some time talking about the agricultural practices that can make the biggest difference in emissions mitigation. The company raised a Series B of financing last year from Galvanized Climate Solutions among others, and is a leader in driving regenerative agriculture practice changes at scale. But before we dive in, I'm Cody Simms.
Yin Lu (01:34):
I'm Yin Lu.
Jason Jacobs (01:35):
And I'm Jason Jacobs. And welcome to My Climate Journey.
Yin Lu (01:42):
This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms (01:47):
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and all the ways people like you and I can help. Anastasia, welcome to the show.
Anastasia Volkova (02:02):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Cody Simms (02:05):
I am excited to learn from you all about how the world of agriculture is changing in front of us and so many different components. That is such a big topic to even start to tackle, so I am excited to see how this conversation twists and turns as we go. Before we do that, let's learn about your background. How did you come to work in this space in the first place?
Anastasia Volkova (02:30):
Let's unpack my own climate journey. When I was 16, I distinctly remember the day I got into some Buddhism reading. When I was young, my grandpa lined up an interesting book and I was very reflective. I was born in Ukraine, so I remembered the day. It was like a summery day. I just finished the book and thinking, just overlooking one of the rivers, thinking I want to do something that matters. I want to do something that has impact. And I didn't know back at the time that it would be climate. What I did feel was important is that it would be something that is impactful at a larger scale, ideally globally.
(03:10):
I wanted to work with people from different cultures to solve the problems that really mattered. It felt that working in technology for the sake of working in technology or working in any other specific subset of an industry just for the sake of doing something that incrementally improves things for existing systems that hold us up in life didn't appeal to me. I wanted to really find something transformational. And also, growing up in Southern Ukraine meant that I saw a lot of climate related constraints in the environment. I can't say my family farmed, that wouldn't be correct. But my mom had a piece of land always as long as I remember being alive. And my godmother actually did have a farm in central Ukraine.
(03:57):
So, I had exposure to what food production ground up looked like. And I would be told from this very early age that look, "Well, we can't really expect anything here because it seems like it's not going to rain much this season." Or "Yes, we're growing these tomatoes or these peaches, but if it doesn't rain in this time of the year, don't get your hopes high on those grapes or that fruit or that produce." And it got me kind of thinking even subconsciously, "Okay, there's clearly an issue." And I guess, our generation grew up with the understanding that climate change is affecting the world and we as humanity create some aspect if not all of climate change. So, that's where my journey started before I knew that was the start of the journey.
(04:43):
Fast forwarding, I did engineering degrees and aerospace and work for startups to find what is that idea and that project that I could really see myself applying all my energy to and creating some impact. And it wasn't until midway through my PhD where I was building systems to interpret and make useful satellites, imagery that would look at maps and maps of environments would see the changes in forests and the changes in even road making. Anything would be mapped by that code. And it got me thinking, "Well, oh, what we're looking at here is very largely nature and farmland. This is cutting edge information. No one is getting this data yet out there in the world." This is back when free satellite imagery that is really useful to agriculture just came out.
(05:35):
I specifically referred to sentinel satellites for those of our aerospace nerds, but basically, agriculture started getting the data. It was really useful. And it was so cutting edge, you wouldn't even have a schedule for when to expect that data first. And so, I was playing with it as a researcher and also as a business woman thinking, "Okay, how could this be helpful to people who do not have these skills, who do not have this privilege of sitting in front of their computer and pondering how to best represent this information?"
(06:04):
It's then turned into a hypothesis that I worked through at City University with a group of other interested graduate students, contacted a bunch of agronomists, one of them from a very large agricultural company that became our first customer and still is our customer. And they told me, "Yeah, we don't have it. Do you have it? Can we see it? Show me." And I'm like, "Oh my god, this is real." People want to see this idea, this data. And I guess, then, we'll unpack what happened after that.
Cody Simms (06:37):
Go right into it. What happened after that?
Anastasia Volkova (06:40):
I mean, then there was the beginning of what now is Regrow. Getting those agronomists on board, really showing them this data and seeing how would they use it. We really build around that first use case of agronomists looking at a very large swath of land, helping them not drive everywhere and spend hours being more proactive, predictive in receiving this information proactively coming towards them and being able to advise the farmer how their crops are performing, where the stress is occurring, how much nutrients does that crop need at this point in time. So, we started really with this optimization of decision making by crop doctors on farms.
Cody Simms (07:24):
What is an agronomist and for whom does an agronomist work relative to the farms?
Anastasia Volkova (07:30):
So, an agronomist is a crop doctor. It's basically a person you go to when you need a recipe to grow a good crop, you need a suggestion how to improve your farm's resilience for the long term. You're also getting them to help you even budget those expenses, buying fertilizer, buying water. But agronomists are usually employed either by themselves actually. There's a number of independent agronomists or independent businesses that have agronomists on staff. Agronomists also work for cooperatives often and agricultural systems. In the United States, it's very popular that you would have a lot of farms attached or being members of a cooperative and they would have agronomic support from that cooperative.
(08:17):
There's also, you can have very large holdings like in Ukraine or Brazil or Australia where agronomists are actually employed by the farming company. And there's, I guess, the final option is having them be employed by providers of services and inputs to the farmer. So, it can be an agricultural input company that provides the fertilizer or a seed. Then, they also provide the advisor that can help you really maximize those inputs on the farm.
Cody Simms (08:45):
And so, that was your first accidental, but then it sounds like moving into intentional customer for what became Regrow. Is that correct?
Anastasia Volkova (08:54):
That's correct. They were the people who were making the decisions because farmers have so much to manage. They need to figure out where to get labor. They need to figure out how to get around to all of the operations on the farm that need to be done in a timely manner. Not every farmer makes agronomic decisions themselves. Some people do. But we have found over the years that we've been working in this space that largely that decision is left to a specialist that has a broader perspective because they work with multiple farmers.
Cody Simms (09:25):
So, if I'm a farmer and I might have 800 acres under management or something 1,000 acres, I will have an agronomist that I would meet with and before my planting season. They would help me understand what the past year looked like, what crops I had on the farm and what soil nutrients those crops might have taken or used, what inputs I put onto my farm at the time, and also what's happened from a rainfall weather perspective and what's the forecast look like. And thus would help me lay out my planting map for the year. It's way beyond just picking up a copy of Farmers' Almanac and reading a blanket recommendation. It sounds like at least that's what I'm hearing from you.
Anastasia Volkova (10:05):
One hundred percent. That's how they would use the Regrow software, that now is a particular module on our platform, but this was the first software that we've built.
Cody Simms (10:16):
So, you're the smart next gen version of Farmers' Almanac at a very basic level.
Anastasia Volkova (10:21):
Yeah, we're basically like a tailored dynamic near real-time version of that that is farmer specific and the agronomist brings us instead of the book that doesn't change depending on who they talk to.
Cody Simms (10:32):
Wow, okay, we're done. No, I'm just kidding. That's super helpful.
Anastasia Volkova (10:36):
That's the first chapter in the book.
Cody Simms (10:40):
So, then, you had this aha and what was the first product you took to market? How did you define and say, "Oh, I'm going to go build a business around this insight that there's this need and that we actually have some data that they actually maybe didn't have prior access to, which was this very specific satellite imagery of what was happening on a farm."
Anastasia Volkova (10:59):
Satellite imagery in its ability to monitor large wealth of land, but then, we would always connect it to modeling the academically proven models that would help us understand the sole what. It's very nice to get pixels about what's happening on the farm. Maybe you don't know what's in the back paddock or maybe you don't quite realize that this crop looks very similar to that crop. But actually, if you numerically assess their progress, this field is performing 15% lower than that other field, although they look very similar. You just never look at them the same way because maybe it's a different altitude or a different landscape.
(11:34):
So, getting into the data driven decisions really helps and matters. And the insight that we had was that first we needed to make it for agronomists more scalable so they could measure their experiments better. So, say, "Okay, on this one field, we're going to try to test out a new agronomic decision and we are going to compare it to how the rest of our crop is performing." If you're just eyeballing what the outcomes are, it's very difficult to actually know if it's working.
(12:03):
And if all you are going by is the yield at the end of the season, you are accumulating all these decisions from 40 to 70 decisions that need to be made in a season into this single data point at the end. And you're saying, "Okay, did all of this work or did all of this not work?" But if you are trying to test specific decisions, it's a game changer to have the technology that actually shows you how things respond with the update of few times a week as opposed to once a year an outcome of one number from your combine. So, the insight that we had is that we could bring that visibility to agronomists.
(12:36):
They would be able to optimize for better use of resources on the farm with their farmers that would give farmers more edge, enlarging their margins that would, in some cases, help them push for more profitability or invest in long-term resilience. And that software package was a turbocharging opportunity for agronomists to be across and up to speed and more effortlessly up to date and be a better advisor to their farmers.
Cody Simms (13:10):
And did this start with a baselining methodology or did it start with the recommendations of actions to take or a little bit of both? Because it seems at this point, just looking at your website, you've now broken those out into two separate products. I'm curious what the evolution of that product suite development looked like for you.
Anastasia Volkova (13:26):
Yeah, I would love to tell you more about it. And the way I think about it is that we started with on-farm decision making and whilst it's still what we are empowering to this day, but now we have moved and offered this insight across the supply chain so that the companies that work with very large numbers of farmers and now are being held accountable and responsible for knowing what their emissions are that are connected to agriculture. We'll put just a pin in that.
Cody Simms (13:58):
Yeah, we're definitely going to come back to emissions because we haven't even gotten to that part yet. We're just talking about making the farms work better. But it sounds like the emission story is a big part of what you're doing and also why we're having this conversation on my Climate Journey podcast. So, we're definitely going to come to that, but let's put a pin in that.
Anastasia Volkova (14:13):
Exactly. So, we have been going around solving that initial use case as an ROI for the farmer. If you put less fertilizer, your margins will be better. Or if you put more fertilizer the right time in the right place, so you redistribute it. So, effectively, you're taking it from somewhere, you're putting it somewhere else where the crop is able to access it, you can actually boost the yields and reduce the losses and reduce the environmental adverse environmental outcomes. That ROI was effectively between whoever was the advisor, whether they were part of the company or not and the farmer. It was the farmer ROI.
(14:48):
That was a good product to start with because it really has proven that we can develop the technology that is farmer first that is trusted science based, but also it has the scalability factor that unlocks the impact and reduces the pain. Farmers don't have time to provide a lot of data into surveys. They are sometimes open to plugging in their machines that feed the data into systems, but even more importantly, they want to have something they can edit, tweak, and see the results from with their advisors. So, I think we're pretty good at that and that's what we then scaled into a business case beyond the farm and brought all these other stakeholders, aggregators, food processors, food manufacturers, all the way almost to the plate and shelf of the grocery store now
Cody Simms (15:38):
Because they had challenges to understand their supply chain. Was that the forcing function there?
Anastasia Volkova (15:42):
Visibility, 100% that you don't have visibility, and I'm not talking about traceability. I'm talking about if you were sourcing something from Kansas or Ukraine or South Australia or Saskatchewan, you actually don't know how it yielded this year. Was it good for the environment? How it was grown? Was it better than last year or worse than last year? And finally, what does that give your company as the emissions profile if you're sourcing from there, these are now your emissions. This is scope three for you as a company. Majority of agri food companies have from 60 to 95% of all their emissions on farm.
(16:24):
So, this is critical now to understand where they are, how high are they in reality, not a book value, not that almanac that you are going to consult a corn emission factor from the US. That is not what we can change. I cannot go into an almanac and say, "I want it to be this different number." You can't do that or it's not going to make a big difference if you do that on the paper. But being able to quantify things in a way that is dynamic real. It's this season, it's this field, this farm, this supply ship, this watershed, this country, this are your emissions. Now let's look at what could reduce them. Now let's invest on farm to reduce them and you will lower your emissions and we will get to a more resilient state. So, it's evolved a lot.
Cody Simms (17:08):
So, I'm hearing initial product helps agronomists help make farms themselves more efficient and more cost-effective and increase yields. And then, by having that software embedded at the farm level, now the companies that are buying the crops from those farms can solve their own problems, which is understanding the supply chain sustainability, the emissions factors, and whatnot of the food that they are buying into their own processing facilities and manufacturing facilities. And they started asking you for that information because you already had it because you were working at the farm level and that became another product that you were able to offer. Am I understanding that correctly?
Anastasia Volkova (17:49):
Yeah, you are understanding that correctly and I think I want to tap into one nuance here. So, what is very important to understand about Regrow is that both sides are perfectly safe. So, you don't just repackage farmer data and you offer it to someone else. We effectively use these large-scale calibrated models for which we collect calibration data independently ourselves as well as through the customer partnerships. A lot of the folks that use our platform, of course contribute the data for us to build the models. That's almost the entire customer base.
(18:21):
But then, we train the models and the model is what gives the output to these companies. So, a company wouldn't be able to see what's happening on this field, on this farm specifically. They're specifying their supply chain. Where are they sourcing? And we have provided the data for that. We may have connections with individual farmers in that area, we may not. We may have individual connections with farmers next door, but we know the accuracy of our models, and hence, we're able to provide the data where before it didn't exist.
(18:53):
Farm Journal recently shared that a very large percentage of farms actually is not using any digital farm management software. So, this data is not recorded anywhere. But because of the use of satellite imagery and calibrated academic models, Regrow was able to produce this data to a very high level of reliability, or at least to a known level of reliability that we're consistently improving that a company now can really unlock this visibility into a supply schedule rather than saying, "Okay, let me go and try to enroll all of my suppliers." That's madness. What amount of resources that will even take? Very difficult.
Cody Simms (19:30):
I'm curious from a business model perspective, I have a general thesis, and I'm sure listeners are going to poke a billion holes in this. But my general thesis in business is if you start by offering product to the supply side of whatever ecosystem you work in, it might be hard to monetize that. But if you build great product, they're going to become reliant on your product and eventually you can monetize the demand side. And I'm hearing you say that's exactly what you all have done. I'm curious, given that is the bulk of the revenue for you on the demand side, on the big brand side and yet the product hooks live on the supply side. I don't know if that is correct in my assumption or not.
Anastasia Volkova (20:08):
I love your thesis around that. It's a very eloquent way of putting it. I would say that it's often the pattern with many technologies, what you just described, to build a really sticky supply side product and then offer the demand side to hook into that system. I think agriculture has a specific sensitivity that I described in terms of the privacy and Regrow provides that assurance to both sides. We effectively bring brands to farms to pay for the transition. It's a very solid business model from the farmer perspective. Because often people say, "Oh, do farmers pay for Regrow software?" We're like, "No, no, it's the other way around." The brands pay farmers to reduce their emissions and they claim those emission reductions because they have paid for the intervention.
(20:57):
But importantly, in the world of seven harvests until 2030, we need to have very good idea in a compliant way be able to report on the emissions for these big companies. So, we are definitely seeing all of that pressure of stakeholders coming on these large companies driving most of the traction and revenue within Regrow. And then, enabling the impact both by getting more clarity within their own organizations because we're able not only to give them the past, but also to tell them what are the options to change it? What are the scenarios you can embark on to actually achieve this emission reduction and give them the package of software, MRV, measurement, monitoring, reporting, verification platform that actually executes that on the farm?
(21:46):
So, I think you are right, but I do think there can be a caveat where we are thinking, "Oh, a lot of these platforms collect data and then monetize it in a different way." No, we almost do spot ground truthing of data. Then, we create ourselves a lot of that data that doesn't otherwise exist. Those proprietary data layers and great software that is fantastic to use for farmers on one hand and for corporates on the other hand, is what earns us the right to be the leader in this business in MRV, in Ag. I don't honestly have a lot of patients for the platform that just literally want farmers to have free software and to all this data and then they would repackage and sell it to other parts of the supply chain.
(22:29):
And that's why I want to make it extremely clear that that's not what Regrow does. We scale the science with the knowledge of information in different places around the world to bring finance, to change the trajectory of agriculture to make it more resilient.
Yin Lu (22:48):
Hey everyone, I'm Yin, a partner at MCJ Collective. I'm here to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ membership community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning. And doing that goes beyond just listening to the podcast. We started in 2019 and have grown to thousands of members globally. Each week, we're inspired by people who join with different backgrounds and points of view. What we all share is a deep curiosity to learn and a bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change. Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community. A number of founding teams I've met, several nonprofits have been established and a bunch of hiring has been done.
(23:21):
Many early stage investments have been made as well as ongoing events and programming like monthly women climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, climate book club, art workshops, and more. Whether you've been in the climate space for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to mcjcollective.com and click on the members tab at the top. Thanks, and enjoy the rest of the show.
Cody Simms (23:48):
Let's dive into the emission side. Given all of that, it sounds like that's ultimately the business that you really have found, which is that you are empowering these brands to then go back to the farmers and give them both access to capital and methodology to create lower carbon versions of the food that they create, if I'm hearing you correctly. What are the big emissions factors on a farm today that need to be intervened against?
Anastasia Volkova (24:17):
Yeah, I guess let's start at the top level. Not everyone understands and I'm sure MCJ network is very well versed in different impacts of climate, but I would be remiss to not state that FAOs report is sharing that 31% of overall world emissions come from agri-food industry on a country by country basis. It's estimated between 19 and those 30 something percent. So, think about between quarter of a third emissions on a country by country or global basis is coming from agriculture. It feels very disjoint from the idea that this is the industry that should be nurturing at the planet that should be helping us feed the growing population.
(25:00):
And it also ultimately has the potential not only to decarbonize itself, but also to be the most available, accessible, ready to go decarbonization path for other industries. I will come back to this for a second as well. But effectively in this model, if you look at all the emissions of a box of cereal on the supermarket shelf, you would quickly realize that most of those emissions occur when the raw product, the commodity gets produced. And that's true not only for the box of cereal but for majority of the foods that we consume.
(25:35):
And also, that applies to more complex supply chains like feeding grain to animals that maybe are grass fed to be finished and then end up as meats on our plates and restaurants and so on. Whenever you're looking at food, I guess the takeaway is, remember all of majority of those emissions are on farm. That's going to be a quick takeaway for the MCJ community here. What are those emissions factors where they come from and why do they exist? We have optimized for productivity,
Cody Simms (26:05):
Sorry, let me just interrupt you and back you up. So, the on-farm means it is the act of growing, it's the act of generating the food. It's less to do with the transport, it's less to do with the processing. Is that what you mean by on-farm?
Anastasia Volkova (26:17):
Exactly, exactly. So, it's not about just the trucks driving, we already know how to decarbonize trucks. It's not really about extrusion of making flakes out of certain type of flour. All of those emissions, they dwindle in comparison because the 60 to 90% of the emissions of those types of products. And we're talking about super simple product cereal because you can imagine what goes into that. But of course, that applies to other products that I just also was mentioning. Also, those emissions are on-farm. So, before the product leaves the farm, those emissions have already occurred.
Cody Simms (26:51):
Great. And what makes those emissions up on-farm? What are the bulk of them?
Anastasia Volkova (26:56):
A big one is definitely fuel use in terms of using the farm machinery and having to go over the field with the tractor or the combine multiple times. Of course, there's certain amount that you can decrease out of that or use more sustainable fuel, but then, when we're looking at a crop production itself or whatever you're growing when you're adding fertilizer, what amount where and where does it go is one of the biggest factors. Why is that the case?
(27:24):
Because effectively, you're feeding the synthetic nitrogen compounds to the crops in the soil and they're not able to really mobilize those nutrients if not able to access and eat up all that fertilizer and grow as a result. It'll have to go somewhere. It will volatilize into the atmosphere. So, it will escape in the form of greenhouse gas that's nitrogen and into emissions. And the challenges with nitrogen emissions as nitrogen molecule is 300 times more potent than the carbon molecule. So, we are talking about some serious greenhouse gas.
Cody Simms (28:02):
I always thought it was the production of fertilizer, but you're saying it's even post-production, it's the eventual decay of the fertilizer that creates the nitrous oxide gas.
Anastasia Volkova (28:12):
You are absolutely right. It's the whole bundle of joys. There are the embedded emissions of how it was produced in the first place that you are already incorporating. So, you already by default carrying that as soon as you bring the fertilizer to the farm. So, that forms a significant portion of it. But the more important portion that decides whether those embedded emissions would actually have any reason to occur in the first place is whether the crop will be able to utilize that fertilizer or not. So, it's the use on farm, it's the how, where, in what form and in what amount is used and whether the crop is able to fully utilize that.
Cody Simms (28:52):
And fertilizer is relatively cheap. So, the default behavior for a farmer is to put as much of it as you can out on the farm if you're not paying attention to it, I'm assuming. I have no idea. Is that correct?
Anastasia Volkova (29:05):
If we were doing this last year, I would say, "Absolutely. You're so right."
Cody Simms (29:08):
Oh, interesting.
Anastasia Volkova (29:09):
But then, the Putin invasion of Ukraine happened and the gas prices went up through the roof and that drove the fertilizer prices up. And as a result, the fertilizer is very expensive right now. It went from being so cheap, you can just put more on to being so expensive, you really think about where you need to put it.
Cody Simms (29:32):
Well, that's interesting. From your business perspective, probably, now gives you a double whammy, which is, "Hey, not only are you saving on emissions, but now we're also saving you a lot of money by not over fertilizing these fields."
Anastasia Volkova (29:46):
It's a more palpable financial impact now. So, more importantly, for the farmer, that's the double whammy. They really can see how it changes the economics. And I think, once we're talking about these emissions, we can also talk about how can you get off the so-called synthetic fertilizer treadmill? And again, I'm not saying fertilizer is this evil thing. We need to fight. Two billion people would be starving right now if we didn't get that process hacked back when Haber-Bosch invented it. So, if this wasn't the case, we wouldn't be the population that we are now. So, of course, we needed it that helped us produce the food that fueled the industrial revolution that allowed us to be the society that we are.
(30:28):
But now, we are also starting to quantify and grapple with the externality cost of that process of how it's produced, of what's the environmental impact. It's the runoff of that fertilizer into freshwaters as well. So, algae bloom and it's the whole package of environmental impacts that that has. And I don't want us to just think about fertilizer because we really should talk about soil health.
Cody Simms (30:56):
Yeah, yeah. So, step one I'm hearing is, hey, an intervention you can do is use fertilizer more intelligently on your farm. There are other interventions we should chat about as well then. I guess, we didn't even finish all the emissions factors, but we can finish that. And then, also, what are the other use cases that Regrow can help a farm to manage?
Anastasia Volkova (31:17):
I guess, just to finish up the emission factors, I mean fertilizer and fuel are really the main ones and I will touch on the soil management that also implies certain other types of emissions. There are systems like rice production where if rice is standing in water at not optimal time for its growth, it actually can produce methane emissions. And by optimizing the irrigation, schedule, amount timing, you can reduce those emissions. And that's for example, how we enable companies like Kellogg to bring this more climate smart rise to a supermarket shelf.
(31:53):
So, in that particular system, the emissions are coming from a slightly different place in addition to what we just discussed. That gives you an example. I don't think there's a ton more emission factors on farms we need to dive into because we've covered the heavy hitters. But let's now think about what can we do to even get off that synthetic fertilizer treadmill? How did people grow food before synthetic fertilizer was available? And this comes down to better management of soil and soil health. So, if you plant crops in the diverse types of crops in a particular sequence, you can actually have a more self-sustaining rotation on crops on the farm.
(32:36):
If you integrate the animals back in, if you keep the soil covered for longer periods of time, if you don't cultivate the soil heavily and you allow for it to develop kind of the microbial and other types of biodiversity under that covered soil in the top layer, maybe even deeper, you really get a lot of the benefits of the land starting to regenerate itself. And this is why I guess the movement that we're implicitly discussing here is now being called regenerative agriculture.
Cody Simms (33:08):
And of that soil biodiversity, I mean, I read stories that today the bulk of topsoil in the United States, for example, only has so many turns left in it if we were going to continue to farm it the way it's been farmed for the last, whatever, 50 plus years. So, what has happened to our topsoil today and what should it look like?
Anastasia Volkova (33:28):
Yeah, I'm very impressed you're reading that type of information. It's indeed true that we lost a lot of topsoil. Why did we lose it? Because we practiced a model of farming that was optimized for the calorie production post World War II and we just wanted to produce things in a sequence in a predictable pattern, predictable manner. We've optimized for, okay, it's good to grow corn and then soy and maybe some oil seeds like canola. After that, in rotation, we leave the soil bare after we harvest it. We cultivate it. It looks nice and black for a moment and then we come back and plant again.
(34:06):
What we discovered is the issue with that is that, well, if you have mono cropping, if you have only two crops or very few crops in a rotation, you're depleting the resources of the soil. If you are not leaving it covered or if you're not giving it the opportunity to have the living root in the soil year around where you can develop that biodiversity, all the good little things like worms that we all loved playing with as children, they actually make that soil work. And so, you need to feed them, you need to provide them something.
(34:36):
Even in the month when you are not actively growing something, you needed to give it food back, almost. So, plant clover, plant a legume cover crop plant, something that automatically replenishes. So, here's a fun fact for everyone who thinks that this conversation is probably so nerdy but also really cool. You, instead of putting synthetic fertilizer, you can plant a crop that pulls that fertilizer out of the air. It's legumes. All legumes do that. How fantastic is nature? But of course, it's additional cost. You need to think about it. You need to do it at the right time. So, that practice would be called cover crop.
Cody Simms (35:14):
These are nitrogen enriching crops, I guess.
Anastasia Volkova (35:17):
Nitrogen fixing crops.
Cody Simms (35:19):
Yeah, nitrogen fixing.
Anastasia Volkova (35:21):
Exactly. So, you would refer to that as cover cropping or increased rotation, more diverse rotation. Also, if you are plowing the soil heavily, you're effectively destroying that structure of the roots that are holding it together and you are preventing it to have this structure internally that is conducive to very good water infiltration. So, now to the key moment, let's imagine we have this soil that was plowed for many years, 20 years, and it doesn't have this porous structure underneath it. It doesn't have the cover so that when the rain hits it, if nicely penetrates.
(35:58):
In this case, it basically washes off and takes off that top layer of soil and runs with it somewhere into the fresh water, into somewhere downstream, wherever the watershed takes it. And that's practically how we lose all of that nutrient in the topsoil. And the issue of course with it is that you have more volatile climate flash floods following droughts and vice versa. So, you are making soil a concrete block now without those practices.
Cody Simms (36:30):
We're just down to the clay level or whatever in soil all around the US, then.
Anastasia Volkova (36:34):
The most significant issue with it is that you are not able to take advantage of the natural cycles because you've disrupted the system to a certain extent. And if after a lawn drought, want to have water in the soil layers on your farm, there's just no way for it to get there. It just runs off of the surface. That's devastating. This is what regenerative agriculture practice is the cure to.
Cody Simms (37:05):
And then, we talked about one byproduct of this is increasing soil carbon, which I presume is now we have roots, we have earthworms, we have fungi, we have bacteria, we have all these carbon-based life forms that are underground as opposed to rotting, releasing methane, releasing gases into the surface. Is that how we should think about the soil carbon phenomenon and how increasing biodiversity also increases the carbon capture ability of our soils?
Anastasia Volkova (37:37):
In some level, for sure. But I think, fundamentally, the way to imagine this is that the roots of the plants, they have layer of clay over them, something around them like glue you can think about it. And as they grow, this layer around the root effectively interacts with the soil around it to sequester more soil organic carbon. It actually creates that bondage in carbon molecules and there's so many different types of soil, organic carbon. But fundamentally, it's a process where of course we've all learned about photosynthesis and the plant pulls in that CO2 and what does it do with it? It builds itself up from those fundamental build-in blocks of life of carbon and it builds up the root system.
(38:22):
And the bigger the root system, it's effectively sequestered all that carbon by growing its roots, by growing the area around it. I'm just going to give a short plug that if anyone wants to really visualize this, our friends at Kiss the Ground Foundation, they have a fantastic movie and the visual from that movie is like the best way to figure out what is this whole regenerative agriculture about and how is it that there's glue on and cell carbon on roots and what does it look like? They've done a marvelous job. If anyone wants to check it out.
Cody Simms (38:51):
I have seen that documentary. It is fantastic. Last I looked, it was on Netflix. I don't know if it still is, but for listeners who want to go check it out, definitely a great overview of the space. Gosh, I need to go re-watch it. It's been probably a year or two for me. And soil organic carbon, however, also has been hard to create sellable carbon credit methodology around for some reason. Is that just the science isn't quite there yet? It's too hard to measure, it's too variable. What have been the challenges with soil organic carbon from trying to create an economic incentive structure around increasing it?
Anastasia Volkova (39:25):
Yeah, I would say what we need to look at on farm, it's the net greenhouse gas balance. So, all of the things we just talked about, what is nitrogen doing? Is there any methane in the system? What is soil organic carbon doing? What's even the groundwater potential? Looking at all of that together and at least the [inaudible 00:39:42] bundle of those things, we shouldn't be looking at soil organic carbon alone. The reason why soil organic carbon is so interesting and people are looking to it as the storage of carbon to a certain extent, which is basically like a nature-based solution to direct capture of carbon, is that you technically could have an argument that, "Oh, well after the farmer adopt these regenerative practices, they could technically also go back."
(40:06):
So, the argument is a potential reversal. So, after they've adopted these practices, couldn't they plow the soil again and release all of that soil organic carbon? So, what is the permanence of the sequestration in that case? Well, the real good antidote to that is that we can monitor the practices. So, we can see if there was any reversal. We should provide farmers with the right incentives over a right period of time where they will definitely transition because the benefits of going through the transition are that you need less fertilizer, your costs are better, your costs are lower, so your margins are better. So, there's all of the benefits and the yield stability, resilience long term for your own farm community, agriculture supply chain.
(40:48):
The benefits are so strong, but we need to finance the transition. And so, I think the argument around, "Oh, this is not as permanent as pumping a certain type of CO2 somewhere under the ground." I do think that ultimately, this is a more nature forward, more holistic, more integrated with nature solution that is one of the solutions and we need them all. We have 51 gigatons of greenhouse gases that go into an atmosphere every year. We need every single possible solution. And this one, knows how to scale right now. We're yet to invent green cement, fully create the opportunity to decarbonize the grid. There are so many things we haven't yet developed and invented. These practices have existed since time immemorial, since we figured out how to plant a crop.
(41:35):
And if we figure out the financial system with the right incentives around it, with the right technology, scalability, cost-effectiveness, we can do this now. We are in fact, already doing this. So, I think that argument sometimes is very important. One, to know through where it comes from, why it exists. But it is still a solution that's one of the most effective solutions to the problem we're facing.
Cody Simms (41:58):
It sounds like it's ripe for in setting inside a large company's own supply chain as opposed to creating a pure financial product that's sold to some other random third party by definition, right?
Anastasia Volkova (42:09):
I love that you're bringing it up and that's partly what we are really putting forward and championing it because these are your emissions. You're putting this product on the shelf. It has these emissions associated with it. Maybe you are not exactly sure which field it came from, but you're clearly aware of the area where it was grown, the supply shed, the elevator maybe that it went through. So, you can take responsibility for those ecosystems, for those supply sheds, invest in them and have very tangible outcomes. What's really good about that is that there's no arguing that this is the direct connectivity between these farms and these emissions, and ultimately the companies that make food or the companies that produce animal protein, etcetera.
(42:55):
So, the level of credibility that you have to drive when you have insets versus offsets is different. This is a reliance on a supply chain, value chain partnership where by definition you are taking care of something that is part of your own operation and you are creating the resilience. Those farms that will transition to regenerative will be more likely, well, we have the statistics, we have the data. We have seen what happens in catastrophic loss years of floods and droughts. So, we know that for businesses, climate risk is their highest risk right now. De risking that means investing in regenerative agriculture. So, it's not just a triple bottom line, but it is future proofing, creating the resilience for entire industry.
Cody Simms (43:41):
And what are some of the underlying resistance points, systemic challenges, money talks? Where does money come from in farming today? Are there government policies that are causing friction? I'm curious to hear everything you've laid out sounds like, "Well, of course that's the way it should all go." But there's a reason why things don't move so quickly. What's causing the turmoil today?
Anastasia Volkova (44:03):
Yeah, a couple of things you mentioned certainly are at play here. First of all, regenerative as a journey and it's the how whilst resilience is the what. We're trying to achieve resilience by way of adopting regenerative. And adopting regenerative means various things depending on location. So, in Canada and Australia, they may already have the no-till practice as the default because they've been very water constrained and that's how they've managed that limitation. In other countries or in other places, it may be that you need to still adopt that no-till practice, so you can't prescribe regenerative.
(44:37):
So, there's some level of scalability and extensibility that platforms like our MRV needs to have in order to accommodate what the farmer already does and what would be additional. So, we can deal with that. There's some argument about it in the industry, but really, I think, it doesn't warrant us spending quite as much energy on because this is just all boats rise conversation.
Cody Simms (44:59):
That sounds like an education problem. Investing in education, helping farmers understand what's available to them.
Anastasia Volkova (45:05):
One hundred percent, and they want it. They understand the resilience. Is the outcome better? You need economics as the outcome. They want it. They just don't want to foot all the risk and all the cost of the transition because it's truly really expensive. So, let's talk about the money. Where does the money come from? It's fantastic to see the brands really putting the money where their mouth is not only in using our software like sustainability insights to evaluate, quantify, pinpoint their emissions, hotspots, opportunities to plan for abatement, potential investments, all of that is great.
(45:37):
But also, transitioning to investing on farm and paying farmers, capturing those impact units, so that's what part of the finance comes from. The other part has been coming from the government. There are policies including the USDA Climate-Smart Commodities Grant. And there's a number of such policies in Europe, in Brazil, in Australia where there's programs where farmers are getting support to adopt these practices. Some of them existed before, some of them are getting adapted to these outcomes now, and I want to emphasize that point. I think it's really important to align as many incentives from the government with these outcomes.
(46:14):
Sometimes, if you look at insurance, it may incentivize other practices and other outcomes. So, that's one of the main shifts that has to happen. If we're given farmer protections, we also want to give them the incentive to really transition to the practices we want them to have. Lastly, I would say we're yet to see the financial and insurance industry really take a significant step forward in this space and offer cheaper credit lines, cheaper insurance coverage for farmers that either have already adopted or are in the process of adopting those practices.
(46:49):
Because it's true that those will be less risk-prone, less catastrophic, lost chance farms, and they need to be provided a certain room and grace and effectively not be charged as much for those services. And this is where the additional funding can come into the system.
Cody Simms (47:09):
Do you see there being an inflation reduction act like version of an upcoming farm bill or anything like that, that will start to tackle some of these systemic challenges, whether it's grants to do regenerative or whether it's just reducing subsidies to take on other more carbon intensive heavy practices?
Anastasia Volkova (47:30):
There's a lot of conversations around this and we're certainly very involved with the experts from our teams and the experts from the industry in large really helping to think through this and create a path for equitable transition. But I'm certainly very hopeful that those incentives and the farm bill will be aligned with the national commitments that everyone has with certainly not just the US. We certainly all just have to get on the path that can keep us within 1.5 degrees Celsius trajectory. It's non-negotiable.
Cody Simms (48:04):
Anastasia, what is next for you all at Regrow? I know you closed your Series B funding about a year ago now, I think, and obviously that hopefully provided some serious accelerant to the business. The world is continuing to change every day right now and more and more awareness of some of the practices that we've talked about on this show. What's next?
Anastasia Volkova (48:26):
We're certainly scaling our impact. We're currently monitoring 1.2 billion acres. For us, the arable land of the world is the limit. We wanted to transition to resilience in whatever shape and form that is most logical for that land. So, for us, it's growth in the regions in Europe and Australia and Latin America and Asia. This is where we see a lot of demand and opportunity and put in a lot of our energy into also opening up the additional outcomes. We talked a lot about greenhouse gas emissions, but we sometimes overlook that the same models and the same systems even within Regrow, also make estimates of water quality biodiversity, the financial impacts on farmer livelihoods.
(49:14):
So, putting that more consolidated package, attracting the industry to investing into research around it so we can mature those additional co-benefits. I would say the geographic expansion and more of ecosystem services is where we see a lot of growth that we're investing in and this year and the years to come.
Cody Simms (49:34):
And for folks who are inspired hearing from you who are excited to work on this part of the climate problem, where do you need help today? Whether it's hiring and talent, whether it's business development, whether it's inbound sales interests, what are you looking for?
Anastasia Volkova (49:50):
All across the board, I would say. Because we're growing as a response to the industry needing this more and more. I would say we're very keen on product professionals that understand ESGs, scope three, farming, have the allegiance to farming. We are really impartial to customer success leaders and account managers that really get this space and get passionate about it. Our marketing team is hiring. Our design team is growing. I mean, everywhere I look, you probably can look at our job board at regrow.ag/careers and have a look at what's going on. And if the position isn't there yet, I'm sure you can follow us. And as we embark on the trajectory of this global impact, I hope to be in touch.
Cody Simms (50:31):
We really appreciate you coming on today, Anastasia. Everyone on the planet has to eat and you are helping us do that in a way that can continue to support the world's population as it's inevitably going to continue to grow and do so in a way that puts it in a positive place for the future of our planet and the future generations.
Anastasia Volkova (50:50):
Thank you so much for having me. It's such an important topic to shine the light on and for people to understand how their everyday, even dietary decisions are impacting and what an opportunity that agriculture represents for us to really help meet our global climate goals. So, it's been a pleasure and thank you so much for sharing this message with the climate community.
Jason Jacobs (51:10):
Thanks again for joining us on My Climate Journey podcast.
Cody Simms (51:15):
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem-solving capacity.
Jason Jacobs (51:24):
If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us@mcjcollective.com. And if you have a guest suggestion, let us know that via Twitter at MCJ pod.
Yin Lu (51:37):
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Cody Simms (51:47):
Thanks and see you next episode.
