Improving soil health, countering climate change and increasing biodiversity are the “why” behind Agreventures and its soon to be launched Acres app.
Alongside growing healthy soil, healthy food, and restoring degraded ecosystems, it addresses two other primary problems. One is farmers’ access to land and capital, so that we can rapidly scale the transition to regenerative agriculture. The other is to enable investors who want to create positive impact through their investments, the opportunity to do so through regenerative farmland.
This week I spoke to Ginny Daniels, CEO of Agreventures to learn about Agreventures’ Acres App, the problem it is trying to solve, and opportunities for potential investors.
This comes ahead of next week’s Impact Investment Summit where Ginny will be moderating an important discussion titled, “Seeding Change – Exploring Agriculture and Nature Investment Trends. Deep dive into Agriculture and Nature investment opportunities and trends”.
The following excerpts are from my chat with Ginny…
Invest in Australian Farmland and watch your money grow. Literally.
Everybody wants to build sustainable generational wealth. We believe farmland is the ultimate impact investment — providing strong and stable returns over time, and multipliers of impact, and we think all investors should have access to that in a meaningful way.
Our soon-to-be-released Acres app will enable everybody (not just the 1%) to share in the long-term benefits and impact of farmland ownership and participate in a direct and meaningful way to the rapid acceleration to the transition to a more regenerative future.
We’ve seen the opportunity with the advancement in digital micro-investment platforms, to create a micro-investment platform for farmland.
No other investment class can provide long-term, stable, uncorrelated returns alongside the opportunity for tangible, intrinsic impact for nature, food supply chains and climate that regenerative farmland does.
The premise being that you can buy an acre and invest in farmland from your phone with a very small investment. This enables younger generations and retail investors to be part of the climate solution that we think is a no brainer, in a no brainer way. It’s affordable and accessible, wherever they are in their investment journey, and provides intrinsic impact and tangible benefits like being able to stay on farms, connect with nature and participate in a meaningful way in watching their impact and their investment grow.
Through the platform, we are able to fill the gaps that farmers might find in traditional funding, or even investment funding.
We provide aligned and patient capital for expansion and new property acquisition for established operations, as well as pathways to ownership for next generation farmers and graziers.
Partnering with farmers provides capital efficiency and leverage for impact at scale, with management that has deep local expertise and vested interest in building asset values and resilience.
This also creates additional layers of impact in helping to generate long term community restoration and revitalisation, as well as creating alternative pathways for succession that can benefit all stakeholders.
A different approach
Rather than the common model buying land and leasing it to farmers, we partner with the farmers and become capital partners. We believe that they are the expert managers locally on the ground — on the farm that they’re managing. Our model maintains their autonomy and their ability to grow a business as well as long term equity in the land they manage.
We want to facilitate the movement towards regenerative agriculture by offering the opportunity for both farmers and investors to build equity and legacy wealth through their management and stewardship.
From the retail investment side, the model also provides opportunities for tangible benefits like being able to go and stay at properties, visit farms, and connect with their supply chain and the impact they are helping to create, which hopefully leads to additional market opportunities for farmers as well.
We take a very ground-up approach to connecting capital to land – essentially, reconnecting people with nature at scale, with the ability to participate with very small amounts of capital.
Regenerative farmland as an investment
Traditionally, farmers grow their wealth and their business based on the capital growth of land. The business itself, of course, also has a positive impact. But fundamentally, land growth is a big part of their wealth creation and we don’t want to change that.
Agreventures has a unique structure which can provide income and growth opportunities.
This is a legacy investment that will suit people with a long-term investment horizon who want capital preservation, impact, and growth potential. Essentially, the longer investors stay in, the higher the returns. We take a bit of a Warren Buffett approach with the view that the ideal holding period is forever – that these investments could be passed down through generations.
However, we are also building in liquidity for investors, and the opportunity to buy out our investment for farmers along the way, while preserving the legacy of stewardship and impact we want to create.
Our farmers have proven business and management track records, and they’re at the stage of wanting to expand, but may have a gap between the capital they have access to and what’s needed to do what they want. We aim to fill that gap.
We believe this model provides investors with better risk mitigation and diversity across management, geography and enterprise type, alongside multi layered impact.
Our farmers are focused on conservation and natural capital enhancement alongside production returns, and we see this model as a very leveraged and efficient opportunity for investors looking for landscape and biodiversity restoration at scale.
Is the Fund open for investment?
The fund is now in pre-launch and open for seed investment at this point. However, there is opportunity at present for direct farmland investment via our initial portfolio.
If you’re a philanthropist there’s a pathway, if you’re a retail investor there’s a pathway, if you’re a fund there are engagement possibilities. It’s not one fund; it’s an ecosystem that works to fill those gaps that exist with different ways people can participate.
Ginny at the Impact Investment Summit
The breakout session: “Seeding Change – Exploring Agriculture and Nature Investment Trends. Deep dive into Agriculture and Nature investment opportunities and trends,” will take place at 12:00pm on Day 2 of the Summit. It will feature Ginny Daniels, alongside Lachy Ritchie, Diana Callebaut, Toby Grogan and Fiachra Kearney.
For more on Agreventures and its Acres app see: https://www.agreventures.com/