Growing Returns

Selected tag(s): agricultural finance

Collaboration between food companies and banks can accelerate regenerative agriculture in Europe and beyond

The widespread adoption of regenerative agriculture practices in Europe could strengthen crop resilience to extreme weather and support the long-term sustainability of farms, communities and ecosystems – an urgent need as the region faces record-breaking heatwaves. Despite the benefits of adopting cover cropping, no-till, nutrient management, alternative manure management and other regenerative practices, many farmers are hindered by financial barriers, including high up-front costs and risks.

These transition costs coincide with a major financing gap. A 2023 analysis from the European Investment Bank estimates that agriculture in the EU has a financing gap of up to €62 billion ($73 billion). Research by the Soil Association Exchange with farmers in the UK found that 66% of farmers agree that financial and business risks are barriers to transitioning to farming systems that prioritize climate and nature, and 60% lack the financial flexibility needed for experimentation and learning during the transition process.

We’ve conducted similar research in the United States, finding that more than half of farmers in Iowa – the highest producing state for many commodity crops – are interested in transition loans paired with other incentives to support them in adopting soil health practices.

Farmers’ financial partners – commercial and agricultural banks, lenders that provide farm loans, and food and agriculture companies that buy farmers’ products – have an important role in supporting the transition to regenerative agriculture.

Recently, EDF, Opterra and EIT Food co-hosted a roundtable bringing several leading agricultural banks together with food and agriculture companies in Europe to explore how they can collaborate to co-finance regenerative agriculture. What we learned can help accelerate regenerative agriculture in Europe and beyond.

Food companies and banks have complementary motivations to finance regenerative agriculture

Food and agriculture companies and agricultural banks have complementary business drivers and strengths that support their collaboration. Many food and agriculture companies have set environmental targets for the agricultural products they source and have already established programs offering incentives and technical support to farmers who improve environmental outcomes. They are also motivated by the opportunity to build resilience in their supply chains as extreme weather increasingly threatens food security.

Agricultural banks offer financing that can support farmers through on-farm investments that occur over time or require substantial capital outlays. They also often have existing, close relationships with their farmer clients and insight into the entirety of farm businesses. They are motivated to support their farmer clients who want to make on-farm investments aligned with market shifts and government targets, including sustainability goals and greenhouse gas emission reductions.

When these business priorities come together, companies and banks have the opportunity to support farmers by offering holistic financial solutions in which market incentives and financing are packaged and tailored to the regenerative transition. In addition to providing better financial solutions for farmers, collaboration between food companies and agricultural banks will also expand the total amount of transition finance available to farmers. This would be a dramatic improvement to the status quo, in which farmers must try to fit together different incentives and financing that often have incompatible or burdensome requirements.

Building from examples of success

Participants in the roundtable shared existing programs and initiatives that could be learned from or expanded with a broader collaborative effort.

Across Europe, offering interest rate incentives within agricultural loans for sustainable projects is increasingly becoming the norm. For example, the Bank of Ireland has expanded its Enviroflex loan program to be available to 95% of Irish dairy farmers, and has received €30 million in loan applications to date. This financing supports the Irish dairy sector – a critical economic driver and major source of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions – to implement climate-friendly practices and technologies.

Earlier this year, the United Kingdom agricultural bank Oxbury also launched a new loan facility to incentivize and reward farmers to make sustainable changes. The Oxbury Transition Facility operates in conjunction with other financing initiatives, such as government grants and supply chain incentives, to create a blended finance model that extends the impact of multiple partners.

Additionally, the Swedish alternative finance provider Gårdskapital was created to help more farmers transition to regenerative practices and offers a variety of tailored financing options.

Value chain collaboration can drive progress

To bring financial solutions such as these and others to scale, participants weighed how they can enable greater collaboration between food and agricultural companies and financial institutions.

One key idea of interest was a blended finance facility at a landscape scale – an entity that could help convene finance providers to offer lower interest rates or take on higher-risk projects, and better align with supply chain programs and incentives in a specific region. Other opportunities that emerged for collaboration on financing or de-risking products included bi-lateral partnerships when companies’ product sourcing regions and financial institutions’ service territories have farmer customers in common.

This kind of collaboration promotes a voluntary, whole-value chain approach to advancing regenerative agriculture – one that enables farmers to make a change by supporting them through the transition.

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Modernizing agricultural insurance to strengthen farmers’ ability to adapt

Last year, the U.S. faced its fourth most costly year of extreme weather, contributing to more than $20 billion in agricultural losses. As this trend of increasingly extreme weather continues, modernizing agricultural insurance in the U.S. is a crucial step toward protecting farmers’ financial stability and reducing the risks they face when transitioning to climate-resilient practices.

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Farmers need support to survive this economic squeeze

A farmer in a tractor plants rows of corn in a field.

In conversations with farmers in recent months, one word keeps coming up to describe their economic reality: “squeeze.” High farm input costs and loan interest rates are making it more expensive for farmers to grow crops. At the same time, low commodity prices mean they earn less money for the crops they grow. Farmers are caught in the middle of a bad deal with many asking whether it is even worth it to farm this year.

Farmers are facing this dilemma while also navigating additional disruptions and uncertainty. Federal funds have been frozen or canceled, putting farmers with existing contracts at risk after they’ve already invested their own money with the expectation that government funding would cover the remaining cost of farm improvements. Tariffs create another layer of price uncertainty and open the door for other countries to gain a competitive advantage in global markets. On top of this, farmers in several regions have experienced damage from extreme weather events, making their financial situation even more fraught.

Farmers are getting squeezed, and this makes it harder or even impossible for them to position their businesses for long-term success. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

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The Regenerative Agriculture Financing Program expands in its second year

A large field of soybean crop.

A large field of soybean crop.

The Regenerative Agriculture Finance Program, also known as RAF, was launched in January 2022 by Farmers Business Network in collaboration with Environmental Defense Fund. The pilot year of the RAF program included 48 corn, wheat and soybean farmers seeking access to lower interest rates on operating loans by achieving standards for soil health and nitrogen fertilizer management practices.

When launched, the RAF program quickly became Farmers Business Network’s fastest selling financial product ever. Of the participating growers who completed data collection, 83% met the environmental standards and received a rebate payment equal to 0.5% of their loan interest rate.

The success of the pilot year of the RAF encouraged Farmers Business Network to expand the program. Learn more about the 2023 program results, as well as new opportunities and challenges for the RAF.

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A new resource hub empowers crop insurers and farmers to boost financial resilience to extreme weather

A farmer stands in a field of soybean crop and corn residue, facing a glowing sunset.

A farmer stands in a field of soybean crop and corn residue, facing a glowing sunset.

From extensive droughts across the Great Plains and back-to-back hurricanes damaging vegetable and citrus crops in the Southeast, the last two production seasons have demonstrated the intensifying damage of extreme weather on America’s farms. In 2023 alone, natural disasters caused nearly $22 billion in crop and rangeland losses. While crop insurance is a critical safety net for farmers, the growing impact of climate change underscores the need for proactive resilience strategies on the farm.

Recognizing this, Chubb and its crop insurance division Rain & Hail — the largest crop and agriculture insurance provider in the U.S. — has launched a new resource hub designed to equip farmers and crop insurance agents with essential tools, insights and advisors to increase on-farm resilience. Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps fellow Carter Purcell led the development of the hub during her time at Chubb.

The new resource hub highlights the increasing need for comprehensive risk management solutions that not only protect farms financially in the short term, but also support long-term resilience.

Learn more about the relationship between crop insurance and resilience to extreme weather, and why it’s critical to provide solutions that support farmers’ short- and long-term financial resilience.

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To feed a growing population, farmers need quality financing to flow

Farmers harvesting coffee in the countryside of Brazil.

Agriculture is both a driver of climate change and on the frontlines of climate impacts. A variety of farming practices, technologies and system changes can reduce emissions to help stabilize the climate and build resilience to help protect global food production. However, a lack of access to fit-for-purpose finance keeps farmers from transitioning to climate-smart farming practices.

This year at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, countries will gather to set a new global climate finance goal, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), for how much money high-income countries will provide to low-income countries for climate action.

This negotiation presents an opportunity to elevate farmers’ needs in financing the climate transition in agriculture.

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Increasing extreme heat is hurting Kansas farmers’ bottom line

Grain silo over a golden wheat field

During the summer of 2023, Kansas endured a historic heat wave with temperatures soaring above 110°F in some areas. As climate change continues to intensify, the frequency and severity of extreme heat are projected to increase. Are Kansas farmers at risk of losing money in the face of these extreme growing conditions? A new study by EDF, Kansas State University and Cornell University aimed to answer this question by examining the impacts of extreme heat over the last four decades.

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Trends to scale collective impact at the 2023 Sustainable Agriculture Summit and beyond

hand in soil showcasing cover crop growth.

Establishing a cover crop during the cool season.

In early December, the EDF climate-smart agriculture team will join hundreds of farmers, food and agriculture companies, university experts and other conservation organizations at the 2023 Sustainable Agriculture Summit, “Scaling Collective Impact: Collaborating to Accelerate Agricultural Sustainability.” This conference is one of the largest annual gatherings of people working to improve sustainability in U.S. agriculture, and the discussions held in the conference sessions and hallways reflect the major trends, opportunities and challenges facing those who share this goal.

Here are some expected “hot topic” discussions at the conference and throughout the agricultural sustainability movement as we approach 2024.

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Cover crop costs vary significantly: new data from 83 Minnesota farms shows

farm with a barn in the background

Data on the financial impacts of climate-smart practices, like cover crops, can help inform farmers’ financial decisions when considering these practices. While cover crops can help improve soil health and make farms more resilient to extreme weather, farmers continue to have questions about the types of financial impacts cover crops will have on their operations. A multi-year collaborative project is collecting and analyzing data to help farmers and their advisers answer these questions.

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Climate, agriculture, and finance: exploring connections at the Fed

Maggie Monast on a panel at the The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s 2023 Agricultural Symposium, “The Changing Geography of Agricultural Production.”

Maggie Monast as a panelist at the The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s 2023 Agricultural Symposium, “The Changing Geography of Agricultural Production.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s 2023 Agricultural Symposium, “The Changing Geography of Agricultural Production,” explored the factors driving changes in where and how agricultural commodities are produced, disruptions that are leading to further geographical differences, and the role of investments and farm policy in the years ahead.

I had the honor of joining as a panelist with representatives from Farmer Mac and Rabo AgriFinance, where I shared EDF’s perspective on how climate change affects agricultural production and finance. Climate impacts on agriculture, from catastrophic weather events to temperature and rainfall variability, increase risks for farmers and their financial partners. This pattern of increasing disruption directly affects food availability, prices, and ultimately, what ends up on our plates. As one of my fellow panelists noted, “The one certainty in agriculture today is volatility.” Read More »

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