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Clear Frontier

Farmland Fund Partnering with Family Farmers To Help Them Transition to Organic

Published

Approach

“One of my dad’s favorite say­ings was I’m an active envi­ron­men­tal­ist, not an envi­ron­men­tal activist. And there’s a big dif­fer­ence. He’d say, I active­ly do it every day, tak­ing care of this land. He was adamant about that, and he was right. We care for our envi­ron­ment; we care for our nat­ur­al resources; we care for our water. We are stew­ards of the land.”

— Ryan Weeks, Farmer, Clear Frontier

Food & Agriculture Near-Term Outcome #3:

A wave of farmers and food producers adopt methods that restore the environment rather than harming it.

Primary SDGs:

6. Clean Water and Sanitation
13. Climate Action
15. Life on Land

Type of Financing:

Direct Investment
S2G Ventures

The Problem

Current approaches in conventional agriculture have degraded the quality of soil and driven us towards a system that encourages yield per acre. With organic and other non-commodity crop production practices, synthetic pesticides are eliminated, soil health and water retention improve, and carbon sequestration is accelerated. This transition has significant potential to mitigate climate change while at the same time helping farmers improve their profits.

The Approach

Clear Frontier builds long-term partnerships that allow farmers to transition to organic farming and scale profitably. The firm’s engagement covers four phases: lease structuring, land stewardship practices, operations, and offtake arrangement. Clear Frontier offers proprietary tools and a network of strategic partners that provide unique insights and intelligence to align the farmer with customer-specific needs.

The Impact

  • 30% of Clear Frontier’s farmland is Certified USDA organic, with another 70% currently in a transition period;
  • 7% of Clear Frontier’s farmland is under the Regenerative Organic Certification;
  • 98% of the land is farmed by local farming families with an average operator age of 43 versus a national average of 59.5%
  • 40% of the farms have women involved in the active management of the farm.

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