TIFS has been convening a series of workshops to generate ideas for closing the gap between the investment needs of regenerative businesses and the investment requirements of interested private and public investors.
On April 19, 2023 a diverse group of stakeholders, including impact investors, companies, and solution providers, met and generated some exciting ideas.
Participants articulated several important principles to guide the work going forward:
- Let practitioners play a lead role; they are working with producers, companies, and community members on community and producer-oriented solutions.
- Investors should realign their expectations with definitions of risk, return, efficiency, and scale that reflect the value created by supporting healthy soils, nutritious food, biodiversity, carbon, and community well-being.
- Technology and interoperable data – appropriately owned and managed by producers and service providers – should be applied to build evidence of environmental and social outcomes.
- Stakeholders should collaborate to build evidence for the regenerative business case.
Workshop participants articulated several important opportunities, including the following.
- Develop regional or landscape pilots to integrate production, processing, and market access for diverse and regenerative products.
- Create an integrated capital Fund for Food Systems Transformation that facilitates targeted investments for regenerative transitions in regional pilots.
TIFS is leading the following next steps.
- Organize a next workshop on the Missing Middle of Investing in Food Systems Transformation in Washington DC in June
- Follow up with potential other partners to explore Regional Pilots and a Fund for Food Systems Transformation
We are grateful to all the participants for their invaluable contributions to the discussions.