Innovation Sprints

The COP28 Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes is co-chaired by COP28, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and Boston Consulting Group and supported by the UN High-Level Climate Champions as well as by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Global Methane Hub, and the World Farmers Organization. With a $2.2 billion investment, the partnership aggregates, accelerates, and amplifies existing efforts and new commitments from top food and agriculture players to transition large agricultural landscapes to regenerative agriculture by 2030. This initiative aims to translate commitments into tangible action and projects, benefiting people, climate, and nature.

The Reverte program provides an integrated solution to recover degraded pastureland areas that involve regenerative agricultural practices, financial solutions, and input-use protocols that make available fertilizers, seeds, machinery, and pesticides for growing soy and other intercropped harvests in Cerrado, Brazil. The goal of restoring 1 million hectares of degraded pastureland by 2030 is a win-win for productivity, avoided emissions, conservation, and farmers income. The second phase (2023-2025) aims to leverage $460 million to restore 255,000 hectares.

ADM is powering sustainability across the industries in which we participate. With a total investment of $350.4 million, ADM’s efforts span their business and value chain, and include enrolling 4 million acres of regenerative agriculture by 2025; investing broadly in fermentation technology that powers new plant-based products; a $350 million investment in feedstock for renewable diesel; and $400,000 in support for the Lifesaving Education and Assistance to Farmers (LEAF) Program in Kenya.

TechnoServe delivers inclusive, regenerative business solutions that create living incomes, cut emissions, and protect, manage, and restore ecosystems. Through the Farmers Regenerate initiative, TechnoServe enables smallholder farmers in emerging economies to transition to regenerative production, it networks with food processors and agribusinesses to build climate and nature-positive food systems and utilizes geospatial technology for landscape-level planning, monitoring and verification. In addition, TechnoServe will leverage $300 million in public and private-sector investment to scale transformative projects around the globe.

Watch Katarina Kahlmann, Chief Program Officer of TechnoServe, discuss the Innovation Sprint here.

Pivot Bio is committed to eliminating the need for synthetic nitrogen and replacing it with biological nitrogen, reducing GHG emissions worldwide. To calculate these benefits we will track, quantify, and verify the reduced emissions from the avoidance of synthetic nitrogen. We are committing to $291 million over 4 years in both R&D and product development to rapidly scale new adoption across the globe by improving the nitrogen replacement capacity of our microbes.

Watch Karsten Temme, Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder of Pivot Bio, discuss the Innovation Sprint here.

Watch this Innovation Report episode to learn more about Pivot Bio's impacts.

Biomass fermentation is a resource-efficient protein production method with up to 97% lower feed and water input requirements. This climate-smart, low-cost technology can be used to feed a growing population while reducing the emissions associated with protein production by up to 95%. Through a $228 million global investment by 2025, this Innovation Sprint will develop fermented protein functionality and scale up these technologies to reach a broader market and bolster global food security.

Using emerging technologies and extensive distribution networks, CF Industries and CHS are partnering to produce lower GHG nitrogen fertilizer to distribute to American farmers. This partnership will enable farmers and their agricultural and food company customers to reduce their upstream emissions in a certain and quantifiable way, while continuing to ensure strong crop yields. We estimate the investment in this partnership to support sustainable, climate-smart agriculture and food systems is approximately $200 million.

Watch Bert Frost, Executive VP of Sales, Market Development, and Supply Chain at CF Industries, discuss the Innovation Sprint here. 

To scale the deployment of climate-smart agriculture, Boomitra will deliver $200 million in carbon finance to farmers and ranchers in the developing world by 2025. The initiative will leverage Boomitra's proprietary AI and remote sensing technology, as well as the support of global partners, to implement projects that increase soil carbon, thereby unlocking gigaton-scale carbon removal. The $200 million pledged represents an increased investment and is expected to remove 13M tons of carbon across 5 million acres.

Watch Aadith Moorthy, CEO & Founder of Boomitra, discuss the Innovation Sprint here.

This Sprint has mobilized $145 million and aims to mobilize at least $200 million total from philanthropy, public and private sector in a global, coordinated research and development initiative to accelerate progress in development and implementation of methane mitigating technologies. The Sprint will address: long-term trials of feed additives; development of new additives; genetic tools and protocols to select for low-emitting livestock; microbiome research to underpin the above research areas; and information necessary to facilitate regulatory approval of mitigation technologies.

Inari has secured $124 million for an Innovation Sprint to concentrate on developing high-yield, low-input crops, focusing on wheat, soybeans, and corn. The funding will allow Inari to efficiently evaluate multiple gene edits and introduce high-performance edits into locally adapted elite germplasm. Inari's Sprint will progress toward the objective of wheat that is 10% more productive; soybeans that are 20% more productive; and corn that is 10% more productive and requires 40% less water and nitrogen.

Watch Ponsi Trivisvavet, CEO of Inari, discuss the Innovation Sprint here.

By harnessing the power of microbes, Loam Bio unlocks the opportunity for gigatonne scale carbon removal from the atmosphere, while increasing soil health and productivity in agriculture. $105 million has been committed to catalyze the market for high quality, robust carbon removal and sequestration in broadacre cropping soils. By 2025, this will be deployed into upscaled manufacturing capacity, continued product development and R&D to launch products for new crop types and microbes, as well as farmer education and extension activities to drive adoption of the technology across the globe.

TomorrowNow.org, Tomorrow.io and partners are pioneering an Africa-first innovation spirit to empower 20 million smallholder farmers over five years with next-gen location-based timely agri-weather services. Together, we build on established activities in East Africa, including efforts funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to leverage $80 million in private sector investment and $20 million in transformative philanthropy to connect governments and local agricultural value chain partners with next-gen weather intelligence and lay the foundations for rapid scale and sustainability.

To foster the integration of the fragmented Venture Capital Ecosystems across the Americas, Mana Tech Latam Impact Fund I is investing $100 million to reduce the gap between the typical Series A investment round in Latin America and the ones in the US by co-investing with US and international VC Funds in high-growth Impact Latin American Series-A startups already backed by the region's top-tier VC Funds. The Fund will focus on opportunities in verticals such as Agrifoodtech and Climatech to expand its economic, social, and environmental impact. US and international investors are expected to co-invest an average of five for every dollar invested. As a result, the $100M Mana Tech Impact Latam Fund should generate about $500 million in investments in Latin American climate-smart agriculture tech companies in the coming years.

GreenLight Biosciences is developing and commercializing climate smart biopesticides that are effective, easy to use, and environmentally friendly. GreenLight has invested $100 million to launch its first series of products by 2028, including a solution to the number one threat to bees, and is advancing exploration into additional segments such as weed control. These efforts promise to protect farmers' yield on over 6 million hectares and improve bee survival up to 70% while respecting biodiversity.

The Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS) aims to foster more resilient food systems, with an initial focus on the African continent. VACS seeks to boost agricultural productivity and nutrition by developing diverse, climate-resilient crop varieties and building healthy soils. Through bilateral and private sector partnerships, VACS will mobilize resources for agricultural R&D with both direct and in-kind contributions. VACS has invested $100 million in new funding.

Addressing both climate challenges and the current fertilizer supply crisis, this sprint will enable and empower small-scale producers in target regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America to achieve effective and efficient nitrogen fertilizer management over the next four years (2022-2025). By tailoring validated fertility management practices to their specific conditions, smallholders will optimize productivity, enhance climate resilience, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. With a planned budget of approximately $89 million until the end of 2025.

The private sector, US, Ireland, and research partners will support transforming the Malawian food system to be climate resilient, provide nutritious food, and support inclusive, sustainable growth. Deployment of $60+ million in investments and innovations will support rural development with firms like Malawi Mangos and Pxyus, surrounding communities, smallholder organizations, and MSMEs through a growth pole approach and youth and gender transformative lens. Over $200 million in additional private investments will be mobilized in five years.

Bayer is pleased to pledge $60 million over four years towards Precision Breeding initiatives which aim to create a design-driven methodology for crop improvement, developing more resilient crops, and sustainable product concepts. Precision Breeding combines Bayer’s industry-leading germplasm, deep genomic insights with globally connected field and environmental insights to develop better solutions faster. The Sprint aims to empower farmers to adjust to changing climatic conditions while decreasing environmental impact in both the breeding R&D process and on the farm. 

Agtech Accelerator is a venture capital-backed program established by Cultivator powered by Conexus, Economic Development Regina, and Emmertech to increase the investment, innovation, and adoption of climate-smart agriculture technology. Bolstered by the $60 million Emmertech fund, this three-year innovation sprint provides agtech startups across Canada and the UK with access to the capital, programming, and connections needed to address issues in food security and the climate crisis.

Increasing sustainable nutrition while delivering a positive environmental impact, Food Systems for the Future and partners will build and operate Africa's first automated insect protein production facility. The Kigali-based facility will upcycle the City's organic waste into a protein-rich feed input as well as a soil-enriching biofertilizer, reducing Rwanda's reliance on both soy-based feed and chemical fertilizer. Consequently, it will support the poultry and aquaculture industry's ability to produce affordable and accessible protein while also reducing CO2 emissions. Supported by proven global technology, local business acumen, and the national Rwanda government, the $55 million project will come online in 2025.

Watch Ertharin Cousin, Founder, President, and CEO of Food Systems for the Future, and Agripreneur Jean-Paul Mutalikanwa discuss the Innovation Sprint here. 

On-farm agroforestry has proven benefits for income, agricultural productivity, adaptation, and mitigation on smallholder farms in low and middle income countries. This partnership leverages over $50 million in committed funding to plant 250M trees by 2025. In doing this, it will compare the cost-efficiency and effectiveness of four innovative scaling models, to pioneer the mass deployment of tree-planting for climate-vulnerable farmers in 9 African countries, with the goal of planting 1 billion trees in the next decade.

United Airlines Ventures along with Tallgrass and Green Plains Inc. – Blue Blade Energy will invest up to a combined $50 million to develop and commercialize a novel Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) technology. They will be finalizing development of this technology over the next two years. If successful, Blue Blade aims to commence construction of a pilot facility in 2024, followed by a full-scale facility that could begin operations by 2028.

Mati Carbon’s mission is to enable climate resilience for smallholder farmers by improving crop productivity and using direct benefits transfer from carbon removal economics. Spreading rock dusts in farmlands removes carbon dioxide by accelerating the natural weathering process and improving crop productivity for smallholder farmers. Mati Carbon is investing $50 million over 4 years with a focus on developing scientific robust, scalable, and cost-effective carbon removal that will benefit the smallholder farmers in the global south.

Watch Shantanu Agrawal, Founder and CEO of Mati Carbon, discuss the Innovation Sprint here. 

BRAC and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture aim to forge a Smallholder Action Coalition for Climate Adaptation (SACCA). A total of $50 million will be invested from 2024-2028 to implement large-scale climate action programs. The initial project in Bangladesh plans to support one million smallholders (>35% women) to diversify their farms and adopt climate-smart innovations.

GENESIS aims to pioneer the wide-scale deployment of sustainable, efficient, and scalable solar-powered drip irrigation and solar thermal systems to empower local farmers and enhance maize production in Nigeria and decarbonize dairy production in Zambia. GENESIS plans to invest at least $50 million for the next two years, through 2025, for these solutions across Zambia and Nigeria. As part of the programme, training will be provided on efficient agricultural practices, solar panel installation, and operational system management with a particular focus on women empowerment.

The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) and the World Farmers Organisation established AgMission™. At the core of climate change is greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Agriculture contributes roughly 13 percent of global GHG emissions, yet the sector has the potential to also mitigate climate change. While advances to activate agriculture’s mitigation potential are happening in fields and labs around the world, there is no unifying force connecting this work or fostering inclusivity and collaboration among scientists, farmers and ranchers.

AgMission is filling this void by establishing a global collective of farmers, ranchers and scientists co-creating and rapidly expanding innovation, adaptation and the adoption of climate-smart technologies. By driving collaboration across agricultural and scientific communities, AgMission is accelerating effective, economically viable and locally customized climate-smart solutions.

AgMission has raised $45 million, including FFAR's matching funds, and continues to fundraise for this unprecedented initiative.

To put global agriculture on a path to mitigate 10 Gt CO2eq per year from protein production by 2050, the Good Food Institute and EIT Food, with support from Climate and Land Use Alliance, and Good Energies Foundation, Climate Advisers, are investing $41 million in open-access research globally to accelerate the development of sustainable plant-based and cultivated meats that are comparable in taste and price to conventional meat, and can generate new economic opportunities. Widespread adoption of sustainable proteins will mitigate direct methane emissions from agriculture, reduce deforestation, and free up millions of hectares for conservation and climate-focused land management.

A new $40 million initiative led by the CGIAR, in partnership with the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will unlock key climate-resilient traits from CGIAR’s vast global genebank collections. This Innovation Sprint will expand the utilization of high-value genetic diversity to address current and emerging climate challenges faced by millions of smallholder farmers worldwide. The initiative welcomes additional partners from all sectors to scale this critical work.

Cellular agriculture includes techniques for making animal products with significantly reduced environmental impact. Cultivated meat is a prime example: it can slash greenhouse gas emissions, land use and water use considerably. Through a $40 million investment in R&D over five years, this multi-stakeholder Innovation Sprint, carried out by Aleph Farms, enables a just transition to resilient production systems that enhance food security, spur economic growth, empower local communities and foster regional cooperation. 

Crop One Holdings and Emirates Flight Catering entered a $40 million joint venture to open ECO 1 in Dubai, UAE. The 330,000 sqft facility will provide food security for the Middle East by producing over three tons of high-quality leafy greens daily, using 95% less water than conventionally grown produce. ECO 1 is designed for continuous output of clean leafy greens grown without pesticides or chemicals. Crop One is helping grow a more sustainable global food system through its industry-leading vertical farming technology.

Watch Craig Ratajczyk, CEO of Crop One Holdings, discuss the Innovation Sprint here.

Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) in the MENA region provides financial support, technical assistance, and investment facilitation to scale Small to Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) that impact all sectors of the nexus (food, water, energy). Up to 50 innovators are supported with up to $250,000 each to reach 750,000 smallholder farmers and end-users, of which 25% are women. Until mid-2025, WE4F seeks to leverage and expand upon the $33 million mobilized so far.

The CGIAR and 20 partners are leveraging $31 million over 4 years (2023-2027) to ensure that climate innovations in agrifood systems are designed to work for women and rolled out in ways that address underlying gender inequalities. The Sprint will accomplish this by: 1) testing new climate innovations that address both climate change and gender inequality, 2) promoting more widespread, inclusive uptake of climate solutions, and 3) developing metrics to measure progress towards these goals.

Watch Nicoline de Haan, Director of CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform introduce their Innovation Sprint, highlighting why climate solutions need to include women here.

The Global FoodBanking Network (GFN) is the only global organization that recovers and redistributes food surplus at scale and engages member food banks in nearly 50 countries. GFN will accelerate food insecurity and hunger reduction through four key mechanisms: mapping and leveraging food loss and waste data, quantifying the environmental benefits of food recovery, scaling technological and logistical solutions to increase food bank capacity, and expanding their policy research to drive food systems change. GFN estimates that with an investment of $31 million from 2021 through 2025, these combined interventions could reduce food loss and waste by a total of 5%, which corresponds to a reduction of 7.5 million metric tons of CO2e. However, GFN will need scaled viability and investment in the food recovery and redistribution model to achieve these bold and critical goals.

BetterFedFoods LLC is an innovative leader in providing Climate-Smart Premiums to beef producers practicing regenerative farming through microalgae to improve soil organic matter, plant health, and animal performance. Extensive university research and commercial trials have validated the practices, as well as improving traceability and engaging consumers through product-specific QR codes driven by blockchain. In addition, BetterFedFoods LLC has leveraged approximately $30 million to establish a supply chain of sustainable products.

The IBM Sustainability Accelerator is a pro-bono social impact program advancing nonprofit and government initiatives that support vulnerable populations while addressing environmental challenges, including climate change, extreme weather, and pollution. IBM will provide the first cohort of participating organizations with technology and expertise to accelerate climate-smart agriculture solutions. Partners are welcome globally. Through 2025, Accelerator projects will receive an estimated market value of $30 million in IBM support including $10 million focused on sustainable agriculture.

Watch the IBM Sustainability Accelerator introductory video.

Watch the Innovation Report episode about the IBM Sustainability Accelerator to learn about their impacts.

Veea and partners are directing $30 million USD to climate-smart innovation for smallholder farmers in the Southeast Asia region and beyond. Veea provides hyper-converged edge computing, connectivity and security that sits at the “user edge”, where people places and things connect to networks and for this sprint, connecting sensors and actuators on smallholder farms in emerging and nascent nations. The goal is to enrich edge applications with real-time, local data merged with cloud-based information and AI to increase productivity and reduce resource utilization and waste in the agriculture value chain. For more information please see: www.veea.com/aim4climate 

The Agroecological TRANSITIONS’ Inclusive Digital Tools project (ATDT) aims to leverage $25 million to develop digital solutions for smallholder farmers to scale up agroecological practices. The program will expand access of low-cost digital technical advisories and performance assessment tools to 100K farmers in ten countries and five value chains in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This will enable farmer co-creation and rapid development of site-appropriate climate change resilience and mitigation measures based on agroecological principles.

A new $24 million initiative led by the OneCGIAR, Livestock, Climate and System Resilience (LCSR) is designed to meet the “double burden” challenge that climate change poses for livestock production. It addresses both adaptation and mitigation priorities for livestock production systems in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mali, Senegal, Guatemala, and Colombia, delivering strategic, well-targeted action research that provides answers to the tough choices and tradeoffs, as well as ‘investable’ solutions that influence policy and attract climate finance.

Coffee production is a source of carbon emissions through the significant use of fertilizer, energy, and land. With a combined investment of over $21 million, ofi is working with USAID and other partners in Peru, Mexico, and DR Congo to train farmers on climate-smart agricultural practices and step-up carbon capture activities. We can track the impact of these activities on our coffee footprint through the environmental metrics of our sustainability management system AtSource.

Watch Vivek Verma, Managing Director and CEO of Coffee at ofi, discuss the Innovation Sprint here. 

The Integrated Desert Farming Innovation Platform will support the Arabian Peninsula and MENA region in boosting employment and income. It also aims to ensure food, nutrition, and water security for their populations as they face the impacts of climate change through integrating and fast-tracking innovative and circular desert farming technologies and business models. In addition, the Sprint aims to leverage an increased level of investment from $7 million over five years to $20 million by the end of 2025.

The Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) and its partners will empower seed system actors to deliver climate-resilient bean varieties more efficiently to smallholder farmers in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. Mobilizing $20 million toward a demand-led and research-guide ‘bean corridor’ approach, this sprint innovation will accelerate bundling and scaling genetic and institutional innovations to improve bean productivity for three million farmers, two million of them accessing remunerative markets and 60% being women.

Watch Jean Claude Rubyogo, Director of PABRA, discuss the Innovation Sprint here. 

The Dairy Soil & Water Regeneration project is the largest soil health study on working U.S. dairies. Launched in 2021, the six-year project covers four major dairy regions, reaching 80% of U.S. milk production, and measures how differing growing practices impact soil health and reduce emissions under varying climates and conditions. Partners are investing at least $10 million, with up to $10 million in matching funds from the Foundation of Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR). Findings will help to accelerate climate-smart solutions.

Watch Tim Kurt, SVP of Environmental Research at Dairy Management Inc., discuss the Innovation Sprint here.

Locus Agriculture aims to make food and fashion products more sustainable by using non-GMO biological soil inoculants that reduce N2O emissions by over 30%. This method also increases nitrogen use efficiency and yields by over 10%, while building back soil organic carbon stocks by 7.5 mtons CO2e/hectare versus conventional practices. With promising results on more than 120,000 hectares in 2022/2023, Locus and partners are looking to expand to 0.5-1 million hectares abating up to 6 million mtons CO2e. Locus Agriculture has invested over $8 million with a further $12 million earmarked for the next two years, for a $20 million total investment.

Community Jameel is partnering with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop Jameel Observatory-CREWSnet, a new initiative to empower adaptation and mitigation for climate shocks within the agriculture sector. This will combine state-of-the-art climate and socioeconomic forecasting techniques with resilience technologies and unique private, public, and community partnerships. It will pilot in Bangladesh and Sudan, working with local partners. The total increase in aggregate self-financed investment is $18.5 million.

Watch Uzma Sulaiman, Associate Director of Community Jameel, discuss the Innovation Sprint here.

With an investment of $15.5 million, this Innovation Sprint integrates 18 initiatives to generate solutions for farmers, communities, and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean across fourteen countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela. The solutions target equitable and sustainable food security alongside resiliency and inclusion when combatting climate change. In addition, several organizations joined FONTAGRO to co-finance science, technology, and innovations to tackle challenges by working directly with scientists, extensionists, and farmers and to create public goods that help the region cope with climate challenges. 

With a budget of $15 million over the next three years (end of 2025) and the support of donors and partners, KickStart will drive the uptake of 100,000 carbon-neutral irrigation pumps among smallholders, spread across 16 Sub-Sahara countries, allowing them to harvest year-round sustainably, respond to (and mitigate) climate change, and tackle household poverty.

Watch Martin Fisher, CEO and co-founder of Kickstart, discuss the Innovation Sprint here. 

Gigatonne trains and resources teams worldwide to reduce, remove, and avoid GHG emissions, while providing jobs, food, and energy security to people in the bottom 20% of the socio-economic bracket. Teams develop scalable prototypes in food waste management, zero emissions transport networks, renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, land use, and carbon sequestration. Gigatonne is raising a $15 million Global Fund with their coalition partners to support the work of teams whose sustainability is bolstered by "Super Credits” which emphasize radical transparency.

There is a way to help farmers grow their incomes more sustainably using Climate-smart agriculture. Collaborating with USAID, the Rainforest Alliance, and industry partners, ofi is working with cocoa farmers in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, under the Resilient Ecosystems and Sustainable Transformation of Rural Economies (RESTORE) project. Over five years, USAID, ofi, and partners are investing $14 million  in supporting 15,000 farmers to acquire skills and tools to better protect their livelihoods and landscapes.

The Sustainable Pesticide Management Framework (SPMF) is a proactive, long-term engagement that supports low- and middle- income countries in their responsible use of pesticides and provides access to climate-smart crop protection innovations to smallholder farmers. Expanded access to the newest innovations in crop protection allows farmers to increase their resilience to climate change and maintain or grow their productivity, often while preserving soil health and carbon sequestration. By combining best practices in regulatory and stewardship, the SPMF creates an enabling environment for innovation; builds an infrastructure that supports sustainable pesticide management through poison centers, incident reporting, container management programs, and anti-counterfeit activities; and helps farmers respond to climate crises through accelerated access to the latest crop protection chemistries. With an investment of $13 million over five years, the SPMF will launch in nine priority low- and middle-income countries, beginning in 2022 in Kenya and Morocco.

Watch this episode of the AIM for Climate Innovation Report to learn more about the SPMF's positive impacts on sustainability and producer safety.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Bayer Crop Science will engage with smallholder farmers in Asia and Africa in research on sustainable adoption of direct seeded rice. The project’s goal is to improve farmer livelihoods integrating gender equity while reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the rice growing systems. Through 2025, USAID will invest $8.5 million at IRRI in partnership with Bayer Crop Science contributing an additional up to $4 million of in-kind support.

The ClimateAi team seeks to “climate-proof” 0.5 billion acres around the world by 2024 by deploying AI-driven adaptation tools that boost agricultural productivity despite climate change. ClimateAi’s innovative climate analytics (1 day to 40 years out) help farmers and agribusinesses adapt by enabling data-driven decisions to maximize yield, crop quality, resource efficiency, and financial stability/profits while reducing GHG emissions per ton. ClimateAi recently raised $12M from investors and $250k in grant funding from the National Science Foundation.

The Integrated Data Systems Initiative will provide multidimensional decision support to mainstream finance for healthy, sustainable food systems. The resulting data systems will feed into a new financial mechanism, the Co-Investment Platform for Food Systems Transformation. The initiative will mobilize $10 million over five years to support the mobilization of at least $10 billion in catalytic finance and wider pools of investment through the Co-Investment Platform over that same period. 

Cellular agriculture, a technology that produces animal products using cell cultures, could contribute to building resilient food systems with lower climate impacts. However, the climate benefits of this technology must be deliberately woven into its development. Through this Sprint, Cellular Agriculture for the Public Good, New Harvest aims to invest $10 million internationally to advance open research, drive evidence-based policy, and break down silos to inspire collaboration toward establishing cellular agriculture as a climate-smart food systems tool.

The Foundation of Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) launched the Efficient Fertilizer Consortium, as part of the Global Fertilizer Challenge, to advance efficient, environmentally beneficial and cost-effective fertilizers, and management practices. The Efficient Fertilizer Consortium amplifies investments that increase nutrient-use efficiency, generate new and improved fertilizers, reduce fertilizer use and support sustainable productivity. FFAR will raise funds to match federal contributions of $4.45 million, allowing the Efficient Fertilizer Consortium to award at least $8.9 million in research funding.

Watch Saharah Moon Chapotin, Executive Director of FFAR, discuss the Innovation Sprint here. 

• Studying the Economics of Regenerative Soil Health Management Systems in Cotton Production
• Soil Health Farmer Networks
• Looking at Soil in a New Way 
• The Soil Health Institute Internship Program

Watch Patrice Louvet, CEO & President of Ralph Lauren Corporation, share more about the mission behind the Innovation Sprint here.

Maine Shellfish Developers and the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Research have spent six years developing a proprietary vertical recirculating aquaculture system and micro-algae feed formulations for on-land oyster cultivation, insulated from runoff, pollution, and climate risks. By combining food-safe industrial waste to produce micro-algae, renewable energy to drive pumps, and a recirculating aquaculture system, this system will be cost effective and net negative in comparison to protein production through poultry, beef, pork, and finfish farming. This sprint is investing $7.4 million from 2024-2026.

The Transforming Investments in African Rainfed Agriculture (TIARA) initiative is challenging the status-quo on rainfed agriculture with an evidence-based approach to unlock the knowledge, skills and behaviours that are necessary for investments in climate smart enhanced rainfed agriculture to happen at scale in Africa. Led by  SIWI and CIFOR ICRAF, the TIARA project aims to mobilize $6.9 million through 2025 and build the case for sustainable funding mechanisms such as Payments for Ecological Services.

Climate change is a growing threat to food security, reducing crop yields and increasing vulnerability to pathogens and pests. Legumes are a critical source of nutrition for people, animals, and soils. 2Blades will exploit proprietary genomics tools and germplasm resources developed through an initial $35 million investment, with new investment of $6.6 million to economically scale gene discovery, and accelerate deployment in legumes for Africa. 2Blades seeks partners for development and funding totaling $12.7 million to further scale efforts.

Watch Diana Horvath, President and co-founder of 2Blades, discuss the Innovation Sprint here. 

NPA is led by Land O’Lakes Venture37 with Forage Genetics International, Corteva Agriscience, and the International Livestock Research Institute. The pilot launched in Kenya in 2020, providing a scalable, market-wide solution to key gaps in the animal nutrition market to improve dairy production, boost climate resilience among farmers, increase access to animal-sourced foods, and reduce emissions by promoting climate-smart agriculture and optimized animal nutrition practices. NPA has crowded in over $6.6 million in in-kind and financial investments.

The Run Tian project is a transformative initiative to advance soil health in the Huang-Huai-Hai region of North China, demonstrating the agronomic and economic viability of reduced or no-till field management. Syngenta Group, The Nature Conservancy, and partners aspire to transition 800,000 hectares of Chinese farmland to sustainable practices by the end of 2023. The sprint commits over $5.27 million in investment: $3 million have been invested in the two work streams since 2020, and over $2 million are planned for further investment through 2025. 

Watch Daniel Vennard, CSO of Syngenta Group, discuss the Innovation Sprint here. 

Arable plans to invest $5 million to optimize nitrogen use in corn and potato crops through high-resolution spectral sensing, weather analysis, and remote sensing to reduce synthetic nitrogen use, increase productivity, and promote sustainable farming practices. The system includes five main components: in-field sensing, agronomic modeling, economic and risk components, user experience, and boots-on-the-ground people to drive adoption and understanding. The goal is to improve agricultural productivity and remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Agerpoint Capture is an AI-powered spatial intelligence app for smartphones and tablets that digitally measures and monitors crops and forests. Agerpoint is investing $5 million to make the app more broadly accessible on lower-cost devices by the end of 2025 and to advance machine learning analytical models. This expansion will further democratize access to digital plant health and growth metrics, particularly for smallholder farmers and landowners, providing better data transparency and traceability for climate-smart agriculture.

Enterprise Neurosystem is awarding $5 million of in-kind resources to AgroSpace, the winner of the AIM for Climate Grand Challenge: Leveraging the Power of AI and Machine Learning, to develop the project “Revolutionizing Remote Sensing for Food Security.” The prize from members of Enterprise Neurosystem includes a year of Kove Software Defined Memory (Kove:SDM™), Red Hat RHODS subscriptions, Equinix Bare Metal Infrastructure, AWS Cloud Credits, IBM Cloud Credits, and one-on-one access to the Enterprise Neurosystem experts to provide assistance on their AI, Data Science, Software, and Hardware projects. As a result, AgroSpace developed its first digital agriculture product IrriSmart, which uses satellite data and analyses of weather patterns to measure soil moisture content and water consumption in plants, determining irrigation schedules for farms and regions. Leveraging data from NASA and the European Space Agency, IrriSmart helps farmers maximize their crop yield using minimal water.

Watch AIM for Climate AI Grand Challenge Winners, Italo Moletto & Tomás Acuña of Agro Space Chile, discuss the Innovation Sprint here.

Reducing the methane-intensity of milk is critical to achieving climate change goals and feeding a growing population. This sprint will reduce the methane-intensity of milk in Ethiopia by using climate finance to incentivize dairies to provide methane-reducing, climate smart products and services to their smallholder farmer suppliers. RTI International and partners will leverage $5 million of public and private sector support to develop and operationalize a scalable model suitable for smallholder farmers in developing countries.

Watch Paul Weisenfeld, Executive VP for International Development at RTI, discuss the Innovation Sprint here.

Carbonwave is transforming the largest seaweed bloom on the planet, sargassum, from a source of Caribbean methane and ecosystem destruction into an agricultural yield enhancer, an award winning worldwide first seaweed-based cosmetic emulsifier, and a leather alternative. Millions of hectares can be treated, reduce nitrogen use, and avoid methane when sargassum rots. Carbonwave and partners are mobilizing $4.38 million to develop, demonstrate, and deploy their Sarga Agriscience extract to increase crop yields 4-12% for a 3-15X ROI for farmers. 

Paddy rice emissions due to flood duration vary significantly across regions and the inability to monitor emissions cost-effectively at scale and in real-time limits mitigation practices.  This Sprint will integrate field-scale data, biogeochemical modeling, and satellite observations to develop the ability to measure CH4 emissions from rice fields directly from space.  The Sprint leverages existing investment totalling $4 million and seeks additional funding for analysis, ground-truth data collection, scenario-building exerciseslivestockgre, and dissemination.

Locus Agriculture’s low-cost non-GMO biologicals cut enteric methane by 20-80% in university trials while showing significant animal health & productivity improvement. This reduction if realized globally is equivalent to 0.5 billion mtons CO2e. The same platform inhibits methanogens and can potentially improve nutrient efficiency in rice. Locus has invested over $3.5 million in research and development and are looking for co-development/funding partners to finish development and deploy commercially at scale.

The Pathways to Dairy Net Zero (P2DNZ) is a program across the global dairy sector to reduce GHG emissions. P2DNZ has identified 10 emerging dairy countries as “Early Adopters” for the program that together represent >30% of global dairy GHG emissions. The initiative will help transform the dairy sector in these countries to achieve major reductions in GHG emission. PDNZ has already secured $3 million commitments and will attract additional funding from the Green Climate Fund and other donor groups to make the transition possible. 

With a $3 million initial investment, colleagues at the University of California Davis and Berkeley are leveraging their team’s interdisciplinary expertise to achieve a systems-level understanding of greenhouse gas fluxes in rice plants at the plant-microbe interface. They will carry out large scale phenotyping and genotyping approaches to develop new tools to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

This sprint focuses on climate-smart agriculture by reducing food loss, waste, and adapting to climate change. Ignitia will develop a database for AI-driven insights, including climate risk scoring, and build strong strategic partnerships with food supply chain stakeholders for scale. With an investment of $3 million, the expected impact includes empowering 1 million individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa, promoting behavior change for sustainable farming, reducing yield losses by 20-25%, and cutting down CO2 emissions through efficient practices.

Watch Andrew Lala, CEO of Ignitia, discuss the Innovation Sprint here. 

The yawning gender gap in African agricultural research and development and women farmers’ low uptake of climate innovations hinders Africa’s capacity to cope with climate change. This $2.5 million initiative will increase numbers and experiences of African women leading equitable climate solutions. Over the next two years, this initiative will build a pool of confident, capable African women equipped to lead climate research, enhancing their ability to influence policy changes for improved smallholders’ livelihoods.

Watch Dr. Susan Kaaria, Director of AWARD, highlight how their Innovation Sprint will empower women to adopt innovations in Africa here. 

The Brazilian Innovation Agency of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (FINEP) has dedicated $2 million to R&D for Alternative Protein innovation for the period 2023-25. Additionally, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), an innovation-oriented public company focusing on generating knowledge and technology for Brazilian agriculture and cattle-raising, is hosting three research projects totalling $240,000 to develop novel structuring technologies to produce whole-cut chicken meat analog products using native plant ingredients.

Watch Gus Guadagnini, CEO of The Good Food Institute Brazil, discuss the Innovation Sprint here.

FAIRR Initiative and the Good Food Institute (GFI), with several partners including Breakthrough Institute, have developed a standardized environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework for the alternative protein industry. Alternative proteins generate lower emissions and use less land and water than conventionally produced animal proteins. Robust ESG measurement tools will enable companies to demonstrate to investors and the market the climate benefits of alternative proteins, and allow for comparability between meat-based and alternative protein products and portfolios. Total expected investment of $1.27 million over 5 years.

Food waste causes an estimated 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. To reduce food waste, California strawberry growers and three large retailers have partnered with The Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment to identify where and why food is wasted in the fresh strawberry supply chain and pilot innovative solutions to mitigate food waste hotspots. This sprint is investing $150,000 with the aim to increase investment to build out the pilot recommendations.

Watch Pete Pearson, Global Initiative Lead of Food Circularity for World Wildlife Fund, discuss the Innovation Sprint here.