Written by cibo.tech | Aug 7, 2025 5:22:59 PM
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CIBO
was featured
in an article by
AgTechNavigator
by Oliver Morrison which explored how the AgTech sector
is reducing
farmers'
risk of adopting regenerative farming practices.
CIBO Technologies
is
used
as
an example of a company that uses software to simplify sourcing and accessing public and private incentives and partnerships with grower-focused organizations to help farmers participate in conservation programs. CIBO CEO Dan Ryan is quoted several times within the article, highlighting the challenges farmers face in knowing what opportunities are available, the difficulty in program enrollment, data collection for applications, and limited estimates of return before entering the application process.
Article Summary
Farmers
don’t
need to be told about the risks of climate change or learn more about how regenerative practices can create more ecologically and economically robust agricultural systems. It simply remains a risk for them to adopt new practices. Thankfully
there’s
an agtech sector working to reduce it. There appears to be a significant gap in the climate-smart and regenerative agriculture market. These practices are crucial,
it’s
believed, to decarbonize agriculture systems, to make farming more resilient to climate change, and to reverse and restore biodiversity and soil fertility.
The problem, according to McKinsey, is a need for more operational and financial support. In other words, the risk is just too high. Despite acknowledging the long-term benefits of sustainable practices, for example, many farmers still anticipate that the cost of sustainability will
remain 1 to 3% higher even after five years. McKinsey also notes that government programs have substantially higher participation among farmers than industry programs. Some 57% of farmers surveyed have joined a government program versus just 4% for industry-sponsored.
According to McKinsey, this could indicate that government programs are driving adoption and that continued programmatic support from governments and industry players may encourage more farmers to transition to sustainable farming practices.
There are, however, moves in the industry aimed at combining public and private resources to drive a more rapid adoption of conservation agriculture.
CIBO Technologies, for example, uses data, analytics, and software to simplify program enrollment and help farmers more easily discover what incentives are available and what they are eligible for. CIBO partners with grower-focused organizations such as co-ops, agronomists, and retailers to help their farmer customers access USDA conservation programs and
‘
stack’
public and private incentives for adopting sustainable practices. Thus, the company believes it can help farmers maximize the potential returns on conservation practices available to them.
How to make regenerative agriculture a profitable reality for farmers
"U
p to
now
there's
not been an easy way
of
farmers
knowing
what's
available to them,
"
CIBO CEO Dan Ryan told AgTechNavigator at the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit.
The public and private sector initiatives on offer for farmers include NRCS programs
and new
tax credits like the Clean Fuel Production Credit (45Z),
as well as
Scope 3 reduction and carbon credit programs.
These programs are also
“
super complicated for farmers to enroll in,
”
Ryan told us.
“
Farms
are asked
to provide reams of data, and it takes months
of time
to do this work before they even know if they are eligible. So
we've
tried to eliminate that whole problem
.”
The idea is that growers enter their field boundaries onto a CIBO platform and immediately see the programs they might be eligible for.
“
We also try to estimate right up from what the return will be,
”
Ryan said.
“
It breaks done one adoption barrier
–
namely the time and hassle of working out what
your
eligible for
.”
Meanwhile, while
there are various programs
on offer to farmers,
"
none on their own is really sufficient to cover the cost of the transition and also the risk that farmers receive during the transition. So the idea is how can we simplify and bring incentives to farmers more effectively and hopefully combine the incentive
s
.”
Given
there remains a
lack of advance financing available to farmers,
the
ROI is
key
he said
.
“
The idea is how
can we get the most dollars to farmers.
”
By stacking a USDA grant on top of a corporate carbon removal program,
“
instead of
getting
20-30 dollars an acre,
you're
getting 60-90, which could
really
help accelerate this transition
.”
Climate change is, quite simply, an existential threat to the company
,
Jess Newman,
McCain’s
senior director of agriculture and sustainability
told
a panel discussion at the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit.
“
It’s
about security supply. I can point to my bottom line and say
exactly
what it costs us. Our
why
for sustainability is supply security and making sure the
children of the growers
actually
want to grow potatoes someday.
It’s
a
pretty existential threat to our business if they
don’t
want to
.”
“T
he whole supply chain needs to work together from an incentive structure,
”
said
McCain’s
Jess Newman.
“
We’re
going to be seeing a piloting of cost sharing at a level that
we’ve
probably never seen before.
I think in the next five
years
there’s
going to
be
a really exciting
flow of the agronomic and economic data set around some practices
so
no
one’s
just relying on the government to cost share
.”
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