Case Study: Regen Farmers Mutual
Location: Australia
Investment type: Philanthropic and investment capital
Regen Farmers Mutual was formed in July 2020 by a group of 79 farmers, conservationists and land carers. They came together to design a farmer-owned broker that could support farmer to access environmental markets.
The Mutual has focused on developing the digital infrastructure, transaction processes and governance structures to enable farmers to aggregate their market power, avoid 'middlemen' and leverage greater cost-effectiveness. The Mutual is a Company Limited by Guarantee, which means it is democratically controlled by its members. Farmers become members by using the services of the Mutual or its affiliates.
To meet the digital infrastructure needs of the mutual, the team developed Regen Digital, which provides the digital services that members use to collect, analyse and share their farm data to create a digital twin of each member farm that is a data reflection of the real-world asset.
Because the Mutual is by nature a cooperative structure, the team is creating infrastructure that enables communities of practice to form in local regions which can then deliver landscape-level impact outcomes. This means they are developing ways to enable a whole range of farmers in a region to deliver environmental impacts individually on farms and, in turn, support and learn alongside each other at a local and regional level. They can then aggregate the ecosystem credits into a structure that unlocks larger pools of capital than individual farmers can access on their own.
To assist with support, knowledge development and onboarding, Regen Farmers Mutual is developing a team of Regen Advisors that can work across Australia to provide expert advice, capacity building and program development to farmers and regions.
The Mutual is currently working on upwards of 6 landscape-scale transactions in Queensland, NSW and Victoria across a range of critical ecosystems from the Great Barrier Reef to the Northern Rivers and Western Murray. They are actively testing market appetite for carbon and biodiversity credit purchases at landscape scale, and working with a wide range of stakeholders from the government through to Landcare and Natural Resource Management (NRM) groups, local grower groups and universities.
“Farmers govern the mutual, control the mutual and co-designed our structure and member principles — they are our centre of gravity.”
— Andrew Ward Regen Farmers Mutual Co-Founder | STIR interview 2022
This case study is an extract from Regenerating Investment in Food and Farming: A Roadmap.