Climate solutions: hype versus existing technologies

There was a lot of talk two weeks ago at the World Agritech Conference about regenerative farming. TLDR: People are still figuring it out. Convincing farmers to shift from established practices is a significant challenge and companies like McCain Foods and Regrow Ag are doing great work. While much of the focus is on changing practices on prime ag land, we see a big opportunity in degraded lands where we can build regen ag from the ground up. So, what exactly does that mean? For Terviva , it means five things—what Marc Diaz, our head of commercialization, calls "four fingers and a thumb." The four fingers are soil, water, climate, biodiversity, and the thumb is farmer livelihood.

This presentation deck highlights Terviva’s efforts to use the pongamia tree as a sustainable biofuel feedstock. Terviva argues that pongamia is uniquely suited to a climate-changing world, as it’s a low-carbon, scalable, and cost-competitive crop with diverse applications.

In the fight against climate change, innovative technologies like Terviva’s pongamia tree offer scalable, long-term solutions. Pongamia trees produce low-carbon feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and plant-based protein, while also serving as a climate-positive alternative to environmentally destructive crops. Unlike soy and oil palm, which contribute to deforestation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, pongamia sinks carbon while growing on distressed farmland that would otherwise be underutilized. However, while the benefits of pongamia are clear, the financing hurdles for large-scale planting remain daunting. Climate tech companies like ours must get creative in bridging the gap between strategic and financial investors to unlock the potential of regenerative agriculture.

Terviva Appoints Commodities Veteran Simmarpal Singh as Chief Operating Officer

Is This 'Super Tree' The Future of Bioenergy and Plant-Based Protein?

Today’s episode is long overdue. For the past 15 years, today’s guest: Naveen Sikka, has been working to commercialize the pongamia tree. There are several things that are special about this emerging crop. First, it’s a legume, so like soybeans, peas, lentils, chickpeas and other legumes, the plant forms symbiotic relationships with nitrogen fixing bacteria, so in short, it can fix its own nitrogen from the atmosphere. Although the crop does still require some fertilizer - just a fraction of what is required for a lot of other crops. Also like other legumes, the beans are very high in oil and protein. But unlike those crops it’s a tree, which can have benefits in terms of productivity, soil health, and adaptability to certain parts of the world. So you have this supertree, that is a nitrogen fixer that is a perennial and adapted to both periods of flooding and periods of drought, and most of all it produces a versatile and nutrient dense crop. Naveen’s going to share a whole lot more about pongamia, but I wanted to start with answering, why is all of this effort worthwhile? 

An ancient tree from India is now thriving in groves where citrus trees once flourished in Florida, and could help provide the nation with renewable energy.

Read the entire Associated Press article.

The ultimate ‘climate-smart’ crop, nitrogen-fixing Pongamia trees produce significantly more biomass per acre than soybeans with a fraction of the inputs. But scaling and commercializing products from a completely new crop takes time and patient capital, says Terviva cofounder and CEO Naveen Sikka.

This legume has superpowers: It's drought tolerant, pest resistant, nitrogen fixing, carbon sequestering, soil remediating, high-yielding and rich in protein. It can provide food and fuel, and combat climate change, all with a single pod. And Terviva wants to plant millions of them to feed billions.

Aloha, Terviva team to launch plant-based protein bar featuring much-anticipated, ‘ultra-sustainable’ Ponova oil