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.

Queensland Country Life feature on Terviva’s work in Australia. Australian native on trial in CQ could be world's new 'super food'

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? 

The definitive list of the top 500 AgriFoodTech companies in the world