Hello! Halo! Kumusta! Xin chào! สวัสดี! မင်္ဂလာပါ! ជំរាបសួរ! ສະບາຍດີ!

💭 When you think of agriculture in Southeast Asia, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Well, according to ChatGPT, it’s the below image:

😯 Looks pretty wonderful right? Well, sorry to soil your imagination but this image is farm from reality. Most agriculture nowadays involve processes that—while attempting to maximize production—can cause severe environmental degradation.

🌫️ In fact, such unsustainable agriculture practices are linked to the first issue that we covered for Climate starts with SEA: air pollution.

😷 Every year, from January to March in parts of Southeast Asia like Thailand, crop burning causes “the average PM2.5 concentration during this three-month period [to be] anywhere from three to nine times higher than the average for the whole rest of the year for the cities reporting data in this region” (IQAir, 2023).

🔥 Unfortunately, crop burning is just one of many environmental issues stemming from conventional agricultural practices. In this issue, we’ll be digging into this issue more deeply.

🤔 What’s the deal with sustainable agriculture?

🚜 Beyond crop burning with its resulting air pollution, conventional agricultural practices—which includes large-scale monoculture, tillage, as well as the usage of petrochemical based inputs like fertilizers and pesticides—have resulted in soil erosion and nutrient loss, consequently making the land far less arable.

🪱 Soil degradation—which is caused by the overuse of synthetic fertilizers & pesticides—is particularly problematic for climate mitigation due a reduction in the soil’s ability to sequester carbon…

🥜 However, by planting perennial crops with deeper roots, as well as “cover crops” like legumes after main crops are harvested, soil health can be protected and in fact make agricultural soils sequester over a billion additional tons of carbon a year (Frontiers, 2019). On the other hand, from a climate adaptation perspective: soil degradation contributes to 36–75 billion tons of land depletion and freshwater shortages every year globally (ScienceDirect, 2022). Thus, protecting soil health through more sustainable agricultural practices should be a priority.

⌛️ Concerns about soil life reached an apex around a decade ago, when there were claims that there were only 60 harvests left given current topsoil conditions (Scientific American, 2014). While soil health is indeed of concern, this claim was overblown due to an oversimplification, as soil lifespan is a complex topic (OurWorldInData, 2021).

🧑🏻‍🌾 Enter sustainable agriculture. This describes a set of practices that can regenerate these ecosystems’ health to produce clean, healthy, and nutritious food while simultaneously providing an equitable distribution of economic wealth; as well as ensuring the health and safety of not just the food produced but also the health and safety of farming communities (ADB, 2023). This type of farming meets the needs of existing and future generations, while favoring techniques that emulate nature to preserve soil fertility, prevent water pollution and protect biodiversity (UNEP, 2021).

More specifically, below are four methods that farmers can implement to promote sustainable agriculture:

• 🌾 Crop rotation involves planting different crops in succession to reduce diseases, minimize pesticide and fertilizer use, and maintain soil health, thus promoting environmentally-friendly farming; this is basically the opposite of conventional mono-cropping.

• 🌳 Agroforestry combines trees with agriculture to improve land productivity and environmental quality by preventing erosion and protecting crops and livestock through practices like silvopasture and windbreaks; we will be covering this topic more in-depth in a future issue.

•  🚜 Tillage Management prepares soil for crops, with methods like overturning and stirring soil to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It aerates soil, aids planting, distributes nutrients, and reduces pests by mixing harvest residue into the ground without overtilling.

• ☀️ Renewable Energy Resources should also be optimized. Energy from the agri-food chain contributes to 1/3 of total greenhouse gas emissions globally (FAO, 2022). This necessitates a shift to renewables like solar and hydroelectric power for sustainable agriculture, e.g., using solar panels for crop management and hydroelectricity from nearby rivers for machinery.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 With a growing population and increasing threats from climate change, sustainable agriculture is a major priority to safeguard our food security—a topic that we’ll be covering in a future issue in more depth.

🧑🏻‍🌾 Supporting smallholder farmers to make a sustainable transition requires both short and long-term finance, tailored to the specific business models that these farming practices require. Co-operation between technology, finance, and farming are needed—and luckily there are ways to put them together. We have an interview as well as two features later on in this issue with innovators who is putting this into practice!

📚 Want to learn more about this topic?

1. “ASEAN Guidelines for Sustainable Agriculture” from ASEAN

2. “The State of Food and Agriculture” from FAO

📢 Shout-outs to Pandawa & Agridesa!

🐛 Pandawa Agri Indonesia (PAI) is pioneering a pesticide reduction technology that is proven to cut pesticide usage by 50%, enabling farmers to halve application without compromising efficacy nor income.

🌏 They work across various agricultural value chains, including South Sumatra (coffee), East Nusa Tenggara (rice), and soon in East Java ( rice). Their approach is to leverage Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) from planting to harvest coupled with region-specific PPAI (Plant & soil health, Productivity, Assistance, and Innovation) technology. As part of their PPAI efforts, they are assessing smallholder farmers in both on-farm and off-farm conditions to ease innovation adoption by exploring a bundling package for various inputs to provide a complete solution for smallholder farmers, significantly boosting their yields.

🤝 PAI recognizes the importance of industrial collaboration and invites like-minded organizations to explore strategic collaborations and/or funding opportunities. They can be reached at: [email protected].

🏞️ Agridesa's mission is to tackle the issues associated with unsustainable conventional farming methods. This includes addressing the limited availability of knowledge regarding GAP, overcoming challenges related to land fragmentation that hinder farmers' ability to scale up and operate efficiently, improving yield productivity per hectare, improving smallholder farmers living income, and promoting responsible land use practices while discouraging deforestation. 

♾️ Agridesa employs a multi-stakeholder approach, leveraging technology, data-driven insights, and sustainable practices to provide inclusive closed-loop agricultural services through their traceability app digital platform. Their efforts include direct field support & technical assistance (i.e. agri-doctor), on-farm monitoring tools, access to high quality agri-inputs, secured buying commitments from their off-taker partners, and facilitate financing access for smallholder farmers. By promoting regenerative agriculture techniques, such as cover cropping, crop rotation, and minimal tillage, they aim to improve soil health, enhance carbon sequestration, and increase resilience to climate change impacts.

💰 Agridesa is currently raising USD200K in funding and can be reached at [email protected] for further information.

🗞️ Recent News

👍🏻 Good News

🔗 Linking smallholders to markets was the breakthrough: Earthshot Prize winner S4S Technologies by Liang Lei (Eco-Business, 17 November 2023)

🤝 The Rockefeller Foundation and The Asian Institute of Technology Partner to Drive Climate-Resilient Agriculture Solutions in Southeast Asia (PR Newswire, 4 October 2023)

💸 Agros raises US$2.7 million in pre-Series A funding round (The Asset, 14 March 2023)

👎🏻 Bad News

3️⃣ Three challenges of smallholder inclusion in sustainable agriculture traceability (SEI, 9 December 2022)

📢 Other Voices

📈 “Data snapshot: Farmtech funding continues its upward climb in Southeast Asia ‘irrespective of the external financial climate” by Jennifer Marston (Agfunder News, 29 November 2023)

💚 “To Make Agriculture Sustainable, ASEAN Wants Farming to Be Environment- and People-Friendly” (ADB, 6 September 2023)

🚸 “Cultivating the Future: Empowering Young Farmers in Southeast Asia” by Elyssa Kaur Ludher (Fulcrum, 16 January 2024)

🎙️ Interview with Max of Agros

💡 Why were you initially inspired to dive into the agriculture field in Southeast Asia?

🍽️ I have always been privileged and never had to worry about much besides what I wanted to eat for dinner. Traveling across SEA and visiting farmers opened my eyes. As a farmer you are squeezed in the middle. It’s one of the only jobs where you pay for high inputs, you make a product and bring it to market at only a fraction of what the product is worth. If you then realize food production needs to double at net zero emissions, you know something has to change.

🛠️ How exactly is Agros tackling this problem?

📱 We deploy affordable technologies and services in the farm and put the farmer at the center of our solution.

🌞 First, we install a solar water pump, that saves farmers up to $1,500 per year on fuel. After, we test their soil and provide them with customized inputs that allow them to generate an additional $1,800 from increased yields and improved soil. Finally, we provide them with agronomy advisory and crop insurance in case of climate disasters, so their efforts are not washed or dried away.

😲 What is a misconception or surprising fact about regenerative agriculture?

🌽 The ironic thing about regenerative agriculture is that it’s a bit like going back in time; you start seeing practices that were applied by farmers hundreds of years ago without the use of fossil fuels, using less chemicals, no tilling, and rotating crops. Over the last few decades, large profit-seeking corporations have shifted us towards monoculture, machinery and chemicals to feed a growing population. This has come at a huge cost—for farmers and the planet. The positive part of the story is that now technology has become so affordable that you can combine it with regenerative practices and elevate farmer profits. From an economics point of view, as a startup you can also make money and provide a return to your investors.

🎬 What actions can readers take now to support your Agros?

🙌🏽 First order of business is to spread the word. I am definitely a believer of the saying “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. Too many people still see climate change as a new industry like AI that is popping up. This is actually not a choice that we have as human beings, this is not optional. If AI startups fail, we will still be fine. If Climate Tech startups fail, we are in trouble.

🗣️ So whether you are an investor, media or a potential partner, I strongly recommend that you reach out to me and/or the broader climate tech community to discuss how we can combat climate change together.

🦸🏻 What do you do when you’re not saving the world?

🏞️ There is not much time where I am not thinking about our farmers or climate change, but I do give myself a break; I like to spend time with my fianceé, Jie and friends. When not behind my laptop or at the farm, you can find me scuba diving or playing hockey and tennis. I also enjoy trying different cuisines and visiting remote beaches. Steep mountain peaks is also something I am rarely saying no to.

🎙️ Back in November, we published our third podcast episode, in which Karina interviewed Max about Agros in more detail. So check that out here in case you’d like to learn more!

⏭️ Next week, we’ll be covering alternative protein, so join us then (with some tempeh chips)!

❓ Did you enjoy this week’s issue? If yes, please do forward to your friends who would enjoy the read as well. Also, feel free to let us know what you thought by giving us feedback at [email protected].

🌊 SEA you next week!

Karina & Massimiliano