Alternative agriculture is going Wall Street thanks to a multi-national cottage industry with significant operations in Pennsylvania. SPIN-Farming, based in Philadelphia and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan is joining forces with NewSeed Advisors to co-host Agriculture 2.0, The Conference for Innovators and Investors on September 17 in New York City. The goal is to introduce the cream of the alternative agriculture entrepreneurial crop to the investment community.
“Entrepreneurs are producing breakthrough technologies that can help create a post-industrial food system that is less resource intensive, more locally based and easier to monitor and control,” says SPIN-Farming’s Roxanne Christensen.
Because sustainable agriculture has mostly shunned technology and treated profitability as an afterthought, its appeal to commercial investors has been limited. The sector has been viewed as marginal, at best.
“To infuse the sustainable agriculture industry with much-needed capital and clout, we need to demonstrate that it can be profitable,” she says.
If anyone knows about that profitability, it’s Christensen. SPIN-Farming publishes online farming and gardening learning series and conducts workshops in partnership with leading farming, gardening, environmental and investment organizations.
The conference will be a good first step in exposing alternative agriculture’s potential–through real economics and commercial prospects–to the mainstream financial community. Co-host NewSeed invests in and advises sustainable agriculture companies. Topics to be covered at the conference include sustainable and controlled climate growing systems, building integrated agriculture and urban agriculture.
“This conference will introduce entrepreneurs to investors and open the doors to collaboration, capital and long-term success,” says Christensen.
Source: Roxanne Christensen, SPIN-Farming
Writer: Joe Petrucci
