… and why regenerative practices define the next phase of agricultural investing.
At Builders Vision, agriculture is not viewed as a niche allocation or an ESG add-on. It is a strategic sector – one that sits at the intersection of sustainability, future resilience, and long-term economic growth.
Launched in 2021 by Walmart heir Lukas Walton, Builders Vision is an investment and philanthropy platform that invests across the capital spectrum to drive systemic change in food and agriculture, alongside other critical sectors, including oceans and energy. The organization has developed deep conviction around how agricultural investments can serve as powerful levers for both value creation and systems-level resilience.
Across farmland, food and supply chains, and agrifood innovation, Builders Vision’s experience has led to a clear conclusion: the most durable agricultural investments in the next phase of the sector will be regenerative by necessity, not preference.
This conclusion applies not only to impact-oriented capital, but increasingly to large-scale and institutional investors, as well.
We recently spoke with Sara Balawajder, director on the investments team at Builders Vision, about the opportunity to reimagine investing in the agriculture sector. Balawajder co-leads Builders Bridge, a flexible investment portfolio that targets market-building solutions to help scale opportunities across the organization’s key sectors.
She notes that institutional investors in particular “need to be thinking longer-term about diversified portfolio construction – and to do that, they need agriculture in their portfolios. And, those with agriculture exposure need to be thinking about regenerative agriculture because of what regeneration provides for long-term resilience.”
In other words: When approached with the right time horizon, flexible capital, and adaptable practices, regenerative agriculture offers a compelling combination of inflation protection, counter-cyclical performance, resilience, and long-term value creation. So why has it been sidelined by investors for so long? Let’s dig in.
What Makes Agricultural Investing Different
Opportunities to invest in agriculture span the value chain and multiple asset classes. Regardless of where capital is deployed, agriculture demands an investment posture that is more patient, more grounded in physical realities, and more attuned to the systemic nature of farming.
In agroforestry, for example, value creation unfolds over years, not quarters; many trees take five to eight years before they begin to bear fruit. In venture and agrifood technology, adoption is similarly constrained by growing seasons – often allowing just one opportunity per year for farmers to test and integrate new products.
Beyond timing, agriculture is also inherently interconnected. Weather, input pricing, labor availability, market access, and policy each influence outcomes. As Balawajder notes, performance reflects how effectively these variables are anticipated and managed within a broader operating system.
For investors, this calls for a long-term, informed perspective. Underwriting agricultural investments means considering not only individual assets or technologies, but also the broader operating systems in which they sit. When capital is aligned with these structural realities, it can support resilient, durable value creation over time.
See below article for more on investment fundamentals.
Regenerative Agriculture as Central – Not Optional
Builders Vision’s belief in regenerative agriculture is grounded not only in mission or environmental impact, but in investment performance. This is a point many investors still underestimate, says Balawajder, despite that regenerative agriculture has become more mainstream in recent years. “We believe regenerative, resilient agriculture is essential for long-term risk adjustment,” she explains.
That perspective is especially critical in farmland investing, where time horizon and asset quality are inseparable. Farmland is, by definition, a long-term investment. If the goal is to preserve and grow asset value over decades, soil quality is foundational. “Regenerative practices are key to reinvesting in your asset,” Balawajder notes.
This is because regenerative practices work to build soil health and quality, which directly affects yield stability, input dependence, and resilience to extreme weather. As climate volatility accelerates, the ability to maintain productivity through droughts, floods, and heat events becomes a material driver of performance. In this context, regeneration protects farmers’ income streams and long-term land value. For appreciating real assets, ignoring soil quality is a form of risk.
Balawajder is not alone in recognizing this function. As regenerative agriculture has become more mainstream in recent years, there’s been a growing crop of asset managers and investors who are leaning into – and building strategies around – the fundamentals that regenerative investments offer.
Ben Gordon, co-founder of farmland real asset firm Fractal – a Builders Vision partner – emphasizes the important role regenerative farmland can play in a durable portfolio. “We see regenerative farmland as a real asset that is both resilient and thrives when the rest of your portfolio is struggling,” he explains. “Specifically, it’s a hedge against the current trends towards monetary debasement, top of cycle valuations in other assets that farmland isn’t correlated with, and of course a hedge against the impacts of climate change.”
In private equity, the regenerative thesis is more nuanced but no less important. Certification alone may not deliver durable price premiums. Instead, Balawajder asserts that the investment case increasingly hinges on linking production practices to measurable improvements in nutrient density and product quality – outcomes that are more strongly associated with regenerative systems. Consumer awareness around health and food quality is rising, and where these attributes can be credibly demonstrated, stronger offtake relationships and pricing power can follow. Climate benefits and traceability, while meaningful, are often secondary to this core economic signal.
For venture investments, the opportunity is in the growing need for new solutions to meet agrifood value chain transformation. Connie Bowen of Farmhand Ventures explains, “Technology adoption is a type of practice change that is essential to resiliently and regeneratively produce food, fiber, and fuel today and in the future. Companies commercializing such scalable technical solutions require early-stage risk capital, including venture capital and other innovative financing solutions.”
Balawajder adds that investable regenerative innovation must be both adoptable and economically compelling on the farm. Technologies succeed only when they clearly improve farm-level economics – whether through reduced inputs, better climate adaptation, or higher-quality outputs.
Across asset classes, the lesson is consistent: regenerative practices succeed because they strengthen the underlying economics of agriculture.
Investing Across Asset Class & Value Chain: Builders Vision has exposure to farmland through partnerships with Clear Frontier and investments in Agroforestry Partners and Fractal Ag – real asset strategies supporting farmers through land transition. In private equity, Builders Vision has invested in companies such as Cream Co. Meats and Timeless Seeds alongside Mad Markets. On the venture side, investments include companies like Quick Organics, which is digitizing the organic certification process, and funds like Tenacious Ventures. These investments illustrate how regenerative principles can be expressed across asset classes – supporting farmers, strengthening value chains, and reinforcing long-term performance.
Why Institutional Capital Has Been Slow to Engage
Builders Vision is a leader in demonstrating the regenerative ag investment opportunity through allocations across asset classes and along the agrifood value chain. At the same time, they understand that no single investor can drive systems change alone. When asked what is needed for regenerative agriculture to scale, Balawajder is unequivocal: more capital.
“We need more capital to flow into this space, and we need to shift acres at scale,” she says. While the impact imperative is clear, she believes the opportunity will only be realized when more investors recognize that regenerative agriculture can deliver competitive returns alongside resilience.
Despite its strong fundamentals, agriculture remains underrepresented in institutional portfolios – and regenerative agriculture even more so. According to Balawajder, this gap is less about a lack of opportunity and more about a persistent misunderstanding of the sector.
In many cases, institutional capital relies on rigid, box-checking frameworks that require investments to fit neatly within predefined asset class categories. Agriculture rarely conforms to those structures.
“Too often, agriculture is treated as a single, monolithic sector,” Balawajder explains, “rather than as a set of distinct investment opportunities across different asset classes.” As a result, prospective investors might evaluate investments against the wrong benchmarks. For example, farmland investments should not be evaluated against private equity or venture investment expectations. “Investments will simply not look attractive from a returns standpoint,” says Balwajder, “unless you’re benchmarking it correctly.”
Short-termism has compounded this challenge. In a market environment shaped by high-growth and liquid assets, agriculture’s longer hold periods and relative illiquidity have often been viewed as disadvantages – even when the sector has delivered steady 8-10% returns. Capital has flowed toward faster, more familiar opportunities, while durable but slower-moving assets have been sidelined.
The result of these misunderstandings is not just under-allocation to agriculture, but under-recognition of one of the few sectors capable of delivering real asset resilience in an increasingly volatile macro environment. Ironically, the very characteristics that have held agriculture back – institutional patience, longer timelines, and lower liquidity – are increasingly aligned with what portfolios now require. As volatility rises and correlations tighten across traditional assets, durability and resilience matter more than speed.
Why Now Is the Right Time to Invest in Agriculture
From Builders Vision’s perspective, the current market presents a rare alignment of opportunity across agriculture’s asset classes – making this a compelling moment to bring agriculture into investment portfolios.
“It is really hard to be in ag right now, and it’s not going to get better over the next 2-3 years,” explains Bowen, but she adds, “it will get better over the next decade.” Mostly because it must. “There are huge fundamental problems in our agricultural systems.” She points to climate and the dire need for mitigation and adaptation, labor, nutrition, distribution, to name a few things. “Some way or another, we as a society are going to figure out how to solve them.” Those already engaging or looking to the sector will be at an advantage.
Farmland is entering a pivotal transition period. Many farmers are navigating compounding pressures – from rising input costs to climate volatility and succession challenges – bringing high-quality land and operations into transition. This moment is creating opportunities for long-term capital to step in as a stabilizing partner, supporting continuity of ownership, improved land stewardship, and operational resilience.
Across the value chain, similar transitions are underway. In private equity, aging operators and infrastructure are prompting ownership changes, while in venture, valuation resets are improving the return profile for disciplined, long-term investors committed to building durable solutions. At the same time, corporates are increasingly signaling real risk within their supply chains – driven by water scarcity, declining productivity, and climate exposure.
Taken together, these dynamics suggest that agriculture – particularly when approached through a regenerative lens – is not a thematic allocation, but a foundational one. It sits at the intersection of real assets, infrastructure, and operating businesses, offering investors exposure to essential systems while managing risk in ways that traditional assets increasingly cannot.
Ultimately, regenerative agriculture represents the next evolution of the sector – not because it is fashionable, but because resilient systems are the ones that endure, compound, and perform.
For investors willing to meet agriculture on its own terms, regenerative agriculture is not a concession. It is not simply investable – it is indispensable.
< FUNDAMENTALS >
Agriculture’s Investment Fundamentals
Agriculture’s role in a diversified portfolio is rooted in its underlying economics. Returns are driven by income generation, productivity gains, and long-term asset appreciation from physical assets, rather than reliance on financial structuring.
Read on for more details.
Farmland: real assets and inflation protection
As a real asset investment, farmland provides inflation protection and diversification benefits due to its historically low correlation with traditional asset classes. Investors can participate in regular income, operational yields, and long-term land value appreciation, which has averaged roughly six percent over long time horizons.
Fractal Ag explains regenerative farmland investment fundamentals here.
Private equity: durable businesses and infrastructure
In private equity, agriculture offers exposure to operating businesses and infrastructure across the food and agriculture value chain. These businesses tend to generate steady cash flow, serve essential markets, and – particularly in food – often perform well during inflationary and recessionary periods. Infrastructure investments such as processing facilities, distribution networks, and cold storage further reinforce agriculture’s defensive characteristics. These assets are typically durable, real-asset-backed, and counter-cyclical, making them attractive components of long-term portfolios.
Venture capital: realism and selectivity required
Venture capital plays a distinct and more constrained role. Agrifood technology is the highest-risk way to invest in the sector and requires clear-eyed expectations. However, unlike software, agriculture is not a market defined by frequent 100x outcomes. Agriculture doesn’t always fit traditional high-risk, high-return expectations. Connie Bowen, founder at Farmhand Ventures, explains venture capital – or risk capital – as a spectrum ranging from modern venture capital (VC) to early-stage, minority owner, higher risk private equity (what Bowen called “alternative risk capital”). She argues both are necessary to fund companies commercializing scalable agriculture technologies, but expectations also need to be different. While outlier outcomes are rare, disciplined agriculture investing can generate attractive returns when opportunities have clear adoption pathways and deliver real economic value at the farm level.
Sarah Day Levesque is Managing Director at RFSI & Editor of RFSI News. She can be reached here.