ATLANTA, GA — Alex Edquist is a huge fan of regenerative agriculture.

Even before she became the CEO and co-founder of Good Agriculture, Edquist was buyer of regenerative produce for “basically my whole adult life.”

“For me, it started as personal journey of eating healthier food,” Edquist explained. “And then I learned about the environmental benefits. I was like, ‘well, I’m already buying this food, but now I can feel good about it’.”

After leaving a position as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, Edquist pondered what was next and found herself drawn to the “amazing win” that is regenerative agriculture. Less than 2 years later, Edquist celebrated on a stage at Venture Connect 2024 as the Audience Choice of the FinTech/GovTech pitches.

Alex Edquist, Good Agriculture CEO and co-founder celebrates a win for Audience Choice pitch at last month’s Venture Connect.

“Amazing Win”

Edquist acknowledges that for some, the Good Agriculture pitch requires a crash course in what regenerative agriculture is and why it’s important.

The practice is really an alternative approach to farming in general, focusing on reuse and sustainable practices to encourage native biodiversity, improve the water cycle, and sequester carbon. Regenerative techniques aim to improve both soil health and the climate change resistance at the same time. Edquist calls the practice a “win-win-win” since the food it produces is healthier and more nutrient-dense, and the practice can also improve profitability for farmers.

“So you look at that, you’re like, ‘well, it seems like everybody should be farming this way’, right? But almost no one is,” lamented Edquist. “There’s many barriers, but one of the barriers is that regenerative is more time consuming.”

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This is where Good Agriculture, the company started by Edquist and co-founder Kirsten Simmons, steps in. The company aims to provide several tools and services to support regenerative farms and remove some of the many tasks farmers undertake. In addition to grant insights and financial and marketing support, the company is trying to help farmers collect more data and build an “analytics playbook” for better decision making.

Delivering Data

Good Agriculture’s roots go back to a fortuitous meeting between the co-founders. When Edquist started considering a new career in the regenerative agriculture space, she sought to speak with these farmers to better understand why the practice wasn’t more widely adopted.

“I went out [and] started talking to farmers about ‘why is this hard?’ And their answer was, basically, ‘Everything is hard’.”

In her process of discovery, Edquist met farmer and future co-founder Simmons, a North Carolina native and State grad who had similar interests in supporting the regenerative agriculture movement. Simmons invited Edquist to her farm outside Atlanta and the two talked for hours about the potentials of farm management and support.

One issue they noted is that the use of data and analytics remains something of a novelty in farming, particularly for smaller farms that are often where regenerative agriculture practices are most in use. Many of these workers continue to rely on pen and paper for traditional note-taking practices. Together, Edquist and Simmons conceived of more of a “back office” solution for regenerative farmers. Once the team was accepted to a Techstars Accelerator in January 2023, they were off and running.

Investment and Growth

Edquist was encouraged by connections made at this year’s Venture Connect, though the company is still seeking about $200,000 of their $500,000 for a pre seed round.

In the meantime, the company is continuing to grow, currently seeking to hire a Tech Lead to help scale their MVP into a production solution for their 30+ current customers. Edquist also plans to increase investments in marketing and sales strategies to scale the customer base to 200-300 within the next 12-18 months. It’s a lot of expansion for the current team of five.

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According to Edquist they’ll also be busy with an SBIR grant beginning in July, involving a “very cool” AI-powered voice-to-data solution. The goal is improved data collection helping farmers shift away from perennial paper and pen note-taking practices.

Ultimately, Good Agriculture is after any solution that makes farm management easier, freeing up farmers to focus on farming.

“Farmers are already overwhelmed doing everything themselves, because generally they are one man bands. They’re doing not only all the farming themselves, which is hard enough, but also all the financial management and the hiring and the marketing and the logistics and the legal compliance,” Edquist said. “We take some of those other admin tasks off their plate so that they can focus on the farm, including adopting some of these regenerative practices.”