In what context was Indigo created and what mission pushes the company forward?

Indigo's journey started inside of Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences and sustainability venture capital firm in the Boston area, with a mission to harness nature to help farmers sustainably feed the planet. Indigo’s core thesis was to leverage the knowledge, tools and techniques from what we know about the human microbiome to develop solutions to help plants thrive. Indigo addresses both abiotic stresses (from the environment) and biotic stresses (pests and diseases) by leveraging symbiotic naturally occurring micro-organisms that make crops more resilient. Over the past four years, we have identified and positioned agriculture as the next frontier in sustainability by enabling farmers to be paid a premium for growing crops ‘sustainably’. We have created a set of biological solutions that help plants thrive in unfriendly environments and developed a range of sustainability programs that are independently verified by the Climate Action Reserve and Verra International. 

With the move to a more holistic approach towards plant health, fertilizers and crop protection seem to be increasingly intertwined as solutions. How can biologicals influence this transition?

In many ways, a farm is a living organism that represents a complex network of biological interactions between the plant, soil and atmosphere. A healthy teaspoon of soil contains millions of different microbes, some of which will be beneficial to the plant. Our role is to understand the communities of bacteria and fungi that enable plants to thrive and develop biological products based on these findings. To achieve conclusive results, a holistic view is mandatory, not only from the standpoint of biological solutions, but also from a farmer's perspective. We have seen an acceleration of growers seeking to use biological products on their farms over the past 20 years. But it’s not a ‘one-size fits all’ approach. Soil diversity is broad across the world, and we need to help farmers choose which tools are the most suitable for their local growing environment. At Indigo, we conduct an intensive field trial program every year to maximize the success of these products for specific agro-climatic growing areas. 

Agriculture has a significant role to play in the fight against climate change, but farmers must also remain profitable in the process. How can your products reconcile these two necessities?

Farmers are deeply committed to the planet, but they are having to mitigate increasingly severe changes in the growing environment as weather patterns shift. It’s a challenge to ask them to change their well-established growing practices in pursuit of a climate solution. Fundamentally, farmers are entrepreneurs who ‘bet the farm’ each season by planting crops without knowing what price it will receive at harvest. That is why it is critical to ensure they have sufficient economic incentive to support – and accelerate - the transition they are willing to make to regenerative farming.

Through our Market+ Source sustainable crop program we offer up to 10% premiums for crops that are grown sustainably with practices that lead to increased GHG removals, and over the last four+ years, we have worked with over 300 growers across the US to help food and beverage companies deliver on sustainability targets. For one of our customers, we helped save 5.5 billion gallons of water through ‘sustainable rice’ cultivation. 

In addition to programs that help companies reduce their GHG footprints, we are rapidly expanding the country’s largest carbon-farming program. Through our recently announced FieldFlex program, farmers can choose to participate in carbon credit or sustainable crop programs on the same field on different years. It is important that we continue to highlight the economic – as well as ecological – benefits of regenerative farming. On its own, there is a clear business case to make the transition – with payback for a grower seen after two-four years – but extra revenue streams that are unlocked through sustainability programs can accelerate this transition and make a meaningful impact on the P&L of the farm. Additionally, we need to ensure that these programs do not materially impact the cost of finished goods for corporations purchasing these ‘sustainable crops.’ We have managed to demonstrate that any incremental costs are limited to 0.2 to 1.7 cents per pound for major row crops. 

What is your current market presence and what are your objectives and plans for expansion over the next couple of years?

Aside from the U.S., we currently have a footprint in Brazil, Argentina, several countries in Europe, Turkey and India, and we plan to further develop our global presence in line with the continued development of novel digital and biological capabilities. There are important global implications for the programs we are building – for example, our Carbon by Indigo program pays participating farmers 75% of the value of the carbon credit, - whether they are based in the U.S., or are a smallholder farmer in India. To date we have generated over 130,000 high quality carbon credits, and we aim to grow on that substantially. Finally, we wish to continue to further strengthen our partnerships with other mission-aligned companies in the ecosystem in order for our farmer-centric approach to really obtain global scale.