How land investments shape farmer-land relationships
Last week, I joined Sarah Day Levesque (Regenerative Food Systems Investment), Paul McMahon (SLM Partners), and Martín Lemos (Dirt Partners) at Regenerative NYC for a conversation on how land investments shape farmer-land relationships.
Sarah opened with a succinct and very interesting overview of the current state of regenerative agriculture and food investment. Paul, Martín, and I then joined her on stage for a panel discussion she moderated, where we explored our respective business models and their impact on our sector.
I used the opportunity to explain The Land Group’s theory of change, our approach to farmland management, and how this influences our relationship with land and people.
Our theory of change
We acquire underutilised or degraded farmland and implement adaptive multi-paddock (AMP) grazing alongside other proven regenerative practices. This approach reduces input costs, increases yields, regenerates soil and biodiversity, and builds resilience. It improves productivity and long-term asset value while restoring ecological function. We selectively apply regenerative practices that deliver higher returns for our investors AND greater sustainability. In doing so, we reject the conventional trade-off between environmental outcomes and financial performance.
But our regeneration extends beyond land. We also invest in people. We build operational capacity in-house by hiring and training local teams, typically young agronomists or farm managers who combine energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity with a willingness to question convention. Many come from traditional farming backgrounds but quickly embrace regenerative methods. Most will likely remain in the sector for decades, expanding the long-term impact of our work well beyond our own involvement.
We believe that performance, not ideology, should drive systemic change. At the systems level, we show that AMP grazing can be profitably scaled on native grasslands, particularly in Uruguay, which has 13.5 million hectares of natural pasture. This model offers a viable alternative to low-productivity extensive grazing and environmentally damaging industrial feedlots.
A different investment structure
Unlike most asset managers, we do not pool capital into discretionary funds. Instead, we operate non-discretionary, separately managed accounts (SMAs). Our clients, primarily family offices, retain direct ownership of the underlying land and can terminate our mandate anytime. While less scalable, this model creates close alignment between capital and land, with us positioned between the two as both asset manager and operator.
We farm ourselves
We do not lease out our land, at least not as a rule, and we do not back third-party operators. We farm directly, with our teams working across regions. Human capital remains one of the main constraints on growth, so we invest heavily in recruitment, training, career progression and internal culture. We are pleased to have established a system for transferring regenerative knowledge across the organisation. This allows us to scale operations effectively without compromising standards.
Our experience with tenants has been mixed, with the legacy crop leases we still have on 12% of the Uruguayan land we operate. Tenants' interests, focused on short-term financial return, often diverge from those of landowners, who prioritise long-term asset value and ecological performance. Our experience confirms that it is difficult to influence land management practices without operational control. As a result, we are transitioning most remaining leased areas to internal management, as we recently did with our 700-hectare regenerative row crop operation at Villa Lucero.
Regeneration as an investment thesis
Our investors are not ideologues. We shifted their farms to regenerative agriculture in response to the soil degradation caused by previous management. To make that transition, we had to present a clear investment case, demonstrating that, contrary to conventional wisdom, financial returns and ecological performance can reinforce each other.
Drawing a parallel between regenerative agriculture and renewable energy
At the close of the panel, I drew a parallel with renewable energy, a sector I know well, having worked in it from 2006 to 2020. What began as a niche investment category has become a mature asset class, now dominated by utilities, infrastructure managers and institutional investors, with smaller players largely priced out. For all their critics, renewables succeeded in combining financial returns with sustainability, attracting significant capital and reshaping the global energy mix.
We believe regenerative agriculture is on a similar trajectory. It will not immediately, if ever, replace the existing industrial food production system we have built after WWII. But it is starting to make a dent, moving rapidly from early-stage experimentation to institutional relevance. In this context, farmland that delivers both financial performance and ecological resilience will inevitably draw institutional capital and command a premium.
Many thanks to Cortlandt Meyerson, Jackson Baris, and the rest of the Why Regenerative team for convening a timely and thoughtful discussion.
