A lot of what we call sustainable also becomes economically necessary in the face of rising oil prices. So the day that we wake up and gas is at $5 again is that day that farmers and people [who] are actually involved in food production need to find alternatives to the petrochemicals that they use every single day to produce food.
According to Janine, the interest and the resources of the new wave of sustainable investors are big enough to counteract the old standards of short-term gains and turn-and-burn investing.
For more on NewSeed’s upcoming event and the full interview with Janine Yorio, click here.
Green investing makes any investor slightly freaked. The returns expectations are unclear and there doesn’t seem to be firm ground upon which the market can rest, at least, until now.
Janine Yorio is the Founder of NewSeed Advisors, a young and hyper-motivated investment firm hell-bent on improving the all but shattered agricultural system. In speaking with Janine, it became clear that her understanding of the larger scope of the problem is well advanced. Rather than fight the evils of multinational agribusiness megopolies, she’s concentrated her efforts on finding economically sound solutions to problems that the entire industry can get behind regardless of a company’s size or asset flow.
Janine speaks candidly with us about how she bowed out of Wall Street and got real about sustainable agriculture investing. GA:Your background is in finance and real estate investment so what flipped your switch to sustainable agriculture?
JY: Two things: The tremendous opportunity in the agriculture space to make improvements on existing agriculture and make it more environmentally friendly and less toxic for consumers. And second of all, the fact that there’s so much positive momentum behind sustainable agriculture. Media has already latched onto it and consumers are already starting to take notice of what they put in their body and where their food comes from.
GA: As an investor, the name of the game is generating cash flow. How are you able to win over the short term gain, turn and burn style investor to get behind these so-called “slow money” investments?
JY: Well, I think the short term investors got fairly badly burned during the last downturn in the cycle and everybody’s reevaluating how they invest and how they think about returns. The good thing about the agriculture space is that it’s such a big industry. I mean, it’s hundreds of billions of dollars in this country alone so there’s clearly an opportunity even if you can capture a small percentage. The investor base clearly understands the size of the investor base and they understand that it’s gonna take a little longer than people might have expected in 2004-2005 but they’re in it for the long haul because it’s clearly something that’s needed.
GA: So the investor climate is such that the long-term gain is simply known as “the way to go?”
JY: There’s that and then there’s also kind of a tipping point and a lot of what we call sustainable also becomes economically necessary in the face of rising oil prices. So the day that we wake up and gas is at $5 again, is the day that farmers and people that are actually involved in food production need to find alternatives to the petrochemicals they use every single day to produce food. So there’s a whole sustainable aspect to it but there’s also the whole economic necessity and environment where oil prices are rising. So while it can be a very long time before investors see their capital back with a hefty return, it could also be quite near term if oil prices spike the way they did last year.
GA: Our agricultural system is clearly broken and there are plenty of fire walls standing in the way of any kind of reform like big-budget publicity schemes from public bio-tech companies and unregulated global agribusiness monopolies. Will this always be a fight between good and evil or is there hope for concessions to be made?
JY: I don’t really see it as a fight between good and evil. I mean, like I said, agriculture’s an enormous industry and there’s room for everybody. You’ll see that when the economics are sound, people don’t even break it down into terms of what’s sustainable and what’s not, it’s really about finding solutions to problems that make economic sense and when they do, everybody jumps on board from big agribusiness firms down to the small guy. The reason why we need capital in this space is to try to ferret out what the really relevant innovations are and give them the capital they need to reach critical mass.
GA:And that’s the purpose of NewSeed. You guys put the innovators together with the resources and make good things happen.
JY: Right. And half the battle is getting the message out and really articulating what’s needed and why it’s a good investment. People don’t intuitively understand that sustainable agriculture is a really compelling investment opportunity and part of what NewSeed is doing through the conference, through general public outreach is getting that message out and the capital will follow.
GA:You’ve got an event coming up this month called Agriculture 2.0. Can you tell us what attendees can expect and who should attend?
JY: Sure! The event is on Thursday, September 17th in New York City and the attendee base is actually really interesting; it’s about half investors, investors that are interested in investing in sustainable agriculture companies and the other half of the attendees are entrepreneurs and companies that are actually looking to raise capital from these investors. I think that attendees can expect to really learn about the industry and see a lot of the really promising technologies out there and hear from investment experts why this is such a compelling opportunity, how big the market is, and what realistic returns expectations are.
GA: Can you give us a preview of what some of the cooler innovations that are going to be presented?
JY: We have eight company presenters that will be speaking at the conference and they were selected out of a pool of over 50 applicants to present their business plans and they range from an organic farmland investment company to a bio-pesticide firm, which makes chemicals that basically prevent pests from eating crops, the chemicals themselves are still organically approved. We have a vertical farming expert that will be speaking on a panel. We have an indoor aquaculture specialist who will be talking about he’s actually farming organically grown tilapia indoors in Brooklyn. There’s really a pretty wide swath of who the innovators are and where they’re coming from. We even have a company coming from Hi Nyan China that is also in the fish farming industry. So it’s definitely gonna give attendees a very broad spectrum of what’s going on in sustainable agriculture to give them a sense of how big the market really is.
GA:Where can we find out some more info on your company and future events?
JY: There’s information about both on the website: http://www.newseedadvisors.com and there’s an entire tab about the conference and registration information.