Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA)

Our Existing Food Systems are Broken.

Farmers want to grow healthy food, make ends meet, and leave their land better for future generations. However, the contemporary agricultural systems farmers are familiar with (and are sold) don’t produce those outcomes. 

Instead, our agricultural system is unsustainable and our food systems are broken.

We provide expertise and resources to farmers so their crops are more resilient, productive, and profitable.

At Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA), agriculture can be a force for good, both for the environment and for those who rely on it for their livelihoods.

Join our transformative journey to regenerate the vitality of the land for future generations.

AEA Consultant onsite a farm in California

How it all started

Our story begins with John Kempf. 

In the early 2000s, Amish Farmer John Kempf was on a desperate quest to save his family’s fruit and vegetable farm in Northeast Ohio. After years of intensive pesticide use, pest and disease pressure was unmanageable and unaffected by continued chemical applications resulting in almost total loss three years in a row. 

John then began renting a field from a neighboring farm and had an “ah-ha” moment. The cantaloupe plants located in soil previously managed with intense pesticides were disease and pest-ridden, while those on the untreated soil were completely healthy. The difference was so pronounced that it launched John into an intense journey to understand why one plant could be resistant to disease when the same plant two feet away is not.

Years of extensive agronomy study – combined with mentoring from others and first-hand growing experiences – led Kempf to new crop management methods. The practices he discovered and the products he created transformed once-depleted soils into ecosystems teeming with life and promise. 

Customer harvesting tomatoes in California

Our Business Model

Founded in 2006, our team at AEA is dedicated to increasing yields and crop performance while reducing or eliminating the need for pesticides and fertilizers that inhibit natural growing systems. We look beyond symptoms by diagnosing root causes and providing treatments.

We have grown our business through a whole-systems approach to revitalizing soil and plant health with: 

• Expert agronomic consulting informed by 17+ years of on-farm experience
• Effective biological and nutritional products
• Cutting-edge plant nutrition technology and analysis tools
• Pioneering the regenerative agriculture movement

Trusted Consulting

You achieve what you incentivize. If we want to achieve broadscale adoption of regen ag we need to demonstrate immediate economic returns.

AEA has the most knowledgeable, trained, and informed agronomy team in the regenerative space. Our team is diverse, impassioned and has demonstrable expertise in a myriad of crop types and regions. 

On-going support and coaching is offered to farmers through on-site visits and remote consultation that works to address issues both before and as they arise. This close partnership makes timely recommendations based on observations, sap analysis, and data possible throughout the growing season.

AEA Consultant onsite with farmer in New Mexico

Regenerative Plant Nutrition

Through extensive plant sap analysis data, we know that crops experience significant nutritional imbalances limiting their capacity for photosynthesis. Once these nutritional imbalances are corrected, yields and pest resistance immediately increase along with the efficiency of photosynthetic activity, drastically reducing the need for fertilizers and pesticides.

To address these plant imbalances, AEA manufactures and sells a range of regenerative agriculture plant nutrition products that are also compliant with organically certified farming. These tools – derived from naturally occurring microorganisms, plant extracts, and humic substances – include biological and nutritional products, microbial fungal inoculants, and liquid micronutrients and macronutrients. 

Customer using AEA products on his farm in British Colombia, Canada

Plant-Testing Technology

We measure soil, irrigation water, and plants extensively, because why guess when you can test?

Unlike other contemporary testing methods, monitoring nutrients in plant sap provides in-depth, practical insights into the factors that influence nutrient mobility at different stages of growth. Mineral imbalances can be detected at a cellular level allowing for the precise amount of a needed nutrient to then be applied before a deficiency creates disease or vulnerability. 

Through plant sap analysis, growers are empowered to make data-driven decisions to proactively solve problems and achieve higher levels of crop quality and yields. 

Step-by-step plant sap analysis process

Thought Leadership in the Regenerative Agriculture Space

AEA creates and distributes educational content to support the growth of the regenerative agriculture movement, including regional field days and events, ongoing webinars led by John Kempf and other AEA agronomy advisors, and the top-rated Regenerative Agriculture Podcast. AEA Consultant onsite at a vineyard in California

AEA Consultant onsite with a cherry grower in Oregon

Our Results

• Increase in crop yield and quality
• Reduction or total elimination of the need for pesticides and fertilizers
• Increased profitability

Testimonials

Consistent Year Over Year Growth

Growers often begin testing AEA products and systems on a part of their farm, and then scale to their entire operation over 3-5 years. The growers we currently work with represent an estimated 7 million acres, of which we work on roughly 35%. Many large scale growers we work with are still early on the adoption curve.    

Now we are ready to scale our impact. 

In response to increasing environmental and economic challenges in agriculture, market demand is growing quickly for biological and nutritional products created for regenerative farm management systems.

AEA has established itself as a leader in an under-served regenerative plant nutrition market with a 0.5% market share of a potential $3.6 billion dollar regenerative plant nutrition market. AEA estimates only 5% of global farm acres today embrace regenerative practices, with the opportunity of a future addressable market standing at roughly $72 billion.

Similarly, the biological product solutions that AEA both manufactures and distributes are a part of a $13 billion dollar market that is growing at an estimated 14% per year. Major traditional chemical companies are making large-scale investment in these inputs, evidence that they also see this as the future of farming. All of which points to this sector representing the most promising segment of the overall $73 billion global market for agriculture product inputs.

Sources: USDA, IFOAM, Project Drawdown, Summit Partners, AEA research

New manufacturing facility now open!

Our new Colorado manufacturing plant will allow us to significantly expand our influence from 4 million to 20 million acres. Our goal is to make regenerative agriculture management the mainstream globally by 2040, and we are poised to do so!

AEA’s state of the art manufacturing facility opening in Aurora, Colorado

Our Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships

Our continued commitment to innovation is evidenced by our recent investment in Croptix, a precision ag tech platform for in-field early detection of crop health. Croptix allows for faster and simpler assessment of crop health compared to other technologies.

We are incredibly proud to unveil Integrity Grown™, a pioneering data-driven standard that is a bold step towards transparency and sustainability in crop cultivation and aims to foster regenerative practices.

We have partnered with Citizens of Humanity Group to launch this standard and set the bar high in regenerative cotton. Through strategic partnerships, we are committed to supporting cotton growers on their journey towards regenerative agriculture. By leveraging AEA's expertise and innovative solutions, we aim to address on-farm challenges and drive success within a regenerative framework.

We plan to extend this verification standard to additional crops and are focusing on regenerative cotton initially.

AEA also believes there is a fundamental gap and need of financing for enabling farmer transition to regenerative practices, as a result of a mainstream financial services system that remains geared towards conventional, extractive, chemical-oriented agriculture.  In this context, we are excited about the success of our ongoing partnership with Steward, a leader in equipping regenerative farmers with the capital they need to grow. 

AEA has identified the areas of highest growth potential and farmer need to continue developing the most complete product and service offering for driving the regenerative agriculture revolution globally and in the markets we serve.  These areas are:

Tech & AI - development of technology tools and systems for our farmer customers, combining machine learning and AI with an enhanced tech stack of software for precision plant nutrition analysis and recommendations.

Media - continued investment in our leading regenerative agriculture media and content development, by growing and leveraging existing and new media assets for an ever growing audience of regenerative agriculture farmers and supply chain partners.

Lab Services - exploration of investment opportunities in new facilities for agronomic laboratorial analysis, bringing plant sap analysis and related plant health analytics, tools and technologies closer to our farmer customers.

Market Expansion - accelerated business development in domestic and international markets, expanding our crop consulting and offering more customized product distribution and blending services, while growing our businesses in Canada, Mexico, Brazil and beyond. 

R&D - product development for existing and new regenerative plant nutrition applications, enhancing our existing product line, while developing new lines and product categories in the regenerative plant nutrition and biological segments.

Partnerships - strategic collaborations with aligned companies and initiatives in the regenerative agriculture space, and along the regenerative agriculture value chain, from the farmer to the end consumer.

Team Expansion - ongoing investment in growing our team of leading agronomy and plant nutrition consultants, with an accompanying leadership culture and management support structure.

We have the opportunity to change the face of agriculture, revitalize rural communities and our food systems, and transform our planet into the world we know is possible.

Join us, as we make regenerative agriculture the farming of the present and the future.