why grounded growth?

Consumers Expect More

A 2017 study featured in Sustainable Brands found that 86% of U.S. consumers expect companies to act on social and environmental causes.  “Consumers expect companies to do more than turn a profit — and their definition of what it takes to be a responsible company is expanding.” — Sustainable Brands; May, 2017

Gaining and keeping consumer loyalty is a true challenge for businesses of all kinds in today’s multi-channel marketplace.  Businesses that serve a mission as well as having a great story and products or services have a better chance of being successful in the long-term.

Grounded Growth enables businesses that partner with us to quickly, easily and affordably build a pro-environmental and pro-farming mission into their brand.  Connecting their brands to regenerative agriculture enables our partners — and their consumers, to support a way of farming that restores rather than depletes the Earth’s resources and mitigates climate change in the process.

Farmers Could Restore More

Just like any other business person, a farmer has to balance making investments that would have multiple benefits in the long-term against the short-term need to stay profitable.  Failing to do so could mean losing a multi-generational legacy —  as well as the business itself.

Unlike other businesses, however, farmers have a unique opportunity not only to limit environmental harm, but to actually reverse it.  If they work with biology, their stewardship of the land can actually restore many natural resources.

This kind of restorative farming is called regenerative agriculture — a farming system that has the ability to create healthier soils, better water quality, more biodiversity and more nutrient-dense food while reducing the amount of synthetic chemicals and fertilizer needed over time.  This way of farming also helps to mitigate climate change by storing a major greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) as carbon underground.

For a significant number of farmers, the problem is not a lack of knowledge, but the inability to do the maximum good they could do on their land because of the increased cost that the market currently does not offset.  Currently, many farmers are not rewarded by the marketplace for how they farm — only for how much they produce.

Farmers that partner with Grounded Growth have access to a market-based source of financial support that enables them to adopt practices that will bring long-term reward and sustainability to one of their most important assets: their land.  Our farm partners are also provided the space and the opportunity to build direct business relationships with companies interested in working directly with them.

Our Earth Needs More

Regenerative agriculture has tremendous promise to help reduce climate change — if it is done in a way that focuses on expanding regenerative agriculture at scale, not just creating a new niche market that can only be met by a tiny subset of farmers.  This is why Grounded Growth’s model focuses on expanding regenerative agricultural practices, rather than certifying farmers against a checklist.

“The data strongly suggests that we can actually reverse climate change, not simply slow it down. And while different studies may use different formulas to measure impact the overall results should generate hope to anyone looking to prevent climate change from worsening. . .

Studies from a variety of universities and science-based institutions have shown that by restoring the health of industrially degraded soil we can draw down between 1 ton of carbon per hectare per year (Rattan Lal, study Ohio State link) and 9 tons (Richard Teague Texas A&M) depending on a variety of factors. . .

In the United States alone, for example, restoring the one billion hectares of farmland would result in an annual drawdown of three billion tons of carbon.”

 — The Carbon Underground