Our approach

In support of our commitment to inclusive agriculture, Nutrien approached Radicle Growth to help us to surface ag-tech entrepreneurs committed to diversity and inclusion. In Nutrien’s assessment of new investment opportunities, we seek to partner with businesses and start-ups that not only deliver exceptional value, but bring a commitment to meaningful contributions to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) efforts. We call it, inclusive investments.

Our actions

Radicle Inclusion Challenge Presented by Nutrien

Nutrien increased our focus on opportunities to partner with diverse businesses and start-ups by launching the “Radicle Inclusion Challenge by Nutrien”. Women and BIPOC are generally less represented in venture capital investments. This challenge was created by Nutrien, in partnership with Radicle Growth, to offer an inclusive venture capital investment opportunity for underrepresented entrepreneurs around the globe who specialize in sustainable agriculture technology.

Final Competition

In 2022, over 130 entrepreneurs from 40 countries entered, and the top four finalists presented their ideas and business goals to a panel of industry experts. This landmark initiative provided insights on the state of inclusion and diversity in ag-tech and helps address the imbalance in access to capital investment, networks and knowledge experienced by women and BIPOC entrepreneurs within the ag-tech industry.

2022 Winners 

Agtools Inc. and FA Bio Ltd. are the winners of the Inclusion Challenge, each securing a $250,000 investment from Nutrien, plus access to mentorship and networking opportunities.  

• Agtools provides First Mile MARKET data across the globe of over 500 commodities in real time for farmers, buyers, and others on the food supply chain to execute better planting, harvesting, forecasting improving financial outcomes, lower risks, and lower CO2 impact. Our patented algorithms are based on different crops, varieties, phenological phases, microclimates and other variables built on non-relational databases, utilizing proprietary language updating the data every 15 seconds across all commodities at 1 billion transactions per second. Word mining and sequential-to dimensional data is placed within context to manage the 76 variables for farmers to understand future contract’s impacts to adjust their farming operations. https://www.agtechtools.com/ 
   
• FA Bio’s patented technology, SporSenZ, mimics root compounds and when inserted in the soil, collects data and active microbial isolates in agricultural fields, capturing active and dominant microbes directly from the soil. Isolating and cultivating microbes directly from agricultural fields, the SporSenZ allows us to harness the soil’s microbial response to biotic and abiotic stresses. We are building a unique database and library collection of soil microbial communities. After collecting crop specific microbial libraries from agricultural fields, we use our Discovery Platform where our scientists characterise the microbial activity to discover biofungicides or biofertilisers active ingredients. Our approach reduces the R&D time for the discovery of microbial bioproducts (from 5 years to 18 months) and increases by 4x the chances of success than other discovery methods. https://fa-bio.net/