The women scaling impact for the climate with innovative agriTech disruptor
The best friends combined their experience rooted within the technology (Koch Fahler) and agriculture (Boesen) industries to build a solution that would support Danish farmers in maximising their thin margins.
In 2021, the startup evolved into Agreena, adding a soil carbon certification platform to the techstack, AgreenaCarbon, to become one of Europe’s first soil carbon sequestration programmes to be granted the ISO 14064-2 certification.
Creating new paradigms
With 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions linked to agriculture – and one-third of arable farmland already degraded due to climate change – the opportunity for impact is significant.
“We were old friends working in different industries, but we always knew we wanted to start something together that would have an impact,” said Boesen.
“We have farmers on our side and built something remarkable together in a relatively conservative industry, out of nothing.
“Innovation doesn’t often come from within an ingrained industry. We have insights both within and outside of the farming industry, and this sets us apart to create new paradigms.”
Based on this principal, Agreena mints, verifies and sells third-party verified carbon certificates for farmers that have transitioned to regenerative agriculture practises through the platform.
“We started the company to digitalise and democratise one of the biggest industries in the world. Agriculture is such an integral part of, and costly affair, for our society – and it has so much optimisation potential,” said Koch Fahler.
“Establishing a company culture and growing the team beyond the two of us has been the grandest honour. Some of the best moments are when a big release announcement or successful achievement happens and I haven’t been a part of it; knowing someone else has been motivated, passionate, and busy with something that only Ida and I found interesting some years back.”
Join the green economy
Today, Agreena operates in 10 countries across the pan-European market and has already supported more than 160 farmers to join the green economy.
Last month, it closed a €20m Series A round and was recently recognised by Financial Times as one of the ‘agritech startups to watch’.
“We are here to drive actual, large-scale changes and improvements; ensuring better food production with care for the world we live in, and fair and competitive compensation for the farmers,” said Koch Fahler.
“Right now, we can see impact when driving around and seeing fields with cover crops, but in the future, the soil reaping biodiversity benefits, the climate responding to massive carbon sequestration, and farmers acting independently with fair, market-driven financing – these are the long term impacts of Agreena initiatives that I am really looking forward to seeing.”
Added Boesen, “We will continue developing products where there are opportunities to enhance profitability and sustainability for farmers – because this is the future of farming.”
