{"id":2503,"date":"2019-12-06T08:15:41","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T12:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/?p=2503"},"modified":"2019-12-06T08:15:41","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T12:15:41","slug":"regenerating-natural-capital-in-the-rainforests-of-costa-rica-by-michael-conway-pj-connolly-and-katie-ellman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/2019\/12\/06\/regenerating-natural-capital-in-the-rainforests-of-costa-rica-by-michael-conway-pj-connolly-and-katie-ellman\/","title":{"rendered":"Regenerating Natural Capital in the Rainforests of Costa Rica–by Michael Conway, PJ Connolly and Katie Ellman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Amanda Wilson, Blacksheep CMO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Amanda Wilson, Joshua Hughes and Sara Czarniecki founded Blacksheep Regenerative Resource Management<\/a> in 2015, they committed to honoring their customers, communities, workers, shareholders and the land.<\/p>\n

Based on 178 acres in the rainforests of Costa Rica, the Blacksheep team works alongside local neighbors to regenerate degraded land into biodiverse mixed forests. Their competitively priced turmeric products are the result of the reforestation process, and they create livelihoods for Blacksheep\u2019s worker-owners.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Joshua Hugues, Blacksheep CEO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now Blacksheep is scaling. The company offers a suite of services to help other teams start regenerative projects and to connect investors with landowners in environmentally exhausted areas. It\u2019s also working to secure private investors to fund an agricultural processing center in Costa Rica.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bard MBA students Michael Conway and PJ Connolly spoke with Wilson, Hughes and Czarniecki about why it\u2019s important that businesspeople enter the agricultural space, the company\u2019s services, and Blacksheep\u2019s plans to scale.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sara Czarniecki, Blacksheep COO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The following Q&A is an edited excerpt from the Bard MBA\u2019s December 6th <\/em>The Impact Report<\/em><\/a> podcast. The Impact Report brings together students and faculty in <\/em>Bard\u2019s MBA in Sustainability<\/em><\/a> program with leaders in business, sustainability and social entrepreneurship.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reprinted from GreenBiz.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BARD MBA: YOU’VE ADVOCATED FOR MORE BUSINESSPEOPLE IN THE AGRICULTURE SPACE. WHY IS THAT? SO IMPORTANT?<\/strong><\/p>\n

HUGHES: Lots of people come to us who want to learn and use their hands in the soil\u2014who want to do the farming part. What we really need to bring to the table, though, are other skills: how you land an investor, how you cope with having an investor, contracts, how you deal with distributors. These are conversations that farmers aren\u2019t typically taking part in, at least on the ground. So, a lot of what we need isn\u2019t coming from the farms, it\u2019s coming from the business world, the investment world. We need to understand, quantify, and explain what the best practices are moving forward.<\/p>\n

WILSON: Blacksheep was very much founded on the premise that honest, ethical business is what\u2019s going to turn the tide on environmental destruction and the deep disparity between the global north and global south. For us, business is activism.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s been operating under some pretty unethical business standards for a long time, and that\u2019s led us to the unstable place we\u2019re in now. A lot of that is due to human greed, but a more tangible and solvable way to look at it is that it\u2019s just bad systems design. As a culture, if we can\u2019t figure out a way to grow our food and get it to people without poisoning our water, we\u2019re not trying very hard. We can design better.<\/p>\n

The best way for businesspeople to get involved is by looking to the waste stream. What\u2019s being mistreated, misused or thrown away? What can you design better, and how can you use your skillset to build a better system that makes the old one obsolete?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BARD MBA: CAN YOU TALK US THROUGH BLACKSHEEP’S SIX SERVICES: INVESTMENT, CONSULTING, DESIGN, MANAGEMENT, PROCESSING, DISTRIBUTION? IT SEEMS LIKE A LOT TO TAKE ON.<\/strong><\/p>\n

HUGHES: It does seem like a lot to take on, but we\u2019ve been doing the design, management and investment for our own farms for the last decade to see what would really work, and we found that these services organically rose to the top.<\/p>\n

CZARNIECKI: We do all the designs for our own business models and for our farming projects in Costa Rica, which is a whole department in our company. We also manage all those projects, so once we have the proper designs in place, our team brings them to fruition.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re pretty deep right now into the processing piece. We\u2019re developing an agricultural processing center in Costa Rica for our main commodity, turmeric. We\u2019re moving into the installation phase right now. It\u2019s really exciting.<\/p>\n

HUGHES: As we develop our own farms, we\u2019re trying to find the missing pieces for other small farm projects, and access to processing equipment is maybe one of the biggest ones. What we\u2019re doing on the ground in Costa Rica is creating the infrastructure to stabilize our products without a lot of spoilage and then get them to market.<\/p>\n

WILSON: That\u2019s where the distribution piece really shines for me. By opening this processing facility, we\u2019re able to bridge the gap for a lot of small farms in Costa Rica. We\u2019re not just bringing our own products to market. We\u2019re reaching out to our national community in Costa Rica and helping small farmers who otherwise wouldn\u2019t be able to sell certain products get their products to market and get a decent price for their labor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BARD MBA: YOU\u2019VE BEEN SCALING YOUR OPERATIONS AND LOOKING FOR PRIVATE INVESTORS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

HUGHES: This year, we opened ourselves up to selling equity in the company in the U.S. through our parent company so that we can invest in new land and infrastructure. We\u2019re raising a little over $6M and have so far rallied about a quarter of that. We\u2019re now working to secure loans to get the equipment and processing facility up and running. We\u2019re about midway on the securities raise and are hoping to close it out by the beginning of 2020.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019ve learned is that a ton of people are poised to invest in the regenerative world\u2014from private equity investors to family offices and funds. But there hasn\u2019t been a lot of the work done in the farming world and regenerative space to allow and land that investment.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve dedicated a tremendous amount of effort to create systems so that we\u2019re prepared to take the, frankly, trillions of dollars that are ready to be unleashed into the regenerative world and know how to use that money well and the proceeds well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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