When entrepreneur Alex Edquist started diving into the world of regenerative agriculture, there was just something that didn’t make sense to her.
The method of farming, where farmers “cultivate a whole ecosystem” of products instead of just one of two cash crops, yields healthier food and better environmental outcomes. It’s also more profitable for farmers. So Edquist could not understand why more farmers weren’t adopting the practice.
What she realized from talking to more farmers is that the agricultural business just didn’t have the right back-end tools for farmers looking to implement regenerative farming practices.
“Most farmers were just using pen and paper to run their back offices,” she said, meaning that farmers lacked the specialized bookkeeping, funding, and financial support needed to grow.
As CEO of Good Agriculture, Edquist is on a mission to change that.
The SaaS subscription platform, based out of Atlanta, helps streamline the business side of running a farm so that farmers can get back to what they are good at: Growing essential food items.
“Regulations around agriculture are slightly different from other small businesses. For example, farmers fill out different tax forms than any other business… and how you look at cash is different because farms spend a lot of money in the spring and often don’t get paid until the fall. There is really a need for an agriculture-specific solution on the market,” Edquist told Hypepotamus.
The platform also helps farmers with grant services, which are the lifeblood for the industry. Every year, the US has billions of dollars worth of grants available, but the paperwork is cumbersome. Good Agricultural is building out industry-specific tools to help farmers out during the grant application process.
Growing Support Across The AgTech World
Good Agriculture’s first customers largely came through word of mouth from Edquist’s co-founder Kirsten Simmons, who is part of the local Georgia farming space.
Today, the startup has well over 30 customers and is seeing 20 percent month-over-month growth. Farmers using the platform have diverse backgrounds, growing everything from row crops to livestock to dairy to fruits and vegetables. Many are minority, first-generation farmers.
The Techstars graduate is also gaining traction across the Southeast, taking home the Audience Choice Award at Venture Connect 2024 in North Carolina last month.
A Day In The Life Of An AgTech CEO
Edquist holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of Georgia. Before jumping into startups, she was a business analyst and manager at the consulting giant McKinsey & Company.
Now in the startup CEO seat, Edquist has gotten used to wearing several hats every day.
“I’m sure you hear this from founders a lot, but at this early stage I’m the CEO, COO, Head of HR, CFO, Chief Security Officer, Office Manager, even the Fire Warden,” she told Hypepotamus.
But as Good Agriculture grows, finding the right engineering talent is also top of mind for her right now.
So too is hitting the venture conference circuit and spending time talking to investors.
Edquist said that even with Good Agriculture’s traction, she often hears from VCs that they are not comfortable investing in farming-related ventures. To combat this, she likes to compare agriculture to the restaurant or beauty space, which are dominated by small businesses. In the restaurant space, she likes to talk about Toast, a company that created back office software to help individual small businesses thrive, much like what Good Agriculture aims to do for small farmers.
