S2:E5 – 1.14 Million Acres, $55M Paid: Inside the Soil & Water Outcomes Fund
Update: 2025-09-09
Description
How do you turn conservation into a cash crop?
From his experience in the 1980s farm crisis to $55M in outcome-based payments, Adam Kiel explains how creating market signals for conservation underpins the Soil & Water Outcomes Fund (SWOF).
Adam, the Managing Director of SWOF, shares how they've built outcome-based contracts that shift risk off farmers while delivering measurable results for corporations at scale.
Instead of cost-share programs, SWOF sends clear market signals that conservation has value by paying producers directly for soil, water, and climate outcomes.
We talk about:
- How Adam’s roots in the 1980s farm crisis have shaped his mission
- How SWOF grew from 10k to 1M+ acres in just four years
- $55M already paid to farmers through outcome-based contracts
- The mechanics of capital flows, verification, and upfront payments
- Why soil sampling costs and closed-source models keep Adam up at night
- Where corporate demand is strongest
- Why producers choose to participate
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