Innovation Briefing

Trusted soil measurement
is the key to scaled
regenerative agriculture
Author
Niall Mortram

Trusted soil measurement is the key to scaled regenerative agriculture

CC in three
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The sustainability imperative is driving businessand government policy worldwide – but
initiatives must be reliably and quantifiably
measured to keep net zero on track.
Regenerative agriculture is set to unlock
a more sustainable future, but only ifthere is confidence and traceability in soil
measurement related to carbon, biodiversity
and health.
Emerging deep tech, including novel,
miniaturised instrumentation, holds the key toobtaining high quality, trusted data sets fromthe field and enabling regenerative agriculture
to scale.

02© Cambridge Consultants 2023

Trusted soil measurement is the key to scaled regenerative agriculture

Introduction
Sustainability is now core to the mission, vision and strategy of businesses and nations
worldwide. Everyone has net zero targets and grand plans to minimise environmental impact.
But questions about implementation and traceability are emerging. Few are more pertinent
than the thorny issue of measurement and traceability. How do you reliably and quantifiably
measure the impact of initiatives to ensure your net zero ambitions remain on track? And dothey stand up to external scrutiny?

In this Innovation Briefing we explore this conundrum
through the lens of regenerative agriculture – which
promises to unlock a more sustainable future for the planet.
But the plain fact is this. Regenerative agriculture will only
be successfully adopted at scale if there is confidence andtraceability in the measurement data of soil.

But generally, these entities rely on modelling, notmeasurement to build their conclusions. And where thosemodels are built on shaky assumptions, the consequences
and lawsuits can be significant – just ask Delta Airlines andcarbon credit broker Verra. Not surprisingly, consumers now
expect and demand more accountability on sustainability
claims. Some argue for an environmental footprint indicatoron food and beverage packaging, much like that used for
calories, fat, sugar and salt.

As consumers demand products with minimal environmental
footprints, CPG/FMCG companies are looking upstream in
their supply chains. They’re eyeing ways to offset their daily
business and generally promote more sustainable practices
to enhance their green credentials. This is the core principleof regenerative agriculture – improve yields where possible
but do it in a way that doesn’t exhaust the soil or overusefertilisers, fungicides and pesticides.

All this means rigorous, trusted measurement data isessential to provide evidence and traceability of carbon
capture and effective storage. That emissions really arebalanced out. But regenerative agriculture is much morethan carbon – it’s about optimising nutrient use andimproving soil quality by supporting biodiversity and the soil
microbiome.

Consensus is it’s the right thing to do, but mass adoption
has been challenging. That’s partly due to agriculture’s risk
averse nature, but also down to the issue of traceability –and proving that the regenerative practices adopted havemade a demonstrable difference. Nowhere is that challengeof measurement and traceability more acute than in carbon
accounting and sequestration.

All of these factors need to be measured if farmers,
consumer companies, carbon traders and consumers areto believe in the power of regenerative agriculture and drive
adoption accordingly. So, what can be done? How do webuild the chain of trust in the data that’s required to build
the wave of widespread adoption? As ever, we need to startwith the economics.

Many industries are intrinsically carbon positive – air travel,
cement manufacture, steel making and mining to namea few. They can’t flip the switch to net zero technologies
overnight, so the short-term solution is to offset their carbon
emissions. This has driven an explosion of companies
offering carbon credit trading schemes, verification audits
and accreditation services.

03© Cambridge Consultants 2023

Trusted soil measurement is the key to scaled regenerative agriculture

The value of trusted data
Regenerative agriculture is fundamentally about the healthof the soil – healthy soil stores more carbon, provides
more nutrients to crops and supports a diverse biologicalecosystem. And at a high level, the soil can be consideredas three main constituents: organic and inorganic carbon;
nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium); and the soil
microbiome, the myriad of different living entities within it.

In short, there are a lot of different customers for soil data
and that makes it valuable. This value proposition is key
to driving adoption of regenerative agriculture practices– nothing is more effective at changing behaviour thaneconomics. But those three components of soil have a
different value proposition to a different set of customers,
each with their own demands on the quality of the data
and the level of traceability associated with it. Let’s startwith the hottest and potentially the most controversial of
the three: carbon.

Traditionally, most of the interest in soil science has focusedon nutrients as insight there drives how much fertiliser to
add to the soil each growing season. But sustainability
drivers, geo-political tensions and energy price shocks
have seen interest skyrocket – with involvement stretching
all the way from the farm, through agritech providers, to
CPG/FMCG companies and grocery chains. That’s because
each of these entities sees an increasing value gain fromthe soil, from off-setting (and in-setting) emissions, throughto transparency and traceability of produce all the way toenhancing production per acre, feeding billions of mouths
globally in a sustainable and cost-effective manner.

04© Cambridge Consultants 2023

Trusted soil measurement is the key to scaled regenerative agriculture

Carbon – quantifying the value
The soil has the potential to capture and store an enormous
amount of carbon. Project Drawdown estimates that 15-23
gigatons can be captured and stored through regenerative
agriculture practices. As such, it has a critical role toplay in combating climate change. This ability to act asa significant carbon sink has attracted attention fromcompanies far and wide, particularly those which need
to offset business today as they race to find ways to decarbonise their business in the future. In turn, it has led toan explosion of companies which trade carbon credits,manage carbon offsetting programmes, provide verificationof projects and practices – as well as those who provide
data that underpins the whole system.

This whole ecosystem relies on data from the farm in order toprovide information about the level of carbon captured as aresult of regenerative agriculture growing practices. Much ofthat data today has been provided by models underpinned
by satellite imagery – great for providing relatively low-cost
approximations but lacking in ground truth.
This ground truth data will significantly increase in value as
the nature of the market starts to pivot from voluntary tocompliance, driven in part by legally binding government
commitments to net zero targets. That data has to comefrom physical measurement of the soil, but measuring
carbon is difficult and relies upon optical techniques thatare more traditionally found in the lab, rather than the field.

This flourishing ecosystem has also captured the interest ofmajor CPG/FMCG companies and grocery retailers, severalof which have set up initiatives and funds to encourage
farmers to embrace regenerative agricultural practices andin doing so sequester carbon. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola havebeen two of the high profile players here to date, allocating$216m to regenerative agriculture and $138m to sustainability
funds respectively. Other CPG/FMCG companies have taken
a different route; Land O’Lakes has, through its Truterrabusiness, set up an entity which not only connects directlywith farmers but offers a platform to manage carbon credits
on their behalf. All of this has been driven not only by boldsustainability initiatives but by the value of carbon itself, as
indicated in the graph below.

But that hasn’t deterred a wide range of start-ups fromdeveloping impressive instrumentation approaches, fromthe NIR spectroscopic methods of Yardstick and ChrysaLabs,
through to Raman spectroscopy at SoilOptix and visual
spectroscopy and dielectric permittivity at Landscan.
These instruments, frequently underpinned by AI driven data
analysis techniques, are providing a wealth of data from thedirt, feeding into the wider carbon market ecosystem andpotentially unlocking a new revenue stream for growers.
Indeed, such is the potential of such technologies that the
big agricultural equipment OEMs are now getting in on theact, with John Deere and CNH now forming partnerships
with start-ups to get access to technology that is otherwise
outside of their comfort zone. The value associated with soil
carbon is clear and the technology is advancing but as we
mentioned earlier, regenerative agriculture is more nuanced
than just carbon. So, what about measurement of a much
more ‘traditional’ component of soil – nutrients?

100

80

60
Price (€/tonne)
40

20

2018

2019

Figure 1: Carbon price increases in the last 5 years

2020

2021

Source: Refinitiv

05© Cambridge Consultants 2023

2022

2023

Trusted soil measurement is the key to scaled regenerative agriculture

Measuring nutrient levels in the field
Nutrient measurement within the soil can embrace manythings, but let’s keep things simple and talk about NPK(nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium). These three elements
and the compounds they form have been the background of
agricultural fertiliser since the creation of the Haber-Boschprocess. But the energy costs associated with that process,and the fundamental costs associated with mining potash,
have made precision measurement of soil nutrient levels all
the more important.

know where to apply and how much to apply, you first need
information about how much NPK is in the soil today. Granular
data on that has been lacking – until now.
Nutrient measurement has traditionally been conductedin a lab where a soil core sample taken weeks previously is
exposed to heat, undergoes pyrolysis and the vapourised
components measured using spectroscopy. The process
is robust and accurate, but it’s slow and expensive.
Furthermore, it’s not set up to scale in the way it needs togiven the progress of precision application machinery andthe surge in demand prompted by the increasing cost offertiliser. A method of detecting in-field NPK levels is needed
to really close the loop between what is present, where andhow much to apply.

One of the tenets of precision agriculture is the ability togrow more using less, driven by ever more precise application
technologies in the form of AI-enabled sprayers andplanters (Deere’s See & Spray system being a case in point).
The technology to apply accurately already exists. But to$1,600Anhydrous Ammonia$1,469$1,400$1,200

DAP$983
Potash$862$1,000
$800
$600
$400
$200
$0
2008

2009

2010

Figure 2: Fertiliser costs per ton

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

Source: US Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Marketing Service06© Cambridge Consultants 2023

2021

2022

Trusted soil measurement is the key to scaled regenerative agriculture

SampleMixingChamber

Heating
Chamber

Heating
Plate
Reagent
Waste
Optical Chamber

Figure 3. Concept design for automated measuring

This is where the world of optical physics and chemistry
combines to create infield diagnostic tools, taking principles
from technologies used in point-of-care diagnostics in the
medical industry, to bring low-cost instrumentation to thefarm field. One such example has been developed for nitratesensing. By combining chemistry and microfluidics in a single,
consumable cartridge it is possible to measure nitrates andnitrites to better than 5ppm accuracy with a reusable opticalsensor and control system for cents per test.

The potential of these optical/chemical technologies is huge
given their form factor is compatible with current agriculturalequipment and implements. Expect to see ‘agricultural grade’
optical components to be commonplace in the field in thenext five years, much in the way that AI-enabled spraying
technologies are becoming increasing mainstream today.

This approach is completely scalable across a wide rangeof form factors, from a handheld unit that can measure~100 samples from a single cartridge, to an automatedsystem on the back of a tractor capable of measuring
thousands in parallel.

07© Cambridge Consultants 2023

Trusted soil measurement is the key to scaled regenerative agriculture

Monetising the microbiome
Soil is not a bland support structure for plants – it isteeming with life in a complex, delicate and dynamicbalance. In fact, two thirds of the world’s biodiversity lives
in the soil. The commitments made at the Biodiversity
COP15 in Montreal 2022 highlight the importance ofpreserving biodiversity not just for its own sake, but
because our economy is utterly dependent on theecosystem services it provides. In agriculture, monitoring
the microbiome is a useful indictor of soil health.

Highly precise machine vision cameras are entering themainstream now – see the John Deere See & Spray systemcited earlier – but spectrometry is different. Spectrometers
are typically expensive, delicate instruments whichhate vibration and require expert handling in order toachieve accurate results. In short, not ideal for the worldof agriculture. But these characteristics can now be
overcome thanks to technology advances from the world ofsemiconductors: photonic integrated circuits (PICs).

It can offer insight into the diversity of organisms in thesoil, the levels of plant pathogens present and could be
used to determine if any soil remediation practices aremaking an impact. The most common way of measuring the
microbiome is through molecular biology and sequencing
to either look at the microbial community as a whole or forindicator species. This requires sample preparation which
can be challenging in the field. It is usually sent away forsequencing and analysis of the sequence data at a central
laboratory, with similar parallels to the measurement of
nutrients described above.

PICs have the potential to bring the sensitivity oflaboratory-based spectrometers into the field in a form
that is smaller than a mobile phone and at a cost that isless than one hundred dollars per unit. Unlike in traditional
optical instruments, a PIC light is confined to achieve
quantised behaviour. This allows precision control forhigher bandwidth, lower power and greater sensitivity forsensing applications.
Furthermore, the design dose not rely on sensitive moving
parts, making PICs vibration resistant. This combination
gives rise to the potential of small, light, highly precise
spectrometers, tailored to the agricultural environment
and enabling capture of data on plant health and themicrobiome that previously were restricted to expensive,
cumbersome laboratory instruments.

Monitoring the microbiome in the field is hard, but theanswer could be right in front of us, in the form of the plants
themselves. One such example is being pioneered by thestart-up InnerPlant which is redesigning plants to act as
sensors, indicating early onset of disease or water stressbefore they are visible to the human eye using fluorescence.
Detecting this requires either spectroscopic or AI-enabledcamera based methods, depending on whether a passiveor active approach is taken. This prompts another question:
how to make such systems ‘agriculture proof’.

08© Cambridge Consultants 2023

Trusted soil measurement is the key to scaled regenerative agriculture

Conclusion
The novel, miniaturised instruments described above holdthe key to unlocking the challenge of obtaining high-quality,
trusted data sets from the field. Given such instruments
can be time stamped and geo referenced with relative
ease, they provide the traceability required of regenerative
agriculture customers throughout the value chain. Carbon
traders and buyers can be confident in the provenance of
their credits. Farmers can point to data that enables them
to be paid for sequestering carbon. CPG/FMCG companies
can reference demonstrable improvements in soil healthand sustainability through their regenerative agriculture
programmes. And consumers can have confidence in thequality and environmental footprint of their chosen food.
Regenerative agriculture has enormous potential to drive
positive change, not only for the agrifood sector but forhumanity in general. It will only reach that potential if itreaches mass adoption. Seizing this colossal opportunity
will require collaboration across the value chain, from CPG
companies through agricultural equipment vendors all theway to farmers and agritech start-ups.
What can your organisation bring to bear in this global
challenge and where will you start? Answering thatquestion brings not only business benefit today, but muchwider, grander, societal benefits for future generations toenjoy tomorrow. It’s time to start planning, collaborating,designing, developing and most of all, measuring.

09© Cambridge Consultants 2023

Why CC?
Cambridge Consultants (CC), part of Capgemini Invent, is a
global team of 800 bright, talented people – united by the
ambition to turn brilliant and radical ideas into technologies,
products and services that are new to the world. We expand
the boundaries of deep tech innovation by tackling thetough, high-risk challenges that bring defensible competitive
advantage and market leadership for clients. We are trusted
by some of the world’s biggest brands and most ambitious
start-ups to realise their critical technology-based
aspirations – and we’ve been doing it for 60 years.

Continue the conversation
If you’d like to discover more about the subject – or would
like to discuss your ambitions for the new bioeconomy –please get in touch with:

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Cambridge Consultants is part of Capgemini Invent,the innovation, consulting and transformation brandof the Capgemini Group. www.capgemini.com

Lit-IB-012 v0.5 '2023_Chilli Salt Regenerative Agri_Innovation Briefing'

Niall Mottram, Head of Industrial and Energy, Cambridge
Consultants
niall.mottram@cambridgeconsultants.com