Replenish Nutrients Holding Corp (CSE:ERTH, OTC:VVIVF)’ partnership with data-driven precision agriculture firm Dark Horse Ag Ventures could drive further investment in agricultural innovation in Western Canada, CEO Neil Wiens believes.
By combining Replenish’s regenerative fertilizer with Dark Horse’s agricultural data tools, the company believes it can tap into new sales opportunities and drive investments into sustainable agriculture from global firms seeking to uphold their COP 28 commitments.
In conversation with Proactive, Wiens discussed the partnership and the opportunities it brings for Alberta-based Replenish and the agricultural sector in Western Canada more broadly.
Proactive: A big announcement out of the company, but first, let’s give everyone a refresher on Replenish Nutrients.
NW: We’re a regenerative fertilizer company that deals with mineral nutrients that offer a timely release for the plants and give them an overall soil health improvement and increase plant health and density.
You work closely with farmers. Are they your main client?
Our main client is the retailers that go to farmers, but we also work directly with farmers to ensure they understand our product.
You’ve signed a partnership with Dark Horse Ag Ventures. Tell me about this company and the reasoning behind the deal.
It’s a really exciting deal. Dark Horse is a company that takes data that almost every farmer in North America collects off their yield data - it is essentially real-time field trial data that we get to see.
The majority of farmers understand their yield data but once you actually put it spatially, they really get it. And that’s what we’re trying to do – balance out the overall nutrition of that farmer’s soil and soil health and give them a better yield and ROI over a long-term period.
What are the synergies between the two companies?
Last year, for instance, we did more than 350,000 acres in Western Canada, so Dark Horse will have a platform to physically pull all of their data and show repetitive signs of what’s going on. For them, they get to do what they do best which is show farmers what they need to do and how they can help them improve their overall balance.
This will allow all our clients to utilize the platform that Dark Horse supplies. And for us, it gives us a great tool to help get investment into the province for further regenerative and sustainable investment. The Pepsi’s and General Mills’ of the world have announced through COP 28 that they are going to throw another $2.5 billion into increasing regenerative acres – we can physically detail where those acres are because we know our product does increase soil health and this proves it out in a data form.
What is the plan ahead?
The plan ahead is to increase our production. We’re going from 500 to 750 tons per month to what we want to produce which is 2000 tons per month. Stay tuned for the timing of when that happens.
We are also pushing ahead with ensuring our quality and that our partners are happy with what they get and keep the trucks rolling out. We are sold out.
Quotes have been edited for clarity and style