Farmers Business Network and Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. have entered into a joint venture creating a standalone company for FBN's sustainable grain platform Gradable.
Gradable tracks sustainable and regenerative agriculture practices on the farm, and scores grains on their carbon intensity to help buyers meet regulatory requirements. Since its launch in 2020, the platform has quickly become one of the largest providers of sustainability scoring services in North America.
"Gradable was kind of reaching this point where it needed to be its own standalone business," Steele Lorenz, newly appointed CEO of the company, told Agriculture Dive in an interview, noting the platform was facilitating $30 million in farm premiums for sustainable practices a year.
The digital platform's spinoff is expected to broaden its reach among grain buyers and farmers ahead of European Union rules requiring soybeans and other agricultural commodities to be deforestation-free. Earlier this year, ADM used Gradable to facilitate shipment of its first container of fully traceable soybeans from the United States to Europe.
The platform could also be used to monitor grain requirements for sustainable aviation fuel feedstock, which mandates farmers to use cover crops and other climate-smart practices to qualify for renewable tax credits.
"We have built the platform for regulatory markets, though we certainly support and have a number of customers who are making voluntary claims," Lorenz told Agriculture Dive. "But the reason why we approached and built the platform for these regulations is because we felt that those would eventually drive and define the market at scale for the vast majority of growers to participate."
Gradable ownership will be split 50-50 between ADM and FBN. ADM, a longtime customer of Gradable, plans to expand the platform across hundreds of company facilities in the United States and Canada.
ADM will also allow Gradable to increase the number of commercial partners and countries served. Gradable is already used by customers, including biofuel company POET and trader Attebury Grains, with the platform scoring more than 200 million bushels of corn and soybeans.
Expanding Gradable's reach could help scale demand for regenerative agriculture and create "long term and durable markets" for sustainable grains, Lorenz said. More than 20,000 growers participate in the platform, and the company is looking to engage even more farms in the future.
"If you start to have something that represents long-term, premium markets, then I think that you can have real systemic and sea change," Lorenz said.
