Finance the purchase of the equipment needed to dry and mill Atlantic sugar kelp.
Founded in 2019 and based in Brooklyn, NY, The Crop Project is an agricultural processing and wholesale company devoted to bringing regenerative crops to the marketplace.
Agriculture affects everything, for good or ill. We believe the more resilient our agricultural systems & communities, the better.
The door to resiliency is regenerative practices, and the key is small farms.
But the proper infrastructure and incentives for small farms to make the transition to regenerative do not meaningfully exist on land or ocean.
We’re here to help solve that by stabilizing and commercializing what small farms grow. It will look different in every region, as each farmer grows according to her place.
We’re starting with Sugar Kelp.
This spring, we will become the proud owners of a significant amount of kelp harvested with farmers in the northeast US, including in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maine.
We’ve worked closely with Greenwave (the leading farmer-training non-profit in this space), market partners, and regulators over the past year to build a scalable plan for stabilizing the crop in such a way that a) the product is safe b) the farmers are rewarded and c) the kelp can be used in a variety of channels, including food. This work included a very successful pilot harvest and processing program with two farmers in southern New England.
The 2021 plan requires paying farmers a fair wage and acquiring and installing drying and milling equipment to stabilize it. We’d like to fund these purchases primarily through Steward, because this platform matches our values, and we believe this type of financing is the future.
A successful 2021 will lead to a replicable model, with additional varieties of seaweed, and other regenerative crops.
The $50k loan through Steward will be put towards a $108k pump dehydrator.
This dehydrator bridges the gap between small dehydrators, built for home use, and large, automatic, industrial models. The walk-in unit features a high-efficiency heat pump dehumidification system, an insulated chamber, even airflow, process control components, touch screen controls, and flexible scheduling software.
With this dehydrator, The Crop Project Team will be able to dry efficiently for a variety of their customers’ needs.
Early, local or regional supply chains require a lot of TLC. It’s difficult for even medium-sized brands to scale them properly. Nevermind the huge multinational companies.
The current moment finds us needing to draw down as much carbon as possible as quickly as possible, all while restoring equity in the supply chain and building a small-farm base from which to build a lasting, blue-green economy.
Enter kelp, which can serve as a catalyst to all of those things.
Kelp is one of the fastest-growing organisms on Earth, producing an amazing amount of biomass with zero inputs. It has been used for centuries, across cultures, for food, beauty, fertilizer, and much more. It has an enormous capacity to build biodiversity, capture carbon, and reduce ocean acidification. Along the way, it’s a boon to farmers, who are often women and men with deep experience in fish and shellfish, looking to diversify income with this winter crop.
This loan will be made to The Crop Project LLC, a New York limited liability company, who is an agricultural processing and wholesale company devoted to bringing regenerative crops to the marketplace.
This loan will go towards The Crop Project’s efforts in building a sustainable supply chain for regenerative crops, starting with Atlantic sugar kelp.
The total loan amount is $50,000, which will assist The Crop Project in purchasing a dehydrator to process Atlantic sugar kelp.
This loan is set at an 8% interest rate, with a 60-month term, and fully amortized monthly payments beginning in 5 months after funds are disbursed.
All terms are subject to change. Lenders will be notified of any possible changes.
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